by Mike Ryan
“This can’t be it,” Lawson stated. “There has to be something else. Something that we’re missing.”
“We’ve been over the same information a dozen times. Two dozen times. It is what it is. We’re at a dead end. Our contacts have no more information for us and the leads have dried up. Sanders is a ghost at this point,” Raines noted.
“He’s out there somewhere. Where is he?”
Cain just sat there, listening to the others speak, his eyes bouncing between the wall and the desk as he soaked in their words.
“You’re being awful quiet Matt,” Lawson observed.
“Thinking…”
“Anything you care to share?” Raines asked.
“Wherever he is, it has to be somewhere where he feels safe. Somewhere you’ve been before…,” Cain said, his voice trailing off.
“What? Think you have something?” Lawson wondered.
“Somewhere you feel safe. Somewhere you’ve been before. To completely drop off the grid, as you know,” Cain said, gesturing to Raines. “You need to have the support of people around you. People you know, people you trust, people you think would never betray you. You can’t do that in a place you’ve never been before. Too many unknowns and variables you can’t control. If you’re already familiar with the places and people, you can control it.”
“So where does that leave us?” Lawson asked.
“We would need to dig up his past before he became the director of Specter,” Raines added. “Find out where he’s been, who he knows.”
“We might not have to,” Cain said, his face lighting up the way a person’s does when they find out a secret nobody else knows.
“Why are you looking like that?” Lawson asked.
“I think I might know where he’s at.”
“Well, clue the rest of us in.”
“Honduras,” Cain revealed.
“Honduras?” Raines asked. “Why would he be there?”
“Ruiz.”
“What?” Lawson said. “You need to be a little more specific.”
“My first mission was in Honduras. That’s where we first met, remember?” Cain asked Raines.
“I remember.”
“My first contact there was a man named Ruiz. I still have his contact info.”
“How does this relate to Sanders?” Raines asked.
“Ruiz told me that’s where he first met Sanders. In Honduras, before Sanders joined Specter. Ruiz told me Sanders was responsible for getting his daughter’s killer when the local police failed. Ruiz thought Sanders was a good man. Spoke very highly of him. He always felt indebted to him after that,” Cain explained.
“And who better to ask for help in hiding than a man who will always be thankful of what you did for him,” Raines said.
“And a man you know will never betray you. Not after what you did for him. Not after getting your daughter’s killer. If the man who got justice for my daughter’s killer came knocking on my door and needing help…I’d help him. No matter what.”
“So it looks like we’re going to Honduras,” Raines said.
“Back to where it all started,” Cain replied, cracking his knuckles.
“So should you contact Ruiz and see what he’ll tell us?” Lawson asked.
“No. The minute I say anything to him about Sanders, he’s gone,” Cain said. “He’ll just assume I’m on to him and he’s out of the country and we’ve lost our best shot of getting him.”
“We need to just show up at his doorstep and confront him,” Raines said. “He’ll tell us what he knows.”
“It’s gotta be it,” Cain said.
“I’ll call Conlin and tell him what we got,” Lawson told them.
Conlin had already left for the day but Lawson reached him at home. They kicked back and forth Cain’s idea that Sanders was in Honduras. Conlin needed a little more convincing.
“What do you think?” Lawson asked.
“I think it makes some sense but I can’t send agents down there on a whim.”
“But it’s all we got right now.”
“I understand that. Before I authorize people going down there I’d like to try to get some kind of evidence that he’s there.”
“I don’t know if we can get it.”
“How bout if we go on the assumption that he is in fact there. I’ll call the assistant director and have him get everyone there working on seeing if they can get something on Sanders entering Honduras. I mean, he would have had to enter there by either boat or plane. Let’s see if we can get something there,” Conlin told her.
“I think it’s likely he would’ve disguised himself somehow and used false papers.”
“No question. You guys go home and get some rest. We’ll turn it over to the analysts overnight to see what they can turn up. When you guys come back in the morning we’ll see where we stand.”
“And if they get nothing?” she wondered.
“Then we’ll decide at that point. Let’s give the analysts a chance to work their magic first though, OK?”
“OK. Will do.”
“Good job. Get some rest.”
“Thank you.”
“Well?” Cain asked as soon as she hung up the phone.
“He wants to get the analysts involved to see if they can dig him out entering Honduras at some point. He wants to try to get some type of evidence before blindly sending people down there,” she informed him.
“They won’t find anything.”
“Maybe.”
“You think he’s hidden this long by being sloppy? He’s not gonna make a mistake like that. They’re not gonna find him,” Cain insisted.
“Maybe not but they’re gonna try. Our work for tonight is done. He wants us to go home and get some rest then come back in the morning and see where we stand.”
“I’ll tell you where we’ll stand…same place we are right now.”
