She became suspicious. “Where did you hear that?”
“Then it’s true, isn’t it? That’s his alibi.” He had extracted yet another truth without her having to say anything. “But let’s be honest. No one believes it. Not even you believe his tale since a tale it is.”
“The rape kit―”
“Ah, yes, the blood type.” He brushed aside her argument. “It can be explained in a number of ways. He had a partner in crime. Or paid a toy boy. Or saved semen from one of his lovers.”
He waited for her response. There was nothing she could say that wouldn’t come out rude. God forbid, she should be rude, especially when he held all the power and she had virtually none.
“Which can mean only one thing. Coyote is a sexual deviant. Maybe he wasn’t when you knew him. Or maybe he was. Who’s to say?”
“I’ll never believe he did it.”
“Of course, you won’t. But I can see I’ve touched a sore spot. I won’t belabor the point. Except to argue that men can hide their abnormal proclivities for only so long. I give you Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Stanley Landrieu. They were born that way. Sexual psychopaths. Sadistic bastards. Not that I’m saying this is Jack’s problem.”
She had always known Brandon to be a gruff man, a crude man, a shrewd man, but she had never known him to be a particularly intelligent man. She had underestimated him. Or maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she had always known he was a man to avoid. “Even if you’re making a convincing argument,” she said.
He chuckled, his eyes sparkling. He was amused with her. And impressed. He opened his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I’m only suggesting that none of us knows what goes on in a man’s mind, no matter how much we think we may know him.”
He wasn’t pointing out anything new. Liz had already explored the few saving graces that could absolve her of any blame and put the guilt solely on Jack, and immediately dismissed them. Everyone assumed it was an act of passion gone tragically wrong. Even Liz had. If Harrison Tobias hadn’t disappeared the same night Milly died, she might still. Harry was still missing in action and presumed dead. Milly was cold in the ground. And Jack was left to take the fall, set loose on a technicality it was true, but adjudged guilty by just about everyone.
“He escaped, you know,” Brandon said as if reading her mind. “Or haven’t you heard?”
She turned her head slightly away while keeping her eyes focused on his composed face.
“He cut off the ankle bracelet and made a run for it. We received a call from the authorities in case he showed up here. I’m sure they’ll catch up with him, clap him in irons, and throw away the key. But it puts a new light on things, doesn’t it? Drives the final nail into the coffin, so to speak.”
Her shivering returned, more violently than before. Jack had made a run for it, knowing the odds were bad, but doing it anyway because there was no other way out. “And Harry?” she asked.
He waved his hands in a dismissive gesture. “Nothing’s turned up. It’s a mystery. Either he’s already departed to the great beyond or he’ll arrive at the pearly gates soon enough.”
“That’s a bit cruel. Even for you.”
“Even for me,” he repeated, pensive, a slight smile on his lips. “Let’s say I believe in the turn of the wheel. I’m a very pragmatic man, as you’ll soon find out.”
Only the guilty don’t feel guilt, whereas the innocent always do. It was her Catholic upbringing. She might have abandoned her faith years ago, but the superstitions, catechisms, and rituals remained. God the father, God the son, God the Holy Ghost. “Not pragmatic,” she said. “Callous.”
“In order to survive, a man must be callous. A woman too. But as it stands, the agency has been damaged. And will continue to be damaged. Unless, of course, we do something about it.”
She tried to keep her voice level when she said, “Such as …?”
“Such as plausible deniability. Yes, I know. The phrase has been bandied about often enough. But you see, something has to redirect guilt as far away from us as possible.”
She must have reacted, made a telltale gesture, or let her thoughts show on her face.
“Ah, I see you have your ear to the ground.”
“I know how things work around here.”
“Of course you do. But if the law doesn’t get him,” he said with a weighty sigh, “there are other methods.”
