Exit Interview, page 16
“It isn’t a mask,” Marie said, her lips compressed, her knuckles white on the wheel.
“He…he was wearing Michelle’s scarf!” I could barely catch my breath.
“Wait, your Michelle? At the Item?” She looked positively alarmed now, and that scared me worse. “How do you know it was her scarf?”
“It’s a silk scarf, I had it made for her…last year, Christmas.” I was numb. “There isn’t another like it. Hand-painted, it was really expensive, but that shade of blue was perfect for her…”
Michelle had loved that scarf, and now she was dead, and Jacob was dead, and I didn’t know who’d done it, but I knew it was my fault, trying to save myself and leave a trail with the Townsend file. I’d killed them just as certainly as I’d pulled a trigger.
Marie sat for a moment, saying nothing as I rocked back and forth, then put her arm over her seat and backed us out of the alley. The color had left her face. I didn’t dare disturb her as we made a beeline for the interstate.
“I guess we know someone else Heath put on our trail,” she said. “Goddamned independent operators.”
“Did he kill Michelle? And J-Jacob?” I tried to wipe my nose on the sleeve of my second-hand-store shirt. It wouldn’t stop running. “Oh, Goddamn it...”
She nodded, her mouth set. “One of them was Chase, Heath’s number two. The other one…if they’re dead, and he’s wearing her scarf, then you can bet he’s responsible. He’s one twisted fucker.” She shook her head. “It’s all bad news.”
I stared at her—if she didn’t think he was right… “What do you mean, twisted?”
She took a deep breath as she found the ramp for 95. “He’s got a talent for interrogation and making death look accidental. He’s big into taking trophies. They’re here for us.”
Marie kept her eyes on the road, but her knuckles were white on the wheel. “We need to get out of Dodge.”
“We need to do something! Michelle, Jacob—it’s my fault! People around me die!” I felt the world spin off its axis. “We need to do something now!”
“Amy, you’re either going to have to keep quiet or help me think.”
“You don’t understand—” I fought to keep the memories of the crash away. The smell of gasoline, burning upholstery, the screech of the metal as I was rescued…
“I do. You think because you let Tommy drive your car that night, it’s your fault he was killed. Kola—or Mrs. Kola, I bet—didn’t care which of you it was, just so long as your investigation was derailed. You think it was your fault about Michelle and Jacob. It isn’t. It was Heath and Mrs. Kola. We’re going to stop them. Those were all good people, and they were in the world to make a difference. We’re not going to let the assholes who did this hurt more people, are we?”
Her tone changed. “I’m sorry about Jacob and Michelle. I heard this afternoon.”
“So you were in Washington?” I held my breath.
“No. I had a few things to check on and I needed some resources. It looks like someone’s been spreading stories to the clandestine services that I’ve gone rogue. Nothing obvious, of course; they can’t afford to be public about it. The stories about me are sifting down to the local law enforcement agencies.”
Somehow, the total lack of reality helped. When completely cut off from your normal life, you think more creatively. Once the boundaries are extended—or in my case, eradicated—you just don’t have to worry about the usual things the same way. It was freeing.
It made me wonder again about Marie, whose personal boundaries were already somewhat perforated/overextended/flexible/negotiable. She’d been off the leash for way longer than me, and with her skills, that was scary. Then again, she was probably the best person to be sitting next to at the moment.
It’s like it was at Tommy’s funeral. The rage that came with the pain, the work he left undone, the things we both fought for and against.
Work with that. Work with the guilt.
I’d been on crutches and had tried to apologize to my sister after the funeral. She’d looked blisteringly angry for a moment, then took my hand very, very gently.
“If it hadn’t been for you, I never would have met the love of my life. I wouldn’t have our beautiful daughter, for whom he wanted to fix the world. He told me once if it hadn’t been for you, he might have done rash, stupid, dangerous things. You were the one who kept saying, wait, wait until you had more information, until you could tell the correct authorities. Without you, he would’ve confronted these people directly. You helped him put some of them away. You helped Tommy live longer.”
It helped a little. Sometimes.
Go with that. For now.
The more I hung in there, the more I controlled the situation, the better our chances were, and the more I could make them all pay for Tommy.
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Tell me. Tell me about the guys we saw. Chase and the one…with the drawn-on cheeks.” I shuddered, a ghost with fair, wavy hair and sideburns from the seventies and over-pronounced features still terrifying me.
“Chase always seemed okay to me, maybe a little too devoted to Heath.”
“And you weren’t?”
“I was, because I believed he wanted the same things I did. I hate how he’s used that. But with Chase, I always got the impression he was working more for Heath than the mission. He’s good. He’ll be a problem.” She shook her head. “The other guy. His name’s Speitzer. I don’t like him, never worked near him, but some people used him for jobs they found too dirty. Heath prefers to do things himself, hands-on—an honor thing, doing the things no one else wanted to—and I thought Heath found him as disgusting as I did. The fact Speitzer is with Chase is bad.”
Her description of Speitzer was the first time I’d really ever heard her curse.
“His face…what you saw on his cheeks? It’s scars. One is a nearly complete bite mark. Human. He never had it fixed, and that should tell you something about him.” She cracked her neck. “I really hate that Heath brought him in.”
