“Listen to me. I’m going to help you, but first I need you to do something. Call Cynthia. Tell her whatever you need to, just get her out of the house and as far away as possible. She needs to take the hard drive with her.”
“You’re insane,” Gerald said. “They can have the damn thing.”
“It might not make any difference.”
“It won’t make any difference if we give them what they want?”
“I don’t even know who they are right now, Gerald. Until I figure that out, we can’t take any chances.”
“Oh god!” Gerald said. “What am I supposed to do?”
The anger had gone out of him. Now he was just afraid.
“Call Cynthia. Get her to leave and take the drive with her. Tell her to put as many miles between herself and the house as possible.”
“You know her,” Gerald said. “She’ll want to know why. She’s sick, for Christ’s sake. I can’t just tell her to leave.”
“You’ll think of a way. You have to. As for yourself, just get out of there. Stay close to the shore. I’ll contact you again as soon as I can.”
“Where are you?” Gerald asked.
“Not far. Now go!”
The screen flashed and the new message read:
line terminated................
Gerald pushed the laptop closed and ran back to the cockpit for his phone. Cynthia picked up on the first ring.
“Honey, it’s me. I need you to listen to me very carefully.”
“Gerald, are you drunk?” Cynthia asked.
Gerald took a deep breath and said the only thing he believed would get her attention. “Cynthia, shut your fucking mouth and listen to me. This is serious. I don’t have time to explain, so you’re going to have to trust me.”
When she spoke again her voice was unsteady. “Gerald, you’re scaring me.”
“Cynthia, I need you to do what I tell you. Someone might be coming to the house to look for me. If they do, you can’t be there. I want you to go into my office and open the safe.”
There was silence, followed by a faint sob. And then, barely audible, “Okay.”
He waited for her to get downstairs and heard the door opening. A moment later she was back.
“I don’t know the code.”
“It’s two, eight, six, five, nine, five.”
He heard the safe beeping as she typed in the numbers, then a click as the door opened.
“Take out the black bag and go to the garage.”
“What is it, Gerald?”
“Never mind, darling. Just do it.”
He could hear the initial shock beginning to wear off. Cynthia was unstable, but she was also stubborn. He was going to have her get some things together and take the gun from the drawer in his bedside table, but thought better of it.
“I’m in the garage,” Cynthia said, her voice a little steadier now, a little more skeptical.
“Good. Get in the car and open the garage door.”
It seemed to take an eternity, but eventually he heard the car door open and shut again. In the background the whir of the electric door opener started up.
“Now what do I do?” she asked.
“Put it in drive and go.”
“Where?”
He knew that to tell her to just go anywhere would be too much. He decided to send her somewhere familiar. If Walter didn’t like that, it was tough shit.
“I want you to go to Uncle Kyle’s place in McIndo Falls. Drive to Chicopee, then cross the river and head up Interstate 91. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
“Gerald?”
“What?”
“Please tell me you haven’t sold the house.”
The question was so unexpected, and yet so in tune with her over-cynical nature that despite everything, he almost laughed.
“No, darling. I haven’t sold the house. Now I need you to get going.”
“To Chicopee?”
“To Chicopee, then onto I-91. I’ll call Kyle and let him know you’re coming. Don’t stop until you get there.”
“You’ll call me?”
“Yes. As soon as I can.”
He hung up before she could say anything else and prayed that she wouldn’t change her mind and go back into the house. It was by no means a sure thing that she wouldn’t. If she went back now, it would be to the medicine cabinet upstairs. If she did that, whoever Walter thought might be coming could break into the house with a bulldozer and probably find her still asleep on the couch.
Gerald looked around, trying to decide what to do next. Walter had told him to get out of there. What he wanted to do was cross the bay, find a car and drive to meet Cynthia. Sailing down the coast while she was out there going out of her mind would be torture. What he decided to do was neither.
He started up the engine, walked to the bow and cast off the line. He did the same to the stern line, eased the boat back from the pier and turned her into the harbor. When he reached open water, he pushed the throttles all the way forward and set a course due north for the tip of Halibut Point and home.
