America Rising (35 page)

Blue One dug through a duffel bag, came out with a pair of sunglasses and tennis shoes, a Tennessee Titans football jersey. He stripped off his windbreaker and workboots, lost the cap, added the glasses. “I’ll go around the block and come at him from the opposite direction, see if I can make an ID,” he said. “If he moves while I’m gone, follow him. I’ll catch up with you later.” He slid open the minivan door and disappeared around the corner.

Minutes later he reappeared at the end of the block, walking towards the silver Ford. Hands in his pockets, casual, just another guy on the street. His step didn’t falter, his head didn’t turn. Walked past the car, back to the minivan, a thoughtful look on his face.

“It’s Leland Elliott,” he said.

* * *

In New York City, Frank Bernabe eyed the young man entering his Manhattan office and motioned for him to sit.

“Yes, Mr. Barrows?” he said.

“I’ve received a report from Memphis, sir,” Barrows responded hesitantly. “It seems Mr. Elliott’s first attempt has failed.”

Frank Bernabe wanted to smash his fist into the gleaming Carpathian elm inlay of his hand-made Parnian desk but he controlled the urge, the muscles in his forearm bulging at the effort. “Details,” he spat.

“Sketchy. But apparently two of his men tried to take Doe outside the bus depot. There was some sort of scuffle and the subject got away. Neither Mr. Elliott nor the patsy were involved; Mr. Elliott has not responded to messages.”

Goddam that incompetent fool! I should have terminated him when I had the chance.

“And?”

“According to the police report, sir, it seems Elliott’s men were prevented from fulfilling their assignment by several bystanders.”

A warning flashed before Frank Bernabe’s eyes. Leland Elliott may be an idiot, but his people were at least marginally competent professionals. No John Q. Citizen was going to get between them and their payday.

“Bystanders, Barrows?” he said balefully. “I don’t think so.”

“I think you’re right, sir,” Barrows said. “There was too much damage. One of the men has a shattered knee and will be on crutches for months. The other has a broken hand and a concussion. Both are still in the hospital.”

“So John Doe has a guardian angel. Or angels.”

“Apparently so, sir,” Barrows said.

Frank Bernabe didn’t hear it. He was alone in his head, racing through the probabilities. After a very long minute he spoke.

“Two things, Barrows. One, contact Mr. Elliott. Leave a message if you have to. Tell him he has seventy-two hours to eliminate the target or I will eliminate him.” He picked up a pen, scribbled a phone number on a piece of paper and pushed it across the desk.

“This is a contact at CIA,” he said. “His name is Edward Foster. Tell him you are speaking for me. Tell him I want any and all surveillance tapes around that bus depot—banks, hotels, traffic cams, whatever—collected and analyzed eight ways back to Sunday. I want to know how many of these guardian angels there are, who they are, what they are, where they are. Everything about them. Everything. And I want it yesterday. Now go.”

Barrows went, only too glad to get out from under his boss’s wrath with his skin still attached. Frank Bernabe watched him go with unaccustomed nervousness. For the first time in life he thought events might be slipping out of his control.

“W
hat’s going on, Sheila?” Blue One said as he shut the door to his hotel room behind the young woman.

Sheila Boniface stopped, turned. Surprised. Stunned, even. Then blushing, embarrassed.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Pretty much. To me at least. I don’t think the others noticed.”

“Oh, god.”

Sheila Boniface—Blue Two—put her hand to her mouth and plopped down in an uncomfortable chair. For her team leader to use her real name in the field was unprecedented. On the other hand, so was her lapse in judgment. He didn’t appear to be angry, though. Just concerned. That was something.

Blue One took the other chair. “You were supposed to check in,” he said reproachfully. “You know you had Leland Elliott on your tail?”

Blue Two groaned softly.

“And you shouldn’t have brought him back to this hotel,” he continued. “The one where we’re all staying.”

