Collision (30 page)

Where was Hector?

The van surged at him, pedal to the floor, closing on him, and he dodged the impact, jumping into high weeds, a bullet snipping off the tops of the grasses by his head. He went low and ran and the van accelerated past him, took off.

Four lots further down, a car started on a cracked driveway that lacked a house. No lights.

Hector. Pilgrim turned and dashed through the yards, the empty lots, hauled himself over a newly built fence, reached his own car.

He revved back onto West End, saw Hector’s car in the distance. Hector turned onto Veterans Boulevard heading west, his car’s headlights coming alive. Pilgrim followed long enough to believe that Hector was not heading back to the Cellar safe house in Metairie but further west, toward the airport.

Toward where Ben thought Hector had a hiding hole.

Run home, your sorry-ass bastard,
Pilgrim thought. His arm ached. He steered with his elbow, did a one-handed click through the call log to the stolen cell phone Ben had, dialed.

No answer.

Run home, your sorry bastard,
he thought.
Run home so Ben and I can kill you.

44

Ben turned onto a darkened street near Louis Armstrong International. Warehousing and storage facilities lined the street. He saw signs for FEMA and a bevy of government contractors, some of whom had once been clients of his.

The address he had was for an entire complex of warehouses, with a darkened, empty guard station. But the wooden arm was down. He noticed there was a passkey reader. He tried the passkey he’d taken from Jackie and the arm lifted and he drove into the complex.

A scattering of cars sat in the parking lot slots near the various warehouses—there were at least four large warehouses. The one he wanted, B, lay dark, no cars close by. He parked Jackie’s rental near the door—let Hector see Jackie was back, safe and sound. The sign on the door indicated this was “MLS Limited.” The name of one of the shell companies used by Hector; he must have rented the space in this name, not Hector Global. Ben tried the two keys on Jackie’s ring that didn’t have the rental car company tag on it. The second one worked. With his heart in his throat, he eased open the door.

Darkness. He locked the door behind him; it closed with a soft click. He held the gun in one hand. Even if he died now, Vochek would have enough to put pressure on Hector.

But he was not going to wait on juries and lawyers and trials to avenge Emily.

Ben took a shambling step forward in the darkness, hand out. He touched wall, found the hinge and frame of the door. He slid fingers along cool steel and closed them around a doorknob. He stepped into a darkened hallway, where a gleam of light lined the frame of a big set of double doors. He headed for them, his heart pounding loud enough, he thought, to echo against the walls.

He found a light switch, flicked it on. He tried the pilot’s cell phone again—the battery was completely drained. Useless. He closed it and began to explore.

Half the warehouse space was a maze of cubicles, thrown up in apparent haste; the other half held nothing. Most of the cubicles were empty, bare of computer or chair. He went to the largest office, guessing it belonged to a senior manager. He broke the door open with a fire extinguisher.

The laptop inside wasn’t passworded. He began to search the network’s file hierarchy.

Most of MLS’s business seemed tied to contracts for rebuilding government offices in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Nothing of interest.

He searched for the name “Reynolds.” Found payment spreadsheets financing months of software development. He picked up the desk phone, called the Hotel Marquis de Lafayette, asked to be connected to suite 1201.

“Vochek?”

“My God, Ben, where the hell are you?” She sounded furious.

He gave her the address. “I found Hector’s records of underwriting Reynolds’s research. He funded a lot of stuff through one of these shell companies. You should get over here.” He gave her the address and she hung up.

What else was here? He thought of what he’d found about MLS when he hunted through the business databases back in the Blarney’s bar. Its founding had been close to the time of Emily’s death. He opened the e-mail database, hunted for messages from Hector from the time that the company was founded. He found several, searched through them. One included a spreadsheet from Hector with a note:
Here are payments we need made, please do electronically only.
He clicked on the file. It opened.

It listed financial transactions for services rendered and services received, for a period of two weeks. One was a transaction marked one day after Emily’s death. Notes read on the transaction were a mishmash:
retainer, travel (two connections, DFW), Agency handling bonus, completion bonus.

He blinked.
Completion bonus.
No. He clicked to see who the payment had been made to.

Bile rose in his throat.

The door opened, slammed. He heard footsteps stumbling across the concrete. “Jackie! Jackie, goddamn it, I’m shot . . . we have to get out of here.”

Ben stood. Hector leaned against the far wall. Easing out of a black leather jacket, his back wet with blood, gasping.

“Jackie’s not here.” Ben aimed Jackie’s gun at Hector. His voice didn’t sound like his own anymore. Cool. Quiet. As though rage had reached a level that did not demand anger or screaming or confusion as to why a tragedy had destroyed his life.

