by Ty Patterson
Zeb smiles. ‘I was just a grunt taking orders, doing routine army stuff over there. I didn’t pay any attention to anything but those orders.’
Anne is struck by how young and carefree he looks when he smiles.
It’s late when they break up. Connor wants to meet him when he’s back from Africa and get his views on his findings.
Cassandra asks Zeb to stay with her for a few days; he is her only family. He keeps a set of clothes at her apartment for such occasions. He checks his phone when alone and notices voice mails from Broker and Andrews. He sends a text to Broker suggesting they meet tomorrow.
‘This Hardinger story is creating some tension between Lauren and Connor. Connor has received threats if he doesn’t drop his story on Alchemy,’ says Cassandra, joining him in the living room. ‘Connor is too credible a journalist to buckle under such pressure, plus it’s not like he hasn’t been threatened before. But Lauren’s worried – it feels different to her because Hardinger’s a high-profile public figure.’
‘He’s been anxious to meet you ever since I told him you were in the Special Forces. Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned that.’ She looks at him apologetically.
He shrugs; it’s done. He’s not particularly interested in Connor’s story unless it intersects with his hunt for Holt.
The chances of that happening are pretty remote.
Chapter 4
The next day, Cass hands him a note as she leaves. ‘You. Me. Baseball. Evening.’
She says Rory slipped it under the apartment door on his way to school, after learning that Zeb was staying for a few days.
‘Why has he given this to me? Doesn’t he have other friends to play with, or doesn’t Connor play with him?’
‘He has a friend or two, but he doesn’t make friends easily – and he likes you. What’s wrong with that? In his seven years, the boy has seen constant relocation, moving from Kentucky to New York, and within New York a few more times. All this has led to problems with making friends.
‘As for Connor and Lauren,’ Cass continues, ‘they’re busy in their careers. He can be a bit demanding. It’s okay to say no to him.’
Zeb says he’ll think about it. He isn’t sure whether he’ll have time to spend with Rory and whether he wants to. To add to that, he doesn’t intend to stay more than two or three more days at Cassandra’s.
He wipes it from his mind and goes to meet Broker.
Meeting Broker requires counter-surveillance tactics. There are many who would love to grab hold of Broker and extract his information. Zeb spends a few hours in the subway randomly changing trains, walking aimlessly over ground, going through large stores; the idea is to lose any tails or make them die of boredom.
He enters a bar on Allen Street and spots Broker immediately, holding court at his table with a few others roaring at his jokes. Broker is the soul of any party. He’s tall, blond, great looking, in great shape, and always stylishly dressed; his ready wit, rich voice and a barely discernible limp draw people to him. It also helps that he always picks up the check.
He shoos away his admirers on spotting Zeb and gives him a long hug when Zeb bends down to greet him. They catch up on old times for a while, discussing friends past and lost.
Zeb gives him the dossiers of Holt, Mendes, and Jones. ‘I’m hunting these three. These are agency dossiers. They may be in the US, they may be abroad. I want to know who they work with, who’s employed them, where they’re based.’
Broker fingers them without opening them. ‘Why isn’t the agency helping you on this?’
‘They’re also looking into it. Rather, they’ve asked the FBI to dig up those details.’
‘Then they’ll get dick. Those assholes will run circles round them all the while giving them the polite face.’ Broker’s respectful opinion on one of the world’s foremost investigative agencies. He drums his fingers on the folders. ‘Is this related to the Congo?’
Zeb isn’t surprised that Broker knew where he’d been, even though this was one assignment Zeb hadn’t mentioned to him. Broker’s gotten to where he is because he has an intelligence network that rivals the agency’s, pays well for information, and has tight lips. Zeb gives him the background as Broker continues drumming his fingers. Broker has seen enough shit to last him a lifetime. He has his own code. No women. No children. Nothing against the national interest. He is very choosy about his clients and likes to know why they want a particular piece of information. If in doubt, he informally runs his assignments, before taking them on, past certain federal agencies. Like a credit check.
