Erased (3 page)

Bree’s room, the master bedroom; they’re disasters. The living room is a dungeon. If the city knew, the place would be condemned.

Sarafina Murphy paid no mind to the rancid stench, to the piles of rubbish creeping through the house or the rats lurking in the corners. She looked at the blankets and sheets on the windows and saw neat, lacy curtains. She stared at the empty fridge and saw it brimming with fresh produce, stuffed so full that she barely had room for everything.

“There you go,” Sara said. She placed Bree’s lunch at the edge of the counter. It was an empty bag. Other bags rested along the edge of the counter and spilled over onto the floor. Some had food in them, rotting and crawling with maggots. Sara had made real lunches for weeks, until the food ran out. Then she just began handing Bree a bag full of invisible food. Invisible Bree, invisible food.

They’re not real.

“I think your bus is here,” Sara said. “Have a good day, sweetie.” Invisible Bree ran out the front door.

Scott appeared next to Sara and she handed him an empty coffee cup. It clattered to the counter. The handle broke off. “I’m taking the Roadrunner today,” she said to no one. “You take the Mercedes.” Invisible Scott said that would be just fine.

Sara usually drove the Mercedes SUV because it was more comfortable, and had room for the shopping. Today she didn’t need to shop. She wanted to drive the Roadrunner. It was such a nice car, and the weather was so nice. Scott understood. He was such a wonderful husband.

There’s another reason.

Sara turned the key in the lock when she left. She walked to the front of the garage where the Roadrunner was parked. “Mrs. Murphy! Mrs. Murphy!”

Sara glanced up to see her elderly neighbor Miriam Johnson running across the street. “Hello, Miriam.”

“Hello, Sara. I need to discuss something with you. It’s your house.”

Sara glanced up at the house. It was lovely. A beautiful bungalow in a perfect south Marin neighborhood. It was Sara’s dream home. “What about it?” she said.

Miriam looked uncomfortable. “Well, it’s the… we have CC&R’s here, Sara. You can’t leave your lawn like that. You can’t have bedsheets hanging in your windows.”

Sara faltered. Her vision pulsed, morbid flashes of reality ripping through the fabric of her dreamlike fantasy. Brown, barren earth. Dying trees. Peeling paint. Bedsheets… She pushed it back.

“Miriam, how would you like me to bash your head on the sidewalk and stomp on your fat face, until your brains leak out your ears?”

Miriam staggered back. “What…”

“Good to see you, too,” Sara said. “Say hello to George!” She crawled into the Roadrunner and disappeared down the street. Miriam stood speechless, her jaw hanging open as she watched Sara drive away.

Chapter 5

Konrad settled onto the hard wooden bench next to Senator Paolini and gazed at the scenery of the San Francisco Tea Gardens. They were close in age, both on the younger side of forty. They almost looked like a couple: him tall and dark with a lean build, her thin with a long face and light brown hair. She looked her part, dressed expensively but tastefully in a navy skirt with matching heels. She wore a white blouse under a tailored sport jacket that took the edge off the cold. Konrad wore blue jeans and a t-shirt. He didn’t mind the cold.

It was a foggy morning. Other than a few groundskeepers and a handful of Japanese tourists, the Tea Gardens were empty. Konrad cast a wary gaze around the area, certain that the senator must have security guards hidden somewhere. He didn’t see any, and that was surprising. Either he was slipping, or the senator was even more paranoid than he’d thought.

Paolini had insisted on meeting him in person because she believed her phones might be tapped. Paranoid or not, it was audacious to demand a meeting with him in public. The senator was well known for her ruthlessness and ambition. Perhaps all that money and power had gone to her head. That, or she was further up the hierarchy than he’d been led to believe.

Senator Paolini held up a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle as if she were reading it. “Good morning, Konrad,” she said softly.

“Don’t use my name.” It was unlikely they’d be overheard, but he still didn’t like speaking to her in public. The whole meeting was a bad idea.

Paolini spared him a freezing glance and then went right back to her headlines. “I’m not accustomed to people taking that tone with me,” she said. Her voice was higher, slightly rattled. She had a quick temper, that one.

