3 Lies (16 page)

One project left to assign: the white van. If he got a local team searching for the van, fanning out along the coast, maybe it would turn up. It was worth the effort to find out if it had some connection to Beth’s disappearance. His last call set that operation in motion.

Coast-to-coast, PIs scoured for clues on his temporary payroll. No doubt, each investigator had a repertoire of most-unusual-assignment stories. With all the weirdoes in the world, his requests wouldn’t make the top one hundred.

He bounced the phone in his palm like a pitcher with a new ball. A cell phone hadn’t shaded his hip in over three months, yet half a dozen calls later, he felt like the man on the mound.

Now that dark settled on Clement Marina, the serious drinkers assembled at the bar. Clint wandered outside and combed the parking lot in search of the white van. He found two white vans, both full-sized.

The nearly-full moon lit the water in an endless shimmer, illuminating his walk back to his boat. The track in his brain kept playing, reviewing the steps he’d taken, the plans he set in motion, the questions left unanswered, wondering what else he could do.

Blake Sutton waited for him dockside at the
No Moor
dressed in mostly white as if he’d recently come off the links.

“Blake.” Clint walked toward him and climbed aboard the boat. “Whatever it is. Can we discuss it over a drink? As you might understand, I’ve had a bitch of a day.”

Clint turned back to spy him. A grimace of concern replaced Blake’s usual glowing smile. He stepped up onto the boat and followed Clint below into the galley. They leaned against opposite sides of the counter. Clint poured two glasses of scotch and handed one to Blake.

“So what brings you here?”

Blake swirled the glass. “I’m sorry about this morning.”

“Let’s cut the crap. I know she’s missing. You know she’s missing. Everybody who can’t do anything about it knows she’s missing. Have you contacted the police? The FBI?”

“Cecelia and Abe. They think she’ll be killed if we do.”

He thought about the note in Arabic. “Do you have any idea who’s behind this?”

He studied his glass. “Abe’s the only one who has talked to them.”

“What do they want?” Clint knew. He wanted to see if Blake knew.

“He said they want money. More than we have.” Blake wouldn’t look him in the eye. “That’s why I came to see you.”

Money. He didn’t think of that. Her life jeopardized over simple greed. “Money? Are you sure?”

Blake swigged a third of his scotch. An amber drop stained his white shirt. “Abe said they want twenty million dollars. He’s stalling them, but we don’t know how long they’ll wait.”

Twenty million dollars. It used to seem like a fortune. “You know I’ll help.”

Sweat dotted Blake’s forehead, his face blushing crimson. “There’s more.” He dragged his sleeve across his brow. “Abe doesn’t want you involved.”

A bitter taste met his tongue. Clint kept quiet. The only words he could think to say, he figured he would regret. Blake was just the messenger.

“I’m sorry, Clint. He doesn’t even know I’m here.” Blake downed the glass and put some distance between them. “Cecelia doesn’t either. I figured if you agreed to help, Abe would have to back off.”

“Back off what?”

“He’s losing it. Cecelia too. I’ve tried to reason with her, but she’s not making any sense. Beth’s her only kid. She and Abe—”

“Back off what?”

“Aw, Clint, Abe knows you’re a decent man. I do too. This whole thing has him off kilter. He’s not thinking straight. He’s not—”

Clint grabbed him by the shoulders. “You said Abe needs to back off. Back off what?”

“Abe’s getting a restraining order against you. You go within one hundred feet of him, and your ass is going to jail.”

Amir last patronized a toy store three years ago on the island of Guam. Expecting to make contact, he had tailed an Iranian official into the store. Someone else contacted the Iranian before him with a six-inch stiletto to the heart. He bought a set of collector cards near the cash register and vanished into the streets.

As he strolled the pink aisle of the toy store in search of a doll for the girl, he cursed Salif in four languages. He kept his head bent toward the floor. The eyes of many cameras watched the patrons of the store. He would give them nothing valuable to record.

A doll from the shelves caught his attention. With irises the color of snow peas and hair that glistened like yellow sassafras leaves at autumn’s turning, it was the woman, Beth, in miniature and plastic. He pulled ten sets of clothing from the peg and moved on.

