Fully refurbished, it was painted glossy black.
Tom wondered briefly what it would be like to have hundreds of millions of dollars, like the Cahill family did.
Unlimited resources with which to accumulate any and all gear one could possibly need or want.
He thought of the Cahill family compound on Shelter Island—private, secure, tranquil.
As appealing as something like that was, what he really wanted was to reclaim the life that had just been burned to the ground.
Or build another just like it.
Moving to the back of the barn, Cahill opened a heavy steel door.
Tom stepped through and descended the steep steel stairs to a second steel door.
Cahill was right behind him.
The bunker was as he remembered it, comprising three shipping containers welded together and buried twenty feet underground. The first container was the communication center, the second a sleeping area, the third a medical bay and galley.
Waiting in the med bay was the Colonel.
And with him was Sam Raveis.
Thirty-Eight
The two men stepped from the med bay to the galley.
Raveis and the Colonel stood in the small eating area while Tom remained in the narrow doorway with Cahill behind him and slightly to his right.
The Colonel smiled. “It’s good to see you, Tom.”
Tom neither smiled nor responded, simply stared at the man.
The Colonel’s eyes shifted to Cahill, who said, “He knows, sir. I told him.”
Focusing on Tom again, the Colonel said, “It’s a lot to process, son, I know. But a promise was made long ago, and I had every intention of keeping it.”
“Whose promise?”
Raveis answered, “Mine.”
Tom looked at him.
The Colonel said, “Your father had Raveis swear that he’d take care of you. It was the last thing he said to Raveis. After that, your father went off to hunt the Benefactor and got himself killed.”
“You let him go?” Tom said to Raveis. “Alone?”
“I couldn’t stop him,” Raveis answered. “Believe me, I tried. Believe me, I wanted to. I had tracked him to a hotel in New York. He was in the city to meet someone who would lead him to the men who’d been hired by the Benefactor. It took him two years to track them down. These were the actual men who had come to your house and murdered your mother and sister. His pretense was that he wanted to hire them. I thought I’d talked him out of going—he was supposed to stay put, said he would, but he slipped away on me later that night. He went through with the meeting, was brought to those men, but his rage wasn’t enough. He only killed three of them. The fourth one killed him and got away.”
Tom knew only a few details of his father’s death, some it from the visiting New York City detectives who had filled him in, the rest from newspaper articles.
What he did know was that his father had been found dead in a small hotel room in New York City.
Three other men had been with him, all dead, and all signs indicated that there had been a life-and-death struggle between them.
Gouged eyes, flesh torn by teeth—as brutal and bitter as hand-to-hand combat can get.
Tom had neither sought nor desired to know anything more than that.
Even back then, at the age of nineteen, he had known that he, too, could find himself as consumed by the need for revenge as his estranged father had been.
It had been a conscious choice to turn away and do what he could to forget.
“The Benefactor is old school,” the Colonel said. “As the surviving son of a man he’d had killed, you were already marked for death by him. That’s the way he does things. No loose ends. That’s why we didn’t come forward and pay for Yale. We could have done that anonymously, funded your entire education. But you’d have been exposed if you stayed there, an easy target, especially in a city as violent as New Haven. So we were relieved when you joined the navy right after your father’s death. We knew you’d be safe for at least eight years. And when you got out and wandered around, we knew you’d be safe then, too. It was a calculated risk when we activated you to find Cahill two years ago, but we had no other choice. And when you left Cahill’s compound in the middle of the night and disappeared yet again, well, as long as you were safe and we could reach you through Carrington, then Raveis’s promise to your father would be kept.”
“And you could use me when the time came.”
The Colonel nodded. “That, too, yes. Your father was one of the smartest men I’d ever met. He was born for this work. By all accounts, you’re even smarter than he was. And everything I’ve seen tells me that you inherited his innate skills.”
“Your father’s murder was our first major loss to the Benefactor,” Raveis said. “It signaled his arrival on the world stage. It was the beginning of his rise to what he is now.”
“Which is?”
“Chaos,” the Colonel answered. “Greed. Brutality. Everything men like us stand against.”
“Everything your father was helping us fight,” Raveis added.
“I left the CIA, Tom, because your father’s murder taught me that in order to fight an enemy who is unconstrained, we needed to be free, too. We needed a team that could and would do whatever it took, even if that meant at times meeting the enemy on his level. We needed a private special activities division, as good or better than the CIA’s SAD, but one that had no connection with our government and therefore wasn’t bound by any laws or treaties yet could serve national security in ways our government couldn’t. A force like that—well funded and completely under the radar—could at the very least act as a check against men like the Benefactor. In the two decades we’ve been operating, we’ve had successes and setbacks. We’ve taken out career assassins and would-be terrorists and black market arms dealers—everyone the Benefactor employs or does business with—but we’ve never gotten close to the Benefactor himself. In fact, the only times we’ve ever been close to him are the times he’s come close to us. And he was always gone before we even knew he was there. The attack on you, however, that’s the closest he’s ever gotten. He’s getting bolder. He knows things he shouldn’t, he’s found a way in. We need to know how. We need to know who betrayed us and continues to betray us. We’re at war, Tom. It’s a secret war, a shadow war between two ghost organizations, but it is war nonetheless. We can’t lose, not this one, not to him.”
