The Hunted

by Alan Jacobson

  Four men were upon her a split second later, instantly unlatching her grip on the director using a pressure point on her thumbs. She struggled with the agents, but was unable to break their hold.

  “Let her go,” Knox said calmly.

  The men instantly released their grips but did not move from where they stood: at the ready, poised to immediately neutralize another outburst.

  The click of a door opening behind Knox drew everyone’s attention. A stocky black man walked in and nodded to the director, whose face appeared to brighten.

  “Rodman,” Knox said to the man, “are we ready?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Knox looked over at one of the agents off to his left. “Agent Haviland, escort Dr. Chambers to Hangar One-Nineteen so she can see Agent Payne’s body. I’ll meet up with her as soon as I’m finished with my call to the president.”

  “Thank you,” Lauren said.

  Knox turned and walked out of the room.

  77

  Lauren was transported by Agent Haviland to Hangar 119 in a small motorized vehicle. After being admitted through the Entry Control Point by a young, efficient guard, they drove along the flight line as fast as the small cart could carry them. Twelve-foot-high fences topped off with barbed wire were visible in the diffused lighting, while elsewhere red ropes hung at waist height clearly delineating restricted areas. A vaporous after-rain haze hung lazily around the security lights that sat like centurions atop tall metal posts, giving the base a desolate, lonely feel.

  As they rode, Lauren tried hard to contain her swirling storm of thoughts. Finally, realizing this might be her last chance to extract a morsel of information that could provide some insight into the events surrounding Michael’s demise, she decided she had nothing to lose.

  Unfortunately, Haviland stubbornly professed ignorance. “I can’t tell you any more than Director Knox has, ma’am. Off the record, though, I enjoyed working with Harper. Your husband was very good at what he did. You have my condolences.”

  Lauren acknowledged his comments but told him she was in no mood for eulogies. “Just take me to see my husband, Agent Haviland. That’s all I want.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And it’s doctor. Enough of this ma’am crap.” Lauren was still angry, but she was proud of herself, too. None of the fears or overwhelming urges that had crippled her for so many years had stopped her. She had defeated them. She had turned the corner.

  Lauren looked up and saw that Haviland had driven them into what appeared to be a maintenance hangar of some sort, judging by all the tools and dissected engine parts lining the west wall. Above the assorted machined fittings and painted pieces was fire-fighting equipment: extinguishers, hoses, axes, alarm bells. Across the way, an eye washbasin sat beside an unmanned Maintenance Control Booth. In fact, no one was around, something that struck her as odd.

  Haviland turned along the painted lines and stopped in a yellow zone, behind a parked military ambulance. He nodded at the back of the vehicle. “Someone will take you to your husband’s body. Good luck, Dr. Chambers.”

  Lauren climbed out of the small electric cart and walked over to the rear of the ambulance. Haviland made a U-turn and drove off into the distance, heading for the exit. Lauren turned back to the vehicle, took a deep breath, and pulled the door open.

  78

  Hangar 314 was cold and quiet. Knox completed his briefing call to the president and provided all the details at his disposal: Scarponi’s fugitive standing, the plans under way to locate him, and of course, Harper Payne’s status. It was a tough call to make, but the charade had gone on long enough. He knew that at this time of night the president would not want to keep him on the line debating his tactics, lamenting what had gone wrong, or admonishing him for failing to disclose Scarponi’s escape months ago, when it had first occurred. Plus, Knox had the perfect excuse for not having delivered the news in person.

  The director had made the call in a small, glass-enclosed office. Getting up from the wooden chair afterward was a chore. He was mentally and physically tired, he was filthy from the mixture of sweat and dirt, and his throat was raw from the soot and other small particulates that had blown off the exploding Navigator and resulting forest fire. But most of all, he was just plain tired. Tired of all the stealth, all the details and secrets he had to keep straight, and all the political maneuverings he had to manage.

  He trudged toward the military transport vehicle that was waiting for him against the east wall of the hangar. After he slammed the door, the driver started the engine and drove off.

