“What do you know about my dad?”
“The truth. Look, I’m prepared to tell you everything. All the information you need, proof to back it up. I’ve kept a record of it all and I’ll give it to you. But I need to know you’ll make sure it gets out.”
I was seething inside, but I knew how to keep it at bay and stay calm. I was fully aware that I was probably being played, but whoever it was was pressing some pretty nasty buttons inside me. “You didn’t answer my question.”
After a moment, I heard him cough-a weird, jarring sound, when it comes out through a voice box-then he said, “Let’s not play games and let’s not waste each other’s time. I can’t stay on this call much longer. All you need to know is, this is on the level and I need you to hear the truth-about your dad, about the others, about Azorian… just meet me.”
I didn’t have much choice. “Where and when?”
“Tomorrow. One o’clock. Times Square. By the Duffy statue. You know where it is, right?”
“Of course.”
“Come alone. I won’t show if I think you’ve got anyone else there. And, Reilly? Keep it quiet. I’m saying this for your own good.”
“Oh?”
“The last person I reached out to-the only person I tried to tell about it-he’s dead. And I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant, not that death ever is, but-burning to death in his own home because of some electrical fire the day after I called him? Give me a break. I told him not to look into it, but some of these guys, it’s just in their blood. They can’t help themselves.”
“Then why not cut the whole charade and come in to Federal Plaza? I can protect you.”
His voice stayed calm. “No. You can’t.”
“You’d be in federal custody. My custody.”
“No. The people I’m talking about-they’re your own people. That’s why I need you to hear it first. Alone. So you can think about what you're going to do about it before they come after you too.”
I couldn’t help but sense that he was telling the truth. He was scared. Even with the voice box, the fear was palpably there.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll be there.”
“Good. Let’s just both hope you stay alive long enough for it.”
Then the line went dead.
6
Ocracoke, North Carolina
“We have a problem.”
Gordon Roos frowned as he settled into an armchair on the wide deck and looked out over the sleepy, small harbor. Steam rose from the mug of coffee he held in his other hand, vaporizing in the crisp evening air.
He took a sip, then said, “We always have problems. So what else is new?”
“It’s Padley.”
The Outer Banks hardly ever saw snow. A couple of winters back, they’d had several inches, which was all the more notable for its idiosyncrasy. Roos didn’t mind it. He liked the added privacy it offered. Since his move to Ocracoke, he was even more remote than his previous house further up the coast, and it was exactly how he liked it-as long as he could hop in and out efficiently, and fast. His car rarely left the island. He kept a Cessna Skyhawk single-engine prop plane at the small airport, which was little more than a runway with a small, unattended cottage for a terminal. He also kept a sixty-foot sport fisher in the harbor, but that purely for pleasure.
He loved the winters here. The late fall tourists were long gone, leaving the island to its few hundred year-round inhabitants. His house was part of a small cluster of buildings on the south-east side of Silver Lake harbor, all of which were occupied by locals. On one side was an artist. On the other, a folk musician, of a style that Roos found rather pleasing-which was fortunate, given the man’s proclivity for late night sessions. The neighbors mostly kept to themselves, though they always shared a drink at Christmas, a tradition that Roos found he enjoyed much more since his wife had left him. They’d never had kids, so there were no big family gatherings over the holidays, no grandchildren running around opening presents, and his parents were also long dead-Roos himself was over sixty-so he had zero obligations on that front too.
He had been looking forward to a quiet holiday season-reading, playing some golf and some platform tennis, taking his sport fisher out into the Gulf Stream for some bluefish tuna, and bringing in the occasional paid companion for an overnight or two of carnal bliss. Roos was in great shape and prided himself on his fitness. In fact, his deep-seated need to deny nature its natural course and stay young physically was almost obsessive, and he was pulling it off: given his looks and the upbeat, animalistic energy he projected-particularly towards attractive women-most people he met assumed he was at least ten years younger than he really was.
The holiday season was shaping up nicely indeed, but then the call had come in on his encrypted satphone. Only one person had the phone’s number. Edward Tomblin had been Roos’s decades-long colleague at the CIA, though unlike Roos, Tomblin was still at the agency. Tomblin was also Roos’s closest-and perhaps his only, in the true sense of the term, at least within the limitations of their line of work-friend. And Roos knew his friend well enough to read the gravity in his tone.
He asked, “Say again?”
“The leak? With the reporter? It was Padley. He’s going off the reservation-or, more like, he’s lost his fucking mind.”
Roos took a moment to process it as he took another sip of his coffee. He felt the pleasing sting of the hot liquid as it hit the back of his throat and jacked his sharp mind into even more focus.
“How do we know this?”
“He made a second call. We only caught it because it was to someone on an active watch list. ”
“Who?”
“Oh, you’re going to love this. Reilly. Sean Reilly.”
The sting turned venomous.
“What did he tell him?”
“Not much. Just that he has stuff for him. Information. Records-of everything. Stuff he wants Reilly to go public with. Stuff that includes his dad. The doc’s playing it smart, though. He’s using a prepaid and a voice changer. He also avoided using any keywords we would have picked up. We only fingered him after we ran the recording through our red list and got a match. I guess he doesn’t know we have decryption software for any voice box he can get hold of in this country.”
“Or anywhere else, for that matter.”
“I was being modest.”
So they’d got lucky. They would have missed the call if they hadn’t been monitoring Reilly.
Reilly. That damned Reilly. Again.
Roos put that particular sting aside. “Padley, of all people? Why? And why now?”
“He’s dying.”
“What?”
“We ran a full sweep on the prick after we ID’d him. Turns out he’s got pancreatic cancer. Aggressive and metastasized. He’s terminal. Doesn’t have long.”
“Jesus.” Roos let out a long breath, then took another sip. He’d been in the game long enough that he already knew what they’d need to do. The thought still displeased him.
He liked the doc. Sure, the man had some irritating idiosyncrasies. Today, people would probably consider him to have some level of Asperger’s. But they were all control freaks in their own way. The nature of the business demanded it. Lives were often at stake-especially their own. You learned early on that the only person you could definitely rely on was yourself.
But this-this was a shock. Padley had come to them. He’d never wavered in his commitment, never questioned the tasks he’d been assigned, even when he wasn’t given all the information, information that may have made him question things. To turn like this, to sell you out, for-what?
“So this is about redemption?” Roos asked. “The good doc wants to repent so he can get on the guest list at the pearly gates?”
“That’s what it looks like.”