He buckled his seat belt and settled smoothly onto the sinful dark gray leather seat and pressed the magic button—that’s what his youngest son called the ignition. No, he wouldn’t worry about his sons. They’d get over this. They were old enough to understand. He would make them understand.
His baby roared to life. Calm down, calm down. So what if you give the witch half a million dollars a year? You can afford it. But it was his hard-earned money, and she would spend it on those vacations she was always taking by herself, with the boys, with her frigging friends. Never with him after the first five years. All right, so he was usually busy; he had to support his family, didn’t he? He had no interest in being one of those idiot tourists who walked around with a guidebook in their hands, always pulling out their cell phones to take stupid pictures no one cared about.
He backed out of the garage and eased into traffic. He crossed the Golden Gate twelve minutes later, and headed north toward Bel Marin Keys, to the beautiful little clapboard house he owned, with its own private boat dock and its one inhabitant, Pixie. She would make him feel better. She listened to him, really listened, and she knew he was suffering today. She cared about his feelings and what his wife was doing to him.
It wasn’t raining, but it was cold and overcast, and promised rain. He was glad he’d gotten the coupe and not the convertible now that it was getting toward winter. This was San Francisco, after all.
Federal Building
San Francisco
Monday afternoon
If Bill Hammond at the CIA was to be believed, the CIA hadn’t made the connection that Sue could be a Chinese name spelled Xu, hadn’t even known for sure that a foreign government was behind the attempted theft of Mark Lindy’s materials. He assured Savich the CIA would of course follow up on that possibility, search out every Chinese national with diplomatic cover whose name sounded anything like Xu.
Savich doubted the two CIA operations officers who’d come to San Francisco some eight months before to conduct an extensive investigation had left not even knowing a foreign government was involved, let alone which one. It really didn’t matter now, Savich thought, since the game had changed. Now that they had a name, the CIA would be back in the investigation, trying to crash the party and take the cake. Savich figured he had one last shot at the Cahills before CIA operations officers arrived. They were the only ones who knew Xu, the only ones other than Xu who knew what had happened to those files off Lindy’s computer.
He sat with Eve again at the same scarred table in the interview room. “I’m glad you’re still wearing a ponytail,” he said to her as the guards brought Cindy and Clive Cahill in.
The first thing out of Clive’s mouth when he saw them was, “The guard said you wanted to see us again, Agent Savich. You wouldn’t believe—or maybe you would believe—what kind of language Milo Siles used when he found out we’d talked to you without him on Friday. He tried to make us promise we’d never do that again. But Cindy and I—we’re beginning to wonder a bit about Mr. Siles, and that’s why we agreed to see you without him.”
It’s about time you’re finally realizing Mr. Siles isn’t in your corner. Savich said, “Tell you what, Clive, after we talk, you and Cindy can consult with Mr. Siles if you feel the need, how’s that?”
Clive and Cindy shared a look, and Clive slowly nodded. “No harm in listening, at least until you bore us.” He looked at Eve. “You’re quite the little hero, aren’t you, doll? It’s all over the news how you saved Judge Hunt’s life, threw yourself on top of him in that elevator and took three bullets in the back. How good are the Kevlars nowadays? You sore?”
Eve smiled at him. “You bet.”
Cindy said, “A pity the guy wasn’t a better shot and splashed your brains all over the judge.”
Eve turned her smile to Cindy. “My brains are relieved that didn’t happen. It’s true, I’m still a bit sore, but you, on the other hand, are still wearing chains and brushing your teeth with your fingers.”
“Nah,” Clive said. “This is a class joint. We even got toothbrushes, but you have a point, they’re not electric.”
Eve said nothing more. She didn’t want to tangle with either of them, at least not yet.
Cindy noticed Savich was looking at her and leaned slightly toward him. “Isn’t that sweet, Clive? Little Miss Sunshine with her bouncy ponytail doing her good deeds. She saves a life, then visits us poor put-upon prisoners again with her sidekick, Mr. Tough Guy.”
