There was no question in Hal’s mind that Steele’s death would bring her to Florida. She would conclude that he or Indrio or Manacas or the three of them were behind it and she would pull out the plugs to hunt them down. The plan, of course, was that they would get to her before she got to them. But even the best plans rarely worked the way they were envisioned and, quite frankly, now that Rae was in the picture he wasn’t sure if he wanted to take the risk.
He needed time to work on Rae, to bring her around, to gain her trust, before they left the chickee and the Everglades and moved out into the world.
And go where, buddy boy? Just where the fuck you going?
And what would he do once they got there? He supposed he could play psychic reverend again, but building a clientele took time and he had no burning desire to repeat that part of his past.
What he wanted most of all was to find some secluded place where he and Rae could live in relative comfort and seclusion. A farm in Iowa, forty acres in Washington state; the place wasn’t as important as a house, a family, a life. Assuming he could pull any of that off, would he still be looking over his shoulder for Fletcher?
He slid his thumb over the edge of the phone, then quickly punched out Fletcher’s home number before he could change his mind. She picked up on the third ring, her voice soft and hoarse with sleep. “Yes? Hello?”
Hal shut his eyes, pulling her voice into himself, then reached. Static, that was all he got, it was all he usually had gotten in the past. It was enough to convince him that as long as she was alive, he would not be free.
He pressed his thumb over the button and disconnected.
Chapter 5
At eleven Friday night, Lenora Fletcher and two dozen other people sang happy birthday to Keith Krackett, the deputy director of the FBI. He then blew out sixty-eight candles on a cake nearly as large as his dining room table. His diminutive wife proceeded to slice it into small, tidy pieces, as though she thought there might not be enough to go around.
Fletcher’s feet ached from standing and the knot in her gut now weighed about forty pounds. But she still managed to notice these small, stupid details about the gathering. Yes, tonight was important. Yes, there would never be another night quite like it. But oh Christ, she wanted to soak her feet in warm Epsom salts. Wanted to get a massage, sit in a sauna, bake on a beach. She hungered for privacy and silence.
Now Krackett tapped his knife against his crystal water glass and everyone fell silent. She had to pay attention, had to slide the Fletcher mask into place.
Krackett pushed to his feet. His bearing had always made him seem taller than he actually was and younger than sixty-eight. He had a full head of salt and pepper hair, a trim physique that he maintained through daily games of tennis, a meticulous diet, all the right health choices. His face seemed remarkable only because of the shrewd intelligence in his eyes.
“I’d like to make an announcement,” he said. “As all of you have undoubtedly heard by now, I’ll be retiring in the next three to six months. That means that while you’re slaving away in D.C., I’ll be out here in Virginia, playing tennis and lazing by the pool.”
Laughter. Fletcher glanced quickly at the faces around the table. Except for Krackett’ s wife and the maids, all of these people were Krackett’ s intimates within the Bureau and political circles in Washington. They, like everyone else who mattered, had heard rumors for months that he planned to retire; this announcement merely made it official.
Other rumors had been circulating, too, about Krackett’s successor. She knew she had a good shot at it, better than most because Krackett stood so firmly in her court. But the director had other favorites, two men with less seniority who had sucked up to the right people over the years. They were both here as well—a Harvard boy with an impeccable record and a good-looking stud who dressed and acted like the fed on The X-Files.
She had no doubt that her qualifications surpassed those of both men. But she also had enormous internal conflicts about handling the job. These stemmed, she knew, from the errors she had made during the Delphi business, serious errors in judgment.
“The director and I have discussed at great length the qualities we’re looking for in my successor,” Krackett went on. “Although he couldn’t be here tonight, we agreed this would be a good time to share our decision with you.
“Up until the early seventies, when I became deputy director, there had never been a female agent within the Bureau. The woman who broke that tradition was a twenty-six-year-old attorney fresh out of Yale. She blazed her way through the ranks and has become something of a legend at Quantico, where she is now in charge of the training program for recruits.
“She brings twenty-two years of experience with her and will be the first woman in the Bureau’s history to hold this position. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m delighted to introduce you to the next deputy director of the FBI, Lenora Fletcher.”
The applause, loud, prolonged, sincere, thundered inside of Fletcher, reverberated against her very bones. She lit up like a Christmas tree and locked eyes with Krackett, who grinned from ear to ear like a new father. But behind that grin, inside those shrewd dark eyes, flashed a message she didn’t miss: We pulled it off, Lenora, but now you have to tie up the Delphi fiasco.
Her head spun as people came up to congratulate her, The Harvard boy shook her hand, his smile as stiff as his hair; Mr. X-Files looked totally stunned. She no longer felt her aching feet, jammed into high heels that only TV women wore. The knot in her gut began to dissolve. Her mind raced, calculating the odds.
The formal announcement wouldn’t be made for at least another six weeks, but this was the first important step. By tomorrow morning, the rumor mill would be churning and calls would pour in from minor players scrambling to get into her good graces.