‘They might still be in Africa, or they might be here. We want to find them and also find out who their conduit is,’ Zeb finishes.
Broker looks at him, brows furrowed. ‘The kind of work you get involved in – terrorists, lost weapons, security consulting – this doesn’t sound like something the agency should be losing a lot of sleep over or for them to involve you in. It’s not their problem, really. I don’t buy the bullshit Andrews fed you.’
Zeb shrugs. ‘I am involved. I don’t care about the agency’s motives.’
‘Okay. I’ll see what I can get for you. I’m as interested in getting these guys as you are. They give us warriors a bad name.’
He heads off to the bar to pay the tab, but the bartender waves him away, refusing to take his money. It’s on the house since Broker entertained so many of the patrons and was good for business. Typical Broker. Goes on a business visit and gets the frills paid for.
They part ways outside the bar to start their elaborate counter-surveillance routine. ‘Hey, Zeb,’ Broker calls him back. ‘Damn, nearly forgot. This is for you.’ He hands over a leather case.
Zeb opens the expensive leather case and removes a pair of wraparound Aviator sunglasses. He tries them on; they fit perfectly. ‘I like them, but I have enough of these.’
Broker chortles. ‘You’ve never seen a pair like these, my friend. They’re the latest in counter-surveillance toys. They have tiny cameras fitted at the rear of the frames, and those cameras project on the corner of the lenses. The cameras focus the images automatically for the eyes, so that the eyes can see those normally. There’s a tiny switch near the right lens which turns the cameras on or off. The batteries go on for years. The NSA uses these, but I improved them. I installed another switch on the left – you can now forward the images to an email address or to another server.’
‘There are only two pairs of these sunglasses. I have one, and you have the other. Try to take care of them. Repairs are a bitch.’
And with that, Broker is off.
Zeb tries the glasses and the cameras and finds that they work perfectly. With some practice, turning them off and on becomes a casual gesture. He’s getting addicted to these gizmos that Broker supplies.
He executes his elaborate counter-surveillance routine, this time with the Aviators to help, and reaches Cassandra’s apartment a few hours later.
Rory is waiting impatiently for him with his baseball glove and school bag. He looks up with a frown as Zeb enters the apartment. ‘Dude, I bet you don’t keep your girlfriends waiting. Let’s go now. It’s not long before dark.’
He goes to the door and looks back at Zeb. ‘You heard me, didn’t you, dude?’
Zeb, his life hijacked, follows him down the apartment block and a walk across another block. Rory takes them to Riverbank State Park, where he dons his baseball glove. They spend a couple of hours pitching and catching. Rory has excellent hand-eye coordination and catches most of Zeb’s pitches.
Rory flops on the turf after practice, lies back and stares at the sky. He looks at Zeb, who is lying still beside him. ‘Does anything scare you, Zeb?’
Zeb looks at him and shakes his head.
Rory’s lips tremble. ‘My mom and dad fight almost every day. Mom keeps telling Dad that his work is too dangerous. I know some kids whose Moms and Dads don’t live with each other anymore, and I don’t want to be like them.’
He sniffs, wi
pes a tear, takes out some books from his school bag and does his homework. Seven years old, the weight of the world on his shoulders, and he has the presence of mind to do his homework in a park on a sunny New York evening.
Lauren spots them from her bedroom window as they approach the mid-rise entrance. She hasn’t been able to figure Zeb out; none of them have been able to. She’s not sure a loner, a self-contained person like Zeb is the right company for Rory. As they come closer, she observes Rory skipping and smothers her protective instincts. Do nothing for now, she thinks.
Andrews hasn’t much to tell Zeb when he calls him. The FBI will come back to Andrews when they have something – exactly like Broker said it would pan out.
The next day, he decides to check out Holt’s last known address, Jackson, New Jersey, home to Six Flags Great Adventure and about an hour away from New York. He knows it’s probably a long shot, but he’s already weary of inaction. He leaves a message for Cassie that he’s going out and heads for the nearest Enterprise to rent a car.