Now there was only what had to be done.

“Ben.” Hector raised his gun and pulled the trigger. Clicked on empty. Hector closed his eyes. “It’s damaged, anyway.” He dropped the gun with a clatter. And with a black smile, like he didn’t need the gun. It made Ben’s skin prickle.

“Even I know to count my bullets now,” Ben said. And he had two left. He’d checked the clip on the drive over to the warehouse.

“Ben. We’re both in trouble. But we don’t have to be . . .”

“You were never the negotiator, I was. You can’t sweet-talk me, Sam, just tell me what I want to know.”

Even with a gun aimed at him, Sam Hector did not care for orders. He couldn’t keep the frown of disdain from his face. “Ben, you listen to me—”

“No. Just tell me where Pilgrim is.”

Hector stayed on the wall. “Full of CIA bullets. Dead. But you don’t have to be. The CIA will want you dead, too, Ben. I can save you. We can come to a deal . . .”

“No, we can’t. I’m turning your sorry, murdering ass over to Homeland Security, and Agent Vochek is going to make her career by bringing you down.”

“Don’t be so sure . . .”

“Jackie missed, asshole. Vochek put him down.”

Ben could almost hear the mental gears shift in Hector’s brain. “Listen, Ben, how many laws have you broken in this insane pursuit? Dozens. You’re going to need serious help, I can help you.” He slowed his speech as though he could double the persuasive power of each word. “We can help each other . . .”

On the other side of the warehouse a window shattered.

“You never told me why you killed Emily,” Ben said. “She must have found out about the multiple companies you were setting up, that you wanted to have no trace back to Hector Global. So you could spend money doing all sorts of dirty work.” He heard footsteps behind him. “You explain something to me. I found a payment to the Cellar’s financial front, Sparta Consulting, from one of your sham companies the day after she died . . .”

“Ben?” Pilgrim. His shoulder bloodied, he staggered into the warehouse holding a gun. He came close to Ben, less than five feet away. He aimed his gun at Hector.

“Did you stop the attack?” Ben’s voice rang hard as iron.

“Yes. Would you please shoot the bastard? Then maybe you can patch me up again.” Pilgrim stumbled.

“I will. When you tell me who killed Emily.”

“Hector did . . .” Pilgrim said.

“No.” Ben shook his head. “Hector’s buddies in the CIA wanted her dead because the sham companies Hector set up were for them and she found out. They gave the dirty job to Teach. I found the payment. I have to know who inside the Cellar killed her.”

“Maui,” Hector said, a helpful tone. “Two years ago. A single shot through a kitchen window. I have pictures a friend in the CIA gave me.”

Pilgrim’s face, pale from loss of blood, went the color of bone. “What?”

“Who killed her, Pilgrim?” Ben said.

“Ben, I don’t know . . .”

“I think you do know.” Hector’s voice was iron. “Flight through Dallas on the payment schedule, Ben. I think you know who likes to fly through Dallas, see his kid whenever he can.”

Ben’s eyes went wide, the gun shook in his hand. The silence in the warehouse pressed like the dead air inside a sealed coffin.

“Ben. . . ,” Pilgrim tried to say. “Maui?”

“Did you kill a woman in Maui two years ago?” Ben whispered. “Answer me.”

Pilgrim opened and shut his mouth.

“Teach wrote up a list of all the jobs for me. That’s when I knew Emily was a Cellar job,” Hector said. “I didn’t order her death, Ben, my friends at the CIA did. They sent their best to do the worst.”

In the Dallas apartment, Hector had started to speak of Emily, and he’d said,
You mean who?
and raised the gun to shoot Ben, and Teach had launched herself at him . . . before he could finish.

Ben closed his eyes, for just a half second, then turned the gun toward Pilgrim. “Drop your gun. Get over by the wall. With him. Right now!”

“Ben, I . . . I . . .” Pilgrim stopped. He dropped the gun, put a hand to his forehead.

Hector spoke in a low voice, and to Ben it sounded like bones cracking. “Teach was told by one of her taskmasters that Emily was selling secrets to China. That she was meeting a Chinese agent in Maui to pass Agency secrets she’d learned through my contracts with the Agency. She had to be taken out.”

“Is this true?” Ben yelled. He remembered Pilgrim’s litany of sins:
A couple of times I killed people selling secrets to the Chinese.

Pilgrim looked up from the concrete and met his stare. “Yes, Ben. I . . . yes. I killed her.”

Ben thought his head would explode from the wave of pain. “You . . . you . . .”