“Well, it’s serious,” I said, surprising myself with how calm I sounded. Good. “We don’t know who else is on Heath’s side. They must be panicking. It’s very big news that Heath would do something so bold as mess with the Item staff. We can’t go to the FBI, the CIA, because we don’t know if they’re tainted. Even if they aren’t, they think you’re a black hat. Can’t go to another paper—yet—because we don’t have enough evidence. We can’t hide out until it blows over.” I looked at her. “Because it’s only going to get worse.”
Marie nodded.
I took another deep breath, but it still felt like I was only an observer of our conversation. “So we have to go to them. Who do we tackle first?”
“Hang on there, cowgirl.” She actually laughed. “It’s a little more complicated.”
“How? I mean, we either find the computer and its files and the encryption or we die. Right?”
“That’s the gist of it. But we’ll do it smart and we’ll do it right.”
Her confidence was like a tonic. Apart from my leads in the library, I felt I hadn’t won anything in about a week. When things go to hell, it’s important to remember what victory feels like, especially when that victory’s bound to be Pyrrhic.
I tried to keep my mind on our conversation, not on the freakshow wearing Michelle’s scarf.
She continued. “We’ll pick up the order from Ape. We’ll investigate Kola’s usual haunts, places he might have been able to leave a clue, even while observed. And we’ll take it from there.”
The next day we drove to the mall at Bailey’s Crossroads, parked outside a giant box toy store, and waited until early afternoon.
Marie’s phone buzzed and she checked the text.
She read it and put the phone away, a smile on her face. “We’re good. Ape’s on her way, no tail. Get in the back, would you?”
A few minutes later, a minivan pulled up and a petite white woman with graying brown hair got out. She wore a white, heavy apron over a T-shirt and jeans, her hair tied in a braid under a white kerchief. She looked like an overworked short-order cook. Although her clothes were clean, the humid summer morning brought a faint odor of grilled burgers. She got in the front seat.
Marie looked positively delighted. “Ape.”
“Cara.”
Interesting. Maybe Cara was Marie’s real name. Didn’t matter; I filed it away with the other tidbits I’d gleaned about her.
Ape looked in back, saw me, scowled. “Aw, jeez, C.”
“Ape, this is Amy. She’s okay.”
“Ape? As in April?”
I held out my hand, but the woman didn’t appreciate the question. “My friends call me AP or Ape. You can call me Stella.”
She turned away, dismissing me from consideration.
“Whatever.” I didn’t need to be friends with her.
Then I saw she was laughing, and she turned back and shook with me. “AP is fine.”
Marie didn’t actually smirk, but she might as well have. “And is that a very large box I see in your car?”
“Those are several very large boxes. It’s Christmas Day for one naughty little girl.” She blew her bangs off her forehead. “Shit. I was up half the night getting it sorted.”
Marie held her hands up. “I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t imperative.”
“I hear you. Just be careful, would you? I want you to live to collect the favor back. When does it go down?”
“Too soon. We think a couple days.”
Suddenly, I remembered George’s comment back in my cube at the Item about “chatter” and “local travel plans.” I did some calculating and came up with a number I didn’t like.
I felt dizzy, but now wasn’t the time for guesses. The job now was to get out into the heat of the afternoon, transferring the incredibly heavy boxes—one for a playhouse, one for a boy’s bike, and one for a chemistry set, which made Marie laugh— to the back of our car. It was a humid scorcher. I realized Marie had let me sleep in this morning because the toy store was open only now. There was nothing curious about three women moving boxes of toys into a car here.
We finished, they hugged. “Say hey to the kids for me, Ape. And don’t be too hard on Josh, he’s really trying.”
“Now you’re commenting on my parenting skills? Jesus, Cara, you’re still an asshole. You’re soft on Josh because he’s your godson and you don’t have to live with the evil little con artist twenty-four/seven.”
“Yeah, well, he takes after his mother.”
Ape laughed humorlessly. “And I’ll be paying for that for the next ten years—make it ten to fifteen. After that, he’s on his own. Here.” She handed a brown paper bag to me. “Coffee, some water, couple of sandwiches, apples. Nothing fancy, but all good.”
“Thank you, Stella. AP.”
I noticed despite the earlier talk of money, Marie didn’t pull out her wallet and Ape didn’t ask for anything. In fact, I noticed Ape slide Marie a roll of bills that would gag a rhino.
“Keep your shit together, C. The scams Josh’s pulling, I might need to call in those favors you owe me. So don’t get yourself killed.”
“Ah, it’s good for a kid, get into a little trouble. Find his depth.”
AP shook her head. “He’s starting to take after his father.”
Marie sobered immediately. “That’s another story. I’ll make sure I come back.”
“I’ll count on it. Good hunting.”
They hugged again briefly, which surprised me. I scrambled around into the front seat. Ape looked around, then rapped on the hood before she stuck her hands in her pockets and returned to her minivan.
She threw a plastic trash bag AP had given her into the back seat. “Clothes. I think I have a plan, and we’re gonna have to look the part. Hey, speaking of clothes—how lucky did you get yesterday?”
