Witness to Death (25 page)

“—the owner of the motel survived. The two visitors had the only room. The one that blew up. No bodies have been found yet.”

The reporter droned on about the explosion, speculating about causes. No one was interviewed, no witnesses. But Callahan couldn’t take his eyes off the picture. He tried to single out pieces of the wreckage to see a hand, a leg, something twitching. Something the firemen had missed. A sign that Michelle was alive.

He squinted and saw nothing but the twisted wreckage of the motel. The water dripped from the remaining timbers as the firemen put out the last few bits of flashing fire. He could see Michelle’s car.

He leaned forward.
Give me a sign, Michelle
, he pleaded.
You can’t be dead.

The TV screen faded to a commercial.

“You were supposed to be taken to a warehouse last night,” Sandler said. “Five of my men weren’t enough. I’m impressed.”

“What is going on here?” Callahan spat out the words. “Taken? I was at home waiting for her. You know where I live.”

Sandler shook his head. “You’re a child playing a man’s game.”

“Okay,” Callahan said. “What do you want from me?”

Sandler turned and walked toward the kitchen. “Christine, take care of him for me.”

A woman came in from the kitchen, holding a taser.

The hood over Callahan’s head smelled like cotton balls. He blinked his eyes as he awoke and tried to see. But the hood was thick; no light seeped through.

His neck throbbed, like a blinking light. Every time the van hit a bump, he had to grit his teeth to keep from screaming. He was trying to time the trip from the point he woke, get an idea where they were headed, but the hood was making it hard to do that. He’d count in his head, then the pain would return and time would float away. It was no use. He had no idea how long he’d been out.

Some time ago Christine had duct taped his wrists behind his back and dragged him by the collar to the black van in front of the house. She pushed him into the cabin in the back and pulled a hood over his head. She then duct taped the hood tight to his neck. No one spoke. He heard a
phut
and he passed out.

Focus
, he thought.
Try to take in the bumps, the sounds of the road. Listen for anything out of the ordinary. Find out where they’re taking you.

No luck. Either his captors had found the quietest road in northern Jersey or the van’s cabin was insulated. He guessed the latter, since the cabin wasn’t freezing, and the metal he sat on wasn’t stinging his legs. Whoever drove was silent.

This was too much like his brief stint in Afghanistan, just before Weller had recruited him for his DHS position. They called it a snatch ‘n’ grab. Travel down to the Pakistan/Afghani border with a translator. Wear native clothing and let your beard grow out. Callahan never grew facial hair well, but was told it didn’t matter, you just needed to try and fit in. When nightfall came, he’d sneak over the border to a known location and as quietly as possible kidnap a terrorist. Bag over the head, handcuffs instead of duct tape, and throw them into the back of the van.

He wondered then if the terrorists he’d grabbed tried to focus on the bumps in the road to figure out where they were taking him. Though, with the lack of good paving, he couldn’t imagine it would do any good.

Callahan felt the same way now. The roads they’d been on were well paved and he had no idea where they could be.

At one point the van stopped, sending him toppling forward. His ribs erupted amd he thought they might punch through his chest. He exhaled hard through both his nose and mouth. Spit and snot caked the inside of the hood.

How long had Sandler known?

The last time Callahan’d come close to being caught was near Christmas. He and Michelle had gone over to Robert’s house for dinner and to exchange gifts. After dinner, they moved into the study, where Sandler kept his hard liquor. He liked a drink while he worked. Sandler had broken out the scotch for Callahan and himself. Three glasses later, Sandler had to use the bathroom. Michelle was in the kitchen making sure the filet was cooking all right and talking to Juanita, the maid.

Callahan got up, and took a step forward, the alcohol skewing his sense of balance slightly. He put his hand on the back of the chair to steady himself. Shaking his head to clear his vision, he took another step. The room stopped spinning.

He’d had the code to the safe behind the painting of Columbus for nearly a year now, but hadn’t been able to get near it. Now was his chance. He lifted the painting off its hook and dialed in the combination. Stopping to listen for Sandler, he heard nothing save for the whisper of gossip from the kitchen. The safe creaked open.

There wasn’t much inside. A few thin tax folders, a blue Tiffany box, and the sheet Callahan was looking for. It was a graph, comparing Sandler’s missile sale profits to Ameritech’s. Ameritech was the arms company a branch of the government had been using discreetly—and illegally. The company never made the headlines, as the government used it only to purchase weapons for Black Operations. Weapons the public wasn’t ever supposed to know about. Somehow Sandler had found out.

Callahan pulled at the paper and tried to read it, but he heard the toilet flush above him. He slapped the paper down in the safe, and slammed the door shut and spun the dial once. Hanging the painting back on its hook, he knew he wouldn’t be able to make it back to his chair before Sandler reached the study.

