Double Blind--A Novel

by Iris Johansen

  “On the contrary. She’s extremely predictable in that we know she’ll do anything to protect herself and her company. If anything happens to me, she knows that all the dirty secrets come out. That makes me feel very warm and safe as far as Brock Limited is concerned.”

  Blake was silent. “Some of us think you’re bluffing.”

  “But then the company behavioral experts reviewed my history and psychological workups and concluded that I’m almost assuredly not bluffing. Did he use the term sociopath or did he go for psychopath? Were you at that meeting, Blake? Or was that before she decided to promote you? Did you all shit your pants just a little bit when your expert announced his findings?”

  Blake shook his head. “You’re enjoying this.”

  “No. This isn’t what I wanted at all. My own endeavors usually go much more smoothly.”

  “Trust me,” Blake said through set teeth. “It’s not what we want either. No one is happy about expending resources to clean up your mess.”

  “I never asked for that. I’m fully capable of tidying up after myself. Most of the time I find it stimulating. Except when you step in and ruin things for me.”

  “No one gives a damn about you. It’s all about the company. If you get caught, it all comes back to us.”

  “The company is the only reason why I almost got caught. You got careless with that paralegal. You let Corkle take care of her, didn’t you? I’ve never liked his work. He’s always a little sloppy. You should have done it yourself.”

  “It wasn’t my call. Vivianne decided to give him the job.”

  “Oh, that’s right, that was before she decided to demote him and give you his position in the company. Maybe next time you should consult me. I seem to be running things around here.”

  “You son of a bitch.”

  “Learn from her mistake. She should have given the job to someone more talented. I’m a prime asset and should be given tender loving care. You’re the ones who have a problem. Just don’t bungle it again.”

  “No one should have even had to go after that paralegal, dammit. And we’re still not finished cleaning up after you. I’ve got two of my best guys in Oregon trying to tie up a nasty loose end as we speak.”

  “Oregon? Interesting.”

  “It’s not interesting. It’s trouble. You have to stop this. The police and the FBI are onto you. They know about your sick game even if they don’t know who you are. They’re watching every member of that wedding party. It was over as soon as they had that damned video. They even brought in that Kendra Michaels woman.”

  “Again, not my fault. Though I admit I’m finding Michaels’ interference in my project an annoyance. Things might go more smoothly without her.” He smiled mockingly. “And I resent you referring to my work as a sick game. You never called it sick when you ordered me to make all those kills, before you realized that I wasn’t just your errand boy. You told me how talented and skilled I was. It’s all in the viewpoint.”

  “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. It’s over. Find something else to do to amuse yourself. Doesn’t the company provide you with enough of an outlet without you going outside?”

  “What can I say, Blake? I’m an artist. You never really understood that, did you? Until it was too late. I’ll just have to make adjustments in this situation to keep the game interesting.”

  “I came here to tell you to give it up. We can all still come out of this all right if you stop right now.”

  Derek pulled up his jacket collar. “It’s getting a little chilly. Time I went inside.”

  “Did you even hear me? What should I tell Vivianne?”

  “You should tell Vivianne that I appreciate her interest in obtaining those nasty records I appropriated, but that I didn’t appreciate her sending that clumsy Corkle stumbling around in my business. Poor guy, no doubt he was trying desperately to get back in her good graces.”

  Blake stiffened. “What are you saying?”

  “That Corkle got in my way.” Derek chuckled. “So I decided to demote him, too.” He walked past Blake and headed toward the parking lot. “You’ll find him in the trees over there. Do dispose of him properly, as a good employee should.”

  1:40 A.M.

  Portland Oregon

  Duty call done. He had kept his promise to Kendra.

  Lynch hung up after talking to Griffin and moved a little closer to the cabin. He didn’t know what the hell he was going to do with that agent Griffin was dispatching to him from Portland, but you never knew when an extra man might prove useful. Provided he made it up here from Portland before the action started.

  Lynch knelt in the clump of trees, casting an eye around for the two Brock agents. Unless they’d drastically changed position, they were at least a third of a mile west of his current position.

  He pulled a small quadcopter drone from his inside jacket pocket and unfolded its black plastic struts. It was one of the quietest personal drones in existence, further modified by a friend to keep the sound of its motor and propellers to an absolute minimum. It was small enough to avoid detection once it was over a hundred feet or so, and the humid air would also prevent the sound from carrying.

  Using his phone as the controller, he launched the drone and took it straight up to three hundred feet, well out of eyeshot and earshot to anyone who might be looking for it.

  Lynch squinted at his phone screen for the drone’s 4K view of the surrounding area. He saw the cabin, the gravel road, and, after a few moments, the two men staking out the place. And those men were moving around and doing something very interesting and lethal …

  But still no sign of Facey.

  And neither of the Brock men appeared to have spotted the drone. Perfect. He could keep it aloft for forty minutes before bringing it back for a battery swap.

  Three batteries later, Lynch had a fairly good idea of the agents’ patterns. They took turns making a broad sweep of the perimeter every twelve minutes, each making identical parabolic patterns. Brock’s intensive training had obviously been drilled into each of them. If there was a drawback to their training, it was its predictability, even if it meant—

  Wait a second.