An hour later he’s in a Cherokee on I-78, heading toward New Jersey via Garden State Parkway. With the wind in his hair, his Glock, knife, and ankle gun with him, Zeb is ready. He reaches Jackson close to noon and checks out the town by first stopping for a bite at the Jackson Diner. With its retro look, the diner is representative of many such small towns, where time goes slower and the world is confined to the neighborhood.
After lunch, he tours the town, searching for realtors, and chooses a smaller one.
Zeb poses as an investor from New York looking to get away from the big, bad city. He has his cover complete with business cards, a fancy title at a venture capital firm in Manhattan and pictures of a happy, smiling family. Any calls to the firm will get routed to Broker or Andrews. Zeb has many such covers.
The realtor is too happy to help Zeb. Business is slow, ‘For Sale’ signs dot the town, and homes are not moving. The realtor drives him across the township spread across a hundred miles. It’s a nice oasis away from New York. They spend a couple of hours looking at a few choice properties within Zeb’s budget.
Zeb asks him to drive past Chesterfield Drive. The agent looks at him, a question in his eyes. Zeb shrugs and says some of his friends were looking at houses there, so he wanted to see the area.
Chesterfield Drive is not far from I-95 at one end, and the Metedeconk Golf Club is close by the other. Zeb spots Holt’s house easily. It’s a single-family home and is the only house that appears deserted. The windows are bare, newspapers piled on the porch.
The realtor notices Zeb’s glance. ‘It’s been deserted for a long time. Family home owned by some guy in the army who hardly comes back to it. No one else stays there. I left a note a year or so back, to see if he wanted to sell. Didn’t hear a peep out of him.’ Shakes his head at the injustice of a world unwilling to help him sell a house.
Zeb ignores him. He notes the single garage, the spacing between the house and its neighbors, possible entry and exit points. They come to the end of the road and turn onto Colchester Drive and head back. More viewings, more monologues from the realtor, and they’re done for the day. Zeb pays him the earnest money, promises to be back next week for a second viewing on a house, and makes his escape to his Cherokee.
Zeb enters Chesterfield Drive again and parks his vehicle a few houses away. He walks to Holt’s house, as if seeking directions, and rings the bell. He waits a while and then walks around the house, peering through the windows.
Through the kitchen windows at the back, he can make out thick layers of dust on the sink and kitchen counter. He circles the house fully, but there’s no sign that anyone’s been there recently.
He goes back to the Cherokee and prepares to drive away, but turns the engine off as a thought strikes him.
He walks back to the house and slips a note under the door. It’s a simple message – ‘I am coming.’
On the way back, he calls Broker. Broker tells him that Holt and the other two are definitely back in the USA. ‘They flew out of the Congo the second day after you left, under assumed identities. I have their biometrics coming in at JFK. I have put an alert on their debit and credit cards, and have put the word out in my network. Let’s see what bites.’
Broker hears silence from Zeb’s end, just the muted sounds of traffic. Then, ‘Pass the word to your network that I’m hunting them. Let them know I’m coming.’
‘Why? That will alert them, won’t it? Oh, I get it. You want them to be always looking over their shoulder. Dude, I like your style.’
He calls Broker again as he nears Hamilton Heights.
‘Two calls in one day? If you don’t watch out, you’ll use up your conversation quota for the whole year.’
‘Senator Hardinger,’ Zeb says.
‘What about him?’
‘His family company has mining interests in Africa and South America. Who manages them? Who all are employed there?’
‘That’s a different shark you’re going after, Zeb. You think there’s a connection? A little far-fetched, don’tcha think?’
Silence.
‘Right. I’ll dig into his background and let you know. Give me a few.’
Zeb reaches Cassandra’s apartment late in the evening and finds Rory playing on his PSP.
‘Aunt Cassie said you went out. I was hoping to get in some baseball practice. Will you be staying a few days, Zeb?’
