Hunter: A Thriller (23 page)

She felt the impact of his words like an electric shock, transmitted to her right through the TV screen by the stunned look on her father’s face. She watched in helpless, unblinking anguish, witnessing his dreams, his ideals,
his soul
being crushed.

Crushed ruthlessly by the man she loved.

Dylan—stop! Please stop!

She had slipped away from her office to this small conference room to watch the live broadcast of the news conference, which was being carried by a national cable news channel. She had hoped that her father could somehow reclaim the personal reputation that Dylan’s article had so badly damaged. And for a while the whole event went smoothly—until she was startled by the familiar voice, strong and deep:

“...because individual crime victims are expendable.”

She gasped at the words, disbelieving. Then stared at the screen as the camera swung to him.

She saw the familiar tangle of thick, dark curls, the hollow cheeks, the proud thrust of his chin. Saw the fearless flash in those eyes, the mocking twist of those lips. Then the camera pulled back to reveal his body, lean and relaxed, the body she knew so well, now moving forward slowly, deliberately toward her father, like a prowling panther stalking its prey.

She had jumped to her feet and approached the screen. She hung onto every word of their exchanges, terrified to see what would happen, unable to tear her eyes away as the horror unfolded.

Now there was a commotion. Reporters stood and shouted over each other, directing questions at the three of them.
Frankfurt
was yelling something at Dylan; her father, his face blank, stood mute and unmoving behind the podium.

Then Dylan turned toward the reporters approaching him and made a dismissive motion, brushing off their questions. “I’ve given you plenty to chew on.”

He walked swiftly back in the direction of the camera, his image growing larger until his face nearly filled the screen before swerving past. The camera swung back toward the front of the room, zooming in on her father, who was now gathering his notes and refusing further questions. Then it spun toward
Frankfurt
, who had stopped halfway down the aisle, where he was surrounded by reporters. He was gesturing wildly and saying things that she couldn’t make out in the din.

The TV network’s reporter moved into the frame, holding a microphone. “A stunning turn of events here at the National Press Club as Dylan Hunter—the
Inquirer
reporter at the center of the firestorm of controversy about the criminal justice system and the D.C. vigilantes—crashes the MacLean news conference and confronts him face to face. Let’s take a moment just to recap what we’ve just witnessed....”

She pressed the remote button, extinguishing the program.

She knew what she had just witnessed.

WASHINGTON
,
D.C.
Monday, November 17, 4:02 p.m.

The phone chirped, and
Danika
glanced down at the console. Saw that the incoming call was for Dylan Hunter’s line.

“Mr. Hunter’s answering service. May I help you?”

“Hello, this is Detective Sergeant Cronin of the Alexandria Police.”

She recalled the sexy cop with the bright blue eyes and smiled to herself. “I remember you, Detective. How may I help you?”

“It’s
Danika
, right?”

She felt a little twinge of pleasure. “Why, yes, sir.”

“Well,
Danika
, I was hoping to catch Mr. Hunter, if he’s in.”

“No sir, I’m afraid he’s not. He’s rarely here, as you probably know. He usually calls in for his messages once a day, and he did that just a few minutes ago. I’m afraid I don’t have a way to reach him, probably until tomorrow.”

“I see. That’s too bad. This is pretty time-sensitive.”

“I’m really sorry. I can take your message and—” The thought struck her. “Oh! I just remembered. He gave me a number. His girlfriend’s, actually. He said he might be reachable through her.”

“He has a girlfriend then?”

“Oh yes,” she said, chuckling. “They just met, not too long ago. She’s a real beauty, too.”

He was silent a moment. “Tell you what,
Danika
. I’d really appreciate it if you would share the number with me. It’s pretty urgent.”

She hesitated, feeling torn. The procedure was for her to reach him herself, not to let out his contact information. Still...he was a police officer, after all, and they seemed to get along really well when she’d seen them together. And Dylan
was wo
rking on crime stories....

“
Danika
?”

“I’m sorry, Detective Cronin. I was just thinking how I should handle this. You’re both working on some of the same crime cases, I guess?”

“Why yes. You could say that.”

“Well...I guess it would be all right, then.” She looked up and read off Annie’s number to him.

“Thanks so much,
Danika
. I really appreciate this.”

“Well, you’re welcome. I hope you can reach him through her, maybe after she gets off work this evening.... He’s really gotten into this crime stuff lately, hasn’t he?”

“Up to his ears,
Danika
.”

TYSONS CORNER,
VIRGINIA
Monday, November 17, 4:55 p.m.

The Galleria at
Tysons
Corner was a familiar haunt for CIA employees. Because the mall was so close to headquarters, many people who worked for the Agency and lived nearby shopped here. Occasionally, young
CSTs
—Clandestine Service Trainees—were turned loose on the premises to practice surveillance detection and dead drops with concealment devices, or to arrange “clandestine” meetings at one of the restaurants with trainers posing as “foreign assets.”

