Collateral Damage (36 page)

“No.”

“Matt, he needs to know.”

“Why? You didn't do anything wrong.”

“But suppose I had? Bill Lester is a good cop. He wouldn't let this slide.”

“That's exactly why I didn't tell him.”

“Call him, Matt. Now. Bring him up to date.”

“Okay,” I said. “I'll call him tonight.”

She frowned. “Why in the world would someone go to all that trouble to implicate me?”

“More misdirection,” said Logan. “It'd be no big deal for the CIA to tap into the computers at the Otto Foundation and their bank. They could have set up the whole thing so that it looked as if Nigella was receiving money into that account for months. Then, suddenly the money started going to the Sarasota bank and J.D. was withdrawing it. They just added J.D.'s Social Security number to the mix to make it seem more authentic.”

I shook my head. “But that would presuppose they knew that we'd get into Stanley's computers and follow up on the bank's.”

“No big deal,” said Logan. “They'd pointed you at Stanley and could guess that you and Jock would follow up and stumble across the drugs and the accounts. The CIA, or whoever, must have known that you knew about Stanley being Bracewell.”

“I don't see how anybody could have picked up on that information,” I said. “It was kept pretty close. Just the memos to J.D. and Doc and to my own file.”

“Maybe they hacked into your computer,” said Logan.

“I think I can explain it,” said Doc. “My office computers had been compromised. Somebody set them up so that everything was being mirrored on an off-site computer.”

“I'm not sure I understand,” I said.

“A month or so ago we upgraded our entire system. An outside vendor came in and spent a couple of weeks reworking things. I think one of their people fixed our system so that anything that was on it was being seen on another computer somewhere else in the world. All my e-mails would have been intercepted.”

“Including the memos I sent you.”

“Right. I didn't think about that until Saturday afternoon late. I rousted our IT guy and had him check out the system. He spent all night working on it and found the back door or whatever the hell they call those things. He couldn't track where the signal was going. I figured it had to be CIA.”

“Can you trust your IT guy?” asked Jock.

“Yes. He's been with me from the beginning. He'll keep quiet about what he found.”

“So,” said Logan, “the CIA or whoever was reading your memos, Matt.”

“I don't believe it's the CIA,” said Jock. “There may be a rogue element that's involved, but the agency itself wouldn't take a chance on getting caught up in something like this.”

“And,” I asked, “who are the Asians we keep bumping into?”

“There're only five of them that we know about,” said Jock. “The guy whose elbow you broke, the woman he was with, and the guy who hired Bates to kill Matt. The three of them were aboard
Dulcimer
the night of the murders. The fourth one is the guy who held a shotgun on us at Stanley's house in Macon, and of course, there's Nigella Morrissey. Nigella's Vietnamese and the guy at Stanley's house spoke Vietnamese. Maybe the other three are Vietnamese, too.”

“Vietnamese working for the CIA?” I asked.

“The four that anybody heard speak English, including Nigella, are probably American born or at least have been here most of their lives,” said Jock. “Maybe they've been recruited by some rogues in the agency.”

“Or maybe,” said Logan, “this is personal.”

“What do you mean?” asked J.D.

“Maybe the ghosts of Ban Touk are coming home to roost,” Logan said.

I thought he might be right. Avenging angels riding a dark wind blowing from the village. A wind not unlike the one that fueled the fire and consumed the dead on that fateful night so many years before.

Dinner was a simple affair. Doc had a large grill built into his patio, a summer kitchen I think it's called. He grilled fresh grouper steaks for eleven; Jock, Logan, J.D., me, and the seven surviving members of Team Charlie. Harrison Fleming tossed the salad and heated the bread in the built-in electric oven. The wind was up so the small bugs that like to bite were kept away. We ate the steaks, salad, and bread and drank some very good wine around a big table next to the pool, overlooking the clear water of the sound. We talked of things of little importance, putting off the serious stuff, as if by agreement, until we finished dinner.

Doc cleared the plates and stashed them in a dishwasher under the counter. He brought more wine from the interior of the house, and we settled in for an evening of decision. We were stumped as to who was after us and what we could do to protect ourselves and the families of the team members.

