by Renee Simons
He recognized the owner, but went to a salesman behind the counter and showed him the receipt. "Do you know who handled this sale?"
The man examined the slip and pointed across the room. "Mr. Doerner did, but I fetched and carried. Near broke my back luggin' the stuff from the stockroom to their van."
"They sure bought a lot of equipment, didn't they?"
"Yep," the older man agreed. "More'n paid my wages for the month."
"You recall if they mentioned where they were going?"
The man considered the question, then shook his head. "Can't say as I do, but the two of them sure were loaded for bear." He smiled and shook his head again. "Said so, I did, makin' a joke, but it went right past 'em. They just said no, it was small game they was after."
"Did you recognize either of them?"
"Nope. But they were vets, I think. Had that look about 'em, you know?"
"War marks men."
"I still remember mine – W-W-Two – the big one before your time."
"Too bad it wasn't the last," Stormwalker said. "I wouldn't have minded working in a different field."
"The business of fightin' ain't no fun for a sane man." He thrust out his hand. "I'm Corley Hyatt. I know who you are."
Stormwalker shook Hyatt's hand. "How come you're so helpful?"
"Never thought you did them things the papers said. Still don't."
"I appreciate that. Do you remember anything about those two?"
"Nothin' stands out. They were just ordinary Joes."
If Sawyer and his buddy were afraid of being recognized, they might have sent in a couple of shills to make their purchases. Understandable for the man whose voice would make him easy to remember, but what did that say about his partner? Could he be a local? If so, Stormwalker knew he had at least two likely candidates.
"Well, thanks for your help."
"No problem," Hyatt said. He leaned over the counter and said urgently, "Watch your back, boy."
"Yessir, Mr. Hyatt. I'll be sure to do that."
Outside, Stormwalker glanced up at a sky full of dark gray clouds moving from west to east, driven by a strong wind. He knew they'd blow over, unlike his problems which seemed to hover above him without any hope of resolution. He could hear Mike chide him for his indulgence in self-pity and considered his next move.
Bringing the evidence to Zan would expose her to danger again, the last thing he wanted. But Mac needed to know what he'd found. And I need to know if Kenneth Becker can be trusted. Although his hackles rose at the thought, he headed for the courthouse.
Standing at his secretary's desk, the man greeted him with a flippant, "You get lost or something?"
"Or something." He followed him into his office.
Becker motioned for Stormwalker to close the door, then sat behind his desk. Stormwalker seated himself in the chair beside it and stretched his long legs before him.
"You get the ballistics report back yet?"
"No. They haven't finished the tests."
He handed Becker the sales slip and waited until he'd examined it and looked up again.
"I found that in the room of a man named Sawyer after he'd checked out." Stormwalker had been watching Ken's face for some kind of reaction. He saw only a momentary narrowing of his eyes. "A salesman at Doerner's confirmed that two men bought that equipment. They were strangers, but looked experienced."
"Interesting bit of information," Becker mused as he examined the paper once more. "The guy plans to be around for a while, though obviously, not at the hotel."
"The salesman says they loaded the equipment into a van."
"They bought a lot of camping supplies. And that butane heater tells me they're prepared for an early winter."
Becker hit a button on one of two phones on his desk. "It's Ken," he said into the mouthpiece. "I'm putting you on the speaker."
He pressed a button and Mac's voice filled the room. "Who's there with you?"
Becker turned down the volume. "Stormwalker."
"Good morning, Major."
Relieved that Mac had chosen to ignore their recent conversation, he did, too. "Sir, since I haven't accomplished anything here yet, isn't it a bit premature to use my rank?"
"I don't know," Mac drawled. "The pay vouchers I approve for you every month are computed at a major's rate. And don't call me 'Sir'. It was always Mac."
"That was before."
"Nothing's changed between us."
"That's good to know," Stormwalker said. "Thanks for having that money sent to my mother. It's helped a lot."
"How's my sister?"
"She'll be okay. Dr. Josey says the concussion was mild, but I wish you'd keep her out of the way. She's too damned conscientious for this scenario and next time, she might end up with more than a bump on the head." His chest constricted at the thought of her in harm's way.
"I'll see what I can do." There was a brief pause then the director asked, "Why the call, Ken?"
Becker relayed the information that Stormwalker had passed on to him and the two men waited for Mac to speak.
"What's your take on the situation, Stormwalker?"
"I think our friend plans to dig in somewhere on the reservation and catch me unaware, preferably in the open, and pull an old fashioned bushwhacking. When he does, I'll turn the tables on him. Then, depending on how things go, I'll find a way to get at the truth." He shrugged. "I haven't figured out that part yet."
"Don't you think you should," Becker interjected.
"Probably, but I have to improvise this covert stuff, seeing as how it doesn't come naturally to me." He grinned. "And, I could add, the training you guys gave me was sorely lacking."
Mac chuckled. "You think this guy's working alone?"
