3 Lies (21 page)

His reaction confirmed for Clint what the court faced. “The kidnappers want the United States Supreme Court to fix a vote.” Clint stood and claimed his ground. “Don’t they, Abe?”

Cecelia’s face bleached, her bright coral lipstick garish in contrast. “Is that true?”

“There are five people missing.” Clint spread out his hand. “Five people. There may be more. Each one is close to a justice on the Supreme Court.” Clint pointed at Abe. “He knows. I even found a note at Beth’s, a note written in Arabic.”

“Arabic?” Blake rushed to Cecelia’s side. “Are they terrorists?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know. I’m having it translated.”

“That’s tampering with evidence.” Abe pulled on the collar of his shirt.

“Evidence? You haven’t admitted there’s a crime. How can it be evidence?”

“Abe.” Cecelia shrank under Blake’s grasp. “Is this true?”

“Give me the note.” Abe stuck his hand out. A drunk with the DTs held steadier.

“I brought a copy for Cecelia and Blake. I didn’t know you would be here.” Clint drew it from his pocket and handed it to Blake.

“I want the original.” Abe growled.

“No, sir. It’s for the police.”

“You will give it to me.”

Clint assumed a wide stance. “I can only imagine the pressure you must be under, but Beth is my only concern.”

“You will give it to me. Now.”

“I will not.”

Abe swayed a little. Apparently, he wasn’t used to anyone challenging his right-to-decide.

Cecelia rocked back and forth on the couch. “You said they wanted money.”

He ignored her, his focus trained on Clint. “I love that girl. But you have no idea what you’re toying with, son.” His tailored shirt, grey with sweat, stuck to his skin in moist patches.

Cecelia lunged at Abe. “You have to do something.” She grabbed his jacket lapel. “They’ve got Beth.”

“You can’t help her. Only—” Abe’s breath came in short gasps as if his windpipe constricted. He shoved her back to Blake.

Clint reached for Cecelia. “Watch out.”

Abe’s scowl sunk. He wagged a crooked finger at Clint. “You better watch out, son. Or that restraining order will only be the beginning of your trouble.” He straightened his back, adding air to his plumage. “I am the Chief Justice of the United States!”

The chill in Clint’s veins slowed his thoughts. Nothing in his dealings with Abe had prepared him for this outburst, but it verified his assumption; someone was blackmailing the Supreme Court. “Do you hear yourself?”

“You—you can’t go to the police.” Abe’s voice weakened. “They will kill her.” He appealed directly to Cecelia.

Cecelia and Blake huddled as if watching a slasher at work. She pressed her face into her husband’s chest.

“I’m sorry, Abe.” Clint held his hands up in surrender, hoping to calm the situation. “I didn’t know you were going to be here. I know you don’t want her hurt any more than I—”

“They will kill her. If—” Color seeped from Abe’s skin, leaving his mouth, nostrils, and eyes sockets agape in sagging skin. He clutched his left arm, staggering toward a chair.

“Dear, God. He’s having a heart attack.” Blake rose to help.

Clint caught Abe by the armpits and helped him sit.

Abe tried to push him away, but there was no strength in the effort. Clint removed Abe’s tie and opened a few buttons. He found an erratic thump on the justice’s neck.

“I’m— Don’t need help.” Abe’s head lolled back like a newborn. “Beth. No police.”

Blake took over. “I’m calling 9-1-1. Clint, you need to get out of here. We’ll take care of Abe.”

“I can’t leave him like this.”

“If the police find you here, they’ll throw you in jail.”

“No. You stay out of this.” Abe struggled in his chair. “If you interfere—”

Blake pinned Abe. “Go. Now.”

Abe sputtered something unintelligible. Cecelia slumped in a frilly heap on the couch. Clint had nothing left for any of them.

Only Beth. If he could find her in time.

Contrary to the informal betting pool he’d heard about, Doug captured the names of the ten missing agents. He finally felt like a real spy. Originally he had applied to the Company’s Support Directorate instead of the Clandestine Service because he was more interested in cloaks than daggers. The dashing image cut by Sean Connery fueled his initial interest in secret service, but the more gritty depictions of spy work—capture, imprisonment, torture, death—tempered his enthusiasm. With his discovery of the missing agents, he finally joined the brethren.

