Red Right Hand (12 page)

H
ENDRICKS SLID INTO
the booth opposite Thompson. She raised her mug to her lips and sipped, then set it down again but left both hands wrapped around it. It was a calculated gesture, he knew, intended to call attention to the fact that she was unarmed. Hendricks's own hands remained thrust deep into his sweatshirt pockets, his right palm sweaty against the diamond grip of his stolen .45.

“That Evie's truck out there?” he asked.

“Yeah. I thought you'd bolt if you saw my car, so I borrowed it.”

“Is she okay?”

“Evie's fine. She sends her regards.”

Hendricks hesitated. “And the baby?”

“Beautiful,” Thompson said. “Just like her mother. Stuart says hello,” she added.

“Somehow,” Hendricks replied, “I think you got his message wrong.”

A waitress shuffled over to take his order, her tired eyes, oily skin, and frizzy hair suggesting that she'd been on shift since dinner.

Hendricks asked for coffee, black. In his earpiece, Cameron said, “Ooh—get me some!” Truth be told, he'd forgotten she was still on the line. He reached up and tapped the button on the earpiece to terminate the call. Thompson arched an eyebrow but said nothing.

Once the waitress delivered Hendricks's coffee and retreated out of earshot, Hendricks said, “I'm listening.”

“I assume you know what happened in San Francisco.”

“Yeah. I saw. It's awful. How are rescue efforts going?”

“Slowly, from what I'm told. Structural damage has made clearing the debris difficult. The wrong move could be catastrophic.”

“What about this True Islamic Caliphate? I confess I'd never heard of them before today. You have a bead on them yet? Any idea what else they might have planned?”

“We're pursuing a number of leads,” she said—a rote response. As Thompson heard her own words, she rolled her eyes and slumped a little in her seat. “Oh, to hell with it. Who're you going to tell? Truthfully, until today's attack, those mopes were barely even on our radar. Nobody thought they had the know-how—or the stones—to pull this off. Which means we're stuck playing catch-up, and we have no idea when or where they might hit next.”

“I imagine finding these bastards is the Bureau's sole priority right now,” he said. Thompson nodded in assent. “Which begs the question: Why are you here talking to me?”

“Have you seen the cell-phone video the networks have been playing?”

“Of course,” he replied. “Who hasn't?”

“The old man holding the camera is a former mobster by the name of Frank Segreti. Seven years ago, he walked into our Albuquerque field office, half mad and badly injured, and demanded to speak with the special agent in charge. I was manning the front desk at the time. It was late. Storming. The guy was so bedraggled, I figured he was just some crazy homeless person trying to get out of the rain. I summoned security. He incapacitated them without breaking a sweat. Then he put one of their sidearms to my head and demanded that I call my boss. Once I did, he put the gun down and surrendered.”

“What did he want?”

“Revenge. Protection. An audience to hear his tale. Understand, I wasn't present when they questioned him, and his file's so locked down, I still don't have clearance to see all of it, but I got an earful when I escorted him three hours south to an FBI safe house in Las Cruces. He claimed there was a shadow organization—some kind of criminal UN, to hear him tell it—operating in secret within the United States. That every major outfit in the country had a seat at the table. That you couldn't move so much as a kilo of coke within the contiguous forty-eight without their say-so. He said he'd worked for them for years. That he was their top lieutenant. He called himself the Devil's Red Right Hand.”

As Hendricks listened, his mouth went dry. As casually as he could manage, he asked, “What did he say this organization was called?”

“Understand, we've never been able to confirm his story, but he said they called themselves the Council.” She sized him up for a sec, her gaze burrowing into him. “That name mean anything to you?”

There was no point lying, he realized. She knew it did. She could see it in his body language, in the dilation of his pupils. “Yes.”

