Bradley looked at Rodman, then at Lauren. “Your husband.”
Lauren cocked her head. “Nick, what the hell are you talking about? I didn’t have my husband, that was the whole problem.”
“I know you didn’t, but that was the beauty of it. I knew you would go looking for Michael. You had to, any person who wanted her spouse back would have. Just like I knew you’d look for him, I knew Scarponi would look for him as well.”
“Scarponi? What’s he got to do with this?”
“Scarponi wanted Harper Payne dead. Kill Payne, and there’s no one left to testify against him. He’s a free man. Right?”
Lauren nodded.
“So as soon as Scarponi is released from prison, who does he go after?” Bradley spread his hands apart, as if the answer was obvious. “He goes after Harper Payne. He’s looking for him just like the feds are looking for him. Only Scarponi lets the feds do the work for him. He’s got a mole planted in the Bureau, tracking their progress. When they figure out that Harper Payne is in Placerville, bang—the feds dispatch agents and Scarponi dispatches his men. But Michael’s gone on his trip and the feds regroup, track him down, and snatch him up, sort of. But Scarponi doesn’t know the feds have Payne. He’s a smart guy, so he knows his best way to get to Payne is you. All he has to do is watch you, follow you, tease and torment you, and you’ll lead him to what he’s seeking.”
“So that answers what Scarponi wanted with me. What about you? What did you want with him?”
“To be completely honest, I wanted Scarponi dead. I knew that if I hung out with you, he’d eventually come around looking for Michael. And even if he didn’t, you’d lead me to Michael, and then I could use Michael as bait. Either way, I’d meet up with Scarponi and get my shot.”
“You used me,” Lauren said, her hands gripping the bench tighter. “All that stuff about being my big brother and my guardian angel, about the child of yours that you lost, all of that was bullshit.”
“No, no, it wasn’t, Lauren. At least, well... okay, in the beginning it was. I apologize for that. But as I got to know you, you became more of a person I cared about rather than just a means to an end. That’s when things got a little out of hand for me, because I got personally involved. That was my biggest mistake.”
“And my biggest mistake was trusting you.”
Bradley held up a hand. “That’s not what I meant. In law enforcement, you lose your edge, your effectiveness, when you can’t think objectively. I lost my objective edge when I started caring about what happened to you.”
Lauren was silent for a moment, thinking through what Bradley had told her. “Even if I can get past that, which I’m not sure I can, I still don’t understand what was in it for you. What was this all about? Why did you want Scarponi so badly?”
“Can’t I just say that it was important to me and leave it at that?”
“No, Nick, you can’t. You owe me the truth.”
“You’re placing me in a tough spot, Lauren.”
“The truth, Nick.”
Bradley bowed his head for a moment, as if considering his options. Finally, he cleared his throat. “There’s no easy way to say this.” He looked up and met her tired eyes. “Lauren, I’m Harper Payne.”
Lauren’s jaw went slack as she just sat there, staring at him. The truck hit a pothole and shook her from her daze. “You’re what?”
Bradley leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “I was the man the FBI was looking for when they came to Placerville. Your husband bears a striking resemblance to what I looked like before I had my second session of plastic surgery. The marshal’s office supplied the Bureau with a photo that was taken after I’d seen their surgeon. Because I knew that photo existed, and because I’d learned to trust no one, I had a second operation no one knew about. Michael looks like I did before the second surgery.”
“So the FBI thought that my husband was you.” Lauren shook her head and tried to contain her anger. With bloodshot eyes, she glared at Bradley. “Everything you told me, Nick, everything
was
a lie.”
“Not everything. You have to understand—”
“I’ll tell you what I understand, Nick—or Harper, or whatever the hell it is you want to be called now. Bottom line is, you used me like a pawn. That’s what I understand.”
“I realize you’re upset with me. You have every right to be.”
“And what about you, Agent Rodman? How do you fit into all of this?”
“Some information remains classified, Dr. Chambers. Like it or not, that’s the way it’s got to be.”
“So am I supposed to assume the FBI was in on all this?”
“The Bureau was as much in the dark as you were. After agents made contact with your husband, he was involved in an automobile accident and banged his head up pretty good. The head trauma caused a great deal of memory loss. The Bureau was in a difficult position. They needed Harper Payne to testify, but he couldn’t remember anything. They did their best to reeducate him.”
“But the fact remains that Michael was never in the FBI. Couldn’t they see that he didn’t have the skills? Wasn’t there something that tipped them off that they had the wrong person?”
“Michael spent eight years with the Army National Guard’s SoCom, short for Southern Command,” Bradley said. “That’s where the skills came from that the Bureau mistook for his prior FBI training.”
“Michael was never in the National Guard,” Lauren said.
Rodman raised an eyebrow. “Goes to what I was saying before, about how much we really know about our loved ones.”
“It was twelve years ago,” Bradley said.
“I don’t understand. If you were the Agent Payne they needed to make the government’s case, why didn’t you just step in and take his place?”
