Bad Intent

by Jordan Cole

  Agatha set her purse down on the plush leather seat. Folded her hands and placed them atop the closed menu. Apparently, she wasn’t very hungry. Riley felt otherwise. He flipped quickly through the menu, finding the usual diner fare, and settled on a cheeseburger which he hoped would soak up the final remnants of last night’s booze.

  She had left the gun in the stolen pickup, which suggested a least a modicum of trust between them. Maybe Agatha thought there was no danger in a public spot like a diner. In Riley’s experience, making those kinds of assumptions was never a good idea. But in this instance, she was right. They hadn’t been followed, and the island booth offered both privacy and a panoramic view of the entrance.

  The waitress came by, a middle-aged woman who took their orders cordially but with a distanced kind of autopilot. Which worked out. Probably best if nobody had any kind of big recollections about their little pit stop. Riley put in his burger and Agatha ordered coffee, black. The waitress trotted away, and Riley finally spoke.

  “You’re not worried?”

  She looked at him like he was crazy.

  “Buddy, that’s the dumbest thing I think anyone’s ever said to me.”

  “I mean about the guy waylaid on the road next to your rental car. That’s a potential body next to an automobile that traces back to you.”

  “You think you killed him?”

  “Probably not. But you never know. I kicked him pretty hard. The human body is inconsistent. Some people can take a blow like that and be more or less fine a few minutes later. Others can smack their head against a countertop and be dead from a hemorrhage the next day. No way of telling.”

  Her hands still folded tensely against the table. Riley noticed for the first time that she was wearing two different earrings, like she had gotten ready that morning in a big rush.

  “I don’t think he’s dead,” Agatha said. “I don’t think I’d be that lucky.”

  “You going to tell me what this is all about?”

  “I’m still not sure if I can trust you.”

  He leaned back, rubbing his forehead. The waitress came over with the coffee and a glass of ice water. Agatha sipped hers politely, while Riley took a long gulp of his.

  “What’s your favorite band?” he asked.

  “What does that got to do with anything?”

  “You said you’re not sure if you can trust me. I want to know if I can trust you. You can tell a lot about a person by what kind of music they like.”

  She tilted her head.

  “For real?”

  “For real.”

  She shrugged. “If I had to pick one...let’s see. LCD Soundsystem, maybe?”

  He nodded.

  “You’ve probably never ever heard of them,” she said

  “No, I’ve heard the guy. He’s all right.”

  “So what? Did I give you the magical correct answer? Are we friends now?”

  “You’re making a mistake thinking I have some kind of investment in all this,” Riley said. “If you want to go it on your own, you can get back in that pickup truck and you’ll never see me again. I’ll catch a ride home. All the same to me.”

  She thought about it.

  “You’ve had training,” she said. “You’ve done this before.”

  “I used to be a dangerous person who did dangerous things. Now I’m an average person who does average things. I tend to my garden. I read books. I watch football on Sundays. Occasionally I get a little too drunk and wind up passing out in my hammock.”

  She raised her eyebrows. They were tweezed meticulously, arched into a V. A stark contrast to the eyes below them, which were very blue, round and warm and intelligent.

  “What did you do?”

  “I was a mercenary,” Riley said. “But I guess you can’t call it that anymore, so they sometimes referred to me as a government contractor. You’ve heard of Blackwater, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “We made those guys look like pussies. Bodyguarding work, much of the time. But also some of the real dirty shit. What the CIA and Army needed done got delegated to us.”

  “You were overseas? In Iraq?”

  “I was everywhere. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya. You name it, I was there. Trained by the Army Rangers, defected for the money. We weren’t too popular with the enlisted guys, that’s for sure.”

  “Why’d you leave?”

  “Three reasons. The first and least truthful is that the public tolerance for Middle Eastern conquest was dwindling. US military draws down troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and the mercs follow. Traipsing around Kabul without FOB strongholds and infantry backup is a good way to get your head chopped off. Second reason is that it became harder and harder to square my conscience against the endless parade of brown children dying so that I could make a buck. Third and I guess the most proximate reason is that I shot my squad leader after he ordered us to fire on a busload of unarmed refugees.”

  He hadn’t intended to make a speech, but there it was. Agatha was silent for a long moment.

  “Did he survive?” she asked. “Your squad leader?”

  “No,” Riley said. “He didn’t. But that’s a whole other story for a whole other day.”

  His burger arrived. He took a bit, savoring the grease and cheese and meat. Delicious.

  She watched him, smiling wryly at the way he attacked the burger.

  “So you’ve given up on war. But you still helped me. That says something.”

  “I’ve been making it a point to do the right thing. Kind of a new life outlook for me. Non nobis solum nati sumus.”

  She made a face. “Latin, right? What’s it mean?”

  “It’s Cicero. We are not born for ourselves alone. A decent motto. Feels good, to an extent. But obviously there are limits. If it’s doing the right thing versus coming away with all my limbs intact, I know which option I’m going to choose.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Riley took another bite, wiping ketchup from his mouth.

  “You don’t know, do you?” he said.

  “Know what?”

