by Sam Sisavath
She pushed the sight of Gary out of her head and refocused on Porter.
“Good luck,” he had said.
Why the hell would a man wanted for killing more people in more countries than she could name off the top of her head feel the need to tell her “good luck?”
It didn’t make any sense.
Not a goddamn bit.
Who are you, Porter?
What are you doing back here after five years?
Why did you come home…?
Ben Foster lived alone, though he didn’t always. There were pictures of him in the bedroom with a woman—a lovely, tall, and smiling woman—whom Quinn had never met but wished she had, because you never really knew someone until you got to know the ones they loved and who loved them back. But Ben rarely talked about her—Quinn could count on one hand the number of times she had come up over the years, and almost always in passing. The fact that he was reluctant kept her from bringing the topic up; Ben had done too much for her, and giving him this tiny bit of privacy was the least she could do.
He came home at eight fifty, long after the office would have closed down at five and the unit’s agents had gone home. He flicked on the living room lights, tossed off his blazer, and went straight to the fridge. He took out a domestic beer and pried the cap off using the edge of his Formica counter, the same one with the peeling paint and old ketchup stains that she had made fun of the first time she was inside the place.
Ben took a long swig from the beer, then lowered it and wiped at his lips with the back of his hand. “There are two FBI agents in an unmarked Lincoln watching me. They’ve been following me home from the office in case I tried to meet up with someone since this whole thing started.”
Quinn remained in the hallway, hidden in the shadows where she had been for the last hour or so waiting for him to come home. “I know. I spotted them trailing your car. How long are they going to stay down there?”
“If it’s like last night, then”—he glanced down at his watch—“thirty minutes or so, just to make sure I don’t take off. They’ll come back in the morning and follow me into work.”
“Good to know.”
“You’re taking a big risk by coming here.”
“I had to. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Then I’m a little insulted it took you so long to show up.”
She managed a smile, even though he wouldn’t have been able to see even if he had turned in her direction. “You were always at the top of the list. I was just…otherwise engaged.”
“Don’t let it happen again.” He looked idly back at the refrigerator. “You ate my sandwich. I was saving that for dinner.”
“It had too much mustard and mayo on it. I thought you quit that stuff. Bad for your health.”
“Mustard and mayonnaise ain’t gonna kill me, kiddo. But this mess with you, on the other hand…”
She wiped the crumbs on her palms off on her pants, then took a drink from the bottle of water. Even with food in her belly she still had to fight off the occasional dizzying spells, a reminder that she wasn’t nearly as free and clear of Hofheinz’s drugs as she had told herself earlier.
“I’m sorry, Ben.”
He shrugged. “I’ll make a new sandwich.”
“I wasn’t talking about the sandwich.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll get to that later.”
Ben opened a bag of bread and took out two slices, then put them on a plate. The kitchen was across the living room from the far wall, with the window between them. There were curtains but they were flimsy, and it wouldn’t have taken very much to see shadows moving on the other side. One shadow made sense, but two would alert the surveillance that had followed Ben from the office, especially the FBI agent who had climbed out of the trailing vehicle and was now standing across the street watching Ben’s apartment.
“I didn’t do it,” she said.
“Which one?” he asked, reopening the fridge and pulling out turkey strips and some American cheese. He peeled the cheese first—two, like always—and put them on each slice of bread.
“The three at the hospital, the night I escaped,” Quinn said. “Pender and Clyde, and the other one.”
“Gavin.”
“Yeah. Gavin. The last time I saw them, they were all alive. Hurt and bruised, but alive.”
Ben put the turkey and cheese away and opened a bottle of mayo and spread it with a butter knife. “We found them with gunshot wounds to the head. One each. They were killed execution-style.”
“If I did that, wouldn’t the nurses have heard the gunshots?”
“They think you might have used a suppressor.”
“Where would I get one?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t think the people hunting you care about the details.”
Ringo, she thought. It has to be Pete Ringo.
Had he gone right back up to the floor and murdered Pender and the others as soon as she left him? Was he capable of something that gruesome?
Memories of Ringo’s smug face as he confessed to lying about Ben flashed before her mind’s eye, and she thought, Yeah. He’s capable of that, and more.
God help me, I never really knew him at all. The real him.
Ben had picked up a bottle of mustard and was squeezing out a generous helping. He was doing everything very deliberately, taking his time. “I assumed you came here for a reason? It wasn’t just to watch me make a sandwich, was it?”
She smiled. “No.”
“Spit it out.”
“Someone out there is framing me, Ben. Someone’s trying to make me into something I’m not.”
“Which is?”
“A killer. A traitor. A fugitive.”
“Who would do that?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I’m here. I need your help.”
“You just realized that now?”
“No, but I’ve been trying to keep you out of it. But I can’t, not anymore. I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Glad I could be your last resort, kiddo.”
“You know what I mean.”
