140914383X

by Raymond Khoury

  It took her a couple of seconds, then she said, “You think that would be useful?”

  She was reading me.

  “I think it would. Big time.” I thought I’d add an extra hint, just to make sure. “It’s like what Nick always used to say—”

  I heard the confusion in her tone. “What?”

  Almost imperceptibly, I slowed my words, subtly altering my tone—not so the junior agent could notice any change, but enough that someone I’d spent thousands of hours with would notice.

  “He used to say: ‘Close, but no cigar.’ Well, that’s me right now. No cigar. And with Nick gone, I need every grain of help I can get . . .” I slipped straight back to normal speed and tone. “I need that cigar, Tess. Doesn’t have to be a whole cigar—just a couple of puffs, to give me hope.” I paused. “You understand what I’m saying, right?”

  I could hear the cogs in her brain engaging, spinning around and clicking into place.

  “You know where that expression comes from, don’t you?” she said, her voice shaky. I knew this was all for Deutsch’s benefit, because Tess was now—I hoped—covering for the fact that she knew exactly what I was trying to tell her. “They used to hand out cigars as prizes at fairgrounds. Back when the games of strength were for grown-ups. So when you slammed the giant hammer down on the metal plate and the bell didn’t ring, the guy would say ‘Close, but no cigar!’”

  “You should put that in your next book.”

  “Maybe . . . OK, I’ll see you shortly—I just need to go back to the house first. I . . .” her voice softened and got a bit muffled, as if her mouth was closer to the phone now. “I need to change. I kind of messed myself up during the whole thing. Do you mind if Annie drives me home first?”

  I felt a small twinge of relief as I pictured her saying that while looking at Deutsch, who’d be nodding sympathetically.

  Relief—and hope.

  She definitely got my message.

  22

  Tess kept her nerves in check as Annie Deutsch swept the Chevy into the employee entrance by the small playground at Federal Plaza.

  She’d never done anything like this before—anything that could land her with some serious jail time. She tried not to allow the possibility any room to breathe, and kept pounding it back every time it did a Whack-A-Mole on her. She needed to do this.

  Reilly needed her to do this.

  She followed in Deutsch’s shadow as the agent escorted her through the busy lobby and across to the line of bulletproof doors that protected the FBI's separate set of elevators. There, Deutsch fast-tracked her through the metal detector and a quick handbag search at security. The pills did trigger a curious pause, but given everything that had happened, it was perfectly normal for her to have some headache capsules with her.

  They rode the elevator up in silence, then Tess followed as Deutsch led her through. The floor was quiet, though there were still several agents at their desks. With each step, she felt her strength draining away. It was all becoming more real and more irreversible. She couldn’t help but worry if any of it was going to work, and had to suppress a strong urge to turn around and hightail it out of the building. It was a bad enough risk for Reilly, but she knew she was potentially compromising her own freedom and any chance that Kim and Alex would have of her being around for the next few years. But then she flashed again on all the times that Reilly had saved her life—from the trunk of the car at the Vatican; from the explosives-laden vest in Turkey; from drowning when De Angelis sank the dive boat in the hell of that Biblical storm. She owed him this, no matter the cost—and she owed herself the chance of being with the man she’d chosen, both of them free from the terrible weight that was transforming Reilly into someone she barely recognized.

  Within minutes, they were at the door of the interview room.

  Through the glass, Tess glimpsed Reilly, sitting there in the bare room. He sensed her and looked up, and their eyes met. A gale of mixed emotions rushed through her: a short-lived elation at finally seeing him, being within reach of his arms, his lips, his solid embrace, that was quickly eclipsed by the paralyzing visceral dread of seeing her Reilly, her Special Agent, her uncompromising champion of law and order, locked away like some petty criminal.

  Deutsch was about to punch the keypad and usher Tess in to Reilly’s interview room when a heavily built man Tess had never met decided to butt in.

  “Hold on there, Annie,” he said, obviously addressing Deutsch. “I assume this is Reilly’s other half?” He looked at Tess. “Miss Chaykin, right?”

