The Collective (40 page)

Cait snapped awake with a gasp and blinked, startled for a moment to find herself in a car instead of her bed. She had been dreaming that she and Sean had been in the stockroom in the back of Sweet Somethings. Leyla had been in the dream, but older—maybe four—and had pulled boxes of hand-dipped chocolates off the shelf, uncovering them and tasting each kind to see which she liked. Nizam had been there, too, standing in the shadows at the end of the aisle, a sad smile on his face as he watched them laugh over the faces Leyla made when she bit into chocolates she didn’t like.

A little bit of heaven
, she had said in the dream. Or maybe Leyla had said it, describing the taste of one of the candies.

Now, one glance at Lynch brought reality crashing back, and grim determination followed. They had pulled off the highway and parked in the short-term lot at a bus station, where other people waited to pick up arriving passengers. This late, there weren’t many, but they blended easily amongst the others sitting in their cars, some of their faces lit by the green glow from their dashboards.

Now Cait whipped around to check on Leyla. The baby was still full from the bottle Cait had given her, but she wasn’t likely to sleep all night in the car seat. For the moment, at least, there were none of the fussing and mewling sounds that would have accompanied her waking. Cait could hear her soft breathing, and it soothed her.

“You should have woken me,” she said quietly.

Lynch shrugged one shoulder. “As long as the baby’s not crying, I don’t mind. You need the rest.”

She studied the lines on his once-handsome face. “And you? Don’t tell me you got eight hours last night.”

“I’m all right. Anyway, we both need to be up now.”

Cait glanced at the clock and saw that he was right. They were supposed to meet up with Ronnie soon. She only hoped that Jordan would be with him.

Lynch started the car and pulled out of the bus station, turning onto the ramp that put them back on Route 84. They rode in silence for a quarter of an hour, and then they were getting off the highway again. Lynch stopped at a blinking red light and put on his left turn signal.

“You’re sure about those directions?” he asked.

Cait blinked, trying to clear the cobwebs of sleep from her mind. What had Ronnie said? Yes, left at the bottom of the ramp, under the highway, right at the second light, and Wendy’s would be just past the Comfort Inn.

“If I got it wrong, I’ll call him.”

Lynch nodded and took the turn, following the curve as the road brought them south, beneath the interstate.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“Trying to keep you and your daughter alive?”

“No,” she said. “Why did you buy the phone? You said I couldn’t trust anyone. Why are you taking me to meet Ronnie?”

Lynch half scowled. Cait figured she would get a scathing response, something about not getting in her way if she wanted to get herself and Leyla killed. Instead, his expression softened and he narrowed his eyes, keeping his gaze on the road.

“I’m not great at saving lives,” he said, his voice a dry rasp. “I can keep you running for a while, maybe keep you hidden, but forever? I don’t know. Quite frankly, you’re up against something so big that the odds of you living through it are shit. I figure if you’ve got friends who can really help, not just be a liability—and the guys who watched your back in Iraq sure count—then you can use them. Who am I to stop you? To tell you who to trust? Hell, I don’t trust
anyone
. I haven’t had anyone to trust in a long time.”

His words were steeped in pain.

“What about your people, the Resistance?”

Lynch’s sadness deepened. The car rolled to a stop at a red light, surreal and absurd given the absence of other vehicles
on the road. “The only one you can ever really count on to have your best interests at heart is yourself,” he said. “And sometimes, not even that.”

His despair felt suffocating, and she knew Lynch saw it on her face.

He exhaled. “Sorry. I’m not exactly a ray of sunshine.”

The light turned green and he accelerated, but his words were resonating inside Cait. She’d called on Ronnie because she trusted him and because he could help. Jordan had been her first choice, and she hoped that Ronnie had managed to reach him. And she couldn’t deny that, in the back of her mind it had occurred to her that it would be good to have them with her because they were soldiers. Because they knew how to pull the trigger and wouldn’t freeze in a fight.

But she needed more than muscle. Lynch had come to save her life, and even he would bet against her chances of survival. Conflicting urges clawed at her, tearing her apart. Without Leyla, her path would have been so much clearer. Just try to vanish, head for Mexico or maybe Eastern Europe, disappear and hope they didn’t catch up. But it would be so much harder to go unnoticed with a baby. She couldn’t risk putting Leyla’s life in the hands of anyone other than herself, but could they survive without taking risks? She didn’t think so.

Who can I trust?
she thought. And the answer came back clearly.
Sean
. No matter her fears or misgivings, she had to trust Sean.

Lynch turned right at the second light. Cait picked up the go-phone from the console and dialed the Hot Line.

Hercules answered on the third ring. “Who is this?”

The question was an accusation. Sean had told her only a few people knew that number, and none of them would ever give it out. It had been a secret fail-safe for Sean, just in case he ever got himself in too deep during a mission, or if Cait ever needed him while he was gone. Well, she needed him now, but he had gotten himself in much too deep this time, and had never had a chance to make the call.

Or had he?

“Tell me the truth, Herc,” she said.

“Caitlin?”

Lynch had slowed the Cadillac to a crawl. Now he pulled up to the curb in front of a closed liquor store, neon beer signs in the otherwise darkened windows, waiting for her to finish. He studied her, then glanced out at the street, pretending to mind his own business.

“Yes,” she said.

“Oh, thank God,” Herc said.

Her mouth felt dry. He sounded so earnest and she so desperately wanted to believe him.

“Tell me the truth,” she said again, her voice cracking with emotion. In the backseat, Leyla murmured in her sleep. “Is Sean really dead?”

“I’m sorry, Cait. He is. I’m very glad you called. I need to—”

“How did it happen?” she interrupted. “Did he call you? Did you know he was in trouble?”

