Hunter: A Thriller (34 page)

He remained silent a moment, as if he were weighing something.

“All right. I’ve never told this to anyone. When I was about ten or eleven, I was on the playground at school. I saw this gang of kids in a circle, hollering, and I went over to see what was going on. A couple of bigger kids, bullies, were picking on this smaller boy, Joe. No teachers were around, and the others were just egging the bullies on. I liked Joe. He was nerdy, but smart and funny. Anyway, he was terrified and crying and—” He stopped. “I just couldn’t walk away.”

“You got involved?”

“At first, I just told them to stop. Then the pair turned on me. They were a lot bigger than me. One of them grabbed me, ripped the pocket of my shirt. I looked down at that, and I saw red. So I just swung at him, bashed him on the cheek. Then they started to hit back. We really started going at it. All the kids started yelling and cheering. For a minute, every time they hit me, I just got angrier.

“But then I tasted blood in my mouth. My blood. It was like somebody flipped a switch. I wasn’t enraged anymore. I just turned icy cold. I became like a machine. After that, nothing they did to me hurt at all. I didn’t feel anything.”

His gaze was fixed somewhere far away. “I just pounded them, knocked both of them down, first one, then the other. Then I jumped on them, kept pounding until they screamed for me to stop. I grabbed both of them by the hair, turned their bloody faces toward Joe, and told them to apologize. They apologized.”

He blinked, coming back to the present. “But I wasn’t done. I stood up and turned on one of the kids who’d been mocking Joe, and I demanded that he apologize, too. He looked scared to death and did. Then I faced down all the rest of them. Hell, it was a yard full of kids. I said, ‘Who wants to be next?’ There was dead silence, except for the two kids wailing on the ground. I pointed at them and said, ‘Any one of the rest of you ever bothers Joe again,
that’s
what will happen to you.’ And then I took him by the arm and led him away.”

She saw the imprint of the memory etched on his face as he raised his glass again.

“You went after the bullies,” she said. “And then you confronted their enablers, too.”

The glass paused at his lips.

“I hadn’t thought of it that way before,” he said. “But yes. I suppose that’s true.”

“That day changed you,” she said softly.

He placed the glass on the table and nodded slowly. “It was kind of a turning point. A moment of self-definition.” He suddenly looked at her. Smiled, breaking his reverie. “Okay. Now, it’s my turn to ask a question.”

“Oh. Well, okay, fair is fair, I suppose.”

“Trust.”

She licked her lips. “What about it?”

“What happened, Annie?”

She drew a long breath. “Actually, I had a conversation not long ago about that. Somebody close to me pointed out that I’d been betrayed twice. The first time, when my mother left my father and me to run off with another man. The second time, when I caught my ex screwing another woman.”

“I’m sorry. How long were you married?”

“Since July 2002.” She suddenly felt the need to unburden herself. “Frank was a commercial pilot. I met him at a hotel during a business trip, not long after 9-11. There was instant chemistry. And my dad liked him and insisted on throwing a big wedding in
Georgetown
. After the honeymoon, we resumed our careers. He traveled a lot, of course, and I was pretty wrapped up in my work, too. But we made the most of our time together. Or thought we did.”

“Until when?”

“Until last year. When I accidentally found the emails from his babe in
Denver
.” She paused to take a sip of wine, moisten her lips. “Ergo, my trust issues. Just so that you know, I’m officially divorced. Since January.”

“You had mentioned your mother on our first date. I didn’t know about your husband.”

“I didn’t want to bring it up, then. I figured it might scare you off.”

He covered her hand with his. “I’m still here, Annie.”

She looked at his hand on hers. “Me too.”

*

They were both a bit tipsy when they arrived back at the apartment. She could not completely relax and sensed that he could not, either. There was still a slight wariness, a dull edge of caution, in their interaction. She could not suppress her awareness of her suspicions about him; but neither could she suppress her knowledge of his motives, of the reasons that may have turned him into an outlaw.