Company employees—the operatives—controlled the external assets, kites, agents, and spooks-for-hire that carried out the dirtier tasks. The humans in these roles were a mix of mercenaries only out for financial gain, malcontents eager to leave behind whatever passed for life, politically charged ideologues intent to take action, and others, who by design, experience, or bad wiring, fed off the constant danger.

Doug discovered the names by tracing the agents through their operatives at headquarters, who then ran their code names through various bureau chiefs around the world. Few were pleased to assist the neophyte in his quest. As with baby snakes, exposure in this business was often deadly. His newfound clout, along with strategic threats by Chester Spivey, assured his access. Once he confirmed who wasn’t missing, he knew who had strayed. The similarity of those ten names brought him mounting disquiet.

After a recent assignment in Turkey, Rabi Falim was supposed to be noshing baguettes in an apartment along the Seine waiting further instructions. Doug tracked one of Rabi’s passports to the U.S. Customs station in Seattle’s Sea-Tac airport. Rabi traveled from South Korea as an Italian missionary stopping over in the states to visit family. Rabi left the country two days ago under a different name as a Brazilian soccer player.

A similar story unfolded for Nadeem Jinnah, last recorded leaving the United States for Toronto, and for Mujibur Khan, Fath Mansour, Imad Hasafi, each of whom radiated out of the country two days prior. The sixth guy, Shakir Siddique, left no trail in or out. Doug wrote his name on a separate list. That left four agents—Amir Yasin, Binard Murad, Salif Rizvi, and Jaman Shallah—each of whom entered the country from different locations before melting among the populace.

None on the list had a current assignment. All but Shakir Siddique entered the country the same day, three weeks prior. The personnel files showed a variety of job skills. Medicine. Pilot. Ship master. To a man, the files contained at least one disciplinary action serious enough to note, but not serious enough to permanently loose the kite. The selection of future missions, however, required more care. The commonalities between these ten men defied coincidence.

Officially, Natalie Warda headed the investigation even though Chester Spivey decided to route some information around her. Never too much paranoia in the spy game.

Babbage. Her code name was particularly flattering to anyone in programming. Doug declined to believe anyone as smoky-sweet as she could excel in duplicity. Then again, assumptions could be fatal, and the sultry double-agent was damn near an axiom. Either way, the new information required a briefing.

He reassembled his files and shut down his session on the computer. The route to Natalie’s office took him past his own. Maybe he’d find Posey in a better mood since the morning. He popped in to check.

Posey waved him in and tossed a Nerf basketball his way. “Hey, Superman. We’ve got confirmation from Metropolis.”

Little snide left in the voice. A considerable upgrade.

“What have you got?” Doug faded for a shot.

“The big boat. Or a ship. How big does a boat have to be before it’s a ship? Anyway this one’s a seventy-foot Hatteras yacht.”

“Where’s it missing from?”

Posey retrieved the Nerf ball and put up another. “San Diego.” The Nerf rolled under Doug’s desk. “It came off a major retrofit last fall. Whoever took it left the GPS tracking box attached to the underside of the dock. I had to get someone off his ass to see if the damn boat was there.”

“How long ago?”

“No more than four weeks.”

A seventy-foot drop in a hundred-forty million square miles of ocean.

“The little boat is also a go. A twenty-five foot Grady White missing from Santa Monica. You’ve got ships, planes, and land transport.” He handed Doug the file. “Somebody is going somewhere.”

“Did you talk to the Coast Guard?” Doug crawled under the desk after the ball.

“They haven’t seen the boats, but they’ll be looking. The hull numbers were probably changed. Neither of these ships was outfitted to attract attention.”

“Fax what we know to the marinas on the West Coast, all the way down to Chile. Any with fuel. Hey, and find out what you can about this guy.” He handed him a slip of paper with Shakir Siddique’s name on it.

“Will do. How’s the brown fox?”

“Especially sweet.” He tucked the ball in Posey’s shirt pocket. “As a matter of fact, I need to talk to her.”

“She’s out of your league man. Maybe you should step aside and let in the pro from Dover.”

Doug picked up the phone. “Second string won’t do.”

Natalie’s line forwarded to her assistant who told him that she’d left two minutes ago for a five-mile run around headquarters. Natalie a runner. What fantasy would she satisfy next? Doug quick-changed into sweats and running shoes. He’d never seen her during his laps around the grounds. After all their stilted meetings, he hungered to see her body in full animation. Even if she was a traitor.