Somewhere in the house, a phone rang, its peal a reminder that beyond these gracious rooms, beyond the rolling green lawn outside, the real world ticked away like a bomb. Six weeks. She felt a sudden uneasiness that it wouldn’t be enough time to wrap up the Delphi mess, the one glitch in her career that could kill this promotion. Hell, at this point, she wasn’t sure that another six months would be enough time. Or six years.
It seemed she had spent most of the last three years either hunting for or getting rid of the seven participants in the project. Four were dead, three were still missing, and she had absolutely no idea where they were. But as long as they were free, they jeopardized her future.
“Lenora?”
She glanced around to see Krackett’s wife, her smile cockeyed, as if she’d had too much to drink. She was, in fact, a teetotaler who had had a stroke about a year ago, one of the reasons Krackett was retiring. “It was a lovely dinner, Anita.”
“I didn’t cook one bit of it,” she replied with a laugh, then leaned closer. “Keith would like to speak to you privately in the study.”
“Thanks.”
Fletcher hurried down the wide hallway and knocked at the door of Krackett’s study. “Come in,” he called.
The tremendous room shone with genuine eighteenth century antiques. A large fireplace dominated one wall, shelves of books climbed another. But the room might have belonged to anyone. None of Krackett’s degrees and commendations graced these walls, no family photos stood on the oak desk. It looked like a room in an expensive, historical inn.
Since he was still on the phone, she sat down in one of the leather chairs in front of his desk. Her hands perspired, her heart drummed, she didn’t like the expression on Krackett’s face.
“Right, I understand,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.”
“I hope that was a birthday greeting,” she said lightly as he hung up.
“Andrew Steele has been murdered.”
As soon as the words sank in, walls of muscle and bone collapsed inside her and she nearly choked on the debris.
“His son is in intensive care, his wife is missing.”
“Missing? W
hat the hell does that mean? Is she a suspect?”
“Yes.”
“How did Steele die?”
“A .38 to the chest.”
“Then it doesn’t involve Delphi.”
Krackett leaned forward, his face skewed with emotion and urgency, blood pouring into his cheeks, his eyes burning with passion. “We have no way of knowing that for sure.” The words hissed through his clenched teeth. “And until we know otherwise, we’re going to assume that it does involve Delphi. That Manacas or Indrio or Bennet is behind it.”
Or the three of them were in it together. With this thought, her promotion sprouted wings and flitted away.
Krackett paced, his shoes squeaked against the polished wood floors. Her mind scrambled for answers and came up with a big, fat zero.
“I would prefer the local sheriff’s department know as little as possible, Lenora.”
These marching orders would cast her out of D.C. at the very time when she should be here. Lenora Fletcher, fallen angel. She suddenly realized Krackett had stopped talking, that he was staring at her.
“What, uh, did you say?” she stammered.
“How soon can you get a surveillance team down there?”
Down there: as if Florida lay somewhere near Australia, a dark, untamed continent she would have to traipse across, to conquer. “It’ll take two calls. Who’s the cop in charge of the investigation?”
“Wayne Sheppard, a five-year vet with the Broward Sheriff’s Department.” He reeled off the rest of what he knew, which wasn’t a hell of a lot at this point. “The best way to proceed is low profile until we’re better informed. If Mrs. Steele is still missing, we call it a possible abduction, step in, and take over the investigation even if there isn’t a ransom demand.”
“Jesus, Keith. Without a ransom demand, it’s tough to call it an abduction. That alone could stir suspicion.”
He turned, his eyes as bright as aluminum. “We can live with suspicion. But we can’t live with exposure. Let’s hope to Christ Steele’s murder is unrelated to Delphi. But if there’s a connection …”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t have to. They both knew the consequences. If the machinations that had formed and sculpted Delphi ever came to light in the press, heads would roll and hers and Krackett’s would lead the parade.
The mood of the American public toward government had hit an all-time low, cynicism was king. Joe Smith in Iowa wouldn’t give a shit why Delphi had been created. The only thing ole Joe and all the others like him would understand was that the government had funded a covert project with prisoners and had made some grievous mistakes along the way. Her political allies would side with public opinion if it ever came out that the bulk of Delphi’s funding had been funneled through the CIA. And she would be pounding pavement in search of a new job. Waitressing, for instance, or tour guide at a Florida park.
“I’d better make those calls,” she said, and realized she needed to make one other call as well that Krackett wouldn’t know about.
As she got up, she felt like the kid who had to stick his finger in the hole in the dike to save Holland from a flood. The big question remained: would she be able to find the hole before the dike exploded?
Light spilled across the front of the Vietnam memorial wall. Fletcher’s eyes roamed this vast black continent of the dead, searching for the names of the two men the war had stolen from her.
Her older brother, her only sibling, had died in a raid on a Vietnamese village when she was in college. His closest friend, the kid next door whom Fletcher probably would have married, had died in a POW camp. She still couldn’t look at this wall without a lump of emotion rising in her throat.
“Early morning musings on philosophical questions certainly isn’t the route to good health and longevity, Lenora.”
