If he were a serious suspect, the CIA wouldn’t have farmed him out to local police. They’d have either come at him a lot harder or, more than likely, not at all. They’d have sat back, set up surveillance, and waited and watched. They wouldn’t have sent a cop to tip their hand for nothing. At this stage, the likeliest scenario was that the timing of Gibson’s release and Ogden’s disappearance had been noted. One of hundreds of leads, names, and angles to be sifted through, interviewed, and eliminated. Jim Bachmann had drawn that thankless task.
It made sense. Bachmann would have been tapped because he’d interviewed Gibson after his arrest. That gave the detective a pretext for this friendly chat over pie. He would lead with the house fire, starting in the past, but Bachmann was here for Ogden and would work the conversation around to the present. Gibson figured that his best bet was to play irritated and harassed but ultimately be helpful. And when Bachmann finally asked him about last weekend, Gibson would use it as a chance to lay out his alibi.
Bachmann made a satisfied noise and tapped the pie meaningfully. “I never order pie. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Don’t you have any current cases?”
“I could have been enjoying pie all this time.”
“Well, you have your whole life ahead of you.”
“I do, don’t I? That’s a comforting thought,” Bachmann said. “Gives me a reason to stop in regularly.” He took another bite and pointed the fork in Gibson’s direction. “You don’t look so good.”
“Been sick. Haven’t been sleeping.”
“Mhmm,” Bachmann said noncommittally. “Any closer to telling me where you were the night your ex-wife’s house went up?”
“I know where I wasn’t.”
“Be nice if it worked like that.”
“Wouldn’t it,” Gibson agreed.
“How about lately?” asked Bachmann.
That didn’t take long. “What about it?”
“A neighbor told your ex-wife that she saw a man matching your description on her front porch.”
“What are you implying? That I zipped out to Seattle so I could lurk around my ex-wife’s porch?”
“Did you?” Bachmann asked.
“This is pretty damned thin.”
“Then you won’t mind accounting for your whereabouts?” No mention of when, baiting Gibson to see if natural defensiveness would cause him to slip up and fill in that blank for Bachmann. A nice move.
Gibson spread his hands questioningly. “Where I was when?”
“Let’s start with this past weekend. A show of good faith. Go a long way to keeping that resisting-arrest charge in my drawer.”
Gibson sighed and cast his eyes down in defeat. “When?”
“Start with Friday.”
Gibson took a breath, slowing himself. He didn’t want to sound too eager. “I worked all day.”
“Then what did you do?”
Gibson walked the detective through his entire alibi. Kept going right into Tuesday, but Bachmann cut him off. Gibson sat there while Bachmann finished scribbling notes. Bachmann took him through it again, asking questions, clarifying details. Gibson couldn’t tell if the detective bought his story, which irritated him. That was all right. Being irritated fit the profile.
“What are you trying to pin on me now?” Gibson asked.
Bachmann studied him over the table. “You got something you want to tell me? Now would be the time. While I can still help you.”
“I didn’t burn the house down,” Gibson said, intentionally misunderstanding the lifeline Bachmann was throwing him.
“All right. Have it your way.”
“Have what my way?”
Bachmann stood and put his card on the table. “In case you think of anything.” Then he pointed at the pie. “Get that for me.”
On his way out, Bachmann stopped to ask Toby a few questions—no doubt verifying Gibson’s shifts from the weekend. The detective shook Toby’s hand and glanced back in Gibson’s direction. Gibson waved. For the second time in a week, he’d won an important battle. And for the second time in a week, it felt like a loss. A Pyrrhic victory. Revenge hadn’t fixed anything. Getting even with Damon Ogden was a sideshow, nothing more. He’d been crazy to think otherwise.
Maybe he’d had to take Ogden in order to know? It had felt better planning it than doing it, that much he knew. And having done it, and knowing that it hadn’t fixed anything, he didn’t know what to do about it. Even if he wanted to, he wasn’t sure there was a way to walk it back. He’d made the bed he now lay in, and had lit it on fire too, for good measure.
