The Temporary Agent (9 page)

Nineteen

Tom was seated on the edge of the bed, his torso bound with surgical tape to keep his ribs from moving, the burns on his forearm treated and covered.

His face washed clean of smoke and blood, the superficial wound on his scalp sealed with a liquid bandage.

His beard and hair badly singed, making him look even more ragged than usual.

Stella packed up the leather doctor’s bag that had belonged to her mother. She placed it on the bureau top, then sat beside Tom.

“So that first time I saw you with your shirt off and asked you about your scars and you said, ‘You should have seen the other guy,’ you weren’t just making that macho joke guys make, were you? You were talking about Cahill. He was the other guy.”

Tom nodded. “Yeah.”

“You didn’t want to tell me the truth back then, I get that. My father had wounds from Korea he never liked to talk about. I think it was more about his scars reminding him of the men he’d seen get killed than any pain he himself had suffered. But that is kind of a big thing to keep from the person you love, you know.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’d just like to keep the past in the past if I can.”

“Who wouldn’t? But one way or another it always seems to come back around, doesn’t it?”

Tom nodded.

Stella studied him for a moment, then said, “Before you left tonight, I asked you what you were afraid might happen. You didn’t answer then, but I need to know now if this is what you were thinking might go down?”

“Not this, no.”

“But you knew something could happen.”

“Carrington’s in a dangerous business,” Tom said. “One I want nothing to do with.”

“Dangerous in what way?”

“A man can cross a line and not even know it.”

“What does that mean?”

“You can start as a private military contractor but end up something else.”

“You mean a mercenary?”

“No, worse.”

“What’s worse?”

“I was in Iraq for my first deployment. What a lot of people don’t know is that while there were one hundred thousand service members in Iraq, there were also seventy thousand PMCs contracted by our government through private firms like Blackwater. The terms of their contracts essentially made them above the law. And whenever someone is above the law, it’s usually a short road to his first atrocity.”

“You weren’t afraid you’d cross that line yourself, were you?”

“No. I was afraid of what I’d do if the guy standing next to me crossed that line.” Tom paused. “It’s important to me that I never think of myself as above the law. Or associate with men who do.”

“Why?”

“My mother and sister were killed by men who thought they were above the law. And my father got killed when he decided to take the law into his own hands and hunt them down.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

“So Cahill is doing what your father tried to do.”

Tom nodded.

“And Carrington employs mercenaries. That was the job he offered you. The job you turned down.”

“He could be legit. A lot of private security firms are. Maybe I didn’t want to find out.”

“But you still went to meet him.”

“I had to.”

Stella thought about that. “You said Cahill is a Recon Marine. What is that? I’ve never heard of them before.”

“Most people haven’t. The army has Delta Force; the navy has the SEALs. The marines have Force Reconnaissance.”

“And you were Seabee recon, right?”

“Not the same thing. Recon Marines are tier one, the elite of the elite. They know their shit. If Cahill doesn’t want to be found, I doubt anyone is going to be able to find him.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“What they’ve asked me to do. Look through his files, see if anything stands out. But you’re what matters now, Stella.”

“Don’t use me as an excuse.”

“To stop me, someone was willing to let two women burn to death.”

“Are we sure it was you they were trying to stop?”

Tom realized he hadn’t considered that.

There were, after all, three people in the sedan. One was an NSA analyst associated with a man who, as far as Tom was concerned, was as shadowy as they come.

A man, for whatever reason, determined to find Cahill.

Had the men who attacked the sedan believed that Raveis was in the vehicle?

That he had slipped out of the conspicuous limo with Tom and Savelle?

But these sudden speculations only served to make the situation seem that much more dangerous.

And more likely to spin out of control.

And spread far beyond New York City.

Spread as far north as the quiet town of Canaan, then sweep through it like a violent storm.

“I appreciate your concerns,” Stella said. “But I’m pretty much surrounded every day by cops and state troopers. I have my carry permit, and Ben has no problem with me keeping my .357 under the counter in my purse. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Easier said.”

“I already called Ben and told him I won’t be in today and probably not tomorrow. You need some sleep, and I’m wide awake. So why don’t I look through the documents? You said they were looking for anyone Cahill might have known who had some medical training. I can do that. And remember, my father was a state trooper. I’ve read my share of police reports. I can maybe help you make sense of those.”

“This is my responsibility, Stella.”

“You’re not on your own anymore, Tom.” She smiled and said, “I’m sorry, but I’m older than you, so you have to do what I tell you.”

He smiled, too. “That’s convenient for you.”

Stella stood and walked to the desk.

On it was an oversize purse.

From it she removed Tom’s Kindle.

“You said the documents were encrypted. What’s the code?”

Tom hesitated, his mind cluttered with dangers he could foresee and dangers he could barely imagine.

But Stella was right. He was tired, and the sooner he gave Savelle and Raveis what they wanted, the better.

He recited the four digits.

“I’ll take care of this. You’re going to need your strength, so rest up. Doctor’s orders.”

When he didn’t move, Stella returned to the bed and helped him lie down.