  Deutsch’s fingers hovered at the keypad while Tess studied him, her instincts telling her the guy was bad news.

  He put out his hand. “Nat Lendowski,” he said. “But everyone calls me Len.”

  Lendowski. So this was the cretin Reilly had talked about, the guy who’d harassed Deutsch at the bar.

  Tess shook his hand warily.

  “I’m sorry we’re meeting under such grim circumstances,” he told her, “but I’m glad you’re OK.”

  Tess nodded politely. “Thanks.”

  Lendowski indicated the interview room with a flick of his head. “Bet he’ll be happy to see you. It’s been a long night.”

  “Been long for us all,” Tess replied. She glanced at Deutsch, sending her an unspoken prompt to move along and get her to Reilly.

  “OK then,” Deutsch said as she turned and started pressing the keypad—

  Lendowski interjected, “Hang on, you’re not letting her take that in with her, are you?”

  Deutsch stopped, and she and Tess turned to face him, momentarily confused.

  He was pointing at Tess’s handbag.

  “Excuse me?” Tess said.

  “Your handbag,” he told her. “You can’t take that in with you.”

  Deutsch held both palms up, irritated, and said, “Len, for God’s sake, are you serious? She was cleared by security—”

  “Annie,” he interrupted her, firmly. “He’s being held for questioning. About a murder.”

  “His partner just died,” Deutsch countered, her tone sharp. “She was in the car with him.”

  “Irrelevant,” he replied. “Security protocols still apply. You remember them, don’t you?” He wasn’t bothering to mask the condescension in his tone.

  He kept his gaze on her, and waited.

  Tess turned to Deutsch. “It’s not a problem.”

  “No, this is ridiculous—”

  “Annie. It’s fine,” Tess insisted. She peeled the strap off her shoulder and handed her bag over to Lendowski. “I assume it’ll be safe with you?”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure,” Annie put in, scowling at her partner.

  “I’ll guard it with my life,” Lendowski grinned.

  Tess nodded, then spread her arms out wide, so they were horizontal. “I suppose you’re going to want to frisk me too?”

  Lendowski went rigid, visibly taken aback by the unexpected offer. Tess just stood there, teasingly, one eyebrow slightly raised, her arms spread wide, her stare locked on him, challenging him, totally serious about it.

  She watched as Lendowski’s eyes jumped over to Deutsch and back, a flicker of nervousness. He opened his mouth slightly, a lag between that and the words coming out. “No,” he said. “That won’t be necessary.”

  “You sure? Protocol and what not?” she goaded him.

  “That’s fine,” he said, somewhat sheepishly.

  “OK then.” Tess turned to Deutsch, a minuscule glint of victory brightening her face. “Can I see him now?”

  “Of course.”

  Deutsch punched the code in and the door clicked open. The two women stepped inside.

  Reilly was already on his feet, and Tess didn’t wait for an invitation. She brushed past Deutsch and flung her arms around Reilly’s neck, pulling him into a tight embrace and kissing him on the mouth.

  “Tess, please,” Deutsch told her. “No touching.”

  “Oh, baby. It’s so good to see you,�
� she said as she pulled back, ignoring Deutsch’s comment and keeping her arms still around him. She cupped his face with her hands, held them there for a moment, then slid them together behind his neck.

  “Thank God you’re all right,” Reilly told her.

  “It was horrible, Sean. Just horrible.”

  She kept her arms around his neck. Which earned her another rebuke from Deutsch. “Tess. You need to step back from him.”

  Tess glanced back at her. “Yes, yes, I’m sorry.”

  She needed to move fast.

  What Deutsch couldn’t see, what Tess made sure she couldn’t see, was what her hands were doing.

  Rummaging into the fold of the cuff of her shirt.

  Pulling out the two gelatin capsules she’d hidden there during her quick visit to the house, the ones she’d hastily emptied of whatever supplement they contained—turmeric, was it?—before refilling them with the brownish powder she’d taken out of the stainless steel vial Reilly kept tucked away behind a loose panel in his cupboard, the vial he’d brought back from Mexico.

