End Game

by David Baldacci

  Malloy said, “The skinheads are going to know it was you two last night. And they’re going to want revenge. I can have Bender ride along with you for protection.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Reel.

  “There are a lot more of them than you,” pointed out Malloy.

  Reel shrugged. “Well, so far we’ve held our own. And their numbers keep dwindling, don’t they?”

  Chapter

  28

  “CLÉMENT LAMARRE?”

  “Yes. Holly said he was a patient here.”

  Robie and Reel were sitting across from Brenda Fishbaugh, the facility director.

  Fishbaugh clicked on some computer keys. “This information is really confidential,” she noted. “We’re not supposed to reveal who is or was a patient here.”

  “And this is a federal investigation,” replied Robie. “You spoke to us about Holly and now she’s on her way to a new life with Luke Miller. All good. That wouldn’t be happening without us.”

  Fishbaugh nodded slowly. “All right. So long as it goes no further.” She pulled up the screen she was looking for and swung the computer monitor around so they could see.

  “I remember Clément. He was here for an addiction to methadone. Very common in this area. He’s thirty-six.”

  “He looks a lot older,” noted Reel.

  “Methadone will do that to you,” replied Fishbaugh. “He was a very quiet type. He and Holly were buddies here—that’s the term we use.”

  “She told us about that.”

  “Why are you interested in Clément?”

  “He told Holly something that we need to follow up on.”

  “Can you tell me?”

  “I’m afraid not,” answered Reel. “What’s his background? Where did he come from?”

  Fishbaugh swung the monitor back around and scrolled through more screens. “FYI, he was a voluntary admission here, meaning he checked himself in. It wasn’t because of any court-imposed order. He was born in Quebec and emigrated to America and became a citizen. He came to Colorado five years ago. He had family here.”

  “Where did he work?”

  Fishbaugh hit another key. “He worked on an oil rig for two years. And then when the bottom dropped out of the industry, he became an assistant manager at a convenience store about forty miles from here. That’s where he was working when he got hooked on meth and came here.”

  “What’s the name of the store?” asked Reel.

  Fishbaugh told her and Reel made a note of it on her phone.

  “Where did he live?” asked Reel.

  “When he came to us he gave no address. I believed that he was homeless.”

  Robie said, “But you mentioned that he had family in the area?”

  Fishbaugh nodded. “His sister and her family live in Boulder.”

  “Did she ever visit him here?” asked Robie.

  “Yes, twice. I think after he left here she thought he was going to move in with her until he got back on his feet.”

  “Do you have her contact info?” asked Reel.

  Fishbaugh provided this. “What will you do now?” she asked.

  Robie and Reel stood. “Keep digging,” he said.

  Outside Robie’s phone buzzed. The woman on the other end told him to access his laptop in two minutes.

  Robie and Reel climbed into their truck and Robie popped open his computer, placing it on the dashboard so they both could see.

  A few moments later the screen came to life, and DCI Rachel Cassidy appeared there.

  “Report,” she tersely instructed them.

  Robie and Reel took turns filling her in on what had happened. Cassidy did not look pleased.

  “Your job is not to screw around with local issues and start a war with a bunch of psychopaths,” she admonished them. “You’re no closer to finding Blue Man than when you got there.”

  “We haven’t been here all that long,” Robie reminded her.

  She did not take this comment well, either. “You both know how much is riding on this. Blue Man is indispensable to the operation of this Agency. The world is more full of threats right now than I’ve ever seen it. And every day we get new threats coming in. There is something building that I don’t like. And if enemies of this country have him and are trying to extract information from him, well, I don’t have to tell you how catastrophic that could be.”

  Robie said, “We think his disappearance is tied to something local, not some grand plan by the Russians or Iranians to kidnap him. So I’m not sure we have to worry about someone interrogating him for secrets.”

  “I don’t have the luxury of assuming that, and neither do you,” the DCI snapped back.

  “We’re trying to approach this logically,” pointed out Reel. “And if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. So what we have is Blue Man found out about some prisoners, started asking questions, and then he disappeared. I’m not an experienced investigator, but it doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes to see a possible connection there.”

  “Just find him,” ordered Cassidy. The screen went dead.

  Robie looked at Reel. “You’re right.”

  “About what?”

  “It’s a lot easier just killing people.” He put the truck in gear.

  “Where to now?” asked Reel.

  “Clément Lamarre’s last place of employment.”

  “Do you think that’s where he might have seen the things he described to Holly?”

