The Collective (49 page)

Turcotte had had enough. “You do realize you’re not involved in this case anymore, don’t you, Norris? Nor am I the one in charge. Yes, I’m following up on the avenues of the investigation that were assigned to me, but if you want in, you should talk to Josh Hart.”

A ripple of irritation passed over Norris’s features. It
pleased Turcotte to see evidence that he had gotten to the man.

“Unfortunately, Agent Hart is not returning my calls.”

“Have you tried his boss? You people have done such a bang-up job on this case so far, I’m sure Theodora Wood would be happy to hire you on to consult for the ICD.”

Norris smiled again, all teeth, like a shark—and with the dead eyes to make the look complete.

“I’d think very carefully about who you choose as allies, Turcotte.”

“I’ll do that.”

“And while you’re thinking,” Norris said, smile slipping from his face, “perhaps you know where I can find Agent Voss. I understand that Agent Hart is running the show while she recuperates from her injuries, but I’m hoping Voss can persuade him to accept my calls.”

It was Turcotte’s turn to smile. “Agent Voss went home to D.C. My people drove her to the airport.”

Norris studied him. “Agent Voss did not fly home. In fact, after your people dropped her off, she rented a car. She’s driving, Agent Turcotte. I’d like to know where she’s going.”

Turcotte frowned, genuinely curious. “Maybe she decided to drive home,” he suggested, though he did not believe that for a moment.

Norris glared at him, shook his head at what he obviously perceived as Turcotte’s foolishness, and shut the car door. After a moment, the tinted window slid down and Norris leaned over to look out at him.

“Perhaps I ought to have this conversation with your Special Agent Chang, since she’s in D.C. with Agent Hart,” Norris said. He looked thoughtful a moment, then continued, “I wonder, Turcotte. How does it feel to have the rug pulled out from under you after all the times you’ve done it to others?”

Turcotte laughed, wanting to throttle Norris, but happy to see the way his jaw tightened in anger. “Really?” he said. “You want to go there? I’m still working the case, asshole. You’re the one on the outside. How do you like the view?”

Without waiting for a reply, Turcotte turned and walked toward the rear entrance of the police station. He wanted to be
with real law enforcement people. The lowliest traffic cop was worth a thousand Norrises.

So much for Chang, Voss, and Hart trying to keep him out of it.

As Josh turned onto the New Jersey Turnpike, he caught Chang giving him a troubled look. The back of his neck prickled with heat and his body ached with the memory of their morning together.

She turned to watch the road ahead, her profile beautiful even when etched with gravitas. Josh told himself not to fall for her, that there were way too many complications.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Just worried. We should have flown.”

“We’re halfway there. By the time we’d arranged a plane and gotten into the air … not to mention the time it would’ve taken to drive from Newark … it didn’t make any sense. Besides, with a plane it would’ve been damned difficult to conceal our movements.” He frowned. “We’ve been through this.”

“I know,” she said, offering him a slim smile. “I’m just not a patient woman.”

“You sure nothing else is on your mind?” he asked.

Chang shook her head with a grin, then whacked him on the leg. “You’re so subtle. Seriously. Of course there are other things on my mind, but now isn’t the time.”

“No, I guess it’s not.”

Several minutes passed without any further conversation as Josh tried to find a decent radio station not fogged by static.

“So, Hoboken,” Chang said. “What do we do when we get there?”

Josh left the radio alone. He glanced at Chang and then
focused again on the road. An old ’80s pop song came on the radio—something he remembered from his childhood—and he turned up the volume.

“No idea. It’ll depend entirely on what Cait McCandless does next.”

Herc had spent most of the day in a kind of weird stasis, uncertain how to proceed. Boyce had been lurking behind closed doors ever since the ICD and FBI agents had left, but Herc couldn’t decide if he was having phone conferences with the big bosses or just praying that whoever was trying to cover up this shitstorm actually succeeded. Meanwhile, Herc had gone about his business as if nothing were wrong, studying topographical scans on his computer and analyzing data. But he carried the Hot Line phone in his pocket and it seemed impossibly heavy. Cait had called several times already, and every time the phone vibrated, he jumped.

In addition to his other duties, he had been working on a special project for Cait, and it wasn’t something he wanted to get caught doing. After the conversation he’d had with Agents Hart and Chang this morning, he had been waiting for the FBI to show up at his office door and charge him with conspiracy or domestic terrorism or the murder of Sean McCandless—any trumped-up charge that would allow them to throw him in a cell for the rest of his life and keep their secrets safe.

But hours had passed—it was after noon—and no one had materialized. Out in the corridor, people talked baseball and Hollywood scandals. His wife texted him to remind him they had dinner plans with Rich and Melinda Belinksy. Mundane e-mail kept arriving in his in-box. Andrea Ulman popped into his office to say she was going to get coffee, and did he
want some? Herc thought he was jittery enough without caffeine but he could feel a headache coming on, so he said yes.

