The Temporary Agent (13 page)

Simpson and Hammerton were standing next to the one that remained.

At the commuter lot, his tactical gloves on, Tom locked the three loaded magazines in the console between the two front seats and transferred the empty Colt to the heavy-duty toolbox secured to the bed of his pickup.

Then he locked up the truck, pocketed his keys, and met Carrington’s men by the SUV.

Simpson handed Tom a Beretta 92F—the civilian version of the M9A1 he had carried when he was part of Carrington’s Seabee recon team.

It was a weapon Tom had put tens of thousands of rounds through during the course of his eight years as a Seabee.

Tom half racked the slide to confirm a round was in the chamber, then removed and checked the magazine.

He noted that it was a ten-round mag, not the fifteen-round mag that was standard issue for that firearm.

“Connecticut law only allows ten-rounders now,” Simpson explained.

He offered Tom a spare mag.

Tom reinserted the first mag into the grip, then took and pocketed the spare one.

Hammerton had watched Tom the entire time, as if to assess Tom’s familiarity with the firearm.

By the man’s reaction, it was clear that he had passed test.

“Ready, Seabee?” the Brit said.

Tom nodded.

He had no holster, so he tucked the weapon inside the waistband of his jeans at the appendix position.

All three men climbed into the SUV.

Simpson steered onto Route 8, heading south.

Tom was in the passenger seat, Hammerton behind the driver.

His eyes never left Tom.

Twenty-Seven

Tom had not been truthful with Savelle about one thing.

He had seen Cahill following his discharge from the navy.

Or at least he had tried to. He had traveled to the VA hospital in New York where Cahill was receiving treatments for his injuries.

Tom had arrived just as Cahill was coming out of one of his many surgeries.

Unconscious in his hospital bed, connected to monitors and IV bags, his torso covered with bandages.

Tom knew a man who had a long road ahead when he saw one.

He’d waited for as long as he could, but Cahill had remained unconscious.

Tom eventually left without saying what he had gone there to say.

He went back a few days later but was told that Cahill had been transferred to a private hospital.

Tom wanted to know which hospital, but the nurse said she couldn’t give out that information even if she had it.

It wasn’t long after that that Tom had met with Carrington and informed him that he was no longer interested in contract work.

He’d seen enough of what conflict wrought and wanted to know a life without it.

For five years, he had.

Or close enough to it.

And for the last six months, he had known something more.

Something so simple it was elegant.

Now he had burns on his arms, deep cuts on his palms, and ribs that ached sharply whenever he breathed deeply.

And Stella was hiding in a roadside motel.

Missing out on her most profitable day at work, alone and waiting on Tom, no doubt worrying about him despite her assurances otherwise.

Maybe Carrington was right about Tom’s debt.

If Cahill wasn’t the same man who had saved him five years ago, then Tom was free and clear, right?

If he had crossed the line Tom had refused to cross and sold his hard-earned skills to the highest bidder, then he’d willingly gone to a place Tom could not follow.

A place from which Tom could not rescue him.

A place darker than dark.

It began to rain.

A heavy November downpour that significantly reduced visibility and drummed on the roof of the SUV so loudly that nearly all other sounds were drowned out.

None of the three men inside the vehicle spoke.

If Tom hadn’t been given their credentials by Carrington, he would have known by their silence that these men were experienced—in one capacity or another.

He had observed the same pre-mission reverence in Cahill’s Recon Marines.

And he had gotten lost in it a number of times himself as well.

Given himself to it, willed himself to disappear within it for as long as he could manage.

After twenty minutes on Route 8, Simpson picked up I-84 east, then I-691 after that for fifteen minutes before finally turning onto I-91 south.

Another twenty minutes and the SUV was rolling down the Front Street exit.

“ETA five minutes,” Simpson said.

He switched on the CD player.

Jimi Hendrix’s cover of “All Along the Watchtower” blasted through the half dozen or so top-of-the-line speakers positioned throughout the vehicle’s interior.

Tom glanced back at Hammerton, who was looking out his window.

The man smiled slightly, then looked at Tom and shook his head. Something about Hammerton’s amusement told Tom that these two men had not been partners for long.

As the SUV turned onto Front Street, Tom felt the first hit of adrenaline enter his bloodstream. That familiar metallic taste in his mouth.

Despite the sharp ache it would cause, he drew in a deep breath and repeated the mantra he had picked up a long time ago:

The way out is through.

The way out is through.

The way out is through . . . 

PART THREE

Twenty-Eight

Front Street was just as Tom remembered it.

A riverside neighborhood that was a mixture of industrial buildings and quaint cottages and rows of modern condos, all crowded together on a narrow street.