Boston, Massachusetts
Monday 17 July 2006
2000 EDT
Francis Moore, who still thought of himself as Walter Scott or Harry Fisher, and sometimes Lee Baker, was sitting in the living room of a small rented apartment on the outskirts of Boston. There were eleven names and phone numbers written on the notepad in front of him.
He picked up the phone and dialed the next number on the list. The woman who answered sounded like she’d been asleep.
“Hello?”
“Good evening, ma’am. My name is Daren Hill; I’m with the Boston District Attorney’s Office. I was hoping to speak to Mr. Parker if he’s at home.”
“Hold on.”
He heard her shout something. A moment later, a man came to the phone. “Hello?”
“Mr. Parker, My name is Daren Hill; I’m with the Boston District Attorney’s Office. I’m sorry to be calling at this hour.”
“That’s all right. How can I help you?”
“I believe you spoke to one of our investigators yesterday?”
“Yeah, Henry something.”
“Harold Waxman.”
“That’s it, Harold. Nice guy.”
“I just wanted to call and see if maybe you’d remembered something else. The case we’re putting together is very important and we could really use all the help we can get.”
“Like I said, I left Allied Bishop three years ago. I haven’t really kept in touch with anyone in that time.”
“I understand. Well, thank you anyway, Mr. Parker. And if you do think of anything, please give us a call.”
“You got it.”
Francis put the phone down and cursed.
Of all the possible problems the plan had presented, the one thing he had known for an absolute certainty was that they wouldn’t dare retaliate. The danger of exposing the country’s most clandestine assassination program might not have been enough to stop the CIA from trying to find him, but risking a leak to the press of the break-in would. The conclusion was obvious: the drive wasn’t theirs. That led to two other very disturbing questions. Who the hell
did
it belong to? And what was it doing in a safety deposit box owned by the CIA?
To make matters worse, he had no idea what was on the drive. And if that wasn’t bad enough, now he didn’t even have it.
That Gerald could end up being a suspect had always been a possibility, and a risk he had been willing to take. Although never involved directly in the creation of Nova, Ross was the best in the field and had been consulted at one point or another by all three companies who had worked on it. Anyone questioned for long enough would eventually mention Ross. But Ross was also a genius. That much Francis had known from the start. It was the reason he had picked him in the first place. There really was no way to implicate him beyond the circumstantial. And even if the FBI had gotten around to asking him a few questions before they were shut down, a few questions was all it would ever be.
Francis thought Ross would be all right, at least for now. Cynthia was another matter. He had only met her twice, and then only briefly. But it had been enough to see that Cynthia Ross lived only a block or two away from her next nervous breakdown, an eventuality kept at bay only by a steady regimen of mother’s little helpers. He would have to get to Cynthia, secure the drive and hide her. Ross would have to wait.
Francis opened the closet in the bedroom, pulled out a black leather motorcycle jacket and dressed quickly. There was a Walther P22 semi-automatic pistol and two magazines in a shoebox on the floor. He put these in the inside pockets of his jacket. When he was ready, he took a final look around, then moved to the door, turned off the lights, and left the apartment.
There was a black motorcycle leaning on its kickstand at one end of the underground parking lot. It was a GSX1300R turbocharged Suzuki Hayabusa, custom upgraded by a firm in Ohio that took on business by referral only and did not advertise. When he pushed the start button, the engine roared to life and quickly settled down to a soft purr.
As soon as he was outside, he pulled to the side of the road and unzipped the cover on the fuel tank bag to reveal a small GPS tracker. He turned it on and waited until the icon in the top corner of the screen showed four bars, then scrolled through a touch screen menu until the words
Gerald A4
appeared in a drop-down list and selected it. A moment later, the screen displayed a map showing the Vermont/New Hampshire border. A small green arrow showed the car traveling up Interstate 91 past the town of Bernardston on the Vermont side.