Zeb shakes his head. ‘No, I have to go back to my apartment tonight.’
Rory’s face falls, but he doesn’t say anything.
‘Next time I come, maybe we can go camping.’
Rory lets out a shrill whoop, pumps his fist, and zips out of the room to tell his mom.
Cassandra looks at Zeb. ‘Do you have any idea what you’re getting into?’
Zeb smiles his rare smile. ‘Not really, but when has that stopped me? I need to go back to my apartment.’
‘I think Connor will want to meet you when he’s back from Africa. I’ll call you when he’s home.’
The subway carries him back to Jackson Heights, tubes full of people moving from light to dark and then light.
Chapter 5
Andrews pays him a visit a week later. They meet at a bar in downtown Manhattan, Andrews looking tired and disheveled.
‘I don’t have good news for you. I’ve been asked to back off by the FBI.’
Silence fills the space.
‘Holt is doing a deal with those bastards. In return for immunity, he’s offering a mother lode, their words, of information on Al Qaeda recruitment in the Congo.’
Zeb sits immobile, watching Andrews.
‘He contacted them as soon as he returned from Africa. He said he had vital intel on Al Qaeda in Africa.
‘Terrorism, Al Qaeda, those are the magic budget words, Zeb. Try to understand. The Feds have given him immunity in return for whatever information he can give them. What threatens our country is more important than what happened over there.’
Zeb walks away without a word.
‘You know backing off applies to you too,’ Andrews calls at Zeb’s back.
He walks a long time, seeing nothing and hearing nothing. The rage makes the city disappear, the landscape barren and shrouded in dark.
He emerges from his dark fog a few hours later to find himself sitting on his favorite bench in Central Park, near Springbanks Arch. He wonders briefly which other lost souls have sat there in the interim.
As he makes his way back to his apartment, he’s surprised at his reaction to the whole deal. He should have expected something like this would happen. After all, Andrews and the Director lived in a political world.
But nothing has changed for him, and with that, he takes out his tabla and plays into the night.
A few days later, Broker calls. He hasn’t been able to get much more on Holt or his conduit. Holt seems to have dropped off the grid even though he’s sharing intel with the FBI. Broker’s network has someone who is happy to talk with Zeb, though.
‘Kelly is damaged goods. He left the forces a few years back, couldn’t get over the PTSD after his four stints in Afghanistan. He fed me some good intel, and when he heard I was looking for Holt, he contacted me. He refuses to tell me what he has and will only talk to you. He doesn’t know anything about you, just says he wants to talk to my client directly.’
Broker continues, ‘This could be a setup.’
Zeb thinks about it for a moment. ‘Set up the meet – in the same bar we met, on Allen Street.’
‘Will do. I’ll get back to you when it’s set.’
Two days later, Zeb meets Kelly.
Broker offered to watch his back, but Zeb works best alone. Zeb arrives a few hours early, driving a ubiquitous yellow cab, having paid the cab driver to take the day off, and parks away from the bar, with a good view of the entrance. He doesn’t see any surveillance. He has been wearing Broker’s fancy shades, and those haven’t revealed any tails either.
He sees Kelly entering the bar alone and on time. He waits another half hour and walks down an entire block, either side of the bar, casually. Nothing and no one stands out.
Kelly is nursing a drink alone when Zeb walks to the bar and orders one for himself.
Kelly is grizzled, in his forties and looks like a veteran, with his well-kept body and close-cropped hair. He looks up as Zeb takes a stool, his eyes sharp. ‘Broker sent you?’
Zeb nods. They size each other up for a long moment, and then Kelly downs his drink in a large gulp and signals for another.
‘Holt? You looking to hire him? Or looking for him?’
Zeb doesn’t reply.
Kelly waits a moment. ‘You don’t talk much, do you? Broker did mention that. I’m dying. Liver. Too much to drink. Not many months left now, so when I heard Broker was looking for the lowdown on Holt, I got in touch. Call it conscience or guilt. Whatever you want.
