The Temporary Agent (18 page)

Tom nodded and opened the navigation app on his smartphone, then entered the address Stella had given him: 383 Litchfield Road, Watertown.

ETA was forty-five minutes.

Tom knew he would need that time to prepare himself mentally.

To sort through what he didn’t know and what he did know.

What made sense and what didn’t make sense.

Who was a threat and who wasn’t.

Who to trust and, more important, who to punish.

Or, if it came to it, eliminate.

Tom drove on, listening to the rain pounding the roof of the SUV and the hiss of the wide tires slicing the flooded pavement.

Thirty-Five

The farm was located at the crest of a long hill.

Tom turned the SUV from the two-lane road onto the muddied dirt driveway, and as the vehicle’s headlights swept the front of the house, he saw an oval-shaped brass plaque indicating that the place had been built circa 1750.

Following the driveway past the main house, Tom steered for the barn located two hundred yards from the road.

He stopped the SUV about fifty feet from the structure, shifted into park, and killed the lights but kept the motor running.

The farmhouse and the barn were both three stories tall, and while the house had seen better days, the barn had undergone extensive renovations.

Modern windows, a new roof, a coat of red paint—all, Tom’s experience as a builder told him, completed recently.

There were two entrances to the ground floor—a large garage-style door and a standard-size door to the left of it.

The second story had a row of several windows, the third story just one window and a six-by-six-foot-square hay door.

Behind the barn was a wire fence, and beyond that was a steep decline leading to a bowl-shaped valley below.

The farmhouse was dark, as was the barn. The entire property, though relatively close to the road, struck Tom as secluded—or at least secluded enough.

More than that, this place was one that could be easily defended.

The locations of the farmhouse and the barn turned the part of the driveway he had parked on into nothing less than a kill box.

Once a Seabee, always a Seabee.

Tom took note of the fact that the dirt drive curved off here and wound its way around to the other side of the farmhouse in a horseshoe shape, ultimately leading back to Litchfield Road.

That would be his way out, should he need it.

Opening the driver’s door, he got out of the SUV slowly, holding his arms away from his body as an indication to anyone watching that he was no threat.

His clothes were still wet and he was shivering; the vehicle’s heater had done little against the damp air rushing in through the missing back window as they’d sped here.

And though the rain had slowed from a heavy downpour to a steady drizzle, it was still a cold and miserable world that he was standing in.

Tom raised his voice and called out, “Hello?”

He heard nothing, saw no one.

Glancing at the house to his left, he scanned it.

All the windows were still dark.

Facing the barn again, he called, “I have a man with me in need of medical attention.”

Still nothing.

Tom stepped to the SUV’s back door and opened it.

Hammerton was leaning forward and tucking his SIG into his waistband at the small of his back.

Tom waited till the man was ready before helping him out and keeping him upright as they moved a few steps away from the vehicle.

After waiting a moment and getting only more silence, Tom called out again.

“He may have internal injuries. He needs to be looked at. Now.”

Still nothing.

He surveyed the property—no vehicles anywhere. But looking down at the driveway, he recognized tire tracks in the soaked ground.

The tires were set wide apart, so maybe they’d been made by a veterinarian’s pickup truck.

Or maybe they’d been made by a Jeep Wrangler.

Tom looked at the barn again and called out, “Hello?”

Nothing.

He noticed, though, that surveillance cameras were mounted above both entrances.

Another was mounted outside a window on the barn’s second floor and aimed down the long driveway.

Tom looked back at the farmhouse and saw several cameras mounted at strategic locations on that building as well.

As he was looking at these, the camera mounted on the second floor of the barn caught his eye. It was moving.

Facing the barn again, he said, “My name is Tom Sexton. I knew Charlie Cahill. I’m not here to make trouble.”

It took another moment, but finally the door to the barn opened and someone stepped through it.

Dressed in a long raincoat and mud boots.

A woman, her hands deep in the pockets of the coat.

Several floodlights mounted along the front of the barn came to life suddenly, temporarily blinding Tom.

Shielding his eyes with his free hand, he blinked, then lowered his hand when he saw that the woman had quickly crossed much of the distance between them.

She was now standing twenty-five feet away.

Though she was merely a motionless silhouette before him, he detected no panic from her.

It was something in the way she stood.

The calmness in her voice when she finally spoke served to confirm his assessment. “What are your friend’s injuries?”

Tom had to once again raise his voice to be heard over the rain.

“Gunshot,” he said.

The woman studied Hammerton.

“He doesn’t appear to be bleeding.”

“He isn’t. Not externally. He was wearing a vest. But the round that struck him was a .50 caliber.”

“A vest stopped a fifty-cal rifle round?”

Tom knew that she was testing him.

He also knew that he was more than likely talking to Sandy Montrose.

“Handgun, not rifle,” he said.

She was silent for a moment, then turned her head toward the barn and said, “I need this man inside.”

