The Columbus Code

by mike Evans

  “Let me be clear about this,” she said. “You haven’t made a lot of forward progress, but this move is going to take you backward.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  “Because you aren’t facing your demons. You’re running away from them. Emotionally before. Now physically with this trip.”

  Winters shook his head. “Look, this is the first thing I’ve been motivated to do. I’m starting to feel like my old self again.”

  Archer raised an eyebrow. “Which self?”

  Here they went with the psycho-talk. Winters just looked at her.

  Archer put the glasses back on and studied the pad. When she looked at him again, her gaze was searching. Winters felt as if he were being frisked.

  “All right, here’s the deal,” she said finally. “If you take this trip—against my best advice—I’m going to have to report to Rebhorn that I’ve given this my best shot, you have been noncompliant, and I have to recommend that you not be reinstated.”

  Winters opened his mouth but Archer put up a finger to stop him. “Unless in this session right now you tell me exactly what happened in that raid, as you remember it.”

  The tightening of Winters’ jaw sent piercing pain into his ears. “You’re looking for some connection to my deeper self?”

  “That’s for us to discover as we talk.”

  “This reeks of blackmail. You know that, don’t you?”

  Winters’ voice was low, almost menacing. Archer gave him a wry smile.

  “Whatever it takes, John.”

  Sweat already dampened his palms and he rubbed them nervously against the arms of the chair.

  “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy,” she said. “But that’s the only way I’ll agree to keep quiet about the trip.”

  Winters knew he could wait her out for the remainder of the session, but where was that going to get him? Not to Barcelona. And not back to his job. Not back to his identity.

  He examined his knuckles. Archer still waited.

  “All right,” he said at last. “Where do you want me to start?”

  There was no triumphant gleam in her eye. She simply adjusted her glasses and said, “In the last dream, you were about to kick down the door. Pick it up from there.”

  Winters fixed his gaze on a spot just above Archer’s head, at the lower left corner of her framed certification. “I hesitated at the bottom of the steps to make sure Jamison and Stevens were in position at the rear of the house.”

  “They were other agents.”

  “Right. I motioned for Donleavy—computer forensics—to go to the corner of the house. We’d gone through it all before but he’s not a field agent, so I pretty much had to hold his hand.”

  “Did that make you nervous?”

  Winters shifted his gaze to meet hers. “Can we just get through this without you asking me how I felt?”

  “It’s what I do,” Archer said. A trace of amusement crossed her face. “Go on.”

  “Donleavy ducked out of sight.” Winters closed his eyes. He could see it as if it were happening right then. He had turned in a quick, forceful motion. As his body pivoted, his right foot came around in a sweeping arc, striking the door near the frame. It flew open with a sharp crack and Winters charged inside. He sensed Jamison and Stevens behind him.

  If all went as planned, a team would hit the front door at the same time, and agents would pour into the living room.

  Winters felt a flicker of anxiety, then he heard the door crash open and the house fill with commands . . .

  Archer tilted her head. “And?”

  “Three Russians were captured immediately. Two more tried to flee through the kitchen and ran straight into me and my team. Jamison took one down—Stevens was on the other one. We had the element of surprise on our side. And these were computer geeks, coming up against guys you don’t want to mess with.” Winters turned his gaze to Archer again. “You want the details?”

  “Keep going. What were you doing while they caught the two guys?”

  Winters swallowed hard. “Right about then I heard something under the floor.”

  “What kind of something?”

  “Movement that shouldn’t have been there. When I first hit the kitchen I’d noticed a door near the stove. I opened it with my left hand—my gun was in my right. There was a staircase going into the basement. The two Russians we’d just taken down were handcuffed to a radiator so I told Jamison and Stevens to follow me down.”

  “So you were basically in charge of this mission,” Archer observed.

  “I had point on it, yeah.” He knew he’d told her that before. She was leading him somewhere.

  “What happened when you got down there? Into the basement.”

  “There was a furnace at the bottom of the stairs. That gave us some cover, which was good because a gunman fired from the opposite corner. He got Stevens in the shoulder, just below the shoulder blade.” Winters indicated with his hand. “He slid down against the wall.”

  Blood had splattered everywhere but he spared Archer that detail. He’d like to spare himself too.

  “What did you do?” Archer asked.

  “I was still behind the furnace, so I opened fire. Jamison was behind me but trying to get Stevens out of there.”

  “Is that protocol?”

  “Yeah. Stevens was looking pretty bad so I told Jamison to get him upstairs and send Smith down to back me up.”

  “And Smith was?”

  “Lonnie Smith. An agent on the front team. I had to cover Jamison so he handed me Stevens’ pistol. When he had Stevens over his shoulder he shouted ‘Go!’ and I came out from behind the furnace . . . both pistols blazing, I guess you’d say.” He tried a half smile on Archer. “Just like on television.”

  Archer didn’t smile back. Again, she waited. Again, Winters swallowed.

  “By the time Jamison got Stevens up the stairs, both magazines were empty. I dove back behind the furnace to reload. I stuffed Stevens’ gun in my pocket. That’s when . . . that’s when I felt something cold and hard press against the side of my head. Guy had a thick accent.”