Inside the door, he drew her into his arms again. Her mouth responding to his, she felt as if she were spinning dangerously, deliriously, deliciously out of control. She was overpowered by it, by the restored feeling of oneness with him, by the sheer power of him and how it possessed her. For a fleeting instant, she knew that the danger that he represented only added to her intoxication, and to the intensity of the passionate tension between them.

If everything would only freeze in place, right here, right now. If only it would go on forever this way....

They stumbled, laughing, toward the bedroom, toward the waiting bed. She tugged off his jacket and dumped it on the floor. Then he pulled her to the bed and sat on it, facing her. Holding her eyes, he undid the buttons at her throat, then down the front of her blouse. He slid the straps of her bra down her arms, then reached behind her to release it. As it fell, he buried his face between her breasts.

But she pushed him back, then held up her hand to stop him. With deliberate slowness, she unbuttoned his shirt. She ran her flat palms over the hair of his chest, up to his shoulders, then down his arms to free his sleeves—

—and exposed the bandage wrapping his left arm.

*

In an instant, he saw her half-closed eyes snap open, her half-parted lips widen in a gasp. Saw the shock as she gazed at his arm.

He had to cover it, give her the excuse he had prepared.

“Don’t worry about that. It’s nothing. I just had a run-in last week with a friend’s pet poodle.”

The shock didn’t vanish as her eyes turned to his. For a moment, she didn’t speak. Then: “You say a dog did this?”

He tried to keep the smile fixed in place. “A poodle. If you count them as real dogs.”

But she didn’t smile. He watched closely as something faded in her eyes.

She knows.

*

Their love-making had a frantic quality, he thought, as if both of them were trying desperately to convince themselves that what they knew could not be true.

At first, he almost felt as if he was forcing himself upon her. She seemed to be fighting him, as she had in the past, when it had been only playful; but for a few moments it seemed real as she twisted away, seeming to recoil from him, to reject him.

“No,” she gasped, flailing at his shoulders with her fists.

At the word, he felt anger rise within him, and he grabbed her hair, pulling her head back.

“Yes,” he said. He began to kiss her naked shoulders, then breasts, then throat. He heard her gasp again, and he covered her open mouth with his.

In a moment, something changed. She began to return his kisses and to move with him. She drew up her legs and wrapped them around him; her arms snaked around his back and she began to rake his skin with her nails....

*

Afterward, they lay quietly, wrapped in each other’s arms. He stroked her hair with his fingers, feeling his pulse slow, feeling the heat rising from their bodies.

Yet as close as they held each other, he felt a widening chasm between them.

His hand touched her cheek. It was damp.

She knows.

*

He didn’t sleep. Hours later, when her breathing at last became long and steady, he slid carefully from beneath the sheets. Gathering his bathrobe from a hook on the door, he stole from the room, drawing the door shut behind him. Then he entered the den. In the dark, he felt for the hidden latch at the bottom of his bookcase and eased open the panel. His fingers probed inside for what he needed. He withdrew it, then clicked the drawer back into place.

In the living room, he pulled his key card from his wallet, then carefully opened the door to his apartment and headed for the elevators.

Three minutes later, his task completed, he returned.

Then sat alone in the dark on the living room sofa, stroking the cat.

He knew that tomorrow, they would engage in a complex minuet of forced affection. Both would try to be light and frivolous, pretending that everything was normal.

And of course it would not be. Could not be.

Until morning, he would sit here and try to learn to live with this new pain.

BETHESDA
,
MARYLAND
Monday, December 22, 5:02 a.m.

He arose at five in the morning. He pulled on his sweats and went down to the gym on the first floor. After warming up with some
katas
, he hit the machines and free weights, using the ultra-slow-repetition routines that he’d practiced for many years—the kind of high-intensity workouts that build the most muscle in the shortest amount of time.

After just over half an hour, sweating profusely, he went back to his apartment and headed directly into the shower. He winced as the hot water stung the places on his back where she had scratched him. In spite of everything, he had to smile, marveling at the intensity of her passion even after she had discovered the truth about him. Some things about women, he thought, would always remain a mystery to him.

