Hunter: A Thriller (4 page)

*

Garrett draped his suit jacket across the back of his desk chair, then called the cafeteria to send up a fresh pot of coffee and chicken salad sandwiches. After these were delivered, the pair ate in silence. Beyond the window, flesh-
colored
clouds faded to
gray
, as if life were bleeding from the sky. He didn’t bother to turn on the office lamps. They sat in the gathering gloom as Garrett torched his way non-stop through the last of his
Luckies
. The periodic flare of his lighter cut deeper fissures into his stony features.

For an hour they discussed meanings, possibilities, ramifications. They didn’t like their conclusions.

“This is certainly going to blow away the task force at tomorrow’s meeting,” she said at last.

“Not so fast.”

The aging spymaster mashed out his last glowing butt in the mug, got up, moved to the window. He stood there, hands clasped behind his back, a dark gray silhouette against the lighter gray rectangle. He stared out past the parking lot, out somewhere into the shadow world surrounding the sprawling complex.

“Annie, we agree that we may have another mole. Somebody high enough in the pecking order here to know that we took Muller to
Linden
. Maybe somebody with the clout to send out someone else, maybe an SAD guy, to hit him. That would mean somebody right here on the seventh floor, right?”

“I suppose so.”

He turned to face her. “So, do you want to alert this person that we’re looking for him?”

She hadn’t thought of that. She shook her head.

“If we’re going to nail him, we can’t go through normal channels.”

She nodded. After a moment, she stood. Walked over to face him.

“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t want to alert him. I want to be the one to
find
him.”

“Oh?” The lights from the parking lot revealed a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

“Look, sir. I did what you said. I slept on it. And I’d like to accept that transfer offer and work for you.” She hesitated, then added: “But only if my job is to hunt that son of a bitch, sir.”

He looked down at her and, incredibly, actually smiled again.

“Grant. Call me Grant.”

WASHINGTON
,
D.C.
Monday, September 1, 1:25 p.m.

“
Hell-o
, Mr. Hunter!”

The pretty receptionist sang out the greeting as he entered the suite and approached her desk.

“And to you,
Danika
.” He had to smile back, in spite of his foul mood.

She pushed her lips into a playful pout. “I was thinking you forgot the address here. What’s it been? Two weeks?”

“I’ve been out of town. On assignment.” A half-truth.

She rubbed her chin, mock-serious, appraising him. “Now, that’s a bold fashion statement. Shades are nice, though.”

Hunter removed his Oakley sunglasses and followed her gaze down to his reversible windbreaker. He now wore it garish-orange-side out, the side with the snarling black panther leaping across his chest. He’d meant it to be a point of focus, a distraction. It seemed to be working.

“Well,
Danika
, I guess I just don’t have your taste and refinement.”

She
tsk-tsked
. “What you
need is
daily guidance
from a woman of taste and refinement.” She leaned forward, the top two buttons of her pale-yellow silk blouse strategically unbuttoned. Whatever she wore underneath must have been spun from a single spool of gossamer.

“No woman of taste and refinement would possibly want me,” he said, careful not to let his eyes drift south.

“Don’t you be so sure, now.” She grinned, settling back and rocking her swivel chair so that he could get a good look at the rest of her. “You’d be an interesting project.”

“‘Project.’ How romantic. How’s Tyrone?”

She beamed. “He just had his fourth birthday party on Saturday. Ten neighbor kids showed up. They had a ball, but I spent all afternoon yesterday getting chocolate cake and ice cream out of the carpet.” She laughed. “That boy’s something. You know, before he opened his presents, he insisted on reading all his birthday cards out loud. Didn’t miss a single word.”

“Such a bright little guy. Takes after a lovely lady I know. And how’s Melvin treating that lady?”

She wrinkled her nose. “That man, he’s the most infuriating— Oh, don’t you get me started, now.”

“Any mail?”

“Nothing in two weeks. Just one call, this morning—Mr.
Bronowski
. That’s your editor, right?”

“So he believes.”

“He asked you to return his call today, if possible. And your one-thirty arrived early. Mr.
Diffendorfer
.” She tried to keep a straight face. “He’s occupying office number eleven.”

“All of it, I’m sure.”

She laughed, the dimples deepening in her smooth coffee skin. “You bad.”

“
Danika
, you have no idea.”

*

Hunter left her and headed down the hallway of the suite. It was a perfect set-up: a “virtual office” lease arrangement from a national chain that provided him a downtown address, mail and call-forwarding, and time-shared space whenever he needed it. Anybody who wished to find Dylan Lee Hunter could try to contact him here. But anybody whom he did not wish to find him would reach a charming but unyielding stone wall named
Danika
Cheyenne Brown.

The conference room was empty, so he ducked in. From the thigh pocket of his cargo pants he pulled a cell phone. It was one of the many cheap, prepaid models that he bought anonymously, with cash, from drugstores throughout
Maryland
and
Virginia
, then dumped after brief use. He reinstalled the battery, thumbed the number for the managing editor’s line at the
Capitol Inquirer
, then sat on the edge of the conference table as the call rang through.

“
Bronowski
.” The voice was harsh and harried.

“Hunter.”

“Finally!
Dammit
, Dylan, you’re harder to get
ahold
of than a virgin on a first date. Don’t you check your messages?”

“Annually.”

“Very funny. Why the hell don’t you give me a direct number where I can reach you?”

“I’ve told you. I don’t share my personal contact information.”

“But this is stupid. I’m your editor.”

“Not stupid. What I write upsets people. Powerful, nasty people. I need to protect my privacy.”