Now, here she was, having a clandestine meeting with a cop to discuss her lover.

Ironic.

She sat at a small dining table near the Starbuck’s kiosk on the ground floor of the upscale mall, sipping a hot latte as she waited. She’d received the detective’s call on her private cell at work, while she was still reeling from the televised debacle. The guy, Cronin, explained how he’d gotten her number, then was cryptic but insistent about needing to talk to her about Dylan. Which worried her. She suggested this place because of its proximity to the “insurance company” where she worked.

She checked her watch, then pulled out her cell and tried her father’s number again. It still routed her to his voice mail.

“Dad, me again. Sorry to keep calling, but I’m worried about you. I know how hard it was for you today. I just want you to know I love you and I’m here for you. I’d like to come by and see you tonight, if you’re home. So please call me back when you hear this.”

She closed her phone. Then waited.

The cop showed up just a minute after five, dressed as he had described: gray coat over gray sports jacket and slacks. She stood as he approached.

“Ms. Woods? Ed Cronin,
Alexandria
P.D.” Lean-faced. Intense blue eyes. Definitely good-looking.

“How do you do, Detective,” she said, extending her hand.

He took it and smiled. “Please, sit. I realize you have things to do, so I won’t be long.”

“Thank you. I’ve had a difficult day. I hope what you’re going to discuss with me isn’t about to make it more so.”

“I hope not, either. It’s in connection with a case I’m working on. Today I stumbled across something puzzling concerning your”—he paused—“concerning Dylan Hunter. I understand that you two are close, so perhaps you might help clear it up for me.”

“You just said a ‘case.’ Is he involved in something I should know about?”

“No, not at all. You see, I’m a member of what the media calls ‘the Vigilantes Task Force.’ The first of those incidents took place on my turf, in
Alexandria
, which is how I got involved. And I met Mr. Hunter through his newspaper articles on the subject.”

“Oh,” she said, relaxing. “For a minute, there, you had me worried. So, what’s the problem, or puzzle, then?”

He leaned forward, placing his palms flat on the table. “Let me be up front with you, Ms. Woods. Mr. Hunter has aggravated some prominent and powerful people with what he’s been writing.”

“I know.”

“I can see it bothers you, too. Look, personally speaking, I applaud what he’s doing. He’s telling it like it is about the legal system. That article he wrote yesterday, for instance. He really opened a can of worms. I wish—”

“Excuse me, Detective,” she interrupted, “exactly how might I help you?”

“I’m sorry. Forgive my babbling. As I said, because he’s upset some
V.I.P.’s
, I’ve been asked to find out a bit more about him. You know—what makes him tick, why he’s doing this. That sort of thing. But when I started to do that this morning, certain things just didn’t add up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Ms. Woods, when I started running background on him, I couldn’t find any history anywhere for a ‘Dylan Lee Hunter.’ The name, it just materialized out of thin air two, three years ago. It doesn’t lead back anywhere. It’s like this guy is a ghost.”

She laughed. “Oh, that! Okay, I see your problem. I encountered the same thing when we first started dating a couple of months ago, Detective Cronin. You see, I’m an investigator, too. Insurance claims. When we met, I did a bit of research to find out more about him. I also hit nothing but dead ends.”

“So why are you laughing about it?”

“He explained it to me.” She spent the next five minutes repeating to Cronin what Dylan had told her about his background. “So, you see,” she concluded, “you probably can’t find him because he legally changed his name to Dylan Lee Hunter. He showed me his IDs under that name, including his
Maryland
driver’s license. I’m trained to judge such things, and they were completely authentic.”

Cronin still looked skeptical. “I already guessed he might be using a pen name. Or even that he might have changed his name a few years back. But a
legal
name change leaves tracks. The new name would be linked to the old one in state records. We have access to their databases, and I ran checks this afternoon. Every state. Nada. We came up dry.”

“There must be an explanation.” She tried to remember exactly what he had told her. “He said he talked to some skip tracer, who coached him on how to disappear. He cut all his old ties, deleted and altered personal information on his old accounts before he closed them. Then he applied for a legal change of name and moved from place to place, job to job.”

Cronin rapped his fingertips rhythmically on the table, looking off into the distance. “But that wouldn’t be enough to erase all tracks from our databases that would tie him back to his old identity. For one thing, he’d still have the same Social Security number. That would link his new name to his old one.”

A group of loud kids wandered by, horsing around. Her eyes rested on them, automatically, but not her mind. She was thinking of their first date, of how relaxed he looked while he explained it all to her. It had sounded so reasonable. Now, she felt her early uncertainty about him creeping back, like a slow-acting poison in her veins.