Specialists with a knack for making problems go away had been bandied about often enough. Once she thought the stories farfetched. She had since lost her innocence. An assassin going by the code name of Padre was said to be a Russian agent. Gautier Lacroix was believed to be an independent contractor of Swiss birth, though no one knew for certain. There were other hired guns, usually ex-military, ex-CIA, ex-MI6, and ex-FSB. Even the wife of a German diplomat fancifully known as the Angel of Death, Anjelica for short, had been mentioned more than once, usually with a half-hearted laugh. Jack could come in the crosshairs of any one of them, and in a split second, leave this world without ever knowing what hit him.
“If legal practicalities don’t pan out, a bullet in the brain would tidy everything up quite nicely, wouldn’t you say?” Brandon made the remark coldly, bluntly, unapologetically. He added a cruel smile.
Her stomach churned. She smelled a pungency in the air, putrid, like road kill or sewage. “I know about the directive.” It was being written up under the auspices of the legal department, its sole purpose to implicate Jack of everything from spilling his milk as a child to being the mastermind of an intricate plot to undermine a nation. If the criminal courts failed to put him away for murder, federal prosecutors could charge him under the Espionage Act, a lifetime sentence at best and a capital offense at worst.
“You catch on quickly, I must say. Another quality in your favor.” His smile widened. She hadn’t disappointed him. He nodded perfunctorily, a gesture of respect. He checked his watch. “What say we knock off early? Get a bite to eat. My treat. I can fill you in on Tobias. Meet me downstairs. In say, ten minutes? You don’t have anything else going on, do you?”
He hadn’t asked. He had assumed. To turn him down would be an affront. Besides, she wanted to know what he knew about Harry. She also wanted pick his brain some more. “You drive a black sedan, if I’m not mistaken.”
Again he smiled that churlish smile of his, the one that made him look like a naughty schoolboy. “You’re not only right, but you’re bright. I think we’re going to hit it off just fine, Ms. Langdon. I think we’re going to make a good team.”
After he left, she sat back, considering. The shivering had abated, leaving behind an icy emptiness. Her arms were still crossed, holding her up, keeping her erect. Brandon had dropped by her cubicle for one purpose, and one purpose only. To get a bead on Jack. He was counting on her to be his eyes and ears. To be the means of cornering a fugitive on the run. Or persuading him to turn himself in. She would see about that. She didn’t have to compromise Jack or her scruples. She could play along. Feed Brandon just enough to satisfy his appetite. Ride a fine line. Handle whatever came along.
“Okay, Mr. Brandon. Let’s see what you’re made of.”
She tore up her letter of resignation, gathered together her briefcase and laptop, and walked out of the office, posture straight and head held high.
7
Annapolis, Maryland
Friday, July 25
IT WAS NEARLY evening on a Friday when most office workers made discreet exits and management looked the other way since they wouldn’t be far behind.
Jack strolled past the eighteen-storey skyscraper that housed the headquarters of the Homeland Intelligence Division. He should have been anxious about someone recognizing him, but since he looked more like a bum in need of a handout than the valued cybersecurity expert who once worked here, he wasn’t concerned. Sickness, jailtime, drink, sleeplessness, injury, and living on the lam had transformed him into just another lowlife on a downtown street.
He gazed up, a dizzying
perspective. He often put in ten-hour workdays up there on the twelfth floor, third window back from the north side, squirreled away in a cubbyhole the size of a playpen. Everything started to unravel up there. In visible daylight and not in the darkness of night. During the coolness of last September and not in the heat of July. This is where Jack encountered the treacherous bend in the road. Where everything he knew to be true was proven false. Where his fate was sealed. And no matter what happened—whether he was exonerated of Milly’s murder or put behind bars for the rest of his natural born days—there was no going back, no resetting the clock, no reclaiming what had once been his, no resurrecting the proud name of his forefathers. He had officially and permanently been excoriated from the company of decent men. No one would ever again welcome him into their living rooms, much less their lives.