“What, you don’t even trust
me
with your number?” Silence. “Well. I guess not, then. Dylan, this whole goddamned arrangement is weird. You realize we still haven’t met, even though you’ve been working for me for a year?”

“Not for you, Bill. Not for anybody. I work for myself.”

“Know something? Even for a writer, you’re an uncooperative, egotistical, insufferably arrogant prick.”

“Hey—who are you calling ‘uncooperative’?”

Bronowski
laughed in spite of himself. “Well, you’re right about one thing. What you write does upset people.
Wanna
know who you’ve pissed off now?”

“No.”

“The
frickin
’
governor of
Maryland
, that’s who. He was none too happy with your feature about his inmate commutation policy.”

“Tough. I’m none too happy about his policy. Neither are the victims of all the thugs he’s turned loose.”

“Yeah, easy for you to say. You weren’t the one who had to take the phone call last night.”

“Did you give the
guv
my regards?”

Bronowski
snorted. “Call wasn’t from him. It was from
Addison
. Our dear publisher was not amused. You’ve simultaneously pissed off both a governor and our boss.”

“
Your
boss. Remember?”

“Okay,
my
boss. Regardless. He wasn’t pleased about having his Sunday golf game down in Lauderdale interrupted by a call from
Annapolis
. He got an earful, and last night he returned me the favor. Now he wants to know what I’m going to do about you.”

He paused. Hunter said nothing.

“Don’t you care what I’m going to do?”
Bronowski
demanded.

“No.”

The editor dropped a cluster of f-bombs. Then stopped. Hunter heard a sigh.

“Dylan, what the hell
am
I
gonna
do with you? You know what kind of position you’ve stuck me in? Look, I’m not
gonna
lie to you. You’re the best investigative reporter I’ve run into in a long time. I don’t know where you got your training—but that’s the point! I don’t know a goddamned thing about you. Where you come from. Where you went to J school. Who you worked for before, where you live, whether you have a wife or kids or a dog—”

“Cat.”

He snorted again. “How nice. You know, after you started freelancing with us, I
Googled
your name. I figured, your talent, a thousand links would come up. But nothing. Not
one.
You’re like the Invisible Man.”

Hunter was studying a wall photo of the
Washington
Monument
. He spoke quietly. “My past doesn’t matter to me. Why should it matter to you?”

Bronowski
was silent a moment. “Okay. I won’t pry anymore. Hell, I don’t care if you flunked English or were Saddam Hussein’s press secretary. Only thing that matters is, you keep delivering the goods. Right now your freelancing generates more mail than anything my staff here produces. Which reminds me—the circ audit just came in. I checked back. Since you started pitching me stories last year, we’re up eight percent. That’s while the competition is bleeding readers and advertisers.”

“So what did you tell
Addison
?”

“
That’s
what I told
Addison
.”

“Good for you, Bill.”

“Yeah, well, since you’re
gonna
cost me my job any day now, you damned well better make your next piece worth my while.”

It reminded him of why he had come here today. He felt his jaw tighten.

“It will be the talk of the town.”

He removed the battery from the cell again as he left the conference room, then rounded a corner and opened the door to number eleven.

*

Freddie
Diffendorfer
perched like an enormous Buddha on the armless visitor’s chair next to the desk. His legs were splayed far apart, unavoidable given the size of his thighs. An open box of a dozen assorted doughnuts covered much of the desktop—at least, it used to contain a dozen. Three were left.

He looked up at Hunter, a semi-circle of white pastry poised in his hand. His cheeks were streaked with powdered sugar.

“Hello, Dylan,” he mumbled as he chewed.

“Hello, Wonk.” Hunter barely managed to squeeze past him to get to the chair behind the desk. “What’s this? Late lunch?”

His visitor shook his head. A crumb hiding somewhere in one of his chins came loose and landed on his lap. “No, I had lunch at McDonald’s. But on my way through
Dupont
Circle
, I observed that the hot light was on.”

“I understand.
Opportunity
of a lifetime. So, do you need some time to finish up?”

“No, I shall save the rest for a snack later, thank you.”

Hunter watched with a mixture of awe and disgust as Wonk crammed the remaining half of the doughnut into his mouth. Barely chewed before he swallowed. Then licked his fingers. Then clapped his fat palms together, raising a small white cloud. Then wiped his hands on stained,
unpressed
slacks the size of a circus tent.

Hunter closed the sticky lid of the box and slid it aside to clear space on the desk. “Now that you’re amply, if not properly, fortified, what do you have for me?”

Wonk leaned forward; the chair’s metal legs creaked ominously. He couldn’t bend more than a few inches, but his chubby arms somehow managed to reach past the curve of his belly to grip the green canvas bag at his feet. He lifted it laboriously and balanced it precariously on what little remained of his lap. Then he poked around inside and extracted three thick manila folders, held together by rubber bands.

“Here they are,” he said, panting from his heroic exertion. He pushed the folders across the desk. “All three files that you asked for.”

They bore official Department of Corrections stamps and labels. Hunter whistled softly. “Amazing. How do you manage to get your hands on all this stuff?”

Wonk looked like a puppy tossed a treat. “Trade secrets. That is why I am the highly paid professional researcher, while you are the high-profile professional journalist.” He hesitated. Hunter knew Wonk was waiting to be begged for details. Amused, he ignored him, and instead took his time removing the rubber bands.

“The
only
thing that I can tell you,” Wonk blurted finally, “is that an administrative assistant in the DOC owed me a
huge
favor. But Dylan, please understand that you cannot keep these for more than two hours. I
must
get them back to her before the end of the business day.”