Thompson pounded the table with her fist—a gesture of celebration, of vindication. Coffee sloshed everywhere. The other diners turned as one to look at them. To Hendricks, whose survival depended upon being as inconspicuous as possible in any given environment, their attention felt like the sun's rays focused through a magnifying glass. He glared witheringly at Thompson and said nothing until, one by one, the other patrons turned around and resumed their conversations.

“I shouldn't have to remind you what it would cost the both of us if we're seen talking,” he said finally.

“I know. I'm sorry. But you have to understand, the Segreti Walk-In is the stuff of legend around the Bureau. Most people figure he was just puffing himself up with crazy stories, exaggerating or even outright inventing his intel so we'd agree to protect him. You can't blame them for being skeptical—the idea that an organization of that magnitude could operate without the Bureau's knowledge seems like a stretch, and the guy just walked in cold.”

“You believe him, though.”

“I saw firsthand what he was capable of. And once upon a time, I got it in my head there was a new hitter on the scene, someone hell-bent on wiping out his competition. The Bureau brass thought I was nuts. They said no one man could take out so many pros all by himself. Turns out I was right. I guess you could say I've learned to trust my gut.”

“Your gut was wrong about me. I'm nothing like the men I killed. They were monsters, plain and simple. The world is better off without them in it.”

“That's not really for you to decide, though, is it?”

Hendricks shrugged. “I stopped them when you couldn't. My conscience is clear.”

“Is it?”

“About
those
deaths, yes.”

They fell silent then, the ghost of Lester Meyers haunting them both. If only Hendricks hadn't brought him into his operation. If only Thompson had reached him
before
Engelmann did instead of shortly after.

Hendricks cleared his throat self-consciously and said, “So, Segreti walks in and promises you the moon. And yet,” he says, nodding skyward, “there it hangs, just like it always has. What went wrong? How'd you get from there to here?”

“The safe house was compromised. Someone blew it up before we even finished debriefing him. Four Bureau agents died in there. Three U.S. Marshals. Two state's attorneys. And, we thought, Segreti. The blast reduced most everyone inside to ash, but we were able to pull his DNA from some of the remains. It matched samples taken from the gauze we'd used to bandage his wounds while he was in custody at our Albuquerque field office. We'd kept it when we changed his dressings so we could run it through CODIS and see if any relevant priors popped. At the time, we didn't know if he was legit.”

“I imagine someone blowing up your safe house went a long way toward validating his story.”

“Yeah, you could say that. But over the years, when we failed to turn up any evidence of Segreti's phantom organization, those who—unlike me—weren't directly involved in his case just sort of forgot about it.”

“The blast…do you think you had a mole? Someone who could've ratted on you to the Council?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. It's hard to say. No one skipped their shift that day. There's no record of any outbound calls from the safe house. His security detail's cell-phone records came back clean.”

“Absence of proof—”

“—isn't proof of absence,” Thompson finished. “I know. But it's just as likely the Council was tracking him somehow. We know nothing about how they operate.”

Hendricks thought that was a stretch. The Council trucked in loyalty and fear. They'd be more likely to lean on someone than rely on fancy gadgetry. But Thompson believed in the rule of law and in the institution for which she worked, so she was unwilling to face the fact that somebody on her side of the fence was crooked. Hendricks sympathized. Once, as a young soldier, he'd felt the same.

“Look,” Hendricks said, “this is a fascinating story, but I confess I'm still not clear on why we're sitting here together.”

“Segreti's face was on every TV in the country. You think the people who tried to kill him seven years ago aren't going to see him and decide to finish the job?”

“Of course they're going to. Which means they'll be exposed. Considering the fact that you work for one of the most powerful law enforcement agencies on the planet, that should present you with more opportunities than problems. Scoop him up on the quiet. Lay a trap. Dangle him as bait. Roll up anybody who comes after him, and lock 'em somewhere deep and dark until they talk.”

“You think I haven't thought of that? There's nothing I'd like more. The problem is, the Bureau brass won't hear of it—they're too focused on the attack. Trying to pick up Segreti is such a nonstarter, I can't even get my boss to run it up the flagpole.”