"Besides the shills who came in to buy their equipment, I think he's got a partner." Again, Stormwalker watched for a change in Becker's expression, but saw none.
"What makes you think they'll be laying for you?"
"If you buy the theory that Bill Winter does their dirty work for them and has failed to put me away, then they've probably decided to handle things themselves. I can't figure any other reason for their recent purchases. Can you?"
"You think they'll allow themselves to fall into your trap?"
"They won't 'allow' it. I'm better than they are."
"Damn it, Stormwalker. That kind of cockiness got you into trouble before. If you think that way, you might as well walk straight into that cell again."
"I'll never go back. I'd rather take one between the eyes."
"I don't want it to come to that."
"There are worse things than death."
"Maybe," Mac said, "but none as final."
Chapter 11
Bored to tears with her forced inactivity, Zan booted up the computer. The first thing she saw when she logged on was a message to call Mac.
"Hi, it's me," she said when he answered.
"Hi, Zannie, how's the head?"
The childhood nickname brought back myriad images from their youth in Virginia. "All better, thanks."
"Donald sends love," he said.
Twenty years separated Zan from their oldest brother, who seemed more like a shadowy, absentee uncle. "How is he?"
"Still running the station in Ankara."
"He could have been a Deputy Director by now if he'd come home."
"At least," Mac said, "but there's always something brewing in that part of the world. You know that."
"Give him my love the next time you talk to him."
"I'm sorry you got hurt the other night, Zan. It was never my intention to put you in danger, any more than I planned on Dar getting killed."
"It was unfair to accuse you of being responsible," she said. "I understand that now."
"Do you?"
"He was where he wanted to be. I've gotten a different picture of him lately, one I don't like."
"Then maybe you know why I was against your engagement."
"You were trying to p
rotect your kid sister, just the way you did when we were growing up."
"That's always been my responsibility and my privilege. Lifelong habits are hard to break."
She cleared her throat in an attempt to choke back a lump of emotion. "If you promise not to change, I'll promise to be less of a jerk."
He laughed. "That's a relief, 'cause I'm about to test you."
"How?"
"I'm taking you off surveillance. I want you to devote all your time to the computer files."
"Why?"
"The two retirees are where they should be, but Ian isn't. He's registered at the hotel and the conference. His stuff is there but he hasn't been seen. Someone is signing in for him. I think you may be right about his connection to Dar. I'm looking into it."
"If you can't trust anyone, how are you handling the investigation?"
"I went outside the Agency."
"Would I recognize Ian if I saw him?"
"Maybe not. He's changed."
"So tell me, are you playing big brother again?"
"I won't deny that protecting you is a dividend, but mainly I just want to find that mole and figure out what happened five years ago. All we have right now are theories and Stormwalker's version of events. I've always believed him, but my gut feelings aren't enough."
"If his reports were destroyed, we'll never prove anything." A possibility she refused to consider.
"You don't believe they were destroyed, do you?" Mac's voice reflected his frustration.
"I hope not."
"At least we will have tried."
"We?" she asked.
"You haven't been alone these past few weeks. I've been with you every step."
"Okay, big brother. I'll stay with it."
When Zan returned to the computer, she went to the original investigation. The suicide had left a huge hole in the evidence where the Lance Corporal's first-person testimony would have been. Investigators had relied on information from two other marines caught up in the same affair. In return for reduced sentences, they recounted details of their subversion by female agents and identified senior agents, "handlers" of the young women, with whom Dar had crossed paths many times. Each swore to having seen Dar in the computer room, which was off limits to all but a chosen few. And they'd seen him talk with the women. Their statements had been discounted as pure smoke.
But what if they'd told the truth? Dar would have been in the computer room only if he was after something. To get it, he would have had some knowledge of the hardware and the software that ran it.
"And he wouldn't have needed training from me," she muttered.
So what purpose had those weeks served? Had he sought to gain access to agency data? Or to gain some other advantage from his engagement to the sister of the Agency Operations Officer?
Anger churned in the pit of her stomach. Her fingers trembled on the keys, but she continued her search and finally came up with Dar's duty reports. The file listed them chronologically, as they'd been transmitted and showed the special coded acknowledgments for each one.
She made a pot of coffee, poured a cup and sat down to study the reports, carefully analyzing each one and how it related to the others, stopping only as dawn approached. By then, she had established in her own mind a reasonable theory about what had happened. She fell asleep on the thought that she had to talk to Stormwalker before she presented that theory to Mac.
When Stormwalker hadn't shown by the time the two days were up, Zan was certain she had imagined his visit and tender words, even the kiss still warming her lips. She feared he'd encountered problems but when Kenny came to see her, she took care to keep her concern to herself.
"Have you seen Stormwalker?" he asked.
"No one around here has."
"I haven't seen him since the incident in the barn."
"You were my last hope. He must have gone off somewhere, maybe into the hills or. . . ." He waved his hand, indicating some vague place out there. "If he's out in open country, we don't have a hope in hell of finding him, much less protecting him. Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"
"I was pretty much out of it when he left."
