Its call log contained only one incoming number. A single glance at the ten digits was all Tom needed to memorize it.
Exiting the room, he moved down the hallway to Grunn’s room one door away. He opened it quietly and slipped inside, closing the door carefully behind him.
Facedown on her bed, Grunn was asleep, but she woke as Tom stepped toward her.
Reflexively, she reached for the weapon on the nightstand, but Tom placed his hand gently on hers and whispered, “It’s okay, it’s me.”
Still on her stomach with her head raised, Grunn said, “What’s going on?”
“I need to check something out.” Tom placed one of his phones on the nightstand. “I want you to keep this for me.”
Grunn turned onto her side, sat up, and looked at the device. “That’s the phone Cahill gave you.”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll need that to reach Stella.”
“If things go bad for me, it’s better if I don’t have that on me. Someone could use it to get to her.” Tom turned and started toward the door.
“Hang on,” Grunn said. She got to her feet, dressed only in her underwear and a tank top. Tom turned and faced her. “Where exactly are you going?”
“The Colonel said something to me back at the garage. I didn’t think anything of it then.”
“What?”
“He knew that I had shaved my face and head.”
Grunn nodded, still a bit groggy. “Yeah, Hammerton and I were right outside the door. I heard him say that. What of it?”
“The last time I saw him was more than six months ago. So how did he know that I had changed my appearance right before meeting with him yesterday?”
“I can think of a couple of reasons. He had a team watching your team. Maybe he saw the street-camera footage of you the New York cops have. He has connections in law enforcement.”
“Maybe,” Tom said. “But that young couple who tried to kill me in the storage facility—I was giving them the chance to walk away when the guy said something.”
“What?”
“That the surveillance cameras were being monitored. He said it like he and his partner had no choice but to do what they’d been sent to do because someone was watching.”
“And if the Colonel was the one watching, that’s how he would have known that you had shaved off your hair and beard.”
Tom nodded. “I’m tired, Grunn, and maybe my head is still all fucked up from the concussion, so I need you to tell me if I sound crazy. All the evidence points to Raveis and has from the start. And maybe all the evidence is right. But what if he’s being framed? Just like Carrington was framed. Just like I would have been framed, if that’s what it came to. What if I’m being manipulated to kill Raveis just like Raveis manipulated my father to go after the Algerian?”
“But that’s the thing, Tom. Raveis did that. You saw the videos, right?”
“Videos don’t always tell the whole story. And the tech you went to for help recovering the data works for the Colonel.”
“You think they switched or altered the videos or something?”
“Just the last video.”
“What makes you think that?”
Tom recalled Slattery expressing surprise that her father had included the video of George Sexton fighting for his life and losing.
Of course, he couldn’t explain that to Grunn without revealing Slattery’s secret.
Tom shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. But every attack on me—whether the intention was to kill or to abduct me—was an attempt at keeping me from learning the truth. The hit as we were heading back to New York, and the hit as I was leaving the storage facility—they shared the same goal. They just looked different enough to confuse me into thinking it was possible they were ordered by two different people for two different reasons.”
“But you’re talking about the Colonel, Tom. You’re saying he is somehow allied with the Benefactor. Why would he do that? Why build an organization and then secretly work against it? Why recruit and train the best people, only to sacrifice them—”
Grunn stopped short as she and Tom came to the same realization. “Hammerton is with the Colonel right now,” she said.
Tom stepped forward and handed her another cell phone. “There’s only one number programmed into this phone,” he said. “Call it and tell whoever answers to stand by. Tell them I told you to call.”
“Who am I calling?”
“Some of Hammerton’s SAS buddies are waiting in his safe house. More are on the way. After I leave, wake up Slattery and tell her we need her to find out where the Colonel is and if Hammerton is with him. If Hammerton isn’t, then we need to know where he is.”
“And if she can’t find out?”
“Then it’s up to me.”
“I can do more than that, Tom. Let me come with you.”
“No, we can’t risk the two of us. You’re my liaison. If Slattery can’t find Hammerton’s location, but I do, I’ll relay it to you, and you’ll inform Hammerton’s men. And if something does happen to me after that, at least you’ll still be in the fight.”
“So where are you going?”
“To talk to Raveis.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. He’s taken a lot of men with him. They might just shoot you on sight. And anyway, no one knows where he is. How will you even find him?”
“I’m pretty sure I know someone who knows where he is. Or at least how to reach him.”
“Who?”
Tom ignored the question. “Getting Hammerton’s men to him, that’s your job, Grunn. That’s what I need you to do. Once you’ve done that, get Krista and go somewhere no one can find you. Make sure everyone else scatters, too. Because if I’m right, if the Colonel is behind all this, then none of us is safe. I need you to promise me you’ll do that, okay? Save Hammerton, then disappear.”
Grunn nodded.
Tom started toward the door again.
“At least tell me where you’re going,” Grunn said.
“My guess is Raveis is somewhere in New York City still. If I can’t reach him, then there’s somewhere I can go where he might come looking for me.”