When first he walked through the doors of a plasticized bureaucracy filled with deception and secrets, he should have heeded the silent warning, that sickly pang in the hollow of his gut. He hadn’t. It had come to this, stealthily scouting the perimeter of that selfsame building like a thief in the night.
On the west side of the building, he spotted an unmarked black sedan shrouded by dark-tinted windows. Its driver had to be a certain sergeant detective with the Severn County Sheriff’s Office. Jack angled his eyes downward and plunged hands into pockets before putting toe to heel, gently about-facing, snaking around the corner, and scurrying back east and out of sight. He covered his tracks, sliding in and out of north-south streets before doubling back some twenty minutes later. The absence of sirens, engine roars, and screeching tires signified Benedicto hadn’t spotted him. The unmarked car was still there, now parked on the south side of the building.
He skirted around to the north side, jaywalked across the street, and scuttled down the sloped driveway into the garage level of HID headquarters. Once there, he loitered, hunkering inside shadows, stooping behind pillars and posts, and skulking, dodging, and shuffling. A scattering of employees scuttled past, heading home for the weekend and paying little heed of a nondescript man. As luck would have it, he didn’t know them, nor did they connect him to the notorious face splashed across every tabloid in town.
A few minutes before six in the evening, Aneila Chowdhury exited an elevator and walked briskly down an aisle, her hand gripping the handle of a rolling laptop carrier. The beep of a key fob unlocked the trunk of her compact car. She hefted the wheelie into the cargo bay and snapped the lid shut. With eyes focused on the keys in her hand, she went around to the driver’s side and pulled the door open. Just before lowering herself inside, she sensed movement — a whisper, a breeze, the unsettling presence of a stranger.
Slowly she twisted around and beheld Jack. Her body tensed. He must have looked like a ghost of himself since it took a while for her to recognize him. Once she did, it required several more seconds to work up courage enough to speak. “Why did you do it?”
“I didn’t.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“There’s nothing I can say you would believe.”
“I believe that. Oh, don’t I believe that.” She held herself stiffly and gazed around, searching for an advantage of some kind. Finding nothing, and realizing they were quite alone, she warily slid her eyes back to him, her mind racing with many thoughts, her complexion drained of color. She was deciding whether she ought to trust him or run like hell. Her expressive eyes once more flitted around, searching for a means of rescue or escape. Detecting none, she looked back at him and decided to take him for the man she once worked with. A brave woman was she. “You look terrible.”
“It’s a long story,” he said on a sigh.
She considered his meaning. She was still uncertain. Once he was a colleague and a friend. Now he was a suspected murderer. “What do you want?”
“Just to talk.”
“Do you need money? You can have my purse.” She grabbed the shoulder strap, and with unexpected energy, hurled the weight of the purse at his head, swiftly using the distraction to make a run for it.
In three strides, he caught her arm, reeled her into his embrace, and shook her. “It’s me! It’s Jack!”
“Murderer!” Her accusation reverberated against the floor, the girders, the ceiling, the walls, fists pounding his chest. “Murderer, murderer, murderer―!”
He cut off her indictments with a punishing kiss. Cruelly silenced, she made guttural, half-swallowed yaps of protests. From afar, voices echoed against beams and struts. She tore her mouth away and nearly let out another tirade, but he kissed her again, more forcefully this time, smothering her complaints and crushing her against him. She tried to foist him away—shoving him, pawing him, slapping him—not much punch behind the blows but ample sting. He went on kissing her, squelching her whimpers.
The nearness of Aneila, the natural perfume of Aneila, the fury of Aneila had flipped a switch, taking the embrace from a wrestling match into a passionate clinch. Laughable on the surface, but as real as it gets. It came on suddenly, this wanting of her, of any woman really, but particularly this woman. He needed the soft touch of her girlishness, the warmth of her supple body, the reassurance of her nearness.