“How can I help?” Tom said.
The Colonel nodded to Raveis, who put on a pair of gloves and removed a phone from his pocket.
He powered the phone up.
“I thought you couldn’t get a signal down here.”
Raveis didn’t answer, just pressed a few keys with his thumb, then turned the phone so Tom could read the number on the display.
It was the number of Tom’s burner, the one that for nearly two years he had turned on one hour every afternoon.
“This phone was found in Hammerton’s apartment,” Raveis said. “That number is the only number stored in it. Do you recognize it?”
Tom nodded.
“It’s yours?”
“Yes. I don’t understand. How did Carrington’s burner phone end up in Hammerton’s apartment?”
“It’s not Carrington’s phone.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s a mirror copy of it. And it was made recently. Which means someone got access to Carrington’s phone and copied everything stored in it onto this one. Whoever had the mirror copy would not only know every number the original phone contacted, but would be able to monitor any calls and texts to or from that phone. And he could determine its location via GPS.”
“More to the point,” the Colonel said, “someone with the right resources could locate any of the numbers contacted by the original phone. Hammerton has connections in both US and UK intelligence communities.”
Tom shook his head. “I have a hard time believing Carrington would just leave his burn
er phone lying around, unencrypted. And I don’t buy that Hammerton would just leave evidence like that out in the open at his place, either.”
“He would have left in a hurry,” Raveis said.
“It doesn’t matter. I know both men.”
“So do we, Tom.”
The Colonel asked, “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking this isn’t adding up. At least not to what you think it adds up to.”
“There’s a chance that we can use this to bring Hammerton out in the open. If the attack on him and Ballantine is what it looks like—the Benefactor ordered a hit on him to tie up loose ends—then maybe he’ll be in the mood to cooperate.”
“Either way,” Raveis said, “we need to find him. Cooperation or not, we need to know what he knows.”
“Then let me go talk to him,” Tom said. “We’d have to find him first, so press your contacts in the NYPD for the surveillance footage. Once we know where he is, I’ll go meet him. I’d be dead if it weren’t for him. And he’d be dead if it weren’t for me. If he did betray me, then I doubt it was easy for him. If I’m right, that means I have the best chance of anyone you can send of getting close enough to him to talk.”
“And if you’re wrong about him?” Raveis said.
Tom didn’t answer.
From behind him, Cahill said, “I’m going with you.”
“It would be better if I went alone.”
The Colonel thought about that, then shook his head. “No. Cahill goes with you. That’s the way it has to be.”
Tom looked at the two men standing before him, then looked over his shoulder and glanced at Cahill behind him.
Facing the Colonel again, he said, “If something happens to me, I need your word that you will take care of Stella. Give her a new life, maybe set her and Krista up in a restaurant somewhere far away from all this, if that’s what they want.”
“Of course.”
“Call it an investment, otherwise she might not take it. You’ll make your money back, I guarantee it.”
The Colonel smiled. “We’re not worried about that.”
“Just trust me on this, okay. She likes to work for what she has. She’s not big on charity.”
“I understand.”
Tom breathed in, exhaled. “So let me know when the surveillance footage has been analyzed and you know where Hammerton went.”
The Colonel nodded. “You should try to get some sack in the meantime.”
The Colonel and Tom shook hands.
Then Raveis extended his.
Tom hesitated at first, then took the hand of his father’s friend and shook it, too.
Alone, Tom was approaching the farmhouse when Sandy Montrose exited and met him in the dirt driveway.
“It’s been a long time,” she said.
Tom smiled as best he could. “Not long enough,” he joked.
Sandy laughed, then asked whether she could get Tom anything.
“You can, actually, yes,” he said. “Is my old room free?”
Thirty-Nine
The room was small, barely enough space for a bed, and had no window.
Access to it was by a set of narrow stairs located behind a hidden door in the pantry off the kitchen.
During the Civil War, runaway slaves on their way to Canada had spent long nights here.
Tom’s one night at the farmhouse two years ago, himself in hiding, had been spent in that room.
Separated from Stella, all he had wanted then was to get back to her.
Now he was waiting to leave her and face the challenge of making his way back to her once again.
Overcoming—or plowing through—whoever tried to get in his way and stop him from doing that.
It was a sick feeling in his stomach, even though he knew she’d be safe here.
Safe from danger but not from the anguish of knowing that a loved one was in danger.
Tom recalled leaving his hometown after enlisting in the navy.