It took all he had to hide the pain doing so caused.

“I’ll be right here,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere, okay?”

Tom looked at the bedside table and saw her father’s chrome-plated .357 Magnum.

Within easy reach.

Next to it were Tom’s two cell phones—his emergency smartphone and the flip phone Carrington had slipped him.

He was certain his former CO had given him that phone so they could contact each other directly—without the use of codes—should the need arise.

What was likely intended as a comfort was instead the exact opposite.

The life he had built, once he was finally ready to build one, was what he wanted.

All that he wanted.

This tiny device—out-of-date, limited in terms of power and options as cell phones went these days—represented a direct line to the very life Tom had refused.

And the world he would have preferred to avoid, occupied by the kind of men he wanted never to become.

Twenty

Tom drifted in and out of a shallow sleep.

At one point he dreamed of the grenade landing in the sand.

That moment—those fast seconds—when his life was about to end and everything both sped up and froze all at once.

He hadn’t dreamed of that in a long time.

Waking and lying still on the motel bed, that night was all Tom could think about for a while.

He remembered Cahill and himself, shredded and burned and bleeding, being transported by helicopter across the desert to the aid station.

He couldn’t really remember the pain, but he remembered feeling an acute loneliness.

Or more accurately, homesickness.

Thanks to the morphine in his blood, it became close to all he could feel.

He’d of course heard the stories of wounded and dying men of all ages crying out for their mothers.

The same terrible stories had emerged from every war.

He had thought of his own mother, too, and maybe he would have cried out for her if she hadn’t already been dead for years, along with the other members of his family.

No home, then, for which to long.

No family to think of beyond the men beside whom he had trained and served for eight years.

So Tom had ignored the ache in his heart and had given in to the sensation of all the world’s edges being dulled as the opiates flooded his brain.

At some point he had overheard the two medics tending to Cahill.

Maybe he’d heard them, or maybe he had only dreamed it at some later point and now recalled it as a memory.

Either way, one medic had yelled to the other over the noise of the rotors, “Yeah, this guy’s never going to be the same again.”

And the other had simply nodded in agreement.

What was it Savelle had said about what she called Cahill’s “current state of mind”?

Something about an incident with his family a few years back . . .

Something, for her, that called into question his emotional state.

And made a violent course of action likely, if not inevitable.

It was, Tom thought now, an odd thing to know so little about the person to whom he owed so much.

But the state of Cahill’s mind aside, the man was likely involved in something serious. Something that attracted men willing to murder to achieve their goals.

And now, so was Tom.

He laid still for a while longer, letting his mind wander where it needed to go.

Memories arising and falling, thoughts emerging that caused yet more memories to arise.

It had been a long time since he’d reflected upon his own life in this scattered way.

It was first light when Tom decided that he’d had all the rest he was going to get and looked for Stella.

She was seated in the room’s only chair.

Tom’s notebook was on her lap.

The two pages visible to him were filled with handwritten notes.

Sitting up, Tom suppressed a loud grunt.

Stella, lost in her reading, hadn’t heard him move.

He moved to the edge of the bed and said to her, “How’s it going?”

She looked up at him, almost startled, and asked if he was okay.

He told her that he was and asked if she had found anything.

She nodded and said, “Actually, yeah, I have. Lots.”

Twenty-One

They sat side by side at the foot of the bed, Stella with Tom’s notebook on her lap.

“Cahill is an interesting guy,” she said.

“How so?”

“He grew up privileged. Park Avenue, prep schools, estate out on Long Island, chauffeurs, the whole thing. He graduated from Dartmouth first in his class, so he pretty much could have had any job he wanted. Not that he needed to work, because his trust fund was released to him the day he was handed his college diploma. Ten million dollars. Can you imagine that?”

“No,” Tom said.

“And that was just the trust fund set up by his late grandfather. His family has vast real estate holdings. Hotels; apartment buildings; banks in New York, Chicago, London, Paris—you name the city, his family owns something there. Their overall wealth is estimated to be over a billion.” She paused. “Which kind of makes you wonder why he joined the marines. I mean, of all the things he could have done. For that matter, he could have gone in as an officer. He was offered that but refused it.”

“You got all this from the documents Savelle sent?”

“I haven’t even had the chance to read everything yet. They really must be desperate, because it looks like she sent you every record a person can leave behind.” Stella paused. “It’s actually pretty scary.”

“What is?”

“The amount of information they managed to collect. A person’s entire life, right there. But what I find curious is how fast they got all this. You met with them at, what, eleven? At that point, Cahill hadn’t even been missing for twenty-four hours. Doesn’t that seem pretty fast? I mean, say these records weren’t legally obtained—say some NSA hacker stole them for Savelle. Each one came from a different source. A lot of different sources—private institutions, hospitals, courts, banks. That’s a lot of information to gather in such a short period of time.”

“You think they’d already been collecting Cahill’s records?”

“They had to have been. And for a while.”

Tom thought about that, then asked if she’d come across anything about an incident with Cahill’s family.

She had.

