Bad Intent

by Jordan Cole

  “Is this an official FBI visit?” Henderson asked, sounding suddenly suspicious. “Or are you kind of flying solo here? No partner tagging along with you?”

  Metzer wagged a finger at Henderson.

  “There you go. See Dallas, I knew you were a savvy guy, all along. The bureau isn’t overly concerned with Riley’s guilt or innocence. We’re more than happy to liaison with the local cops to get him tracked down, but beyond that, we could care less. I’m interested in the truth, but I’m also interested in my career. If there’s bigger fish swimming beneath the surface here, I want to be the angler to haul them in.”

  Henderson drummed his hands.

  “The angler, huh?”

  “I’ve got some leads I think Riley would like to hear about.”

  “What would those be?”

  Metzer smiled.

  “Unfortunately, I’m not yet at liberty to say.”

  Metzer slipped his card out of his wallet and laid it down on the desk.

  “You hear from Riley, you give him my number. Tell him I’m on his side. That I just want to talk to him.”

  Henderson stared at the card. Didn’t move to take it.

  “Anything else?” Henderson said. His tone neutral, like he wasn’t sure whether Metzer was a friend or an enemy, quite yet.

  “That’s all,” Metzer said. He smiled. “You have a nice day, Dallas.”

  He nodded once, rising to his feet, not wanting to leave the plushness of the expensive chair. Headed back out to the lobby and out into the parking lot. There were no certainties in life, but Metzer would have bet the farm that Riley would be in touch with Henderson soon, if he hadn’t been already. No guarantee Riley would try and reach out to Metzer, but he should. As it stood right now, Clayton Riley III needed all the help he could get.

  19.

  Agatha’s face hadn’t been plastered across the media quite as much as Riley’s, and with the dye job and haircut she looked substantially different from the press photos, so she had talked to the motel clerk and paid for their room. Henderson hadn’t technically been lying when he said that Riley hadn’t gotten in touch since going on the lam. Riley hadn’t, but Agatha had.

  The means of communication weren’t easy. The best option they’d found was a payphone about twenty minutes from the Half-Moon motor court, their new residence for the time being. They’d looped south from Kentucky into Tennessee, hunkering down a little ways from the interstate in a town called Cookesville, about halfway between Knoxville and Nashville.

  Agatha’s first conversation with Dallas, as relayed to Riley, had been brief. The manhunt was in full swing, all the mechanisms in motion, no real information to be gathered other than Dallas warning them to keep their heads down. Agatha had driven forty-five minutes to find a payphone, because they needed to keep up to date on the MPD’s search, and they weren’t taking any chances. Now that it had been over a week, they’d been able to cut the distance just a little. Still a long trip for a short phone call, but Agatha returned to the motel room excited, with a newfound energy.

  “Good news,” Agatha said, dead bolting the door and slipping a finger through the Venetian blinds, checking for tails. “Think we’re okay for the time being. Henderson says cops are focusing the search around the Baltimore area. Still looking for your SUV.”

  She’d learned quickly, being on the run. A careful consideration of the maneuvers necessary to stay one step ahead of the MPD. But they were both growing agitated. Stir craziness, mixed with the constant paranoia of being hunted. Riley knew they couldn’t keep this up for much longer. The money would run out, for one thing. The few thousand he’d managed to grab from his safe was already beginning to dwindle, after paying for gas, groceries, room and board. No way of withdrawing more, unless they wanted to paint a bright red target on their backs. And there were other, simpler reasons. Riley missed his home. Maybe it was only a sad, lonely cabin, but it was his, dammit. And Agatha had a real life to go back to. A job, family, friends. She wasn’t made for the road, no matter how well she had adapted in the short term. At some point, she’d have to return to DC. And they would be right back where they started, unless Riley could figure out who set him up and why.

  “That’s all?” Riley said, his legs dangling over the side of the bed. He was wearing a T shirt and cheap jeans, clothes they’d bought at a department store along I-40. Another expense to account for. “The way you breezed in here, I would have thought they’d found the real shooter.”