The door opened and a solitary figure moved through it, quickly reaching her side.

The figure was expertly shouldering a rifle.

Tom recognized by the weapon’s silhouette that it was an AR-15.

The armed man leveled the rifle at Tom and ordered him to drop any weapons.

Tom slowly reached for the SIG at the small of Hammerton’s back, removed it, and let the man see it before tossing it into the mud.

After a moment, the armed man moved toward Tom and Hammerton.

Reaching them, he lowered his rifle and proceeded with a quick one-handed pat down.

Hammerton first, then Tom.

The man, Tom noticed, had a second rifle slung over his left shoulder.

Stepping back and raising the AR-15 again, the armed man announced, “They’re clear.”

Montrose turned to the barn and waved, and all but one of the floodlights went dark.

In the absence of the harsh light, the two people in front of his eyes changed from two-dimensional silhouettes to three-dimensional beings.

Tom could almost see their faces, but it wasn’t till another floodlight came on—this one from the farmhouse to the left—that he could clearly see them.

But being able to look them in the eyes was no longer his chief concern, because someone was approaching from the farmhouse.

And when Charlie Cahill emerged from the darkness, Tom recognized not only the man’s face but the expression it wore as well.

It was the all-too-familiar mask of a man in grave pain.

All kinds of pain.

Tom had no doubt that it was the same face he himself would be wearing should anyone bring harm to Stella.

More harm, anyway, than she had already endured.

And while he recognized both the man and his agony, it was what Cahill said that made no sense to Tom.

No fucking sense whatsoever.

After looking at Tom for a long moment, Cahill uttered two words.

“Take him,” he said.

Though his face was full of emotion, Cahill’s voice was void of it.

The armed man moved quickly then, transferring from his AR-15 to the other weapon slung over his left shoulder.

Raising and aiming it, he squeezed the trigger before Tom could even react.

There was, however, no muzzle flash from this rifle.

Nor was there the sonic boom of a projectile traveling at three thousand feet per second escaping a long barrel.

In fact, the weapon made almost no sound at all.

And the only indication that something had actually happened was the sudden pinch Tom felt as the feathered tranquilizer dart punctured his left pectoral muscle.

Within a second, Tom was literally feeling nothing.

Another second later, Tom was down in the mud, a heap of useless limbs, and Hammerton, unable to stand without Tom’s support, was down there with him.

The last thing Tom saw before blacking out were hands reaching into his rapidly narrowing vision and struggling to grab Hammerton, who, though injured, was not going to be taken without a fight.

Thirty-Six

He felt as if he were back in the cold, rushing water of the Quinnipiac River.

As if he were being carried, sometimes in total darkness, other times in a chaotic world that was made up of nothing but blurs and shadows.

He saw and heard only fragments, was feeling the same numbness he’d felt that night an army medevac helicopter carried him and Cahill to the aid station. He was feeling, too, that same acute homesickness.

Five years ago, though, he had no home or love to long for.

But things had changed.

Stella was in her apartment, waiting for him. Tom latched on to that fact as if it were a rock he could use to pull himself out of this turbulent water.

But it was more like gripping water itself than stone, and the hope that he could get to her still—break away somehow, find his way back to Canaan—was simply slipping away.

All that was left was the knowledge that Stella was safe, surrounded by men who had cared for her long before he did.

Who had wanted her long before he did.

An odd comfort, yes, but a comfort nonetheless.

But none of those men could protect her from grief if Tom did not return.

Nor could they protect her from worry.

Even as his mind was flooded with opiates and Tom was sinking into darker waters, he understood why men injured in faraway battles cried out for those back home.

Those they cared for and who cared for them.

He’d felt pain before, and loss, but nothing like this.

Nothing like the utter helplessness and deep despair that burned inside him now.

And what drug could dull that?

Tom was out of the rain but still in his wet clothes.

He was being helped up a set of narrow stairs, then around a corner and down a short hallway.

There were two men beside him, and as addled as he was, he recognized them.

One was the man who had shot him, the other the man who had ordered it.

Tom stared at the side of Cahill’s face as the men shuffled him into a small room and sat him down on the foot a narrow bed.

Then the men were gone and the woman in the raincoat was leaning down and facing him.

There was no doubt at all now that she was Sandy Montrose.

“We need to get you out of your wet clothes,” Montrose said.

Tom nodded and did what he could to help her.

It wasn’t easy going—his clothes were soaked with water and river silt and stuck to his skin—but when they were done, Montrose laid him down on clean sheets.

Despite the tranquilizer, he could feel the coldness of the air around him.

A heavy blanket was thrown over his legs, but his torso was left bare.

He tried to focus on the part of himself that was warm, but that didn’t stop him from shivering violently.

Montrose checked his eyes with a penlight before listening first to his heart and then his lungs with a stethoscope.

“Breathe in for me,” she whispered. “Now let it out.”