He remembered walking away from his home for the last time, then the bus ride out of town.
Everyone he had ever cared about was dead, so there was no one to miss him or, should he be killed, mourn him.
There had been freedom in that, but there had also been an overwhelming feeling of emptiness.
It was what allowed Tom to do the things he’d needed then to do, and do them without a second thought.
His life wasn’t about that anymore—a hollow courage.
It was about fullness.
But right now, that fullness was also an ache. Like a homesickness, but worse—almost painful.
He couldn’t dismiss or ignore it, knew he would have to carry it with him as he made his risky journey out and back.
If it was a burden, his love for Stella, then it was one he would bear.
Tom and Stella had been alone in that room for more than six hours.
It had to be night by now.
They had talked, then slept, talked some more, and slept again.
At one point, Stella was looking for a tissue and opened the top drawer of the table beside the bed.
She didn’t find a tissue there, but she saw a Smith & Wesson M&P Bodyguard chambered in .380, resting next to a fully loaded mag.
Now she and Tom were seated together on the bed with the lights off, listening to the sounds of voices coming up from the kitchen below, waiting for the inevitable sound of footsteps on the hidden stairs.
“There’s something I’ve been wondering,” Stella said.
“What?”
“Is it possible that Carrington was the masked man?”
“No,” Tom said. “Carrington is right-handed.”
“Cahill’s right-handed, too. And Hammerton was in New York at the time, so it couldn’t have been him.”
“Correct.”
“But you’ve seen his eyes before.”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Why would he wear a mask, though? I mean, whoever he was, if he was there to kill you—to kill all of us—why bother concealing his identity? Why would it matter if you saw his face?”
“People wear masks for three reasons. The first one is so they can’t be identified. The second is to shock or instill fear. His had this grotesque human skull for a face. It was like the face of death. The third reason someone wears a mask is so they won’t be seen. It gives them a sense of anonymity. Maybe he couldn’t do what he came to do with me looking at him.”
“You mean with you recognizing him.”
“Yeah.”
Stella watched him for a moment.
“I’m sure you’ll find the answers,” she said. “You always do.”
Tom waited a moment, then said, “How are you holding up?”
“The last time we went through something like this, it was a shock. I didn’t see it coming. But I know who you are, and I mean that in a good way. I know what being with you means. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. And I don’t think either of us fooled ourselves into thinking this day would never come. It was always just a matter of time, or at least that’s what I thought. I’m just glad we were prepared when it did.” She smiled. “And I’m glad we hired that weird girl with tattoos. She’s something, huh?”
Tom nodded. “She is.”
“You wonder how a person can do that, you know. Be someone they’re not, maintain their cover day in and day out. No wonder she seemed so . . . lonely. And all this time I thought I had taken her under my wing, when really she had taken me under hers. Everything we did, all that training, she was just prepping me.”
“That’s why I stayed away from this line of work. No one is ever who they seem. At least your surprise was a good one.”
“And she learned how to do all this from Raveis?”
“Him and his people, yeah. He has compounds around the country, that’s where they do their training. Why do you ask?”
Stella shrugged. “Just curious. You meet people like that, see what they can do, and you wonder
if you have what it takes to be like them.”
“I don’t think you ever have to wonder that about yourself, Stell.” Tom paused. “Thanks for before, by the way. For ignoring me when I told you to keep running.”
She smiled. “Yeah, well, you should know, Tom, I don’t always do everything you tell me.”
The voices downstairs ceased.
The outside door opened and closed, there were footsteps in the kitchen, and a moment later, the door at the foot of the stairs opened as well.
Stella and Tom listened as someone climbed the stairs.
She smiled and kissed Tom.
A long kiss that neither wanted to end.
But it had to, and leaning back, Stella said, “Come back to me, Tom. In one piece. That’s an order.”
Cahill led Tom through the kitchen.
Grunn and Valena were seated at the long wooden table with Kevin and Sandy Montrose. Several dishes of food were spread out before them.
Tom looked at Grunn and Valena as he passed.
“I’ll see you guys in a little bit,” he said.
Exiting the farmhouse, he walked beside Cahill toward the three-story barn. Instead of entering it this time, they headed around to a small landing pad behind it.
On the pad was the Hughes 500, and in its cockpit running through the preflight checklist was Krista.
Tom said to Cahill, “I thought we were going alone.”
“We need another pilot.”
“Why?”
“Where Hammerton is, there’s enough room to land the Hughes, but we can’t leave it there. She’ll set us down, then take off and assume a holding pattern above. Also, if he’s hurt, I can’t fly and apply first aid at the same time.”
Tom nodded as they reached the helicopter.
Krista started the engine.
“Where is he, by the way?” Tom said.
“He’s hiding out in the Bronx.”
“Where exactly?”
“The last place anyone would look for him,” Cahill said. “Ally or enemy.”
PART FIVE
The Rogue Agent Page 24