“I had no idea,” Pilgrim said. “They gave me an address and her description. Nothing else about her.”

Ben thought:
He didn’t even know her name.

“He pulled the trigger, Ben, that’s all that matters,” Hector said.

Pilgrim swallowed, tried to speak, failed, then managed. “I . . . I was told to wait for a phone call. It would mean to go ahead.”

You have to kill him.
What Ben had thought in the fury of the fight with Jackie, the thoughts crowded into his head like a cancer.

“Ben,” Hector said, “your only hope is to make a deal with me. What do you want in compensation? I’ll give it to you. Bringing me down won’t bring Emily back. Your career’s over now, you know that. You may be facing prison time. My contacts in the government can pardon you. I have the power to save you, Ben; he has nothing. You just have to stay quiet.”

“You stay quiet,” Ben said. He kept his stare locked on Pilgrim.

“My hands are clean, his are bloodied.”

“You do what’s necessary, Ben,” Pilgrim said quietly.

The word
necessary
burned Ben’s brain like a hot iron against flesh.
You do the necessary work,
he’d reassured Pilgrim, more than once, during the past few days. His chest ached.

Ben steadied the gun on Pilgrim. “You shot my wife to death.” Every word was ice in Ben’s throat.

Pilgrim nodded, as though a noose already decorated his neck. Slowly. He closed his eyes, his mouth worked.

“Ben, shoot him,” Hector said. “Nothing can bring back Emily. But you don’t have to let him live. Shoot him, you’re a hero. You’ve killed a rogue CIA agent. The government will exonerate you from all charges.”

Pilgrim made a square with fingers over his heart. “Your aim sucks. Hit inside here and it’s done.”

Ben fired. The bullet caught the chest perfectly, and Hector jerked and whimpered at the spreading crimson blossom on his shirt.

“Pilgrim killed her,” Ben said, “but you gave the order.”

Hector sagged to the floor, expression blanking, a gurgle and then he was done, the bullet perfect in the chest.

Ben raised the gun again at Pilgrim. He still held the square for vengeance over his heart.

One bullet left. Ben’s grip tightened on the gun. Decide.

“Put your hands down,” Ben said, “I’m not going to kill you. They lied to you about her.”

Pilgrim lowered his hands. He took a step toward Ben. “I’m so sorry. Because you are my friend.”

“God help you.” The gun trembled in Ben’s hand. Then he lowered it and turned away from Pilgrim.

“Ben . . .”

“Get the hell away from me. Please. Just go.”

The door busted inward. Vochek and four men in Homeland Security windbreakers rushed the room, guns out and ready.

Ben and Pilgrim froze, five feet apart. The guns swiveled on Ben; the only one obviously armed.

“Ben, drop your weapon,” Vochek ordered.

Ben obeyed. The pistol clattered to the concrete.

“Move away from the gun,” one of the men ordered and Ben took a step back.

“Pilgrim, on the ground, now,” Vochek said. She softened her tone. “Please.”

Pilgrim didn’t move. He ignored the men and Vochek. “I thought we won. I thought we finally won . . . How many bullets left, Ben?”

“One,” Ben said. “But don’t.”

“Shut up and get on the ground!” one of the agents yelled.

Pilgrim looked straight into Ben’s eyes. “Necessary,” he said, then jumped for Ben’s gun. His fingers closed around it, lifted it from the floor. The shots cannoned and echoed, an awful salute. Pilgrim staggered against the wall, sliding down while blood smeared the gray concrete behind him.

Ben grabbed Pilgrim and caught him before he sprawled on the floor. Held him through the rattle of his final breaths. Then lowered him to the ground.

Khaled’s Report—Virginia

I have not been asked to write my thoughts for a report for four months, since the attack on the house in New Orleans. Perhaps it is time again for another analysis of my handwriting by the folks in Langley, to see if I have lost my nerve to stay with my job.

At first, when I realized the house was being breached—I thought it was a test. Then the gunfire simply sounded far too real. I hurried down the steps and I saw an older man, he raised a gun at me and stupidly I froze. I will never make that mistake again. Then a second man shot the gun from the older man’s hand, and I shot at the second man because I was scared to death.

The man who saved me—I will never forget his face. Determined, courageous, but hard. Unyielding, like stone. It is the face I try to wear as I do my job.

I wasn’t sure that we would be permitted to begin our work—there was of course fear that we had been compromised, our names found, to be fed back to the terrorist networks we seek to destroy. But then we were assured that everyone who had found out about our names was dead. The people who attacked us were misled. I do not know what happened to our attackers who escaped; we were all moved that morning to another house, this one in Atlanta. There we waited to know our fates.