Not the most private place for a safe house, Tom thought, but not a high-traffic area, either.

And 190 Front Street was as Carrington had described it.

Both Hammerton and Tom took a good look at it as Simpson switched off the CD player and steered the SUV slowly past.

A brick workshop, windows painted over, the front a two-story structure, the rear a slightly less than two-story loading dock area that sat flush on the river’s rocky edge.

The parking lot was overgrown with now-dead grass, some of which was easily knee-high.

Simpson drove past the Grand Avenue Bridge and found a place to park a block away.

He turned off the motor and lights, then opened his jacket and removed his SIG p229 from his cross-draw holster. He half racked the slide to check that a round was chambered.

Tom knew that a p229 chambered in a .357 was the weapon of choice of the Secret Service, affirming what Carrington had told him about the man.

“You chambered a round when you holstered your weapon this morning, correct?” Hammerton said.

Simpson looked in the rearview mirror and nodded.

“So you shouldn’t need to check it again, correct? Rechecking tells me you’re nervous, and I don’t like working with nervous.”

“I know you’re the badass here, Hammerton, but maybe you should just go fuck yourself.”

“Guys,” Tom said, “let’s just do what we came here to do, all right?”

Simpson continued casting an angry look Hammerton’s way via the rearview mirror.

Smiling but not looking at the mirror, Hammerton addressed his team. “Leave cell phones behind, gentlemen.”

Simpson asked why, to which Hammerton replied, “Because I say so.”

Tom understood the need for them to temporarily surrender their phones. Anything in their possession, should something happen, could potentially provide intelligence to the enemy. While Tom’s smartphone was his only direct connection to Stella, it was also, in the wrong hands, a threat to Stella’s safety.

He removed his phone from his jacket pocket and handed it back to Hammerton. Simpson removed his, too, but was clearly reluctant to hand it over.

“What, do you have dirty pictures of your wife on that?” Hammerton said. “Trust me, she sends me the same ones she sends you.”

Simpson’s neck flushed an angry red. He handed his phone to Hammerton, who placed all three phones into a small combination lockbox.

After closing and locking the box, he slid it under his seat.

“I’ll take point,” Hammerton said. “Simpson, you’re middle. Seabee, you cover the rear.”

Despite the heavy rain that awaited him, Tom couldn’t get out of that vehicle fast enough.

As they did, Simpson took off his leather overcoat and swapped it for a heavy canvas field jacket.

The man swung it on, and Tom noted what looked to be the end of a black metal rod sticking out of the top of an inside pocket.

The rod, easily two feet long, was no doubt a breaching tool.

They backtracked on foot to the old shop, Hammerton leading them not to the front door but to the loading dock area around back.

Beside the garage-style door was an entrance.

A steel door seated in an iron frame set within a brick wall.

Simpson stepped past Hammerton, moved to the door, and removed the tool from his jacket.

Within seconds, he had prized open the steel door.

Hammerton, his SIG p226 drawn, entered the dark shop.

Simpson returned the breaching tool to his pocket, then withdrew his firearm and followed Hammerton in.

Tom made a quick survey of the street behind them before entering and closing the heavy, broken door as quietly as he could.

It was pitch-black inside till Hammerton removed a flashlight from his pocket and clicked it on.

But that did very little against the tomblike darkness.

Adding Simpson’s flashlight to the mix didn’t help much.

No one made a sound as both men slowly swung their lights around the room.

Tom saw in the narrow, sweeping beams glimpses of heavy machinery that were familiar to him.

The space, in fact, was crammed with everything from hydraulic presses the size of trucks to small table saws.

And there were still other machines hidden under heavy canvas covers.

Hammerton stepped forward, Simpson behind him.

Tom followed Simpson, listening as they moved around the maze of machinery for the sound of any activity coming from the entrance behind them.

“This is just a workshop,” Simpson whispered.

“It’s dormant,” Tom said. “Has been for a while.”

Both men looked back at Tom.

Hammerton said, “How can you tell?”

“The smell. These machines haven’t been used for a long time. And anyway, they’re too close to each other. There’s not enough room to work.”

Hammerton glanced at Simpson, who shrugged.

To the left was the entrance to the two-story part of the building. It looked like a living space—a small galley kitchen and, beyond that, what appeared to be a room with couches and chairs.

Tom noted, however, that the furniture seemed crammed together as well. Not so much carefully arranged as maybe hastily stored.

Hammerton led them into the kitchen area, stopped there to try the light switch mounted on the wall just inside the door.

Nothing.

He then moved through the kitchen to the living room doorway.

Everywhere he shined his flashlight, his SIG was aimed.

