Of dead things.
Of dead boys.
“Don’t leave me!” he shrieked.
A second attempt to run made him fall again, so he decided to crawl. Sticks scraped the bare flesh of his back and belly as God only knew what stabbed at his hands and knees. Effectively blind in the foliage, he pressed forward. They were driving away, for God’s sake. He had to press forward. If he stopped-if he even slowed-they’d be too far away, and he’d never be able to catch up.
His head broke into the clearing first. Actually, it wasn’t a clearing as much as it was the absence of jungle. Leafy shit stopped brushing his face and shoulders, and all at once it felt as if there was more air to breathe.
It was the roadway. It had to be. It had wheel ruts. What else could it be?
But there was no truck.
“Hey!” he yelled. In return, he got only the sounds of a million insects and other creatures that he wanted nothing to do with. He had no intention of being something’s dinner tonight.
He turned to his right, the direction where the truck had driven off and started walking-a slow, dejected gait at first, burdened with the knowledge that he’d been left to die. A horrible daytime nightmare image of his body being ripped apart by vultures invaded his mind. He saw the stringy cords of his flesh and his intestines being pulled free of his carcass-just the way he’d seen buzzards and crows consume roadkill at home-and he picked up his pace.
Maybe there was still a chance that he could catch the SUV. Maybe they hit a rut in the road or they had to cross a stream so they’d have to slow way down. That would give him time to catch up.
But he had to move faster. He started to jog, and then to run. Rocks and sticks dug at his bare feet, but he didn’t feel any pain. There wasn’t room for pain today.
He picked up his pace even more, pumping his arms the way that Mr. Jackson, the PE teacher at the RezHouse and taught him. Evan had always been a good runner-a good athlete in general-and Mr. Jackson had taken a special interest in him. He said that he might be good enough to get a scholarship one day, but that when you get to that level of competition, all the little things mattered. Like pumping your arms just-so to get a little more out of every stride.
God, it was hot! As Evan rounded the first turn in the road, he felt the soaked, greasy tendrils of his hair bouncing against the back of his neck, and he swiped them away from his eyes. A hill loomed ahead, not steep but long.
Don’t stop, he told himself. Stopping was too easy. That meant that dying was too easy. If he was going to die, it was going to be from exhaustion or dehydration. It wasn’t going to be for his nutritional value. He lowered his head and forced himself on. He watched his feet instead of the terrain because the terrain was too depressing.
How could people live in this heat?
After eighty-five steps, it became easier. He hadn’t even realized that he’d been counting. When he looked up, he saw that he’d crested the hill.
And there was the SUV, a hundred feet away. He could hear the engine idling above the noise of the insects.
Mitch stood at the back bumper. He wore all khaki, long pants with a short-sleeved shirt open at the neck. He’d assumed an expectant posture, leaning against the spare tire, his arms folded and his feet slightly extended and crossed.
Evan stopped at the sight of the man. He froze in his tracks, his chest heaving, his eyes stinging from sweat. He swiped at them with the palms of his hands, but that only made them sting more. Gasping for air, and his heart pounding, his body wanted to collapse onto the ground, but his brain wouldn’t let him-wouldn’t give Mitch the satisfaction.
Seeing the smirk on the man’s face, Evan understood right away that he’d been played. Just like with most grownups, this was all about power. You need me, kid was the message. Without me, you’ve got nothing.
“Yeah, well you need me, too,” Evan mumbled aloud. He was done running. He kept his stride as casual as his trembling legs would allow as he closed the distance to the truck.
“Took you long enough,” Mitch said with a mocking smile.
Evan said nothing as he headed for his door. As he passed within range, Mitch reached out for him, but Evan twisted out of the way. “Don’t touch me,” he said.
He was vaguely aware that both the driver and the shotgun guy were also out of the car, watching with amusement.
Mitch seemed startled by Evan’s speed. He folded his arms again. “You don’t learn so good, do you, kid?”
Evan said nothing.
