BAD DEEDS: A Dylan Hunter Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers)

by Robert Bidinotto

  “Damn it, Dylan! You said they wouldn’t go after you, because you were too famous.”

  “Clearly, I need to fire my publicist.”

  “Stop it! Look what they did to you.”

  “You oughta see the other guys.”

  She stalked off into the den.

  The cat looked after her, then back at him.

  “Well, I thought it was funny.”

  They rose early on Saturday morning for the flight to Adam Silva’s funeral. He drove them out to the Bay Bridge Airport on Kent Island, where he kept his Cessna 400. It was the first time she had seen it or flown with him, so he could tell that she was a little nervous when she buckled in. But in a few moments, after he made the loop north, he saw her unclench her hands and relax.

  “You fly well,” she said. “And this is a gorgeous little plane.”

  “Thanks. It’s the fastest single-prop on the market.”

  “You haven’t radioed any towers yet.”

  “I don’t have to. The airport here doesn’t have one, and it’s just far enough out from D.C. that I can stay on Visual Flight Rules. That means I don’t have to file a flight plan or call any towers—not if I don’t climb above 3500 feet for a while.” He nudged the outboard side stick a little to compensate for a bit of turbulence. “But we don’t have to stay down here forever. Once we get farther north, I’ll be able to climb to just below 18,000 and push it to about 220 knots. That should get us to Tidioute in about an hour.”

  “How convenient to live near an airport so close to D.C., but where you can come and go without having to file a flight plan. I suppose you considered that when you bought the house out here?”

  “Remember what you said about Wonk’s apartment over the doughnut shop? ‘Location, location, location.’”

  Smooth engine noise filled the comfortable breaks in their conversation. Conversation had not been so comfortable the evening before. It took a long time and two large glasses of Syrah to calm her. He didn’t bring up that he had anticipated, and could have avoided, the confrontation in the garage. Not only would that have infuriated her; in retrospect, his actions were too embarrassing to mention. It was grossly unprofessional to walk into a trap like that, let alone unarmed. It easily could have turned into a disaster—and almost did.

  Instead, he reassured her that the failed assault had probably discouraged his enemies and scared them off. He didn’t believe that, though, and vowed to himself that he would never again take such stupid, impulsive actions. He had let anger overwhelm reason, something he never did in the field. Against superior forces, a lone operator’s only advantages lay in asymmetrical tactics: staying on the offensive, careful planning, using stealth, surprise, and technology as force-multipliers, and—above all—maintaining icy mental control during ops.

  Fifty-five minutes later he put the plane down on a private paved landing strip just west of the small town of Tidioute. He explained to Annie that, for an annual fee, he had arranged with its owner several years earlier to use the strip for visits to his cabin, and also to leave a locally purchased Subaru Forester on the airfield lot.

  “It gives me travel flexibility, especially when I don’t need to transport Luna or supplies up here.”

  “And an emergency escape option, I suppose,” she said as she unbuckled herself.

  “There’s that.”

  This time, though, he didn’t have to use his car. Dan Adair, who didn’t live far away, had offered to meet them and drive over to Warren. He stood waiting outside his Nissan pickup while Hunter swung around the Cessna next to the field’s small hangar.

  Annie was shocked at the change in Adair’s appearance. In little over two weeks, he looked as if he had added five years and lost ten pounds.

  “Sorry Nan couldn’t join us,” he said to her over his shoulder as she settled into the rear seat. “She was looking forward to seeing you again. But it’s Will’s twenty-second birthday today, and she has a party planned for the afternoon. He had a hissy fit when he thought Adam’s funeral might interrupt it.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  “You couldn’t. Not really.” In the mirror his eyes looked dull. “It’s complicated. Will was Nan’s only child with her late husband. He was thirteen when his dad died. He took it hard. And he didn’t like it much when his mother remarried. Especially to somebody like me.”

  “Like you?” Annie prompted.

