by Tom Saric
Paul pulled Evans’ arms back tightly and wrapped them in the tape, using multiple figure eights before cutting the tape with his teeth. He then worked around Evans’ ankles, and after securing them to each other, taped them to the chair. He then wrapped the tape around Evans’s torso and the chair back, making it impossible for Evans to move. He would be able to breathe, but barely.
Paul looked up at the old man, who stood in the doorway, aghast at what was happening in his store. He had removed his ballcap, showing his thin white hair and liver spots. He turned to leave the room.
“You stay here.” Paul pointed to an upturned crate in the corner. “The last thing I need is you calling the police.”
The old man took a deep breath and sat.
Something occurred to Paul. “Did you already ring it in?”
The old man said nothing but his haunted eyes looked at the floor. He looked close to tears.
“Did you ring the silent alarm?” Paul yelled.
The old man nodded. “I did.” he put his hands up, asking for mercy. “When you broke the glass, I pushed the button.”
Paul heard Evans exhale. He knew the police were minutes away. He knew whatever pain was going to come would be time limited. All he had to endure was a few minutes of physical pain and then Paul Alban would be taken away in cuffs. This had to happen quickly, no games.
Paul dialed the phone and Bailey picked up. He turned the speakerphone setting on and placed it upright on a box beside the wall.
Paul slammed the door shut and turned the deadbolt. He moved the palette of soda cans and stacked them against the door, six feet high.
Evans sat with his head up, now making eye contact. He sat with a newfound confidence, knowing that police were on their way. Without hesitating, Paul pressed the gun’s muzzle into Evans’s kneecap and fired. Blood shot up from the hole in his knee. Evans’s face squished together before he screamed.
“I know what you’re thinking, Craig.” Paul grabbed a clump of Evans’s hair in his fist and held his face inches away. “All you have to do is put up with me until the police arrive. You will talk in the next five minutes. I guarantee it.”
“You might get me to say something. But there’s no way you’ll know if I’m telling the truth.”
“Let me tell you something about me. I’ve already lost just about everything in my life. You’re the one person keeping me from the possibility of getting the one thing left in my life back. But I am at my end. So help me God, if you don’t tell me what I need to know, I will kill you and then I’ll kill myself. There is no way that both us are leaving this room alive without you giving me some information.”
“I’ll put up with it.”
Paul fired a bullet into Evans’s other kneecap. Blood sprayed up and kept spraying, “That’s the popliteal artery, in case you’re wondering. You have…” Paul shrugged and looked at his watch, “about twelve minutes before you bleed to death.”
“I’ll be in an ambulance before then.” Evans smiled through the pain, his eyes wild. “And you’ll be in jail where you should be.”
“Who’d you give the money to?”
“What money?”
“You know damn well what I’m talking about.” Paul felt hot sweat was dripping down his forehead. “The money you transferred to John Daniels’ account. We’re tracing it, Evans. That much we know.”
Evans shook his head. He was turning pale; he was losing blood. It pooled underneath him. He needed a tourniquet. Paul took the packing tape, wrapped it tightly around his thigh and tipped him over onto his back so blood would return to his brain. His eyes opened slowly, weak, but alive.
“Who is your contact in the NCS? Who is it? Give me a name!” Paul stepped on Evans’ neck, pressing as he gagged. He tried to yell out but only a faint wheeze came out. He tried moving his head back and forth but Paul kept his foot firmly on Evans’ trachea. He waited until he was almost unconscious before he released his foot a little.
“Look, I know you paid someone to orchestrate this. Someone gave me a fake manifest for the ship and gave that information to Kadar Hadad. So, someone inside NCS is involved. You already told me that. Who’d you give the money to?”
There was commotion outside the door. Two voices yelled for him to come out. They repeatedly pushed at the door, causing the deadbolt to rattle. He didn’t have much time and Evans knew that. Paul didn’t have any leverage to use against him.
