The Temporary Agent (6 page)

Twelve

Tom’s sense of relief quickly gave way to concern.

Carrington was here to meet him, yes—that was good. But that did not explain why the man himself hadn’t made the call that brought Tom here.

Tom entered the restaurant but paused just inside the door to scan the dozen or so tables.

PMCs—private military contractors—were generally easy enough to spot, but none of the diners here fit that bill.

When Tom looked back at Carrington, the man had already stood up and was downing what remained of his drink.

Carrington peeled off two twenties from a wad of bills and placed them on the table. He was returning the wad to his pocket and smiling as he headed toward Tom.

Clearly in a hurry.

Things were in motion now that Tom was here.

Carrington extended his hand.

“It’s good to see you again, Tom.”

“It’s good to see you, too, sir.”

Carrington’s grip was firm, his handshake enthusiastic. He was fewer than fifteen years older than Tom, and yet he was the closest thing to a father Tom had known for a long time.

He was wearing dark-blue jeans, a shirt and tie, dress shoes, and a wide-collared leather coat.

Though Tom had seen Carrington in civilian clothes before, it always struck him as odd. He almost didn’t even recognize the man.

“You don’t have to call me ‘sir’ anymore, Tom.” He looked Tom over quickly, then said, “You look good. Older. I mean that in a good way.”

Before Tom could respond, Carrington told him there wasn’t a lot of time and that they needed to move.

He led Tom out and onto the sidewalk, where they faced Rivington.

“Honestly, Tom, I didn’t think you were going to show up.”

“Thought about not,” Tom said.

“The breach in protocol was unavoidable. I’ll explain when I can. But you’re here now, and that’s what matters.”

“Why am I here?”

Carrington casually reached up and brushed his ear twice with the tip of his index finger.

Tom understood the gesture.

A warning that someone could be listening.

“Some people need to talk to you,” Carrington said. “I work with them from time to time. I trust them, and so can you.”

“Who are they?”

“She’s NSA. He’s private sector.”

This at least confirmed for Tom how the mysterious female had known to call Stella’s phone.

“I won’t be able to go with you,” Carrington said. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Where am I going?”

“Not far. This won’t take long, Tom. Just pay attention, ask any questions you need to ask. And feel free to say no. Do you understand?”

Tom nodded.

The two black SUVs pulled to a stop in front of them, and the back passenger-side door of the first vehicle swung open.

Carrington faced Tom. “You remember what John Locke wrote in his
Second Treatise on Government
, right?”

A baffling question. But Tom knew the answer, so he nodded.

“Tell me,” Carrington said.

“He wrote that the first law of nature is self-defense.”

There was a touch of fatherly pride to Carrington’s smile. “And thank God the founding fathers read him, right?”

This comment did nothing to clear up Tom’s confusion.

Carrington looked at Tom squarely and said, “You understand what I’m saying, right?”

He didn’t, but he trusted that at some point he would understand, so he nodded again.

Carrington said, “Good.”

From inside the SUV, a male voice said, “Let’s get moving.”

Tom ignored that and waited for further instructions from his former commanding officer.

“It’s so good to see you, Tom,” Carrington said. “And civilian life clearly agrees with you. I wasn’t sure it would, but I’m glad to know I was wrong.”

He extended his hand again.

Tom took it, but this time there was something in Carrington’s palm.

A small flip phone.

Out-of-date, practically ancient.

As they released hands, Tom palmed the phone, then discreetly pocketed it.

“Remember,” Carrington said, “feel free to say no. There’s no shame in looking out for oneself.”

Carrington stepped back, and Tom turned and got into the waiting SUV.

Through the heavily tinted window, Tom watched a man join Carrington on the sidewalk—shaved head and scarred face, dressed in a black nylon jacket, khaki pants, and black tactical boots.

The very gear that made private military contractors—at least certain types of PMCs—easy to spot.

The scarred-face man said something to Carrington, who nodded and spoke.

