Kim crossed her arms over her chest and shivered. “I'm not worried about me. It's the two of you . . .” She shivered harder, asking Jamie, “Do you remember the computer codes?”
“You bet,” Jamie said. “Your security's so brilliant, I can't get in otherwise.”
“Nail the bastard who's doing this.”
3
Lt. Russell arranged for numerous cruisers to leave the precinct at the same time, so many that Carl's operators couldn't follow them all. But if any tried, the sparse traffic of two a.m. would make the surveillance obvious and easily intercepted.
Cavanaugh and Jamie hid in the back seat of one of those cruisers. They got out at Central Park's West Drive, slipped into the trees, and headed north. From time to time, they paused among murky boulders and bushes to check if they were being followed. Only the park's usual predators stalked them, but Cavanaugh and Jamie gave off such strong don't-screw-with-us vibrations that just four kids made a move, and what happened to them was so swift and decisive that word spread quickly—stay away.
Confident that they'd eluded Carl and his men, Cavanaugh and Jamie crossed Eighth Avenue and proceeded along West Seventy-Third Street. They reached a modest apartment building, outside which a man with a beer can in his hand seemed asleep behind the steering wheel of a car. Farther along, a man walked a dog. Still farther along, a van had a small air vent in its roof, the vent actually an aperture for a surveillance camera.
Outside the front door, Cavanaugh studied a list of tenants. He pressed the intercom button next to the name Zimbalist.
After a moment, a man's voice said, “This better be good. It's the middle of the night.”
“Jimmy Lile sent us,” Jamie said, mentioning a famous knife maker whose name they'd selected as a code.
A buzzer sounded. Cavanaugh opened the door and stepped into a warm, pleasantly lit vestibule. Halfway along a hallway, a door was ajar. A security camera looked down from a corner. They went up one flight of carpeted stairs and prepared to knock on door 2-C when it opened and Rutherford smiled.
“You two don't look so good.”
“You don't need to seem so cheery about it,” Jamie said.
“I'm just glad you're all right.” He locked the door after they entered.
“What about William?” Cavanaugh asked. “Did he get back to his safe site okay?”
“Nobody followed the car.”
In the living room, two men in white shirts had their suit coats draped over chairs, their holstered handguns visible on their belts. They watched a row of closed-circuit TV monitors that provided views of the street, the door to the building, the vestibule, and the stairs leading up.
“You ought to feel flattered,” Rutherford said. “The Bureau maintains this place only for prized informants.”
“The park.” Cavanaugh rubbed his arms. “Cold.”
“You've got your pick of two bathrooms to take a hot shower.”
“Hungry,” Jamie said.
“The pizza's already here,” Rutherford said. “With pepperonis, right?”
“And anchovies and black olives.”
“And salad and garlic bread. Everything you ordered.”
4
“Are you okay?” Cavanaugh asked in the darkness of a bedroom
“A few bumps and bruises. Nothing serious.” Jamie lay next to him.
“I mean, are you okay?”
“Why wouldn't I be? It's just the usual, isn't it? Fear and trembling.”
“You were talking awfully fast in the kitchen. You sound as if you're on speed.”
“Adrenaline will do that.”
“It should have worn off by now.” The darkness seemed to compress around him.
“I guess I'm resistant,” she said.
“I just want to make sure nothing's wrong.” The darkness got even thicker.
Jamie lay unmoving next to him. Finally, she said, “You mean because I killed somebody?”
Cavanaugh exhaled.“Now that you mention it.”
“He was trying to kill us.”
“Best reason in the world to pull the trigger,” Cavanaugh agreed. “You didn't panic. You didn't let the heat of the moment make your hands waver. You acted precisely. You saved our lives.”
“Is this what the military calls an ‘after-action report’?”
“It's useful to talk. To sort out your emotions.”
“In other words, a cheap form of psychotherapy.” Jamie remained motionless beside him.
