Thin Line (6 page)

"Yeah?" I said.

"You guys alone?"

I glanced up at the panoramic mirror and saw three patrons remaining, seated at the booth in the corner. "Yeah, we're alone."

"I've got you on a charter out of there at eleven tomorrow morning. Think you can get to Long Island? Place called Republic Airport."

"Should be able to do that. Where's the flight heading?"

Bear glanced at me in the mirror, a piece of steak fixed in front of his face to the fork. I held up a finger in response.

Frank said, "D.C. area."

"Just the area? No place specific?"

"You'll see when you get there."

"It's cool with me as long as I get to depart from the plane under my own power and won't be walking into a hornet's nest."

"Nothing to worry about, Jack. It's on the up-and-up, and I've got some stuff to show you." He paused, and I said nothing. "I'll meet you on the runway."

I set the phone down on the bar and grabbed the last roll out of the basket between Bear and me. It was slick with butter and laced with garlic. If Bear
hadn't eaten the others, a single bite would have led me to devouring the entire basket.

"What's the deal?" Bear said.

"We're on a charter tomorrow morning. Leaves at eleven out of a private airstrip called Republic Airport on Long Island."

"Peachy." He lifted his mug to his mouth and tilted his head back, draining the remaining liquid. "We get to show up to God-knows-where unarmed."

"Won't be the first time."

Bear set his mug down. It clanked against the bar top. "And hopefully not the last."

THE SNOW HAD stopped by midnight. Crews worked tirelessly throughout the night, clearing the streets and sidewalks. Finding an unoccupied cab outside our
condo building had been the toughest part of leaving Manhattan that morning.

The charter departed fifteen minutes after our arrival at Republic Airport. We were the only ones on board. Takeoff was quick and effortless. Bear had his
typical bout of anxiety during our initial ascent, but seemed to do well after the plane leveled off. I did my best to distract him by discussing the
playoffs. I never held the fact that he was a Cowboys fan against him. They'd already been knocked out anyway.

The altitude thwarted my attempts at keeping track of our location. The plane flew over an endless patch of thick white clouds. We traveled in a southwest
direction, which was to be expected if we were going to D.C. It wasn't until moments before we landed, ninety minutes after takeoff, that I recognized
where we were.

Halfway between D.C. and Charlottesville, Virginia.

Tall pines surrounded the airstrip for at least a mile in every direction, ringed by a ten-foot security fence about a quarter-mile out. The barren patch
of land that snaked through the forest had been visible from the air. A narrow gravel path wide enough for a large SUV led from the runway to the nearest
access road. It passed a guard station positioned at the gate and manned twenty-four hours a day.

Several agencies had access to the runway. Most used it when they had to bring in a guest they wanted no one to know about, or when an agent returned home
from a clandestine operation, or when someone had to get out of the country and security was at a premium.

The first time I'd been diverted to the runway was because I was coming in hot. Two and a half years ago, I got into trouble across the border while
working with the SIS. Two of our agents had been kidnapped while scouting a drug cartel. One of them didn't make it out alive. I rescued the other, and in
doing so, made myself a target. The cartel had reach, and Frank knew that they'd have a man positioned at every possible destination airport looking for
me. We hopped on a puddle jumper to the Caymans, then a charter to this same airstrip.

Bear hadn't been around for that operation. He was finishing his stint in the Marines. After he retired from the military and I left the SIS, we formed our
contracting company. It'd led us around the world.

And back to that same airstrip.

I didn't want to speculate why. Who might be after us. Frank could explain all that when we saw him. If we saw him, I figured.

The cabin door opened and one of the flight crew stepped out. He was a tall man, rail thin. His voice was twice as deep as Bear's.

"You guys can exit now. Your ride is already here."

Bear rose and headed toward the front of the plane as the man opened the door and lowered the stairs. I got up and stopped halfway. Once Bear reached the
opening, he surveyed the scene, then signaled that it was OK to depart.