The way the man quickly turned away told Tom that Carrington had given him some kind of order.

Maybe even an urgent one.

Tom watched the two men—Carrington standing still, the scarred-face man walking away—till they were gone from his sight.

In the front seats of the SUV were two men in dark suits. Both had short, neatly trimmed hair and earpieces affixed in their right ears.

The man in the back seat beside Tom was dressed in jeans, a black field jacket, and tan workman boots.

He was also wired with an earpiece.

This man stared at Tom, his right forearm resting across his lap and his right hand just inside his open jacket, poised to grasp the weapon holstered there.

Glancing over his shoulder, Tom saw that the second SUV was following them closely.

Tom looked back at the man beside him, who was staring at him in a way that was both stoic and aggressive.

One of the reasons he had turned down Carrington’s job offer was so he wouldn’t have to deal with such men.

Men who mistook violence for adventure.

Men who were just a little too eager to use their deadly skills.

And who no doubt practiced long and hard to radiate an air of danger.

Not all PMCs were like that, of course. Most were quiet professionals. Some were retired special forces, others combat veterans who had served multiple tours of duty. Smart men, capable men, modest. Men who simply wanted to do the job and get paid and make it safely back home to their families.

And though only a fraction of those Tom would encounter were likely to be like the man now sitting next to him, a fraction was more than Tom cared to experience.

As much as he disliked the fact that he was now sitting beside the very kind of man he wanted to avoid—the very man he never wanted to become—Tom couldn’t help but be amused by the effort this man was making to intimidate.

He decided to pass the time by looking out the window to his right.

The two SUVs were heading north on the FDR, following the western edge of the East River.

Ten minutes later, they pulled into a parking garage on Seventy-
Second Street.

The driver steered the SUV to higher and higher levels, the nose of the tail car always just inches away.

Each level contained fewer and fewer vehicles, and in a far corner of the sixth level—the emptiest so far—waited a shiny black limo.

The SUV pulled up alongside it and stopped.

The driver pressed a switch that unlocked Tom’s door.

The man beside Tom said, “Get out.”

Tom did. A man in a suit held open the limo’s rear passenger door.

Walking over to the limo, Tom looked inside at the two occupants.

A female in her midthirties, tops. Dressed in a dark business suit—jacket, silk blouse, dark nylons, sensible-but-still-stylish shoes. Fine brown hair pulled back into a tight bun. Smile confident but warm.

She sat facing the back of the vehicle.

The other occupant faced the front. Older, late forties. He was dressed in a business suit as well, but his was perfectly tailored, showing off his powerful athlete’s frame. His hair was full but well trimmed, his face clean shaven, his skin tanned and taut.

Everything about him said affluence.

“Thank you for meeting us, Tom,” the woman said. “My name is Alexa Savelle.” Her voice, a soothing alto, had no accent of any kind.

There was no doubting that this was the woman who had called Stella’s cell.

Savelle introduced the man as Sam Raveis.

Raveis simply stared at Tom. The only expression that Tom could detect on the man’s face was a slight look of curiosity.

Savelle patted the empty seat to her left. On her lap lay a tablet in a black leather case.

“Please, Tom, sit with us,” she said. “We need to talk to you. And there isn’t a lot of time.”

Thirteen

The limo door closed with a solid
whoomph
, and immediately the wind coming off the river that had been echoing steadily through the open garage was silenced.

The driver remained beside the door, his back to it, his arms at his sides and his hands hanging loose.

Tom recognized his mannerisms as those of a well-trained bodyguard.

The interior of the limo was rich with the combined smell of new leather and perfume.

Another woman’s scent only made Tom think of Stella waiting for him back at her apartment.

His obligation to Carrington was all that kept him here.

Alexa Savelle spoke first. “Did Carrington tell you why you’re here?”

“No.”

“Would you mind telling me what he did tell you?”

“That you were NSA.” Tom nodded toward the man in the expensive suit. “And that he was private sector.”

