Checkmate (31 page)

Kurt Mason arrived back in Charlotte and entered the house in Fourth Ward.

He went online, clicked his way through the firewalls and into the Knoxville Southeast's dispatch office to keep an eye on the arrival of M343's engineer and conductor at the rail yard in Spartanburg.

+ + + +

While I was on my way Uptown, I got word from Ralph: They decided to have the doctors break Brineesha's water. Clear fluid, a good sign. She was dilated six centimeters. Things were moving forward. They expected the baby sometime in the next few hours. And, while I was relieved, I was also distracted by thinking about what was going on right here, right now, in Charlotte.

I parked, put the items I'd picked up from the university in my pocket, and I was walking over to meet with Ingersoll and his team when a call came in from Angela at Cyber. “It sounds like there's an echo on that audio from your conversation with Basque,” she said. “Like he might be in a long, narrow room.”

“An echo?”

“It's faint, but when I enhance the digital signature, I can catch hold of it.”

“Can you analyze the acoustics? Figure out the shape of the room?”

“Not unless I have a baseline of his voice in a known space.”

I thought for a moment. “I spoke with him in April, a Friday—it would have been the eleventh or twelfth—in one of their interrogation rooms there at HQ. Pull up the copy of the audio and the room's dimensions.”

“Good. I'll see what I can find out.”

*   *   *

I convened with Voss, Ingersoll, and two other members of the Hostage Rescue Team in the kitchen of a restaurant just down the block from the intersection where I was going to be meeting with Basque.

While I put on a Kevlar vest, Ingersoll gave me the rundown. “We have three snipers on nearby buildings and four undercover agents—two in nearby restaurants, one dressed as a homeless man, one as a jogger who'll be stretching out nearby. SWAT's on call and two ambulances are around the corner, parked one block away. I'll be across the street in the lobby of a hotel. Stay in radio contact. If you run into any trouble let us know and we will take him out.”

“Understood.”

I zipped up a light Windbreaker to cover the body armor so I could look as inconspicuous as possible.

Recently, for field ops, the Bureau had switched to wireless mics and receiver patches that you wear discreetly behind your ear.

Ingersoll gave me a set of plastic flex cuffs and an automatic knife, and I put them in my pocket.

After I'd tested my radio patch, I stepped outside into the sunlight, and at one fifteen I started down the street toward Independence Square.

*   *   *

My senses seemed sharper than normal. I felt the heat of the sun pricking the back of my neck, smelled the scent of coconut sunscreen as a cluster of giggling junior-high girls passed me on the sidewalk, heard snippets of conversations from people talking on their cell phones as they walked by.

It all became clear, as if life were slowing down, my body preparing me to be more ready than I'd ever been to meet with someone.

As I neared the corner, I could see that it was bustling with people: the lunch crowd finding their way to the nearby restaurants, parents out with their kids heading to one of the city's parks or museums, some folks just out enjoying the summer Saturday. I counted twenty-nine people in the close vicinity of the intersection.

“What do we have?” Ingersoll asked from the other end of the radio. “Anything? Any visual?”

“Negative,” I said.

Is Basque really going to meet you here?

How is he going to pull that off?

Arriving at the corner, I scanned the people surrounding me for anyone with Basque's build. He was as tall as I was and muscular, athletic. Even if he were wearing a disguise, he couldn't have hidden his size.

No one fit the bill.

How did he do that with the cell phone and the Bank of America building? How—

Oh.

An echo.

Yes.

Then I had it, or at least I thought I did.

Yesterday morning when Guido was showing Ralph
and me around Charlotte he'd mentioned that for a news special a reporter had walked through the storm-sewer tunnels to show how vulnerable and easily accessible they are. She'd had phone reception most of the way.

No, Basque wasn't in the building.

He was under it.

I was evaluating that possibility and its implications when a young man locked eyes with me and started toward me. Early twenties, Caucasian, 1970s sideburns. He looked disoriented, in a daze.

“Someone's coming,” I said into my radio. “Hold positions. Do not move.”

He lurched forward, his steps choppy and uneven.

Is he high? Drunk? Drugged?

I approached him cautiously. “Sir? Are you alright?”

“Are you Patrick?” His voice was as unsteady as his gait.

He knows your name.

Basque sent him.

He had both of his hands in his pockets. I couldn't tell if he had a weapon.