  The vial she and Reilly referred to as the “cigar tube”.

  “No cigar.”

  The two capsules were now tucked inside her right hand. It was time to pass them to Reilly.

  She slid her arms down and took both his hands in hers. “We’re going to beat this, right? We’re going to get you home soon?”

  “Tess,” Deutsch repeated. “Come on.”

  “OK,” Tess said, and complied—but not before she’d slipped the two capsules to Reilly.

  She sat down in the chair and Reilly did the same in his. Deutsch stayed standing, to one side.

  “I’ll be home soon. We’re going to beat this,” Reilly said, his tone calm and reassuring.

  “We need to get you a lawyer. A good one. Anyone specific you want to use?”

  Reilly glanced at Deutsch, a finger pointing up at the cameras. “Did Gallo agree?” he asked.

  Deutsch nodded. “Just while she’s in here, yes. They’re off.”

  Reilly acknowledged her reply, then carried on talking to Tess. They talked about Aparo’s ex-wife, and Reilly told her he’d spoken to her, told her what had happened. He asked Tess how their own kids were doing, then he filled her in on what had happened since they’d parted at Union Station, told her what had preceded it, repeating his story yet again. They talked about how and what she would tell the kids, and what she’d say to her mom. And throughout it all, the one thought Tess couldn’t suppress was wondering about whether or not what Reilly was about to attempt was going to work—or whether he’d survive it.

  She didn’t want to leave, because leaving meant he would go through with his plan. But after a while, she had to. They both knew it. But before she went, she had to take the role to its conclusion, for Deutsch’s benefit. The less they suspected something was going on, the more chances Reilly had to get away with it.

  “You couldn’t let it be, could you?” she asked him.

  “What, let the bastard get away with it?”

  “He already has—don’t you see that? You’re the one who’s about to be charged with murder and he’s . . . he’s a ghost. A mirage.” She tried to fake anger, but it was sadness and fear that were now searing through her. “You still don’t even know his real name.”

  She knew they were both walking a tightrope here. It was fortuitous that something they shared was exceptional self-control. Indeed, it was one of the things that first attracted her to Reilly—his immense self-discipline and single-mindedness. But unlike most other positive traits, it was one that could go catastrophically wrong.

  His anger as real as hers, though, she knew, similarly controlled, Reilly slammed the table with both fists, but stayed seated.

  “Everyone keeps saying leave the past behind, but it’s the past that defines us. It makes us who we are and shapes what we become. I don’t want my life controlled by the bad things that happened when I was a kid any more than I want Alex’s future affected the same way. But the only way to stop that happening is to confront it head on and deal with it before it does that.”

  “Alex, and Kim . . . they need a father, not an avenging angel.”

  “It’s not vengeance, Tess. It’s justice. They’re not the same thing.”

  “Maybe not, but one often pretends to be the other. Especially when it’s the obsession of one man.”

  Her eyes were flooding—with anger and hurt, but also with fear.

  It was time to go.

  She got up, looked over at Deutsch. The agent understood and nodded.

  Tess turned to Reilly, bent down and hugged him again, burying her face in his neck.

  “Don’t do anything stupid,” she whispered in his ear. “I need you with me. Always.”

  “I’ll see you soon,” he replied. “Promise.”

  “You’d better,” she said. Then she kissed him, hard and desperate, before tearing herself away and leaving the room.

  23

  I checked my watch—0300 hours.

  They’d let me keep it, but only after humorless expressions in response to my joke about the timepiece’s frustrating lack of Bond-style garrotes or lasers. I’d be waving it goodbye once I was processed formally and once I was in the system that way, it would be much, much harder to get out.

  I had to make my move tonight.

