The Temporary Agent (23 page)

Forty-Six

Tom sat leaning forward, the narrow coffee table between himself and Hammerton.

Sitting up on the couch, Hammerton breathed out sharply.

“You okay?” Tom said.

Hammerton nodded.

It was obviously yet another attempt to deny his condition—for his benefit as well as Tom’s.

Before Tom could say anything more, Hammerton said, “So what’s got you up?”

“Carrington’s on the run, which means he either deactivated or disposed of his cell phone. I have no way of reaching him, but I’m hoping you do.”

“Why?”

“I want to talk to him.”

Hammerton thought about that, then said, “What are you thinking?”

“What if Carrington wasn’t behind this after all?”

“How could he not be?”

“Exactly.”

“I’m not following.”

“It all adds up, right? Carrington sent us to where Kadyrov and his men were waiting to ambush us while another team of men took the room next to Stella’s, ready to ambush her. Men who were listening to her, just in case she put together all the clues that had been laid out for me and figured out where Cahill was hiding.”

“What do you mean by laid out for you?”

“Kadyrov said it himself, remember? Not only did those files contain everything I would need to find Cahill, they contained everything that would make me
want
to find him. Feel obligated to find him.”

Hammerton nodded, then said, “I remember that, yeah.”

“And how did Carrington know where Stella was? Because a tracking device on my pickup led him there—a device Simpson likely planted while I was meeting with Raveis and Savelle. One
virtually identical to the tracking device the police found on Cahill’s
girlfriend’s car. Obviously, Simpson was working with Kadyrov, right?
Simpson took point and led us right to where he was waiting. And Israilov killed Simpson before he could blow his cover. Also, Simpson’s cell phone very nicely connects Carrington with Kadyrov, and Carrington ordered Simpson to provide me with a sidearm—one that, it turns out, had its firing pin removed. To top all this off, you and I found a cache of weapons, including a crate of Uzis from the same lot as the Uzi used by the Chechen hit team sent to kill Cahill. Open-and-shut case, right?”

“Right.”

“And Carrington knows me, knows what matters to me. So obviously he had to have been the one who instructed Kadyrov on how to manipulate me. Everything Kadyrov said had to have come straight from Carrington’s mouth, right? From the one man who knew me better than anyone else, who knew things about me even Stella didn’t know.”

“But if it wasn’t from Carrington, who did it come from?”

“You’ve been working for Carrington from the start, right?”

Hammerton nodded.

Tom leaned closer.

“I know that Carrington recruits for the CIA,” he said. “Identifies and screens potential candidates. I take it you helped him with that.”

Hammerton hesitated, then nodded again.

“How was that done? What were the protocols?”

“We’d monitor computer and cell phone usage, credit card charges, family history, affiliations, travel history, sex life, you name it. Full and complete surveillance, twenty-four-seven.”

“Illegal surveillance.”

“Yes.”

“Did that include hacking e-mail accounts?”

“Yes.”

“What about a potential candidate’s reading habits? Wouldn’t that tell you a lot about him? What was important to him?”

“Of course.”

“So anyone who knew what I had read over the past five years would have a tremendous insight, right? They’d distill and compile and from there know what makes me tick, what buttons to push, right?”

Hammerton said, “All that stuff about it being your choice. And the appeals to your patriotism.”

“Everything Kadyrov said led me to believe it was coming from Carrington. He even implied Carrington apologized for what he was about to do. But it could have just as easily come from anyone who had access to my reading list. Who either hacked my Kindle or hacked my e-mail account, which contained the receipts for every book I had purchased.”

Hammerton looked at Tom. “Okay, but who?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?”

The bedroom door opened and Stella stepped into the living room, carrying an oversize purse.

She placed it on a chair, then stood behind Tom.

He said to Hammerton, “If one of the protocols for choosing candidates was illegal surveillance, does that mean you and Carrington bugged private residences?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have anything as advanced as what’s at the bottom of that glass of water in my kitchen?”

Hammerton shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like that before. Anything that small. Usually by the time a piece of tech reaches the private sector, we’ve heard about it. Speculation, rumors, often for years. But I’ve not heard one thing about something like that. That’s top secret, no doubt about it. But that doesn’t rule out the possibility that Carrington got his hands on it somehow.”

“That’s the thing, though,” Tom said. “Kadyrov alluded to some things only someone who had been listening to Stella and me on Friday could have known. Things that were said
before
I went into the city. Carrington was eavesdropping on me from the time I met him in the city Friday night to when I met with him again on Saturday afternoon in Litchfield. He admitted to that much.”