This was not the time to take unnecessary risks. I drew my gun. “Hands where I can see them. Now.”

As soon as I unholstered my weapon, people gasped, screamed. Began to clear the area.

Maybe that was what Basque wanted.

There was no way to tell.

The young man removed his hands.

His left one was empty. In his right he held a flip phone.

“Hold positions,” I said into my radio.

He extended his hand to me, offering me the phone. “I have a message for you from Richard.”

My heart was hammering. An explosive device? Was this guy a suicide bomber? I tried to decide whether or not to move closer.

He was three meters away.

A trap?

No. Richard contacted you. He wants to meet you.

Maybe he wants to kill you after all.

“Set down the phone,” I said. “Do it slowly, then step away.”

But before he could comply, he went limp and collapsed onto the pavement.

Holstering my weapon, I rushed toward him. Checked his vitals.

He was breathing. Had a pulse. Strong, steady.

I put a hand beneath his neck to support his head.

The phone he'd been holding had dropped when he fell. Now it rang. I snatched it up. “Richard, what did you do?”

“The nearest manhole southwest on Tryon. Open it, go down the ladder. If anyone follows you I won't give you the antivenom. Lose your radio and your phone. You have five minutes before he dies of respiratory arrest. Go.”

I leapt to my feet and scanned the area for the manhole. “Get an ambulance here now,” I said into the radio.

As the young man gasped for breath, the undercover agents posing as the homeless man and the jogger hastened to assist him. I ran to the manhole, wrestled the cover off, tossed my own cell phone to the side, and ripped off and discarded the radio patch.

I kept the flip phone.

Ingersoll and one of the agents who'd been stationed in the restaurant across the street were racing toward me.

“Cover this hole behind me,” I told them. “Do not follow me or that man will die.”

I scrambled down the ladder and landed in ankle-deep water in the storm-sewer system that, according to what Guido had told us the other day, contained three thousand miles' worth of tunnels.

I drew my weapon again.

Narrow shafts of light angled through the storm grates that appeared sporadically overhead, but still the tunnel was dim compared to the blazing day outside. I used the Maglite that Voss had gotten for me to scrutinize the tunnel, but there was no sign of Basque.

The flip phone worked, but the reception was grainy and I was afraid it was going to fade out all the way. “Where are you?”

“Southeast” . . .
Static
 . . . “Go a quarter mile.”

How are you supposed to gauge the distance down here?

“You said antivenom. Where is it?”

“Go.”

I pocketed the flip phone.

Knowing approximately how fast I can run a mile, I checked my watch and took off. In these conditions and with the wounded ankle from my fall in the mine shaft, I might be able to break ninety seconds for a quarter mile, but it was going to be tough.

As I sprinted through the ankle-deep water, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other, I recalled a time when I'd chased Basque through a series of tunnels similar to these in DC, and I wondered if that's why he'd chosen to connect with me this way.

A quick look at my watch: I figured I had another thirty seconds or so of running.

I passed three intersecting tunnels and eventually came to a ladder.

Checked my watch.

The time looked about right.

No other tunnels or access ladders close by.

I tried the flip phone but got no reception.

Quickly evaluating how long it'd taken me to get here, the distance, the direction, and thinking back to the 3-D hologram of Charlotte that I'd studied earlier, I tried to calculate where I was, but after a few seconds when I came up short I didn't spend any extra time pondering things.

Go up. Check it out.

After slipping the flashlight and phone into my pockets, I muscled the manhole cover aside and, gun drawn, emerged inside a shielded construction zone for one of the new high-rise condos being put up. The work had paused for the weekend. No one appeared to be present.

As I climbed out, a canvas sheet blocked the view from the street and a tarp that stretched overhead blocked the view from the sky.

When the phone rang again I checked it. Basque's voice came through: “Slide the cover back over the hole.”

I did.

“Okay, enter the building.”

The half-finished structure that rose before me reminded me in a macabre way of a body with the skin and flesh removed—a steel skeleton rising toward the sky. An appropriate, if unsettling, image, considering who I was here to meet.

Ahead of me, at the far end of what I assumed would be a hallway extending out from the building's main lobby when it was finished, stood a figure, vague in the
vacant light, but even from here I could tell that he was well-built.

“Patrick,” he said.

I aimed the Glock at his chest. “Hands to the side, Richard.” I'd just sprinted a quarter mile as fast as I could and was still catching my breath.