  Lynch moved the screen closer and studied it. A red Jeep had entered the frame and parked in a clump of brush about two miles from the cabin. A lone figure climbed out and hugged the tree line.

  Facey!

  He moved stealthily through the brush, obviously comfortable in the area. He knew there was some danger here for him, but that caution might not be enough.

  Lynch did a quick calculation: If Facey continued his present pace of a hundred yards every two minutes, then he would cross right through the line of sight of one of the men during his timed sweep.

  This party would be over before it began.

  Lynch sprinted into the woods and made his way down a shallow stream. He didn’t have much time. Even if he did manage to avoid the Brock agents, Facey himself probably wouldn’t welcome him with anything more than a few rounds from the automatic he was wearing on his belt.

  This was going to be tricky.

  Lynch didn’t break stride as he checked the drone’s camera again. One of the men had just left for his sweep and Facey was approaching a small clearing.

  He’d mostly likely circle around the southernmost edge, but that would only buy him a few minutes until the Brock guy would have him dead in his sights.

  Lynch put on an extra burst of speed. He crouched low through the clearing, avoiding the cover of trees that would have bought him some protection.

  He didn’t have the luxury of time right now.

  He looked at his phone again. The drone camera was dead. Shit, there had probably been interference from that clump of trees.

  He was flying blind.

  Concentrate. He’d played this three-dimensional chess his entire life. He could do it now.

  Figure out where Facey was headed and get there first.

  Lynch ran another fifty yards and pressed him
self against a tree. He raised the handle of his gun.

  Surely Facey was almost there.

  Unless Facey had spotted him and was lining up a shot at that very moment.

  Don’t move, Lynch thought. Trust your first instinct.

  Rustling brush. Footsteps.

  It was Facey. Inches away.

  Three … Two … One!

  Lynch brought down his gun and struck Facey on the back of his head.

  The man was out before he hit the ground.

  * * *

  EIGHT MINUTES LATER, Facey stirred. Lynch had dragged him back into a gully and secured his hands and feet with military-grade zip ties.

  “Facey, I’m a friend,” Lynch whispered. “Got that?”

  Facey instinctively tried to squirm free.

  “Stop it,” Lynch whispered. He held up his phone and flashed a drone photo he’d taken of Brock’s two men near the cabin. “That’s what’s waiting for you down there. You know them?”

  Facey froze. He obviously recognized the men.

  “That’s what I thought,” Lynch said.

  “Who in the hell are you?” Facey whispered.

  “My name’s Adam Lynch. I’m helping investigate the murder of Elena Meyer.”

  Another flash of recognition.

  Lynch smiled. “Remind me to play poker with you sometime.”

  “They’ll kill us both,” Facey said. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  “Brock’s all-stars, I’d guess. But if they were so great, I wouldn’t know they were looking for you. At least you know how to keep it on the down-low. Of course, there was the young man at Excelsior Car Rental who gave me the make, model, and color of your car.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “I need some answers. Now.”

  Facey held up his arm and leg restraints. “Cut these off me first.”

  “First we talk.”

  “Come on, man. If they find us, I’m a sitting duck.”

  “Then you’d better talk fast.”

  “Shit.”

  Lynch glanced around. “Why don’t we start with why Brock Limited wanted Elena Meyer dead?”

  He was silent.

  “I don’t want you dead,” Lynch said impatiently. “You might be more valuable to me alive. But I need answers and I’m not going to waste time convincing you. I’ll just walk away and let your Brock all-stars eventually find you.”

  Facey was still silent.

  “Your choice.” Lynch got to his feet. “See you.”

  “Wait,” Facey said. He hesitated, moistening his lips. “You’ll protect me?”

  “If you give me enough information to make it worth my while.”

  “That’s not much assurance.”

  “It’s all you’ll get from me. You’re not going to get anything from those guys staking you out.”

  Facey didn’t speak for a moment. “What the hell. Why not? I’ve been expecting to be a dead man since I was pulled into this.” He shrugged. “Okay. This isn’t about Elena Meyer at all. It’s about one of Brock’s guys who’s been working out of the Middle East for the past ten years. He just came stateside a few months ago. His code name is Derek.”

  “What’s his real name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Lynch gazed at him skeptically.

  “I don’t,” Facey insisted. “I doubt even those guys out there know. It’s above my pay grade.”

  “So what’s his story?”

  “Derek is a guy they use for jobs no one else wants to do.”

  “Dangerous jobs?”

  “Naw, lots of operatives get off on that. They use him for the sicko stuff. Things that would chill your shit. Trouble is, you get a guy like that on your payroll, sometimes you can’t control him. He has certain proclivities that have nothing to do with the job. There was a series of killings in London a few years back that he was rumored to have committed. He may have been the Docklands Strangler, who killed members of an amateur soccer team.”

  “You’re bullshitting me,” Lynch said.

