Bad Intent

by Jordan Cole

  “I found out Saccarelli filed a Freedom of Information Act about Operation Tempest,” Metzer said. “Then I checked out the actual FBI report. Where I found this.”

  He pulled another paper from the bottom of the stack. A reproduction of a glossy photo, against a white page.

  A picture taken by a long-range lens, two men eating together at a sidewalk cafe. Peter Saccarelli, and Andrew Fletcher, deep in conversation.

  “Oh my god,” Agatha said, smacking her head. “Operation Tempest. That’s Caliban. Of course. Pete was being clever. That must have been his codename for Andrew Fletcher.”

  “Yep. My thoughts exactly. This picture was taken after Fletcher was released from Federal custody. Meaning the Bureau was still keeping tabs on Fletcher at that point. But he’s dropped off the radar entirely since then. Gone underground. Like this Saccarelli guy, maybe.”

  Riley stared at the photo, which had a remarkable crispness. Wondering what it all meant, how all of this tied back in to Agatha and himself.

  Metzer turned to Agatha.

  “Did Peter give you anything? Tell you details about this? Mention to you offhand that something was wrong?”

  She shook her head.

  “No. Maybe a month ago he left me a short email, that he was working on something big. But he did that all the time.”

  “Fletcher is currently MIA?” Riley asked.

  “He’s loose somewhere. Still in the US for sure, since he’s on the no flight list. But where exactly, nobody knows. Been keeping quiet. I think he’s the key to all this. You talk to him, you find out what’s going on.”

  “He’s probably as dead as Saccarelli,” Riley said. Agatha stared him daggers and gave him a disapproving head shake. Riley shrugged.

  “Sorry to say it, but it’s true. Peter’s dead. I don’t know what the deal is with Fletcher or why the charges against him were dropped, but it sounds like they needed him out of the way. Someone didn’t want him talking to the FBI.”

  “I need more time if we’re going to clear your name,” Metzer said. “And find out who’s behind this. But I have other obligations. I can’t be running around across the country, especially not with you two. If I get caught, I’ll end up in jail right alongside you.”

  “Give us what you have on Fletcher,” Riley said. “Maybe I can track him down.”

  Metzer reached into the pile of papers, dug out Fletcher’s file.

  “He’s not at any of his last known addresses. Possibly hiding out with sympathizers or friends. Might be hard to dig up. Especially considering you’re on the run yourself.”

  Riley took the file from Metzer. A long list of names and places, Fletcher’s childhood home, his high school, the mosques where he’d worshiped, known associates.

  “That’s the most I can tell you right now,” Metzer said. “When I learn more, you’ll be the first to hear about it.”

  Riley turned to Agatha.

  “We should be heading on.”

  “What about him?”

  They looked at Metzer, who watched them stoically from his perch, arms crossed.

  “He can call himself a cab, I guess,” Riley said. “Take him back to the airport.” Metzer nodded solemnly.

  “I took a big risk coming here,” Metzer said. “Don’t leave me out in the lurch.”

  “So did we,” said Agatha. “Goodbye, agent Metzer. We’ll be in touch.”

  And with that, Riley and Agatha headed back out to the parking lot, where their car was waiting, ready to send them back onto the lam.

  22.

  “This is beyond unacceptable,” Frazier said.

  Whitehall sat across from him, both of them nestled into the corner of a very dark, very upscale bar in Dumont Circle. Not his type of place, really, but they wouldn't be recognized, and there was enough ambient conversation to make eavesdropping impossible. The waiter had been coming around only sporadically and so Frazier was ordering two drinks at a time, stiff Manhattans. Whitehall could see his face growing redder and redder as he drank. He was lambasting Whitehall about the situation. Frazier had many vices, but alcohol might have been the worst. Not an especially interesting or revealing Achilles heel, but it was good to know. Whitehall was a big proponent of detecting weakness, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. He himself had been slowly nursing the same beer for the better part of a half hour.

  “We’re fine,” Whitehall said. Like he was about as concerned with the whole situation as with putting out the trash. “We’ll have them flushed out soon enough.”