“Isn't your boss Kathryn O'Brien? I thought you and she were…” He trailed off, unsure how to end the sentence.

Thompson's expression darkened. “We are,” she said in a way that strongly suggested Hendricks drop that line of questioning. He couldn't blame her. Last time they'd met, he'd threatened O'Brien's life—and the life of Thompson's sister, Jess—in order to convince her to put Evie into witness protection. It was a bluff; Hendricks had no intention of hurting them. But, as he knew all too well, loved ones made good levers.

“So you responded by coming to
me?
”

“Protecting people with bounties on their heads is kind of your MO,” she said. “And it's not like I had a lot of other options. Besides, in this one exceedingly unlikely instance, our interests are aligned.”

“Yeah?” he asked. “How do you figure? Normally, I'm well paid for my services. I'm guessing neither you nor Segreti have enough socked away to cover my fee.”

Thompson's mouth quirked into a tired smile. “Since I have you here, I'm curious: What
is
your fee? In all my interviews with Evie, numbers never came up.”

They wouldn't have, Hendricks thought. When he was forced to confess to Evie that he'd spent the past several years working as a hired killer, he tried to play up the whole helping-people-marked-for-death angle, and he'd glossed over the charging-them-boatloads-of-money side of things.

“Ten times the bounty on their heads,” he said.

“And if your would-be clients can't afford you?”

It was a loaded question, one Hendricks had asked himself a thousand times. “Then at least they have a heads-up so they can run.”

“That's pretty fucking cold.”

“That's life. Most of the people I protect aren't saints. And I never kill without good reason.”

“Sounds to me like bullshit semantics, if money counts as ‘good reason.'”

“Most of that money went to Evie,” he said. “Not that she knew where it came from. She thought it was part of a wrongful-death settlement against a manufacturer of faulty body armor. The rest, once operational costs were taken care of, went to Lester.”

“Oh, I suspect you've got a little set aside for a rainy day.”

“I did,” he said. “But this past year, it's been pouring.”

“Why? Nobody in need of saving?”

“It's not that,” he said. “My mission's changed, is all.”

“Let me guess: From redemption to revenge?”

“I prefer to think of it as justice. I got sick of nipping at the monster's heels. Decided my time might be better spent aiming for its head.”

“Yeah? How's that going?”

“Slowly,” he admitted. “But then, I shouldn't have to tell you that. The FBI's been trying to stamp out organized crime since before it was the FBI.”

“True enough,” she said. “Which is why Segreti resurfacing is a stroke of luck for both of us.”

“Yeah? How so?”

“When I first saw the video, I remembered what he'd said when he walked in. That you couldn't even move a kilo without the Council's say-so. And then I asked myself, if the Council is for real, wouldn't they
have
to've been the ones to give the order to have Michael Hendricks whacked?”

Hendricks said nothing. His body remained still. His face showed no reaction except the subtle clenching of his jaw. But it was enough. Thompson saw it and knew that she was right.

“Do you understand what you're asking? You expect me—a wanted man—to wade into one of the largest investigations in U.S. history and attempt to locate a man who will doubtless do everything in his power not to be found. Then—if I'm very lucky and actually manage to find the guy—I'm supposed to protect him from the most powerful criminal organization in the world.”

“Yes.”

“You're out of your mind.”

“Am I? Think of the damage you could do to the Council with Segreti's help!”

“Assuming his intel's still worth a damn,” Hendricks replied. “Say, for the sake of argument, I find him. What makes you think I'd hand him over to you?”

“Honestly? I'm not sure you will. But at least with you on his side, he'll stay alive long enough for me to have another crack at him one day. And who knows? Maybe you
will
hand him over, if for no other reason than you're unlikely to bring the Council down all by your lonesome.”

“You underestimate me.”

“No. I don't. I just think you're smart enough to understand the value of a strategic alliance.”

“Is that what this is?”

“For lack of a better term.”