After feeding Luna, he dressed, sat at his desk in the den, and went back to puzzling it all out.

She had left yesterday in the early evening, telling him that she had to get ready for work on Monday morning. He’d expected that; keeping up the charade any longer was just too awkward for both of them.

There was no way he’d fool her again, of course. Her reaction to the dog bite made it clear that Cronin had told her about the Doberman. Now she had confirmed, at least in her own mind, not only that he was a vigilante; she also knew, specifically, that he had to be Navarro’s shooter. She’d tell Cronin all about it later today. They still wouldn’t have proof, of course, but with their suspicions now confirmed, they would be all over him like fleas on a dog.

He would still have ways of eluding them, even while they were watching him closely. However, before he disappeared, he had some unfinished business to take care of.

For now, though, he had to put himself in their shoes. How would it go down today? He had begun to work it out on Saturday night, while lying awake next to her in the dark.

It was unlikely that she’d tell Cronin much by phone; he would need a detailed report from her, and that would take at least an hour, plus travel time. And other members of the task force would probably attend, too.

But where and when? Maybe at police headquarters in
Alexandria
, though possibly somewhere else. And probably after work—unless she was so upset that she’d take the day off and go see them in the middle of the day.

Timing was important. To make sure he had enough time to react before they arrived later today, he had to know exactly when she left her house or workplace and went to meet them.

Which is why he had sneaked from bed on Saturday night while she was asleep, gone down to the garage, and hidden the real-time GPS tracker in her car.

*

He was filling another coffee cup at 7:47 a.m. when he heard the computer program for the tracker start to beep. It automatically activated a computer alert when the subject vehicle was in motion. He went back into the den, sat, and zoomed in on the screen map.

The flashing red dot representing her car entered the maze of highways in
Falls Church
, moving east toward Route 29. He remembered that she worked for an insurance company in
Fairfax
; so she’d probably get on 29 and shoot straight west. Once he was sure she was on her way to work, he’d probably be okay for hours, maybe all day.

He sipped his coffee and watched. Watched her turn onto 29
east.

He sighed. It was looking as if her meeting with Cronin & Company would be first thing in the morning. That didn’t give him as much time as he’d like. He watched for a while as the red dot continued on 29. If she were meeting the cops in
Alexandria
, she might next take 120—
Glebe Road
—south, cutting off a lot of miles.

The red dot intersected 120 on the map.

But turned
north.

What the hell?

He watched the red dot track along Glebe all the way past the
George Washington Parkway
, where it picked up the end of Route 123 and veered north again.

Probably heading now for the big cloverleaf entrance onto the GW, just a mile ahead.

He sipped more coffee, staring at the screen.

But the dot kept moving past the GW intersection.

He clicked the mouse several times, enlarging the street map.

Then the hair began to stand up on the back of his neck as he watched the red dot approach a place that he knew very well.

He put down his cup.

Surely she would continue right on by.

But she didn’t. Annie
Woods’s
car made the right turn off 123.

And onto the access road the led into the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Stunned, he zoomed in to the maximum magnification. Watched the red dot pause at the security entrance, then move on, entering the Agency campus. Then loop around to an area he knew was set aside for employee parking.

Where it stopped moving.

*

He stood on his balcony, staring blankly at the
neighborhood
.

He wracked his brain for something, anything, that could make sense of what he had just seen. But came up empty. It was as if all the laws of nature had been repealed—as if up and down were suddenly reversed, while gravity and inertia no longer existed. Everything he knew was coming apart, spinning crazily into chaos. And he had no idea why.

Start with what you know about her.

He realized then that he actually
knew
very little. Nothing but what she had
told
him. Except for the house in
Falls Church
, which was real enough; he had been there. But what else did he really know?

She was young, extremely smart, very athletic. She claimed to be an insurance claims investigator, obviously false.

What about her name? The crime victims he had met, including Susanne Copeland, all called her Annie Woods. But was it real? Could she have fooled them, too?