“Tom, what if someone sees you there? The NYPD is looking for you. I think that’s the last place you should go.”
Tom exited the room without replying.
As he was moving down the hallway, the bedroom door across from Hammerton’s room opened. Slattery was standing in it as Tom passed it.
It was obvious that she, too, had just woken up.
“What’s up, Tom?”
“I’m borrowing a vehicle,” he said.
“Okay. But, wait, where are you going?”
Tom didn’t answer her, either. Nor did he wait. Reaching the stairs, he removed his last remaining cell phone and opened up his text conversation with Torres.
He recalled the night he was considering whether or not he wanted her on his team.
Initially, he had thought he’d be better off with someone who had a military background—and who wasn’t so young. But Raveis had insisted that Tom look over her files carefully before reaching his final decision.
You’d be lucky to have her, Raveis had said.
He recalled, too, the unanswered text message, as well as the ellipsis he had seen shortly after sending his most recent communication.
Tom keyed in a message as he made his way down the stairs and was heading through the kitchen when he sent it.
CAN U ARRANGE MEETING WITH RAVEIS?
Entering the garage, Tom hurried toward the center bay and took the large four-pocket jacket and helmet off the wall.
Inside the helmet was a pair of insulated leather gloves.
The motorcycle nearest to the door was the one that Slattery had used this morning, so Tom went straight to the other one. The key was in the ignition. Gripping both handlebars, he leaned the bike upright and shook it twice.
The top-heavy feel of the bike, along with the lack of echo to th
e sloshing sound he heard, told him that its gas tank was full.
Tom was leaning the bike back down onto its kickstand when he felt the phone in his pocket buzz. Taking it out, he looked at Torres’s reply on the display.
YES.
A second text came in almost immediately: WHEN?
Tom replied: ASAP.
He put the jacket on as he waited for her response, zipping it closed and fastening the waist belt.
He had balanced the helmet on the seat and was removing the gloves stuffed inside when her reply came through: WHERE?
Tom could think of only one place where both he and Raveis would feel safe.
He replied: HOTEL.
Then he sent a quick follow-up: TWO HOURS.
A few seconds passed, then her reply: ALREADY HERE. SEE YOU THEN.
Tom slipped the phone inside the top left pocket of the weather-resistant jacket and pulled on the full-face helmet.
Connecting the chin strap, he put on the gloves and mounted the bike.
An EZ-Pass transponder and an automatic garage door opener were attached to the inside of the windscreen.
Below the tachometer was a sticker that read: PROTECTED BY LOJACK.
Tom pressed the door opener. Pulling back on the clutch, he started the engine, dropped the shifter into first gear with his right foot, then eased out the clutch with his left hand and twisted the throttle with his right.
The door was not yet fully open, so he had to duck down as he sped out of the garage.
He followed the long driveway to the two-lane back road, and from there, reversing the circuitous route Slattery had taken when she brought them to her house, he drove south toward I-95.
Grunn was dressed and geared up when she heard the motorcycle exit the garage below and speed down the driveway.
Slattery entered, and Grunn passed on to her everything that Tom had wanted her to.
“But he wouldn’t tell you exactly where he was going,” Slattery said.
“No.”
Slattery said, “Hang on,” and left the bedroom in a hurry.
Grunn called the only number programmed into the second cell that Tom had given her. The male with a British accent who answered sounded guarded. Grunn stated what she’d been instructed to say—Tom needs you to stand by. The man’s tone changed.
“Will do,” he said.
Grunn ended the call, but with no other task to occupy her now, she felt a sense of helplessness.
In her other hand was the phone Tom had placed on her nightstand.
The one that Cahill had given Tom and that was Tom’s only direct connection to Stella.
Grunn looked at the device for a long time before opening it and finding the only text conversation it contained.
Scrolling backward through it, she saw a mix of texts—some that were obviously from Stella, others that were from Cahill. She skimmed each one before composing her own message.
She sent it off just as Slattery returned to the room with a notebook computer balanced on her left hand.
Grunn saw that a program was up and running on the display.
The program showed an interactive map of Connecticut—its highways and streets.
Slattery was focused on a single dot in motion along a winding road as thin as a thread.
Forty-Eight
Tom was still a few blocks from the abandoned hotel in Brooklyn when the rain began.
Though it was a light, misty rain, the legs of his jeans were soaked through by the time he turned the corner onto the desolate street.
Parked outside the hotel was a fleet of vehicles, but it wasn’t comprised of the Town Car and multiple black support SUVs Tom was expecting to see.
Raveis was on the run now, and those vehicles he typically traveled in, being company property or leases, were likely equipped with trackers.
The vehicles that Tom spotted were a mix of crew cab pickup trucks and Jeep Wranglers—the personal transportation of choice for the kind of former special operators who Raveis always kept close to him.
Tom circled the block several times, viewing as best he could all visible sides of the hotel while he made his first run, then studying the buildings immediately surrounding it as he made the following runs.
