“What are you doing?”
DeSantos placed an index finger over his lips. “When was the last time you swept?” He pressed a button on the device and began moving it around the room.
“There are no bugs down here,” Archer said, hands on his hips.
DeSantos winked. “Allergic to spiders, can’t take a chance. Those spindly little creatures have a way of putting up their webs in the worst places.” He continued to move the unit around for another moment, then switched it off. “Okay, we’re clear.”
“I already told you that.” Archer pulled a chain and a fluorescent fixture flickered on, suffusing the basement with harsh white light. Beside him was a barbell resting on a stand adjacent to a weight bench, where a stack of iron plates sat neatly arranged in size order.
DeSantos lifted an eighty-pound plate and placed it on the Olympic barbell. He began tightening the end bracket while Archer repeated the procedure on the other end.
“You first,” DeSantos said as he removed his jacket.
Archer lay down on the bench, shifted his torso a bit, then lifted the bar off the stand and completed a press.
“About the document,” DeSantos said.
“First, I have something to ask you,” Archer gasped, completing the next rep. “A favor.”
“I don’t like the sound of this. The last time you asked me for a favor it was something really important, something that required the R-word.”
Archer groaned as he hoisted the heavy weight. “Responsibility... is not... a dirty word.” He motioned for DeSantos to take the barbell from him. As his partner laid the weights in the stand, Archer swung his legs off the bench and sat up. His chest was pimpled with sweat and he was breathing hard. “Too much weight. Haven’t worked out in two weeks.”
DeSantos pulled a padded bench over from the far wall and sat down. “So you’re serious. You need something,” he said, leaning forward.
“It’s really not that big a deal. I mean, it is, but it’s not something you have to dread. It’s a good thing.”
“You need money? Whatever you need, bro, you know, you got it.”
“Hello!” called a voice from the stairwell. “Honey? That you?”
“We’re down here,” Archer shouted. “Hector’s here, we’re talking shop.”
Trish Archer carefully descended the stairs, her baby-engorged abdomen arriving a couple of steps before the rest of her. She brushed a wisp of short, straw-blond hair behind her ear and smiled at DeSantos, who had walked over to the bottom of the landing. “Hector,” she said, throwing her arms around him.
“Brian keeps me apprised of your... progress,” he said, looking down at her stomach. “He’s right, you do look like a whale.”
Trish’s mouth dropped open as she looked at her husband. “You said what?”
“You’re going to get me in trouble,” Archer warned.
DeSantos laughed. “You look positively radiant, even in fluorescent lighting.”
Trish planted a kiss on his cheek, then stuck her tongue out at her husband.
“Honestly, honey, I didn’t call you a whale.”
Trish’s hand went to her abdomen. “Oh, just got a kick. Want to feel?” she said to DeSantos.
“Nah, I’ll pass if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, come on.” She took his hand and placed it where hers was, in the lower right portion of her abdomen. “Did you feel it?”
“What is that?”
“That’s her foot pushing against your hand. Go ahead, push back against it, gently.”
DeSantos applied some pressure and the foot retracted. “That’s cool. Do you do this?” he asked Archer.
“When she lets me.”
DeSantos stepped back and regarded her abdomen the way a painter studies a blank canvas. “Aren’t you, like, close to bursting?”
“Could burst any moment,” Archer said. “That’s why God invented cell phones, isn’t it? So husbands could be at their wives’ beck and call twenty-four hours a day?”
“Speaking of which,” Trish said, “did you ask him yet?”
DeSantos looked at Archer. “Ask me what?”
Archer sat down on the bench again. “Trish and I want you to be Presley Jane’s godfather.”
DeSantos stood there looking at Archer, expressionless. “You mean, like Don Corleone, like, ‘He made me an offer I can’t refuse’?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
“No,” Archer said, “the other kind of godfather.”
DeSantos almost laughed, but realized his partner was serious. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say yes.”
DeSantos joined his partner on the bench. “Godfather?” he asked, his eyes downcast. He brought his gaze up to meet Archer’s. “You said it yourself, Brian. What the hell do I know about kids? I can’t be someone’s godfather. I’m lucky to still be married. I’m a playboy, you know? Maggie puts up with all sorts of shit.” He stood up and rested his hands on his hips. “Why me?”
