The Fix

by David Baldacci

  flitted over the walls and rough ceiling like a horde of fireflies.

  “So why would she come down here?” asked Milligan.

  “To hide something. We just have to find the place.”

  Milligan glanced toward the door. “Wait a minute. If the Honda is here, how did she come and go from this place?”

  “There’s a small clearing on the right side when you enter the road this house is on. There were tire marks on it. My hunch is she’d drive the Mercedes here, park, and then walk. She might not have come that often, only when she taught class and needed the Honda, so that would jibe with the low mileage on the Mercedes. Then she’d reverse that path, leave the Honda here, and drive off in the Mercedes.”

  “But why do that at all?”

  “A substitute teacher arriving in a six-figure luxury car would no doubt invite gossip among the teachers, staff, and students. And I don’t think Berkshire liked to encourage attention. It’s why she kept to herself.”

  Milligan nodded. “I guess you’re right. But she did have the car and the condo.”

  “Which means the woman didn’t dislike living in the lap of luxury. And maybe she enjoyed the secret double life she was leading. It might have been quite a kick for her.”

  Decker kept gazing around. He looked at the spot in the dirt where the footprints were. Then he looked at the new planks on the crude shelving. Then he gazed upward at the cellar door with new hinges.

  A moment later he pushed his bulk off the wall and rushed up the stairs.

  “Decker!” Milligan called out. He hurried after him.

  By the time Milligan reached the doorway Decker had disappeared down the hall. Milligan found him in the bathroom.

  “What is it?” Milligan asked.

  “Why have a roll of toilet paper if the toilet doesn’t even work?”

  Decker reached down and popped the roll off the holder. He set it down on the sink. The tube the toilet paper had been mounted on was the usual kind, with a spring keeping the two ends together inside the wall holder.

  Decker separated the two ends and the car keys dropped into the palm of his hand.

  “The Honda,” he said. He looked inside the tube. “And that’s not all.” He dug inside the hollow piece and slid out a flash drive.

  “Damn, Decker, you might have just hit the jackpot.”

  “Well, let’s get to a computer and see.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  They went back outside. Decker took out the Honda keys and said, “I’ll drive her car back. We didn’t find anything of interest at her condo, so maybe something will be in the car that’ll help.” He held up the flash drive. “And this might answer all our questions.”

  They separated and Milligan climbed into the Bureau car.

  Decker went to the Honda and had to put the car seat all the way back to accommodate his long legs. The car’s interior was battered. Before Decker had climbed inside he had calculated that the vehicle was probably over fifteen years old. Then he had checked the glove box and found the original owner’s manual that confirmed that the model was actually seventeen years old.

  Milligan led the way down the dirt road to the asphalt one they had originally turned off from. Thick trees on either side of the road and the cloud cover overhead dissipated the light, turning things gloomy.

  When Decker looked up, Milligan had already turned onto the asphalt road and had sped up. Decker pulled out onto the road.

  “Shit.”

  The car was wobbling along.

  He put it in park, got out, and looked down at the front tire. It was flat.

  He glanced down the road. Milligan was already out of sight.

  Decker pulled out his phone to call him and tell him what had happened.

  The call did not go through because there was no service in this area.

  “Shit again.”

  He popped the trunk, figuring that Milligan would finally notice he was not behind him and would circle back.

  He got out the jack, lug wrench, and the spare.

  When he knelt down in front of the tire, he saw it.

  He had started to pull his gun when the blow hit him. He slumped forward, hit the front fender of the Honda with his face, and toppled sideways to the asphalt.

  CHAPTER

  19

  “YOU NEED TO stop waking up in hospital beds.”

  Decker rapidly blinked his eyes and Alex Jamison’s face came into tighter focus. The room was very dark.

  He rubbed his head.

  “Concussion,” said Bogart, who was standing next to Jamison.

  “Not my first one,” said Decker, wincing as he sat up and moved around a bit.

  Bogart added, “It’s why the lights have been turned off. Doctors said your brain needs to rest and you need to avoid light.”

  Milligan was on the other side of the bed. “I’m sorry, Amos. I should have noticed sooner that you weren’t behind me. But I was trying to make a call and it wouldn’t go through.”

  Decker slowly nodded. “Someone shot the tire out,” he said. “I noticed the entry hole on the tire’s sidewall when I got down to change it.”

  “We saw that too,” said Bogart.

  “So they must have been watching us,” said Milligan.

  Decker said, “They took it, didn’t they?”

  Milligan said, “We searched your pockets. And we didn’t find the flash drive, so yeah, they took it.”

  “How did they even know you found it?” asked Jamison.

  “They either had the place bugged or they had some sort of long-range surveillance pointed at us,” said Milligan. “Or they may have just searched you as a matter of course and found it.”

  Decker sat up more. “I held the flash drive up when we got out of the house. If they were watching they’d know that I had it, and not you.” He paused. “When can I get out of here?”

  Milligan said, “The doctors said you’re good to go, you just have to take it easy for a few days. You have quite a knot on the back of your head. And you have some bruises on your face where you hit the car fender. But they did X-rays and other tests. There was no significant damage.”

  Jamison added with a smile, “The attending physician said you had a very hard head.”

  “That makes me feel so much better,” growled Decker.

  “So you saw nothing?” asked Bogart.

  “No. They attacked from behind. I was down for the count. Whoever it was, they were good and fast.”

  “If they shot out the tire, I guess you’re lucky they decided not to shoot you as well,” said Bogart.

  “That thought had occurred to me too.”

  “It was a long-range rifle round,” added Milligan. “I don’t know how far away the shot came from, but I didn’t see anyone around when I drove down that road. If they fired from the woods it was a hell of a shot. If they fired from the road it was still a tough target.”