Ben harrumphed as he finished up, then wiped his hands on a napkin and took a big bite from the sandwich. He chewed and talked at the same time. “I’m not sure how much help I could be. They cut me out of the circle. Hell, I probably know less than you.”
“What about Pete Ringo?”
“What about him?”
“How well do you actually know him?”
Ben put down the sandwich and picked up the mustard bottle and squeezed out a few more squirts. Quinn winced from the shadows, but didn’t say anything.
“You know him better than I do,” Ben said. “He was one of your combat instructors at Quantico, wasn’t he? The first time I met him was when he was assigned to my unit three years ago, and that was on and off. Why are you asking about Pete Ringo?”
“He can’t be trusted.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think he’s who he says he is.”
“Kinda ironic you’d say that.”
“How?”
“Considering he’s probably your biggest supporter at the office. Every time someone brings you up, he’s the first and loudest to defend you. Not to us in the unit, mind you—but to everyone else.”
She pictured a naked Ringo at his apartment, lying, then fighting, then drugging her. Then Ringo again, dragging her into a building where Hofheinz waited to stick metal rods in her forehead.
She hadn’t made up those memories. They were very much real, and they were all still fresh in her mind.
“He’s a part of it,” she said.
“‘It?’” Ben said.
“Whatever this is. Whatever’s going on.”
“The frame-up.”
“Yes.” She paused. “You believe me, don’t you?”
Ben didn’t answer right away. He took another bite from his sandwich, then put it down and took a swig from his beer.
“Ben?” she said, pushin
g slightly off the wall in the hallway as her body tightened and she thought, Please say yes, Ben. God, please say yes.
“I believe you, kiddo,” Ben finally said.
“Thank you.”
“Did you ever doubt that I would believe you?”
Yes, she thought, because I would in your shoes, but she said instead, “No.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
Ben finished his sandwich and washed his hands in the sink, then left the kitchen and walked over to and past her as if she weren’t there. When he was inside the hallway and beyond the view of the living room window, she turned and followed him into the bathroom.
He was waiting inside, and she practically threw herself against him before the door even closed behind her. He might have been in his fifties and not the young man he once was, but Ben was still plenty strong, and his arms were like the Jaws of Life tightening and holding her against him in a clutch embrace.
She fought back the emotions, wanting badly to start sobbing like a little girl. She hadn’t cried in a long time and she wasn’t about to start now, though if she ever did, Ben would be the only person she could trust herself to do it in front of.
After a while, Ben pulled back and smiled at her. “You look good, for a fugitive.”
“I look like shit,” she said, but smiled back anyway.
“Yeah, well, I was trained long ago not to tell a woman the truth about her looks.” He flicked at her hair. “Dye job?”
She nodded. “Brunettes have more fun. Or so I’ve heard.”
“I’m pretty sure you have the color wrong.”
“You might be right.”
Ben leaned back against the sink counter and she joined him.
“What happened here?” Ben asked, pointing to his own forehead.
She had forgotten about the cut, and Quinn touched it now. Although it had stopped bleeding, there was still the occasional throbbing to remind her of what had happened—and of Hofheinz—but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. Compared to everything else she had to deal with, it was mostly just a minor annoyance now.
“It’s a long story,” she said.
“You got someplace better to be?”
“I’m not even sure where to begin.”
“Start with what you’re doing here.”
“Porter. I need to find him.”
“You and the rest of the world.”
“Does the Bureau have any clues?”
Ben shook his head. “There’s a reason the guy’s been invisible for the last five years since he left the country. He’s really good at hiding. Running into you at Ross’s nightclub didn’t make him dumb all of a sudden. We don’t know where he is or why he came back here, and that’s got everyone on edge. Even the spooks are coming out of the woodworks to pitch in—CIA, NSA, DIA, you name it. He’s been running around out there for the last four days—that we know of—and he hasn’t made a peep. It’s unsettling, waiting for him to do something with all those explosives he had Gary Ross smuggle into the country for him.”
“What’s the working theory?”
“That he came back for a reason. The problem is finding out what that is. The official line is that he used the Port of Houston as a point of entry; it’s not nearly as well-guarded as Los Angeles or New York’s, so that makes sense. But where did he go after that? He could be anywhere by now.”
“They’re sure he’s not still in Houston?”
“Doesn’t make any sense for him to be.”
“Houston isn’t exactly a cow town, Ben.”
“But it’s not DC or New York, either. It’s not what the suits call a target-rich environment, especially if you’re looking to make a big statement.”
“That’s what they think he’s here for? To make a statement?”
“He’s an anarchist. They live to make statements. That’s the point of bombing corporate headquarters in Europe and Asia and taking CEOs hostage and killing random government officials. We’ve been lucky he’s kept most of his activities overseas since he began his reign of terror. For the longest time now, he’s been someone else’s problem.”