I learned some more about how we ended up at this house in the Bahamas. On Sunday, J.D. had made the calls to police officials in all the towns where the surviving members lived, working from the list Doc had given her the night before. She discovered the deaths of Don Lemuel's son in North Dakota and Conrad Dixson's daughter on the campus of the University of Virginia. Neither Galis nor Wright, who lived in Kentucky, had suffered a loss.

J.D. called Doc before noon and gave him the information she'd found. Doc called each of the team members and using the code told them of the danger. Each of them had contingency arrangements in case something like this happened. They sent their families to the prearranged places and started making their way to Fort Lauderdale.

Doc had remembered Telson and called him at home on Saturday afternoon when things started coming apart. He told him he'd like to hire him for a few days to do some top-secret work. The work involved his company and secrecy was of the utmost importance. The job would involve flying, perhaps out of the country, but Doc couldn't tell him anything else. The pay was equal to what Telson would earn in six months working regularly.

Telson had rented an executive jet in his name, telling the owners that he had a copilot lined up to help him fly the craft. He lied, but since he was paying cash and had all the proper licenses and certificates from the Federal Aviation Administration, they let him have the plane. Doc didn't think anyone would ever connect him to Telson since their dealings had in the past always been through the company Telson worked for.

On Sunday, Telson flew the jet he had rented to Lexington, Kentucky, where he picked up Ben Wright. From there they went to North Dakota, to the airport at Minot and picked up Don Lemuel. Then to Charlotte to fetch George Brewster and back to Atlanta. It was late in the afternoon by the time they parked the plane on the tarmac at Charlie Brown Airport. Wright, Brewster, and Lemuel were put in separate hotels and told they'd be contacted by Doc later in the evening.

Conrad Dixson came by a more circuitous route. He left his home in Northern California on Saturday evening and took a bus to Medford, Oregon, paying cash. At the bus station in Medford he caught a cab to the airport where he checked into the private terminal using a false name. He was met by a man wearing a uniform of black trousers and a white short-sleeve dress shirt with the four stripes of a captain on his epaulets. “I understand we're going to Fort Lauderdale,” the captain said.

“That's right,” said Dixson.”

“Okay, sir. My name's Miller. My copilot's name is Nick. We're ready to go.”

They walked to a small jet, the cabin constructed for groups of only three or four executives. “We'll have to refuel in Denver and again in Memphis, but we'll have you there by about ten in the morning Eastern time.”

The plane had been chartered by Doc using one of his many companies, one that hopefully wouldn't be traced to him.

Paul Galis had driven to Fort Lauderdale from Key West in his assigned unmarked police cruiser. He told his boss he was going to Miami to investigate a case he was working on.

Each of the men was staying at different hotels under assumed names.

Early on Monday morning, Telson picked up the team members stashed in the Atlanta hotels and took them to Charlie Brown Airport. Doc was there, waiting with the plane. The greetings were effusive, lots of hugging and backslapping. Old soldiers returning to the fray.

They flew directly to Sarasota, and Doc asked Telson to rent a car and go to the nearest convenience store and buy a disposable cell phone. When Telson returned, Doc drove to Longboat Key to J.D.'s condo. It was a little after six and J.D. was up, preparing to report to work at seven. She was surprised to see Doc at her door and concerned about the urgency in his demeanor. She invited him into the condo.

“We've got to get you out of here. Right now,” he said.

“What's going on, Mr. Desmond?”

“Call me Chaz or Doc. Did Matt fill you in on Thanatos?”

“Thanatos?”

“It was a top-secret operation near the end of the Vietnam war. Teams were set up with twelve men each. Their only job was to assassinate enemy leaders.”

“Okay. Can't say I'm surprised.”

“I was on one of those teams. So were the three men whose children were killed recently. The ones you found out about yesterday. All the names on the list I gave you were part of a Thanatos team.”

“What's your connection?”

“I was on the same team.”

“I thought you were one of Matt's men.”

“I was. But after Matt got wounded the first time, I volunteered for Thanatos. It's a long story and I'll tell you later.”