  Lauren climbed into the back of the ambulance and the door clicked shut behind her, leaving her in complete darkness. “Hello?”

  Suddenly, the vehicle began to move, throwing her backward. She fell and landed on the floor against the padded bench that ran the length of the interior. She pulled herself up and sat down. “Is anyone here?”

  Again, no one answered. She made her way in the dark toward the front of the ambulance and felt around for a window of some sort that would give her access to the driver. There was nothing. She banged on the wall. “Where are you taking me?”

  The lack of a response did not surprise her. In fact, it fit quite well with her already bizarre week. The ambulance continued on for another few minutes, at which point it seemed to leave the paved roads of the base for something that felt more like a secondary artery of some sort.

  With the vehicle bouncing and swaying as it navigated the uneven terrain, Lauren held the bench with both hands, staring into the darkness. At this point, all she cared about was getting answers. Answers about Michael, about Bradley, about the rest of her life. She needed closure.

  The ambulance listed left before coming to a lurching stop. The rear door opened and the stocky man she had seen a short time ago in the assembly room climbed in. He reached above his head and flipped a switch, bathing the interior in light. “Agent Troy Rodman. I was with Director Knox—”

  “Where’s my husband?”

  Rodman looked at her a long moment, as if he were sizing her up. He then reached over to the front wall and banged on it twice with a fist. The ambulance began moving again.

  “There are some things we need to discuss first, Dr. Chambers.”

  Lauren looked away. “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

  “But I have some things to say to you. And I think you’ll want to hear them.” Rodman sat down beside her. “Approximately eight years ago, Harper Payne was an FBI agent who went deep undercover to infiltrate the organization of a prolific international hit man, Anthony Scarponi. He worked with Scarponi for two years before the Bureau pulled him out and terminated his assignment. He testified against Scarponi and a list of Scarponi’s ‘customers’ and put them all behind bars. That was six years ago.

  “After the trial, Agent Payne was placed in the Federal WITSEC Program. Witness protection. He remained in it for a year or so, then dropped out of sight. A few months ago, Scarponi’s attorneys came up with a new witness they said would contradict all of Payne’s testimony. The judge bought their story and the Bureau knew it would have to somehow find Payne so he could testify again. But finding him wasn’t easy.

  “After searching for weeks, the Bureau received a tip that proved promising. Agents were dispatched to Placerville, and they began observing your husband.”

  “How could I not have known that Michael was once an FBI agent?”

  “Things are not always what they appear to be, Dr. Chambers.” Rodman inched forward on the bench and angled his body to face hers. “Think for a moment. What did you know of Michael’s life before you met him five years ago? And of what you did know, how much of it did he himself tell you, and how do you know what he told you is true?”

  Rodman paused for a moment, and when Lauren started to answer, he held up a hand. “That was a rhetorical question, Dr. Chambers. Point is, we don’t always know the person we think we know so well. This is how the CIA operates. Its operativ
es are everyday people. The person at the phone company, the attorney in Pocatello, Idaho. Perhaps your gynecologist. The Agency uses these people because they’re everyday people. They can go on business trips and carry out intelligence missions and no one will ever suspect them. For security reasons—theirs as well as the Agency’s—even their spouses don’t know they do covert work.”

  Lauren folded her arms across her chest. “You’re saying I didn’t know my husband well enough?”

  “I’m saying that things are not what they appear to be.”

  Just then, the ambulance turned sharply and pulled to an abrupt stop.

  “Why are we stopping?”

  “We’re picking up a passenger,” Rodman said.

  The back door swung open and Nick Bradley climbed into the rear compartment. Lauren sat there, her head tilted in confusion. “I don’t understand,” she finally managed just before Bradley sat down opposite her. “Knox arrested you, he said you were a spy.”

  “That was all a show, for my protection. It had to look convincing, in case there are other moles.” Bradley turned to Rodman. “I take it you haven’t told her yet.”

  “Not yet.”