He raised his hands and held them out, palms forward. He was ten meters away.

“Where's the antivenom?” I asked.

“Give me your phone and I'll call it in.”

“Use yours.”

“I already got rid of it.” He indicated the remains of the phone with his foot. “You're wasting time, Pat. Give me the flip phone.”

Richard had a history of working with partners, and I had no way of knowing if he had someone hidden nearby right now. This could be an ambush.

I edged closer to him. Saw no one else nearby. At three meters away I slid him the cell phone but didn't take my gun off him. “Make the call.”

He picked it up. Tapped in 911. “This is concerning the man who was found on the corner of Trade and Tryon a few minutes go. He's suffering from the venom of a monocled cobra. There are ten vials of antivenom taped to the bottom of the garbage can at the corner of North College and East Fifth Street. You'll probably need all of it.”

He closed up the phone.

“Cobra venom?”

“A new interest of mine.”

“Will they have time to save him?” I asked. “Do not lie to me.”

“It'll be close. They should be able to stabilize him during transport to the hospital. I'm guessing you had
ambulances close by before you came to meet with me, just in case.”

“We did.”

“I'm going to destroy this phone. We can't have anyone interrupting us. When I'm done saying what I need to say, you can take me in if you wish.”

I could work with that.

“Go ahead.”

He snapped the phone in half, then dropped the pieces and stomped the two halves beneath his heel.

“Do you have any weapons on you?” I asked.

“No.”

“I'm going to pat you down.”

He complied. I had him turn and face the unfinished wall. As far as I knew he'd never studied hand-to-hand combat or martial arts, but I'd faced off with him before and he could hold his own in a fight. He was resourceful and he was tough, so I was dialed in, focused, as I frisked him.

Clean.

“Hands behind your back.”

He hesitated so I drew his hands back for him. Using the plastic flex cuffs Ingersoll had provided me with, I secured Basque's hands, then turned him around to face me.

I felt like punching him hard for payback for envenomating the young man. I barely managed to hold back.

“Are we alone?” I asked him.

“Yes.”

Though he was cuffed I kept the Glock out and ready. “Do you know where Mason is?”

“No. But I know how to find him.”

“And how is that?”

“I know the alias Mason has been using.”

“Danny Everhart. We already have that.”

“Not that one. The other one. He'll still be in the area. He wants to be close by when it all goes down.”

“When what goes down?”

“What he has planned for this afternoon. Listen, I need the Bureau's resources and you need my information. It's the only way we'll find him. You know Mason: He's good. He'll disappear. We don't have much time.”

“We don't have much time before what, Richard? What does he have planned?”

“I can't tell you that, not until we've tracked him down—but if we don't do it in the next few hours, it'll be too late.”

In the mine shaft, Mason told you that he was glad you were alive so you would be around for the climax tonight—not this afternoon.

Two events? Is that what we're looking at here?

“You're not making sense. If you know how to find him, why contact me? Why go through all this, set up this elaborate meeting? Why not just go after him yourself?”

“Like I said, you have resources I need. I tried finding him myself but I couldn't. Neither one of us can catch him in time on our own.”

“You keep telling me that we don't have much time. What's his plan?”

“It has to do with the Cathouse Signal. That's all I can say.”

“What does that mean—the Cathouse Signal?” But even as I asked him the question I knew he wasn't going to answer me.

And he didn't.

“Is Mason working alone?” I said.

“I don't know. He might have a person in DC.”

“How do you even know what he's up to here?”

“We've spoken a couple times since his escape. That's all I can tell you.”

I eyed him. “I could take you in right now.”

“Yes, but then you won't find him in time.”

“So what's this proposal of yours?” I said. “You help me find him? What's in it for you?”

“After we locate him, you leave me alone with him for five minutes, maybe in the back of a police car, in a room while you're going for backup—whatever you come up with. Five minutes, that's all I need. And then after that, you can take me in—or shoot me like you did when we were at the river in April. Your choice.”

“You know I can't make a deal like that.”

“Think about it. Innocent people are going to die. Do we both get what we want or do we both suffer and let Mason win?”

“You're going to kill him.”

“Yes.”

“You know I can't stand by and let you kill an unarmed man.”

“I was unarmed by the Potomac when you shot me. How is that any different from what I'm proposing?”

Once more I was tempted to punch him, this time just for annoying me.