  “Guy?”

  “The guy who said, ‘Drop the weapon, please.’”

  That had struck Winters as odd. The politeness of it. It made him want to grab the guy by the throat.

  “I heard gunfire upstairs, which wasn’t supposed to be happening. This guy says to me, ‘Your comrades are not faring so well.’ I thought he was bluffing. It was impossible for me to tell from down there who was coming out ahead.” Winters forced himself not to shift in the chair. “I heard the floor creaking, footsteps overhead, and a door slammed. My assailant says something like, ‘I do not believe your friends are coming to rescue you. Your only hope is in me. Now put down the pistol.’”

  Winters over-imitated the heavy Russian accent—mugging the facial expression—but Archer showed no hint of amusement. “What was going through your mind?” she asked.

  Another attempt to get at his feelings. Winters wasn’t going there. “All I was thinking was where the . . . where was Smith? Had he called for backup? And what about Donleavy?”

  “You had a gun to your head—you were clearly in trouble—and that’s what you were thinking?”

  “I’m trained to think, not feel,” Winters said. “You give in to fear and you’re done.”

  “Did you think you were going to die?”

  “I suppose the thought crossed my mind.”

  “You’d been on a number of raids before this one. In any of those, did you ever think you were going to die?”

  “No. Never.”

  “What made this one different?”

  Winters gave a short, dry laugh. “Well, for one thing, the guy had a pistol to my head.”

  “But you’ve had other people point a gun at you, haven’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you knew they were going to kill you if you let them.”

  “Yes.”

  “So wha
t made this one different?”

  “I’m about to tell you.”

  “Good,” Archer said.

  He wondered if the government was paying her to make this as tedious as possible. “I could hear people coming down the stairs,” he said. “All speaking Russian.”

  “Do you know Russian?”

  “Enough to get by. There were three of them and one of them grabbed the pistol out of my hand as he went past me. It was futile to resist at that point. I didn’t have a plan yet.”

  Winters stopped. Not voluntarily. He hit the wall he always came to when he got this far.

  “The rest is history,” he said. “I stayed alive, obviously. That’s first priority when you’re in a situation like that. All the other agents got out okay. Stevens survived. He went back to work a couple of weeks ago.” Winters refused to swallow. “All’s well that ends well.”

  “And yet here you are,” Archer said. “Refusing to look at what happened between the time those four Russians had you in the basement and you”—she glanced at the pad—“‘stayed alive.’” She leaned forward. “These are the very things you need to face or this is going to take you apart. Even more than it already has. So, what happened after they took your gun?”

  “Some of this stuff is classified.”

  “I’m cleared for it.”

  “Then let’s just say I’m a little claustrophobic,” Winters said.

  “Do you always do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Mask your pain by making fun of it?”

  “Is that what I’m doing?”

  “Did you do that after your wife’s death?”

  Winters froze. “I told you that has nothing to do with any of this.”

  “I think it has everything to do with it.”

  “I’m not going there.”

  The room was suddenly smaller. The walls squeezed his chest. The ceiling pressed the top of his head. The floor pushed at his feet and forced him into a fetal position. Only by grinding his teeth into the inside of his cheeks did he keep from screaming.

  “Those other raids you went on—those were in New York, weren’t they?”

  He nodded.

  “You told me the first time we met that you had been on dozens of raids since your wife died—”

  “I never talked about my wife.”

  “I apologize. You said you’d been on dozens since 9/11.”

  “What about it?”

  “Actually, the records show that you worked only ten cases between the time she died and the time you moved to San Francisco.”

  “So?” The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth.

  “What the records don’t show is that you sought any serious counseling. Two sessions with the grief counselor the Service provided and that was it. That doesn’t seem like much after such a tragic loss.”

  Winters spoke through clenched teeth. “Look, everybody processes grief in a different way. I was distraught, I admit that. But I could function. I had to—I had a ten-year-old daughter to take care of. And the work didn’t stop—in fact there was more to do after that than before. So I pushed ahead. That’s what Anne would’ve wanted.”

  “For you to bury yourself in your work.”

  He clenched both fists and parked them on his knees. “I can’t make this any clearer. I dealt with whatever I was feeling and I moved on as best I could. Sue me for not spending hours in some psychiatrist’s office wallowing in my grief. That’s not me.”

  “But you couldn’t, could you?”

  “Couldn’t what?” Winters relaxed his hands and dried his palms on his thighs. He thought this hour had to be pretty much over.

  “You couldn’t move on, emotionally,” she said. “Isn’t that why you requested to be relocated here to San Francisco?”

  “Okay, yes. Too many reminders of the past in New York. I didn’t see the point in being constantly bombarded with the fact that she wasn’t there anymore, taking our daughter to the museums, getting excited over finding fresh artichokes at the market—that kind of thing. Maria was out of school by then, so I asked for a transfer.” He looked Archer straight in the eyes. “And it’s been better here.”