“I’m not used to having my operations sabotaged by public meetings with careless senators.”

“Fine, let’s get to the point then. Are your plans in place?”

“Same as they have been for weeks.”

She nodded approvingly. “Let me know when Fortress is dead.”

“Oh, you’ll know,” Konrad said. “Everyone will know.”

“And the other plans?
My plans
?”

Konrad leaned back against the bench, eyes still roving. He took a deep breath. “It’s unconventional,” he said. “Normally we give them a running start.”

“Not this time. This operation is particularly important. I won’t have any loose ends.”

“There are other ways,” he said. “He’s been with us for a long time.”

“Too long. That’s the problem. He’s old, he’s slow. He’s slipping. You said it yourself last summer when the Iraqi operation went south. That cost us a fortune.”

“I didn’t say it to
you
,” Konrad said.

“You said it, that’s all that matters. Stryker’s miscalculation cost us dearly and endangered the entire agency.”

“Quit using our names, Goddammit.”

Senator Paolini lowered her newspaper and fixed Konrad with an icy stare. “Watch yourself, agent. This is an opportunity for you. You’re next in line for command of this unit. Don’t think that because of that, you’re not expendable.”

Konrad met her stare and was stunned by what he saw in those dark, shallow eyes. The senator had no soul. Konrad had seen that look before in the eyes of hardened soldiers. He’d seen that look on the faces of people who’d had their legs blown off or had seen their family slaughtered. Konrad probably had a bit of the look himself, after his tours in the Mideast. But to see that look in the eyes of a senator gave him a chill.

Konrad made up his mind then and there that he was going to kill her. It wasn’t because her arrogance was a danger to the organization, or because of the way she’d endangered him and his team by demanding a public meeting. It wasn’t even because of her insistence on using his name in public. It was because she was a cold, hard bitch and he didn’t trust her. If there’s any rule when it comes to working with assassins, it’s that you should stay on their good side.

“I’ll take care of Stryker myself,” he said reluctantly. He wasn’t entirely committed to the promise, but for the moment, he needed to calm the senator and get her off his back.

He already had an uneasy feeling about the operation, and this little meeting hadn’t assuaged his fears. There were too many pieces on the board. It made Konrad uncomfortable. The slightest bump and everything might go clattering across the table, spilling onto the floor. It was going to be hard enough to control the pieces that were already in play. Paolini’s interference might just be the tipping point.

Then again, she’d just discussed two assassinations with a professional hitman. And he’d recorded the whole thing. If there was anyone who should be worried, it was Paolini. Konrad didn’t have any plans for the recording at the moment, but he liked to cover his bases.

Paolini smiled confidently as she rose from the bench. “I want to know when it’s all done,” she said. “I want the details.”

Konrad nodded. She left, whistling a tune as she wandered down the path. He watched her leave, and when she was out of earshot, he muttered an old Russian proverb under his breath, “
Likha beda nachalo.” Trouble is the beginning of disaster.

Chapter 6

Brandy arrived at the FBI building on Golden Gate Avenue at ten minutes to eight. Agent Smith was waiting for her at her desk. Brandy faltered as she saw him. He’d never been waiting for her before. She’d always had to track him down.

He was usually in the break room, chatting with friends and sipping coffee, or wandering around the building asking coworkers about their plans for the weekend. Not today. Today he was standing next to her desk, arm dangling across his chest in a sling, as brooding as a pallbearer.

She threw a nervous glance around the office. No one met her gaze. Faces turned away as her eyes fell on them.
Well, this is it,
she thought.
This is where I get fired.
She swallowed hard. “Good morning, Agent Smith.”

“Brandy,” he said sullenly.

“Am I late?”

“No… I was just dropping these papers off,” he motioned to a stack of files on her desk. Brandy hadn’t even noticed them.

“Oh, I see… what are they?”

“Background checks. They should keep you busy until Ashcroft has time to meet with you.”