“There were dozens of newspaper articles about it. They were dated about four years ago. Apparently, there was a very public legal battle over Cahill’s trust fund that ended with Cahill being both disinherited and disowned.”

“What was the fight over?”

“Whether he was fit to manage his own affairs. The battle got pretty nasty, according to the articles. Suits and countersuits were filed, the psychiatrist from one side contradicted the psychiatrist from the other. Eventually, the lawsuits were dropped and Cahill walked away with his trust fund intact. But it’s clear that he was cast out of his family. Wills were changed, and according to one article, so were the locks to all the private properties the family shared. Another article reported that the family had begun to employ bodyguards after that.” She paused. “It’s like they were afraid of him. Of what he might do.”

“In what way was he supposed to be unfit?”

“His family alleged violent outbursts, self-destructive behavior, mood swings, painkiller addiction.” Stella shrugged. “Classic posttraumatic stress.”

Tom said nothing.

“I noticed something else, too, in his school records.”

“What?”

“Cahill was a troubled youth. Rebellious, out of control. Wild, even. He was thrown out of several prep schools before he turned fourteen. But then everything suddenly turned around for him and he became a model student.”

Tom considered the transformation from troubled youth to Dartmouth graduate to marine grunt to squad leader.

He had never seen a better noncom leader than Cahill.

Nor had he seen anyone as poised under fire.

But what would it take to bring such a man full circle?

Trigger whatever it was that had caused him to be troubled in the first place?

And unleash in him an anger and madness that could not be controlled?

Tom had seen exactly that in his own father.

“Where’s his family now?”

“His parents are in Europe and his sister’s in Colorado. So even if Cahill weren’t estranged from his family, he still couldn’t go to them for immediate help. I mean, I can’t imagine he’d try flying with a fresh gunshot wound.”

Tom saw her point.

“Anything in the police records that might help find him?”

“They’re just rudimentary, but that’s to be expected at this point. There are supposedly a number of witnesses—other guests at the motel and the night manager—but their statements weren’t included.”

“Is that unusual?”

“No. The detectives simply wouldn’t have had the time to process the statements they took. You know, actually sit down and open their notebooks and type their notes into a computer.”

“Savelle seemed to know what the witnesses had said.”

“Maybe she talked to one of the detectives. I know law enforcement will cooperate with government agencies. More so now than back when my father was alive.”

“So what
do
the reports include?”

“Basic crime scene documentation. Locations of the deceased, direction in which their bodies lay, placement of spent shell casings, inventory of personal belongings, inventory of the weapons recovered, that kind of thing. Cahill had checked in under a fake name using a fake ID, but his prints were found in a number of locations, which I’m guessing is how they confirmed he was in fact the room’s occupant.”

All military personnel were fingerprinted upon induction, the prints stored in a national database that was easily accessible to a wide range of authorities.

Tom asked what weapons had been recovered.

“Various handguns, a cut-down shotgun, and an Uzi. Where they were found suggest they all belonged to the hit team.”

“They came prepared, didn’t they?”

Stella nodded. “There was also a bloodied pocket knife found.” She checked her notes. “The manufacture is Cold Steel, the model the Recon One. Cahill’s prints were also on that, but none of the deceased had knife wounds.”

“Savelle said something about an eighth man being the shooter.”

“The police have sent out a blood sample for DNA analysis. Maybe the guy’s in the system.”

“Have they been able to determine ownership of the weapons?”

“Not yet. Firearms aren’t registered like vehicles are. There’s no state or national database the police can type a serial number into and instantly get a name and street address. The detectives will have to contact the ATF, who contacts the firearm manufacturer, who directs them to the wholesaler, who directs them to the seller the weapon in question was shipped to, and then the seller manually looks up the buyer’s 4473 form. That takes time, especially when there are multiple weapons from different manufacturers to track down. Takes even more time if the original buyer ended up selling the firearm privately or trading it in. And that’s assuming any of those weapons were legally purchased, which is unlikely. Statistically speaking, properly obtained firearms are rarely used to commit crimes. And, of course, Uzis are illegal in this state, so there’d be no paper trail to follow.”

“Anything about the firearms that stands out?”

“A number of the spent shell casings were .45 caliber, but no .45 was found. And there were no prints on the casings.”

Tom knew that while the military-issue sidearm was the Beretta M9A1 chambered in nine-millimeter, Cahill and his fellow Recon Marines had opted for the .45-caliber Colt 1911.

It was likely that Cahill would choose the same powerful firearm in his civilian life.

What was unlikely was that he would leave it behind if he could help it.

“Anything else?”

“The attackers arrived in two vehicles, both of which had been stolen. So were the tags on them.” Stella flipped through her notes again. “Oh yeah, the deceased had tattoos. A skull on their torsos, rising suns on the backs of both hands, and rings of skulls chained together around the fingers.”

“Every one of them had those?”

“Yes. According to the detective’s report, that identifies them as members of the Obshchina. The Chechen Mafia.”

“What the hell is Cahill into . . .” Tom said softly.

He was more thinking aloud than asking.

So it surprised him when Stella said she had some ideas about that.