  He eased the truck out of the lot and onto the road.

  “See, Will’s dad was a college professor. Sociology. About as different from me as anyone can be, from what Nan tells me. And as Will loves to remind me.” His voice held a tinge of bitterness.

  “Then why is he willing to work for you?” Dylan asked.

  “Beats me,” Adair said. “It’s certainly not the kind of work I would’ve expected he would want to do. He went to school at the same place his dad taught—University of Massachusetts in Amherst. He majored in—what the hell was it?—oh yeah, ‘Social Thought and Political Economy.’ I had to write it down once, just to remember. And after school last year, he just seemed … I don’t know. Rootless. I offered him a job till he could sort things out. At first he just sneered at me. Which pissed me off. But then a few months later he came back to me, all apologetic, and asked if the offer was still open.” Adair sighed. “So you see how it is. How could I refuse a job to my wife’s kid?”

  “I see how it is,” Dylan said.

  They exchanged few more words during the somber twenty-minute drive along the Allegheny River to Warren. It was ten-thirty when Adair pulled into the lot of a large Methodist church.

  Inside, family members and friends milled at the rear of the sanctuary prior to the funeral service. Annie held Dylan’s arm as they followed Adair in the queue leading to a blonde woman in black; two teenagers stood on either side. She recalled their names: Sharon. Martin. Naomi.

  When Dan Adair reached them, she noticed that his shoulders were trembling.

  “Mrs. Silva,” he began. “I’m … Dan Adair …” He stopped. Swallowed. The trembling became shaking. “I …” His next words were a whispered sob. “I am so sorry.”

  Sharon Silva’s vacant, reddened eyes offered no response. Her cheeks were hollow pits, and the black dress she wore seemed a size too large. She only nodded, not releasing the hands of her two children. Annie realized that she was probably sedated. Martin, whose forehead bore a long scratch, was struggling to hold back tears, while Naomi wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.

  Dylan rested his free hand on Adair’s shoulder. The man took a shaky breath and moved on.

  Then they were face to face with the family.

  “Mrs. Silva, I’m Dylan Hunter, and this is my fiancée, Ann Woods. We met your husband a few weeks ago, for a newspaper story I’m working on. We came to express—”

  She blinked. “You’re the reporter he talked about.”

  “Yes.”

  “The one investigating this.”

  “That’s right.”

  Something awakened in her eyes. She released her son’s hand and seized Dylan’s.

  “Find out who did this!” she hissed between clenched teeth.

  He nodded slowly. “I will.”

  Her eyes began to fill. She looked at each of her children, then back at him.

  “They have to pay.”

  He raised her hand. Pressed it to his chest.

  “They will.”

  They remained through the service, then the luncheon reception that followed in the fellowship hall. Church members brought an abundance of home-cooked comfort food and desserts, served on paper plates with plastic utensils. Everyone tried to be cheery and friendly. At most funerals, that helped.

  Adair sat on Dylan’s far side, away from Annie, at a long folding table, chatting with him quietly. She gave the men their space. She knew Dylan was trying to reassure him, restore his confidence. She picked at her salad, drank a few sips of lukewarm coffee with powdered creamer that floated o
n the top. It tasted like it looked.

  After a while, Adair drove them back to the airstrip, where they said their goodbyes.

  “Be strong, Dan,” she said, hugging him.

  He nodded. It seemed only out of courtesy.

  Once airborne, she expected him to speak first. He didn’t.

  “Dylan?”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t like the way you look right now.”

  “How do I look?”

  “Like you did in the diner. Before the fight.”

  He remained silent, eyes on the distant horizon.

  “What do you plan to do now?”

  His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Let’s operate on the basis of ‘Don’t ask—don’t tell.’”

  “Please. For me. For us. Don’t cross the line again.”

  “I didn’t cross it. They did. They think they’re untouchable. They expect everyone to obey laws—except themselves. And they’re right. They’re getting away with it. That’s not supposed to be our system. We’re supposed to be a government of laws, not of men. But these days, those kind of men are the law.”