He filled the basket with crayons, coloring books, jacks, and other small toys to amuse the child. Nearly closing time, the cashier busied herself with a new cell phone trying to reach someone named “Scooter” and barely acknowledged him as she rang up his purchase. He paid in cash. They never shared a glance.

He left the store and began the drive to Beth’s house. He intentionally bought the toys twenty miles away from either their ship or the woman’s home. The distance gave Amir additional time to reflect on his information.

Jaman and Binard made the most recent trip to the woman’s house. Their intelligence came from the original file containing copious photos of her property. Once Beth’s person was secured, their mission controller ordered a bridge burning, a complete destruction of all files. No one had expected to return.

With the help of Jaman and Binard’s detailed descriptions, he memorized the layout and critical elements of her property. Because of the thick mask of trees overhead, satellite photos gave only the most general understanding of the spatial relationships between neighborhood structures. It was insufficient data on which to risk his ass.

Amir reached the coastal town of Clement at nine-forty-six, long after dusk retired from the night sky. Cloud cover kept even the early moon behind the blackest veil. He parked the car on a side street two blocks from Beth’s road—too far to carry the woman’s machine, but too close if the house was being watched. A careful reconnoiter would be wise. He hid the car key beneath the front tire and carried only his ski mask.

The businesses closed hours before his arrival. He avoided the illuminated homes interspersed throughout the downtown section as he picked his way over to Clement Head Trail. No one saw him except an old bloodhound that didn’t bother to bark.

He fully expected to find the keys just as the woman told Jaman. If her life truly depended on a dialysis machine, Amir did not believe she would lie. Her life did depend on that.

From his briefing of the neighborhood, he knew he was entering from the rear of the vacant property directly across from Beth’s house. The owners, relatively young retirees, lived in Florida or some warmer world until the first of June each year. They travelled to Clement to spend the fullness of summer and returned southward at September’s closing. This particular migration celebrated its eleventh year.

A light glowed from an outbuilding on the adjacent property. A long shadow flickered across the wall. The potter lived there by herself and kept irregular hours. She sold her wares to shops along the coastline to feed the tourist trade but conducted no sales on the site. He heard a scraping sound followed by a forceful clank, dimming the glow.

The outbuilding went black and a bulky figure carrying a flashlight appeared at the door. It ventured toward the main building. Amir waited in the dark for the sound of a door opening and closing to make sure he was alone.

The neighborhood fell quiet. He donned his green ski mask, his vision now fully adjusted to the night, and advanced across the parcel of land. He took a route around the house farthest from the potter’s, closer to the winery at the end of the road. With the thicket of trees between them, not even a sober someone at the winery could see him. At the end of the snowbirds’ property he examined the road for any trace of activity. He watched for several minutes before crossing the street and slipping into the trees in front of Beth’s house.

From overhead, the wind rushed in a flurry of wing beats. Amir’s body heat drained as he stood statue-still. A whistling whinny assured him that a screech owl caused the commotion. He entered a particularly dense copse for cover and leaned against a sugar maple until his jumpy skin stilled.

He approached Beth’s house and peered through a front window but saw nothing that looked like the machine he saw on the internet. Jaman and Binard had no such machine listed in their original dossier. In spite of the extensive G2 about the neighborhood and the woman’s home, no one knew she required life support. Danger often rode ignorance.

While Amir still thought this detour was foolish, entry into the home gave him opportunity to see if the note he’d left had been found. If her absence now involved the local law enforcement, it would be gone.

He retreated to the tree line and crept to the rear of the house where the butterfly bird feeder was staked. The screech owl let loose another whistle from behind the house. Amir snap-turned his head in the direction of the sound. The antennae of the butterfly bird feeder pierced his skin above his right eye. Amir gasped in the chill air and pressed his mouth to silence. Pain throbbed with increasing volume. His ski mask absorbed the blood oozing from his wound. He cursed Salif in a fifth language and found the keys at the bottom of the stake. The woman had told the truth. This bought her life further time. He yanked the feeder from the earth and freed the two keys.