“Now, you need to ask permission to get back into my truck.”
Evan didn’t fully understand the look in the guy’s eyes. The way he kept shooting quick glances to the other men, he almost looked embarrassed.
Evan started for the door again, and again Mitch tried to grab his arm.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” Evan shrieked. The fierceness of his tone startled the henchmen.
“Don’t fucking tell me what to do!” Mitch shouted back. “Now, either you ask permission to get back into that vehicle-either you show some respect-or I swear to God I’ll leave you out here to die.”
Evan had never felt his heart hammer so hard. In the past, on the few occasions when he’d found himself in this kind of blustering power play, the worst that would come from the ensuing fight might be a busted nose or a loosened tooth. Here, the penalty for being wrong was the biggest one there was.
But the rules don’t change with the size of the bully. You can’t ever afford to show weakness. What was it that Father Dom always said? Victory can be claimed, but surrender has to be offered. To Evan, it was a fancy way of saying, Die trying.
“ You kidnapped me, remember?” Evan shouted. “You can’t let me die.”
This time, as he walked toward the car door, he noticed that the henchmen seemed amused, even as Mitch clearly could think of nothing to say.
Evan planted himself back in his seat, closed the door, and fastened his seat belt.
Apparently, in the world of killers and spies, it was never allowable to meet in the same place twice, at least not within too short a time. Thus, the food court at Pentagon City was out, and Founders Park in Old Town Alexandria was in.
If Jerry Sjogren had had his way, they would have met in an underground parking garage a la All the President’s Men, but Brandy Giddings had aborted that idea before it could even take a breath. If she was going to be killed by some whack job, she wanted the murder to be witnessed by as many people as possible.
She’d followed Sjogren’s orders to the tee. Metro from the Pentagon to the Braddock Road Station, and then two taxis just in case: the first one to Reagan National Airport and then a second to the Torpedo Factory-a trendy artists’ colony located in a building on the Potomac River that had in fact manufactured torpedoes through the end of World War II. From there, it was an easy stroll to the park.
Brandy had promised herself that Sjogren would be the one made to wait this time; yet even though she arrived ten minutes late, the man was nowhere to be seen. She considered the possibility that her tardiness had pissed him off and he’d left, but then she remembered that this was his meeting, not hers.
She randomly chose an empty bench and waited to be found.
She never heard him approaching from behind.
“We playing power games now, Missy?” Sjogren boomed from a few feet away on her blind side.
“Jesus!”
Sjogren walked around to her side of the bench and sat next to her. “Being late never gives you the upper hand,” he scolded. “Just so you know. I’ve been here for forty-five minutes. I can tell you everything about everyone we can see, and I watched you arrive. You looked right at me, you know.”
She’d had no idea.
“They call it tradecraft, and if you’re going to play these spooky kinds of games, you’d do well to learn some of it.”
She looked away, stung by the rebuke. It was a little like disappointing your grandfather. Your burly homicidal grandfather
.
“Besides, it’s rude to keep people waiting,” he said.
“I’ll keep it all in mind for the future,” Brandy said, struggling to recover face. “I thought you were supposed to be hunting for a homeless guy.”
“In due time. But first I thought you should know that things have gone even further to hell since last time we spoke.”
The familiar fist returned to Brandy’s stomach. She didn’t realize that it was possible to sink farther than dead bottom.
“A private investigator visited Frank Schuler today,” Sjogren went on. “They’ve connected the dots to Sammy Bell’s organization, and they know that Bruce Navarro is involved.” He recounted the details of the conversation he’d heard in the digital audio file he’d received from a contact in the Virginia Department of Corrections.
Indeed, the bottom was only the beginning. “This is unbelievable,” Brandy said. “We go through all of this, only to be taken down by some Lincoln Rhyme wannabe?”
Sjogren clearly understood the reference to the star of Jeffery Deaver’s novels. “I don’t believe I used the phrase, ‘taken down,’” he said. “I’m just reporting facts as I know them.”