  “I know. But—”

  “No ‘buts.’ Tell me: What are ordinary folks supposed to do when the people who make the laws, who enforce the laws, who interpret the laws, become outright criminals—stealing from them, pushing them around, even murdering them? And when they have enough power to bury all evidence of their crimes? Just what are people like Dan Adair and Adam Silva’s widow supposed to do when they’re up against the likes of Sloan and Trammel and Boggs?”

  “I don’t know! I don’t. But how is Dylan Hunter single-handedly going to stop them? All of them?”

  He said nothing.

  “Answer me: What are you going to do? Dylan, I have a right to know!”

  “Yes. You do.”

  He set the autopilot, then shifted to face her.

  “You need to know this: Boggs sent a threatening message against me to the newspaper. And Sloan was behind the attack on me in the garage. I don’t know whether they’re working together or not, or who else may be involved; but I think there are a lot of them, and now they’ve escalated to violence. What they did to Adam shows just how far they’re willing to go.

  “So for my own safety’s sake, Dylan Hunter is going to have to lie low for a while. And for your sake, you’ll have to stay away from me for a while—and we have to postpone any mentions or public announcements about our engagement. Until I can find out who is responsible—and stop them.”

  “Stop them?” The expression on his face scared her. “Dylan, please don’t do what I think you’re going to do. I’ve already warned you about how I’ll react.”

  Through the windscreen the bright sun above the cloud bank made his eyes glitter like chips of green ice.

  “I’ll do what I have to do. You’ll do what you have to do.”

  The words were like a slap in the face. It was so unlike him. They sat just two feet apart, but what was in his eyes—or perhaps absent from them—made that tiny space suddenly feel like a chasm.

  “Dylan … I don’t know whether I can take any more of this.”

  “Neither do I, Annie.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  “So why did you insist upon seeing me here again, Dylan?”

  Wonk settled back in his armchair. Three weeks had passed, and he had gotten over his cold. He wore a red short-sleeved shirt hanging over blue jeans. Either contained enough fabric to reupholster the sofa where Hunter sat.

  “Security. You’re sure your jammer is on?”

  That provoked a grimace.

  “Sorry I asked. As you know, Wonk, I’m after some very powerful, very dangerous people. People who have killed, and who won’t hesitate to do so again to cover their tracks or to stop anyone in their way. But I can’t get enough information to pursue this much farther … not legally. That’s why I need to ask you a big favor.”

  Wonk shifted in his chair, which moaned in protest. “What favor?”

  “I’m sure that their computers and cell phones contain damning communications that might break this whole thing wide open. And from what you mentioned last time, I inferred that you’ve either developed, or have access to, some hacking software.”

  “Now, Dylan, wait a minute—”

  “Hear me out, Wonk. I wouldn’t ask this unless it were life-and-death. Literally. I believe Dan Adair may be targeted next. I already have been. By Boggs and by others.”

  “Your face …”

  “They wanted to send me a message. Warn me off. I don’t think I’ll get a second warning.”

  Wonk blinked several times. He heaved a heavy arm from his lap, took off his eyeglasses, then began to polish them with the bottom edge of his shirt.

  “Dylan, I must tell you: I do not like this.”

  “I don’t, either.”

  “I mean, I do not like where this might take us.”

  “Wonk,” he said softly, “we’re already there.”

  He stopped polishing his glasses. Then nodded.

  “All right. What, specifically, do you need of me?”

  Hunter told him.

  “That poses no challenges at all. Please wait here.”

  Wonk put his glasses back on, and once again went through his labored ritual of rising from the chair. He stood teetering a few seconds, then shuffled around and wobbled down the hallway toward his office.

  Hunter had to look at his watch to remind himself what day this was. Thursday. Where the hell did the week go?