  “Not all. An FBI agent was in to see Henderson. Ralph Metzer. Asking after you. Seems like he guessed we might be in contact with Dallas.”

  Riley killed the television. The flickering screen starting to give him a headache. All these motels seemed to have the same shitty TV with the same busted screens. He stood up and did a slow pace between the twin beds.

  “That doesn’t sound like good news to me. That sounds like our only line of communication is about to get shut off.”

  “Henderson said the FBI guy is working solo. That he’s convinced you’re innocent, and he thinks something bigger's going on. They know Farber’s missing now. But we’re the only ones who know what really happened to her.”

  “They’ll probably find some way to pin that on me, too,” Riley said. He wasn’t trying to be pessimistic, but none of this was sounding good to him so far.

  “Henderson thinks agent Metzer is telling the truth. That he’s trying to help you. Not out of the goodness of his heart, but to boost his career by uncovering the bigger conspiracy.”

  “He can boost it all he wants. This could just be an FBI ruse to get us to stick our heads out.”

  “What I guess it boils down to,” Agatha said, stretching her legs out on the bed with her back against the headboard, “is whether or not you trust Henderson.”

  She tossed a balled-up napkin at Riley. On it, she had scribbled FBI-RALPH METZER, and below that, a phone number.

  “I trust Henderson,” Riley said. “I don’t trust Ralph Metzer.”

  “You didn’t shoot Ramirez,” Agatha said. “One of them will have to figure it out eventually. Why not this guy? FBI must have better resources than Charlemagne County, or even the MPD.”

  Riley stared at the napkin in his hand.

  “We’re not making any other kind of headway here,” Agatha continued. “We can’t keep running forever. We’ve got to make a...whaddaya call it...a lateral movement.”

  “I don’t know,” Riley said.

  “It’s your call. But maybe he can tell us something. Lead us in the right direction. It’s getting hopeless, just sitting around, driving for miles, sitting around.”

  “I know. I’m sorry, Agatha.”

  “Don’t apologize to me. Start fixing it.”

  Riley looked down at the number again. If he did decide to call Agent Metzer, he was going to do it right. Carefully and deliberately, like they had been doing all along. No more payphones. Too easy for the authorities to nail down a specific location, get the local cops on the scene.

  They’d passed a Wal-Mart along the interstate, about an hour and a half east of their current location. His plan was going to require some amount of exposure, but Riley figured a big box store would at least offer a certain amount of anonymity.

  Riley killed time until nightfall, working the plan over in his head. Agatha read a paperback romance she’d picked up from a gas station. He told her where he was going and finally left the motel around 11. He wore a baseball cap pulled tight over his face, and a week’s worth of reddish beard. A pair of cheap, non-prescription glasses resting on his nose. Anyone who looked closely would have him made in an instant, but a mediocre disguise was better than none.

  He kept the Oldsmobile at a steady 60 miles per hour on the interstate, cruising in the right lane while other cars zoomed by on the left. Listened to classic rock on the radio at a low volume and tried to not to think about whether he was making a big mistake. There wasn’t much scenery on the lonely swath of I-40, jus
t strip malls, Waffle Houses, rolling hills and forest beyond the paved lanes of the highway. Riley wondered about Metzer's role in all this. Metzer had to have known Riley would be suspicious, and that Riley would know Metzer would know this. Lots of metaphysical layers of cat and mouse at work. But if it was all a just a trap, he at least wasn’t going to make it easy for them.