When the kisses ended, she sobbed and sank against him, releasing a long throaty sigh of surrender. Her hair came undone. He ran his fingers through the strands and brushed them away from her upturned face. Her teary eyes gazed trustingly into his. The garage had hushed into a cave of echoing silence. Jack reconnoitered the terrain, attuned to every sound and movement. The garage was mostly empty, only a few vehicles left at the end of the day. The distant voices heard earlier had moved off.
“Crap, it’s only me. It’s only Jack. I would never hurt you. I only want to talk to you.”
She wordlessly nodded. But then he could see in her eyes a resurging defiance. She prepared to scream. He slapped his hand across her mouth, more roughly than intended. She was a scrapper, no taking that away from her.
“And here I thought you were just another pretty face.”
His words startled her. Her eyes became fearful. Then indignant.
“I just want to talk to you.” He scanned the aisles. “But we can’t do it here.”
He nodded, tacitly asking for her consent. She wordlessly gave it to him. He slid his hand from her mouth. She pressed her face against his chest, stifling a sob. Gently he wrapped his arm around her and walked her to the passenger side. He took the keys from her limp hand and unlocked the door. She fairly collapsed into the seat, shaking uncontrollably now. He hurried over the driver’s side, started the car, and switched on the radio. Music blared from the speakers. He turned down the volume. They wordlessly looked at each other. An unspoken understanding passed between them.
She licked her lips. When she spoke, it was with two cheeky words. “Fucking bastard.” She said it quietly yet with more intensity than a chorus of Hallelujahs. “I hate you for what you did. Whatever it was, it got Milly killed.”
“I told you―”
“I know what you told me. I don’t believe you.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You must have done something.”
The flush of her cheeks, the short pants blowing past her moist lips, the sheen of sweat covering her face, and the glossiness of her eyes made her most fetching. He fingered her hair away. She flinched at his touch, scowling.
She was right. He had done something that made Milly a target. He couldn’t go into it here. Maybe never. But he had to find out what Aneila knew. Or what she knew but didn’t know that she knew. “Damn, you’re stubborn.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet, buster.” She insolently tossed up her chin.
Even though they had struck a tentative truce, she would have bolted given the slightest opening. He couldn’t chance it. He cast his eyes around. His vision landed on a rain jacket flung into the back seat. He reached back. “I didn’t want to have to do this …”
Her eyelashes flew up. “Do what?”
Hearing his words and seeing the look in his eyes, she reached for the door handle. He yanked her back, snatched her wrists, twisted her arms behind her back, slapped her palms together, and using the arms of the jacket, bound her wrists together using a modified struggler’s knot, making sure there was no slack, done in ten seconds flat while she squawked and struggled to no effect.
She flung her hair aside. “You’re a brute!”
“So I’m a brute.” He yanked the silk scarf from around her throat, plunged it beneath her teeth, and knotted it at the back of her head, Aneila yelping and squirming throughout. Finally he tossed the hood of the jacket over her head and tied the ties beneath her chin. He had never seen anyone look at him with such revulsion. There was venom in her eyes. Contempt. And loathing. She wasn’t remembering her friend from before, only the sadistic murderer of newspaper accounts. “Comfy?”
Her eyes narrowed. Accepting her plight, she moaned in surrender and weakly nodded. She was too tired to fight him anymore.
It’s easy to overpower a woman. Most men take it for granted, the upper body strength that easily subdues and takes advantage. The greatest fear of men is ridicule. The greatest fear of women is rape. When put to the test, it wasn’t a fair exchange.
He reconnoitered the garage. Footsteps echoed in the distance. He couldn’t risk staying a second longer, not with Benedicto just outside. After turning up the radio volume, he backed up, gunned down the aisle, negotiated several turns, roared up the incline, drove beneath the raised gates, and merged into traffic.
His prisoner remained docile and mercifully quiet. Not that it mattered. She could scream all she wanted. No one would hear her.
8
Somewhere in Maryland
Cyber Warfare (INTERCEPT: A Jack Coyote Thriller Book 2) Page 5