“Imagine that you didn't raise your pistol fast enough. Imagine him firing the rifle, full auto, bullets tearing into us, blood and flesh and bone flying, you and Kim and me dropping.”
“Trying some neuro-linguistic programming on me?”
“It's nothing I haven't used on myself.”
“When was the first time . . .”
“First time?” Outside the curtained, bullet-resistant window, a car drove by, its lonely drone echoing in the night. “You mean, the first time I killed someone?”
Jamie didn't answer.
“Twenty years ago,” Cavanaugh said. “In Peru.”
Jamie turned toward him. “Isn't that where you told me Duran was held prisoner by revolutionaries?”
“They called themselves the PCP. The Partido Comunista del Peru. American soldiers were down there, helping prop up the government. Carl and I and some other Delta Force members were sent to teach the Peruvian soldiers how to put together their own version of Delta. Lord knows, enough officials had been kidnapped that the local government needed experts in hostage retrieval. We accompanied Peruvian soldiers on a mission to rescue a high-ranking politician. The PCP was threatening to kill him if the government didn't release some PCP members the army was interrogating. But somebody leaked the details of the mission to the revolutionaries, and we walked into an ambush. Carl was knocked unconscious by an explosion. The government soldiers he was with ran away. Later, we received photographs showing that Carl was alive, with a message that gave the government three days to release the PCP agitators.”
Cavanaugh forced himself to continue. “Delta looks after its own. Within twenty-four hours, a full extraction team arrived from Fort Bragg. Twelve hours before the deadline expired, we got a lucky break, some excellent intelligence reports along with aerial surveillance photos that showed the mountain camp where Carl was being held. At night, we parachuted into a clearing about three miles away and converged on the target. The infra-red satellite images we'd studied gave us a pretty good idea of where the prisoners, eight of them including Carl, were being held. About twenty revolutionaries were guarding the camp. We used night-vision binoculars to confirm what was on the satellite images. I was with the men assigned to get to the prisoners and protect them once the attack started. Basically, the tactic was coordinated sniper shots followed by overwhelming automatic fire and a hail of fragmentation grenades. It was a textbook assault, and it went perfectly. No casualties among the prisoners or the attack force. The revolutionaries were utterly outclassed.”
“You killed some of them? That was your first time?” Jamie asked.
“I laid down covering fire, three thirty-round magazines, but I have no idea if any of my bullets connected. I need to assume I did damage, but it was as if I was destroying objects. I had no sense that I was actually killing people. My primary emotion was relief that Carl was safe and that I'd survived the mission.”
“Then I don't understand. It doesn't sound like your first time.”
“We radioed for evac choppers and set up a perimeter in case other revolutionaries heard the shots and came to investigate. When I found cover and waited, I had a sense that something was terribly wrong, a feeling that I was being watched, that something awful was about to happen. By then, it was dawn. I glanced to my left and saw a face in the bushes. A kid. He was maybe sixteen, raising a pistol. Before I realized what I was doing, I swung my rifle and emptied the magazine into him. Total reflex. Thirty rounds. Just about blew him apart. Even if I
'd probably killed before, that was my first time. Up close and personal. The moment was so intense, I could see into the kid's eyes, past his fear-dilated pupils into his brain. Into his soul. I remember thinking, You stupid kid, why didn't you hide? Why did you need to try to be a hero? It was so pointless, so damned unnecessary.”
“What happened then?”
“I threw up,” Cavanaugh said.
“That's what I felt like doing.”
“I had a lot of nightmares about that kid,” Cavanaugh continued. “His chin had a wart. He had scruffy hair and a scar on his forehead. His clothes were filthy and ragged. He was so thin, he probably hadn't eaten a decent meal in weeks. The revolution was one of those ‘share the wealth’ deals: millions of poor people against a handful of rich landlords and financiers trying to control them. I'm sure the kid had been exploited all his life. He was probably consumed with hate. I bet he went to sleep every night longing for a decent future. A lot to sympathize with. But if I had the chance to do it again, I'd shoot him just as dead as I shot him the first time. Otherwise, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation.”
