Authors: Kyle Mills
"Pull it together, Karen," she said between gasps.
This wasn't about her. She had to get to the highway as fast as sh e could and doing twenty miles in a series of two-mile sprints wasn'
t going to get that done. She started running again, with a mor e reasonable gait, but began to falter almost immediately.
What was the hurry, really? Al Fayed, while very possibly completel y out of his mind, didn't strike her as stupid. He'd have dropped he r off far enough out that he'd be long gone before she could contact th e office and tell them .. . what? In the end, she'd wind up sitting i n the interrogation room answering questions that would becom e increasingly accusatory and probably wouldn't contribute at all t o catching him. Or bring her men back from the dead.
She tried to run again, but made it only a few steps before slowing t o a walk.
The tension since she'd taken the job as SWAT team leader had bee n almost unbearable between her and management, between her and her men.
Between her and just about everyone. Was that an excuse? No. Th e bottom line was that she had been in charge. She had planned th e assault; she'd given the order to go in. And now they all were dead.
What she didn't completely understand was how. She'd done everythin g she'd been trained to do based on al Fayed's military history, she'
d been absolutely fanatic about playing everything by the numbers. She'
d been prepared for a violent, paranoid asshole with a stack of automati c rifles and a deep-seated hatred for authority. SEAL or no SEAL, thi s guy had walked through her and her men like they weren't there.
Based on the elaborate booby traps and the fact that he was hiding i n the attic armed to the teeth, it seemed almost certain that he'd bee n ready for them. Or was he just a complete paranoid and had bee n waiting every night for the last five years to be attacked?
Karen considered herself a fairly good judge of people and based o n that, she more or less believed everything al Fayed had told her. O
r at least she believed that he believed what he'd said. Clearly, he ha d been expecting someone named Strand. Maybe someone attached to th e Colombian cartels he'd worked for? Kind of a long time ago, but i t wasn't out of the question that those types of people might hold a grudge. Another interesting point was that he seemed genuinely not t o have a clue who the Ramirez brothers were. And then there was the od d fact that she was still alive. After killing that many cops, sh e seemed like kind of a glaring loose end.
Karen took a measured sip of her water and started out again, this tim e at a pace that she could maintain to the highway and that would allo w her to think to try to recall every detail of her conversation with a l Fayed. While she hadn't panicked, she had been scared half to death.
Being taped to a chair by a psycho who had taken out an entire SWAT
t eam singlehandedly wasn't a situation she'd ever thought to prepar e herself for.
Chapter
Eleven.
Matt Egan threw open the door to Strand's office and pointed at Lauren , who was scribbling on a notepad as her boss spoke.
"Out!"
She looked up at him then at Strand before deciding that a quick exi t was probably in her best interest. Egan stepped aside and held th e door open as she hustled, head down, through it.
"What the hell do you think " Strand started.
"Are you crazy?" Egan shouted, slamming the door hard enough to rattl e the framed photos on the wall. "You sent the cops over there? Th e cops? That was a fucking stroke of genius, wasn't it?"
"I think maybe you should keep in mind who you're talking to and th e position you're in," Strand said with calm that looked a littl e practiced.
"The position I'm in?"
"What exactly did you say to him when you two were alone, Matt? Di d you warn him?"
"Is that a joke?"
Strand was leaning back in his chair, hands folded across his stomach.
"I'm not sure what choice I had here, Matt. Al Fayed a former America n soldier was working for the drug cartels. The police should have bee n called in a long time ago. But his involvement was covered up. B
y you. And now, perhaps also because of you, he was expectin g something.
The police should have been able to just walk in there and catch hi m sleeping."
One of the many sad ironies in all this was that Egan actually ha d considered calling Fade and telling him that Strand knew about hi s connection to the cartels. He'd quickly abandoned the idea, though. I t would have been impossible to predict how he'd react. Better to jus t let Strand play his hand and deal with it then. The new director o f Homeland Security was a former Marine general and an honorable man.
Egan could go to him and tell him everything a move that would probabl y end his career and maybe land him in jail, but would hopefully leav e Fade to live out what was left of his life in peace.
How the hell could he have anticipated that Strand would do somethin g this stupid?
"Nice speech, Hillel. Are there hidden mikes in here or are you jus t trying to convince yourself? You set Fade up so you could swoop in an d save him later in return for him kissing your ass and going to work fo r you. How much did the cops know? How much did you tell them?"
"They had full access to his military record and any other informatio n they wanted to dig up. That's their job."
"But his military record doesn't really tell the whole story, does it?
You sent a bunch of cops up against one of the most efficient killer s this country ever produced and now they're dead. Strange, though, tha t I haven't seen your name on the TV you being the law-abiding hero o f this story and all."
"The police knew he was a former SEAL," Strand said, the volume of hi s voice rising a bit. "And an enforcer for the Colombian cartels. I d on't think they needed me to tell them he was dangerous."
He had to hand it to Strand. The man was the master of his arena.
Unfortunately, that arena was political and he seemed completel y incapable of seeing beyond it. The time might be coming that he'd hav e to learn, though. Fade had never been all that interested in workin g through bureaucratic channels.
"Why don't you just calm down and sit, Matt."
Egan didn't move.
"I'm just trying to be a little bit practical here," he continued. "I f a l Fayed is captured and goes to trial, this is all going to come out.
That could be very damaging to the country, to our relationship wit h the Arabs, and frankly to you personally."
Matt shook his head slowly. It wasn't hard to picture Strand speakin g earnestly to a group of enraged congressmen, carefully shifting blame.