“Because I’ve got no family, Trish’s parents are dead, and the kid needs someone we trust.” Archer paused for a moment. “Really, it’s not that big a thing.”
“You’d make a great godfather,” Trish said.
DeSantos was off in thought, staring at the wall. He had lived his life avoiding responsibility. He had to be damn near threatened at gunpoint to marry Maggie. He chuckled at the thought, for it had turned out to be the best “decision” he had ever made. He looked at the Archers and smiled. “Sure, what the hell. It’ll be good for me.”
Trish smiled. “See?” she said to her husband. “We didn’t even need to threaten him with a shotgun.”
“You told her about that?” DeSantos boomed. “You promised, that was a secret!”
“Speaking of secrets, we need to get back to business.” Archer looked over at Trish, who took the hint.
“I’m leaving. You boys with your hush-hush spy stuff, when are you ever going to grow up and get real jobs?” She moved over to the stairs and slowly ascended them. “Join us for dinner next Saturday, okay?”
“I’ll check with Maggie.”
“From macho commando to whipped husband. The transformation has been quite amazing,” Archer said.
“Fuck you.”
“So tell me what was in that document,” Archer said as he heard Trish close the upstairs door.
“We got most of the memo,” DeSantos said in a low voice. “This con was good, but some of it was just too jumbled to make out. Seems the Intelligence Support Agency is engaged in some sort of research project with the CIA and DOD. Knox was mentioned but it’s not clear what his role is.”
“What kind of research project? And what does Scarponi have to do with it?”
DeSantos shook his head. “About the only thing we definitely get from it is that Scarponi is a target. Even though it’s in code, they were still stingy about what they were putting down on paper. Basically, it seems as if Scarponi’s going to be their guinea pig.”
“Guinea pig? For what?”
“You want my theory on all this?”
“If you’ve got one.”
“I gave it some thought during my run before you got there, put my paranoid psychosis to work. It suddenly all came together.” DeSantos moved the bench closer to Archer. “What if the CIA-ISA-DOD group is planning to do some kind of experimental medical research on Scarponi without his consent?”
“The government involved in clandestine research on unsuspecting citizens? Gee, that’d be a first,” Archer said.
“Let’s accept for a moment that for whatever reason, Scarponi has whatever it is they need for this study. Except that in Petersburg, being such a high-profile inmate, he’s watched over by prison rights groups and there’s no way they can move on him. And let’s assume that Knox is an important piece to this puzzle. As chief counsel on the Select Committee, he had access and contacts and ties to all sorts of people. And being director of the FBI, he has big-time resources there, too.”
“So Knox lucks out,” Archer said with a nod. “When this new evidence comes out, he goes along with it and does some magic behind the scenes to make it easier for Scarponi to get released.”
“Meantime, the U.S. Attorney joins in and tells the Bureau it needs Harper Payne to take the stand again to impeach this new evidence Scarponi’s attorney has come up with.”
“But,” Archer said, “the marshal’s office tells the Bureau that Payne’s left WITSEC and is freelancing it. DOJ throws a fit, and Knox jumps because the boss roared. So he kicks everyone’s butt and the Bureau goes ass-wild trying to find Payne.”
“Right. Now here’s where my paranoia kicks in. What if this ‘new evidence’ is bullshit. What if Knox arranges it, fakes it, manufactures it. He sets up this whole scenario so Scarponi is released under the cover of an official court ruling. Behind the scenes, he uses the Bureau’s latest electronic surveillance technology to place a device in Scarponi so he can be tracked at all times within a few feet of wherever he is.”
“And Knox plans for it to appear as if Scarponi escapes. Knox’s group would then secretly recapture him and hand him over to the researchers running the study. As far as everyone is concerned, Scarponi has slipped underground and disappeared the way anyone would expect a world-renowned hit man to do.”
“But Knox’s plan backfires when Scarponi finds a way out of the device,” DeSantos said. “And he really does escape.”
Archer nodded slowly. “And now the heat is on Knox. His alliance is pissed because he’s let Scarponi slip through their fingers. The DOJ wants him back because if the president finds out about his escape, the shit will hit the fan. The DOJ will look like incompetent idiots and give ‘the system’ a huge black eye. If we can’t keep a killer like Scarponi in prison, other countries won’t trust us with extradition of future criminals. It brings all sorts of international political pressure to bear.”