Except pain. Fear.
Paul grabbed the metal mop bucket from the corner and slid it beside Evans’s head. It smelled of ammonia. He tossed the mop against the wall, narrowly missing the old man. Evans leaned his head to the side, trying to see what Paul was up to.
He heard a metallic crack at the door and more rhythmic thuds. The deadbolt had split. Each one of the police officers’ body checks slid the stack of cans over a sliver. By now, the door was open enough for a gun to fit through. He saw the face of one of the officers. Paul raised the gun, deliberately making sure the policeman saw it and had enough time to get out of the way and then pulled the trigger, firing two shots at the now empty doorway. Paul shut the door and slid the stack of drinks back over.
Paul turned Evans face down so each knee and his forehead touched the ground. Paul slid the bucket next to Evans’s head and then rocked him up just enough to get his head above the rim before dropping his whole head in the bucket, gravity holding him underwater. Paul held the bucket between his hands as Evans thrashed around, trying to rock himself out of a shallow drowning.
Paul stared at Evans as he progressed through the stages of drowning. He stopped thrashing and had a moment of calm. Then, the muscles in his neck contracted, followed by his chest wall expanding and further bubbling inside the mop bucket. He inhaled the water. Then his neck stiffened.
Paul lifted Evans head out of the bucket. He gasped for air, limp and weak. Evans opened his eyes. Small, red dots formed on the whites of his eyes, signs of extremely forceful breathing. Paul knelt down and looked at Evans.
“That was a test. One more time and then I leave you in there.”
Evans looked at the door. The police were again banging. There were more of them, and they had already opened the door an inch. As it was now, they had no angle to shoot at him, but if they opened the door any wider, they might manage a shot. That’s what Evans was waiting for.
“You think I’ll let them get to us. We’re both going to die before they lay a hand on me. First you, then me.”
Evans closed his eyes.
“You don’t believe me?”
Paul pressed the gun on Evans’ thigh, making sure it was pointing away from his femur. He fired it. He groaned as the shot tore through his flesh and into the muscle, exiting the other side.
Evans’ eyes rolled up.
Paul didn’t give Evans a chance to say anything. He forced his head back in the bucket and let him progress through the stages again. The second go was many times worse. His body was still depleted of oxygen and he had less reserve. Everything would happen more quickly.
He lifted Evans out and turned him over.
“Who is your contact?” Paul yelled. The shouts from the police outside the door were intensifying. Put your hands up! There’s no way out! We have the building surrounded!
Evans’ eyes rolled in the back of his head, but he formed words. “Armand Senechaux.”
“Who is that?”
“An arms dealer. I never met him. He contacted me.” Evans looked exhausted, his face was pale as he drifted in and out of consciousness.
“What did he say?” Paul slapped Evans’ three times, trying desperately to bring him back.
“That he could stage a problem in Somalia. Make it look like a threat. Another Afghanistan. Get the U.S. in a war again.”
Paul nodded. “Because your company owns drilling rights there.”
“It’s good for business,” Evans said.
“You gave him the money?”
“Yes. Once it was done. I
paid him.”
“What about the weapons? Where did they go?”
“You know that. We arranged it so they’d be picked up, never get to U.S. soil. All we wanted was a threat.”
“Who got me involved? Who’s working for you in the NCS?”
The police were hammering at the door, louder and louder; the opening was nearly big enough for them to fit through. Evans was almost unconscious. Paul slapped him awake. “Who is the NCS contact?
“Jim Crilley.”