  “Told me what?” Lauren looked back and forth between the two men. “Look, I’ve had enough! One of you better start giving me some answers. No more top secret CIA garbage. I want the truth, Nick, and I want it now.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Bradley said. “I owe you an explanation.” He looked away and said, “I owe you more than an explanation, but for the moment it’ll have to do.” He unzipped his leather jacket and leaned back. “When Carla Mae called me and told me about the Neighborhood Watch meeting she’d arranged for you, it didn’t seem any different from all the other meetings she’d gotten together over the past two years. She told me your husband was missing and asked if I could come by early in the afternoon and help put up the fliers. When I showed up and saw Michael’s photo, I suddenly realized that you had something that could help me.”

  “What do you mean? What did I have that could possibly help you?”

  Bradley looked at Rodman, then at Lauren. “Your husband.”

  Lauren cocked her head. “Nick, what the hell are you talking about? I didn’t have my husband, that was the whole problem.”

  “I know you didn’t, but that was the beauty of it. I knew you would go looking for Michael. You had to, any person who wanted her spouse back would have. Just like I knew you’d look for him, I knew Scarponi would look for him as well.”

  “Scarponi? What’s he got to do with this?”

  “Scarponi wanted Harper Payne dead. Kill Payne, and there’s no one left to testify against him. He’s a free man. Right?”

  Lauren nodded.

  “So as soon as Scarponi is released from prison, who does he go after?” Bradley spread his hands apart, as if the answer was obvious. “He goes after Harper Payne. He’s looking for him just like the feds are looking for him. Only Scarponi lets the feds do the work for him. He’s got a mole planted in the Bureau, tracking their progress. When they figure out that Harper Payne is in Placerville, bang—the feds dispatch agents and Scarponi dispatches his men. But Michael’s gone on his trip and the feds regroup, track him down, and snatch him up, sort of. But Scarponi doesn’t know the feds have Payne. He’s a smart guy, so he knows his best way to get to Payne is you. All he has to do is watch you, follow you, tease and torment you, and you’ll lead him to what he’s seeking.”

  “So that answers what Scarponi wanted with me. What about you? What did you want with him?”

  “To be completely honest, I wanted Scarponi dead. I knew that if I hung out with you, he’d eventually come around looking for Michael. And even if he didn’t, you’d lead me to Michael, and then I could use Michael as bait. Either way, I’d meet up with Scarponi and get my shot.”

  “You used me,” Lauren said, her hands gripping the bench tighter. “All that stuff about being my big brother and my guardian angel, about the child of yours that you lost, all of that was bullshit.”

  “No, no, it wasn’t, Lauren. At least, well... okay, in the beginning it was. I apologize for that. But as I got to know you, you became more of a person I cared about rather than just a means to an end. That’s when things got a little out of hand for me, because I got personally involved. That was my biggest mistake.”

  “And my biggest mistake was trusting you.”

  Bradley held up a hand. “That’s not what I meant. In law enforcement, you lose your edge, your effectiveness, when you can’t think objectively. I lost my objective edge when I started caring about what happened to you.”

  Lauren was silent for a moment, thinking through what Bradley had told her. “Even if I can get past that, which I’m not sure I can, I still don’t understand what was in it for you. What was this all about? Why did you want Scarponi so badly?”

  “Can’t I just say that it was important to me and leave it at that?”

  “No, Nick, you can’t. You owe me the truth.”

  “You’re placing me in a tough spot, Lauren.”

  “The truth, Nick.”

  Bradley bowed his head for a moment, as if considering his options. Finally, he cleared his throat. “There’s no easy way to say this.” He looked up and met her tired eyes. “Lauren, I’m Harper Payne.”

  79

  Lauren’s jaw went slack as she just sat there, staring at him. The truck hit a pothole and shook her from her daze. “You’re what?”

  Bradley leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “I was the man the FBI was looking for when they came to Placerville. Your husband bears a striking resemblance to what I looked like before I had my second session of plastic surgery. The marshal’s office supplied the Bureau with a photo that was taken after I’d seen their surgeon. Because I knew that photo existed, and because I’d learned to trust no one, I had a second operation no one knew about. Michael looks like I did before the second surgery.”

