“Before he could tell you what he knew or give you the evidence he said he had for you,” Kurt said.
“He kick-started all this,” I said. “And they decided to shut it all down. Clean house. Less people who know what was going on and who can talk about it if it all goes pear-shaped.”
“Here we go,” Gigi said as she looked up from her screen. She started reading off it. “Marcus Siddle. Fifty-nine years old. Died last night in Miami when his Lamborghini slammed into the side of a building. The guy owned and ran a high-end car shop. Souped-up all kinds of cars, a king of the road.” She looked up from her screen. “Then he drives into the side of a building?”
“A mechanic,” I said. “Maybe he’s good with house electrics.”
“And climbing gear,” Kurt added.
Things were falling into place. “OK, which means our Ralph might be a heart guy if they truly have that capability.” I turned to Gigi. “Look for-”
“Ralph Padley,” she said, way ahead of me already. “A top cardiologist at Harvard. Died of a heart attack in a swimming pool in Boston on Tuesday. Sixty-nine years old.”
“Jesus,” Kurt said. “How many others of them are out there?”
I asked Gigi, “Do you have headshots for them?”
She tapped some more keys, then swiveled her screen around to face me.
I got out of my chair and moved in for a closer look. She had two faces up, a bit grainy from her having enlarged them, but clear enough. I moved the framed photo I’d snatched off Orford’s desk closer to her screen and compared them.
They were all there. Orford, Padley and Siddle.
The three “Janitors.”
Three middle-aged civilians-a psychiatrist, a cardiologist, and an upscale car mechanic-who were part of what seemed to be some top secret CIA hit squad. A hit squad that, by the looks of it, was operating not just outside our borders-which was already illegal enough-but on home ground too. We knew they’d committed a murder in Portugal over thirty years ago. The question was, how many other people had they killed over the years? How many of those were Americans and on American soil? And was this unit still active?
And-the biggest question of all-had my dad been working with them?
“I’m starting to understand why they’re desperate to keep this under wraps,” Kurt said.
“Padley said he had proof to show me. Evidence he needed me to make public,” I said. “If it’s still out there somewhere, if he managed to hide it before they got to him… maybe we can find it.”
“Without ending up like the rest of them,” Gigi added as a sense of gloom settled over the room.
I had a lot of questions, but the only guys who could give me the answers had been either wiped out, or-in the case of my ever-elusive bête noire, Reed Corrigan-untraceable.
And then Tess called and the dam burst wide open.
Deutsch angled a nervous glance at the Bureau cars parked outside Tess’s house as she rang the doorbell.
She hadn’t had any problem getting to Tess’s front door. She just hadn’t mentioned her little jaunt to Gallo or anyone else at Federal Plaza, and she knew she’d have some explaining to do when she got back. She had some time to come up with an excuse and knew she’d find a way through it, but that would wait. Right now, she needed to act fast.
She ducked inside as soon as Tess opened the door, then ushered her discreetly through the house and out onto the rear deck while asking her mundane questions about how she was and whether or not she’d heard from Reilly yet.
Once they were outside, she looked around, making sure she hadn’t missed any part of the FBI’s surveillance net, then turned to Tess.
“I can’t stay long and it’s not safe talking inside. You’re under watch,” she told Tess in a low voice.
“I assumed, but-”
“Tess, everything is being monitored,” Deutsch told her. “Phones, emails, WiFi. Any connection you make with the world beyond this house or even within in for that matter, we’re on top of. Even what you say. So you’re going to have to be careful.”
“Be careful?” Tess asked, her face tight with tension. “About what?”
“I need you to connect me with Sean.”
“Annie, I told you-”
“Listen to me!” Deutsch interjected. “I know, I know-you don’t know how to get through to him, you haven’t heard from him. Tess, this is important. I know you can find a way to get in touch with him. He wouldn’t disappear without telling you how. Not when you’re under threat like this. And this is coming from me, personally-I’m sticking my neck out here for you. For him. Please.”
She watched as Tess ran a deep scan up and down her face, clearly trying to decide whether to believe her. “Why? What’s happened?”
Deutsch glanced around again, more out of paranoia then out of some credible threat, then leaned closer and dropped her voice even lower. “Someone sent Sean two drawings. Portraits, of two men. They were sent from Canada and just signed ‘L+D.’ I think they’re important. I think they might be the guys that Sean’s been trying to find.”
She fished out her phone, pulled up the pictures she’d taken of the drawings, and showed them to Tess. She watched as Tess studied them.
“I’ve never seen these guys before,” Tess said.
“Nor has he, I imagine. But I think they could help him zero in on them.” She put her phone away, then asked, “You know who L and D are, don’t you?”
Tess hesitated-it was enough of an answer for her.
“They’re important, aren’t they?” Deutsch asked. “You know they are. Come on, Tess.”
Tess finally nodded. “They’re a couple Reilly helped out. They owe him. A lot.”
“And this is them paying him back. Come on, Tess. He needs this.”
Tess hesitated some more, her face muscles tightening up visibly-then she nodded. “I have a phone number. A burner phone.” She looked intensely worried. “God, let this not be a mistake. You can’t lead them to him, Annie. How will you get them to him?”
“All I need is a smartphone number or an email address. Hell, even a Facebook account will do. I’ll send them to him from my personal phone.”
Tess held her gaze for a moment, then nodded.
Sandman knew his message would anger Roos and the others but, strictly speaking, he’d still achieved his immediate assignment. Orford was dead, even though it wasn’t as clean a kill as he’d been aiming for. Still, if it was going to be considered more of a murder than a suicide, Reilly would be on the wanted poster. All of which, coming on the back of the successful dispatch of Siddle in Miami, wasn’t too shabby.
Still, Roos’s tone wasn’t thrilled, even though from the sounds of it, he was calling with good news.
“We’ve had a hit,” Roos told him. “Unexpected, and lucky, but I’ll take it, given the recent fuck-ups.”
Sandman let it slide and said nothing.
“We picked up Reilly on a surveillance cam at a nightclub in Manhattan Saturday night. The DEA had a Serbian drug dealer in their crosshairs and the face-recognition trawl picked up Reilly it its sweep. It looks like he had company, two of them. A guy and a girl. Face recog hasn’t had a hit with them and the targets are in some weird get-up. They’re sending you the file. Sandman…”
“Yes,” he asked, knowing what was coming next.
“Finish this,” Roos said. “While we’re still young.”
48
Chelsea, New York City
“So what the hell do we do with them?”
I leant back against the back of the banquette, interlaced my fingers behind my head and blew out some of the frustration, anger and impatience festering inside of me.
The three of us were sitting around a corner table in the large brasserie-style restaurant across the street from Gigi’s apartment, printouts of the hand-drawn sketches of Frank Fullerton and Reed Corrigan that Deutsch had emailed Kurt staring implacably up at us.