  “I didn’t hear the shot,” said Decker.

  “Suppressed round, in all likelihood,” said Milligan knowledgably. “With the noise that old Honda was making it would have been a miracle for you to hear the shot. I’m guessing the shooter was hundreds of yards away.”

  “So that means a professional,” said Jamison.

  Bogart added, “And it also means there was more than one person. A shooter that far away couldn’t have reached you that quickly, and knocked you out, not without making noise.”

  Decker climbed out of the bed and stood a bit shakily, holding on to the bedside rail for support.

  Bogart said, “I want you to go home and rest, Amos, and stay in a dark room.”

  “I can’t sit out days on this, Ross! Worse than 9/11? Remember?”

  “Okay, so long as you have no other complications, you can hit the trail again tomorrow. But for today, we’re shutting you down.”

  Decker started to protest, but Jamison gripped his arm. “Let’s go,” she said in a voice that brooked no opposition.


  * * *

  An hour later Decker was lying on a sofa in their apartment with a cup of tea next to him on a table and dark glasses over his eyes.

  Jamison looked down at him. “I know you’re not happy about this.”

  “That is an understatement.”

  She sat in a chair next to him. “Hey, we need that big brain of yours, so you have to take care of it.”

  “Since it’s the only one I have, I have an incentive to want to keep it too.”

  “What do you think was on the flash drive?”

  “I have no idea. She took great pains to hide it, so whatever it was, it was important to Berkshire.”

  “If that is her real name.”

  “It is definitely not her real name.”

  “So you think her past is the reason for all that happened?”

  “If it’s not, it’s a coincidence the size of Russia.”

  “And you don’t believe in even small coincidences, I know.”

  He looked at the cup of tea, picked it up, and took a sip. “Todd ran the plate on the Camaro.”

  Jamison stiffened. “And?”

  “And it was stolen from a couple who live in Woodbridge.”

  “Are you sure they’re telling the truth?”

  “Well, they’re in their sixties. He’s retired from the Forest Service and she’s a Sunday school teacher. He bought the car as a retirement present to himself. Four days later it was gone from in front of his house. It was found trashed behind a strip mall in Annandale. The husband is understandably pissed, according to the local police.”

  “So a dead end, then? I mean the two guys in the car.”

  “It’s not a dead end if Tomas will tell us who they are. Because he knows them, that’s for certain.”

  “But you said he seemed to have no interest in doing that?”

  “Well, it was a stressful time. He’d just gotten the crap kicked out of him. And I came on a little heavy with him. With the badge, gun, and all. He might just think I made matters worse. Like poking a hornets’ nest. You might have better luck. If you want to try.”

  She looked at him strangely. “Is this a test to gauge my sincerity in helping our fellow tenants?”

  “No, this is a test in how well you multitask. And you said you wanted to try to speak with him.”

  She nodded and sat back. “I know. You’re right. How’s your head? Really? Tell me the truth.”

  “I’ve been hit a lot harder, Alex. Don’t worry about me. But the thing is, Bogart was right. They could have easily shot and killed me. But they didn’t.”

  “What does that tell you?”

  “That they made a choice not to commit murder.”

  “Unlike Walter Dabney, who chose to do that very thing.”

  “Yes, he did. And I wish I knew why.”

  “We have clues. We have some leads.”

  “The clues keep eluding us. The leads keep falling away. That flash drive would have told us a lot. But now we’ll never know.”

  “What I don’t get is how did they even know you and Todd were going to be out there?”

  “I don’t think they did. The roads out there were pretty lonely and rural. We would have noticed someone following us.”

  “How, then?”

  “I think they were already there. I think they found Berkshire’s hiding place before we did and then set up surveillance on it. They apparently had already searched the place but didn’t find anything. We came along and found what they were looking for. And then they took it. So we probably did them a big favor.”

  “We’re talking manpower and resources.”

  Decker nodded. “And which also means it will be difficult to trace them. But it tells us for certain that Berkshire was involved with something pretty serious.”

  “But from her past?”

  “Yes.”

  “So maybe these people have been looking for her?”

  “They might have been, for years, perhaps. When she was killed her photo was all over the media. They might have recognized her.”

  “But how did they find her hiding place so fast? They seemed to beat you to it.”

  “Good question, to which I have no answer.”

  They sat in silence for a few moments before Decker looked at his watch. It was after four o’clock.

  “The Amayas will be home soon.”

  “I know. When I found out Danny draws, I picked up a sketchpad and some charcoal pencils. Maybe I can use that as an excuse to visit.”

  “Works for me.”

  “And if he tells me who these guys are?”

  “Then we’ll see what we can do.”

  “He may be afraid to talk. They might try to harm him and Danny.”

  “They already harmed him. And I have to think they’re just the muscle. Some of these local gangs are super-violent.”

  “Well, they know who you are too, Decker.”

  “I’m pretty hard to miss. But they know I’m with the FBI, so I doubt they’ll come after us.”

  “That’s not guaranteed.”

  “What in life is?”

  She looked away. “I’ll go and talk to them this evening.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “But your concussion.”

  “My brain will have had plenty of time to rest by then.”

  “But I thought you wanted me to handle it.”

  “I’ll let you do the talking. But like you said, I’m already involved after what happened. So I might as well follow it through.”

  She grinned weakly. “So this will be a test to see how well you multitask too.”

  “Let’s hope we both pass,” he answered.

  CHAPTER

  20

  TOMAS AMAYA DID not look happy to see them standing in his doorway.

  “Yes?” he said stiffly, staring at them. He had positioned himself so he was blocking their path into his apartment.