  “So the FBI thought that my husband was you.” Lauren shook her head and tried to contain her anger. With bloodshot eyes, she glared at Bradley. “Everything you told me, Nick, everything was a lie.”

  “Not everything. You have to understand—”

  “I’ll tell you what I understand, Nick—or Harper, or whatever the hell it is you want to be called now. Bottom line is, you used me like a pawn. That’s what I understand.”

  “I realize you’re upset with me. You have every right to be.”

  “And what about you, Agent Rodman? How do you fit into all of this?”

  “Some information remains classified, Dr. Chambers. Like it or not, that’s the way it’s got to be.”

  “So am I supposed to assume the FBI was in on all this?”

  “The Bureau was as much in the dark as you were. After agents made contact with your husband, he was involved in an automobile accident and banged his head up pretty good. The head trauma caused a great deal of memory loss. The Bureau was in a difficult position. They needed Harper Payne to testify, but he couldn’t remember anything. They did their best to reeducate him.”

  “But the fact remains that Michael was never in the FBI. Couldn’t they see that he didn’t have the skills? Wasn’t there something that tipped them off that they had the wrong person?”

  “Michael spent eight years with the Army National Guard’s SoCom, short for Southern Command,” Bradley said. “That’s where the skills came from that the Bureau mistook for his prior FBI training.”

  “Michael was never in the National Guard,” Lauren said.

  Rodman raised an eyebrow. “Goes to what I was saying before, about how much we really know about our loved ones.”

  “It was twelve years ago,” Bradley said.

  “I don’t understand. If you were the Agent Payne they needed to make the government’s case, why didn’t you just step in and take his place?”

  “At first, I didn’t know what was going down. I really did leave WITSEC, so I was out of tou
ch with everything and everyone. I don’t read the papers and I don’t watch TV. I live in a small town and keep a low profile. But the second I saw Michael’s photo on that flyer, I thought I knew what had happened. Someone, probably working for Scarponi, screwed up and mistook Michael for me.”

  “So if you knew that, why didn’t you do something?”

  “Because it served my purposes. And because I was guessing, and because I didn’t know where Michael was. Just like you, I didn’t know what had happened to him. For all I knew, Scarponi could’ve killed him. I had to find out.”

  “You could’ve gone to the FBI.”

  “I spent years trying to distance myself from the government because contact with them could put my life in danger. So it was a selfish decision. Like I said before, I thought I could use you and Michael to get at Scarponi.”

  “After the incident in Fredericksburg,” Rodman said, “Agent Payne contacted us. One of my colleagues acted as the go-between.”

  “Where’s my husband’s body?”

  Bradley consulted his watch. “Lauren, please let us finish. We don’t have much time.”

  “Time? For what?”

  Rodman took a seat next to Bradley, opposite Lauren. “Dr. Chambers, please listen. Director Knox had suspicions that your husband wasn’t really Agent Payne. Something showed up on a physical exam that didn’t make sense. A heart murmur that the real Agent Payne didn’t have. But the director didn’t have any choice. He had to go along with the charade until he could put all the pieces together, to be absolutely sure. Because of the mole, the former director had Agent Payne’s fingerprint card destroyed as an added precaution. There was no way to verify Knox’s suspicion about your husband. Plus, the director had other pressures on him that I’m not at liberty to discuss with you.”

  “I started working with an agent,” Bradley said, “who brought me into the operational plan that was devised to somehow fix the whole situation. By now, everything was a mess. Somehow, they needed to recapture Scarponi, while at the same time protect you and Michael in the event they weren’t successful. He’s a dangerous assassin, Lauren. He’s had a contract out on me for several years. His people had already decided that Michael was me. It’s not like the Bureau could call up Scarponi and tell him, ‘Don’t gun for Michael Chambers. It’s really this guy Nick Bradley you want to kill. ’