Favors and Lies (10 page)

“And . . .”

“It was on the news this morning.”

“Law enforcement is off limits.”

“It was unavoidable. But not all hope is lost.”

“Explain.”

“We gave the police some assistance in locating a suitable suspect.”

“Very well.”

Major stood from his chair, retrieved a large cardboard box from the corner of the room and placed it on the table with the top off. He removed several items from the box and put them on the table for Temple to assess as he spoke.

“We have made progress eliminating our tracks. Most of the boxes you see here are from the other location. We took the GPS from the boy's car. No trace there. We removed his computer from the dorm room. No trace there.”

Temple looked at the black laptop, opened the lid, and shut it again. “Was the hard drive destroyed?”

“Erased first then destroyed.”

“Good.”

“As for personal intelligence trails, there is no telling what he may have said to anyone. At this time, we have no indication that he spoke to anyone about our program. The uncle doesn't seem to know and it appears they were close.”

On the table, a cell phone started to vibrate.

“Whose phone is that?” Temple asked.

“It's the boy's. The one we issued to him.”

“Does someone want to tell me why the fuck it is still active? That thing should be scrap plastic by now.”

All three men watched as the phone vibrated in position, moving clockwise slowly.

Reed Temple stared for another few seconds before he picked up the phone and pressed talk.

A voice on the other end of the phone answered. “Hello.”

“Who is this?”

“Who is this?” a female's voice parroted.

There was a long pause, followed by, “Who were you trying to reach?”

“I was trying to reach Conner Lord.”

“He's dead,” Reed Temple said flatly.

“I know,” the female responded. “My name is Lindsay. I was Connor's girlfriend. Who am I speaking with?”

There was another pause and Temple disconnected the call with the punch of his thumb. He looked around the table and sweat appeared on Ridge's brow. Temple squeezed the phone in his hand until his knuckles turned white. In one swift motion he stood and threw the phone against the far wall with as much velocity as he could. Pieces of plastic scattered across the floor.

“Our orders are to sterilize. I assume I don't need to walk you step-by-step through the process.”

“No sir,” Major and Ridge replied in unison.

“Clean up this mess and I will get support for the other products in the pipeline.”

“What about the uncle?”

“Our orders are to stand down on the uncle until further notice. My superiors are concerned that three family members dying in the same week may get some play in the media. For now, sterilize.”

Temple stood from the table and pointed at the broken cell phone on the floor. “And that fucking thing better not ring again.”

Reed Temple walked out of the building in quick, strong strides.

—

In the basement, Major put Conner Lord's belongings back in the box as Ridge picked up the pieces of the broken phone.

“That was not a positive conversation,” Ridge stated plainly.

“Don't let it concern you. We have a paid-in-full contract with the CIA in the name of national security with immunity protection. And if our work with the CIA is terminated, there are other interested parties for our work. The US is the number one exporter of weapons and ammunition in the world. We work for something far more powerful than the CIA.”

“We do?”

“Yes. Corporate America.”

—

Dan stretched a twenty-five minute walk to forty. The air helped him think. But it didn't help him think he was wrong about his nephew or sister-in-law. His nose had always been good. Always. His gut rarely failed. He knew the planet was teeming with people who were far smarter than himself. Far more intelligent. Kids so bright they ended up in classrooms at MIT at sixteen. Kids who didn't understand their own intelligence, they just knew they could answer questions that stumped their high school teachers.

But Dan had a nose. A gut. He usually saw what was coming before it turned the corner. It was a watered-down version of a sixth sense, the capability of looking at the pieces of a puzzle and fitting them together to see the bigger picture. For him, it just happened. His grandmother had loved jigsaw puzzles. Dan's jigsaw puzzles were life, each piece a scene in his mind—a person on a street corner, an off-the-cuff comment made in passing. He paid attention to everything around him and the pieces just fell into place. Most of the world walked around in a state of reaction. He walked one step ahead. And that alone had kept him alive more times than he had the right for.

Dan walked away from Old Town Alexandria and the Potomac River, heading west down King Street and then turning right on Washington. He loved his city. Alexandria had it all. Million-dollar condos overlooking the river. Majestic townhouses built in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds on cobblestone streets still used by residential traffic. Twenty square blocks of housing projects so crime-ridden even the roaches ducked and weaved when entering. And every neighborhood in between.

Five blocks up Washington Street, Dan took a left and the neighborhood quickly transformed to lower-rent housing. The street was darker. The cars were dilapidated, former modes of transportation in need of various repairs. A missing wheel to the left. A broken windshield on the other side of the street.

