“Don’t lecture me. I’m incredibly sorry your men were killed, but they aimed guns at me and helped Homeland take me from my house and deny me due process. That’s not exactly in the normal services your company provides on American soil.” He couldn’t keep the anger from his voice.
“My men must have been following Strategic Initiatives’ orders, not mine,” Hector said.
“Sam. You owe me.”
A long pause, no clicks. “All right. Strategic Initiatives is a very small and unpublicized group inside Homeland. You won’t see them listed on the agency Web site. They’re a think tank on how to slice through bureaucratic procedure and encourage teamwork between the agencies. They contracted with us for security services.”
“Why does a think tank need security?”
“Because they represent the cutting edge of counterterrorism thought. The bad guys would love to get their hands on any of the Strategic Initiatives people.”
“Who runs it?”
“Ben, for God’s sake, come to my house and we can talk.”
“No. I’ll meet you in a public place.”
He heard a solitary click on the other end of the line. “Now you sound paranoid.”
“Just tell me who runs Strategic Initiatives.” His frustration nearly made him yell.
“I can’t. I made a promise to be discreet. That is non-negotiable.”
“I’ll tell you what’s non-negotiable. How much money I’ve made you over the years. How many deals I’ve helped you win because you weren’t particularly good at compromise and negotiation and I was. How much I’ve contributed to your company’s success, and you won’t help me in my hour of need.”
“Ben. You’re hysterical. Just come to my house-”
Ben hung up. He calmed his breathing. The clicks. Sam kept that abacus collection in his home office. He often played with an abacus on his desk, fingering the worn wooden beads back and forth along the rods, when he talked on the phone, when he was bored or nervous.
That might have been the most important conversation he could ever have with Sam Hector and the man had been playing with an abacus. Like he was doodling on a pad.
He felt sick. Sam Hector, shying away from him. So much for loyalty. Every mooring of his life seemed undone. He drew a deep breath.
He remembered the phone number Vochek last called on her cell phone when Pilgrim went through the call log. Delia Moon, who’d left a message. She might be the woman who Reynolds had called four times, a partner, a confidante, someone who could be of help to Ben in clearing his name- saying, That’s not the Ben Forsberg that Adam Reynolds knew. Or who could tell him how Adam had found Pilgrim and the Cellar, and could help him find them again.
The library was not busy; a few retirees reading magazines, a few people surfing the Web. He saw his own face on the front page of the paper, held up as a man read the inside of the section. On the library’s reference shelves, he found a phone directory. He looked up her name. Not in Plano. He worked his way through the suburbs’ directories and found her address in Frisco. He consulted a map, sketched out directions, and headed back to his car.
Delia Moon’s house stood in a tidy section of grand but cookie-cutter homes, all with fancy stone exteriors and oversized garages. Hers was one of the few finished ones; construction seemed to sprout from the Dallas prairie as fast as weeds and wildflowers. He drove twice past the house; he could see a kitchen light gleaming. It was nearly one in the afternoon. He saw a dark Mercedes parked down the street, in front of two finished houses that still had dirt instead of sodded grass and with “FOR SALE” signs the only sprouting growth, a guy in dark glasses holding a newspaper open, probably house hunting.
He parked down the street, in front of a just-finished house that still had a “FOR SALE” sign in front, and walked back three houses to Delia Moon’s home.
He had an idea of what to say, but no clue if it would work. His throat locked.
He rang the doorbell. No answer, but he could hear the distant whine of a television. He rang the doorbell again. “Ms. Moon?” he called.
The door cracked opened. Before him stood a tall young woman, dark-haired. She opened the door barely an inch. He saw a green eye and a cheek scattered with light freckles.
“I’m not talking to anyone today.”
“My name is Ben Forsberg,” he said. “You and I were the last people Adam tried to call before he died. We need to talk.”
“How did you know where I lived?” Through the inch of space the green eye peered at him.
Ben swallowed. He was unused to lying; but then, he was unused to removing bullets from flesh and forging signatures and stealing cars, and right now a lie was necessary. He cleared his throat. “Homeland Security brought me in for questioning. The person who killed Adam had my business card in his pocket. They think I might be the next target.” He paused. “I saw your number on one of the Homeland agents’ phones when they were trying to reach you.”
“You were going to help him get his software business off the ground,” she said and he realized, She bought it, she thinks I’m Pilgrim’s pretend version of me.
“I wanted to help him,” he lied. “Can we talk?”
“I don’t know…” She bit her lip, and now he had to convince her, lie if he had to, or she would shut him out, probably phone the police.
“Listen. Whoever hired that sniper to kill Adam, they could come after you if they suspect he confided in you.”
The door stopped. Now she frowned. “I’m a nobody.”
“Still. If you knew what he knew…”
“All I know is, all his ideas, his software he’d developed, Homeland Security took it all. But…”
“But what?”
“I don’t know what they’re going to do with his research. I don’t want them to steal his work. I want to protect it.”
He needed to know what this research was as well. He pressed his advantage. “That’s exactly what this group at Homeland might do. Access to his software is going to save them millions.” He hoped his bluff made sense. “But maybe I can help you get his property back.”
“Just a minute.” She shut the door and he stood, waiting, for thirty seconds until she opened it again. She was out of breath, as though she’d been running. “Come in.”
Ben stepped inside the house. The rich smell of cinnamon coffee hung like a perfume. Delia Moon gestured at Ben to walk first into the kitchen and he did, realizing she did not want her back turned to him. No sudden moves, he thought, don’t scare her.
She was pretty but her face seemed careworn, as though life had made her suspicious and cautious. “You want coffee?”
“Sure. I really am sorry to intrude upon your grief,” he said, and he was. He remembered how awkward people seemed toward him after Emily’s death. Murder paralyzed everything in your life.
She went to the cabinet and reached for an extra cup. She poured him a cup and refilled her own.
“I hope you don’t mind black,” she said. “I’m out of cream and sugar.”
“Black’s fine.” He took a sip of coffee. The taste sent a surge of heat racing along his bones. It was a moment of calmness, of normalcy, good coffee drunk in a sunny, bright kitchen.
She pulled a gun from the back of her jeans, from under her untucked batik blouse. “Please put your hands on your head.”
He thought: She shouldn’t have given me a hot beverage, I could throw it on her, get the gun from her. Funny how your mind started to work when you were afraid all the time. But he set the coffee down. “I’m not a threat to you.” Slowly he put his hands above his head.
She glanced at the remnant of the plastic handcuff on his wrist. “Lay down on the floor.”
He obeyed. “I don’t have a gun,” he said.
“I never thought I’d use this one. Adam insisted. Me living here alone.” She prodded at him with her foot, along his legs, along the small of his back.
“Delia, please listen to me. There was a man who stole my identity. He pretended to be me. He’s the one who approached Adam. He works for a secret group in the government. Adam found his false identities, the ones used in undercover work, and this man and this secret group came looking for Adam. To discover how he found them, when no one was supposed to be able to identify them.”