She turned at the sound of the voice behind her. The man in the black leather jacket and tailored slacks no longer looked as fierce as he once had. The ravages of age and cancer had sunken his cheeks, paled his blue eyes, and left his skin a soft, sickly white. Chemotherapy had stolen most of his leonine white hair. But he still possessed an indisputable presence that you could feel, she thought, even if you didn’t know he once had been one of the most powerful individuals in the CIA.
“You don’t feel anything when you stand in front of this wall, Richard?”
His small, shrewd eyes darted from her to the wall, then back again. “Sure. I feel disgust that we lost the goddamn war.’
“Hell, you people are the ones who started it.”
His smile smacked of a paternalism she’d once found comforting, but which merely irritated her now. “You were always prone to exaggeration, Lenora. By the way, I heard about your promotion. Congratulations.”
“Thanks.”
“But I don’t suppose that’s why we’re meeting at this ungodly hour.”
“Of course it is. I’m gloating.”
He laughed then, a quick laugh, a shell of the robust explosions she remembered. “Touché. Let’s sit down.” He gestured toward a nearby bench and they walked over to it.
Fletcher noticed that Richard Evans moved more slowly than he had the last time they’d met. He’d never told her what kind of cancer he had, but she didn’t have to be an M.D. to recognize that the prognosis wasn’t good. When he finally sat down, he seemed winded from the short walk.
“How’re you feeling, Rich?”
“I’ve got good days. But today isn’t one of them. But hell, I’m seventy years old and I’ve only got a few regrets. In all, it hasn’t been a bad life.”
She reached out and squeezed his hand, a gesture she never would have allowed herself in the old days. “It’s about—”
“Andrew Steele,” he said before she could finish. “I’m not that far out of the loop. I got a call about one this morning.”
“From who?”
Evans just smiled and clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Lenora, Lenora. You never give up. Even if I told you the name, it wouldn’t mean anything to you. The labyrinth is far more complex than it used to be. It’s extended into the private sector as well. Did you realize that once Delphi began to fall apart, Andrew used Bennet and some of the others for his private clients? I understand he made quite a bit of money at it, too. That didn’t set well with anyone in the Agency.”
“Are you saying this was an Agency hit?”
Evans winced at the expression. “We’ve never been hit men, Lenora. There’s always been a broader purpose. But in answer to your question, no, I couldn’t find any evidence that the Agency is behind Andrew’s murder. I think one or all of your missing boys are behind it.”
“Maybe.”
For years, Evans had been her Deep Throat in the CIA, the man who brought her information, funding, and finally, the truth about Delphi. By then, of course, it had been too late, the damage had been done. But she rarely had doubted what he’d told her and she didn’t doubt it now.
“Are you going down there?” he asked.
“Later today.”
Evans reached into his jacket pocket and brought out three CDs, each labeled with a number. “All our Delphi files are on here. Those on Bennet, Indrio, and Manacas are on the first disk. I doubt if you’ll find anything you don’t already know. After all, you worked with them, Lenora.”
“I worked with them under false pretenses, though. I wasn’t fully informed until it was too late.”
“Believe it or not, that’s one of my regrets in life. But at the time, I couldn’t pass the information on to you without risking my own neck.”
“I’m not blaming you, Richard.” She dropped the disks into her purse. “I’m just saying that I never saw the Agency’s files, so there might be something in here that’ll help.” She kissed him quickly on the cheek; his skin felt dry and old. “Thanks.”
He started to get up, but didn’t have the strength. Fletcher quickly grabbed onto his hand and pulled him to
his feet. She held onto his arm as they made their way away from the wall. “Call my cell if anything comes up, okay?”
“I’ll call regardless,” he replied.
She walked him to his car and watched him get inside, a frail and sick old man. As he drove off, she stood there with the chilly morning air nipping at her legs and wondered if she’d just stared into the face of her own future twenty years from now.
She would rather be dead.
Part II
The Players
“Research over the last fifty years by little-known but forward-looking thinkers has shown there is a vast creative potential in the human mind that is as yet totally unrecognized by science.”
—Edgar D. Mitchell, Psychic Explorations
Chapter 6
At noon on Saturday, Sheppard pulled into the crowded parking lot of One World Books & Things. In a glance, he knew it was not his world, but it looked like an interesting place to visit.
As he opened the glove compartment to get the envelope that contained the tarot cards, a stack of envelopes tumbled out. Bills. He had stuck them in here a few days ago to mail. By Monday his answering machine probably would short-circuit with calls from his creditors.
A hard knot formed in the center of his chest. He rubbed at it, forced himself to take several deep breaths. Angst, he thought. Sometimes it manifested as a hard, pounding ache between his eyes, sometimes it lodged like an old bullet in his intestine. But when it concerned money and his creditors, it nearly always swelled in his chest.
Zen, he reminded himself. Be in the moment and all that. He got out of the car.
The wind chimes that hung from an awning over the front porch tinkled in a breeze that blew off the river. Bird feeders, swinging from branches, had attracted flocks of twittering black birds. Beneath the trees on either side of the house stood thick, lush gardens that imbued the place with a kind of magic. The peaceful grounds soothed him, dissolved the lump in his chest.
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