Satisfied that he had done all he could and praying that no one in the monitoring suite would stumble across the new lines of code he had keyed in, he closed all of the related computer files and pushed away from his desk, just as Andrea reappeared in the doorway, holding two cups of iced coffee from the second-floor café.

“You do take sugar, right?”

“Usually two, but one’ll do.”

“It will, yeah,” Andrea said. “ ’Cause I’m not going back downstairs.”

Herc took the cup from her and they stepped out into the corridor, walking toward the monitoring room together. He sipped iced coffee through the straw and savored the taste.

“I’m weird,” he said. “Hot coffee I just take with cream, but I need sugar in iced.”

She arched an eyebrow. “And you think
that’s
why you’re weird?”

“Wow. I’m guessing when you were a kid your parents told you that you were funny.”

“Absolutely.”

Herc sipped again. “They probably also told you that you were the smartest girl in the world, that you sang beautifully, and that you’d be president someday.”

Andrea grinned. “Nice. One jolt of caffeine just wakes you right up.”

They stepped into the monitoring room. Three rows of terraced desks, each with its own personal monitoring station, faced walls of video screen that could be configured a thousand different ways. Right now, two of the three video walls in the hexagonal room showed familiar satellite views of foreign topography, mostly but not entirely Middle Eastern. By the right-hand wall, however, half a dozen people were gathered at the base of the screen, discussing what could only be an American highway, with cars and trucks racing in both directions, a shopping mall on one side and a sprawling townhouse development on the other.

One of the analysts turned toward the first terrace of desks.
“We don’t need this,” he said. “Pull way back, put a map overlay up, and just keep track of the signal.”

The woman at one of the desks gave him a thumbs-up and started tapping keys; the screen responded accordingly.

“What’s going on?” Herc asked Andrea.

She rattled the ice in her coffee cup. “Orders just came in. We’re tracking a cell phone GPS.”

“Whose?”

Andrea cocked her head, maybe tipped off by his tone that this was not an idle question. Herc kept his face neutral.

“Phone belongs to an FBI agent. Something Chang. Why?”

“Just curious,” he said, trying not to show his reaction to the name. He raised his iced-coffee cup. “Thanks for this, Andrea. Happy hunting.”

He fought the urge to hurry back to his office, walking slowly and then closing his door without slamming it. Alone in the room he took a deep breath, cursing silently, and took out the Hot Line.
No, no, not that one. Your name won’t come up. They won’t know it’s you calling
. Instead he used his own cell phone, the one with the account in his name. Both Hart and Chang had left him their cards, but he couldn’t call the FBI agent if her cell was being monitored, so he called Agent Hart, listening in growing frustration as it rang without answer.

Shit
. He had to warn them that their movements were being tracked, but he didn’t dare leave a message. Herc killed the call and stared at the phone a moment. Then he set it down and picked up the Hot Line.

Herc searched the contacts list, pressed a button, and, on the third ring, Cait McCandless answered.

“It’s Herc,” he said, glancing nervously at the door. “Listen, they’re tracking Agent Chang’s cell. Once they figure out where she and Hart are headed, they’ll know where
you’re
headed. You’ve got to hurry.”

“Thanks, Herc,” Cait said, “but we don’t need to rush.”

“You’re not listening—” Herc began.

“We’re fine, Herc. We’re already here.”

Cait sat in the back of a truck, listening to the groaning engine and mourning lives she had yet to take. In Iraq, it had been simpler. And last night was even more straightforward than that—defending her baby, killing to survive. But this was different. It would still mean killing to survive, but she knew going in that some of the people she would have to kill meant her no harm and were not a part of the conspiracy. They were veterans, like her. In another life, she might have gotten out of the service and been hired by a firm like Black Pine, who scouted for personnel with exactly her skill set.

But they came for you last night, you and Leyla, and if these guys had been there, they would have followed orders, just like the others
. No way could she be judge and jury for every Black Pine operative.
But you’ll have to be executioner
, she thought, pain twisting in her heart. She told herself they were baby-killers, or worked for baby-killers. If the guards on the building had never done Black Pine’s monstrous wetwork, they had done other hideous things.

It didn’t help much. The only thing that soothed her at all was the little photo of Leyla she had brought. She sat on a box of copy paper in the back of the office supply truck, stared at the image of her daughter, and told herself she would do anything for Leyla—and for all the War’s Children out there, still breathing, as well as those yet born. And if God existed and the blood she was about to shed stained her soul, she would just have to live with that.

The truck had come from what remained of a motor pool at the Resistance warehouse. In addition to the truck—the doors emblazoned with the name and phone number of a fictitious office supply company—there had been a battered taxi and a four-year-old Buick that looked brand new. The
truck had been so perfect for what Cait had in mind that if it hadn’t been there, she would have stolen one.