He kept his eyes open and his head on a casual swivel. He noticed the group of young men on the porch across the street as they whispered and nodded in his direction. He felt a car drive slowly by, its occupants measuring him. He turned to make eye contact with the driver and the car accelerated to the next block and punched it through the corner, wheels spinning on the pavement. A hundred yards ahead, the sign of his destination peaked through the leaves of a leaning tree holding on to the final vestige of fall foliage.

Dan knocked on the door under the Bail Bondsman sign attached to the brick façade. He smiled upward at the security camera over the doorframe and waved. A faint buzzer buzzed in reply, and the door lock clicked. Dan stepped into the office of the converted two-story shotgun house. A client waiting area spread across what used to be a narrow living room. A small desk sat in the corner, littered with unorganized paper and unopened mail. A lone light in the corner illuminated half the room. A voice rang out from the former kitchen at the back of the house and Dan announced himself to the empty room, his voice echoing slightly. “It's Dan.”

A head popped around the corner. “Come on back,” the man said with a hint of franticness.

The kitchen at the back of the house was now a private room designed for playing cards, drinking, shit-kicking, and any number of illicit activities that could have its bail bondsman proprietor in need of his own services. The room was where real deals were completed—the front of the establishment reserved for official business. Never would the two mix company.

Steven Ricks went by “Striker,” a moniker created from the combined bastardization of his first and last name. It was a name he'd been answering to for so long he couldn't remember who tagged him with it first. The use of the name infiltrated every corner of his life. Teachers, family members, and doctors alike adopted the name with equal enthusiasm.

Most bail bondsmen, Striker's brethren, ran their businesses from small establishments that encircled the nearest courthouse. Tiny offices that shone neon signs towards the steps of justice, close enough for relatives or friends of the indicted to fall from the courthouse stairs to the nearest bail bondsman's office.

Alexandria was different.

Four blocks from the water, the Alexandria Courthouse stood in the middle of property selling for a thousand dollars a square foot. It promoted a price on rent few bail bondsmen could cover bailing out local prostitutes. Most of the people Striker bailed out would have been flight risks, if not for the fact they didn't have money to run. He dredged the bottom of the criminal justice system and came up with enough small fish to keep himself in official business two miles from the courthouse. He bailed out the occasional whale and took chances on people with short records, but most of his income came from peripheral side-jobs. The legitimate side of the business was enough to keep the IRS from getting too suspicious. He had cash in bank accounts with fake names, in footlockers at various storage facilities, in a dozen safety deposit boxes across an equal number of states. Striker, as if the name alone was insufficient indication, was omitted from the list of invitees to most hobnobbing black-tie affairs. But he was at the top of the go-to list when it came to garnering information not available through normal channels.

Dan's type of people.

Dan stepped into the backroom. A circular poker table engulfed one quarter or the room. A bar stood on the left where the kitchen counters and cabinets once hung. A small sink had replaced a larger one where dishes had once been cleaned after dinner. In the far corner was the establishment's lone restroom.

Striker, skinny with curiously wide shoulders, had his back to Dan as he entered the room. His dark hair was cut short. He was wearing jeans and a blue button-down shirt.

“Dan, good to see you.” Striker said, quickly zipping a black leather bag and putting it on the poker table. He flicked his head in the direction of the closed restroom door, just as the toilet flushed out of view.

A large white man exited the narrow door to the bathroom and cast a shadow on the poker table.

“Dan, this is Doyle.”

Dan extended his hand and Doyle latched onto it in one of those greetings meant to prove who the Alpha dog was. Dan squeezed back, turned Doyle's wrist slightly, and then pushed his weight forward. Doyle felt the redirection in the grip, then the subtle pain, and he let go. “Serious grip,” he complimented.

Striker emceed the introductions. “Doyle, Dan is an acquaintance of mine. He has done some surveillance and tracing for me in the past. I help him out from time to time. It works out.”

Doyle nodded at Dan, and Striker continued.

“Doyle here is helping me track down a couple of bail skippers. And a few other things.”

“Fugitive Recovery Agent,” he said, giving his profession an image boost through improved nomenclature. Doyle stood six three, two-forty, with short blonde hair and a physique that made office workers slink away in shame when he entered the gym.

Dan nodded. “You Australian?”

“Did the accent give it away?”

“It's faint, but there.”

“You ex-military?” Doyle asked.

“Why do you ask?”

“You have that look about you.”

“What look is that?”

“A certain look. Aura. Someone carrying a secret. Delta, Recon, Ranger, SEAL. The quiet professional. An operator with a don't-fuck-with-me demeanor. You're also the right size. Not too big, but strong. Most professionally trained killers are average size.”

“Most of the government-sanctioned killers.”

“Most.”

There was an awkward pause and then Dan took his turn. “And I am guessing you're probably ex-SAS. You've also been incarcerated for an extended period of time.”

“Guilty as charged. Military. Prison. Been to both. Can't say I prefer one over the other.”