  By the time Riley reached the Wal-Mart it was almost one in the morning. He pulled into the sprawling parking lot, lit by a vast array of fluorescent lampposts. Not exactly bustling in the twilight hours, but by no means empty, either. Cars dotted the lot haphazardly, and Riley could see people coming and going through the store’s automatic doors, pushing shopping carts full of groceries and electronics and clothing. Insomniacs, searching for deals. Riley parked in the middle of the lot and walked into the store. He was greeted by a white-haired old man who looked like he had one foot in the grave. Riley nodded at him. Took a basket and went over to the food section and grabbed some groceries. Non-perishable items. Potato chips, more beef jerky, some soup. Then he headed over to the electronics department. Found a young kid stocking the aisles with zombie-like slowness and called him over to the counter. Riley noted the kid’s bloodshot eyes and asked a few cursory questions about cell phones and ended up buying three pre-paid burners, cheap models with antiquated screens that were out of date years ago. But Riley didn’t need to check his email or surf the web. He got 200 minutes of talk time for only twenty bucks, and he doubted he’d use even a fraction of that. He paid for the phones and the groceries and went back out to the car. He’d been in the store for 15 minutes, all told. Only person who conceivably might have remembered him was the kid who’d sold him the phones, and he’d looked stoned enough to forget his own name if it weren’t pinned to his chest.

  Riley pulled out of the lot and kept going past the exit for the interstate. Found the back roads heading north and drove for another hour, up to the near-border of Tennessee and Kentucky. Total darkness aside from the Oldsmobile’s lights, just empty country surrounded by wilderness, a long stretch of nothing dotted only by the occasional farmhouse or service station. Eventually he saw signs pointing to a scenic overlook, and Riley turned off the road, parking on a ridge which offered a hazy view of the backwoods below. He killed the headlights and pulled one of the phones from its packaging. Almost 2:30 in the morning now. He activated the phone and dialed Metzer’s number from memory. The phone rang once. Twice. Three times. On the fourth ring, a voice clicked onto the line. A deep voice, sleepy, but alert, like he’d been half-expecting the call.

  “Riley?”

  “You’ve got thirty seconds to explain how you can help me.”

  “I can’t,” Metzer said. The drowsiness gone from his voice now. Riley pictured him sitting up in bed, tossing back the covers. Either that, or in an office, surrounded by suited agents with recording equipment. “Not over the phone, at least. We need to meet.”

  “Why?”

  “I know you didn’t kill Ramirez. I know about Pete Saccarelli and Caliban. I think he was on to something big, and they’re killing people to shut them up. Couldn’t get to you or Agatha at your cabin, so they framed you.”

  “Why you?”

  “Police are buying the frame up. I can’t exonerate you, not with what I have now. But the pieces are coming together. The truth will come out eventually, and together we can break it open.”

  Riley didn’t speak. Looked up at the darkness that spread all around him.

  “You don’t trust me,” Metzer said. “You have no reason to. But aside from Dallas, I’m the only one on your side ride now. Figure out a way we can meet. I’ll show you what I have.”

  Time was running out. Riley couldn’t stay on the line much longer. He had to make a decision. He’d planned for something like this. A decent arrangement, in theory. Whether things would work out in the real world was another matter altogether.

  “Tomorrow,” Riley said. “Be in St. Louis by noon. I’ll call you with further instructions.”

  “That’s a twelve-hour drive from DC.”

  “Then you’d better book an early flight.”

  A pause.

  “All right. I’ll be there.”

  “You alone, Metzer. I get a whiff anyone is tailing, you don’t hear from me again.”

  Riley hung up. Cracked the phone in half and tossed it out the window. Pulled a K turn and headed back south, dirt and gravel kicking up through the wheels behind him. He hoped Agatha had gotten some sleep, because he sure as hell wasn’t going to be getting any. There were preparations to be made. It was going to be a very long night.

  20.

  Metzer disembarked from his plane and walked through Lambert airport toward the light rail, dark briefcase swaying in his hand as he went. He’d spent last night furiously pulling the last-minute travel arrangements together, arranging plausible excuses for the Bureau, in case they were wondering why he had decided to travel halfway across the country on a whim. Fortunately, the junior agents Metzer had designated to the Virginia Port smuggling assignment were doing good work, work they were sending upwards to Metzer, who was in turn sending up to Deputy Director Hammond, who was pleased and therefore unbothered when Metzer called in early to tell him he’d be out of the office all day.

  As Metzer was funneled toward the red line station with the rest of the travelers, he felt aware of his cell phone in his pocket. Noon was approaching quickly, and Metzer still wasn’t certain if he’d hear from Riley at all. Would have been a shame to go to all this trouble, only to get stood up.