  “I’m just going by what I hear. I heard he was also behind a half-dozen murders in Damascus of members of a medical school graduating class. He liked the pattern killings, but random enough that they couldn’t be linked back to him. And he was smart, real smart, and slick, damn slick. Yeah, he was a sick puppy, but so good at what he did for Brock, they didn’t care. And by the time they did care, it was too late. He had too much on them. He’s been using his spare time to gather information about all the dirty tricks that were going on with Brock. His handlers had just assumed he was some crazy psychopath who could be used and thrown away. That’s what he’d wanted them to think. Until he sent the evidence he’d gathered to Vivianne and the other bigwigs at Brock. He told them he wanted freedom, steady cash, and protection if he required it. He also stressed the fact that if he somehow disappeared, he’d made arrangements to expose everything that he’d sent them.”

  “This is fairly big stuff,” Lynch said slowly. “I can’t believe it would be common-knowledge conversation around the company water cooler.”

  “It’s not. And there’s no way I should have found out about it. I was small stuff at Brock, hardly a blip on their radar. I didn’t know anything about this Derek until a week ago. And I guarantee you, most people there still don’t know it.”

  “How did you find out?”

  Facey swallowed hard. “It was Elena Meyer. She was in San Diego with her law firm working on a case.”

  “For Brock,” Lynch said. “We heard about that. We were led to believe it was fairly routine.”

  “It was. It was a nothing case. But in sorting through the company documents, Elena found something she shouldn’t have. It was due to a mistake in the computer access permissions. She ended up seeing a good part of the company’s Derek file. It was enough to throw her for a loop.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “But Brock was also trying to keep tabs on Derek’s latest little side projects and this file contained some information they’d recently dug up.” He paused. “The wedding video.”

  Lynch was trying to absorb it all. “So this is where that wedding video came from?”

  “Yes. If there was some connection between Derek and those people at the wedding, I don’t know what it is. And Elena sure as hell didn’t know. But given his past, she was afraid that they might be his next target, like the medical class in Damascus and the amateur soccer team in London.”

  “So how did you get in on this?”

  “I worked for Brock in San Diego. During Elena’s trips out here, she and I became … involved.”

  “You were lovers.”

  “She was different. Clean and kind of sweet. I … liked her.”

  “And she liked you enough to tell you all this?”

  “Not right away. Not at all during her time out here. Looking back at it, I think maybe she didn’t trust me. She didn’t trust anyone. Who could blame her? She knew Brock had tentacles in every level of government. She didn’t know what to do. But she did know that I was very low on the Brock organizational totem pole just as she was, and I guess that made her feel safer about trusting me. She called me, and I flew out to Connecticut on a red-eye. She told me everything and I advised her to drop it, for her own safety. It scared the hell out of me that she’d stumbled on it. Sometimes you have to close your eyes if you want to survive.” His lips twisted with regret. “That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. I think she was disappointed in me. I know I let her down. She started talking about going to Kendra Michaels with the story.”

  “Why Kendra?”

  “Her name was in the news. She was leading that dream team of serial-killer investigators at the time and Elena was impressed by her. More than she was of me, I guess. If I hadn’t been afraid, I might have protected her.… I should have. Before I left her, I’d hoped I’d talked her into staying out of it and forgetting she’d ever seen the Derek file. But I guess Elena was too goo
d a person for that.” Facey shook his head. “When I got back to San Diego, two of Brock’s directors called me in and asked if Elena had talked to me about anything in particular when I was in Connecticut. I said no, but I admitted to the affair. But that’s when I realized they were onto her and she was being watched. Before I could warn her, I found out she was back in San Diego and had been killed. And then I spotted a couple guys watching my place and I realized I could be next. I recognized them; they were Brock men. It was easy enough to figure they were ordered to cover for this Derek to make sure the company’s own asses stayed covered. That meant I was—”

  Lynch held up a warning hand to silence him. He cocked his head and checked his watch, which he’d placed into stopwatch mode. “Quiet for the next minute or so.”

  “Why?” Facey whispered.

  Lynch raised a finger to his lips.

  After a few moments, there was a rustling sound just a few yards away.

  Footsteps.

  Facey’s eyes widened and he motioned for Lynch to cut his restraints.

  Lynch shook his head and crouched to look through the thick brush.

  A bearded man stood just twenty feet away. Had he heard them?

  After a moment, he continued walking.

  Once Lynch was sure the man was out of earshot, he turned back. “We need to move. Did Elena still have any of the documents she saw in her possession?”

  “No. She couldn’t copy anything without leaving a trail to her. Brock didn’t even allow cell phones in the records room.”

  “But she had the wedding video.”

  “It was on YouTube, so she was able to download a copy later.”

  Lynch nodded and checked his phone. “Just so you know, I’ve been recording you. I’m sending this audio file to Special Agent in Charge Michael Griffin at the FBI.”

  “Why not just tell him yourself?”

  Lynch looked at him grimly. “Really?”

  “In case we don’t make it back.” Facey answered his own question. “My car is on the other side of the cabin. If we’re careful, we might be able to make it past them.”

  “That might work.” Lynch thought about it. “Yeah, that’s the way we’ll go.” He cut the zip tie around Facey’s ankles. “The timing will be tricky, but we can do it.” He turned in the direction of the cabin. “Stay close. Do what I tell you. Let’s go!”