Cronin continued. “To really vanish as whoever he was, and establish a new identity as Dylan Hunter, he almost certainly would need a new SSN in that name.” He stared off into space as he thought it through. “He couldn’t function anywhere without one—get a job, buy a house, open bank accounts, or obtain other legit IDs, like a driver’s license. But the Social Security Administration doesn’t issue somebody a new number.”

“What about a fake SSN? Maybe he got one and used that to obtain all his new IDs.”

“Not likely. Not anymore. Since 9-11, the states have really tightened security on issuing copies of birth certificates and new drivers’ licenses. A fake SSN would be flagged during their routine record checks. But you say he had authentic IDs. That suggests to me that he also has a real SSN, issued to Dylan Hunter. So how could
that
happen?”

“Well, illegal aliens seem to get all sorts of ID documents right on the streets. Don’t they get Social Security cards, too?”

“People who want to hide their pasts, like illegal aliens, don’t get government-issued
SSNs
. They usually rely on fake IDs. Fakes won’t pass close inspections, so that limits what they can do without getting caught. That’s why they typically work for cash at day jobs, where nobody bothers to check their IDs too closely. They keep a low profile. They avoid attention and encounters with the law. Well, does that sound like Mr. Hunter? Instead, he’s hiding in plain sight, right out in the open, and getting lots of public attention. And if you’re right, he has managed to get legitimate government IDs for what he admits isn’t his real name.”

He paused. His cool blue eyes were direct and unsparing.

“Ms. Woods, what he told you just can’t be the whole story. How well do you really know him?”

She felt a pang of anxiety. “What do you mean, ‘how well’?”

“You don’t really know much more about him than what he told you—right? From what you say, he’s put up a wall between you and his past. You’re a professional investigator. But even you haven’t been able to confirm a single thing he’s told you about his history.”

Her mouth was going dry. She licked her lips. “So, what are you suggesting?”

“Nothing in particular. I certainly don’t have reason to think he’s involved in anything criminal, if that’s what you mean. Maybe there is another perfectly reasonable explanation, like you say. I hope so. I like him. And I love what he’s been doing. But the details of his story just don’t add up. So far, we’ve been accepting him on blind trust.”

The words struck her like a slap in the face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that like it sounded.”

“No. It’s okay. You’ve just taken me off guard.... So, what are you going to do now?”

“First, I think I need to pay him a visit and get some answers.”

“Maybe I should, too,” she said.

“Not yet. That might be counterproductive. Look, why don’t you let me poke into this a bit more before you do or say anything?”

He rose to his feet; she followed suit.

“Please let me know what you find out,” she said.

“Will do. Meanwhile, here’s my card. Just—well, just keep your eyes and ears open. Call me if you discover anything that might clear this up. And thanks for all your help.”

*

She sat down again after he left. After a few minutes, she raised the cup to her lips; her hand shook as she sipped the coffee, now cold and bitter.

How can you really know someone?

How can you really trust anyone?

She replayed their conversations in her mind, seeking clues in his words to answer the questions now looming before her. But his words faded in her memory.

Instead, she saw his face. The firm, proud set of his mouth and chin, the direct intensity of his gaze—these seemed to banish all questions and doubts. She remembered the night they had met with the crime victims. Recalled the compassion of his gaze as he listened to them, the righteous anger in his eyes as he vowed to help them.

And today—that same fearless passion for justice in his words, in his bearing, when he confronted—

She closed her eyes.

No. He couldn’t fake that. He
couldn’t
. He could not be capable of anything dishonest or dishonorable.

Not a man who could look, act, and speak as he did.

Not a man who could love her as she knew he did.

No. She would not doubt him.

There had to be some good explanation.

WASHINGTON
,
D.C.
Monday, November 17, 6:15 p.m.

“Sweetie, I’m sorry I couldn’t return your calls sooner. I know you’ve been worried, but I’ve been in meetings all afternoon.... Yes, and I appreciate your daughterly concern. But I’m all right. Really.... No, you don’t have to do that. Besides, I won’t be back home until late tonight.... We’re just doing damage control. Right now, we’re trying to salvage the House bill.... Sure. It’s
very
difficult right now. This Hunter fellow has messed things up terribly. I just don’t get it. He seems to have some kind of personal vendetta against us...I hear what you’re saying, but that’s a debate for another time. At the moment, I have to get back to my dinner companions.... I will.... Love you, too.”

MacLean left the alcove outside the restrooms and returned to his table. He liked the Old
Ebbitt
Grill, one of the better places for seafood and steaks. But tonight he had little appetite; coming here had been Carl Frankfurt’s choice, and since it was so close to the Press Club, he didn’t argue.