“I see your point, Sybelle, but I ain’t that guy.”
“Oh, I know that. I outrank you anyway, and sleeping with you would almost be like incest. But I don’t want you to be concerned if I’m gone for the next few hours. I am going to hit a club or two and look at the lights and dance and have a couple of drinks. Then some smooth-talking and beautiful man is going to pick me up and take me back to his apartment. I suggest you do the same.”
“Pick up some dude?”
“Don’t be weird. Call Rent-a-Blonde, or maybe buy a drink for that little brunette at the bar. Just don’t be alone tonight.” She squeezed his arm tightly, rose from the booth, and walked out, toward the music that she hoped was waiting for her somewhere uptown. She stood in the doorway to struggle into a raincoat and belt it tight. Kyle wondered what the pickup guy was going to think about the ankle holster and the Gerber knife.
The brunette watched Sybelle leave, then looked over at him. She wore a silk blouse with a subtle Chinese print and a matching brown skirt and shoes, with gold accessories. The triangular face was Midwest pretty, and her hair was shoulder length and layered. The brown eyes were questioning.
He ordered another beer and settled back, letting his mind roam. We know who Juba is now, so the problem becomes finding him. What is he looking for? How can we put a net over him so I can kill him? He closed his eyes and ran the mental loop again, everything he could recall about Juba and the earlier Trident discussions about how to nail the enemy sniper back when he was just the scourge of Iraq.
“Do you mind if I join you?” The soft question made him open his eyes.
“Sure. No. I mean not at all,” said Kyle, snapping awake. “Please. Sit down. Nobody should be alone on a night like this.”
Sybelle dropped her wet coat, slid in beside him, and ordered a drink.
GUILFORD, CONNECTICUT
Christopher Lowry firmly believed that he could find anybody; it was impossible for any American to completely disappear. When the ten-thousand-dollar retainer came in with the request for a location trace, the private detective poured another cup of coffee, put aside the Courier, and got to work. He and his wife, their five children, and two dogs lived in an old house on one of the many crooked, twisting roads around Sachem Head Harbor, and he always had bills to pay.
United States Marine Gunnery Sergeant Kyle Swanson. Trying the obvious first, he typed the name into several search engines, looked over the mass of hits, and decided that couldn’t be right. He refined the search and got the same result. Then he switched to a restricted military database and again received the same information, along with a personnel jacket that ended with the man’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery. The archives of several major newspapers, including the Post and the Times, contained stories covering the event and awarding the Marine the Medal of Honor. A friend in the state police entered the name into the NCIC database.
This Swanson guy was dead and planted. Lowry drank some more coffee and took the dogs for a walk. They tore around through the thick trees chasing squirrels and went splashing into the shallow water where fields of cattails grew tall, and Lowry let his thoughts go free as he limped along behind them. He had been on the New York Police Department for fifteen years and carried the shield of a detective before a bullet from a crack addict took away much of his left knee and forced him into retirement. Chris Lowry doubted if his client was going to be satisfied with a newspaper report that the man they were thinking about hiring had been dead for some time, buried in Arlington.
Okay, he thought, so we start at the beginning. The stories said the man was from South Boston. By noon, he was easing his blue Toyota sedan onto the Connecticut Turnpike, heading for Southie.
BALTIMORE
“Swanson! Where is that asshole and his poison gas?” The voice on the telephone brimmed with authority. Kyle blinked himself awake, shook Sybelle’s bare shoulder, and silently mouthed the word “Middleton.” She threw the bedcovers aside and sprinted, naked, to the open door between their rooms, as if the general could see between Washington and New York. She took nothing for granted, particularly where the Lizard might be involved. He had eyes and ears everywhere.
“General? Jesus, sir, what time is it?”
“Almost 0600. Gimme something that Wolf Blitzer doesn’t already know.”
“Can’t do it, sir. I’ve been asleep. Just spent a day getting tortured, you know?”
“Bullshit. You went through stuff worse than that in boot camp. We’ve got a session at 0900 with the alphabet agencies, and it would take too long for you to drive, so the Lizard has laid on a helicopter to bring you and Summers back here. Where is she, anyway? Tried her room and no answer.”
Kyle took time to yawn and sound sleepy. “I don’t know, General. Probably out for a run. I’m not her keeper.”
“Excellent. I ran three miles before breakfast myself and have been at my desk since five. Go get her and get on that bird.”
“Three miles before breakfast. You are one hell of a Marine, sir,” Kyle said.
“Hoo-ah,” said the general and hung up.
Sybelle leaned against the adjoining door, a white towel around her and her beeper in her hand. “I have a message to call him.”
“Forget it.” He was leaning on his elbows, looking at her. “He has a helicopter coming in to fetch us back to the Pentagon.”
“Damn, Kyle. This is what I meant last night when I told you the stress was getting to me. It never ends. Last night was great, but both of us know there is no future for any relationship. There is only room for work, and I almost feel like a traitor for having sex with you.”
“Yeah. It would only complicate things.” It was the first time he had had a serious sexual interlude since the death of Shari Towne. “But thanks for rescuing me yesterday, in more ways than one.”
She let the towel fall and dropped the beeper on top of it. “Hoo-ah.”
Precisely at 0845, a shining black government SUV was waiting at the Pentagon and all four members of Task Force Trident climbed aboard. “Sar’nt Johnson! Take us to the Old Exec and go in through the gate. It’s next to the White House. You know where that is, I assume.”
“Excuse the general’s abrupt manner, Sergeant,” said Kyle. “He ran three miles before breakfast and then drank too much coffee.”
The driver managed a smile. They were already out of the parking lot and into traffic. “Fast or medium fast, sir?”
“Fast,” replied the general, and the sergeant clicked on the siren and lights and swerved into a hole between two yellow cabs, setting off a round of horn honking.
In the rear, the Lizard looked at Sybelle with a strange smirk.
“What?” she said. The little fucker knows!
“Oh, nothing. Just thinking.” He blushed and looked away.
A private and secure conference room had been set aside for them on the second floor of the Old Executive Office Building, and it was empty when Middleton led his team down the checkerboard-tile hallway to an office that was guarded by a uniformed member of the U.S. Secret Service. From the outside, the location seemed no different than any other in the busy office building, but the old wooden door opened into an airlock, and just inside, a step put a visitor above a false floor and into a slightly smaller room that also had a false ceiling and soundproof glass. Sound was imprisoned within the room.