At the far end of the table, peering at me curiously, was David Schechter. He was wearing a bright yellow V-neck sweater and gave me an owlish look behind his round horn-rimmed glasses. I half expected him to start speaking in the voice of Dr. Evil, pinkie extended, demanding one million dollars for my release.
But I spoke first. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve called you here today.”
Schechter gave what was apparently his rendition of a smile. The corners of his nearly lipless mouth turned down into a perfect inverted arch, like a frog’s, tugged downward by dozens of vertical wrinkles. It looked like smiling was hard work for him and something he rarely practiced.
“Did you know,” he said, “that breaking and entering at night with intent to commit felony can land you in prison for twenty years?”
“I knew I should have gone to law school.”
“And that doing so with an unregistered dangerous weapon can get you life behind bars? There’s not a judge in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts who wouldn’t give you at least ten years. Oh, and there’s the matter of your private investigator’s license. That’s as good as revoked.”
“I assume the police are on the way.”
“I see no reason why we can’t settle this man to man without the police.”
I couldn’t help but smile. He wasn’t going to call the police. “I find it hard to think clearly when I’m losing circulation in my lower extremities.”
A slight motion in my peripheral vision. Skulking on either side of me were a couple of wide-bodied thugs. Security guards, probably. Or bodyguards. Each held a Glock at his side. One of them was blond with no neck and a vacant face with a steroid-ravaged complexion.
The other one I recognized.
He had a black crew cut and a muscle-bound physique even more extreme than the blond guy’s. It was one of the two men who’d broken into my loft. Over his left eye just below the brow was a thin white bandage. A much bigger one was plastered next to his left ear. I remembered throwing an electric shaver into his face and drawing blood.
Schechter looked at me for a few seconds, blinked slowly like an old iguana, and nodded. “Cut the man free.”
Mongo threw his employer a look of protest but fished a yellow-handled strap cutter from a pocket of his ambush jacket. He approached me cautiously like he was a bomb disposal expert, I was an armed nuclear weapon, and he was about ten seconds too late.
Silently, sullenly, he jabbed his cutters at the nylon loop that held my wrist to the chair’s right arm, while his moon-faced colleague fixed me with a beady vacant stare, his pistol leveled.
As Mongo worked, he leaned close and muttered under his breath, through clenched teeth, “How’s George Devlin doing?”
I stayed very still.
He took his time. He was enjoying the chance to taunt me. Almost inaudibly, he went on, “I caught a glimpse of Scarface on one of our surveillance cams. Broke the lens.”
He gave me a furtive smile, met my cold stare.
“Gotta be tough looking like a monster.” He snipped the other loop, freeing my hands from the arms of the chair but still leaving them cuffed together. “One day every girl you meet wants to get into your pants, next day you couldn’t pay a skank to get near y-”
With one quick upward thrust I slammed my fists under his chin, shutting his jaw so violently I could hear his molars crack. Then, as he reeled, I smashed down on the bridge of his nose. There wasn’t much room to maneuver, but I put a lot of force into it.
Something snapped loudly. The gout of blood from his nostrils indicated I’d probably broken his nose. He roared in pain and rage.
Schechter rose from his chair and said something quick and sharp to the other guard, who racked the slide on his pistol to chamber a round. Bad form. His weapon should have been loaded already.
“Heller, for God’s sake,” Schechter said, exasperated.
Mongo reared back and took a wild swing at me, which I easily dodged. When Schechter shouted, “That’s enough, Garrett,” he stopped short like a well-trained Doberman.
“Now, please finish cutting him loose,” Schechter said. “And keep your mouth shut while you’re doing it.”
Garrett, or Mongo, as I preferred to think of him, snipped the remaining cuffs, his eyes boring holes into mine. Twin rivulets of blood trickled down the lower half of his face. When he was done, he wiped the blood off with his sleeve.
“Much better,” I said to Schechter. “Now, if we’re going to have a candid conversation, please tell these two amateur muscleheads to leave.”
Schechter nodded. “Semashko, Garrett, please.”
The guards looked at him.
“You can stand right outside. There won’t be a problem, I’m sure. Mr. Heller and I need to speak privately.”
On his way out, Mongo brandished his pistol at me threateningly as he once again wiped his bloody nose with his sleeve.
When the door closed, Schechter said, “Now, was there something you wanted to find out?”
“Yes,” I said. “Does Marshall Marcus know you arranged the kidnapping of his daughter?”
71.
He expelled a puff of air, a scoff. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Given your association with both Marcus and Senator Armstrong-the father of the kidnapped girl and the father of a girl who assisted in that kidnapping-don’t try to pretend it’s a coincidence.”
“Did it ever occur to you that we’re all on the same side?”
“When you ordered me to stay away from the senator and his daughter, and when you announced that my services were no longer needed, it kinda made me wonder. Me, I’m on the side that wants to get Alexa Marcus released.”
“And you think I don’t?”
I shrugged.
“Look at it statistically,” he said. “What are the odds, truly, of Alexa coming home alive? She’s as good as dead, and I think Marshall already understands this.”
“I’d say you tilted the odds against her considerably by refusing to let Marcus hand over the Mercury files.”
Schechter went silent.
“Are they really worth two lives?” I said.
“You have no idea.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me.”
“They are worth far, far more. They are worth the lives of the one million Americans who have died defending our country. But I think you already know that. Isn’t that why you had to leave the Defense Department?”
“I left because of a disagreement.”
“A disagreement with General Hood, your boss.”
I nodded.
“Because you refused to call a halt to an investigation that you were explicitly ordered to drop. An investigation that would have warned off certain parties who were unaware they were targets of the greatest corruption probe in history.”
“Is that right,” I said sardonically. “Funny no one said anything about that back then.”
“No one could. Not then. But now we have to trust your discretion and your judgment and your patriotism. And I know we can.”
“You know nothing about me,” I said.
“I know plenty about you. I know all about your remarkable record of service to this country. Not just on the battlefield, but the clandestine work you did for DOD. General Hood says you were probably the brightest, and certainly the most fearless, operative he ever had the good fortune to work with.”
“I’m flattered,” I said sourly. “And what got you so interested in my military record?”
He folded his arms, leaned forward, and said heatedly, “Because if you had been in charge of Marshall’s security, this would never have happened.”
“There’s no guarantee of that.”
“You know damned well I’m right. You are an extraordinary talent. Yes, of course I have your file. Yes, of course I’ve checked you out.”