  It had been many years since Metzer had been to St. Louis, and he had no idea what Riley was planning. He figured he’d take the light rail southeast toward downtown and wait for further instructions. From what he remembered, St. Louis was a typical, modest Midwestern city--busy on the middle of a workday, but not to the point of saturation. He recalled that the big arch was on the west bank of the Mississippi river, and Busch Stadium where the Cardinals played was somewhere nearby. That was pretty much it, as far as his landmark frame of reference went.

  Metzer was dressed casually, like a tourist or a business traveler. Yellow-tinted sunglasses, a collared shirt, and tan slacks. Giving his workmanlike suits a day of rest. He didn’t bring his service weapon, which he wasn’t thrilled about, but there wasn’t much choice in the matter. Too difficult to fly with a Glock, on such short notice. And if he lost it somehow, Hammond would never let him hear the end of it. All he carried was his wallet, phone, and the briefcase. But he had the feeling Riley would run him around, if he decided to show his face at all. Metzer was okay with that. He had run track, back in college. Still ran a few miles before work, every now and again. He’d signed up for a little exertion.

  A tremor raced through the ground and Metzer felt the crowd turn collectively. The train car approached, rumbling down the open-air track. The passengers filed aboard the empty train. Metzer took a seat by the window, studying the subway map. The train ran a long circuit southeast, passing through most of the city's major landmarks. There were fans wearing Cardinals caps, families huddled together in a sea of red, apparently heading to a day game. Metzer wasn’t a fan of baseball. Too slow, too much downtime between the action. He preferred hockey, constant kinetic energy. He looked out the window as the train rolled away from the Lambert airport, an automatic voice warning people away from the doors. Buildings glided by as they moved smoothly down the rail. Metzer figured he’d get off at one of the downtown stops, wait for Riley’s instructions. But almost as soon as they were in motion, he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. A number he didn’t recognize. Metzer answered.

  “Riley?”

  “Where are you?” A male voice, terse and to the point. The same voice from the night before. Metzer’s breathing quickened. Riley had followed through, after all. He felt a surge of adrenaline and swiveled around, watching the other passengers on the train. But nobody paid him any mind.

  “I’m on the red line subway.
Just left Lambert Airport. Heading in the direction of Fairview Heights.”

  A pause.

  “Stay on the train. Get off at the East Riverfront stop.”

  “Okay. Will do.”

  “Metzer?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Stay on the line, too. You get off the phone, I disappear.”

  The train slowed, pulling into the next stop, North Handley. Only a few people disembarked. A bigger woman took a vacant seat next to Metzer, jamming him into the corner.

  “You don’t need to do this,” Metzer said. “I came alone, like we agreed. No one tagging along.”

  “You’ll forgive me for having an abundance of caution.” Riley sounded tired, like he’d been up all night planning contingencies. Metzer wondered if the woman was with him.

  “It’s crowded,” Metzer said. “Lots of tourists out today. Hope you’re not planning anything rash.” He watched as more stops rolled by. UMSL North, UMSL South.

  “Just do as I say.”

  Nearing the heart of the city now. People getting on and off the train in a steady stream. Coming up on the Central West End station. Apartment buildings and office complexes and restaurants. The sky above a cloudless blue, a perfect end-of-summer day.

  “What are you wearing?” Riley said.

  “White collared shirt. Tan slacks. Carrying a briefcase.”

  “Great. Way to make yourself stand out from the crowd.”

  “Yellow sunglasses, also.”

  “Keep those on. What’s your favorite band?”

  Metzer was confused.

  “Why?”

  “I still don’t trust you. You can tell a lot about somebody by the kind of music they like.”

  “I don’t know. The Beatles, I guess.”

  Riley made a disbelieving sound.

  “Talk about a safe answer. Not very convincing, Metzer. What stop are you at?”

  “Coming up on Stadium.”

  A squeaking sound from the train’s brakes as they slowed. Heavy machinery, grinding to a halt. Everyone who was headed to the ballgame rose from their seats, moving toward the doors.