His discovery appeased the faculty that had sunk more over a million dollars into his earlier, “abandoned”, pharmacological research. More than appeased, in fact, since they stood to make many times their investment from patents covering Padley’s work.
So everyone was happy, except that Padley was still the dour control freak he had always been and his third wife had, much like her predecessors, still failed to achieve a single orgasm with her husband. Given that he’d never been able to bless her with children either, he at least had the decency never to question her burgeoning credit card purchases. Their lack of reproduction, though no longer a point of argument, had left a deep hole in his wife’s soul-or so she put it-a hole that she filled with fundraising dinners and the aforementioned trysts with Boston’s foremost theatre critic.
Less than a year before, however, everything changed. His whole world was upended by his test results.
He didn’t have long to live.
The unwelcome, uninvited guest that was metastatic pancreatic cancer was also a very brutal and unforgiving one.
His emotive responses to it were unorthodox.
A life at the cutting edge of medicine meant denial was never going to be an issue.
The same applied to anger and bargaining-the very notions were beneath him.
Acceptance was already well anchored inside him-so well anchored that he refused to go through the rounds of chemotherapy that might slightly prolong his life. He didn’t want to spend the time he had left either in hospitals or sick from the after-effects.
A sense of depression, however, did take root very quickly, and from that depression something else emerged: a fear of what awaited him in the hereafter, and an urgent, rapidly growing need for atonement.
Memories from years of covert operations and replays of hushed conversations were now vividly consuming his days and his nights. The faces of the dead, in photographs or newspapers or on television screens, accosted him at the most unexpected times, clamoring for attention and shouting out for retribution, while the disturbing, subconscious imagery of eternal damnation haunted his dreams.
Much as he tried to shake off this unfamiliar onset of guilt and regret, he couldn’t escape it.
He needed to do something about it. He had to seek out some kind of forgiveness. He feared that he was well past redemption, even though he’d always been taught it was always a possibility if the intent was honest and pure. His wasn’t necessarily so; it was driven by a very deep-seated, primal fear. But it was all he had.
He thought long and hard about what he could do. He didn’t discuss it with anyone; not his wife, not his shrink, not even his priest. He would do this alone. If it wasn’t possible to change the past, perhaps he could, at least, affect the future. But doing it would be tricky-and dangerous. And although he didn’t have much time left to worry about in terms of losing it, he clung, like many people who were suddenly faced with their impending death, to every day he had left.
No, he would need to be careful. And what he did had to be effective too, if he was going to have a chance at the redemption he sought.
His first attempt had proved disastrous. He’d thought he’d chosen well. The man he’d selected had solid credentials. But despite all the meticulous planning, despite knowing what he was up against and being aware of the capabilities of the very people who were now his enemies, Padley had failed. The person he’d reached out to was now dead. That man’s death had, Padley was sure, come as a blessing after the torture he had no doubt been subjected to. But Padley’s planning had at least been successful at one thing: it had kept him safe. No one had come after him. He was still free, he was still breathing. Which meant his precautions had worked.
He just needed to be even more selective in who he approached this time.
Days and weeks of mulling had yielded a handful of possibilities, but one of them stood out more and more with each deliberation. It even had, he thought, an elegant symmetry to it, which pleased his overly ordered mind.
He would make the call today, he decided. He’d be even more vigilant, more careful, than he had been the first time around. He’d use a different prepaid cell phone; one he’d also purchased for cash and that couldn’t be traced back to him. He’d still use the agency-level voice changer for the call, the one he’d used on his first attempt. Most importantly, he’d be very, very clear in warning the man about what not to do.
After that, it would be out of his hands.
He’d just need Special Agent Sean Reilly to be as effective at his job as Padley had been at both of his.
WEDNESDAY
3
Mamaroneck, New York
A gray-white union of sea, land and sky was barely worrying the drapes when consciousness seeped back into me. I twisted around and checked the time: noon. I know this sounds very decadent, but I’d only got back from Jersey just before six.
Nick and I had handed over to Deutsch and Lendowski shortly after five, a move that generated the usual sardonic, if unmerited, quip from Lendowski. I had plenty of time for Annie Deutsch. She was in her early thirties and usually wore that earnest demeanor shared by many ex-cops during their first couple of years with the Bureau, her face locked in an expression that looked like its wearer has been told they weren’t allowed to smile ever again. She was attractive and single, two facts on which most of the discussions regarding her had quickly zeroed in. Lendowski, on the other hand, I could do without. Six foot two and pure muscle, he possessed a personality one would describe as belligerent-if one were being kind. He also had that holier-than-thou attitude that always made me suspicious, like it was a fine line between which side of the law he’d ended up on.
I’d given Nick a lift to Federal Plaza so he could retrieve his own car from the parking garage. Neither of us had much energy left for conversation. The city had looked coldly beautiful as dawn forced its way across Manhattan’s skyline. A few Christmas lights shone in pockets of synchronized color, and it was enough to remind anyone who had forgotten that New York was still the greatest city in the world.
These overnights were actually a killer. As Nick climbed out of the Expedition, he reminded me to try and stay awake on the final leg. A couple of nights back, I’d very nearly fallen asleep at the wheel and had needed to pull over and grab an hour’s shut-eye before driving home. Then I’d woken with a jolt at two in the afternoon, convinced that my alarm had sounded only moments before. Throw the body clock out of whack and the mind can do strange things. I was now looking forward to doing away with the Nosferatu schedule and getting back to a more normal, mortal routine.
Tess had driven my five-year-old son Alex to school and left me to finish off my fitful six hours. Miss Chaykin-we’re not married-is my partner in everything but law enforcement, although that last bit was debatable, given our various adventures these last few years. I’ve never slept easy alone, and the past few weeks of night shifts and disrupted schedules had only served to underline how addicted I was to having Tess’s warm body beside me.
We joked that, as a couple, this could be the closest we’d ever get to the sleepless nights and constant demands of caring for a baby, given that we hadn’t had one together and were still debating whether having one now would be a good move. I was in two minds about that. It wasn’t something I’d ever experienced. I’d missed the first decade or so of Tess’s daughter Kim, who was now fifteen, given that Tess and I only met a few years ago.