Jamie's hand touched his. “And if I had to do it again, I'd shoot that man as dead as he now is, just to make sure you and I could be lying here like this.”
“It's one way to decide if something was justified—whether you'd do it again,” Cavanaugh agreed.
“But I hate that it needed to happen.”
“Yes. I measured my life from that moment . . . before I killed and after.”
“Rescuing Carl Duran,” Jamie said.
5
His eyes feeling raw, Cavanaugh peered toward painful sunlight seeping past the draperies. With effort, he got out of bed. He opened the door a crack and saw a different pair of armed agents in the living room. With the attentiveness of their predecessors, they watched the numerous surveillance monitors.
Cavanaugh shifted his gaze toward a different area in the living room and saw Jamie seated at a table, tapping on a computer. Rutherford stood behind her, watching her fingers work magic. Jamie's fresh jeans and turtleneck were part of the safe-site resources.
He took the longest, hottest shower of his life, but tension insisted. He couldn't keep his mind off everything that had happened. Damn it, what was Carl's objective?
Khaki slacks and a brown shirt were on a bureau, along with fresh underwear and socks. Motivated by a sudden idea, he dressed so hurriedly that he continued to button his shirt as he walked into the living room.
“Morning, sleepy head.” Jamie kept her gaze on the computer screen.
“Did I miss anything?”
“Breakfast.”
“We left you a doughnut,” Rutherford said.
“Haven't you heard of Dr. Atkins?” Cavanaugh picked up the phone and pressed the numbers for information. “Cincinnati, Ohio,” he told a computerized voice. “F and W Publications.”
Jamie and Rutherford looked at him.
“F and W Publications,” a cheery voice said.
“Blade magazine. Steve Shackleford,” Cavanaugh said.
“One moment please.”
Cavanaugh said a silent prayer that Steve wouldn't be out of his office on an assignment. Blade was a favorite magazine of knife enthusiasts, but it was a mistake to imagine a redneck, good-old-boy reader with biker's boots, a beer gut, and a chain leading from his thick wallet to his belt. Instead, most of Blade’s 40,000 subscribers were attorneys, physicians, computer experts, and other white-collar professionals, their average income in six figures: a subscription base that many magazines envied. The magazine's avid readers had knife collections they'd assembled with the care of sophisticated art collectors.
Some of the knives were treasured antique Bucks, evoking pleasant memories of trusty jackknives from a happy childhood. Others were pocket knives crafted so painstakingly and with such elegance, those by Michael Vagnino, for example, that collectors who'd paid $2,000 for one of his folders felt lucky to have gotten a bargain now that he'd risen to the top of his field.
Some knives were valued because of the life-experience they symbolized, Vietnam veterans treasuring the rugged Ka-Bar combat knife that, in many instances, had meant the difference between death and survival. Other knives were valued because of their current reputation as a dependable tactical knife, those by Ernest Emerson, for instance, who in 1991 handcrafted tactical knives for soldier friends departing to the Gulf War. These soldiers bragged to their comrades about how well designed the knives were. Eventually, Emerson received so many orders that he shifted from making knives by hand to manufacturing them in a factory, with the goal of proving that, with proper diligence, a factory-made knife could have the quality of a forged one. He followed the example of Al Mar, a former Green Beret who in the late 1970s pioneered the modern tactical folder and became known as the father of specialty knives. An original Al Mar or Ernest Emerson knife had an auction price of several thousand dollars.
Still other knives were prized because of their place in popular culture. The prop knives for the film The Iron Mistress were diligently acquired by Hollywood production-artist Joseph Musso: a wooden version, a rubber version, an unfinished steel version used in a forging scene, and the magnificent fully realized knife. Musso's unique collection traveled to various museums, including one in San Antonio, Texas, the site of the Alamo, where Jim Bowie had died. Musso's love for the Iron Mistress prompted him to allow skilled bladesmiths to study the knife and its studio blueprints. Copies by George Cooper, Joe Keeslar, and Gil Hibben were better made than the original and highly prized. This was the world that Cavanaugh needed to tap into as he listened to the other phone ring.