“All right. That's enough reading each other's resumes,” Striker interrupted.

Dan looked at Doyle and then back at Striker. “I need to talk,” Dan said, hoping he could expedite the Australian's exit.

Doyle took the hint without missing a beat and picked up the leather bag from the poker table. He slapped Striker on the shoulder and nodded at Dan as he moved towards the back door. “Gentlemen,” he said before leaving, the hinges on the old door squeaking in salutation.

Dan slid onto a padded wooden chair at the poker table and watched as Striker moved a small box from the table to a shelf behind the bar.

“You looking for info or work? I have a few things on the arrest reports that you may be interested in. A congressman from New York got arrested Saturday night for running a red light. Claimed he was in a hurry to see his ill child. Turns out the child was illegitimate and he was on his way to his mistress's house. So far, the story hasn't broken.”

“If it breaks, I can't use it.”

“Had a Fairfax County Council Member arrested for getting a blowjob on a GW Parkway overlook. Male prostitute with pink lipstick.”

“Steve, I'm not here for work.” The use of Striker's real name was enough for the bail bondsmen to know it wasn't business-as-usual.

Striker nodded. “I heard about your sister-in-law and nephew.”

“Where did you hear?”

“Public channels. I recognized the name ‘Lord,' of course. Then I asked around. That's tough, man. Real tough. First a brother, then a nephew. I know you were a father figure to the kid. A sister-in-law can go either way, really, but a brother a few years back and now a nephew, that is family blood. I am truly sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“Tell me what's cooking.”

“I need to talk to tech support,” he said being cryptic for someone's name he knew but was cautious to use.

“Tobias?”

So much for caution.

“Yeah. You know where I can find him?”

“Did you try?”

Dan tap-danced around the answer. “Skip tracing is getting easier every day. I make a call, pay a fee, and they can tell me the last time you bought a cup of coffee or pissed it out. Tobias is different. Skip-tracing him is a dead-end.”

Striker ignored Dan's feign of ignorance. “How far did you get on your own?”

“I looked around. Tobias moved from that little shack in Del Ray.”

“From what I know, that place wasn't his anyway.”

“Well, he's not there.”

“I checked my contact at the phone company and got nothing. My contact ran a list of everyone with high-bandwidth Internet lines, or multiple lines, established in the last year. T3 and above. Anything going residential. The list is long and I don't have time to do a line-by-line.”

Striker joined Dan at a chair at the poker table and leaned back. “Yeah, man. Tobias's still around. Crazy as ever. Shit, crazier than ever.”

“You know where he is?”

“Fuck. Yeah. I know how to find him. But it's not that simple. Last time I sent someone to see him he wasn't happy. He shut down my website. Cut off my cell phone service. Took over all my email accounts. Just went off the reservation. Didn't want me giving out any info on him. Didn't want me introducing anyone. Said he's working on retirement and doesn't want to spend his golden years in solitary confinement.”

“Steve, I wouldn't ask if it weren't important.”

Striker picked a cigarette from the pack lying on the poker table. He lit the white stick of joy with a Zippo lighter and flipped the top shut with a smooth motion of the thumb. He blew a large bluish white cloud into the air over the table and finished his thought aloud. “I'll give you the address, but you can't tell him I sent you.”

“I'll tell him I found him through a source at the phone company. Or the cable company. Chances are he is using a lot of bandwidth, whatever he's up to. He has to be paying someone for it. I'll tell him I found him that way. Just going through the list of bandwidth hogs.”

“Pretty good cover story. It could work, theoretically. But it would take you forever to locate him that way.”

“I don't have forever.”

“Well, if we play it your way, I guess I'd only be giving you a shortcut to what you would find eventually anyway.”

“Exactly.”

“OK. I'll tell you where he is. But this is on you. Don't have this shit coming back to me. Tell him we had a falling out. Call me an asshole and a motherfucker if you have to. Spit on the ground at the mention of my name if it is called for.”

“I appreciate it.”

Striker took another long drag from his cigarette. “Anything else?”

“Yeah.” Dan reached into his jacket pocket and put a rectangular chunk of military explosive C-4 on the table. “I'm finished with this. Can you get me some PETN?”

Striker swiped the C-4 off the table, reached behind him and slid it into another drawer on left side of the bar.

“PETN? Sure. I can get it. The man I need to talk to just left.”

“Don't need to know that.”

“You know, military-grade explosives were designed to blow shit up. Not many people bring it back unused.”

“My money, my prerogative.”

“Fair enough, man. Fair enough. PETN is the same price as the C-4. You bring it back unused, I return half the purchase price.”

“I know the deal.”

“For Tobias, well, you're going to owe me one.”

Dan stood from the table. “Before this is over, I'm going to owe everyone.”