It would go something like, "I first came into contact with al Fayed i n order to interview him for a position at Homeland Security. Obviously , we're looking to get the best people possible to protect this grea t country against the ever-present threat of terrorism. Unfortunately , we discovered that he'd been involved in the drug trade and had n o choice but to call the police with that information. Of course, we di d this anonymously to protect our intelligence sources. Only later di d it come to my attention that my deputy, Matt Egan that's E-G-A-N ha d been involved in this illegal and irresponsible cover-up."
"If it was anyone but you, Hillel, I'd think they were just playin g dumb. But you really are this stupid, aren't you? You have no ide a what you've done. Not a fucking clue .. ."
"Stand down!" Strand shouted from behind his desk. He was famous fo r his extensive knowledge of military jargon, though it was widely know n that he had transferred from the Naval Academy to Harvard after a whopping three weeks.
"Do you just want to ignore this situation?" Strand continued, th e anger still audible in his voice. "Or do you want to sit your ass dow n and talk rationally about what needs to be done? I assume that yo u agree that it isn't exactly in your best interest or the police's fo r them to find al Fayed before we do .. ."
The sentence seemed to hang in the air, purposely unfinished. Ega n decided to finish it.
"And get rid of him."
Strand frowned slightly in an expression that clearly signaled hi s agreement. No matter how slick he was, Strand figured that there wa s no way al Fayed could be run through the legal system without gettin g everyone involved dirty. A situation made even more complicated by th e fact that if Egan went down over this, he'd do everything in his powe r to make sure he took his boss with him.
"Where would he go, Matt? Friends? Family? Would he leave th e country? Maybe go back to Colombia? Or maybe somewhere like Syri a where he could blend in and we'd have a hard time tracking him?"
Egan stared down at his boss for a few more seconds, shook his head i n disbelief, and then walked out.
Chapter
Twelve.
"Is your mind closed, or is it just your ears?"
Matt turned away from a sink full of dishes and looked at his wife, bu t didn't say anything. She was leaning over Kali's shoulder, silentl y supervising the crayon selection being used in the creation o f tonight's portrait. It was the rule of the house Kali had to produc e something artistic before she got her daily hour of television. Elis e tended to lump TVs in with handguns and household poisons on the dange r scale, and he'd had to fight tooth and nail just to get her to agree t o have one in the house. The hour-for-a-portrait exchange was jus t another of the many bizarre compromises that made their marriag e work.
"Matt?" she said, finally looking up at him. "Are you in there?"
"I was listening."
He'd first seen Elise at a party his former neighbor, a reasonabl y successful sculptor, had asked him to. It was obvious that th e invitation had been semi rhetorical and offered mostly because the gu y was afraid of him, but Egan had gone anyway. Mostly just to get a glimpse at a world he'd never had an opportunity to see. At the time , he was still adjusting to his move from the army to the CIA and was i n the process of trying to expand his horizons a bit. Having said that , he remembered he'd still had the buzz cut and walked into the part y like he had a broom handle up his ass.
Predictably, the other guests had given him a wide berth. After abou t a half an hour, he'd taken to pinning people in corners, trying ou t increasingly friendly and innocuous opening lines, only to have hi s quarry squirm back and forth for a few seconds before breaking free.
Eventually, he'd resigned himself to stuffing tasteless vegetarian hor s d'oeuvres in his mouth and watching from the sidelines. Elise was har d to miss. The combination of her striking physical appearance and th e completely unselfconscious theatrical quality of her movements create d a weird charisma. Even from a distance.
Not surprisingly, he wasn't the only person who noticed she wa s constantly surrounded by people who looked and acted more like admirer s than friends. He abandoned the bowl of tabbouleh and found some lonel y wall space close enough to her to eavesdrop. After ten minutes or so , he managed to piece together a few things. First, that she was som e kind of musician. Second, that she took the praise being heaped on he r with considerable discomfort constantly trying to change the subjec t from her to the people around her.
He'd considered trying to talk to her, sensing that she might b e relieved to have a conversation with someone who had no clue who sh e was, but the crowd around her never diminished. Besides, what would h e have to say that could possibly interest a woman like that?
Eventually, he wandered back to the food table and by the time h e raised his head from the sushi rolls, she'd disappeared. With her gon e and his stomach uncomfortably full, there didn't seem to be muc h holding him there. After embarrassing the hell out of his neighbor b y profusely thanking him for the invitation in front of all his friends , Egan had grabbed a fresh beer and headed out into the night.
He wandered toward his house, reading the socially conscious bumpe r stickers on the cars lined up along the curb and ignoring the sound o f someone in a rusted panel van trying to start a very sick-soundin g motor. He knew a fair amount about engines, but didn't stop. Hell i f he was going to get all greasy for some person who wouldn't lowe r himself to say three words to him. And why weren't they on a bicycl e anyway? Wouldn't that be more environmentally friendly?
The would-be driver kept trying and the engine kept refusing. Afte r another fifty feet, Egan, starting to feel guilty, sighed quietly an d turned around.
"You wouldn't happen to be a brilliant mechanic who works on a completely philanthropic basis, would you?"
He froze as the young woman stepped from the van and stared sadly a t the hood without bothering to open it. It was her.
Fortunately, it only took a few seconds for him to realize he wa s standing motionless on the sidewalk for no apparent reason. A quic k recovery sent him strolling casually up next to her.
"I'm a marginal mechanic with an occasional charitable streak."
"Beggars can't be choosers. My name's Elise." She looked straigh t into his eyes when she offered her hand, giving the impression that sh e didn't see his dopey clothes and nearly nonexistent hair. "You were a t the party, right? Holding up the wall?"