He reached into his shirt pocket and produced a folded piece of paper. “I have a research project for you,” he said, handing it to Brandy. “Give me everything you can dig up on this guy.”
Brandy read the name. “Who is Jonathan Grave? Is this the investigator who visited Schuler?”
Sjogren shook his head. “No. That was a lady named Gail Bonneville, an up-and-comer in the Indiana Democratic Party until a shoot-out caused her to resign as sheriff in a little town called Samson. She left that gig to join on with that guy Grave.”
Brandy tried to give back the piece of paper. “Find out for yourself,” she said. “You seem to be doing just fine on your own.”
Sjogren let the note hover between them. “Not this guy,” he said. “I can tell you that he grew up as Jonathan Gravenow in Fisherman’s Cove, and I can tell you that he runs a company called Security Solutions, which in turn employs Ms. Bonneville.”
He paused, and when Brandy tried to repeat her suggestion, he raised his hand for silence.
“I know that he joined the Army,” he continued, “sometime after changing his name from Gravenow to Grave. His father is Simon Gravenow, a mobster now pulling a life stretch in federal prison.”
Another pause. “Sounds like you’re doing just fine,” Brandy said. “I don’t want to have anything to do with this. Our office cannot be linked in any way to-”
“Yours is the only office that can do it,” Sjogren interrupted. “After he entered the Army, he disappeared. I’ve got him through basic training and Ranger school, but then he’s gone. Nothing. Then I find out that he doesn’t even have a set of fingerprints on file. Call me crazy, but that sounds like a guy who learned special enough skills in the military that Uncle Sam made him invisible.”
Brandy chose to say nothing.
“That means, Missy, that your office is the only one that can do the research I need done.”
Brandy understood the implications-that this Grave guy was some kind of a spook-but she didn’t understand the urgency. “I can’t do this sort of data mining on my own,” she said. “I’ll have to involve others. It seems to me that the risks posed by expanding the universe of knowledgeable parties outstrips the benefit of gaining a couple more data points.”
Sjogren’s face morphed to a patronizing sneer. “Please tell me you’re faking right now. Tell me that you’re not really that dense.”
Brandy felt heat in her cheeks.
“We’re talking about a man with ties to the mob who also has commando training. On the day when two of my best men disappear, an associate of G.I. Joe goes right to the heart of everything in a Virginia prison. Given all of that, you only see data points? Again, please tell me you’re faking.”
Now I wish I was, she thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY
It was hard for Harvey Rodriguez not to feel at least a little like a prisoner. With his beard shaved and his hair cut-courtesy of a hot black chick named Venice, who turned out to know her way around a pair of clippers-all it took was a hot shower and a change of clothes to make Harvey feel and look like a new man. Officially, he was free to come and go as he pleased, but it’s hard to wander around in the open when people you don’t know are looking to kill you.
Still, he needed fresh air. Blame it on the hundred bucks Jonathan gave him. With no bills to pay and a guaranteed roof over his head-in a mansion, no less-cash in his pocket meant beer in his belly. The way he saw it, dying with a couple of Coronas on board had to be better than dying parched.
Jimmy’s Tavern sat on the water, three blocks downhill from the mansion. At 8:30 in the evening, the parking lot was three-quarters full, a surefire sign of the kind of place where Harvey could enjoy killing some brain cells.
His expectations dimmed, however, as he closed within a few dozen yards of the place and noticed that the pull hardware on the doors was fashioned in the form of fish-a yin and a yang, one sniffing the other’s ass as they swam counterclockwise.
He grabbed the fish belly on the right and pulled, hoping to be greeted by the aroma of booze and stale cigars, but instead was assaulted by the stench of chicken fingers and French fries. He missed real bars. This family-fare shit was for the birds.