“The flip phone with the hot mic,” Hammerton said.

“Right. During that time, he would have heard Stella offering me her .357 and me refusing it. That happened Saturday morning. A few hours later, a friend of hers showed up with her father’s old 1911. Carrington heard that, knew Stella had given the 1911 to me, which is why he wanted me to take the Beretta instead. And yes, it was on Carrington’s orders, but it was Simpson who handed me the Beretta. He had his hands on the weapon last. And you and I both know it would take two, three minutes tops to remove the firing pin from a Beretta with just basic tools. Do you think Simpson would have had the time to do that between when Carrington told him to bring along a spare sidearm and when he had handed it to me?”

“Yeah, he would have. Actually, he would have had several chances to do that.”

“And the three men who came after Stella in the motel, they weren’t acting like men who knew their target was armed. You were right next to me; you saw the video feed. They entered like their target was soft. They walked right up to the bathroom door and stood in front of it, didn’t fan out, didn’t use the door frames as cover. Remember, Carrington
knew
Stella was armed because he was listening when she offered me her .357 and I refused it. So if those men were working for him, if he’d been behind this from the start and thinking moves ahead of all of us, wouldn’t he have tipped them off that she had a weapon? And if they had been tipped off, wouldn’t they have approached her more cautiously?”

Hammerton nodded and said, “You would think so, yeah.”

“Whoever was listening to Stella and me on Friday night, though, wouldn’t have had that information. That tells me that it couldn’t have been Carrington who bugged us Friday. It had to be someone else. Someone who had been listening Friday night here but not Saturday morning in the motel. Someone who told Kadyrov what to say.”

“Who wanted to convince you that Carrington was behind this.”

“Yeah. And if Simpson was working for someone else—if he planted the tracking device on my truck for them while I was in the city Friday night—then there is no way Carrington could have known what motel Stella was in. And if he didn’t know, then he couldn’t have sent those men there to abduct her.”

Hammerton was silent for a moment.

“But why would someone want that?” he said finally. “Want you to believe it was Carrington who wanted you to kill Cahill?”

“If they got me to do what they wanted—and I somehow came out of it alive—then I’d spend the rest of my life hunting Carrington down. And if I found him and killed him, that would be that, wouldn’t it? Cahill would be dead, Carrington would be dead, and I’d spend the rest of my life in hiding, which was more or less how I lived before I met Stella. I’d just disappear again, right? Only this time I’d go off the grid completely.”

Hammerton thought about that, then said, “So Carrington had no idea what was waiting for us when he sent us to Front Street.”

“He was just following orders. Savelle’s orders via Raveis, to be precise.”

“So either Savelle or Raveis set us up. Sent us to that building so Kadyrov and his goons could go to work on you. But which one, Tom? I mean, for that matter, they could be working together, right?”

“Add up all the hurt,” Tom said. “Cahill was attacked and almost killed. You were attacked and almost killed. Savelle and I were almost burned alive. And this morning, Carrington was attacked. There’s only one person in this whole mess without a mark on him. And who has managed to keep himself from being directly linked to any of the murders or attempted murders.”

“Raveis,” Hammerton said.

Tom nodded. “Carrington gave Savelle my cell number so she could contact me. I’m willing to bet that’s how Raveis determined my location, either through Savelle or someone else. He has the connections—CIA, FBI, you name it—so she’s not his only asset. And Savelle first started calling me on Friday morning, which would have given Raveis enough time to send a team up here to plant the bug. I was at work and Stella was out all day. Plus we have no security system, so slipping in and out wouldn’t take much at all.”

“But if Raveis was behind the hit on Cahill—if he hired the Chechens to kill Cahill and his girlfriend—then why would he recruit you to track Cahill down only to send another hit team after you and Savelle a half hour later? That doesn’t make sense.”

“Everybody works for someone,” Tom said.

“Meaning Raveis needed someone to think he was seriously trying to find Cahill.”

“He’s desperate to hide his crimes. Maybe everything he said to me about Carrington was really about himself. Maybe he’s playing all of us against one another. I don’t know, but when that second hit team failed, thanks to you, he adapted, saw his chance to use me after all.”

Hammerton said nothing.

“You know the first law of combat,” Tom said. “No plan ever survives first contact.”

“But why would he want to kill Savelle, too? I mean, she’s his asset. And a valuable one.”

Tom shrugged. “Collateral damage. Don’t imagine he’d care much about that. Or maybe Savelle suspected he was up to something. He could have known that and panicked.”