  I was lucky to still be here, in a holding cell at Federal Plaza for the night. This wasn’t standard procedure, by any means, but by the time Gallo received the formal indictment, it was too late for me to be processed by the Marshal's Service, interviewed by the Pretrial Services Agency, and walked across to the new federal courthouse at 500 Pearl Street which loomed over the classic, hexagonal state courthouse on the east side of Foley Square for presentment before a federal magistrate judge. Best they could manage was to escort me up to the twenty-sixth floor to be photographed and fingerprinted before bringing me back down to the interview room. I needed to be lodged overnight before being taken to be arraigned in the morning. Normally, they would have shipped me over to the MCC, the Metropolitan Correctional Center just across the square, behind the courthouse. But the facility was perennially overpopulated, and whoever was pulling the strings would have ample opportunity to kill me while I awaited my arraignment, with a menu of wide-ranging options: false-flag terrorist, corrupt guard, white-power psychopath or just some poor schmo blackmailed into doing their bidding. I felt it would be much safer to be under this roof for the night, and Gallo grudgingly agreed to keep me there for the night. Everyone was too shaken up by Nick’s death anyway, so it was all put on hold until tomorrow. Which suited me fine.

  I was moved to a holding cell and given a blanket and a pillow to soften up the hardwood bench.

  Not that I cared about any of that.

  My mind was totally elsewhere. Mostly thinking of Nick, of course. He was still there vividly inside my head, and I kept finding myself thinking I could ask him to help with this or that before reminding myself that he was gone. I guess it still hadn’t sunk in fully.

  Mostly, though, it was in the context of what I was about to attempt.

  I still had the two capsules in my hand, aware that every time I moved, the more likely it was to look like I was concealing something, even in the middle of the night.

  Lendowski—I’d seen the agent through the open doors when Tess had left—was probably half-asleep in his chair, but I couldn’t risk being seen acting in any way that appeared suspicious. Protocol was to monitor the holding room’s audio and video, so even if Lendowski was dozing right now I knew he could easily be wide awake at any moment.

  Tess knew where I’d hidden the small stainless steel vial I’d kept in my possession after that nightmare we all went through in Mexico last summer. We’d talked about it a lot, as she was—no surprise there—fascinated by what it contained, the only known sample of the raw, unprocessed drug that countless people had died fighting over, from the adventurer-chemist who had discovered it,
to El Brujo, the drug baron who wanted to unleash it on the world.

  Good times. Not.

  In a tranquil space, the raw drug was supposed to bring about visions that were either genuine memories of that person’s past lives, or images at once so timelessly primal and so deeply personal that this was the only way to rationalize them, the alternative being an experience so unbelievably irrational and so threateningly surreal that the mind simply had no way to frame it.

  I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure exactly where I stood on the matter. One thing I did know, though, was that taking the drug now, in my depleted and exhausted state, would wreak havoc on my body and my mind. I just couldn’t see any other way out.

  Leaning back in the chair, I carefully took apart the capsules, then I moved both hands up to my face, palms level with my mouth, like someone trying to rub wakefulness into a head that was already more than half-asleep. I popped the capsules into my mouth then swallowed hard, barely managing to force the hard gelatin shells past my esophagus.

  My guess was I’d just ingested about a gram of the drug. Thankfully I hadn’t tasted it much as I’d swallowed them fast, but what I did taste was vile, somewhere between burnt cabbage and a dog food concoction Purina had rejected. I quickly found myself fighting the urge to gag.

  I sat perfectly still, trying to regulate my breathing, waiting for the effects to take hold.

  It didn’t take long.

  Within a few minutes, I felt the urge to vomit. I forced my chin down onto my chest—if I threw up now, the drug wouldn’t have time to work and I’d be staying exactly where I was. I clamped my mouth shut and held my breath, willing my stomach to accept the alien mixture. I released the breath as slowly as I could, letting the air escape from my nose while keeping my mouth firmly closed.

  I waited as long as I could, then sucked in a lungful of air. My stomach felt like it was trying to expel a barrel-load of psychotic piranhas and I twisted on my chair, trying to resist the urge to stand up and give my insides more space to flip about.