“I know, I know,” she said miserably. “I should have checked into another hotel. Made him watch two places instead of one. I should have called you too.” Her face was pained. “I really screwed up. I’m sorry.”

Blue One looked at her closely. “So what’s going on?” he repeated.

“I. . . I got caught up in it, I guess. I mean, you know me. I’m not the kind of person who goes gaga over some guy I’ve known for all of a few hours.” She shifted in her chair, looked out the window, back at Blue One. “But this is. . . different. There’s something about him. Some connection. Some. . . I don’t know. You want me to stand down and bring someone else in?”

“Can you do this job without your personal feelings getting in the way?”

“Yes!” Her answer was quick and vehement.

“Then start doing it,” he said pointedly, eyes grabbing hers. Then he let his expression soften. “Now, let me catch you up. Elliott picked up your cab at the depot and followed you to Graceland. We were on him right away, tailed him tailing you to the restaurant, then back here. We were ready to step in if he moved on you but he was just surveilling. After the fuck-up this morning he probably figures he’s got only one more chance to get it right.

“When he saw you and Doe come in here, he checked into the hotel across the street. You can bet he’s got a room where he can watch the entrance, keep tabs on the two of you coming and going. I had Four sneak into the garage and put a tracker on his car, then sent him and Three off to rent another car. We’ll need something besides the van.

“Elliott will have to move quickly. He’s Frank Bernabe’s boy, and Frank can’t be too happy about how things went down this morning. But he can’t afford another half-assed attempt either so he’s going to pick the time and place he thinks will give him his best shot. What I want you and Doe to do is establish a routine, regular as clockwork. We’ll keep eyes on Elliott, find out who’s working with him, what he’s got planned. If I know Bernabe, this isn’t a straight shot to the pocket. It’s a double or triple carom. So we need Elliott to show his hand, maybe show Bernabe’s hand, before we roll the fucker up.”

He eyed Sheila Boniface closely again.

“Are you sure you can do this?”

Her own eyes filled with gratitude. And fire. “Let me get cleaned up,” she said. “Then I’ll go find John and bait the trap for Mr. Elliott.”

* * *

Sheila Boniface and John Doe began establishing their routine that night. It was a pleasant routine, the routine of two people getting to know each other in a new and largely unexplored city. If it weren’t for the fact that someone was trying to kill them, they could have been a young couple enjoying their first vacation.

To restrict the area in which Elliott would have to operate they stuck close to downtown. In the morning they’d walk to an upscale coffee shop for breakfast, then stroll for several blocks to work it off. Lunch would be at another restaurant within walking distance, followed by a visit to one of the many expected tourist attractions. Dinner would be similarly regular, with the night ending at The Blues Room on Beale Street, where they’d hang out and drink beer until it shut down around 2 a.m. John Doe thought it odd his partner had such a fetish for planning out their days so precisely, but in the flush of the moment he was willing to overlook it.

They followed that routine for two days. Sheila Boniface saw no sign of Leland Elliott or her colleagues, though she knew they were there. The tension and release of her situation—tasked with protecting a subject of national stature from hired killers without giving anything away and still nurturing the first tender buds of a relationship made her feel like a human spring. But that’s the job you signed up for, she told herself, not at all unhappily. It could be a whole lot worse.

Their third day began like the others. Breakfast, walk, back to the hotel for some quiet time alone. Then lunch, a tourist attraction. After that, more quiet time at the hotel. Then drinks at a Beale Street bar, dinner and the Blues Room.

Unlike the other days, though, this day Leland Elliott didn’t follow. While Sheila Boniface and John Doe were having a leisurely breakfast, Elliott eased his silver Ford out of the hotel garage and drove a few blocks to a giant downtown shopping complex that had gone from potential revitalizing urban hope to semi-abandoned white elephant when the bottom dropped out of the economy. He eased into the complex’s mammoth, multistory parking garage; even during the day it was too deserted for Blue One to safely follow, so he settled for parking across the street from the exit and watching the blinking red dot of Elliott’s GPS tracker circling the garage’s perimeter until it reached the top floor.

