by Brad Meltzer
“Naomi here,” she said, pulling out her cell phone. “No, Ma . . . why would you—? I don’t care what he says, don’t buy him any more Hot Wheels cars, okay? He’s lying. Treat him like a little junkie stripper on blow: He’ll say anything to get more.”
Clipping the phone back on her belt, the woman pounded past the privacy wall and disappeared inside the building.
Across the street, Ellis reached over to the passenger seat and unzipped a small leather case. If cops were here, they were already searching for Timothy. Searching for Cal. To be honest, Ellis didn’t care. Let them fight it out. He’d take what he wanted from the winner.
26
He’s still here?” Naomi asked, running through the shelter’s open courtyard.
“I’m looking at a tracking screen right now,” Scotty replied through her earpiece. “According to his cell signal, Cal’s definitely in the building.”
“And you can’t get me closer than that? I thought they improved all this nonsense after 9/11—y’know, so they could find trapped people within a few feet.”
“And that’s true—especially in the Bourne Identity trilogy. But back in reality, where we all still use our old phones, we pinpoint based on cell towers—and that gets us a few dozen feet at the closest. Listen, I gotta run. I’m a tech guy, not a sidekick.”
Racing up the outdoor stairs two at a time, Naomi reached for her gun.
On the second floor, she darted across the outdoor breezeway as she traced the room numbers—210 . . . 208 . . . 206. Cal’s apartment was 202. As she passed each metal door, she saw a blue sign on each one:
SINGLE RESIDENTS BEDTIME Is 9:45 P.M.
She finally stopped at the last door on her right:
202
RESIDENT ADVISER
From what she could tell, the door was slightly open. As if someone were still there. Or about to leave. She lowered her shoulder and plowed forward. As the door swung open and crashed into the wall, Naomi burst into the room.
A gang of six clearly pissed-off black kids looked up from the video game they were crowded around. The second-biggest kid, in his twenties, with braids, an oversize Knicks jersey, and a panther tattoo across his neck, dropped his game controller and strode directly at her.
“Whatsamatta, lady?” he asked, flashing a bottom row of bright gold teeth as Naomi hid her gun behind her back. “Dontcha like black people?”
27
His whut?” asked the kid with the panther tattoo.
“She’s thumpin’ ya, she is, Desi,” added one of his friends, a fat black kid with a British accent and a blue bandanna on his head. He stepped forward with Panther Tattoo, hoping to scare Naomi. She didn’t step back.
“Listen . . . Desi, right?” Naomi asked, knowing better than to pull her badge in a group like this. “Desi, I promise you—I’m not thumpin’, or lying, or whatever you’re suggesting that verb means. I’m Cal’s girlfriend. Naomi. We’ve been dating three weeks. Naomi. Ask him. Call him.”
It was the simplest way to find out if they knew something. But the way these guys were watching her . . . the cold doubt in their eyes. Covenant House was a shelter for homeless kids. Kids who got lit on fire when they left their gang. Or got sold by their dad as a sex toy for quick drug money. These kids . . . weren’t kids.
“Cal don’t date no giant girls,” Panther Tattoo challenged.
“Well, he dates me,” Naomi insisted.
“Yah? When wuz ya last date?”
Naomi didn’t even hesitate. “Two nights ago.”
“Tha’s funny—cuz he wuz here playin’ Xbox with us two nights back.”
The chubby kid with the accent leaned in and pointed a finger at Naomi’s face. “You got a problem now, luv. And don’t think we didn’t spot that bloody little pistol you got hidin’ behind your—”
In a blur, Naomi gripped the kid’s stubby finger and bent it back, then twirled him around, pinned his arm behind his back, and rammed his chest and chin against the nearby wall. A dozen different plaques and commendations shook at the impact.
“ICE agent, which means federal, which means be really bloody careful what you do next,” Naomi growled, using her free hand to slide open her jacket and show off the badge on her belt.
To her surprise, none of the gang rushed forward or mouthed off. In fact, since the moment she came in, they’d all been standing almost entirely in the same—
Crap.