“Hard to believe no one knows where he is. Are you telling me even the NSA, with all their tech, can’t locate him?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. He’s really, really good at hiding. It’s becoming increasingly clear that he’s getting a lot of help.”
“What else?”
“There is nothing else.” He shook his head. “He’s gone. A ghost. We had our chance and we blew it. God knows where he is now or what he’s planning.”
She waited for him to continue, but Ben didn’t. Instead, he stared at the wall across the bathroom. She’d seen that look before, a tell that he was holding something back, though she was certain Ben wasn’t aware of it or knew that she knew.
“What is it?” she asked. When he didn’t answer or seem to have heard her, “Ben. What is it?”
“There were some discrepancies,” Ben finally said.
“What kind of discrepancies?”
“Porter’s past. His history with the government.” He gave her a wry smile. “The two of you actually have a lot in common.”
“I know. We were both orphans.”
“That’s one.”
“There’s more?”
“The more I look into him, the more I’m seeing…things that don’t add up.”
“What kind of things?”
“Let’s just say there is the official dossier on Porter, and the unofficial one that the public doesn’t get to see. Real eyes-only stuff.”
“But you saw it.”
He nodded. “Have you ever heard of the Sons of Porter?”
“God, he has sons?”
“Not actual sons. More like followers. They call themselves the Sons of Porter. SOP.”
“I’ve never heard of them. They weren’t in any of the files I’ve read on Porter.”
“They apparently think Porter is some kind of scapegoat, a patsy; that he was set up six years ago, before he fled the country, and hasn’t done any of the things he’s been accused of since. They think he’s innocent.”
“Set up by who? And for what reason?”
“I don’t know. There are a lot of theories. A shadowy world government, our own government, even aliens.”
“Aliens?”
“That’s one of the least crazy ones, if you can believe it. Go to fifty different places and you’ll get fifty different theories, every single one of them from people who absolutely believe what they’re saying is true.”
“I don’t understand. What’s so dangerous about a bunch of tinfoil hat lunatics centered around Porter that the government feels the need to hide it? I’ve never even heard about these Sons of Porters on the news.”
“The funny thing is, they don’t officially exist.”
“Who?”
“The SOPs.”
“But you’re saying they do?”
“Uh huh. They can be found, if you know where to look.”
“Let me guess. The Internet?”
“Lucky guess.”
“Of course the Internet, Ben. Where else would all the crazies congregate? So you think they’re out there right now? These SOPs?”
“They’re out there, yeah.”
“Tell me there’s not a lot of them.”
“Depending on where you look, there could just be a few nut jobs or a few hundred.”
“Hundreds of people who think Porter is innocent. God help us.” Then, “So how does any of this help us find him?”
“It doesn’t. Killers get fans all the time. Even terrorists like Porter. It’s just that you’re right; it’s not something the Bureau should bother to hide, but the fact that they are is…strange.”
“I have a better question for you, Ben.”
“No, I’m not making you a sandwich, kiddo.”
She smirked. “Thanks for nothing. But not that.”
“I’m listening…”
<
br /> “Since when did the U.S. government become so efficient that it can basically hide the existence of these people from not just us, but the media? This is prime TV journalism fodder,” Quinn said, making air quotes before and after journalism.
“Your guess is as good as mine. I’m just at the very early stage of digging into this. Maybe in a few days I might have more.”
“You think it’s worth pursuing?”
“It’s worth considering. Anyway, I’m not working alone on this. I have help.”
“Oh God, tell me it’s not Ringo.”
“It’s not.” Then, giving her a curious look, “Since when did you not trust Pete Ringo?” When she didn’t answer him right away, “Kiddo. What aren’t you telling me about him?”
She gritted her teeth, but didn’t say anything.
“Quinn,” Ben said. “This isn’t the time to be holding back. Tell me everything.”
She nodded and told him about Ringo. Everything about the man that she knew or suspected. How he was waiting for her outside her apartment, then lying to her about Ben. The fight (though she left out the part where he had dodged a bullet from five feet away) and being taken to Hofheinz.
“Who was he?” Ben asked. “This Hofheinz guy?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
But the bastard took his job seriously, and he wanted me to stay to find out about my parents, she thought, but didn’t add that part. She didn’t know if it mattered, and talking with Ben about her parents had always been shaky.
She added instead, “But he tortured Gary. They must have grabbed him as soon as the FBI released him from questioning.”
Ben nodded. “He disappeared a couple of days ago. Vanished off the face of the earth even with surveillance on him twenty-four seven.”
“Ringo is FBI,” Quinn said. “He knows how to avoid surveillance.”
“Yes, he would,” Ben said quietly.
He didn’t say anything for a moment after that, and she wondered if he was dissecting everything he thought he knew about Ringo, the way she had done multiple times in the last twenty-four hours. Who was the man she thought she knew? Who was he really?
Finally, Ben said, “So where does all of this leave us?”