You've got Richard now. Bring him in. Move on from there.

But Mason would still be free, and if Basque was telling the truth—and right now I did believe that he was—more people would die this afternoon.

You can't do this. If you agree to leave Basque alone with Mason, he'll murder him. You'd be going against everything you've sworn to uphold.

My conversation with Lien-hua echoed in my mind:

“Don't let him steal from you the thing you care about most.”

“My family?”

“Your integrity.”

I made my decision and grabbed Basque's arm to take him to the street, where I would find someone, anyone, with a phone and use it to call for a unit, and we would have Basque in custody once and for all.

We could work through things then. Find Mason on our own. Stop whatever it was he had planned.

But how do you know? Can you be sure you'll find him in time? You don't even have any leads.

As I started firmly escorting Richard out of the building he said, “Patrick, you won't find Mason without my help. If you take me in now, I won't help you, and I guarantee that by the end of the day you'll wish you had taken me up on my offer.”

I kept going. “I'll find Mason.”

“Maybe, eventually, but not by three thirty.”

Mason mentioned this evening, so, regarding the timing, one of these guys was lying—or we were looking at two separate events.

“Is it at three thirty?” I said. “Or is it tonight?”

He was quiet.

Lien-hua had asked me to promise to bring Basque in rather than the alternative—she wanted me to avoid doing something that either of us would regret.

And letting innocent people die this afternoon would definitely be something to regret.

Richard is right. You have the opportunity to save people and to get both him and Mason out of the picture.

Once more, a discussion with my wife came to mind: “What haunts you the most? The pain you've already seen or the pain you will see?”

“The pain I won't be able to stop,” I'd told her.

And this was pain I was able to stop.

I couldn't believe I was even considering this.

But if you do this thing, you'll have both Basque and Mason off the streets. Either get both killers and save innocent people or chance that more might die. Semtex. Two hundred pounds of it. Mason has something big planned.

But what about protocol? You'll lose your job if you work with Basque.

Right now job security was not exactly at the top of my list of concerns.

“How many people are we talking about with what Mason has planned?”

“All I can really tell you is that he's going to make a memorable statement.”

“And you won't tell me what it is until we catch him?”

“When we have him, I'll give you what you need to know.”

“And I take you in when it's done?”

“Yes. Or kill me. You choose.”

I knew my preference there—but I also knew that unless the circumstances required it I had an obligation to something higher than my preferences.

Well, it was a good thing I'd come prepared for something along these lines.

Sirens whined in the distance and I wondered how long it would take Ingersoll and his men to find me. Even without any way of tracing my location, I had the sense that they would be able to track me down.

I unpocketed the case containing the syringe and rubber tubing I'd gotten from Professor O'Brien on my way from the Field Office.

Man, I was tempted to just punch this syringe into Basque's leg, but when I'd picked it up from O'Brien, he'd told me the injection needed to be in the bloodstream, not just the muscle.

With Basque's hands restrained behind him, the angle wasn't right to get the needle into his vein.

“Stand still.” Using the knife Ingersoll had lent me, I freed his hands.

I removed the syringe from the case.

“You're going to drug me?” Basque asked.

“We're going to tag you. Pull up your shirtsleeve.”

As he slid his left sleeve up over his elbow he looked at me somewhat uneasily. “What do you mean?”

“You're going to inject this into your arm.”

“What is it?”

“Nanobots.”

“Nanobots?”

Just the idea of stabbing a needle into a person's arm unsettled me.

Needles.

Man, I hate needles.

“In your vein.” I handed him the length of rubber tubing to tie off on his bicep to allow his vein to become more prominent. “We want them in your bloodstream. If you miss the vein I'm taking you in right now.”

He tied off the tubing, using his teeth to pull it tight, then positioned the needle against his vein.

“Why am I injecting nanobots into my blood? Are these the kind that send back video images?”

“No. They're the kind that can track where you are. I
thought about an ankle bracelet, but I've tried those before and it hasn't always worked out as well as I'd hoped.”

“You can get them off.”

“It's not easy, but yes. It is possible. Now, go on.”

Richard slid the tip of the needle into his arm. “So, you knew all along you might be working with me?”

“I knew all along that I would want to keep tabs on you.”

He injected the nanobots.

“So,” he said, “these bots, you have some kind of a sensor or GPS tracker to follow me?”