Brandy’s heart was palpitating.
If you’re going to fire me, just come out and say it!
“What about the murder-suicide on the Bay Bridge?” she said breathlessly. “I thought we’d be finishing those phone calls.”

“The phone calls are finished. Brandy… you and I won’t be working together anymore.”

Brandy threw her gaze around the room. Faces snapped away. She lowered her voice: “
Are you firing me, Agent Smith?”

Smith arched an eyebrow. “Personnel matters are not in my job description, Agent Jackson. Good luck.”

With that, he turned and walked away. Brandy stood mystified, her jaw hanging open. What was that supposed to mean? Was she fired, or wasn’t she? What the hell was going on?

She dropped into her chair and looked at the stack of files.
Background checks.
That was the work of an intern, not a fully trained field agent. Were they demoting her? Was that what this was? She felt a headache coming on, and she forced her shoulders to relax.

They should keep you busy until Ashcroft has time to meet with you,
Smith had said. Ashcroft.
Special Agent in Charge
Ashcroft… if he needed to meet with her, then she probably was getting fired. She couldn’t think of any other reason Ashcroft would want to meet her face to face. He’d never done it before.

Brandy took a deep breath and grabbed the top file.
Until then, better just do your job,
she thought.

Chapter 7

Sara Murphy’s office at
Pritchard & Stark
was on the second floor. It was an old ten-story office building located a block away from Union Square. When she arrived at eight a.m. Friday morning, her secretary Alicia was already working. Alicia was a young girl from an inner-city Oakland neighborhood. She was working her way through law school. The firm supported Alicia with tutoring and a full scholarship. She’d already proven herself handy with research, and Sara had no doubt she’d make a great lawyer some day.

“Good morning,” Alicia said, smiling.

“Morning. What’s on the agenda today?”

“Meetings. The Thompsons at nine, the Kennedys at ten, and you have two phone conferences.”

“Wonderful.”

Sara’s voice was thick with sarcasm and Alicia gave her a sympathetic look. “On the bright side, Steve and Jim invited you to lunch at
The Lounge
. They’ll be there at noon.”

Sara bit her lower lip and reached up to massage the back of her neck. She wasn’t sure she wanted to have lunch with those two. Jim was an incorrigible drinker and he was a terrible influence on Steve. Jim also tended to lose his inhibitions when he drank, and to conveniently forget that Sara was married. She’d had to remind him more than once. She had other reasons to avoid him, too.

On the other hand, Steve was her boss. It was kind of hard to say no to him. “Tell them I’ll try to be there,” she said without conviction.

She wandered into her office and dropped into her leather armchair, already exhausted. The computer monitor on her desk flickered to life, and Sara saw Scott and Bree smiling at her from the desktop. The picture was two years old. Bree was growing up so fast. It made Sara’s heart ache. When was the last time they’d had a vacation like that? When had they even been together like that?

They’re not real.

Sara had gone into the law profession with images in mind of Erin Brockovich, or even Tom Cruise in “A Few Good Men.” The reality of her career at
Pritchard & Stark
wasn’t nearly that glamorous. The closest she’d ever come to a criminal case was when one of her bankruptcy clients had neglected to disclose a wine collection worth eighty thousand dollars. It was all Sara could do to keep the trustee from throwing her client into jail.

Most of her cases involved unemployed families who could no longer make payments on their credit cards or their homes. It took weeks to get the papers filled out. The results were generally the same. The clients were broke and everything they owned was worthless. In many cases, they could barely even afford to pay for the bankruptcy. After those meetings, Sara usually spent the rest of the day feeling guilty. It was hard to watch a family lose everything. Harder still because Sara earned a very comfortable six-figure salary and knew she’d never have to worry about money.

Sara left the office at eleven and walked to the gym a few blocks away. As she passed Union Square, a middle-aged man with a goatee stopped her and thrust a flyer in her hand. He mumbled something as he handed it to her.

Sara accepted the flyer and looked the guy over. He was medium in build, slightly overweight with graying hair and a round, friendly face. He reminded her of one of her high school teachers. He wore a white t-shirt that said in bold black lettering: END THE FED.