On the way home, a squad car pulled in behind Gibson. He didn’t think anything of it at first, but it stayed on his bumper even after he made a turn. A voice in his head urged him to floor it and make a run before the police had him completely boxed in. He resisted the temptation, even as the police stayed behind him for five more blocks.
He pulled off into a convenience store parking lot. The prowler followed. A second police car was already there. Was it waiting for him? How did they know that he’d pull over here, the voice asked. Gibson mimed a phone call, hand shaking, and lingered behind the wheel. The two officers chatted with each other, too smart to look Gibson’s way. They strolled into the convenience store, talking animatedly between themselves. Neither looked Gibson’s way as he backed slowly out of his spot. He kept an eye on the rearview mirror to make sure he wasn’t being followed.
“You’re being paranoid,” Bear said from the passenger seat.
“Where have you been? I needed you.”
“I’m here. I’m always here.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
She looked at him pityingly. “Stop this,” she said. “While there’s time.”
“I don’t know how.”
“He doesn’t know who took him,” she reminded him.
That was true. He couldn’t undo the kidnapping, but that didn’t mean Ogden had to stay kidnapped. If Gibson released him, what would Ogden really know for certain?
Could it be that simple?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Under ideal circumstances, the evening rush hour around Washington, DC, was a snarled clusterfuck. It began as early as three in the afternoon and didn’t taper until after seven. Toss in a steady “wintery mix”—weatherperson jargon for sleet, snow, and freezing rain—and traffic quickly went from bad to war crime. For reasons that defied easy explanation, DC drivers were notoriously awful at driving in the elements. Most reacted to snow as if seeing it for the very first time, either driving so cautiously as to be a danger or so fast that they became rudderless torpedoes the first time they tapped the brakes. Gibson had taken one look at the forecast and thanked his lucky stars. He was breaking his cardinal rule tonight, and he couldn’t have asked for better weather.
Up ahead, a light went from green to yellow. Gibson watched a car fishtail miraculously to a stop without hitting anything. The driver looked around with a sheepish grin at his good luck. Judging by the GPS, not everyone was enjoying so blessed an evening commute. Gibson’s traffic map showed most roads highlighted in red, yellow icons indicating accidents continuing to multiply. Fat snowflakes danced before his headlights. Good. Let it snow. Accidents and heavy snow gave him his best odds. He glanced in the rearview mirror; it had become a nervous tic since Bachmann’s visit to the diner. Gibson doubted he could spot a tail if he had one, or lose one even if he did. But getting lost in the maelstrom of a winter’s rush hour? That he could do.
He’d waited until after five p.m. to leave the diner. Traffic was already hopelessly knotted, and for the last hour he’d been in an endless cycle of stop-start, stop-start, one car length at a time, mile after mile. Visibility was down to about thirty feet, but after the sun went down, it dropped to a single car length. Gibson began switching lanes, getting on and off the beltway, doubling back again and again. If someone could follow him in this, they deserved to catch him. Around eight p.m.
, he pulled into a parking garage in downtown Bethesda and took a walk around the block. He bought a cup of coffee at a Dunkin’ Donuts. He sat in the shop window, sipped his coffee, and waited.
Since Detective Bachmann’s most recent visit, Gibson’s thoughts had turned more and more to the past. To that brief, shining moment when he’d lived his best life. Near the end of his time in the Marines, when his work for the Activity had earned him praise and respect from the higher-ups, his marriage to Nicole had been rock solid, and Ellie had been the perfect, hyperactive cherry on top. With the clarity that only ever came too late, he saw the moment that he took his first meandering, careless step away from that life. He saw the subsequent fumbling steps that had been supposed to lead him home but only compounded his misery. The steps that had led him here. Steps that continued to lead him further and further away from anything that might reasonably be called a good life.