“Why do we have to leave?”

“I found out last night that my computers have been compromised. I think all my e-mail is being read by somebody who is killing our children. The memos Matt sent had your name all over them.”

“I still don't see what this has got to do with my going with you.”

“If I'd thought about it the way I should have on Saturday, I wouldn't have asked you to make those calls. I'm beginning to think the CIA is involved in this.”

“You're crazy, Doc. Are you seeing boogie men under the bed, too?”

“I know that sounds a little nuts. But Thanatos was a CIA operation, and we killed the two CIA men who were assigned to our teams. I think it's time for a little revenge.”

“This is too much,” said J.D. “I still don't see how I'm involved.”

“If the CIA is involved, they've got very sophisticated methods to track the team members. I'm afraid I've put you in the crosshairs by asking you to follow up on the murders.”

“Let me call Matt.”

“No. You can't do that.”

“If I'm in danger, so is he.”

“He can take care of himself.”

“So can I. Either I talk to Matt, or I'm staying right here.”

Doc pulled a pistol, pointed it at J.D. “I'm sorry about this. But you're going with me.”

J.D.'s belt with pistol, mace, stun gun, and cuffs was resting over the back of the sofa. Doc got her cuffs, threw them to J.D. and said, “Put these on. Hands in front.”

“No way. You won't shoot me. That'd defeat your purpose. You tell me you're trying to get me out of harm's way, yet you'd shoot me? Doesn't make any sense at all.”

“Then I'll make a phone call and have a very good marksman kill Matt.”

J.D. held out her hand. “Cuff me. This isn't over. Not by a long shot.”

Doc cuffed her hands, pulled off his jacket, and placed it over the cuffs. They took the elevator to the first floor where Telson had pulled the rental car near the door. They got in and headed for the airport. They rode in silence, J.D. seething with anger, and Doc troubled by what he'd done to her.

At the plane Doc introduced her to Wright, Lemuel, Fleming, and Brewster. “I'm going to take the cuffs off now. You're free to go, but I'd like you to listen to these men before you make that decision.”

“You bastard. You threatened to kill Matt Royal.”

“I would never do that, J.D. Not in a million years. I owe him my life.”

“I thought it was the other way around. He told me about you taking him out of a fight when he got wounded.”

“He probably didn't tell you about the times he pulled my ass out of trouble.”

“No.”

“Twice. One time he pulled me out of a ditch while he was taking direct fire from a sniper. Matt would probably have been killed if Jimbo Merryman hadn't gotten the sniper. And I would have been dead meat if Matt hadn't come to get me and drawn the sniper's attention. Another time I was pinned down by four NVA regulars and was about out of ammo. Matt came in with his M16 on full automatic, threw a couple of grenades, and hauled me out of there. No, ma'am. I'd never hurt Matt Royal.”

J.D. turned to the other men. “I'm listening,” she said.

And when they finished with their stories, of the grief they felt at losing their children and the fear they had for the surviving members of their families, J.D. was convinced she could be of more help going with them than she could staying on Longboat Key.

On the short flight to Fort Lauderdale, Doc told J.D. of his fears of Jock's ties to the CIA. She told him that he was wrong, that Jock worked for another agency entirely, and that Matt was the closest thing he had to family. “Jock would die for Matt,” said J.D. “And Matt would die for Jock. It's that simple. The fact that you saved Matt's life means that you're forever on Jock's short list of people he'd die for. And I think he'd be the hardest person in the world to kill.”

“We're taking a boat from Lauderdale to Abaco,” said Doc. “When we get on the boat and are safely on our way, you call Matt and let him know you're okay.”

“Thanks, Doc. I'll feel better not having him worried.”

They landed in Lauderdale at a little after nine in the morning. Telson rented another car and went to the hotels to pick up the remaining members of the team. They all met in a suite Doc had rented at a large hotel with a marina. The suite was in Telson's name. Doc and Telson went
to buy a boat identical to the one Doc kept at his house in the Bahamas. Doc paid cash and put the title in Telson's name. Doc drove the boat back to the marina and moored it at one of the docks.