  “They were supposed to be flushed out already.”

  Whitehall shrugged.

  “Clay Riley’s a tough guy to pin down. What can I say?”

  Frazier stirred an olive in his dwindling Manhattan. Whitehall could see individual blossoms of red veins in his nose.

  “If that stupid nigger cop had arrested Riley instead of letting him off-road down the mountain, we’d be in the clear right now.”

  Whitehall raised his eyebrows.

  “Can’t look at it that way, sir. A complication arises, we have to deal with it. Not reminiscing about if or but.”

  “You assured me,” Frazier started, his words beginning to slur, “that shooting Ramirez would work. That it would get Riley out of the picture so that we could finally nail the girl and get what we needed. Christ, all Kovac had to do was get her into his damn pickup truck in the first place, and this whole thing never would have happened. It’s like some kind of bad dream.”

  “How much money have we made in the past two years?” Whitehall asked. Taking a tiny sip of beer.

  Frazier snorted.

  “A lot.”

  “Right. Exactly. Complications will arise. It’s just the nature of the business. That’s why you have me. To handle situations like this. It’s been a struggle the past week, but the worst is over. I didn’t think Riley would run, but it has its benefits all the same. His credibility is exactly zero. He’s got about as much credibility as Fletcher, right now. He’s got no one who can help him. The Dumont woman is not going to stay on the run with him indefinitely. We’ll get her sooner rather than later, and then we can cross off the last loose end and move on with our lives.”

  “You shouldn’t have killed the boss,” Frazier said, sounding almost wistful. “The lady from the magazine. Too many bodies. It doesn’t look good.”

  Whitehall laughed.

  “What was I supposed to do? Let her go? We needed access to her email. Needed her on the phone to lure the cops to Riley’s cabin. Can’t just have her walk away after that.”

  Whitehall hadn’t told Frazier about the picture he’d sent to Agatha’s phone. That had been his own private bit of fun. Immature, maybe, but imagining the look on Agatha Dumont’s face when she saw Farber’s pile of limbs made it all worthwhile. And it had served its own small purpose: to preoccupy the two of them while the police approached and Whitehall prepared for the shot.

  “It’s just another missing person in this already messy endeavor.”

  “She’s gone, Frazier. They’ll never find her body. Nothing at all to trace it to us. It’ll send them down wrong alleys. That’s assuming they don’t just pin it on Riley.”

  Frazier took another swig of his Manhattan.

  “What about Fletcher? He’s still out there somewhere.”

  “He’s meaningless. Like I said, his credibility is less than zero. What we need are Saccarelli’s recordings. Unfortunate Fletcher was able to disappear, but it really doesn’t matter. He’s out of the picture now.”

  “What about worst-case scenario? The tapes get found? Fletcher gets called in to testify? What if Riley tracks him down somehow?”

  Whitehall shook his head.

  “If we can’t find Fletcher, Riley’s not going to be able to. Not while he’s on the run, with every law enforcement agency in the country on his ass. And even if Fletcher somehow turns up, he’d never make it to the courtroom alive. You can trust me on that one.”

&
nbsp; Whitehall wasn’t sure why Frazier was imagining these doomsday scenarios. Maybe it was the booze, shaking his confidence. Wasn’t Riley rumored to be a alkie as well? They’d probably get along, these two, if they ever sat down for a drink.

  “I just can’t wait for this fiasco to be over with,” Frazier said, sighing. Downing the last of his drink. “For Riley and the girl to be out of the picture for good. I’ll sleep a lot easier.”

  “Cheers to that,” said Whitehall, and they clinked their glasses together.

  ***

  Riley kept watch as Agatha sat hunched over the computer, her fingers darting over the keys in a frenetic blur. He had no idea where she had learned to type so fast, and he could barely keep up as the words flashed over the screen. An update to her blog, their side of what had happened at Riley’s cabin, emphatic italics and sentences such as Clayton Riley is Innocent, and Frame Job, and Liz Farber Has Been Murdered. Agatha had thought it important to keep an active link to her supporters. The manhunt had been dropping off the national news, but was still being talked and speculated about daily on the crime blogs and DC insider circles. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be able to stick around to read the comments. He was sure the authorities would be searching for the IP address as soon as the post went live, and it would lead them to the small public library that Riley and Agatha were at, after signing up as guests to access the computer system.