“First of all, Tom, men like Raveis don’t panic. And they don’t hire blunt instruments like Chechen gangs to go after loose threads. Second, you said he was desperate to hide his crimes. What crimes?”

“Treason, for starters,” Tom said. “The weapons cache we found. The means to purchase a building and hide the paper trail through a series of dummy companies. Not to mention the connections necessary to get his hands on a top-secret listening device. And who better to outsmart Cahill—find his secret girlfriend, someone Cahill’s closest friend didn’t even know about, and use her to ambush him—than the man who trained him? It’s all Raveis. It has to be. Simpson, Kadyrov, both Chechen hit teams—they were all working for Raveis.”

Hammerton thought about all that, said finally, “This a big can of worms we’re thinking of opening. Raveis’s organization, it’s . . . monstrous. The guy isn’t even a person, technically. He’s a multimillion-dollar corporation with his own private army. You’ve seen his personal protection detail. That’s just a fraction of the men he employs. And he has created dozens of Cahills. Hundreds maybe. Which is why I don’t see him hiring a bunch of thugs he couldn’t count on or control. But with all his resources, all his money and manpower, we can forget about fighting him. I’m not even sure we could hide from him for long.”

“Maybe we won’t have to do, either.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“Cahill needs to know he’s hunting the wrong man. I can’t reach him, but I’m betting Savelle can.”

“And he’ll just believe you?”

“He can’t ignore the facts.”

“You
want
to believe, Tom. He doesn’t. He won’t. I saw the look in his eyes. He’s out for blood, and right now he smells it. You’ll need proof. Something more than all this, anyway.”

“Then we’ll get proof.”

“How?”

“We need to talk to Carrington.”

“What good would that do?”

“You had your doubts about Simpson all along, right? And Savelle said it didn’t make sense for Carrington to hire someone like Simpson and move him into his private detail right away. Any idea why Carrington would do that?”

“All he ever said to me was that he was doing someone a favor.”

“I’d be interested to know who that someone was, wouldn’t you? Because I’m thinking it was Raveis. That’s the only way all this was going to work. Raveis needed Simpson close to Carrington, and who’s closer than a bodyguard? Simpson had to be there to put the device on my truck and, the next day, hand me a disabled pistol. He had to be there to get us up those stairs and off our guard. If we can prove this—prove to Cahill that it is Raveis and not Carrington who is behind all this, and if we can get Cahill on our side—then maybe we have a chance.”

“A chance at what? Killing Raveis?”

“Getting our lives back.”

“And if Cahill won’t listen to reason? If it comes down to you having to put yourself between him and Carrington? Could you do that? Could you make that choice?”

Tom was silent for a long time.

Finally, he said, “Does Carrington have another contact number? An emergency burner phone, something?”

“He does. But if he believes we’re dead, he’ll think it’s a trap and won’t respond.”

“I might have a way around that.”

“How?”

“I’ll tell you on the way. Are you able to move?”

Hammerton nodded. “Yeah.”

Another lie, but neither man cared about that just then.

Forty-Seven

They left the apartment lights on and moved to the empty retail space below to use it as a staging area.

The dark storefront crowded with stacks of furniture would also provide them with cover, should the building be under active surveillance.

Or should someone suddenly storm it.

They’d come too far and sacrificed too much to act foolishly now.

In the small back room, out of sight, Hammerton keyed the number of Carrington’s emergency burner phone into one of Tom’s four “clean” phones.

Once the last digit had been input, Hammerton looked at Tom and said, “So what do I text?”

Tom recited four numbers.

Hammerton entered them, asking what those numbers were as he did.

“The year Benjamin Tallmadge died,” Tom said.

Hammerton pressed “Send,” then looked at Tom. “And who the fuck is Benjamin Tallmadge?”

Tom smiled but said nothing.

“How long do you think we’ll have to wait?” Stella said.

Before Tom could do more than shrug, the phone in Hammerton’s hand rang.

He handed it to Tom.

“I’m guessing this is for you,” he said.

Tom quickly pressed the “Speaker” button.

From the other end, a familiar voice came through. “You’re alive.”

Tom said, “It’s good to hear your voice, sir.”

Carrington being Carrington, there were safeguards to address first.

“Where were you when I first saw you?” he said.

“Naval Construction Battalion Center, Gulfport, Mississippi.”

“Be more specific.”

“On the shooting range during expeditionary combat skills training.”

“What weapon were you qualifying on?”

“The M16A3.”

There was a pause.