She repeated this several times before removing the stethoscope from her ears and proceeding to press down on Tom’s upper and lower abdomen with the tips of her fingers.

Then she skimmed her hands over his ribs and down his arms.

Pulling the blanket aside, she skimmed over his legs.

When she was done examining him she covered him with the blanket, pulling it up to his shoulders.

“My friend?” Tom muttered.

“My husband’s taking X-rays now. We’ll take care of whatever he needs, I promise.”

She gathered Tom’s clothing and started toward the door.

“Phone in my pocket,” Tom said.

Complete sentences were beyond him.

Montrose shook her head and said only, “Sorry.”

She stepped to the door and opened it.

The dimly lit room was brightened significantly by the light spilling in from the hallway.

Tom was getting the sense that he was a captive.

Scanning the small room, he saw that it had no windows.

And mounted in one corner of the ceiling was a security camera.

It was aimed at the bed.

“I need to call,” Tom gasped.

Montrose shook her head again but did not apologize this time.

“He’ll want to talk to you when you’re awake,” she said. “The sooner you give in, the sooner you’ll sleep it off.”

Then she slipped through the door and closed it.

Tom heard the turning of a deadbolt.

In the renewed darkness, he felt less like a patient being left to recover and more like a man confined to a cell.

It was a reminder that the loss of life was not the only thing for him to be concerned about.

Death was not the only way for him to be separated from Stella.

Struggling to remain conscious, Tom heard voices coming up from below, then footsteps, doors opening and closing.

These could have been concurrent sounds, one immediately following the other, or they could have come long minutes or even hours apart.

In his condition, he had no way of knowing.

Finally, Tom simply could fight it no longer. He felt himself sinking into a deep unconsciousness.

He chose to focus on Stella, safe, as his last coherent thought.

Tom wakes.

He sits up, hears nothing.

He is clothed, has boots on, so he rises and steps to the door.

Testing the knob, he finds it is unlocked.

Opening the door and walking down the stairs he’d been carried up, he explores the farmhouse’s ground floor, moving from room to room only to discover that the place is unoccupied.

He is free.

Rushing outside, he finds a vehicle, climbs in, and starts the engine, then speeds away, heading north on Route 63, passing through Litchfield, where he met with Carrington, then continuing till 63 joined with Route 7—the two-lane road that would take him to Stella and the men who surround her.

But just south of Canaan, the engine suddenly cuts out and the vehicle rolls to a stop.

He is out in the middle of nowhere, the road edged on both sides with five-foot-tall weeds.

Determined to run the rest of the way, he exits the vehicle, but the instant he steps out into the night, he sees that he is no longer in Northwestern Connecticut.

He is back in the desert.

Back in the Afghan desert.

Alone in that hellish terrain.

Or, rather, at first he is alone.

Sensing that someone is behind him, he turns and sees a person standing just a few yards away.

It is Carrington, dressed as he was when Tom last saw him at Tallmadge’s gravesite.

Neither says anything, but then Tom feels a rush of sudden rage that he cannot control and reaches for a weapon at the four o’clock position on his right side.

Something is there. He draws it.

In his hand is the Beretta Simpson gave him.

The Beretta that Carrington instructed Simpson to provide him.

Before Tom can determine whether or not the weapon works, Carrington says, “Remember what the man said.”

Tom stares at his former commanding officer dumbly.

“In the medevac, leaving this godforsaken place,” Carrington explains.

He pauses, then repeats what the medic tending to Cahill had shouted to his partner over the rotor noise: “The guy will never be the same.”

Tom says nothing.

Finally, he lowers the weapon.

The desert wind picks up and a cloud of sand rises between them.

“Be careful, son,” Carrington says.

The man begins to disappear in the confusion.

As he does, he says with a fading voice, “Because we’re in more danger than you know, Tom.”

Then he is gone and Tom is alone in the desert.

Waking from the dream, Tom laid still for a moment.

Eventually, his eyes adjusted and he noticed a pile of folded clothes on a chair by the door.

His clothes, washed and dried.

On the floor under the chair were his work boots.

He got up and checked the pockets of his pants, but of course they were all empty.

Inside his boots were electronic boot warmers—no doubt to dry them out.

Tom quickly dressed, pulled on and laced up his boots, then stood and tried the doorknob.

Unlike the door in his dream, this one was locked.

Sitting back down, he wondered what time it was.

However much time had passed, Tom could not escape the dread he felt at the idea of Stella being left to wonder where he was.

She had suffered enough because of him.

It was time to bring an end to all this, once and for all.

Whatever the hell
this
was.

Looking up at the camera, Tom stood and stepped to the door, toe-kicked it once, then a second time, then a third—hard.

He sat down on the edge of the bed again, never taking his eyes off the camera.

For several long moments, the house was as silent as a tomb, but finally from somewhere below Tom heard a door open and close.

This was followed by footsteps.

And then, a moment later, Tom was listening to those footsteps climb the stairs.