Kenny's eyes narrowed briefly. "Would you tell me if you knew?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
"You must hate him because of O'Neill. Maybe my interest in his well-being is unwelcome."
"Are you suggesting I'd want him harmed in some way?"
"It would be a way to gain some retribution for the man you loved, a man, incidentally, that I admired. I can understand how you might want . . . revenge."
To give herself time to think, Zan put out cups and poured coffee for both of them. Kenny's remarks reminded her too much of the conversation in the parking lot. She held the hot cup in her hands to dispel a sudden chill.
"If he's guilty, the law will provide all the retribution I need."
"You come from a family whose life's blood has been the law and its enforcement. I hope your faith isn't misplaced."
Zan lost patience with the innuendos but willed herself to remain in control. "What exactly are you driving at?"
"Nothing, except maybe that life raises more questions than it answers. Since I've been around awhile, I might be able to level the playing field for you. Just a bit."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"Good." He looked at his watch. "I'm due back at the office in half an hour, so I'd better get moving."
She'd wanted reports on the fire and results of the ballistics tests, but wanted him gone even more. His comments left her with the feeling she had overlooked a key to unraveling the frame up, simply because it had been in plain sight. Was that key Kenny Becker himself?
A search of his personnel files corroborated what she already knew of the man. Only when she looked at his duty reports did she find anything resembling a clue. He'd known Dar from an assignment they'd shared back in the early eighties and had once used the alias Augustus Sawyer, a name that resonated in her memory. Could he have lent it to Ian to use during his visit, as some weird inside joke?
She shook her head. "If I call Mac and accuse another agency operative of conspiracy, he'll laugh me out of the country." She needed more than a theory before she called him again.
She continued to stare at the screen, turning the name over and over in her mind. She'd definitely heard it before. "But where?" she murmured. Had it been from a case she'd heard about? Or the agency gossip mill? Or in one of the databases she'd maintained as part of her job?
"Damn and blast." As children, she and her brothers had stomped around the house playing pirate and bellowing the only curse their father would allow. Now it seemed too appropriate. "Double damn and blast."
She typed in the necessary commands that brought up the directory she'd created to teach Dar computer basics. This wasn't the original directory, of course, because she'd destroyed that before leaving the Agency. She was looking at the backup files automatically created by the software, files she'd overlooked in her haste to put painful memories behind her. If she'd forgotten about them, perhaps the person responsible for Stormwalker's troubles had also, or maybe hadn't even known they existed.
She studied the files, one by one, looking for a clue to lead her to Stormwalker's reports. To save time, she sorted the files looking for any carrying the name "Augustus Sawyer," one of many names she'd used when creating the phony cases. By the time she was through, she had isolated twelve references, one for each of Stormwalker's missing reports. There they were, buried among the fictitious cases she and Dar had created. The genuine reports had been hidden here, false reports created here and then copied into the main database to be filed with the rest.
"Blast, blast, blast," she muttered, angrier than she'd been even after Dar's death, furious with herself for giving him the means to commit God knew what and then blame an innocent man.
She dialed Mac's number. Before going any further, she wanted him to know what she'd found. She told him where in the system to look. Wit
hin seconds, they were scanning the same data and Zan was explaining the files' existence.
"Why didn't we find this when we searched five years ago?" he asked.
"I wanted to ensure that our bogus data could never find its way into agency files, so I fenced it off with a series of passwords and commands that only I knew. Or so I thought. Obviously, Dar was more computer literate than he let on. I think someone at the Agency did the work while he was in the field.
"If you look at his transmissions, you'll notice that some weeks after Stormwalker went to Vlad, their style and pattern changes from our standard format and frequency. I think someone rewrote Stormwalker's reports to mimic Dar's and passed them off as his."
"What's your next move?" Mac asked.
"Have you confirmed our suspicions about Ian?"
"We're almost there."
"Then I should continue going through the files, to make sure we haven't missed anything. Of course, you could put your people on it, but I'd like to finish what I started."
"Whatever you want is fine with me. I'd rather use my team elsewhere and you're doing a super job where you are."
"Thanks, but Mac, there's one more thing." The string of expletives that followed her report about Kenny nearly fried the wires. "I'm going after Stormwalker to warn him."
"You be careful, y'hear?" She heard both his frustration and his concern.
"I will."
She was glad she hadn't told Kenny she planned to look for Stormwalker, that her instincts had warned her to silence, but what she'd kept a secret from Kenny she had no trouble sharing with Mike. He could provide little help, except to suggest that Stormwalker might be with his grandmother, a possibility she'd considered.
"Are you familiar with his haunts?" Zan asked. "Any places he'd choose if he wanted to get away for awhile."
"There's only one I know of, a cabin he and his father used for hunting, but it's been years since anyone's been up there. I doubt if the place is still standing."