“Admiring the painting?” Sandler slurred, coming through the door.

“Yeah, Christopher Columbus right?”

The painting showed Columbus standing alone on the beach, the small waves breaking on the shore. Columbus appeared to be looking at something outside the frame, as the wind blew sand around his ankles.

“Right,” Sandler said, sidling up next to him. “I had this commissioned. Always admired the man. He was looking for a new way, trying to be innovative. Make things easier for his country. A shorter way to India? It would have saved Spain tons of manpower, tons of money. He was way ahead of his time.”

Callahan nodded. The picture looked like it was at an angle, and he wondered if Sandler saw the same thing. Did he know what Callahan had been doing?

“That’s what I want to do for this country. Find something new, a way to save it manpower and money. I’m useful, and my business is run efficiently, Frank. You know how that works. I’m sure your steel business is run the same way.” He reached out and straightened the painting. “I just want to keep this country
safe
.”

Callahan wondered if Sandler had accented the last word on purpose, to give him a scare. Or if it was just the alcohol talking.

Now, as the van bumped along what felt like a gravel road, he wondered if Sandler had known then that Callahan was an agent.

No, he thought. If that was when he’d found out, he’d have taken action much more quickly. Michelle said he’d fired a guy for bringing him the wrong lunch. Sandler agreed to deals with other countries in twenty minutes. The guy was a doer. He rarely showed patience.

It had to be some other time.

The van rumbled to a stop, and Callahan felt the engine die. The front door opened and slammed shut. The back doors opened, and he was pulled from the cabin. He was led, an arm under his elbow, through the gravel, on to slippery concrete.

“Be careful,” he heard a voice he was sure was Christine. “There’s ice.”

“You don’t want to do this,” he tried. “You’re going to get hurt. Let me go and I’ll help you.”

They paused, and he felt a change in the air, as if Christine had turned toward him. He waited, not sure if she would stab him or if she was thinking about his offer. An instant later they were walking again. Occasionally they slid on ice patches. His ribs argued with him every time.

They stopped again, a few minutes later, and Callahan heard computerized beeping and then a sliding sound, followed by a metallic clang. They took four steps forward and the cold was replaced by dry warmth. Someone pulled the duct tape from his neck. Then the hood came off.

Callahan squinted, a bright light shining in his eyes. He waited for his pupils to adjust. The glare faded a little, and he realized he was in a brightly lit warehouse, with high ceilings and thick walls. It was an airplane hangar. At the far end were two helicopters, Sandler’s company logo blazed from the doors. He looked up and saw that the roof could slide open. On the far end of the building were wooden and metal cases he’d only seen on military bases. They also had the logo on them, thick, bubbled “D” with a red circle around it. To his left stood a shiny metal desk, Sandler sitting behind it.

The man looked up, the exhaustion and alcohol in his eyes replaced by a clarity of purpose as if he’d found new life in the warehouse. He smiled when he saw his guests. Stood up, and came around his desk, a newspaper in his hand.

“You are a very lucky man, Mr. Callahan. May I call you Peter?”

Heat ran down Callahan’s back, starting between his shoulder blades and spreading like molten lava. Sandler knew his real name.

Callahan didn’t speak. He strained his arms against the duct tape, his muscles taut.

“It seems I have a use for you. I want you to see something.”

Sandler held out a copy of the
New York Times
. It was the Sunday edition. Callahan wondered how long he’d been unconscious in the van. He looked at the headline and froze. The shock must have shown his face, because Sandler grinned, showing off his coffee stained teeth.

“That’s right. I know the reporter, he sent this to me, and somehow he broke the story of Ameritech and its secret connection to United States’ Black Operatives.”

“What did you do?” Callahan leaned toward the paper trying to read the article.

Ameritech had worked hard to remain a secret. Their public persona was a computer company. The article spelled the facts about the bombs they built, the missiles, the tanks, everything that made the United States the best at killing people quietly. Or loudly, for that matter.

“Did you leak this?” Callahan asked.

Sandler folded the paper into quarters and tucked it under his arm. He walked back to the desk and picked up a pen.

“If you did,” Callahan said, “you’ll probably help the Ameritech stock soar. Monday morning is going to be a boon.”

Sandler nodded. “Oh, good. I just bought stock in Ameritech. The media is a wonderful thing. Though I must say, I’m going to have to sell first thing Monday.”

He wrote on a small yellow notepad. Dropping the notepad back on the desk, he returned to Callahan.

“I need your help,” Sandler said. “You’re going to tell me where someone is.”

“Why would I help you?”

Sandler turned toward a door that led into a hallway. A large man with dark hair came in pushing a wheelchair.

Callahan’s body went slack and he had to tense up to stop himself from falling over. He turned toward Sandler and was about to ask what the hell the man was doing when he saw all the color had drained from Sandler’s face as well.