Savich said, “Actually, we wanted to thank you in person for blurting out the name Xu. So how does he spell that? X-u? Or S-u? S-o-o, maybe? At any rate, he’s Chinese, and he’s your handler. We know he’s fluent in English and no one has yet pegged him as Asian, so he’s either very good at disguises or he’s an American. Is he American?”
Cindy and Clive didn’t say anything.
Savich continued. “It’s only a matter of time before we find him. If we do that without your help, you won’t have anything left to trade.”
“I don’t remember any Xu,” Cindy said. “Xu—who is that, Clive, do you have any idea?”
“Not a one, sweetie. You look beautiful today. I’ve missed you.” He started to lean over to kiss her, but there was a firm fist smack against the glass window in the door and he pulled back. What would the guards do, Eve wondered? Come in and physically distance him from her so he couldn’t reach her? Probably. The guards couldn’t know when violence would erupt, and wouldn’t take that chance.
Savich said, “You know we found Mickey O’Rourke, your federal prosecutor, dead yesterday.”
“We heard about that,” Cindy said. “Gossip moves at the speed of light in prison, makes my old neighborhood look like slo-mo. Imagine O’Rourke getting himself killed. I didn’t find out too many details, because the cops on TV are keeping a lid on it. Only that he met with foul play. I’ve always thought that phrase sounds wussy, don’t you, Agent Savich?” She said it again: “Foul play—like they’re going to hand out some kind of football penalty.
“Clive, did you hear about poor Mr. O’Rourke getting whacked? That idiot man who preened and strutted around in court and only finally managed to get himself in big trouble with the judge?”
Clive nodded, his lips seamed. “How did he die?”
Eve said, “Xu cut his throat.”
Clive’s hand went unconsciously to his neck; his fingers lightly rubbed against his skin. “That wasn’t very nice.”
“No, it wasn’t.” Savich sat back and regarded the two of them. “You can’t think this is part of some master plan to get you out anymore. It seems to me Xu is snipping off loose ends, killing anyone who might know who he is. Do you want to know who the big whopper loose ends left are?” He suddenly sat forward, pointed at one, then at the other. “You and Cindy.”
The Cahills’ eyes met briefly, then Cindy laughed. “That’s a stretch, isn’t it, Agent Savich? Unbelievable, that’s what it is. We’ve been in this lovely facility now for eight months, fourteen days—”
“Thirteen days,” Clive said.
Cindy shook her head. “You know I believe thirteen is unlucky, Clive. Nope, this is the fourteenth day. Being here means we’re safer than you two are driving on Highway 101 at rush hour. Do you know, if I were this mythical Xu you talk about, I wouldn’t be too worried about your catching me, any more than you could catch a box of smoke.”
“Smoke—did Xu describe himself that way to you?” Savich said.
Cindy smiled broadly. “Oh, I don’t know any Xu. That’s only what I say—I mean, he is leading all of you around by your noses, isn’t he?”
Eve said, “Xu has managed to get away so far. But smoke? When we take him down we’ll ask him how he wants to style himself then.”
Clive said, “Yep, the guy sure made you look like incompetent morons. Oops, I guess I shouldn’t say that, should I? You might order up the waterboarding.”
Eve leaned forward. “You might as well know we wounded him”—Well, not quite
, but close enough—“we have his DNA, and when we match it we’ll know exactly who Xu is. You know the CIA will have his prints, even if Xu is a brand-new alias for him. As Agent Savich said, it’s only a matter of time.” And Eve sat back, crossed her arms over her chest, and continued, “The CIA is coming back soon to talk to you again.” She gave an elaborate shrug. “Waterboarding? I hear they don’t use that anymore, old hat now. The CIA has much better methods.
“You know they’ve got a lot of motivation to find out everything you know, since Mark Lindy’s project was highly classified. They won’t even tell us about it. Believe me, everybody wants to catch this guy before he leaves the country. So Agent Savich and I have been talking with the U.S. attorney, and he’s willing to make you an offer if you tell us what you know.”
The Cahills were silent again, but there was something in the air between them. Fear? Of Xu getting to them?
Savich picked it up. “Suppose for a moment you get out by some quirk, even on bail. Xu would have every reason to kill you.”