Chapter 11
Heather had just gotten off the computer a few minutes before Cain got home. She was sitting on the couch with a notebook, writing things down. As soon as she saw him come through the door she rushed over to him to hug and kiss him.
“So what’ve you been doing?” Cain asked, noticing the notebook in her hand.
“I’ve been looking up dogs and stuff all day long,” she excitedly answered. “I can’t wait to get one.”
“OK. I think I might have created a monster. What’d you write down?”
“My list. And some notes on each breed that I think are important.”
“You really are excited.”
“I am. Don’t you want me to be? I mean, it was your idea,” she said.
“No. I’m glad that you are. What’d you come up with?”
Heather led him over to the sofa and sat down next to him as she opened the notebook and looked inside.
“So my top five breeds are a yellow Labrador Retriever, Golden Retriever, Boxer, German Shepherd, and a Rottweiler,” Heather told him.
Cain scrunched his eyebrows together as he thought about her list. “Seems like they’re all bigger type dogs.”
“Yeah. I don’t want a small dog. Not that I have anything against smaller dogs. I just think a bigger dog would be more fun.”
“Why a yellow Lab? Why not black or brown?” Cain wondered.
“I dunno. Just like yellow better.”
Cain simply nodded his head.
“Do you have thoughts on it?” Heather asked.
“Not particularly. Let me see what you’ve got written down,” he told her, grabbing the notebook from her.
“So what do you think?” she asked after a few minutes of him looking at her notes.
“Uhh…I’m thinking one of the retrievers or the Boxer.”
“I’m thinking the same thing. I think the yellow Lab is my first choice. They’re great family dogs. Especially if we ever have kids or anything,” she said, peeking up at him to gauge his reaction, realizing what she just said.
“Uhh, yeah, yeah,” he sta
mmered, unsure of how to reply.
“What do you think?”
“The Lab is fine with me.”
“I meant the kids part,” she asked, hoping she wasn’t coming on too strong.
“I don’t know. I haven’t really given it much thought.”
“I don’t mean right now or even in the next year or two. But, you know, maybe in a few years or something.”
“I don’t know. I guess maybe. Honestly haven’t thought about it at all. I guess if you haven’t tired of me in a few years I guess we can talk about it.”
“That would never happen,” she replied, giving him a kiss. “So when can we get the dog?”
“Whenever you want.”
“How about tomorrow?”
“Uhh…I have to go back to work tomorrow.”
Heather sighed. “Of course you do.”
“We may have finally found something about where Sanders might be,” Cain said to try and alleviate her frustration.
“Really?”
“I came up with something and they’re checking on it overnight.”
“Well that’s good…I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Well I guess that means you’ll be leaving again soon if you did find him,” Heather replied.
Cain simply nodded. “As soon as this is all over I’ll ask for a month or two off so we can just spend time together. Us and the new puppy.”
“Puppy? You want a puppy instead of an adult dog?”
“Yeah, why not? Let’s get a puppy and see how much of the place he tears up. It’ll be fun having to replace our shoes every week and stuff,” Cain said with a laugh.
“Oh…should we get one or two?”
“Let’s just start with one for now and see how that goes.”
They spent most of the rest of the night talking about their impending arrival of a puppy. They wrote down in Heather’s notebook all the supplies they’d need, looked up different types of food, and finally, where to get the dog. They decided on getting a puppy from a breeder as they knew a lot of pet store dogs came from puppy mills, which they would not support.
Heather was on the computer the following morning, still looking up different dog breeders. She was compiling a list of ones to contact. Cain walked up behind her and kissed her on the neck as he looked at the screen.
“Find anything interesting?” he asked.
“A few.”
“Good. I’ll be back later.”
“OK. I’ll miss you,” she said, returning his kiss.
Cain and Raines arrived at the building at the same time and went up together. Once they checked in they walked to Lawson’s office. She was on the phone but hung up shortly after they got there.
“What’s the word?” Cain wondered.
“I’m not sure myself yet,” Lawson responded. “I just got here about ten minutes ago and had a couple other issues to deal with. I was told Conlin was going to call me in about five minutes for something. I’d imagine it has something to do with the Sanders info.”
“Let’s pray for a positive result,” Raines said.
Conlin called two minutes early and asked for the trio to come down to the meeting room as they had things to discuss. They promptly went down there where they were greeted my Conlin and another man who were both already seated.
“Come in,” Conlin told them. “Sit down. This is Martin, one of our expert analysts and one of his specialties is facial recognition.”
“Facial recognition?” Lawson repeated. “Did we get a hit on something?”
“Well, we’re not sure. We’ve got no paper trail that suggests Sanders is there. Nothing turned up. We’ve checked all video surveillance that we could find over the last few months and ran it against the facial rec software. We got no hits.”