“Outta the way! Now!” Naomi ordered, waving them toward the corner of the sparse old motel room and heading for the bathroom at the back.
“Lady, you can’t just—”
“Giant people can do anything,” Naomi shot back, shoving British Boy aside and finally getting her first good look at the bathroom’s closed door . . . and the light that was on underneath. A shadow flitted, then disappeared. Someone was definitely in there.
“Get back to your rooms!” she yelled at the kids, who scattered onto the breezeway as she pulled her gun. “And Cal, I checked when I was outside. I know there’s no window in there!”
She kicked the door and tried the handle. Locked.
“Cal, I’m counting to one!” Naomi shouted. “After that, you’re paying for whatever it costs to get a bullet out of your—”
Click.
The door opened, revealing a man with a thick nose, an even thicker waist, and thinning black hair that was tied back in a ponytail.
“If you need to use the can, all you gotta do is ask,” Roosevelt said with a grin as he rolled Cal’s phone in his palm.
28
Stepping out from the bathroom, Roosevelt studied the tall woman carefully. Cal warned him they’d send someone—and she clearly wasn’t a novice. But that didn’t mean their stalling hadn’t worked.
“You switched phones with him,” Naomi said, annoyed.
“Me? I’m a man of God. I’d never—” Roosevelt glanced down at the phone in his hand and forced a look of surprise. “This isn’t my phone! Sweet mother of Shirley Hemphill, how’d this happen?”
Naomi’s hand jumped out, snatching the phone from Roosevelt’s palm.
“Hey! You can’t—”
Naomi aimed her gun at Roosevelt’s chest. “I can.” Without another word, she started clicking through the menu on Cal’s phone: Call Log, Placed Calls . . . “Here we go,” she announced. “Last number dialed: Roosevelt (Mobile).” Naomi pushed the call button and waited.
But as the phone rang in her ear, there was another ring in Roo-sevelt’s front pocket.
Roosevelt reached down and pulled out a second ringing phone, flipped it open, and held it to his ear.
“Hello,” he sang, watching Naomi’s face as his words echoed in her ear. “I musta had both phones all along. What’re the oddsa that?”
For a moment, Naomi just stood there, her light blue eyes narrowing. Roosevelt knew she could lock him up and sling questions at him for the next few hours. But by then, Cal would be long gone.
“You really a former priest?” Naomi asked.
“Former pastor.”
“My partner’s missing. I’m praying not dead,” she said of Timothy. “Did Cal tell you that?”
Roosevelt stayed silent. She was smart—going right for his preacher’s guilt. Years ago, Roosevelt’s superiors in the church did the same when they told him he was hurting his parish by not being married. Back then, he refused to fight and lost everything he loved. Not a single day went by where he didn’t wish he could have that life back. When he didn’t think of ways to reclaim that pulpit. So an hour ago, when Cal and his father had come scrambling in here, searching for help—he could see the way that Cal, even through his fear, kept glancing over and over at his dad. At nine years old, Cal had had his life taken from him, too. This was his chance to have that life back, somehow, in some form. And as Roosevelt knew, that was well worth fighting for.
“You work your side of the street, and I’ll work mine,” Roosevelt said.
Naomi just stood there. Th
en she turned to open the door, and with a slam, she was gone.
After giving it a minute, Roosevelt flipped open his phone and started dialing. It rang twice before—
“Roosevelt?” Cal answered. “I told you not to call unless—”
“They sent someone, Cal. From ICE, just like you said.”
The door burst open, and Naomi stormed back into the room. “Couldn’t even wait two minutes, could you!?” she yelled, snatching the phone from Roosevelt’s hand. He tried to grab it back.
She pulled her gun and aimed it directly at his neck.
As Roosevelt raised his hands, Naomi put the phone to her ear. “Hey, Cal,” she said. “Naomi. Remember me?”
29
Ten minutes ago
Fort Lauderdale Airport
We enter the terminal separately. We get in line separately. We pick up our tickets separately. My father’s calm. I’m not. I spent years covering every port, including this airport. I know where all the security cameras are hidden. I know which taxicabs out front have undercover agents in them (the ones lingering in the limo line), ready at any moment to pick up an arriving suspect who thinks he’s home free. But what’s got me scanning the crowd is whether Ellis saw us leaving as we snuck out of my building.