Wouldn’t life be better if, like a video game, you could simply reload an earlier save and relive a decision until you made the right one? A foolish, Dickensian fantasy shared by all those who had reduced their failures to one decisive moment. Life wasn’t a video game, and wishing wouldn’t make it so. But he realized that, in a way, a video-game philosophy had crept into his thinking. All these unwinnable battles. He’d squandered the last few years struggling to reclaim his mythologized best life instead of working toward the best that life still had to offer him. He was still a young man; there should still be time. But there might not be opportunity.
At least not so long as Damon Ogden remained locked in that cell. Taking him had been a mistake. Gibson accepted that now. Ogden’s imprisonment would never give him back what had been taken, would never heal him, would never even the score. Damon Ogden had to be freed. The question was how. Gibson’s only advantage was that Ogden knew neither the identity of his abductor nor where he was being held. It needed to stay that way. Unfortunately, that eliminated the simplest approach: an anonymous tip that led to Ogden’s cell. The cell would give investigators a crime scene to scour that would undoubtedly turn up a variety pack of Gibson Vaughn DNA. Ogden would have to be moved, which would violate the first commandment of his plan: stay away from Ogden for at least three months.
Unless he’d blundered badly, the name Gibson Vaughn should still be no more than a single data point in a sea of information that investigators were sifting through. Chances were remote that they’d initiated surveillance on him, but, in the end, that was nothing but supposition—he had no way to be sure. And if wrong, he’d lead investigators straight to Ogden, in which case his goose would be cooked and then shot twice for good measure. But that would simply be a chance he’d have to take. Couldn’t go back, couldn’t stand still, the only choice to move forward.
Through the front window, Gibson glanced up and down the block. Nothing suspicious jumped out at him; it was now or never.
The power plant rose ghostly against the night. Snow swirled around the plant’s four smokestacks. It looked quite beautiful in a broken way. A medieval fortress standing vigil over some lost wilderness.
Gibson drove around back, took the keys from the ignition, and sat behind the wheel, listening to the wind. He half expected helicopters and a SWAT team to materialize out of the night sky. The snow continued to fall. He racked the slide of his gun, chambering the only round, and slipped it into his belt. One round would be all he’d need if he was indeed walking into a stakeout. No one else would suffer for his mistake.
In the Yukon’s headlights, he saw Duke Vaughn waiting at the basement door. He’d changed into a charcoal suit and looked ready to go to battle with Senate foes across the aisle.
“Where have you been?” Gibson demanded. He couldn’t believe his dad had the nerve to show up now after leaving him to twist in the wind.
“Don’t do this, son. Don’t lose faith now.”
“Faith? You’re not a priest. You’re a figment of my imagination.”
“These things take time,” Duke said.
“Yeah, it’s always another day. One more thing. Isn’t it? It’s bullshit.”
“If you go in there, you’re throwing away everything we’ve worked for.”
“We’ve worked for?” Gibson said. “You abandoned me. I needed you. I’ve been all alone.”
Duke didn’t cede an inch. “You’ll never feel normal again. Do you want that?”
“I don’t want to be this man, Dad. I must have been crazy to listen to you.”
“Well, now you’re just throwing me softballs,” Duke said with a grin.
“It was a mistake,” Gibson said, peeling back the tape around the door. It was all intact and untouched. A reassuring sign. He turned on his lights and went down the steps. A thin coat of dust had settled undisturbed along the hall. Nothing seemed amiss. His feet echoed down the stairwell.
Duke waited at the first turn, shaking his head. “Please think this through. I raised you to be better than this.”
“I’m not your son. You’re not real. You’re dead.”
“As if you care.”
Gibson took a wild swing at the thin air where he saw his father. He stumbled and almost fell.
“Strike one,” Duke said. “Feel better?”
Gibson put a finger to his lips in a shushing gesture.
“Oh, knock it off,” Duke said. “He can’t hear me.”
“You had your chance. Leave me alone.”
“It’s not that simple,” his father said as Gibson brushed past him.