Blue One immediately grasped the nature of Elliott’s plan. The top floor of the garage offered an unobstructed view of several blocks of Beale Street, in particular The Blues Room. It was a perfect sniper’s lair. But not during the day, when downtown crowds and traffic would make a clean escape difficult if not impossible. So it would have to be at night. And soon.

The red dot began winding back down to the street again. A minute later the silver Ford nudged out of the exit and took a path towards the airport. Blue One trailed several cars back as Elliott exited the Interstate and pulled into the parking lot of a suburban home improvement store. Twenty minutes later he emerged, wheeling a cart loaded with an adjustable workbench, plain metal work stool and a roll of black plastic sheeting. Then it was back on the Interstate to a generic suites hotel directly under the flight path of the hundreds of planes that flew in and out of Memphis International every day.

Elliott parked in back. Blue One parked in front, strolled around the hotel, peered around the corner at the silver Ford. It was parked next to a dirty-brown panel van facing the hotel’s back entrance. Elliott got out of the car, jingling the keys in his hand. Impatient. Waiting. A minute later a man pushed past the door, heading straight for Leland Elliott.

Actually, the newcomer was more boy than man. Big, pasty-skinned, muscles hidden beneath layers of baby fat. Head shaved, wife-beater t-shirt and baggy jeans, Confederate flag tattooed on a massive bicep. Blue One allowed himself a quiet chuckle. If this was Leland Elliott’s accomplice, the former head of Tutis International was scraping the bottom of the bottom of the barrel. This kid stood out like a turd in the punchbowl; a blind man could pick him out of a crowd a hundred miles away.

Even though the kid had at least seventy-five pounds and eight or nine inches on Elliott, he still flinched when the smaller man barked something at him. Elliott popped the Ford’s trunk and had the kid load the workbench, stool and sheeting into the van. They exchanged keys, Elliott barked something else, the kid flinched again. Elliott backed out of the space. The kid went back into the hotel. Blue One ran back to his car, waited until Elliott was out of the parking lot and on the street, set up a loose tail, spoke to Three and Four in their earbuds.

“Go to the top floor of the parking garage of that shopping center north of Beale Street and make a note of what you see,” he said. “Then meet me in my room in half an hour. I think I know what Elliott is up to.”

* * *

The attempt on John Doe’s life went down that night.

He and Sheila Boniface left the hotel before dark, walked the few blocks to Beale Street. Leland Elliott watched and followed. Blue Three followed Elliott. Blue One and Four parked the white van on Second just past Beale. They slapped a fake Official Use placard on the dashboard and joined the crowd loitering in the street in front of The Blues Room.

Sheila Boniface was having a hard time and working hard not to show it. It wasn’t using herself as bait for Leland Elliott’s assassins; that was her job. It wasn’t even putting John Doe on the same hook. He’d already put himself in harm’s way; if it weren’t for her and her teammates he’d be dead already. No, what stuck in Sheila Boniface’s conscience like a thorn was the hurt and disappointment she knew she’d see on his face when he found out the game she was playing. But it wasn’t a game. And she wasn’t playing.

They stopped for dinner at a café where the food tasted like cardboard and their silences lasted longer than their attempts at conversation. The hurt and disappointment were already there as John Doe tried to draw her out, to recapture the bright, easy feeling of the past days, when everything was good and anything was possible. But she pushed him away and hurried them to The Blues Room, where she knew she could hide in the crowd and the loud, throbbing music.

The club was filling up as they threaded their way to the bar and sat on a pair of stools opposite the stage. Blue One had beaten them there. He sat at the stool closest to the entrance, absorbed in a glass of beer that appeared to be untouched. He’d lost his construction worker guise and now dressed the part of fading hipster—jeans, sandals, pastel t-shirt, lightweight sport coat. A few days worth of stubble. He didn’t look up or acknowledge their presence.