“Did he tell you anything else?” Savelle asked.

Tom wondered if they were the ones Carrington had indicated could be listening and whether this was a test of Tom’s honesty.

“He told me that he works for you from time to time. And that I can trust you.”

Savelle smiled. “I’m hoping you will, Tom.”

Up to this point, the man introduced as Raveis had been silently but actively watching Tom—studying him, sizing him up. Finally, he spoke.

“Jim Carrington is a good man,” Raveis said. “Reliable, which goes a long way with me. He drinks too much now and then, but not so much that it interferes with business. At least it hasn’t yet. I understand he offered you a job a few years back but you turned him down. I’m curious. Why?”

“I wanted to be on my own for a while.”

“You were in the navy for eight years, correct?” Raveis said.

“Yes.”

“You requested the Seabees when you enlisted. Construction Battalion. Why was that?”

“I wanted to learn a skill.” He paused, then said, “I didn’t want to be one of those guys who gets out of the military and can’t find a job.”

“Killing the enemy is a skill, no? You seem to be proficient at that.”

Tom chose to ignore that comment.

“Your records indicate that you started out as a builder. A carpenter. So what did you want to do? Build houses?”

Tom shrugged. “Sure.”

“Yet you currently work as a press brake operator. Stamping metal in a machine shop for barely more than minimum wage.”

“Not a lot of houses being built these days.”

Raveis watched him for a moment more. “Better times are bound to come, right?”

“If this is a job offer—”

“It’s not a job offer, Tom. As much as I’d value a man like you working for me, I have no intention of wasting my time or yours.”

“Then why am I here?”

Raveis looked at Savelle, who opened the tablet on her lap. She tapped the screen several times with her index finger, then began to swipe left to right, scrolling through documents.

“You did a year at Yale before enlisting in the navy.” She looked up from her tablet. “We’re assuming that means you know your way around New Haven, to some degree or another.”

“Yeah.”

“You were in the top tenth percentile of your class, but your father’s sudden death the summer after your freshman year left you with no money for school and no family to help you out. So you turned to the military, like young people in a jam often do.”

“It’s interesting how a single event can completely alter one’s life, don’t you think?” Raveis said.

It seemed to Tom that both Raveis and Savelle were watching for his reaction.

He offered none.

“After completing basic training,” Savelle continued, “you attended ‘A’ School, after which you were assigned to NMCB. It was during the subsequent Expeditionary Combat Skills training that you caught the attention of your then-commanding officer, who introduced you to Jim Carrington. On Carrington’s recommendation, you began to receive nearly all the specialized training the navy has to offer, after which you were assigned to the Seabee Engineer Reconnaissance Team under Carrington’s command. You served both in Iraq and Afghanistan as a support unit for the marines, often accompanying Force Reconnaissance units to forward operating bases, which as a Seabee you constructed and maintained but also defended.”

“It’s your work with the Recon Marines that interests us,” Raveis said.

Savelle picked up the thread. “On the night of April 11, 2009, a Recon squad was returning to base after a long-range patrol when they were ambushed by heavily armed insurgents. Disobeying the direct orders of a superior officer, who was later court-martialed, you led a successful rescue mission.”

“Not your first such mission,” Raveis said. “But as it turned out, your last. Do you mind telling us what happened?”

Tom nodded toward the tablet. “It’s all there, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Raveis said. “A grenade attack. You were defending the rear as your team and the Recon squad were executing a fighting retreat. According to the after-action report, you would have likely been killed if not for a certain Recon staff sergeant who placed himself between you and the grenade. In fact, the fragments that did hit you had traveled through his body first, greatly reducing their velocity and lethality.”

“It was a bad night for a lot of people,” Tom said.

“But a lucky night for you,” Raveis noted. “Not only did you get to live to fight another day, you were later awarded the Silver Star for your actions.” He nodded toward Savelle. “Alexa here only has a Bronze Star.”