Eve shrugged. “Of course, if you wait until the CIA gets here, they could bollix everything up. Or Xu could be captured or killed. Either way, we wouldn’t have anything to offer you then.”
Cindy Cahill yawned. Her wrist chains rattled as she raised her hand to pat her mouth. She froze. Too bad the rattling chains always ruined a good performance.
Cindy said, “Agent Savich, we don’t have any idea what you’re both talking about. We’re United States citizens, and we haven’t been convicted of anything. You can’t think we believe the CIA is going to haul us off to Guantánamo Bay?”
“And we didn’t steal anything,” Clive said, his voice parroting Cindy’s tone, as convincing as his lawyer’s. “Cindy and I have maintained our innocence throughout this debacle. We know nothing of this Xu or O’Rourke’s murder or the two attempts on Judge Hunt’s life. We don’t know anything at all. We’re in jail. Get over it.”
“I’m getting bored, Clive, honey,” Cindy said.
“Me, too, sweetie,” Clive said, “but, hey, at least we get to see each other.”
Eve knew they weren’t getting anywhere fast. It was time to get down and dirty. She said, “Surely you two are smart enough to realize you could be convicted on half the evidence the prosecutors have. You are both going down, and that means all the way down to a lethal injection.”
Clive smiled at her. “I thought you said the CIA was going to haul us away, never to be seen again?”
Eve turned to Cindy. “Tell me, Cindy, do you have any idea what you’re going to look like in five years? Ten years? In fifteen years, right before you get the needle in your arm?
“Let me tell you what I’ve seen. You’ll probably exercise for another year to keep your body in shape, but you’ll be fighting a losing battle. They feed you lots of carbs and fat, and you’ll gain weight because there’s not much else to do in prison but eat. After a while, you’ll stop exercising, I mean, why keep it up? Who is there to admire you? A bunch of women who could view you as too pretty and hate your guts and hurt you?
“Your skin turns pasty in jail because there isn’t much sun available to you, and no good beauty creams. In five years, you’ll be a fat slob and anyone you know now who sees you will hardly recognize you. Clive will, and because he might still care about you, in theory, he’ll try not to gag.
“When they finally put that needle in your arm, you’ll be a ruin, and they’ll be putting you out of your misery. You’ll end up only a name and a carcass to be disposed of.”
Eve kept quiet and waited. They were crude threats, but they were all she had left. She listened to Cindy Cahill’s pumped-up breathing, watched the appalling comprehension in her eyes before she managed to smooth it away. But Cindy couldn’t veil the rage that followed. It beamed out of her eyes like a flashing beacon. She said, “I hope Xu cuts your face up before he kills you, bitch.”
“That’s not going to happen, so listen up. Tell us about Xu and what he has, and you won’t have to worry about him, or about dying in here.”
There was a heavy lump of silence, while the two of them looked at each other. Clive gave Cindy a small shake of his head.
Eve felt Dillon’s hand pat her knee. He said, “You know what I admire about you, Clive? You’re a real gamer. You know how to spot the perfect mark; you know how to manipulate your mark into doing exactly what you want. You picked out Cindy, didn’t you, because you knew you could mold her to be exactly what you needed?”
Clive said, “Then I’m smart enough to know when I’m being gamed, right, Agent?”
“Sure you are. There’ll be lots of games in prison, Clive, but you won’t win many of them; you won’t even get to play because you’ll be the game. The inmates will recognize you fast enough as a GQ sort of guy who’s used to the good life and sees them as a bunch of low-life yahoos. Believe me, they’ll detest you on sight. They’ll make you very sorry you look good, Clive.
“The chances are they’ll make you their bonus buddy, at least for a while, as long as you’re looking good. After that, it depends on how bored and sadistic they are.”
Eve heard the tension in Clive’s voice. “Come on, that sort of thing doesn’t happen anymore. I’ve been here eight months. No problems like that. Sure, there are disagreements among the inmates, but nothing violent, nothing sexual.”