“And to top it all off, Knox gets this threat letter from Scarponi. His daughter’s kidnapped to send a strong message. His family’s in danger.”
“So what does a guy like Knox do?” Archer asked.
DeSantos looked at Archer. “You’re the guy with a kid on the way, Brian. You tell me. Who does he put first?”
“His family,” Archer said without hesitation.
“So now all sorts of shit is going on. Everything and everyone is coming down on Knox. Does he arrange for Scarponi to get a clear shot at Payne so the threat is removed?”
“Or does he intend to protect Payne and instead use him as a pawn to lure Scarponi?”
The two men were quiet for a moment as they processed what they had just discussed.
Finally, Archer broke the silence. “Are we getting a little too far out here? I mean, Knox, an appeals court justice, the CIA, ISA, DOD... it’s a hell of a conspiracy theory, Hector.”
DeSantos chewed on his lip for a moment. “I know it reeks of paranoia, but we’ve seen shit like this before. Hell, look at OPSIG.
We’ve been part of stuff like this.
It’s just that in the past, it’s run a whole lot smoother and on a much smaller scale. They were sloppy. When Scarponi got away, everything got all fucked up.”
“So what do we do with this?”
“I guess we try to find out if we’re on the right track.”
“Here’s another piece of paranoia for you. Did Knox intend for us to figure this stuff out? I mean, he gave us those codes and let us hack away.”
DeSantos chewed on his lip some more. “Better yet, is he relying on us to figure it out, to save his ass?” He ran both hands through his hair. “What a fucking mess.”
“I thought you said you lived for this stuff.”
“That was before I was a godfather. Now I’ve got to be more
responsible
. Shit like this is just too dangerous. Have you thought of that, Brian?”
Archer smiled. “Looks like godparenthood has had a positive effect on you already.”
Harper Payne’s eyes popped open. He stared at the water-stained ceiling in the dim light, wondering for a moment where he was. He propped himself up on an elbow, then switched on the bedside lamp and looked around. The motel. Bethesda.
He showered and redressed in his partially torn suit, stripped off the bed sheet, and tossed it in the Dumpster in the parking lot. Although he couldn’t hide that he had stayed there, he did not want to make Waller and Haviland’s job too easy for them. They would be stuck trying to run down the night manager to show him an identifying photo before they would know for sure that this is where he had spent the night.
Even if they picked up the electronic trace on Waller’s Visa, they would have to confirm that it was in fact Payne who had used the card and not someone else he had sold it to. Of course, by the time they had verification it was him, he’d be long gone. But that Payne was still in the area would give them a trail and a place to start—infinitely more than what they had at the moment.
Payne thought about paying with cash, but his supply was limited and he didn’t know where he would end up or what he would need it for. He was sure, however, that the Bureau would not turn off the spigot on the credit card. It was their proverbial bread trail, and as long as Payne was willing to lay down crumbs, they would be content to gobble them up.
At 7:55 A. M. he took a walk in the parking lot, waiting for the cab to arrive. He stood in front of a pickup with tinted windows and looked at his reflection in the glass.
“Who are you?” he asked the mirrored image. Ever since he had received the e-mail from Lauren Chambers, the question had been bouncing around in his head, without resolution. A small-town computer geek or a decorated FBI agent who got the short end of the career stick?
Who are you?
If he returned to Placerville, he couldn’t be sure he would ever regain the memories of the times he and Lauren Chambers had spent together. Could he be in a relationship with someone he didn’t even know, when she knew everything about him? And was he the same person as he was before—would he have the same likes, desires, attractions? Could he learn to love her again?
If he chose instead to return to the FBI... would he be taken back without conditions? If this was, indeed, the course he wanted to pursue, then he was making a gross mistake in continuing to run. He needed to turn himself in and, assuming his colleagues found Scarponi, take the stand and testify on information he could now recite in his sleep. Cooperate and be free; it was that simple.
Or was it? What if Knox was trying to discredit him so that his testimony would be rendered ineffective? If that was the case, his chances of being reinstated to the Bureau were nil. As he had been taught to do during his Academy refresher courses, it was best to reduce a problem to its most basic components—and then find solutions to those remaining parts. The way he saw it, until he could be more certain of Knox’s intentions, he could not consider returning to the FBI. Which left him with the dilemma of how to resume his life with Lauren Chambers.