“Here you go, Mr. Frenzel,” says the woman at the airline counter, handing me my ticket and calling me by the name of one of the dozens of fake IDs that had been left in the van over the years.
“Have a nice day, Mr. Sanone,” another agent says to my dad, who for once is following my directions and keeping his head down as he leaves the counter. By flying under fake names, we’re untraceable. But if Ellis is half the cop I think he is—the way he got to Timothy right after I did—all he has to do is pull airport video to be right back on our trail. That’s what I would do. But that doesn’t mean I’m making it easy for him.
Readjusting the green backpack that holds the Superman comic in its wax-paper protector, I keep my chin down but am surprised to see a spy cam—flat and thin like a calculator—mounted in a fake palm tree at the end of the airline counter. Dammit. I duck under the velvet check-in rope, wishing I could blame it on my lack of sleep. But I’m clearly rusty. I’ve been off the job for over four years. Of course there’s gonna be new cameras.
Trying to be smarter as I head toward security, I glance back at my father, but he’s barely moving. Worst of all, he’s no longer staring down, hiding his face. In fact, the way he’s looking around . . . like he sees something. Or someone.
On our left, by the airport gift shop, a dolly stacked with old magazines and newspapers is wheeled out of the way, revealing a young, light-skinned black woman in a rhinestoned Bob Marley T-shirt, dark jeans, and 80s Top Gun sunglasses. I’ve seen her before. At the hospital.
“Serena,” my dad blurts just as I reach the front of the security line.
“I’m sorry, I forgot something,” I tell the lady checking tickets at security. Swimming upstream and squeezing past the other passengers, I fight toward the back of the line and grab my dad by the biceps.
“What’re you doing?” I hiss.
“Cal, this isn’t my fault.”
“We were supposed to tell no one. As in no one.”
“I swear to you, I didn’t say a word,” my dad insists.
“He didn’t say a word,” Serena adds. “Quisiera estar aquí para ti,” she whispers to my dad in Spanish. I just wanted to be here for you.
From the shock on my dad’s face—as I tug his arm and steer us away from security—he’s just as surprised as I am. “Cal . . . son . . .”
“Don’t call me son!” I explode as every nearby TSA employee turns our way. I don’t care.
My dad forces a smile and puts a hand on my shoulder like all is well. I jerk back until he takes it off.
“Please don’t blame your father. Every soul needs its own flow,” Serena says, carefully pronouncing each syllable. She has a tender voice that’s as calming as wind chimes, and as she speaks, her yellow blue eyes make peaceful contact. First with me, then my dad. Like she’s seeing something within.
“That’s the mushiest, new-agey-ist manure I’ve ever heard,” I tell her, finally stopping all three of us in front of a set of floral sofas, where there are no cameras in sight. “Now tell me why you’re really here!”
She steps back slightly, almost as if she’s confused. “When we were on the phone—when I heard the terror in his voice—how could I not help him? He needed me.”
“Needed you? What’re you, his muse?”
She shakes her head, but I’ve been around enough addicts to know what’s really going on.
“She’s your sponsor, isn’t she?” I ask my dad.
“No. That’s not—”
The phone I traded with one of the kids vibrates in my front pocket. Only one other person knows I have it.
“Roosevelt?” I answer. “I told you not to call unless—”
“They sent someone, Cal. From ICE, just like you sa—”
There’s a loud noise, like a door slamming. I hear some arguing, but nothing I can make out.
“Hey, Cal,” a female voice says. “Naomi. Remember me?”
30
Silent on the phone, I leave my father and Serena by the floral sofas as I keep scanning the area for cameras. The only good news is, it takes a solid six minutes to track my cell. Plenty of time to find out who I’m up against.
“Sorry, not ringing my bells,” I tell the woman, hoping she’ll give me her last name.
“Naomi Molina.”
Naomi Molina . . . Naomi . . . Naomi . . . If I knew her, it wasn’t well. Still, the name . . . “Oh, wait—you’re the one who adopted that kid—the lesbian, right?” It’s an old cop trick: riling her to see what she blurts.