Francis pulled back onto the road and took a left at the next junction. Gambling that Gerald had been smart enough to send her all the way to the border, he headed for Interstate 93, intending to cut across and reach her before she got there.
Ipswich Bay, Massachusetts
Monday 17 July 2006
2030 EDT
When he was a quarter mile from the shore, Gerald eased the throttle back and let the bow of the boat sink into the water as she lost speed and began to drift. He had turned off all her lights when he rounded Halibut Point. Now, standing in the dark, he scanned the shoreline looking for the house. He picked it out quickly as the central property in a cluster of only three on that part of the shore. No lights were on and he was too far away to make out any signs of activity. For the second time, he prayed that Cynthia had not stayed.
It took less than a minute to inflate the lifeboat using the battery-powered pump. When the small dinghy was in the water, he tied it off and went back to the cockpit to drop anchor. Next, he went below and put on a sweater and a beanie, then packed his laptop into a watertight bag. In one of the drawers beneath the counter of the kitchenette he found a snub-nosed silver revolver. After a brief moment of hesitation, he added the box containing the flare gun.
Half an hour later he was cursing himself for not having stopped closer to the shore. His arms ached and every time he turned to gauge his progress, land seemed further away, not closer. Another half hour passed and this time he thought the shore
was
getting a little closer. He had to stop and rest twice, and when he finally felt the boat begin to bob in the swells beating at the coastline, he put the oars down and let nature take care of the rest.
Gerald stepped into the shallow water, letting the boat drift away as he walked the final few yards to dry land and dropped the bag. In front of him, a cliff face about eight feet high marked the end of his own backyard. He clambered up the wall of loose dirt and rock to get a better look at the house.
Something moved behind him and he spun his head around, lost his footing and slid down the slope on his backside. When he looked up, a man was standing in front of him. At his feet Gerald saw the open box of the flare gun. It was now in the man’s hand and pointed at Gerald.
“This yours?” the man asked.
Gerald didn’t answer.
“I’m glad you showed up, Mr. Ross. We’ve been wanting to speak to you.”
“I don’t have it!” Gerald found himself saying before the man could ask.
“You don’t have what?”
“The hard drive. It’s not here. If it was, I’d give it to you, I swear.”
“Then who does?” the man asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I was afraid you might say that.”
The man pulled the hammer back on the flare gun. “Ever been shot with one of these?”
“I don’t have the drive,” Gerald said again, pushing himself away until his back was against the bank.
“Yeah, you said that. What I need to know is, who does have it? And just so we’re clear, Mr. Ross, I won’t kill you. I’ll tear your eyes out and break every bone in your body, but you’ll still be alive and I’ll still be asking.”
Gerald believed him. Walter had been right, and coming back here had been the biggest mistake of his life. Although that wasn’t entirely true. Trusting Walter had been the biggest mistake.
“I can tell you who took it,” Gerald said.
“Go on.”
“His name is Walter Scott. He’s the one who broke into the Fed. It was his idea. His plan.”
The man studied him as if trying to decide if this was the truth or just the ramblings of a desperate man. “Some fucking friend you turned out to be. Go on. I’m listening.”
“We’re not friends,” Gerald said. “He paid me. I helped him get around the security system, that’s all.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“Something to do with the CIA. He was going to blackmail them. That’s all I know.”
“Where’s your wife?” the man said.
“I don’t know.”
“There,” the man said, as if he’d just spotted something interesting to Gerald’s right.
“What?” Gerald said, looking around.
“You just started lying. Things were going so well, and then you had to go and fuck it all up by lying to me.”
The man stepped forward and reached down with his free hand. Gerald rolled to one side, scrambled to his feet, then turned and ran down the beach. Something exploded behind him. An instant later, a bright light darted past the right side of his head. It sounded like a rocket and gave off an intense wave of heat, burning the right side of his face and singeing all the hair there. Gerald screamed out in pain. A second later, the flare erupted on the beach in front of him in a blinding explosion of red.