  “You have a better idea?”

  “Not even close.”

  The drive took nearly an hour with nary a highway in sight. Their travel was over a two-lane road that oftentimes, when over-the-road semis were blowing past the other way, seemed more like the eye of a needle.

  On the way, Reel called Lamarre’s sister and explained who she was and what she was interested in. The woman quickly told Reel that her brother had never spoken to her about anything other than their family and his treatment at the rehab facility. She confirmed that Clément was supposed to come and live with her and her family in Boulder. She had volunteered to come and get him or send him bus fare, but he said he would get there on his own. At the last minute he had called and said his plans had changed.

  “That really pissed me off. And I’ve got four kids under the age of ten so, frankly, brother or not, I didn’t have the time or energy to follow up on him. I tried to help him, but Clément made his bed and he has to lie in it,” she told Reel.

  “So that leaves the convenience store as our last shot,” said Reel, after putting her phone away.

  “Well, let’s hope they can tell us something. The DCI is not going to like it if we have nothing to report next time.”

  “What do you think happened to Blue Man, Robie, really?”

  “I think he was being very typically Blue Man.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning he was trying to help people who needed it and that got him into danger.”

  “If he was taken, do you think they know who he is? I mean, really know who he is?”

  “Doubtful, or they might not have kidnapped him. Now they’re caught between a rock and a hard place, especially if they’ve since found out who he is.”

  “So we’re sort of like Blue Man then.”

  “How do you mean?’

  “Well, we played the good Samaritans, helped Holly and Luke, and look where it got us. A bunch of neo-Nazis gunning for us.”

  “I see your point.”

  “They’re going to come at us, Robie.”

  “They absolutely are.”

  “There are a lot more of them than us.”

  “There clearly are.”

  “And yet I sort of feel sorry for them,” she said sardonically.

  “You’ll get over it.”

  They drove on.

  Chapter

  29

  “CLYDE’S STOP-IN,” said Reel, reading the sign as they drove into the parking lot in front of the convenience s
tore. It had gas pumps out front, a pay phone against one wall with the phone receiver missing, a freezer box with ice inside and a padlock on the door, and dirty windows, along with a general air of a place barely staying alive. There were no other cars in the parking lot, and the store was off a winding road with the nearest town ten miles away.

  “I wonder how you wake up one day and decide to build a store in the middle of nowhere,” said Reel.

  “This whole place is the middle of nowhere,” noted Robie. “I’ve seen more population density in an Iraqi desert.”

  They climbed out of the Yukon and pushed open the door, causing a bell to tinkle. The interior of the space was as dilapidated as the outside. The shelves were only half full, and what was on them looked like it had been there since the seventies. An ATM machine was set against one wall with an OUT OF ORDER sign taped across its front. A door marked RESTROOM was on the back wall next to a refrigerated unit full of beer. A rack of newspapers was against another wall; a modern-looking soda dispenser stood against the far wall, and a shelf with automotive products, condoms, and packaged foodstuffs was next to it. On the front counter was a warming machine containing rows of hot dogs and slices of pepperoni pizza; the commingled smells permeated the place. The cash register was fronted by bulletproof glass, and entry was gained via a thick door with a deadbolt lock on it. Like in a bank, one had to slip the cash or credit card into a slot under the glass.

  With the tinkle of the bell a tall, lean older man in a stained cowboy hat emerged from a back room. He had long, scraggly gray hair and a bushy beard.

  “Can I help you folks?” he said.

  “Are you Clyde?” asked Robie.

  The man shook his head. In addition to the hat, he was dressed in faded dungarees, worn leather boots with silver toe caps, a jean shirt, and a hand-tooled belt with an Anheuser-Busch buckle cinched tightly around his narrow waist.

  “Clyde’s been dead, oh, twenty years now. I’m his son.”

  “How long has this place been open?” asked Reel.

  “Sixty years. Nearly as long as I’ve been alive. Name’s Sonny Driscoll. Not too complicated the reason why. My old man didn’t have the best imagination when it came to names.”

  He grinned and held out a big, weathered hand. They took turns shaking it.

  “That’s a long time to be in business,” said Robie.

  Sonny looked around his store. “I know it don’t look like much, but we get by. Mostly truckers gassing up. We got truck diesel here. Or them needing to take a leak or wanting something to eat. People who are lost—there are a lot of those—and they usually buy something just so they don’t feel bad asking me for directions for free. And some folks from Newton, the little town back down the road there. And on Fridays during high school football season folks come in here and clean the place out. Keeps me going through the winter. I don’t need much to get by. Now, what do you folks need? Gas? I got the credit card reader on the pumps. Or you can just pay in here after you finish up.”