My mind flashed to the library, clinging to Burke. I felt the blood rush to my face.
“Yesterday, when you were MIA? You snatched a bag. Was it just someone’s dirty laundry?”
She reached back for the gym bag, but I grabbed it. “Give me that!”
I’d been so freaked out by the news about Jacob and Michelle that I’d forgotten the bag. I had no idea what Burke might have left in there, and no idea what Marie would do if she’d found out I’d spoken to anyone. “If I was smart enough to steal it, then I should get the honors. Unlike some, I don’t do this all the time.”
She handed it over. “Ha! You’re the press. You go through trashcans, read peoples’ texts, and listen in on their cell phone conversations.”
I scowled and unzipped the bag, trying to act as if I’d actually stolen it.
“Clothes, looks like for a guy. At least they’re clean. Gym shoes. Toilet bag. Ooh, look at this!” I pulled out a baggie with a roll of cash in it. “Someone was planning a big weekend!”
“Or just getting back from one—what’s that?” She pulled out a lacy black bra. “Trophy.”
I shrugged. Didn’t know where Burke had gotten it or that it was close to my size; all I cared about was that it was clean. I grabbed the undergarment from her and stuffed it back in a hurry. The bra had been caught on something down at the bottom of the bag.
A quick glance confirmed it. Burke had given me a revolver.
She glanced across at me. “Looks like you hit the jackpot, Oliver Twist.”
I swallowed. “I just tried to pick someone about my size.”
“Anything else?”
I made a show of shifting the stuff around, but shook my head. I’d felt the sneakers rattle. I wondered if there the cell phone was in there. I’d check as soon as I got some privacy. I frowned. That might be a while.
“How much cash?” I asked. She was thumbing through the wad.
“Almost four hundred dollars. Nice one, Princess.”
I felt bone tired. “Great. Now what?”
“It’s too late to do what I’m planning tonight. Tomorrow, we get to work. For now, we find a place to crash, some food, and make plans. We’re doing good. You’re doing really good—”
“Don’t. Really.” I held up a hand. “Just…keep acting like we do this all the time, like this is normal, and I’ll get through it. No promises, but let’s just try. There’s one more thing: I have an idea about where Kola might keep his arms hidden.”
I told her about my research at the library, how Mrs. K, through several different companies and hidden by dummy corporations, had expanded her family’s industrial interests and created an extensive network of storage facilities and warehouses.
“She has them all over the world, sometimes multiple locations in one city. It’s the perfect cover for her husband’s arms trade: near the airports and ports, anonymous, busy at all hours of the day or night.”
Marie nodded. “Okay…that’s something. We’d have to narrow it down to see what Heath might be moving on now, but it’s a good start. An excellent start, Amy.”
I didn’t bridle so much at her praise this time. I was pretty fucking pleased with myself.
“We have gear, we have information. It’s been a good day.”
I hated how she said that, believed it, in the context of recent events. If today was a good day, even discounting the terrible news about Jacob and Michelle, I’d hate to see what she thought a bad day looked like. Her sense of what constituted progress was in a different world than my own.
Chapter Thirty-Four: Nicole Bradley
In spite of my chaotic and occasionally peripatetic life, I have my rituals. I find my flow state with music and tea, then start off easy, like a musician warming up with scales, or a runner jogging slowly. I run down my list of security protocols, and then double-check them and add another when I feel they’re too familiar. Easy equals comfortable, and comfortable means slipshod. Poised and aware is the state I need to find, just as I would with physical combat.
I delve into the personal phones belonging to the members of the Department, looking for new signals that overlap with the known haunts. Something useful, not too surprising: It looks like Chase is working with Philomena Kola, off the books. Their texts indicate that this is without Heath’s knowledge. Ooh. I file that away, and wonder whether I can use it to throw Heath off, and whether doing that is a good idea—not yet. I want them comfortable enough to think they’re all keeping each others’ secrets, everyone on board. I’ll only blow that up if I need to rattle someone’s cage.
I start to noodle around the Department’s email, prodding the security to see if there’s anything new. There is, but nothing I can’t handle. Before I feel too pleased with myself, I backtrack and look around a little wider.
I put out a few feelers around the archives, and don’t see anything I don’t remember. Back when I was working for the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations, they loaned me out to the Department so that I could help with their encryption and security. Of course, I left my own back doors in case I ever needed to revisit. Hacking isn’t about getting in once, it’s making sure you have your own key to let yourself in later.
They’d teased me about being a geek and now I’m making them eat it. But all in the name of a good cause, of course. Revenge is a complicated dish, and you can never tell when you might have it handed back to you.
I’d be silly to think they haven’t added more security since they decided I was no longer useful to them, and I’m anything but silly. It’s there, I can see it. I can work around it.
Okay, next step: I need to find Richard Heath’s personal information, with the hope that either it will contain his retinal images or some other intel I can use to get around that feature. It’s not going to be in his personnel file, which of course, would be encrypted, but in the security file that exists in case something happens and Heath loses his password or he pulls a Director Fury and loses the eye he used for the retinal scan. There should be an API to update and reencode this information for him in such cases.