Tom glanced at Savelle’s hand then and saw that she was wearing only one ring.

A bulky, gold school ring.

He focused on it more closely and recognized it as a West Point ring.

“After only two months of rehabilitation, you were back with your unit.” Savelle stopped reading, then said to Tom, “Only a certain kind of man would go back, especially when he didn’t have to. Apparently, Carrington wanted to transfer you stateside. He even put in the paperwork. But you talked him out of it, which he says is just one of the reasons why he thinks so highly of you.”

Savelle resumed scrolling through documents, skimming and reading. “Three months after your return, your enlistment was up. For the first time in eight years, which at that point was close to your entire adult life, you were a civilian.”

“Around that same time,” Raveis said, “Carrington retired from the navy and joined the public sector, starting his own private security firm. Lots of money to be made in that line of work, even in a troubled economy. More so if you’re the right kind of person, which, it turns out, Carrington is. So he starts building his business, making a name for himself, and meanwhile you relax for a few months, travel around a little, then decide, somewhat suddenly, to pass on Carrington’s offer. To me that’s odd enough, but then you do something even odder, Tom. You become a drifter, pretty much living out of your truck for five years. From what we can tell, all you did was move from place to place and job to job and read books on your Kindle.”

Raveis paused, looked squarely at Tom, and said, “I can see why you finally settled down. She’s a very attractive woman. In great shape for someone her age.” He smiled, his taut and tanned face showing few creases. “And the pearls are a nice touch.”

Tom felt a wave of rage, yet he just calmly reached for the door handle. Before he could do more than grasp it, though, Savelle placed her palm on his forearm, stopping him.

Her touch was gentle.

“I’m sorry, Tom. Raveis is an asshole by nature, but he’s being an even bigger asshole now because we need to determine your state of mind, and we need to do so as quickly as possible. We have to know if you’re prone to violent outbursts, like men who have been injured in combat can be. Because if you are suffering any kind of posttraumatic stress, we can’t use you. It’s as simple as that. We need to know we can count on you one hundred percent. And frankly, the way you’ve been living your life the past five years doesn’t exactly fill us with confidence.”

“You probably shouldn’t count on me, then,” Tom said.

Raveis said, “You’re willing to just walk out without knowing what it is we need you to do?”

“I’ll live with it.”

“Can you live with letting a man die?”

Tom didn’t move.

“How about letting the man who saved your life die? The man who almost
died
saving
your
life. Who by all accounts
should
have died saving your life. Could you live with that?”

“Charlie Cahill is in trouble,” Savelle said.

Her palm was still resting on Tom’s forearm, and she was looking at the side of his face.

“What kind of trouble?”

“He has disappeared,” Savelle said.

Tom looked at Raveis, then back at Savelle. Her eyes, he noticed, were dark brown—like Stella’s.

“What would you need me to do?”

Savelle reached across Tom and tapped his window twice. The driver opened the rear passenger door.

The sound of the wind echoing through the parking structure returned.

“There’s a lot to cover,” Savelle said. “I’ll bring you up to speed as we take you back to your truck.”

Tom studied Raveis one more time.

“I appreciate you not jumping out of your seat and twisting my head off,” the man said. “No hard feelings, I hope.”

Tom didn’t see the point in replying. He was about to exit the limo when Raveis spoke.

“It’s important to know who you’re dealing with, no? What they’re capable of. And the means at their disposal. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I do,” Tom said.

He turned and got out. Savelle followed him.

A black sedan was waiting for them.

A moment later, the two of them sat shoulder-to-shoulder in the vehicle’s back seat.

Its driver was a woman no older than Tom.

She glanced at him in the rearview mirror.

The sedan followed the two SUVs and the limo as the caravan wound its way down to the street level.

Once clear of the structure, the three lead vehicles headed across town on Seventy-Second.

The black sedan peeled off and made several turns till it was back on the FDR, where it sped south in the left lane.