A cold gust, laced with jet-fuel fumes, smacked me in the face as I emerged from the fuselage. My eyes burned and watered. Brown grass surrounded the
strip. The storm had apparently missed the area. Overhead, the sun fragmented the clear blue sky. I reached out for the frigid stair railing and descended
to the ground.

Frank stood next to a black full-sized Chevy SUV. He had on a heavy black overcoat and black leather gloves. Practically blended in with the vehicle. He
nodded at me and opened the back driver's side door.

Bear walked up to the man. They exchanged words, and then both looked toward me. Neither trusted the other. Each could do without the other. It had been
like that since I started working with Frank at the SIS.

"Good to see you, Jack," Frank said as I approached.

I nodded, left my hands in my pockets. "You too."

Neither of us meant it.

The three of us stood outside the SUV for several seconds, freezing in the blustery cold. No one spoke.

"We gonna talk out here, or you got somewhere to take us?" Bear said.

"Yeah, get in," Frank said. "One of you sit up front."

"I'm good in back," Bear said, halfway into the SUV's middle row.

Behind me and next to Bear sat another man neither of us had seen before. His hair was neat and brown and short, his cheeks slightly red. His dark suit
wasn't cheap, wasn't expensive. He'd spent some money on the overcoat, though. I figured the same would be true of his shoes, if I could see them.

Frank slid in and said, "Let me introduce you guys to Joe Dunne. Joe's been working on a related case for at least a year. When I started pulling
information up, it was flagged for me to contact him."

"Who does he work for?" I asked.

"He's right there, Jack. Why not ask him?"

I glanced up at the mirror positioned in the middle of the visor. "Well?"

"FBI."

"What the hell is going on over there, Frank? I leave, and now you're cutting deals with the Feebs?"

"Jack."

"Frank."

"Listen," Joe Dunne said from the backseat. "I don't care about inter-agency pissing matches. Doesn't matter to me whose is longer. I've forgotten the two
incidents where I was bumped off a case due to SIS involvement."

Frank coughed. "Enough. Christ. What is this? High school? Cut it out, Jack. We've got some serious stuff to discuss here."

We pulled away from the airstrip. The cabin quieted to a hum. Occasionally, a stray piece of gravel pelted the undercarriage. I glanced over my shoulder.
Bear leaned against the door and had his eyes closed. Guess that meant all the talking, and explaining, and arguing, would be left up to me.

We stopped at the security station. Frank showed his credentials to the man. A moment later, the gate parted and let us out.

Frank said, "So, what happened in the city?"

"How much can I say?" I stared at Joe Dunne in the mirror.

"I've read him in. He understands the penalty that can be incurred for repeating anything you say here."

"He had the drop on us." I adjusted the vent so the heat blew on my face.

Frank glanced from the narrow road to me, then back. "You gotta do better than that, Jack."

"What do you want me to say?" I looked into the visor mirror. Dunne looked away. I turned to face my window. The trees passed by in slow motion. "I got up
there around four in the morning. You know Bear arrived on the same flight as the target, who gave no indication that he knew who Bear was or what he was
doing there."

"You're sure about that?"

"You think Taylor would have led Bear to his building if he knew he was being followed?"

Frank shrugged. "Hard to tell with this guy. Battle-tested doesn't begin to describe him."

Sweat formed on my brow. I directed the flow of air toward the window. "Anyway, Bear watched the target enter his building, and after that he never took
his eyes off it. We met a block away. Sat outside. Stayed there long enough to give the guy time to fall asleep."

"Nothing happened between then and when you entered the building?"

"There was a cop…"

"A cop?"

"It was nothing. We split up for a few minutes. Bear maintained visual contact with the building at all times. I looped around and was there in time to
watch Bear enter, then went in myself."

"Any way out? A back door?" He placed his left hand on the wheel and moved his right to his lap.

"You tell me, Frank."

"I wasn't there, Jack."

"I checked the place out that morning. Every apartment but his. The roof. The basement. It was dark, and it stank like human waste and vomit in there. I
didn't find a way out. The intel we had said there was no way out."

"But you never saw him leave."

"That's right."

"Well?"