  “Who’s after you. Or why. You’ve been sitting here like you’ve been ready to spill it for the last fifteen minutes. But you haven’t. You’ve been thinking it over yourself. You might have some idea, but not the whole picture.”

  “I know I was followed. I know someone tried to kidnap me. I don’t know exactly what I’ve stumbled onto, but I have a feeling it’s big. I know I’m going to need help.”

  He nodded.

  “All right. Well, for starters, where were you headed this morning? You had a rental car with GPS. You’re obviously from D.C., and I’d wager you don’t make it out to my neck of the woods very often.”

  “Not often at all. I was on a work trip. Going to a construction company out near the Alleghenies for an interview with one of the foremen.”

  “You’re a reporter?”

  “Not exactly. More of a fact checker. Recently they’ve been giving me more responsibility. More boots on the ground stuff like this. I was a little nervous.”

  “I can tell,” Riley said. “You’re wearing two different earrings.”

  “Am I?” She fingered them, shaking her head exasperatedly. “God. I’m a mess.”

  “You’re holding up just fine, all things considered.” He took another bite of burger. “So you’re like a junior reporter?”

  “You want the full story, or abbreviated?”

  He shrugged.

  “Full, I guess.”

  “I finished law school in D.C. a few years ago,” Agatha said. “Realized in short order that it wasn’t for me, not that there were a bounty of jobs available in the first place. Decided I like journalism better, wanted to get into the muck, make institutions uncomfortable, that sort of thing.” She sighed softly. “Unfortunately, I had missed out on the years of interning and bitch work required to work my way up the ladder. And the newspapers, in their current state, weren’t in a rush to hire a thirty-year-
old woman with an unused J.D. and no real experience. Editors weren’t exactly supportive. I come from money, and they thought I was just dabbling. A bored, rich dilettante.”

  “But you were serious about it?”

  “As a heart attack. Didn’t get a column in the Washington Post, but I found work as a fact checker for a smaller daily. I also started my own blog on the side, which I guess is the way to do it these days. It’s called People at Work. Mostly local stories, some national. Bureaucratic corruption, campaign graft, occasional beltway gossip, that kind of thing. It’s been doing well lately.”

  Riley whistled.

  “There’s your problem. No telling how many asses you chafed with that website.”

  Agatha frowned, biting her lip.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought at first, too. But I’ve been running the blog for five years now. I’ve gotten a handful of angry emails, but none that threatened violence. Nothing that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. An article about misappropriation of funds at a construction site might piss off the building company, sure, but they aren’t going to kill me over it. A politician whose sexy texts to his mistress get leaked will be mad, but he isn’t going to have me kidnapped.”

  “I don’t know,” Riley said. “Haven’t you seen House of Cards?”

  “Yes, I have. And the real world doesn’t work that way. Maybe in another reality there’s an extreme outlier, some Congressman who would be insane enough to go after me. But I believe in the odds. Probability says that whatever is going on, it’s got real serious money at stake. Or a real serious crime. Probably both. And I’ve never broken a story like that. Otherwise, I’d have some awards to show for it.”

  Riley nodded. He couldn’t disagree with anything she’d said so far.

  “What about the fact checking?” he asked, polishing off the last few bites of his burger. “The construction company you were supposed to visit?” At that moment the waitress came by to scoop up his plate, and they paused the conversation. He ordered two slices of cheesecake, giving Agatha a look that read you really should eat something.

  “I don’t think the company has anything to do with it,” Agatha said. “I was headed there to talk about boring finance stuff. Fund allocations for a new reservoir. I work for Accounting Magazine. The last piece I fact checked was about budgeting new renovations on the Capitol Mall. Nothing inherently scandalous about that.”

  “You were headed there in person, though,” Riley said. “Is that unusual?”

  “It was my first interview,” she said. “I was excited. I wanted to go. I--”

  The color drained from her face.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Oh God,” she said. “My blog. I posted about it. Where I was headed, when I was leaving. Anyone reading would have known my exact route. They could have followed me from the moment I left my apartment.”

  “That’s a start,” Riley said. “But if people are after you, there has to be a reason. Think about it. There’s nothing strange that’s happened to you in the last few months?”

  “I didn’t say nothing strange has happened,” she said. The cheesecake arrived and they both took a few tentative bites. “I just can’t see how it’s related.”

  Riley held out his palms, waiting for her to continue.

  “It’s silly but…” She began mashing her cheesecake absentmindedly. “A few weeks ago, this guy Scott came into the office at the magazine. Scott Amundsen. I guess ostensibly he was there as an electrician, working on the lights or something. Just doing his job in the background. Nobody really noticed or cared that he was there.”

  “Go on.”

  She cleared her throat. “Well, we ran into each other a few times at the water cooler, and I guess he took a liking to me. At first he was kind of goofy, joking around, you know, flirting with me. I came in one morning to find flowers on my desk. Chocolates left in my drawer in the break room. I was flattered, but not interested. The guy...Scott...he had a weird kind of manic energy which turned me off. Eventually he straight up asked me out, and I turned him down.”

  “But he didn’t stop.”

  She shook her head.