32
At 6:00 the next morning, Bailey Clarke sat on a stone bench in front of the koi pond in Langley’s memorial garden. She sipped green tea from a paper cup and read through the morning’s intelligence summaries from the folder on her lap. She decided to avoid the NCS floors as much as possible while internal affairs combed through Jim Crilley’s office, gathering evidence of his role in the Somalia fiasco. She had told herself it was out of respect for her old boss, but she knew that part of her reluctance was to avoid the gossip that would be going on amongst the workers in the NCS. The rumor mill was already grinding. Bailey heard that in the early hours of the morning, internal affairs came to Jim Crilley’s office and knocked three times. After he didn’t answer, they broke in and found him hanging from the doorknob with his belt tied around his neck, still alive, his face as red as a beet. He was sent to the hospital for observation and psychiatric evaluation.
Part of her felt sorry for him. She had heard that Crilley had been given almost half a million dollars for his role in the conspiracy and he had already used the money to purchase a condominium in Palm Springs in preparation for an imminent retirement, one that would never come.
Bailey put down the folder and picked up another one, marked P.A. Inside were the key pieces of the Paul Alban investigation. She skimmed the eleven-page transcript of Craig Evans’ testimony and a copy of the agreement of immunity from any charges related to the case. As a result of that document, both Jim Crilley and General Robert Kaczmareck were in custody. The only man still at large that Evans had implicated was Armand Senechaux.
Bailey put the folder down, took a sip of her cooled tea, and stared as a white and black spotted koi sucked fish flakes off the water’s surface. She was filled with a feeling of calm, one that relaxed the tightness in her shoulders, one that made her breathing slow. It was a feeling so foreign she briefly felt uncomfortable.
She got up and collected the folders into a pile under her arm. She walked through the cafeteria, past the lineup of people picking up their morning coffees, to the main elevators and went down to the second-level basement. She walked into the area marked INFIRMARY and stopped at the end of the hall in front of a large one-way mirror.
Inside, she saw Paul Alban lying on a gurney in a johnny gown with his head slightly elevated and his wrist handcuffed to the bed. A heart monitor beeped slowly, and a nurse inflated the blood pressure cuff around his arm.
In so many ways, she felt like she knew Paul Alban. She knew all of his demographics, his age, his place of birth, his favorite foods, his relationship history, his IQ. There wasn’t a detail in his file she had not committed to memory. Now he was in front of her, in the flesh, alive.
Bailey turned to leave, to get to the debriefing scheduled with internal affairs. Alban was no longer an active operative, so her professional relationship with him had ended. But a wave of curiosity came over her, one that pulled her towards the closed door.
“Blood pressure’s good.” The nurse flashed a smile at Paul, removed the cuff and recorded the number on a chart at the end of the bed, then left the room.
Paul tried to smile, but it quickly turned into a wince, as any movement felt like needles being jabbed under his skin. His left thigh pulsated. His hand was the worst. It had ballooned to the point where it felt like his skin was going to explode. The doctors had examined it, saw the spreading redness and pus, and immediately ran antibiotics through his intravenous. They said he was close to losing his hand, and at this point, the pain was so severe an amputation seemed merciful.
Lying on the gurney, alone in the room, Paul was forced to think. He thought of Hadad, the man who had re-entered his life, teasingly, and escaped again. While Hadad was free, Paul was the one handcuffed in the basement of the NCS. Even though he had obtained Evans’ confession, there was a labyrinth of red tape to get Evans’ admission used in any court. It could easily be dismissed as a forced confession and if Evans had a half-decent lawyer, it would be thrown out immediately. Which meant that Paul was still the number-one suspect.
It was as if all of the actors from a decade ago had emerged for an encore to implicate him in an illegal weapons transfer. All working together to conspire against him. While he sensed this was true, he couldn’t pull all the pieces together. While he would have most wanted to pack all of it away and forget about it, there was one piece with which he couldn’t part.
Ellen was still missing.
Hadad had taken her onto the helicopter, presumably to be used as some sort of leverage. What leverage? Paul, you’re going to jail. Maybe you should just accept the idea that Ellen’s go—No, Ellen was fine. She was a survivor. But a niggling doubt crept in with more force after each passing minute.