  “Ever have any trouble here?” asked Robie.

  In answer Sonny pointed to the fortified counter. “What does that tell you? Get some strange dudes coming through here. Late at night, you can’t be too careful. You got trouble and call 911, they’ll get here in the morning to take your body away.”

  “We’re actually here for some information on one of your former employees,” said Reel. She took out her ID and so did Robie.

  Sonny studied them with a frown. “Which employee?”

  “Clément Lamarre.”

  “Shit, is he in trouble again?”

  “Why would you think that?” asked Reel.

  “Because Clément was always in trouble. Meth head. Stole from me. I didn’t press charges ’cause he must’ve been out of his damn mind when he did it. He stole some beer, a can of motor oil, and a box of Ho Hos. And he knew how to open the damn cash register and didn’t take a single cent from there. I mean how stupid is that?”

  “Pretty stupid,” agreed Robie.

  “Serves me right for hiring somebody with a name like that. I think he was French or something. I’m not into foreigners, don’t care who knows it.”

  Robie said, “He was from Canada. That’s not really so much of a foreign country. Right on our border.”

  Sonny shrugged. “I guess Canadians are okay. Weird name, though.”

  Robie said, “When Lamarre was in rehab he told someone about something he’d seen, maybe while he worked here.”

  Sonny’s tufts of eyebrows knitted together. “What’d he say he saw?”

  Robie studied him for a moment. “People in distress.”

  “Hell, half the people who live round here could be said to be in distress,” scoffed Sonny.

  “I meant people being held against their will. Tied up and with hoods on.”

  “What?” snapped Sonny. “You mean like they were prisoners?”

  Robie nodded. “That’s what he said.”

  “And you believe a meth head?” Sonny’s look turned suspicious. “Your IDs say you’re Feds. Why are you interested in this?”

  “If people are being held against their will, it’s a crime,” pointed out Reel.

  “Well, yeah, I get that.”

  “Can you think of anything that Lamarre might have meant? Even if he was mistaken about it? The person he told said he had a great many details about it. And he wasn’t on meth at the time. He was clean.”

  Sonny took this all in, leaned against the counter, and rubbed at his beard.

  “Look, we got some seriously effed-up people hereabouts,” he said slowly.

  “Neo-Nazis, we know about them,” said Reel.

  “Not just them. You keep going along this road for another twenty miles you’re going to see an encampment of white supremacists. They got the sheets and the hoods and a big-ass Confederate flag you can see from fifty miles away.” He paused and stroked his beard. “About six years ago two black fellows were found hanging from trees about ten miles from here. They had the N-word carved on their foreheads. Everybody around here knew who’d done it, but the law couldn’t prove nothing, so there you go. Them pricks are still around. And then you got assorted pockets of antigovernment types, vigilante groups, religious zealots, motorcycle gangs, and folks just generally pissed off that their lives suck or that in their minds the country’s going to hell. And they all got guns, lots and lots of guns. And some of them traffic drugs, stolen guns, and other shit, anything that’ll make ’em a buck. If you want to get out of the mainstream, this is a good place to come. We apparently welcome any and all nutcases equally.”

  “And what about you? You belong to any of these groups?” asked Reel.

  Sonny cracked a grin. “Nah. I’m just a businessman. You see, if I hooked up with one of them groups, the other groups would come here and burn down my store and shoot my ass. I keep a shotgun under the counter and I got a Dirty Harry Smith and Wesson forty-five at the small of my back, but I couldn’t fight those guys off night after night. So I call myself Switzerland, see, neutral. All them bad boys come here to get their gas, beer, hot dogs, and condoms. And because I don’t swear allegiance to any of ’em, none of ’em touch the place. I mean where else they gonna get their fuel, alcohol, and rubbers? And it was pretty bad when my daddy was running this place, so he had the same philosophy and passed it along to me.”

  Reel said appreciatively, “So I guess that’s the other reason you’ve stayed in business so long. Pretty smart.”

  Sonny grinned, swept off his hat, and gave a mock bow. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “Back to Lamarre and what he saw,” interjected Robie.

  Sonny put his hat back on and moved some strands of hair out of his face. “Did he say he saw it at my store? Because if he did, I can tell