  Archer nodded. “So after eight years, the reminders were still too much.” She held up a hand as he started to protest. “That isn’t a criticism, John. It’s a statement of the fact that you may not have done as much healing as you thought. Will you consider that possibility?”

  “Everything was fine here until that raid went south. But that has nothing to do with my wife’s death. So can we just drop it?”

  Archer glanced at her watch. “You’re still determined to go on this trip?”

  “The deal was, I open up about the raid and you don’t use Barcelona as a reason to keep me from being reinstated.”

  “I’m not sure what you’ve told me today qualifies as opening up, but it’s a start. Do yourself a favor and think about all this while you’re gone.”

  “What are you going to tell Rebhorn?” Winters asked.

  “That we’re still working on it. That you’re taking a break and you’ll be back in a few weeks to pick up where we left off.” She tilted her chin up at him. “Not too long, John.”

  “Or I’m in trouble with you?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “You’re in trouble with you.”

  Do I need to do anything else with this?” Elena said, holding the paper aloft.

  Maria pulled out the pen she’d been using to keep her hair twisted on the top of her head and let it all fall down around her shoulders. “No, I’ll handle it. It still baffles me, though.”

  “Me too.”

  “Thanks for doing this.”

  “I didn’t really do anything.”

  “You’re the one who thought of looking at the original. Saved me from making an idiot of myself.”

  “As if you could ever do that.”

  “You have no idea.” Maria glanced at her phone to check the time. “Why don’t you call it quits for the day?”

  “What about you? I thought we could go to Restaurant Montiel for dinner—they have a gourmet tasting menu.”

  “I’ve got more to do here. Besides, I have to slow down on the whole eating thing. I can’t afford to buy a new wardrobe.”

  “Stop it. You look amazing.” Elena pulled her messenger bag out of the bottom drawer of her desk. “I have never understood American women’s obsession with looking like anorexic models. You’re sure you don’t need me to stay and help you?”

  “Positive. Take the night off. You deserve it.”

  “And you don’t?” Elena slung the bag over her shoulder. “Never mind. See you in the morning.”

  When the door closed behind her, Maria kicked off her pumps and propped her feet on the desk. The light from the window behind her was fading. She snapped on the desk lamp and turned her attention once more to the file Elena had brought her.

  It was definitely the same one Maria had typed from. Same stain from Snowden’s dribbled coffee. Same pencil smudge in the right margin. If she brought it to her nose she’d probably smell the cologne he bathed in, but she wasn’t doing that.

  As she continued to study it she pulled her hair back up and secured it with the pen again. Same notes, but not the same. As Elena had pointed out when she’d presented it to her just minutes ago, the words Maria had typed—at the price agreed upon as long as the projected reserves hold up—were not the words on the page. Instead, it read, at the price agreed upon, as the reserves projected have held up.

  There was no way she had made that mistake. Not that and the next sentence. She’d typed, Tejada will make certain that they do. The notes in front of her said, Tejada has made certain of that.

  Maria smoothed the paper on the desk, moved her feet to the floor, and leaned closer. How could she have misread the whole thing? Snowden’s handwriting was bad, but in this case it was slightly better than usual. She’d have to’ve been extremely tired to make that mistake. Maria ru
bbed her eyes and stared at it again. No, she’d done these in the morning, after two cups of that Spanish mud they called coffee.

  The only possibility was one she didn’t want to consider, but without Elena there to offer her always optimistic alternatives, Maria had to. Did Snowden change his notes after she’d typed them up?

  She shook her head. That made even less sense than her reading it wrong in the first place. She hadn’t given him the typed version yet. It was still right there on her desk. So what reason would he have to go back and change the notes?

  And had they been changed? Snowden always wrote in that infuriating pencil, so he could have erased the original and made the change, but there was no evidence of that.

  Maybe with a magnifying glass. She opened a drawer and pawed through the collection of gadgets and supplies Elena had filled it with. Maria found everything from a battery-operated staple remover to gold paper clips, but no magnifying device.

  “What am I doing?” she muttered. This was ridiculous.

  The question really was—were the reserves on which the entire Belgian acquisition rested merely projected reserves rather than actual? From what she’d heard in meetings and researched for Snowden, the powers at Belgium Continental were far too cautious to agree to that.

  And the even more disturbing question was, how would Tejada make certain that the projected reserves held up? It was more like Snowden to say “Tejada will make sure of that,” or “Tejada has that handled.” He could pull out the proper grammar and impressive vocabulary when he had to, but he never did it in his notes. And Elena was surprised he’d taken any at all. He always had one of his minions do that for him.

  So . . . this had to have been a private meeting. But why? If the acquisition was a done deal—the price was right and the reserves in place—why the need for some clandestine one-on-one discussion behind closed doors?

  Maria shook her hair out the rest of the way. Okay, she was getting carried away. Elena was probably right—she needed to take the night off too.

  She reached to close the desk drawer when a tap sounded at the door. Before she could respond it opened and Snowden’s white head appeared. “Got a minute?” he asked.

  Maria felt her face flush and rose to her feet. “Sure,” she said. “Come on in.”