EIGHTEEN
How had Rick Finch expected it to go, his surrendering to Special Agent Amy Branch?
He’d guessed it was going to be neither easy nor pleasant. Amy Branch clearly bore an animus toward him. An animus he’d given shape to in his lazy, feckless way, as stemming from some kind of frustrated sexual desire. Finch, when confronted with female antagonism, always reached for this easy solution: I’m just too damned cute and you want to get into my pants and you know you can’t so you’re being a bitch and throwing a hissy fit.
So, he had completely misread Amy Branch, and reduced the level of her threat to something vaguely sit-commy. She would rant at him and hector him and maybe even threaten him and he would stay stoic and shrug and shuffle his feet and then she would pause for breath and shake her head adorably and relent. This little tempest would be way preferable to finding himself unprotected and in the clutches of the maniac who had wasted Mulder and Scully and put lead in his shoulder.
The first glimmer that he may have misread the situation was when the Dodge didn’t take them to some brutalist building in the city, reassuringly populated by cookie-cutter FBI agents. Rather they drove deep into the Valley and crossed the invisible border into the Inland Empire.
The car passed through a rash of tract houses, strip malls and business parks and turned into a road leading to a blank, shuttered warehouse surrounded by a moat-like parking lot. The lot was empty but for a dented Ford sedan and a gray Chevy cargo van parked beneath a towering pole from which four coral lights dangled like oranges.
“Where are we, Amy?” Finch said.
“We’re where it all starts, Rick.”
“Where what starts?”
“The new narrative.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
The Dodge slowed and came to a stop behind the doors of the van.
“You’re the story guy, aren’t you, Rick?” Special Agent Amy Branch asked.
“Well…”
“Always ready with a yarn?” A creeping dread robbed him of words and he merely looked at her. She smiled. “I think you’ll appreciate this one. It’s a winner.”
The door opened and the guy in the suit stood staring down at Finch. A shabby-looking character with a ponytail left the old Ford and swung wide the rear doors of the van, the headlights of the Dodge throwing his shadow into the interior.
“Get into the van, Rick,” Amy Branch said.
“I don’t think so.”
The fed reached down and tasered him and Finch felt the stings of a thousand jellyfish. He lost control of his motor nerves and the agent hoisted him in a fireman’s lift and carried him across to the van.
He dumped him inside on the rubber floor, and Ponytail grabbed his arm and jabbed a needle into it and Finch’s head exploded into a million fragments of searing white light.
NINETEEN
Ann Town, driving her kidnapper’s car along the 101 South, sneaked a look at her husband seated beside her, his face lit briefly by one of the sodium lamps that hovered overhead.
“Who was he? That man?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“How did he link me to you?”
“I don’t know that either.”
“And you don’t know who he works for?”
“Not exactly, no.”
Ann gripped the wheel and tried to calm herself, still shocked by both the violence that had been directed at her and the violence she had found within herself.
They had left the unknown, unconscious man in the motel room and she’d taken Pete to a nearby alley where the rental Hyundai was parked, her Leica lying on the back seat. Before they’d driven away, Pete had removed the SIM card from her iPhone and torched it, and when they’d reached the 101 he’d frisbeed the phone out the window.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“We go to the diner on Sunset.”
“And then?”
“We’ll be met by some people and we’ll lie low.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know yet.”
A semi thundered past, buffeting them. “Who are these people?”
“Associates of a man I trust.”
“More, Pete.”
“Not now.”
She let the residue of terror that still washed her blood ignite her anger like a brushfire and said, “Jesus, Pete, I was almost offed by Freddy fucking Krueger and you’re going all need to know on me?”
He laughed—the last response she’d expected—and for a split second that enraged her even more and then she laughed too and she felt tears well up in her eyes and roll down her cheeks and she wanted nothing more than to stop the car and let Pete hold her, but she blinked and drove on.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes. No. I will be.”
A pause and then he said, “When I was with the Agency I sometimes had dealings with the covert paramilitary operations unit. Special Activities Division.”
“SAD. Their acronym really is SAD?” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve in the absence of a Kleenex.
“Yes.”
“Jesus.”
“I know.” He waved a hand. “Anyway, they do work that the regular military can’t do. You can imagine.”
“I don’t know that I want to.”
“There was an incident in Afghanistan, not long before the bomb. The station chief was inexperienced. She sent these guys in to neutralize a target—”
“Pete, this is me for God’s sake.”
“Okay, they went in to assassinate a Taliban leader. They were set up. Three were killed, one was captured. The station chief denied all knowledge. The captured guy was hung out to dry.”
“So much for ‘no man left behind’.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I was able to help him. Get him released.”
“How?”
“There was something the Taliban wanted more than they wanted him. I was able to give it to them.”
“What?”
He sighed. “Annie.”
She almost had to admire him. “Okay. You got him released. And, what, he owes you a debt unto death?”