“Steve Shackleford.” The pleasant voice had a Tennessee accent.
Thank God, Cavanaugh thought.
“Steve, it's Aaron Stoddard.”
Both Jamie and John straightened, frowning at one another, so unusual was it for Cavanaugh to use his real name.
“Aaron, what a surprise. I haven't talked to you in . . . It has to be three years.”
“The last time I was at the Blade Show in Atlanta,” Cavanaugh said. Of the numerous knife-enthusiast conventions, the Blade Show was the hugest, with more than ten thousand attendees.
“I was afraid you'd dropped off the face of the Earth” Steve's voice said.
“Not quite. I had a lot of obligations at the ranch.” As far as Steve knew, Cavanaugh was a cattleman, thus explaining the Wyoming address. “But when I told you I was a rancher, I was really referring to a sideline. My main work is in the security field.”
“Oh?” A moment's thought was broken with, “I guess you get a lot of use for knives in that kind of work.”
“More than you can imagine. I need a favor.”
Steve sounded wary. “What kind?”
“Your magazine's subscription list.”
“You've got to be kidding.”
“Names, addresses, phone numbers if you've got them. The works.”
“That's confidential information, my friend. I can't just . . . What sort of security work did you say you did?”
“Why don't I let the FBI's director of counterterrorism explain it to you? I think you're going to hear the words ‘federal government’ and ‘national security’.”
Cavanaugh gave the phone to John.
6
Five minutes later, John gave the phone back to Cavanaugh.
“Now can you supply the subscription list?” Cavanaugh asked.
“As important as this sounds? Give me your email address,” Steve said. “I'll send the list in five minutes. Are you looking for anybody in particular? Maybe I can ask around?”
“Carl Duran.”
“Your friend?”
“He dropped out of sight. I'm trying hard to find him.”
“It's no wonder you can't,” Steve said.
“I don't understand.”
“Carl died three years ago.”
“Died?”
“I'm surprised you didn't
know.”
“We had an argument. We stayed out of touch.”
“Shame about arguments, especially when it's too late to repair them. He stopped going to the Blade Show about the same time you did.”
After he was fired from Global Protective Services, Cavanaugh thought. Cavanaugh had stopped going to the Blade Show in order to avoid crossing paths with Carl.
“I asked around, wondering what happened to him,” Steve's voice continued. “The word I got was that he'd been killed.”
“How?” Cavanaugh pressed the phone harder to his ear.
“A car accident in Thailand. Or maybe the Philippines. I heard two different versions. Carl was a construction worker, right?”
That had been Carl's cover story, the theory being that it paid to pretend to have a white-bread business that no one felt a compulsion to ask many questions about.
“I heard he saved enough money to take a vacation, and that's where he got killed,” Steve said. “I checked our subscription list, and sure enough, he didn't renew. Sorry to break the news to you. Even if you had an argument, I'm sure you still thought of him as a friend.”
Cavanaugh didn't reply.
“I guess you won't need the list now,” Steve said.
“Better send it anyhow. I've got other names to check.”
7
They spread the printouts across the floor and studied them.
“Here,” Jamie said. “Duran's name.”
“Three years ago,” Rutherford said. “But not later.”
“When you're trying to disappear,” Cavanaugh said, “the rule is, abandon everything about your former life. Some people can't make a complete break, though. They have ties they can't give up.”
“Such as a passion for knives,” Jamie noted.
Cavanaugh nodded. “Carl got fired because of discipline problems. Maybe those problems carried over into his attempt to disappear. He'd have tried to be careful. He might have used intermediaries. But I'm betting that, under another name, he continued to subscribe to knife magazines. He's been getting Blade since he was a kid.”
The Naked Edge Page 21