The door swung open and a woman entered, carrying a stack of folders under her arm. She wore a grey pantsuit with a white collared shirt and her glossy brown hair touched her shoulders. She walked over slowly, wobbling on her heels a couple of times. She stopped a few feet in front of the bed and bit her upper lip but didn’t say anything.
Paul looked at the identification badge hanging off the lanyard around her neck.
“Bailey Clarke,” he smiled, the pain suddenly less intense.
“Hi, Paul,” she replied. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better. I could do without these, though.” Paul raised his hand that was cuffed to the bed.
“Sure.” Bailey unlocked the cuffs. “Are you okay to talk?”
Paul nodded and sat up in the bed. Pain shot through his stiff joints. He pointed towards the one-way mirror. “Who’s watching?”
“No one right now. I’ve been behind there for the past few minutes.”
Paul nodded. “Well, I guess you’re here to get my statement or something like that.”
Bailey shook her head. “I think…” she hesitated, unsure of what to say. “I just wanted to meet you. Thank you for that.” She stood for an awkward moment and looked as though she wanted to say more, but didn’t know where to start. She abruptly started towards the door as though she’d made some sort of mistake. Then she stopped, clicked the pen in her hand for a moment and turned her head around. “I’m not sure what to call you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you go by Paul or Marshall?”
Paul stared back blankly. “I don’t know...” Paul trailed off, then frowned. “I guess I’ll go with Paul.”
“Okay.” She smiled. “It was nice to meet you, Paul.”
She walked to the door, lighter in her footsteps, at ease.
“Officer Clarke.” Paul stopped her. “Can I ask you something?”
She gave a quick nod, her fingertips resting on the doorknob.
“What happened with Craig Evans?”
“He’s at the hospital right now, in custody. But he’ll be in the hospital for a while.” She sighed. “You did quite a number on him.”
“I had to.” Paul shook his head, hardly looking like a man who had nearly tortured Craig Evans to death six hours earlier. “Any truth to what he said?”
“Unfortunately, I can’t confirm or deny--”
“Please, Officer, tell me what happened. Don’t give me the official line.” Paul stared intently at Bailey. “I’ve spent a decade working for this organization. Now I’ve been framed. My life’s been torn apart, again. And yes, it’s largely my doing, I know that. But I need to know if anything’s going to come of this. I need to feel some sort of justice.”
Bailey looked down at
him with sympathetic eyes as if to say go ahead, what do you want to know?
“Was Evans telling the truth?”
“It appears so. We were able to get a signed statement and confession from Craig Evans and that--”
“In exchange for what?” Paul sat up an inch.
“Immunity against charges for conspiracy or treason.” She saw Paul’s scowl and continued. “He was our key to getting details on people in our own department. We had to.”
“So he goes free?”
“No federal charges.”
“And what did he give you?”
“He gave us information on people in the NCS and special forces. We’ve used his statement to issue a search warrant against high-level men in my department and D.O.D.”
“Anything turn up?”
“It did. We have two men in custody. We have evidence linking them to you—phone records, money transfers. They’re being brought to justice, Paul.”
“So Crilley, he’s one of them?”
“Yes, he was involved. The other is a General Robert Kaczmareck at AFRICOM.”
Paul nodded, thinking about all the people involved. He felt some relief, but a weight still sat on his chest. He exhaled deeply.
“Internal affairs is working out a deal, Paul. You’ll be honorably discharged. You’ve done amazing work. They just have to clean up a few things you did.”
Paul nodded, barely relieved. He thought of James Wright staring up at the ceiling in his apartment.
“What about Kadar Hadad?”
“He’s dead. His body was found floating off the New Jersey coast.”
Paul froze like he’d been hit by an arctic wind. Something inside him shattered and left a hole inside his chest. He had fantasized about Hadad’s death ever since he had been released in 1998. Every time he thought about Dennis Hildebrand burning alive in the embassy, he countered it with a thought of the relief he would feel when Hadad died.