  He’d been working nonstop on planning his next moves since Annie left the house last Saturday night. She was too upset to stay through the weekend. They hadn’t seen each other or even spoken by phone since.

  Yesterday he had spoken to Adair. The man still sounded depressed, though he had managed to get the EPA’s Science Advisory Board to grant him a two-week emergency delay in the hearing.

  “Not that it’s going to do any good,” Adair said. “It would take at least six weeks, probably longer, for anyone else to come in and duplicate Adam’s work. And under the circumstances, who would want to?”

  “I’m still working on things, Dan. Just hang in there. And please watch yourself and your family—okay?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

  Hunter was examining a Vermeer print on the wall when Wonk reappeared ten minutes later. He waddled to his seat, collapsed into it, and held up a thumb drive.

  “This,” he said, panting, “contains exactly what you will need. Let me explain …”

  Jonathan Weaver looked up toward the light rapping sound on his open office door.

  “Come on in, Sally. What’s that you have?”

  His white-haired executive assistant, an EPA veteran, bore a dark box and a bright smile. “You are going to like this, sir. A gift.”

  She rested it carefully on his desk. It was a mailing carton, already opened and checked by building security. Paper tissue blossomed from the top.

  “What’s this?” He probed and parted the tissue, revealing the top of a small bronze bust. He lifted it out. “Would you look at that! That’s John Muir!” He raised his eyes to her. “Who is this from? I have to thank them.”

  “But look at the package. It’s been water-damaged. The ink on the return address label is all smeared. You can’t even read it. And there wasn’t a note inside, either … So you weren’t expecting this? Some award from a recent talk, maybe?”

  “No idea. None at all.”

  She shrugged and chuckled. “Well, then, you must have a secret admirer.”

  He laughed, too. “Well, don’t tell my wife. What a shame, though, that I can’t call or send a note. I hope the sender doesn’t get upset with me. Maybe I’ll hear from them soon, though.”

  “So what will you do with this? Take it home?”

  “Oh, no. It belongs here, don’t you think?” He lifted it in his hands. “I suppose I could stick it over there on the bookshelf. But it’s so nice-looking—and only
a few inches tall, even with this nice wooden base. Just the right size to be a paperweight. No, I’ll keep it right here on my desk.”

  He slid it over beside the phone and faced it outward, toward the visitor chair.

  “It’ll be a great conversation piece.”

  Becky Hill, the receptionist at Nature Legal Advocacy, tried to interpret the bewildering sheets of paperwork that the guy had just handed her. It was on official District Department of the Environment stationery, with lots of stamps and signatures.

  She looked up at him. He had dark sleepy eyes, longish blond hair, a scraggly goatee. His coveralls were smudged with dirt on the knees. He chewed gum with his mouth open. The plastic-covered contractor credentials pinned to his shirt read:

  DONOVAN KANE

  Environmental Mitigation Services

  “You say radon inspection, Mr. Kane?”

  He shook his head. “Passive monitoring. The new DDE regs. I was just down in your basement. It tested positive. So now I gotta install these digital radon detectors up here.” He shook the boxes in his arms, making the contents rattle. “Make sure there’s no infiltration. You don’t want bad elements comin’ in here.”

  She looked around. It was lunch hour and all the bosses were out. “I don’t know …”

  “Won’t take me long—half hour, tops. I’ll just stick these in a few spots, outta the way. Nobody will even notice where they are.” He glanced at his watch. “Gotta be across town at one.” He looked back at her.

  “Okay … all right.”

  Still chewing the gum ferociously, he gave her a smile and a wink, then sauntered off into the office area, whistling.

  Diane Baer looked at the clock on the wall. “But it is Friday after four, Mr.”—she squinted again at the plastic badge on his overalls—“Stone. There’s nobody here to help you.”

  “Hey, that’s okay,” the red-bearded man said with a grin. “I really don’t need anybody’s help to do what I have to do. Sorry about the time of day. I tried to get up here and see your boss last week, but my appointment was interrupted.”