  “His contract ended, but he kept trying. Somehow got my phone number and email, started leaving me long messages professing his love. Would send me text after text, to which I didn’t respond. I flat out told him to stop contacting me, but he couldn’t let it go. One night I found him waiting for me outside my apartment. I started to yell, made a big scene, chased him off. After that, I went to the police, filed a restraining order. This was only a few weeks ago. He sent me a few more texts, saying he was going to make me sorry. Vague language, nothing specific. But I was scared. I changed my number, considering buying a weapon. I was on edge. Double and triple checking my locks, making sure I wasn’t being followed. But then, it stopped, just like that. No more letters, no more calls. I figured he’d found some other poor girl to glom onto.”

  “And this is not the same guy we just ran across.”

  “Not even close. Scott was smaller, and he drove a Camaro. I know, because he made a big point of showing me one day outside my office. When that truck rolled up, and I saw it wasn’t Scott, I relaxed. Figured it was just a Good Samaritan, trying to help. But the way he was so insistent that I get into his car reminded me of Scott. I just got a bad feeling. And then...well, you were there.”

  Riley was thinking, now also mashing his cheesecake, trying to put it all together.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Just had a notion. You probably won’t like it, though.”

  She gave him a look that said what’s happened today that I’ve been super thrilled about?

  “You told people how Scott was bothering you, yeah?” he asked. “Mentioned it to your girlfriends?”

  “Of course. Everybody knew. Filed a police report, told my parents, my boss, let my neighbors know to contact me right away if they saw a red Camaro parked near the building.”

  “Right. Let’s say camouflage guy gets you into his pickup. Drives away, you’re never seen again. Worst case scenario. Who’s the first person everybody looks to as a suspect?”

  “Scott Amundsen.”

  “Exactly. Stalking, harassment. He’s flying nearly every red flag in the book. Everyone would think of Scott, no hesitation. But they’d be wrong. Because it wasn’t Scott who tried to abduct you. It was this other guy, who you’d never seen before.”

  “Maybe it was one of Scott’s friends? Someone he put up to it?”

  Riley shook his head. “I don’t think so. Stalkers don’t work that way. It’s personal with them. All about hurt feelings and their manhood. They wouldn’t outsource the job to someone else.”

  “So it was a coincidence?”

  The waitress came by with the check. Riley snatched it up without even thinking, crumbling it in his hands.

  “No way,” Agatha said. “I owe you at least this much.”

  Riley shrugged. Passed it back over to her without much protest.

  “It could be a coincidence, sure,” Riley continued. “But if it’s not, then that’s bad news.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if it’s not, it means these two are working together. It means that Scott Amundsen made a sustained infiltration of your workplace for several weeks to shine the spotlight of suspicion on him and him alone. A long con, to throw people off the trail. Which means whoever these people are, they’re professional, detail-oriented, and patient. Likely part of a larger group. It means they’re as dangerous as they come, and you don’t even know why they’re after you.”

  4.

  The man in the suit strode into the armory, impatience in his step. He was of short stature and wiry, like his limbs had kept growing long after his torso had given up. But he had an upright, commanding presence about him. Dark, neatly cropped hair slicked back. A businesslike, professional intensity in everything he did. Two other men, both much larger than he, came out of the office, meetin
g his gaze with deferential nods. The man in the suit clapped his hands together jovially, like he was a movie director about to shoot a scene.

  “Where is it?” he asked.

  The armory was a wide construction about the size of a football field, an older building with the empty, desiccated atmosphere of a steel mill stripped of its machinery. In its place were long, orderly rows of shelves and support structures absolutely crammed with crates, boxes, hard cases, and other bulky miscellanea all stenciled with black serial numbers, meticulously filed and arranged in careful handwriting in ledgers that cluttered the back office. Most of the items were military surplus--not assault rifles or rocket launchers, but helmets, boots, coiled rope, MREs, toolkits, spare automobile and tank parts, and a fair assortment of random junk that barely warranted classification.

  The two men walked about forty yards down one of the aisles. There, sandwiched between two green ammo cases was an unmarked silver box about seven feet long and two feet high. The box was heavy. They pulled it from the shelf and it hit the floor with a crash that echoed through the building. They both went around to the back end and pushed forward, until it came to a stop at the feet of the man in the suit.

  “You get any new information?” he asked.

  “Just the same story,” said one of the two subordinates, slightly out of breath from pushing the box. “Says he didn’t talk to anyone else. But we know that’s bullshit.”

  “We most certainly do,” said the man in the suit. “You worked him over good?”

  The biggest of the three men nodded. Rubbed the side of his knuckles, perhaps subconsciously, perhaps not.

  “As good as it gets. First we were nice, then we weren’t so nice. Don’t think he left anything out. We’ve got all the info we’re gonna get.”

  All three paused. A small sound from inside the silver box, like someone pounding softly on its side. The man in the suit put a hand to his ear and leaned forward.

  “All right,” he said, dusting his hands. “Enough fun. Situation’s changed. The woman’s on the run right now. Nothing major--I’m sure we’ll have scooped her up by tonight. Tomorrow at the latest. In the meantime, we’ve got to get rid of this.”