“No. It just … he collapsed on a sidewalk in D.C.”

“Collapsed? What, like a heart attack, or—”

“We think someone took him off the board, Cait. But you’ve got to listen to me—”

“Took him off the … He was your best friend, Herc, and you’re talking like you’re Jason fucking Bourne? Who did it?”

Herc sighed. “Cait, please listen. You and Leyla are in real danger.”

She laughed bitterly. “No shit. What was your first clue? We need help, Brian. Sean always said I could call you.”

“And I’m glad you did. I’ll do whatever I can, but you’re in real danger and my reach only extends so far. You wanted to know who those guys were, the ones watching your house?”

Cait straightened in her seat. “You have an answer?”

“I do. The cars are owned by a company called Black Pine Worldwide. They’re a global security—”

“I know who they are. Mercenaries.”

“Among other things.” Herc hurried on, “The CEO is a guy named Leonard Shelby, former Marine Corps. His father was a war hero who served in the Senate. Anyway, what matters is that those cars were from Black Pine. The plates were originally assigned to them.”

Now that she knew who to hate, some of Cait’s fear evaporated. “The plates were supposed to be untraceable. Or fake.”

“Neither,” Herc said, “but they might as well be invisible. An order goes out from someone with enough power, and plates disappear from registries. They’re only logged in the files of the people who are supposed to step in and clean up if one of those blank plates ends up connected to a mess.”

“Like this one.”

“Yeah,” Herc said quietly. “Like this one. But you’ve got more than Black Pine to worry about. Leonard Shelby’s a private contractor. He doesn’t have the authority to order those plates invisible.”

“So who did?”

“A guy named Dwight Hollenbach. He runs the FBI’s domestic counterterrorism squad.”

Cait let her head sag, bringing her free hand to her temple. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I wish I was. I don’t understand any of it,” Herc said. “I’ve got to be very careful, but I’m doing a little back-channel digging, trying to figure out what Hollenbach or Shelby might have had against Sean that would be so huge they wouldn’t just kill him but go after you, too.”

A terrible chill, the winter of despair, filled the deepest parts of her. “It wasn’t Sean they wanted.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t Sean. It’s Leyla they want.”

“Leyla? Cait, what are you … what could any of this have to do with Leyla?”

With a shudder, she looked over at Lynch. The old man’s granite features had softened and for a moment she thought she saw real empathy in his eyes. Then he frowned and tapped at the dashboard clock—they were late meeting Ronnie and Jordan—and she realized it must have been a trick of the light. Lynch lived for his war. His interest in her and Leyla was in denying the enemy what they wanted, nothing more.

“Herc, listen, I’ve got to go. Watch your ass. I don’t want you to make yourself a target. But if there’s anything you can find out for me about Hollenbach or Shelby, do it. I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Caitlin, wait. What’s this thing about Leyla?”

“Tomorrow,” she said, and thumbed
END
. She shook her head, whispered something that was half curse and half prayer, and glanced at Lynch. “Let’s go. We need all the help we can get.”

The private jet had seating for twelve, but Josh and Chang were the only passengers. He’d been on small planes before and usually they were loud, roaring things that left his ears with the same tinny buzz as a rock concert. Not this one. Aside from a low hum and a kind of distant whistling, the jet seemed almost silent—which spoke volumes about the vast sums of money that had probably been spent on it. Homeland Security had gotten it on loan, short notice, from a prominent Boston law firm. If there was one thing Josh had learned in the time since he and Voss had moved from the FBI to ICD, it was that there were always strings waiting to be pulled. You just had to find the right ones.

The cabin lights were dimmed, presumably to allow them to get some sleep, but Josh figured they would be in the air such a short while that a nap would only make him feel more tired by the time they touched down.

To his left, across the small aisle, Nala Chang dozed lightly. She’d put her seat all the way back and curled up sideways, knees tucked up to her belly. At peace, she had a beauty only hinted at while she worked. In the time they had spent together, he had usually seen her full of purpose or troubled, intent upon something. But in repose, she had a tender sweetness that made her seem delicate, even fragile.

Chang would be furious if he ever expressed that thought aloud. Seeing her like this, though, together in that intimate
silence, made him want to protect her. And that was a very dangerous thing indeed.

Josh forced himself to turn and look out the window, but there was nothing to see out there except darkness.
This is a bad idea
, he thought. He smiled to himself as he looked back at Chang.
Besides, Rachael would kill you
.

“What’s funny?” Chang asked, gazing at him through half-lidded eyes. In the dimly lit cabin he hadn’t noticed that she’d begun to wake.

“You. You’ve got a little bit of drool going, right there,” he said, touching the corner of his mouth to demonstrate.

Chang made a face and reached up to wipe her mouth. Finding nothing, she shot him a withering glare.

“Nice. Make fun of the sleeping girl.”

“I also shaved your eyebrows and drew on a funny handlebar mustache.”

Chang sighed, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “You do know I carry a gun?”

“It occurred to me, but too late.”

“You’re a riot,” she said, turning the other way and closing her eyes again. In moments she was so still that Josh thought she had fallen back to sleep, and then she continued. “So, what’s the story with you and your partner?”

The plane rumbled through a small pocket of turbulence. Josh stared at her back, trying to sort out the meaning of the question.

“The story?”

“Just wondering if you’re sleeping together. You two have a vibe.”

Josh glanced out the window, saw city lights below, and tried to gauge how long until they landed. Suddenly the plane’s cabin felt even smaller.

“No,” he said. “We’re not sleeping together.”

Twenty or thirty seconds ticked by in silence. Just when he was absolutely certain that this time she really had fallen back to sleep, he heard her speak again.

“Good.”