“He thinks so.”
“So he just happens to be in L.A.? Ready to get your ass out of a sling?”
“I don’t know where he is. Most likely offshore. In Afghanistan he made me memorize a number. Said that I could reach him anywhere, anytime.”
“This is so Mission Impossible.”
“I never expected to use the number.”
“But you did?”
“Yes, I did. Back in the motel room. And he’s sending these people to help us.”
“Boo fucking yah.”
“It’s Ooh-Rah. And that’s the Marines.”
“Fuck you Pete.”
“I can understand you’re upset,” he said.
“Really?”
“And I’m sorry. But just what in the hell are you doing in L.A.?”
“I’m meant to be shooting a portrait of Sam Collier,” Ann said.
“You are?”
“Yes, for Esquire.”
“So mere chance that you appear now?”
She heard the disbelief in his voice.
“Well, I’d hoped you’d contact me and that I could see you.” She should have pressed on, spoken about Arkady Andropov, but instead she retreated and said, “Did you do what you came here to do?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes.” They drove awhile in silence and then he said, “I found a young woman to impersonate Catherine Finch on camera. She was remarkably convincing. The next day or so will tell us just how convincing.”
“Do you think it’ll do any good?”
“I don’t know, Ann. I can’t see it reviving a peace process that was doomed anyway.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I was ready to shut it all down and wal
k away.”
“And?”
“And my mind was changed by a jolt of youthful idealism.”
“The girl?”
“Yes, the girl. She admired Catherine Finch. Identified with her, I suppose.”
“Many did.”
“I think she saw the video as a sharp stick in the eye of the people who killed Finch.”
“Who are they?”
“Profiteers. Warmongers. The corporate interests that we go abroad to slay monsters for.”
“And now you’re the one who has been disavowed, aren’t you? The people who drew you in have left you stranded?”
“What gives you that idea?”
This was her chance to talk about Arkady, but her courage deserted her again and she said, “I know you, Pete. I saw you in that motel room with that shotgun. That’s not you. You’re not the muscle.”
“No, I’m an old man. And a stupid one.”
“Not stupid. Misguided, maybe.”
“I think stupid serves.”
She said nothing and watched the road unspool beneath the headlights.
- - -
Ann sat a table at Mel’s Diner as Pete disappeared into the washroom. Her eyes found the TV and she let herself be distracted by the news coverage of an Egyptian plane crash until she saw a coffee cup being placed before her.
“Thanks,” she said and the waiter left.
Pete returned and sat opposite her. He looked exhausted, dark circles beneath his eyes and a blankness to his gaze that spoke of sleep kept at bay for too long.
Before Ann stopped to think she heard herself say, “I went to MoMA yesterday. To see the Motherwell retrospective.”
He looked at vacantly. “How was it?”
“I saw Arkady Andropov.”
Pete took it well, the years of training allowing him only the slightest check as he lifted the cup to his lip. He drank and swallowed and looked at her without expression.
“You know who Arkady Andropov is?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “I know who Arkady Andropov is.”
“He had a message for you.”
“Did he now?”
“It was at his behest that I came out here. The Sam Collier thing was just a convenient cover.”
“Okay.”
“He told me you’d been left stranded. He told me that he could help you. That I should convince you to accept his help.”
“I see.”
She tried a sip of coffee and it tasted as bitter as Lysol and she pushed it away. “You know about me and Arkady?”
“Yes.”
“You know what I did for him?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve always known?”
“Yes, Ann, I’ve always known.” He looked at her without expression. “Do you think it was a coincidence that I was seated beside you on that flight from Frankfurt?”
“It wasn’t a coincidence?”
“No, it was not.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
“You tell me, Pete.”
“I wanted to develop you as an asset.”
“What possible value did I have?”
“You found yourself in certain places with certain people. At critical moments.”
“You sound like Arkady.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. Yes, you do.”
“Well, I can only assume that what he once saw in you was similar to what I once did.”
She stared at him. “And the invitation to quit the plane and join you in your little road movie?”
“Happenstance. Maximizing a situation.”
“Then why did you never make any overtures?”
He smiled at her and put his finger on her ring, the twin of the one he wore. The first time he had touched her since that brief moment when he’d stopped her from killing the man in the room.
“I thought I did make overtures,” he said.
“But you didn’t recruit me.”
“No, I didn’t recruit you.”
“Why not?”
“Because my interest in you transcended the professional.”
She shook her head. “And you never thought to tell me that you knew?”
“Well, you never thought to tell me about what you had done back in the day.”
She produced a small, bitter smile. “I suppose this is where I say touché?”
He lifted one shoulder. “Only if you want to.”
“Touché, Pete. Touché.”
He raised his cup in mock salute and drank. “For the record, I have no regrets.”
“Well, that’s sweet of you to say.”
“It’s the truth.”