  Riley had been doing his own research on the computers while Agatha worked, on Andrew Fletcher, or Mohammed Abu Shakra. Whatever he was calling himself now. But Riley found little information to complement what Metzer had already given him. Just a few small mentions in local DC papers that a radical extremist from Minnesota had been released on insufficient evidence. No mention of a connection to the greater Operation Tempest or what exactly had spurred the courts to let him go. But Riley had learned something--part of the information Metzer had given him was outdated. Fletcher’s parents had moved to a different address in Minneapolis a few years ago. A small detail, but one that was important. The parents would be a good place to start looking. If Fletcher was somehow still alive, they might have known where he was headed. Riley had no doubt the FBI had talked to them extensively already, but there were things even the FBI missed. And Riley could be persuasive when he had to be.

  After finishing browsing, Riley went across the small white space of the library’s computer room and found Agatha still typing. He was starting to get antsy. One of the librarians had glanced at him a moment too long as they had entered, and the library was nearly empty except for the two of them. All it would take to sink them was one observant person who followed the news, one hesitant call to the police. The public library in Shoreditch, Kansas was not where Riley wanted to go down. He tapped Agatha on the shoulder, who wheeled around with a jolt. She frowned up at him, her face reddening.

  “Jesus. Scared me.”

  “Sorry.” They were both jumpy. A long time on the road, in motels. Constant pressure of capture, always around the corner. Not exactly soothing on the psyche.

  “Hey Tolstoy, you don’t need to write a novel here,” Riley said, watching the words fill up the page. “Get to the point and let’s go. You don’t want to give too much away.”

  “I’m not giving anything away,” Agatha said. But she shrugged and finished up. Clicked post and published the thing. Rose from the chair and the two of them walked out of the computer lab and nodded politely to the librarian, who was on the phone with what Riley hoped wasn’t the cops. They went back out to the parking lot and into the Oldsmobile as inconspicuously as they could.

  “It was a good post,” Agatha said. “Convincing. I think we’ll have a lot of people on our side.”

  “We don’t need people on our side,” Riley said, starting the engine. “We need to prove our innocence. And it’s bad for you. It proves you came with me of your own free accord. We go down, they’re not going to go easy on you.” She shrugged, as if none of that mattered.

  As he pulled out of the parking lot, Riley could see a police cruiser swing into view behind him. Maybe ten car-lengths back. His eyes locked onto the rear-view mirror. He breathed deeply.

  “Cop,” Agatha said quietly. Sprawling out in her seat, trying to look relaxed.

  “I see him.”

  Riley slowed, still watching the rear view. The police cruiser pulled up another few car lengths, then turned down a side street. Riley hit the accelerator and sped forward, heading quickly toward the state highway.

  “Just a false alarm, I guess,” Agatha said.

  “Though the librarian dimed us out,” said Riley, only half-joking. “Settle in. It’s a long way to Minnesota.”

  The hours passed. Endless flat highway, rows of cornfields, the empty industrial nothingness of Indiana, long stretches of factory towns and billowing smoke and a general pervasive unease that crept into the car and manifested itself between the two of them. Riley thought back to their first encounter, when he was driving around while Agatha pointed a gun at his ribs, neither of them speaking, the silence surrounding and overwhelming them until finally she had cracked. It was different now. They trusted each other. It was the outside world that was out to get them.

  After four or five hours Agatha took over the driving. They stopped at rest stations, donned hats and sunglasses until it was too dark to wear them convincingly. Ate greasy fast food and paid for gas in cash and didn’t linger for too long anywhere. Riley hoped to be able to talk to Fletcher's parents tonight. A surprise visit by two strangers might be useful. Psychologically intimidating. If they played it right. If they came on too strong and the police got called, nobody would benefit. Riley's picture had made national news, but he didn’t think it was so omnipresent that a random couple in Minnesota would recognize it, not with a hat and fresh beard. But there was no way of knowing for sure.