“I didn’t think you would,” Cain interjected.
Conlin put his hand out to let him finish his though. “In saying that, we did get a list of partial matches. Martin has been combing through that list. I’ll turn it over to him.
“OK. We had a list of twenty three possibles, all of which was under a thirty percent match. I’ve looked at every one and tried to reconstruct the features the best I could and I’ve got one I think stands out from the rest,” Martin told them as he looked at his computer. “I’ll bring it up on the big screen now. As you can see we only have the side profile of him. That makes it more difficult.”
“You think that’s him?” Lawson asked, observing a man in a hat, sunglasses, and a beard.
“Well, here’s what I was able to do. Using pictures we had of him, I manipulated the software and took off all that other stuff, and came up with this,” Martin said, putting the manipulated photo on the screen next to the real one.
Silence filled the room for a few seconds as they all intently studied the photos. Martin magnified the photos so they got a real up close shot. Cain stared at each photo, glancing back and forth between the two. It was him. He knew it.
“That’s him,” Cain stated.
“I will say that it’s a pretty close match,” Conlin admitted. “But it’s only thirty percent.”
“Thirty percent, a hundred percent, or no percent, that’s him.”
“Possibly. I do agree that it’s the best lead we have right now.”
“Are we gonna act on it?” Lawson asked.
“We will,” Conlin answered. “We have to. We can’t afford to reject anything at this point. Cain and Raines will go down to Honduras and check it out.”
“What about me? I wanna go,” Lawson said.
“You’re not a field agent, Shelly. You’ve performed capably when it was necessary for you to go out and when it was required. But two agents on this assignment I believe is enough. Especially when it’s these two. You’ll coordinate from here.”
Lawson nodded. She was a little disappointed but completely understood the decision.
“When do we leave?” Raines asked.
“Plane leaves in three hours,” Conlin replied, sliding an envelope with the tickets in it across the table.
“Commercial?”
“Yes. If Sanders is there, we don’t know if he has any contacts working for him at the airport. It’s possible he’d be alerted if a private aircraft landed as a precaution. I think it’ll be wiser to go in as regular passengers and try to blend in with the crowd to avoid detection.”
“Agreed.”
“Any questions?” Conlin wondered.
“Any special instructions if we find him?” Raines asked.
“No. Same as anything else. Do what you think is necessary,” Conlin told him, though making it obvious what he wished the end result to be. “If no other questions, get yourselves ready. Keep me updated,” he said, looking at Lawson.
“Will do,” she responded.
Everyone left the room to go back to their respective offices. Once they got back to Lawson’s office, she gave them a few final words before they left for their assignment.
“You better get ready,” she told them.
“I’m already packed,” Raines replied. “I’m always ready.”
“I guess I need to go home and let Heather know,” Cain said. “I’ll meet you at the airport.”
“I’ll get all the information you’ll need and give it to Eric for you guys to look at on the way down,” Lawson said.
As soon as Cain got home, Heather could tell by the look on his face that he had something to tell her. He had that apprehensive look that he sometimes got when he was unsure how to tell her something.
“So what is it?” Heather asked.
“What’s what?”
“What you need to tell me. I can tell by now when there’s something on your mind. You get a certain look on your face.”
“I’ll have to work on that,” Cain said.
“Don’t you dare. Then I’ll have to figure out a new face all over again.”
“We do believe we found Sanders in Honduras.”
“So that means y
ou’re leaving,” she figured.
“I’m afraid so.”
“How long?”
“Plane leaves in a couple hours. So I probably need to get there soon.”
Heather faked a smile, not sure what else to say. She was trying very hard not to sound disappointed or frustrated. Cain went to the bedroom and packed a suitcase. He usually packed light and it only took him about fifteen minutes to be ready.
“I probably should go,” Cain told her. “There’s some information I should look over before I get there.”
“Anyone else going with you or are you going by yourself?”
“Eric’s going.”
“Good.”
Cain grabbed his bag and walked it over to the door, setting it on the floor. He turned around to look at Heather, who was watching him, a nervous smile settling on her face.
“Please be careful,” she told him.
“Aren’t I always?”
“I guess.”
“What’s wrong? You seem like something’s bothering you. You’ve never looked so nervous before when I went on a mission,” Cain stated.
“A piece of me is always nervous. I just don’t always show it.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I hope so.”
“Relax. You should feel better now. You shouldn’t have to worry about me having a seizure out there and something bad happening as a result of it.”
“I know. It’s just…this mission’s different from the rest,” Heather said.
“How?”
“The other missions were just jobs you were assigned. This one’s personal. You’re hunting the man responsible for your condition, for everything that you’ve gone through,” she explained.