The funeral.
He recalled all the Agency faces there. Of course, Arthur Copeland had worked for
Langley
as a contractor. But what if there was more to it?

The thought occurred to him:
How did Annie know Susanne?

He went back inside. He needed answers.

He spent a few minutes working out his pretext. Then pulled a fresh phone and battery from his desk drawer, dialed into the “spoof” website, and programmed in an internal Agency phone number he knew by heart. That one would show up on the Caller ID when he dialed the main number.

“This is Mel Riggins in DS&T,” he told the Agency operator. “I need a couple of updated phone numbers, if you would?”

“Certainly, Mr. Riggins. Could you give me the employee names, please?”

“First is Susanne Copeland. Second, Ann Woods. That’s Ann with no ‘e.’”

“A moment, sir.”

There were a few clicks, then the woman came back on the line. “Are you ready for those numbers, sir?”

“Go ahead,” he said. He took down the numbers, then said, “Wait a minute. Isn’t Susanne Copeland in D.I.,
Middle East
?”

“
Mmmm
...yes, Directorate of Intelligence, but actually with
Eastern Europe
.”

“I see. Maybe they transferred her. And Ann Woods, where is she now?”

“Let me see.... I have her in the Office of Security, special investigations.... No, wait a minute. There’s a notation that she transferred some months ago.... Okay, yes, she’s now working out of the office of the NCS deputy director.”

Suddenly, he could no longer speak.

“Will there be anything else, Mr. Riggins?”

“No,” he managed to say. “Thanks much.”

He broke the connection. Set the phone down and gripped the edge of the desk.

“Garrett,” he said through clenched teeth.

It had been bad enough dealing with the police.

*

He sat at his desk with a notepad and pen, drawing those lines and circles they call “mind maps.” He liked the technique; it helped him visualize connections between all sorts of random data and ideas. It took another hour before he thought he had sorted it out.

First, there was the CIA and Grant Garrett, plus Annie Woods—an OS investigator now working for Garrett. That looked as if it could be about Matt Malone.

Second, though, there was Annie Woods and Cronin. That was completely separate. It was all about the vigilante killings.

He looked at the linked bubbles of names. The one and only connection between both investigations was Annie Woods. And—as insane and ironic as it was—it looked as if her presence in both of them was all
his
fault.

After all,
she
hadn’t known he was going to show up at that funeral. In fact, she had no idea who he was, then. Or even later, when he also turned up at the prison. Or at the victims meeting. Since then,
he
had been pursuing
her—
not the other way around.

He remembered strolling outside with her on the street after that meeting. How she’d tried to brush him off; how he’d insisted.

It had been an incredible breach of mission security. He recalled, with bitter irony, that Sinatra song about the warning voice in the night.
Don’t you know, you fool?
No, he didn’t know. How could he have known?
But he’d been a fool, all right. He had not simply walked into a trap; he had set the damned trap for himself. Set it by falling in love, by ignoring the fact that any woman with half a brain would want to know his background.

How could he have been that big of an idiot? So it served him right that, of all the women on the planet, he had picked the one woman who would be most dangerous to him.

And now she knew all about his ties to the vigilante killings. What would happen if she also found out about his connection to Matt Malone? Or did she already know?

Did Garrett?

He took the sheets of note paper he had been scribbling on and fed them, one by one, into his shredder. The loud whirring and grinding sent Luna scurrying from her hiding place under his desk and out of the room.

Intel.
He needed more information. Most immediately, he needed to know more about her. Who she really was, what she was really up to.

He dialed in
Wonk’s
number. After the social preliminaries, he explained what he wanted.

“Let me read this back to you, Dylan. This lady friend of yours lives at a home in
Alexandria
, and she works for an agency which, on this open line, shall remain nameless. She was married in July 2002 in
Georgetown
to a man, first name Frank, and was divorced from that gentleman in January of this year. Do you have anything else?”

“I wish.”

The researcher chuckled. “I am certain it will be enough. Call me at noon.”

*

A couple of hours later, he
dialed
back. Wonk answered at the first ring. “Dylan?”