"Maybe he scaled the walls. Christ, Frank, I don't know."

"And the guy you found in his bed, didn't recognize him?"

I recalled the image of the naked man, hole in his head, blood streaking through his blond hair and pooling underneath his neck and shoulders.

"Right," I said. "Probably some homeless guy that didn't get out of the building in time."

"Sure about that?" Dunne said.

"Getting sick of this questioning."

"Just answer," Frank said.

"How can I be sure? Did I recognize the guy? No. Can I tell you with one hundred percent certainty that he was homeless? No."

Frank pointed at the glove box.

"What?" I said.

"In there," he said.

"What about it?"

"Check the file."

I looked up at the rear-view mirror. Bear had shifted in his seat and was now leaning forward. Joe Dunne hadn't moved. Presumably he already knew the
contents. I opened the glove box and pulled out a light blue folder. My stomach knotted as I opened the document.

"Christ," I said.

"What is it?" Bear said.

I held the folder up so he could see the six-by-nine picture taped to the first page of what looked to be an Army service record.

"Is that the guy?" Bear said.

"Yeah," I said. "The one we found dead in Taylor's bed."

THE ODOR THAT rose from the folder indicated someone had stuffed it in a box and stuck it in the back of a warehouse. I figured Joe Dunne had something to
do with it ending up in Frank's possession.

Hollow eyes stared back at me from within the pages. The guy looked about ten years younger in the picture. Unmistakable, though. It was him, minus the
hole in his head. Maybe a little more hair around the temples and at the top of the forehead. It'd be easy to call the entire thing a coincidence. But
then, Frank wouldn't have made such a big deal of me opening the glove box and making the discovery.

Aside from the picture, there was little on his record. The scant information told me that the dead guy's name was Neil McLellan. He was thirty years old.
Same as me. Same as Brett Taylor. And like Taylor, Neil had enlisted in the Army at the age of eighteen.

And like Taylor's file, when I turned the page, there was nothing. Only blank paper added to give the folder some heft. Made it look legit should someone
come looking around. There had to be a handful of guys in the country who had jackets like this. What were the odds I'd see two in less than a week?

"Frank, is he…?"

Frank lifted his right hand off the steering wheel as if to cut me off. "We're working on it."

"Did this guy know Taylor beforehand? Did they serve together?"

"Like I said, Joe and I are working on it, but you can look at the dates there and put two and two together."

"Yeah, well, with what I've got here and what I've seen, I'm coming up with five as the sum."

Bear said, "Something stinks about this."

I said, "Someone else is involved in this, and one side is playing the other."

Frank said, "You think we're on the losing end, don't you?"

"Figure it out." I closed the folder and passed it back to Bear. "Here we were concerned that Taylor got the drop on us and bailed, leaving behind a dead
body. Initially, I presumed he did so either to frame us, fool us, or scare us. But now I'm thinking that he didn't even know about us. McLellan arrived
first, otherwise we would have spotted him entering. Unless there's a way in we don't know about."

Bear grabbed my seat and pulled back. "You saw the same plans I did. Not only that, you walked the building. No way in or out of that building other than
the front door."

"Right, I verified it myself. So this guy was there early, and either in Taylor's apartment or hiding somewhere. Why, though? Paying a visit to his old
Army buddy? Could be, right? But then, why does McLellan end up dead? It's possible they got into an argument over something stupid that quickly
escalated."

"He wouldn't leave the corpse in his bed and flee," Bear said.

"That's right," I said. "He wouldn't. Unless he panicked."

"Guys like Taylor don't panic, Jack," Frank said. "You know that. You're a guy like Taylor."

"If I killed Bear, I might panic."

"Only because I'd rise from the dead."

The three of us shared a quick tension-easing laugh. Joe didn't crack a smile.

Bear said, "What if McLellan was dead already?"

"Body was still warm," I said, "but the apartment was heated. Under those conditions, it'd lose one degree, maybe one-and-a-half per hour. Without knowing
the exact temperature, it's hard to tell. I'd guess he'd been killed within two hours of us discovering him."