Sharp light from the town-end of the road cut through the trees. Fractured lines of sight appeared and fell away as twin rays bent toward his position. A vehicle with powerful high-brights eased onto the road. The pace taunted his nerve.

A third focused beam joined the pair. The intensity of the illumination defied anything found on a common car. Maybe a four-wheel drive truck. Or—

A searchlight sweeping the road confirmed his fear.

Damn. The police.

Amir fell to the ground to cool his thoughts. A routine patrol. They’d be gone soon, and then he could continue the mission. Get the machine and get out. No reason to panic.

The lights made a steady sweep down the road inch-by-ever-lasting-inch. When it reached the property next door, the vehicle stopped completely. The lights changed direction, trained on the house, and lit it up like a grand opening.

The lights splayed across the façade moving closer with each passing second. Amir expected noise, sirens, bullhorns, but the vehicle stayed mute. This was no ordinary patrol.

He continued to watch the slow parade as it made its way out the other side of the circular drive. For a full minute, it suspended at the end as if unsure of which way to move.

The cruiser lurched in decision. It filed onto the main road and idled deeper onto the headland. In front of the potter’s house, it stopped again. Lights searched the property, concentrating their effort on the trees. From his position, he could hear the muffled police radio, but he couldn’t see the car, only the wild spinning and searching of the lights.

Amir tired of the show. The patrol car might eventually get around to Beth’s. He returned the keys to the spike on the bird feeder. He didn’t want any evidence on his person in case he was caught.

He stumbled in the dark. Crossing the road back toward his car only made him a target. He couldn’t leave the way he’d come in, but the main road was his only way out.

The house next door sat on the quadrant of the property closest to the main road. The backside of the property dropped off to rocky sea cliffs within a few hundred meters. Amir wove through the dense trees toward the unlit house.

The darkness of the house contradicted the frenetic activity of the travelling light show. Amir spied fragments of the continuing display down the road. He stopped at the tree line to remove his green ski mask. He let the horses in his heart steady their gait.

The clouds retreated enough for the moon peek out. The police cruiser pulled into Beth’s driveway. Fully composed, he stepped out from the bower and sauntered up the hill to find his car.

He knew better than to come here. There could be squads all over town looking for this woman.

Salif be damned. He allowed the mission controller to ignore standard precautions. Precautions kept them alive. Salif could play puppet if he wanted, but Amir refused to dance.

The controller knew nothing about operations. He sent out elites, never heeding their expert opinion. No matter who ran this mission, Amir refused to take orders from a dilettante hiding in the shadows.

The woman Beth would not get her machine. No matter. She, too, was expendable.

Posey sat on the edge of his desk eating an egg salad sandwich when Doug walked in their office at CIA headquarters. The missing agent project—code named Best Guy—kept Posey frozen on the outside. He acted as if it was Doug’s fault. Friends or not, this was a chance for rapid advancement, and Doug wasn’t going to jeopardize it by blabbing to Posey.

“So, has she made a play for you?”

Two days of pouting, Posey finally decided to start talking again. Too bad he broke the vow while eating. An egg-salad glob landed on the floor.

“She who?” Doug put eating egg salad in the same category as gum snapping—acceptable only as a participant. He sat down and looked at his notes.

“Natalie. The cocoa beauty in charge of this project.” Posey dropped the last corner of the sandwich into his cavern. “I know the CIA gods have bestowed superhero powers upon you, dude. But your cheap Jedi mind tricks don’t work on me. She’s got it, that one.”

“And what has she got?” He knew what Posey meant. But he’d been a priss-ass and Doug didn’t feel like letting him back easy.

“You know. All that.”

Doug remembered the sweater dress on her yesterday. Loose enough for good taste, yet it hung curve-close enough to strain his concentration. A body worthy of a marble replica.

She wasn’t married, but there could be a boyfriend. Probably a doctor. No, a surgeon. She walked like the kind of woman who would only date a high-end professional. The thought soured him. “Let’s talk about the assets.”