He dashed out of the building and hit full stride as soon as his face met wind. She could have gone in either direction, but he flipped a mental coin and went to the right. He expected she’d be easy to catch. At William and Mary, he’d specialized in the 400-meter event with a personal best of forty-six-point-eight-five seconds. A minor tear of his anterior cruciate ligament trashed any Olympic hopes.

Springtime in Virginia stretched each day a little farther. His body cast a long forward silhouette. At full throttle, he passed several joggers and a couple of more serious runners that he startled when they felt his breeze. The aroma of humus cooking in the humidity met him beneath the boughs of sourwoods and loblollies as he came around another bend in the path.

Twenty yards ahead Natalie limped lusciously in spandex pants. She favored her taut left leg.

He sprinted up behind her. “Are you alright?”

Her braids swung around and slapped him on the cheek. Their noses nearly brushed. She backed away. “What do you want?”

“Adductor strain?”

“How the hell did you know?” She sounded more irritated than impressed.

“I’ve seen every kind of limp there is. Experienced most of them. You run track?” Her curves impeded any chance of national competition, but spandex never stretched finer. He tried not to leer.

“Hurdles. Only in high school.” Her attitude ebbed. “I guess I pushed it too hard. You?”

“I competed in college. My knee made other plans. Now, it’s just fun.”

She stepped with care. “So you say.”

“Maybe we can run together sometime, or something.”

“Did you come here looking for me?”

Thoughts of armed terrorists reeled in his fantasy. “I have the names of the missing agents.”

A smile split her face. Her teeth shined like the inside of a coconut. The bird in his ribcage took flight.

“Good work.”

His dry mouth made it difficult to speak. “One of the guys needs further study. Of the other nine, five men came and went through U.S customs. The other four entered the country, but I don’t see an exit. I’ve got the passport details back in the office.”

She read his concern. “What else?”

“The names. They’re all decidedly Middle Eastern in origin.”

She slowed. Her head leaned toward him as if she didn’t hear. “Interesting. None of the insiders with access during the system upgrades was from the Middle East. All ten?”

Either she was a good actress, or the surprise was genuine.

“Affirmative.”

“So we either have phenomenal coincidence or a serious threat.”

“We’ve also confirmed two vessels, a seventy-footer and a twenty-five footer, both AWOL from California ports.”

“GPS?”

“Gutted. We’ve got descriptions out to the Coast Guard.“

“Have you told Chester?”

“No. You’re lead on this. I came here first.”

Her eyelids hooded. “Don’t patronize me.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My name’s on the list. You know damn well Chester has you watching me. It’s what we do around here.”

Hell, he’d watch her without Chester’s orders. “I’m following protocol. Is that a problem?”

She hobbled off the path and headed toward the building. As she stepped up to the concrete, her leg gave way beneath her. Doug held the tight bicep of her arm. It felt like a ripe apple. She jerked from his hand.

“If I need your help, I’ll ask.” Anger rippled in her voice.

It came like a kick to his gut. “I’m sorry.” Lame, but he couldn’t think of anything else. He tried to recreate their conversation up to now. “I was trying to keep you from falling on your face.”

She hopped to a stop. “How old are you?”

“Twenty four.” Since she asked. “And you?”

“Older. And frankly a bit tired of you mooning over me in the meetings.”

“Mooning? I—”

“This is a critical job—one that is vital to my career. It requires my sustained focus.” She flicked several braids behind her shoulder. “You’re a nice kid, Doug, but I’m not interested. Have I made myself clear?”

Clint turned on the car radio to listen for news about Abe. A dead Supreme Court Chief Justice was going to make news. Hell, flags across the nation would drop to half-mast if the man died.

Beth’s situation—or perhaps even Abe’s own—strained his heart to arrest. Clint left the Sutton’s while Abe was still breathing, but he’d never seen a man so utterly drained of natural pigment. Clint knew Abe might not live through the attack but hoped he would out of moral decency and for Beth’s sake.

But even with Abe’s dire condition, Clint’s full sympathies weighted on Beth. If he lived, the restraining order, and any new charges Hizzoner could conjure, gave Abe a bench full of excuses to keep Clint out of play. Clint needed a lineman to run interference.