Something to his right caught his attention.

He moved deeper into the room, Simpson reaching the doorway seconds later.

He, too, looked to his right, paused briefly, then stepped into the room.

Tom passed through the doorway and saw what had captivated both men.

Stacks of wooden crates.

Dozens of crates, maybe close to a hundred, lining two walls of the room.

Three crates were on the floor, separate from the stacks, their lids removed and packing straw strewn nearby.

Hammerton led Simpson and Tom to the opened crates, shined his light into one.

In a nest of straw, wrapped in clear plastic, were several AA-12 automatic shotguns.

The next crate contained Barrett 82A1 .50-caliber sniper rifles.

The third, Uzi submachine guns.

Simpson picked up an Uzi and tore open its wrapper to get a better look.

“It’s the new model,” he said. “The Uzi-PRO, introduced about five years ago.”

Tom could see that this version was a mix of metal and polymer, unlike the versions he’d seen before, which were composed almost entirely of stamped metal.

“Improved ergonomics for better accuracy, significantly increased rate of fire, and more compact,” Simpson said. “And the cocking handle is now side-mounted to accommodate a Picatinny rail along the top of the receiver.” He paused. “That nasty little thing is even nastier now.”

Tom recalled the list of weapons that had been recovered from the motel parking lot.

He recalled, too, that the assumption had been that the Uzi recovered there belonged to Cahill’s attackers, not Cahill himself.

So if this was Cahill’s safe house, then why did it contain a crate of weapons identical to one of the weapons recovered at that scene?

More than that, why did this place contain a cache of military-grade weaponry at all?

“Do me a favor,” Tom said to Hammerton, “shine your light on the serial number for a second.”

In the light, Tom looked at the combination of two letters and four digits stamped into the rear left side of the receiver, then said, “Thanks.”

Simpson seemed confused by this, but the way Hammerton was looking at Tom indicated that the Brit knew what Tom had done, and why.

“Your friend seems to have quite the arsenal,” Hammerton said. “Kind of odd, don’t you think? That he stores all this in a building with no active security system?”

Tom didn’t respond. Odd, indeed. And on top of that, he saw nothing to indicate that a wounded man had brought a dying woman here.

Simpson returned the Uzi to its crate, then turned and made a visual sweep of the room.

He announced, “Stairs,” and started crossing the room toward them.

“Hold up,” Hammerton ordered.

Tom gestured for Hammerton to shine his flashlight on the stacked crates.

When Hammerton did, Tom saw a label on one crate that sent a chill down his spine.

M67 Grenades

“What the hell?” Hammerton said.

He moved his light to the next stack of crates.

M112 Demolition Block

“C-4,” the Brit said. “Jesus.

Simpson was at the bottom of the stairs and shining his light upward.

Hammerton turned from the crate and said again, “Hold up.”

Ignoring him, Simpson started up the stairs.

Hammerton moved quickly. Reaching the stairs and looking up, he repeated his order, but the sound of footsteps climbing meant that Simpson was continuing to ignore him.

Then Hammerton started up.

When Tom reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw in the single beam of moving light an open doorway at the top.

Tom withdrew the Beretta from his waistband, thumbed the safety up to the “Off” position, and gripped the weapon with two hands as he followed Hammerton to the top.

The open doorway led to a narrow hallway at the end of which was another open door.

Hammerton’s beam reached into the room beyond, but there was no sign of Simpson within.

Nor was there any sign of his flashlight.

Just an empty room, the view into which was limited by the narrow door frame.

Hammerton waited for a moment, whispered Simpson’s name several times, got only silence back.

Finally he proceeded forward, Tom close behind him.

Reaching the doorway, Hammerton moved to angle himself so he could cover more of the room with his flashlight.

As he did, there came the sound of sudden movement from within.

Nothing loud, simply a brief rustling of fabric rubbing against fabric that indicated motion of some kind.

A person swinging his arm, perhaps.

Followed almost immediately by something metallic landing on the floor.

Rolling forward, then coming to a stop.

Hammerton’s reflexes were fast; he had his flashlight aimed at the item as it came to a stop right before them.

Both men saw the device clearly.

An M84 stun grenade, well within the five-foot range necessary for its blast to utterly disable a person.

But registering what it was was all they had time to do.

The flash-bang went off, blinding them with a few million candela of white light and deafening them with 180 decibels of sudden noise.

Their senses overwhelmed and their balance compromised by the wave of compressed air that tore through them, both men instantly dropped.

Tom felt hands grabbing at him, then dragging him farther into the darkened room.

The hands dropped him on the wood floor and then the Beretta was stripped from his grip.