Savich shook his head at Clive. “This is local lockup, Clive, not a big bad federal prison where you’re headed. Did Milo Siles try to convince you that if you’re found guilty, you’d be headed to one of the federal country clubs for B felons? If he did, he lied.
“No, you’re going to a place designed for people like you—violent felons and cold-blooded murderers, there to mark time on death row.
“You’re a thinking man, Clive, I told you I admire that. But you’re not a tough guy. You won’t be able to protect yourself. And you won’t have any money to buy yourself out of bad situations.
“Actually, I doubt you’ll even last to the end of all your appeals unless they put you in solitary. At least you wouldn’t get a hunk of soap pushed down your throat in solitary. On the other hand, who wants to spend the rest of his life in a concrete box by himself?”
The only sound in the small room was the hitch in Clive’s breath.
Clive cleared his throat. “What sort of deal are you offering?”
Cindy hissed at him, but Clive didn’t look at her.
Savich said, “The death penalty’s off the table. You’ll get twenty-five years, but it will be in a kind of prison you can look forward to walking out of instead of being carried out in a green body bag.”
Clive looked at Cindy, but her eyes remained on Savich’s face. “This is bull, Clive. Don’t listen to them, they’re playing us.” She said to Eve now, venom pulsing in her voice, “When I get out, I’m going to kill you if it’s the last thing I do.”
Eve’s eyebrow shot up. “What did I do to you? I’ve told you the truth, nothing more, nothing less.” Eve sat back, touched her fingers to her ponytail. “Do you hate me because I look healthy and clean, and my breath is fresh and I can drink Starbucks coffee every morning if I want to?
“Get off your high horse, Cindy, I’m not the one here who murdered Mark Lindy. Tell us the truth, and you might survive to see the light of day outside of a prison.”
Savich watched Clive lean again toward his wife, but at the bang on the door window, he pulled back. He licked his lips. They were dry and peeling. Not that handsome now, are you, Clive?
Cindy Cahill rose to her feet, her chains rattling. “I know twenty-five years is way too long. You bring the prison time down with the possibility of parole and we’ll think about it. Clive, keep your mouth shut.”
He nodded at his wife, but Eve saw him swallow convulsively. Good. He was scared, as well he should be.
So was Cindy; she was simply a better actress. Eve wondered if Dillon could get the federal prosecutor down even more. She was of two minds on what should
happen to these two violent, greedy people, but protecting Ramsey trumped everything else.
Savich watched the guards walk them out. He doubted either of them would be speaking to Milo Siles about the offer.
Saint Francis Wood
San Francisco
Monday afternoon
Emma hovered around the three big men as they tenderly eased her prized ebony Steinway out of the moving van, positioned it onto the big roller board they used for pianos, and carefully pushed it from the driveway onto the side flagstone walkway.
The drizzling rain had stopped for a while, which was a relief, since Molly knew Emma would have tried to plaster herself on top of the waterproof tarp over her piano to make sure it stayed dry.
As for Molly, she was relieved to see the pinched look gone from Emma’s face. When Emma had come into the principal’s office at her school on Lake Street, her face had been frozen with fear until she’d seen Molly standing there, smiling. Still, Molly had said immediately, “Your dad’s okay, Emma.” She’d pulled her shaking daughter against her and said again, “He’s fine, I promise you. Now, I’ve decided it’s best for us to leave our home for a little while. We’re going to stay in a lovely house in Saint Francis Wood. Remember, we’ve driven through the neighborhood and admired all the older houses, and the big yards, just like ours?”
Emma raised her face. “They’re afraid the man is going to try to kill us, aren’t they?”
So much for sugarcoating the truth. “Everyone wants to make sure we’ll be safe. That’s all there is to it.”
Emma said with great patience, “Mom, I’m nearly twelve. Tell me what’s happened.”
Molly nearly lost it then, but she wasn’t about to tell her daughter about the message the man had left on the machine. “Nothing happened. I only want all of us to be safe.”
“You trust me to take good care of the boys, but you won’t tell me the truth? So I’ll know what’s going on? So if something happens I won’t be surprised?”
Backfire fst-16 Page 17