“And we all know that you have a way with the truth.”
“Annie.”
“Did they know? Your bosses?”
“About you?”
“Yes, about me,” Ann said.
“No.”
“They never found out?”
“No, they never found out.”
“But you put your career at risk. By marrying me.”
He shrugged and his eyes were drawn to the TV for a moment, and then he looked back at her. “I love you, Annie. It was worth the risk.”
“So if they didn’t know, your masters at Langley, how did you find out about me? Why were you on that plane that day?”
Pete looked at her and she knew him well enough to see his mind at work, and he was about to speak when his eyes darted from hers to the TV, and he rose, pushing his chair away from the table, saying, “Sweet mother of God.”
- - -
Town threaded his way through the tables until he was directly under the wall-mounted screen. The logo LIVE SKY 5, BREAKING NEWS was superimposed over a gray van filmed from a helicopter as it barreled along a four-lane road, the vehicle held in the disc of the chopper’s spotlight, police cruisers in its wake.
It was the caption—RICHARD FINCH PURSUED BY POLICE IN SAN FERNANDO VALLEY—that had drawn Town in, and as he got closer he heard the voices of the anchors, a male-female duo, as they said that “the husband of Islamic State hostage Catherine Finch” was evading the police in a “desperate high-speed chase, running red lights, side-swiping vehicles.”
The van fishtailed into a right turn, the back swaying like a wagging dog, and then correcting. But the turn had cost the driver speed and the closest patrol car swooped in and performed the pit maneuver—“Oh my gosh, he’s pitting him!” the anchors yelled in unison—using its bull bars to nudge the van on its right rear which caused it to wallow and skid. It presented its flank to the cop car that surged forward and T-boned it near the driver’s door sending it spinning so that it faced the way it had come, the cruiser pinning it against the center divider, bringing it to a halt.
Cops were swarming from their vehicles like grease ants, weapons drawn. The door of the van flew open and Richard Finch rose into the spotlight, wearing a suicide bomber's vest, injured arm free of its sling. He brandished something in his right hand as he ran toward the cops who fired at him, the commentators jabbering hysterically.
The bullets spun him but he didn’t fall. He stood, arms dangling at his side, for an impossibly long moment before he toppled forward, flat on his face.
Town closed his eyes.
Ann was beside him and she took his arm saying, “Come, Pete, come. There’s a car outside.”
Town turned and looked across the busy diner toward the parking lot. He saw a car flash its headlights and he allowed his wife to lead him toward the doorway, as if he were aged and infirm.
PART FOUR
ONE
Men. Low, gruff voices. Shouted orders. Boots on soil. A door kicked open. A woman’s scream strangled in her throat. Boots drumming on the rammed earth floor. The unmistakable clank of weapons against body armor. Another door, closer, smashing open and the voices louder, shouting in a language she did not know.
Barely conscious, she kept her eyes squeezed shut, knowing that these men
were not real, were products of her delirium.
A boot struck her broken ribs.
A hand smacked her face.
Shouts. Curses.
Water, freezing, soaked her, causing her to splutter and her good eye—involuntarily—to open and she saw through the drops and the fever, men, four or five, around her. Shadowy faces and beards and yellow eyes. The stink of sweat and gun oil.
A gloved hand coming in close. Flinching from the blow that didn’t come. An explosion of light, blinding her.
A hand grabbing at her hair and lifting her face from the floor, the agony of her shattered jaw. Something pressed to her chest. A smell. A childhood smell. A morning smell. Newsprint. Her father at the kitchen table, reading the Kansan. Bacon and toast. Coffee.
More flashes of light.
A knife blade coming at her to cut her throat like a sheep to the slaughter, but passing her eye, a silver flash, and she felt her hair pulled and a tug and the blade scraping her skull. Then the hand was moving away, clutching a hank of her hair and the boots were leaving and the doors slamming.
The creak of suspension and the churn of an engine and the smell of diesel fuel as an invisible exhaust belched and the sound of the vehicle rattling and droning away and then just her breath and the stench of her rotting leg.
TWO
A bus bomb in Jerusalem killed thirteen people and the peace process.
CNN told Kirby Chance this as she fell asleep on her sofa around 3:00 AM, the images of torn bodies and mangled steel almost a relief after the endless repetition of the Richard Finch chase and shooting.
When she’d returned home from the dreamlike day at the motel she’d intended to brush her teeth and wash away the last of the make-up she’d used to impersonate Catherine Finch. To strip off her stale clothes and take a shower and put on her PJs and go to bed, but she had done none of this.
She had been arrested by the footage of Richard Finch’s death, and she’d sat and stared at the tube, the remote glued to her hand, clicking manically between channels. Hours passing in a fog as she’d watched Finch jump from the van and run at the policemen and get shot and fall again and again and again until his death had lost all meaning.
Double Down Page 18