“Five years ago in New York, when you turned down my job offer, what hotel were you staying at?”

“The Chandler.”

Another pause.

“It’s good to hear your voice, too, son,” Carrington said.

“We need to meet.”

“We?”

“Hammerton’s with me. We need to talk.”

Yet another pause, longer than the others.

“Destroy this phone the moment this call ends,” Carrington said finally. “Understand?”

“I do, yes.”

“I’ll be destroying this phone, too, which means this will be our only chance to meet.”

“Just tell me where. We’ll be there.”

“Let’s take a play out of Tallmadge’s book,” Carrington said. “Seven eleven, White Plains,” he said. “Got it?”

But before Tom could even think to say that he didn’t understand, the line went dead.

Stella was obviously confused. “He wants to meet at a 7-Eleven in White Plains?”

“Not the most secure place,” Hammerton added.

Tom stepped away, removing the battery from the phone.

He dropped the device to the tile floor and crushed it beneath the heel of his work boot, then tossed the battery onto a nearby desk.

“Tallmadge was Washington’s spymaster during the Revolution,”
Tom explained. “He had a codebook with all the designations to be used in all secret correspondence. Washington’s designation was seven eleven.”

“So a code,” Stella said. “But what does it mean?”

Tom asked her for another smartphone.

She handed it to him, and he opened an Internet browser and began to key in words.

“What are you looking for?” she said.

Tom finished his phrase—
George Washington White Plains
—and hit “Search.”

“Revolutionary War landmarks,” Tom answered.

He held the phone so all of them could see the display.

The first hit that came up was a photograph of a stone monument, complete with an engraved brass plaque and topped with a small cast-iron cannon.

The caption below that photo read:
T
HE
M
ONUMENT OF THE
B
ATTLE OF
W
HITE
P
LAINS
.

Tom scrolled down and saw a second photo, this one of a modest-size red cottage, its shutters closed.

The caption below that identified the building as the Jacob Purdy House, a private residence used as Washington’s headquarters during the Battle of White Plains in October 1776.

“So which place?” Stella said.

From one of the other burner phones, Hammerton navigated to a satellite map of the Purdy House.

Tom and Stella studied it with him.

The house, on what appeared to be a residential block just east of the Bronx River Parkway, was set within a cluster of trees.

Hammerton then searched for the monument site, which turned out to be just six blocks to the south and three blocks to the west, located on the other side of the parkway.

Tom noted that the White Plains train station was a short walk from the monument site.

“The house would offer Carrington more cover,” Hammerton said. “Residential street, the cluster of trees. The monument is in a park, which would put him out in the open.”

“But it would put us in the open, too, right?” Stella observed.

From his reading, Tom knew that Washington had retreated to White Plains after a series of defeats that led to the loss of Manhattan.

Unable to maintain the high ground in White Plains, Washington lost there as well and was driven even farther north.

Another defeat in that long list of defeats, but which ended up perfectly positioning Washington for his resounding victory at Trenton.

Tom remembered what Carrington had said about Washington as they stood at Tallmadge’s tomb.

The man lost more battles than he won.

This was enough to lead Tom to his decision.

And also cause him to begin seeing his former CO in a new light.

Was Carrington really thinking moves ahead?

And that many moves ahead?

Casually planting clues in Tom’s mind, should Carrington, like Washington, need to retreat from defeat?

Had Carrington seen this coming—whatever
this
was?

“It’s the monument,” Tom announced.

“What makes you so sure?” Hammerton said.

“Of the two places, the park is more secluded. He’d want that. And Stella’s right, we’d be out in the open as we approach the monument. All of us would be—Carrington, too—and that levels the playing field.”

“So we’re going there now?” Stella said. “To New York?”

“Yes.”

She paused before saying, “Our carry permits aren’t valid there, Tom. If we’re caught, the penalties are pretty harsh. Fines, mandatory jail.”

“I have a New York State permit,” Hammerton said. “If we get pulled over, just pass your firearms to me.”

Tom appreciated the offer but knew it wouldn’t be enough.

It wasn’t just the idea of a potential traffic stop that concerned him.

He knew there was no way he could convince Stella to stay behind.

He remembered then the slip of paper Kevin Montrose had given him.

Removing it from his shirt pocket, he handed it to Stella and said, “Keep this.”

“What is it?”

“Help, if we need it.”

“What kind of help?”

“Any kind. Every kind.”

She looked at the paper before pocketing it.

Tom told them that they would be leaving as soon as they were ready.

He had to take care of something first.

And Stella would have to do something for Hammerton.