“C’mon, Cal. The big-boned female agent who’s also a lesbo? Isn’t that a bit overdone?” she flings back. “No thanks, but I like mine straight up, no twist. But yes, I came aboard right as you were fired.”
“I wasn’t fired,” I shoot back, already regretting it. I should’ve seen it: riling me to see what I blurt.
“Oh, that’s right—you took the far more honorable resign-on-your-own-and-avoid-the-indictment. Let me ask: Were you really in love with Miss Deirdre or was that just the story you saved for Internal Affairs?”
Once again, I stay silent. Across from me, Serena motions for my dad to join her on one of the floral sofas. He doesn’t hesitate. And as they face each other—their knees almost touching—she whispers something to him and he smiles with a strange, newfound calm. From the body language alone, she knows him well.
“Aw, that bump old bruises, Cal?” Naomi asks in my ear. “Now you know how we felt when we heard you were kissing one of your CIs and putting your fellow agents at risk.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Deirdre was your informant, Cal! You were supposed to pay her a few hundred bucks for tips on shipments! Instead, you were sleeping with her and buying her sappy poetry books for her birthday!”
“I never slept with her.”
“No, you did something far more ridiculous: You fell in love, didn’t you? And then when you heard we were raiding a South Beach steakhouse that she was gonna be at, you whispered in her ear and told her to stay away.”
“I had a right to protect my informant!”
“Then you should’ve done it like everyone else: let her get swept up and then pull strings from the inside!” Naomi shouts at full blast. “But to tip her in advance in some pathetic come-on: You have any idea how many of our guys could’ve gotten killed, racing into a raid where everyone knew they were coming?”
“No one got killed.”
“Only because she ratted you out for the scumbag you are! But that’s the true justice, isn’t it? Here you are fighting to keep this dear, defenseless woman safe, and she runs back to headquarters, says she got tipped off by an agent, and offers you up as long as she gets citizenship for the rest of h
er family. Man, that must’ve stung, huh, Cal? Almost as bad as doing a favor for . . . I don’t know, your own father, and then realizing you’re suddenly the one holding the smoking gun.”
On the sofa, Serena scratches my dad’s back as I stand there, silent. I remember my mom scratching his back when he had a tough day at work.
“I thought for sure you’d nibble at that one,” Naomi tells me.
“Then you remember me as stupid.”
“Actually, I remember you as a stubborn idealist. But I got your psych profile right here, Cal. Every few years, we get a new candidate who takes the job to right some wrong in his past—and then becomes so obsessed with saving people, he starts letting the job substitute for his entire life. That’s your problem, Cal. You’re Sisyphus. You just don’t know it,” she says. “But if I’m reading that wrong . . . yee-haw . . . life must be going pretty beautifully for you these days, huh?”
In front of me, Serena continues her back-scratch, doing her best to calm my dad down. Maybe she is here just to help him. But the way my dad watches her and stares at her—even the way he laughs extra hard at whatever she’s saying—I don’t know what Serena thinks of him, but he clearly would love to have his hands on her.
“Things are just stunning here, thanks.”
“Wonderful. Then let’s do the rest of this face-to-face. You wouldn’t mind coming over for a quick chat, would you?”
Another cop trick: Offer something easy—if I run, she knows I’m guilty. Still, I need to know whether she’s working on hunches or facts. “Happy to, Naomi. Just tell me what we’d be chatting about.”
“Oh, you know—silly little details like why we haven’t heard from Timothy since last night, and what his abandoned car was doing on Alligator Alley. . . . Or to really put a pin in your balloon: how yours was the last call on his cell, and how your van is on every camera in the port at three in the morning, and how the one shipment Timothy was fiddling with just happens to be the one that was picked up by your ex-con dad. Not the prettiest picture that’s being painted here, Cal. Now you wanna tell me what’s really going on, or would you rather fast-forward eight months and tell it to a jury? I’m sure they’ll take your side—I mean, who wouldn’t trust a disgraced agent and his convict father?”