If you ignored the left-hand side of the building, where a forest of empty tables awaited the dinner crowd, the smaller right-hand side featured a bar fashioned from pine planking and old seafaring barrels of grog. He knew the barrels were supposed to be grog, because the word was stenciled on every other one. The alternating barrels bore the mark of the ass-sniffing fish from the front door along with the word JIMMY ’ S stenciled in the open circle.
You never judge a bar by its bar, though; you judge it by the number and diversity of bottles stacked against the back mirror, and by the forest of beer taps. Measuring by that yardstick, this place was just fine.
The kid behind the bar didn’t look old enough to be serving liquor. “Welcome to Jimmy’s,” the kid said, sliding a cardboard coaster at him. More of the damn fish. “What can I get you?”
The tap handles advertised an embarrassment of riches. With a hundred unearned bucks in his pocket, he ignored the cheap domestics that he’d normally order and went for a Harp Lager. Three or four of those and he’d be feeling a lot like a leprechaun.
The kid placed a heady pint onto the coaster and extended his hand. “I’m Chris,” he said.
“Harvey.” They shook hands.
“No kiddin’?” Chris said with a chuckle. “You missed a friend of yours by about ten minutes.”
Harvey recoiled, instantly pissed at himself for giving up his name so easily.
“A big guy,” Chris expounded. “Gray hair, mustache. Boston accent.” He mocked the word as Bahston. “He didn’t leave a name, but he asked me to keep an eye out for you. Ring any bells?”
Absolutely. Big guy he’d never heard of. Sounds just like a guy sent to avenge two friends he didn’t kill. “Not a clue,” Harvey said. He took a pull on his beer, but now it tasted like piss. Maybe that was one of the thirty-four flavors of fear. “Did he say why he was looking for me?”
“Something about being an old Army buddy.”
A wiry guy two seats down wearing denim on denim and sporting a close-cropped goatee piped in, “Said you were a war hero.” The unspoken rule of neighborhood bars everywhere: Any conversation with the bartender is open for group participation.
“That’s right,” Chris confirmed, his face brightening with recognition. “He said that he found some medals that belonged to you. I don’t know, in a basement or something. Said he wanted to get them back to you.”
New flavor: acid. The next mouthful almost made him gag. He kept his Navy Cross and Distinguished Service Medal in their original cases, hidden in a hole he’d dug under his tent. He fought the urge to bolt from his barstool an
d tear for the door.
“Now that I see you, though, that might be bullshit,” said Denim. “He must be twenty years older than you. I have a hard time seeing you two serving in the same unit. You might want to be careful.”
Harvey eyed the denim guy carefully, then shrugged it off. He wanted this conversation to end.
“I think we all need to be careful,” Chris said, absently wiping the bar top even though it didn’t need it. “That stuff at Resurrection House the other day. I don’t like stuff like that happening around here. If little kids aren’t safe, then nobody’s safe, know what I mean?” He shook his head sadly, and then seemed to realize he was bringing the mood down, so he became a little too cheerful. “So, where are y’all from?”
Harvey’s gut jumped again. He’d assumed that Denim was a regular.
“I’m from everywhere,” Denim said. “I’m willing to hang my hat wherever I can find work.”
“Oh yeah?” Chris said, clearly intrigued by the prospect. “What kind of work do you do?”
Denim shrugged. “None, right now. I’m sort of looking around.”
Was Harvey imagining things, or was this guy glaring at him as he spoke? One of the problems with being a diagnosed paranoid is that you never know when the paranoia is justified.
“For what?” Chris pressed. “What’s your specialty?”
“I was in the weapons business for a long time,” Denim said. “But this new outbreak of peace is killing me.”
Chris laughed, but Harvey’s hand started to shake. Weapons business. New in town. Happened to be here right at this moment. Coincidence or strategy?
“And you, Harvey?” Chris asked. “Where do you come from? What do you do?”
He knew the kid was just trying to be friendly, but Harvey wanted to shove a wad of napkins in his mouth. He should have prepared an answer for this. “I used to work for a charter fishing company,” he lied. “I got laid off, though.”
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