He hadn’t seen anything he didn’t like, but, really, would he have?
And, of course, one side of the hotel wasn’t visible from the street at all.
Blocked from view by an adjoining building with just a narrow alleyway between them, it was that side of the hotel Tom had chosen to occupy during his stay, in a room with nothing but brick for a view.
Finally, Tom parked the motorcycle halfway down the block, killed the engine, and dismounted.
He unfastened the belt and unzipped the jacket so he could access his sidearm, then removed the helmet, revealing his face for the first time since he’d left Slattery’s.
The anonymity with which he had made his way into and through the city had provided Tom with a real sense of comfort, but that was gone now.
This street, prior to Tom’s taking up residence several days ago, had been assessed as being safe—meaning there were no city traffic cameras or business cameras that he was in view of now.
Still, he was exposed, but there was no avoiding that.
He tucked the gloves into the helmet, which he carried in his left hand as he approached the entrance to the hotel. He kept his right hand free.
The last time he’d been on this street was just shy of forty-eight hours ago, and he had been with his team, whom he had trusted with his life and who had trusted him with theirs.
But Garrick was dead, and Torres had turned out to be, at the very least, a Raveis plant.
Tom was alone, but he’d been alone before, and there was solace in that, because only his life was on the line.
Reaching the main door, he opened it and slipped inside.
Torres was waiting in the lobby, two men behind her.
Raveis’s security detail was usually comprised of neatly trimmed men dressed in dark suits, but the two men flanking Torres were in civilian clothes—jeans, dark shirts, nylon jackets, and operator caps. One of them was wearing Merrell sneakers, the other 5.11 tactical boots.
Both were armed with HK416s—short-barreled carbines chambered in 5.56 that were the primary weapon of choice for elite special operation units, both in the US military and the militaries of numerous allies.
Equipped with Aimpoint Red Dot optics and SureFire weapon lights, the 416s were suspended via two-point VTAC Slings lying diagonally across the chests of their operators.
Suppressors extended the ten-and-a-half-inch barrels out to fourteen and a half inches.
Only the best for Sam Raveis.
Tom approached Torres and, anticipating that he would be required to surrender his Colt, he extended his arms out to the side.
“You can keep your sidearm,” Torres said.
Tom lowered his arms as Torres turned and started toward the stairs.
The two men behind her parted, letting her through. Tom walked between them as he followed her. They held their positions by the entrance.
As he passed the door to the bar, Tom glanced into that room. Six more men, similarly dressed and equally geared up, were waiting inside. They watched Tom with stoic faces as he passed.
Climbing the first flight of stairs, Torres was ahead of Tom by a few steps. “I’m curious,” she said. “When did you know?”
“That you could get me to Raveis?”
“Yes.”
“Not until just before I texted you.”
Torres smiled. “Raveis always bragged about how smart you are. Smarter than the smartest man he’s ever known, which, of course, was your father. He was confident you’d figure it out sooner or later.”
“I had help,” Tom said.
They were close to the top of that first flight when Torres stopped and pointed at the step ahead. “This plank’s rotted,” she said. “Be careful.”
She step
ped over it to the next step. When he reached it, Tom did the same.
They were on the second flight when Tom said, “How long has he been here?”
“Since dawn. We were getting ready to bug out, so you contacted me just in time. If you thought to look for us here, then so might the Colonel, but that was a risk Raveis said we needed to take for as long as we could take it.”
They climbed the remaining flights in silence. Every time they came to a questionable step, Torres warned Tom of it.
Eventually they reached the top floor. Another two-man security team was waiting halfway down the hall.
Torres stopped at the top of the stairs and gestured toward the room where the two men were standing.
The room Tom had occupied two nights ago.
“He’s in there,” she said.
Tom paused, not because he was wary of proceeding down the hallway but because he was impressed that Torres had at no point offered him an apology.
Nothing in her manner indicated discomfort, awkwardness, or regret.
She’d been given a job to do—keep tabs on her team leader for their employer—and had done it.
But she had also fought to keep her teammates alive, and had done so effectively and with courage.
Tom looked at her for a moment and said, “It’s good to know you’re not dead.” Then he walked toward the door with the two men standing outside it.
They watched him carefully as he approached.
Reaching the door, Tom opened it and entered.
Forty-Nine
Raveis was standing in the center of the small room.
Tom closed the door. To his right was a broken-down dresser, and to his left was the bed where he had gotten his last real sleep.
A sound-enough sleep during which vivid dreams of Stella had flowed.
Though currently only occupied by two pieces of furniture and two grown men, the room felt crowded, and this reminded Tom of the confined space in which his father had fought for—and lost—his life.
Having seen the surveillance video, it was now clear to Tom that this space wasn’t that much different from the room his father had been sent to by the man now standing five feet away.
Tom noted that like his security detail, Raveis had also given up his expensive suits for more durable and nondescript gear.
The Shadow Agent Page 28