Outside the cell door, Gibson retrieved his gear from the cubbyhole and did an equipment check: stun gun, syringe, zip ties, hood. Through the peephole, Ogden stood motionless in the center of the room, staring intently at the door, Gibson’s footfalls having announced his arrival. Apart from the beginnings of a beard, Ogden appeared unchanged by his brief imprisonment. One of the cases of food had been torn into, but the cell itself was well tended. Gibson read over the printed instructions on the white sheet of paper he carried:
You’re going home today. Lie facedown on the ground, hands behind your head. If you move or speak, we’ll try this again in a month.
Satisfied, Gibson knelt to slip the note under the door.
“Gibson Vaughn,” Ogden said through the door, his voice full of authority and purpose. Gibson remembered that about him from West Virginia. Despite having been tortured and shot in the leg, Ogden had still talked as if he were in total control.
Gibson froze, staring stunned at the door.
“Vaughn. I know it’s you out there.”
Gibson stumbled away from the door and sat down hard with his back against the wall. How had he given himself away? He’d been so thorough.
“Took me a while to figure it out, but I have nothing but time, thanks to you. I asked myself, who would kidnap a CIA officer but ask no questions? It was a pretty short list. Plus, the cell is kind of a dead giveaway.”
Gibson shut his eyes and cursed silently. There went plan A. If he released Ogden now, he would be in custody within hours.
“Got to say, I did not see you coming,” Ogden continued. “Completely underestimated you. Should have given more credence to your military record. And you have to tell me how you found me; I’m dying to know. All the way around, an impressive operation. But what’s your endgame? You’re one man. You know how many people are looking for me right now? How long before they find you? What then? I don’t know what point you’re trying to make, but consider it made. What happened to you was regrettable, but I’d do it again. I won’t apologize for doing my job. You were involved with the bin Laden operation. You more than most should understand that sometimes there’s collateral damage in this world. I know it stings when it’s our turn, but this? This isn’t going to end well for you.
“Talk to me. We can work something out. You do know the sentencing guidelines for kidnapping a representative of the United States government, don’t you? The Patriot Act is very specific about it. So talk to me. We come to some kind of ac
commodation, I’ll put in a good word for you. Maybe save you from the worst of it. Unless, of course, you like needles.”
Gibson reached for his gun and held it gingerly in both hands. There was always plan B. He wondered what the muzzle would feel like pressed to his temple.
He pushed the thought away and holstered the gun. He wasn’t thinking clearly. What he needed was time to come up with an alternative. Ogden would be okay for another week. Gibson stood and went back up the stairs. Ogden heard him leaving and began barking his name, ordering him to come back. Then pleading. Then silence. Outside, the wintery mix had turned to regular old rain.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
After the debacle at the power plant, Gibson’s grip on sanity continued to erode. More and more, his vigilance descended into paranoia. Every vehicle became a possible tail, anyone glancing in his direction a possible undercover. Unfamiliar faces at the Nighthawk looked suspicious. Gibson knew he was becoming irrational but couldn’t control himself. It wore at his nerves, and he felt himself becoming twitchy. If Detective Bachmann came back for another friendly chat, Gibson didn’t know if he could hold it together.
After his lengthy absence, Duke Vaughn seemed determined to make up for lost time. He hadn’t left Gibson’s side for a moment. A constant, glowering presence, Duke never gave his son a moment’s peace. At work. At the movies. More and more talk, until Gibson couldn’t even follow the story. He couldn’t hold a conversation without Duke interrupting. At night, Duke stood over him, waiting to pick up where he’d left off when Gibson opened his eyes in the morning.
Nothing Gibson did brought him peace. He tried reasoning with Duke. When that had no effect, he pleaded with the ghost for mercy. Then he resorted to yelling back, which only succeeded in making him feel like the lunatic he was. Finally, Gibson lapsed into a monastic silence, trying and failing to ignore his father. How do you tune out a voice that started and ended in your own head? It was almost as if the old political hand were trying to filibuster Gibson’s life.
Cold Harbor (The Gibson Vaughn Series Book 3) Page 13