  The sun dipped below the plains and the world darkened; the headlights of the Oldsmobile shone a tiny cone of illumination. Driving on the deserted highway like they were the last car on earth. Like traversing an alien planet. Full dark by the time they passed into Minnesota. Agatha drove for the final leg, and as they rolled through vast stretches of empty fields, Riley felt like a drink. Not the first time he’d had the urge since going on the run, but maybe the strongest. Even though it was summertime, the ground around them seemed cold and barren. He had a sinking feeling, the ruination of his own life and the drunken nobody he had become and the destructive impact on anyone unlucky enough to be drawn into his orbit. A feeling that, despite the best efforts, Agatha was invariably doomed by dint of having stumbled into Riley’s life, bad luck masquerading as good. In the unfamiliar terrain of lower Minnesota he saw reflected the emptiness of these violent squabbles, dead rocks and trees already beginning to shed and souls stripped of their vitality flitting dark and silent in the night. They drove on.

  Traffic cooperated and by nine o'clock they had arrived, following their map to a small residential neighborhood of prefab houses, two level homes side by side with thin strips of asphalt driveway and arterial sidewalks connecting them, cars parked parallel in the street. A thick chunk of moon overhead. The Fletcher house unremarkable compared with the others--a mowed lawn, drawn window shades. A few lights inside the house burning yellow against the night.

  “What kind of approach?” Agatha asked, drawing the car to a stop beside the sidewalk. Emptiness all around. Trash cans dotted the ends of driveways, the street already quiet and turned in for the night. People would be watching TV, checking their email, maybe having a snack.

  “I guess we knock on the door,” Riley said. “What else can we do?” There were other options, of course. But none Riley wanted to use, not when considering two older people who might not even know anything. Hard to shake the feeling that this was yet another hapless scrambling into a dead end or a blind corner. They’d been to plenty of houses, talked to plenty of people without much result. The way this sad little strip of town looked, Riley didn’t think this
encounter would be much different. Still, they had to try. No other choice.

  An automated porch light came on as they reached the front door. Agatha knocked. Riley realized, not for the first time, how essential her presence was. If it was only him by himself, unshaven and unkempt? Forget it. No chance anyone would give him the time of day. But with Agatha around, people softened. Doors more likely to open for a woman and a man together. Didn’t necessarily make sense, but that’s the way it was.

  Footsteps inside the house. A pitched conversation which Riley couldn’t quite make out, but he caught the general drift of it.

  Who’s that?

  I dunno.

  You expecting anyone?

  No.

  The footsteps grew louder and the lock clicked and the doorknob turned. A slight woman who looked about 60 opened the door, a sallow face and graying hair tied back in a ponytail. She studied Agatha and Riley like they were not the first late night callers she’d received.

  “Yes?” said the woman, and then, before either of them could respond, “Let me guess. Looking for Andrew, right?”

  “We are, actually,” Agatha said.

  From somewhere inside the house, a male voice called “Who is it?”

  “You’re not dressed like cops,” the woman said. “Or FBI. Friends of his? What am I saying. He didn’t have any friends.”

  “Could we come in?” Riley asked.

  “Give me a good reason.”

  “We think your son is in danger.”

  “I’d be shocked if he wasn’t.”

  “How about this,” Agatha said. “We’re two desperate people who just drove over 600 miles. All we want is to talk to you for a little while.”

  A stern-looking man joined the woman in the doorway. Dressed almost professorially, in slacks and buttoned shirt under suspenders. A similar weary look in his eyes, like his wife. He put an arm on her shoulder.

  “Come inside,” he said. His wife looked at him, a hint of surprise on her face. Riley and Agatha followed them in. A modest dwelling. Small rooms crammed with furniture, jammed together via narrow walkways. Only the kitchen had any space to breathe, and that’s where they congregated. Everyone took a seat around a rectangular table.