“At first, I didn’t know what was going down. I really did leave WITSEC, so I was out of touch with everything and everyone. I don’t read the papers and I don’t watch TV. I live in a small town and keep a low profile. But the second I saw Michael’s photo on that flyer, I thought I knew what had happened. Someone, probably working for Scarponi, screwed up and mistook Michael for me.”
“So if you knew that, why didn’t you do something?”
“Because it served my purposes. And because I was guessing, and because I didn’t know where Michael was. Just like you, I didn’t know what had happened to him. For all I knew, Scarponi could’ve killed him. I had to find out.”
“You could’ve gone to the FBI.”
“I spent years trying to distance myself from the government because contact with them could put my life in danger. So it was a selfish decision. Like I said before, I thought I could use you and Michael to get at Scarponi.”
“After the incident in Fredericksburg,” Rodman said, “Agent Payne contacted us. One of my colleagues acted as the go-between.”
“Where’s my husband’s body?”
Bradley consulted his watch. “Lauren, please let us finish. We don’t have much time.”
“Time? For what?”
Rodman took a seat next to Bradley, opposite Lauren. “Dr. Chambers, please listen. Director Knox had suspicions that your husband wasn’t really Agent Payne. Something showed up on a physical exam that didn’t make sense. A heart murmur that the real Agent Payne didn’t have. But the director didn’t have any choice. He had to go along with the charade until he could put all the pieces together, to be absolutely sure. Because of the mole, the former director had Agent Payne’s fingerprint card destroyed as an added precaution. There was no way to verify Knox’s suspicion about your husband. Plus, the director had other pressures on him that I’m not at liberty to discuss with you.”
“I started working with an agent,” Bradley said, “who brought me into the operational plan that was devised to somehow fix the whole situation. By now, everything was a mess. Somehow, they needed to recapture Scarponi, while at the same time protect you and Michael in the event they weren’t successful. He’s a dangerous assassin, Lauren. He’s had a contract out on me for several years. His people had already decided that Michael was me. It’s not like the Bureau could call up Scarponi and tell him, ‘Don’t gun for Michael Chambers. It’s really this guy Nick Bradley you want to kill. ’
“But we caught a break. There was a mole in the Bureau years ago who almost got me killed. He was feeding sensitive information about my whereabouts to Scarponi. Since technology is a great deal more advanced than it was even six years ago, the Bureau was able to back trace some internal data paths and identified who the mole was. They pummeled him for information and got his contact information for Scarponi. Then I went to work, posing as the mole. We set Scarponi up by giving him something he couldn’t pass up—the chance to kill Harper Payne.”
“But all loose ends had to be tied up,” Rodman said.
Just then, the ambulance came to a stop. Rodman reached above him and quickly extinguished the interior light. The ambulance’s rear doors opened into the pitch-black of a one-lane country road. From what Lauren could see in the darkness, nothing was around.
A man dressed in black clothing, with black paint on his face, extended a hand toward her. “Come with me, ma’am. Quickly.”
“Who are you? Where’s my husband? I want to see my husband, goddamn it!”
The man in black reached in and grabbed her arm. “Please, we don’t have time. It’s dangerous out here. We’ve got to go
now.”
She did not move. “Not until you tell me where my husband is!”
He yanked her from the back of the ambulance and pulled her, with a modicum of effort, out into the darkness.
As she fought him, her eyes caught the stare of Troy Rodman. “Am I just another loose end, you son of a bitch?” She dropped down to her knees, the way a tantruming toddler does when trying to wrest himself free from his parent. “Nick, help me, please!”
The man in black clamped a large, meaty hand across her mouth.
“I’m sorry, Lauren,” Bradley called after her. “I’m sorry about everything!”
“Put me down!” Lauren screamed through the man’s hand. She was writhing, swinging her arms wildly. She pulled out of her jacket and nearly broke free, but he grabbed her and flung her over his right shoulder like a sack of potatoes. It was raining again, and she could feel the wet pinpricks of drops pelting her bareback.
The man carried her toward an army transport vehicle parked ten feet ahead of the ambulance. The man reached out and opened the truck’s back door. It was completely black inside, what the night sky would look like without the stars and the moon and the lights from surrounding cities.
Lauren was pushed inside, the door was slammed shut—and locked.
She banged on it with the open palm of her right hand, then cursed under her breath. But she suddenly realized she was not alone. Before she could speak, a bare bulb lit the interior.
Douglas Knox was sitting on a bench, partially blocking her view of the man who was beside him. But it didn’t matter. Lauren knew who it was.
She lunged forward into Michael’s arms and he squeezed her in an embrace she didn’t want him to release.
“Lauren,” he whispered in her ear, “I missed you so much.”
“Michael,” she said, holding him tightly.
“I’m very sorry to have put you through so much grief, Dr. Chambers,” Knox said. “It was necessary, to make it believable.”
“Believable—”
“Michael was injured in that car accident I told you about earlier this evening. He was examined and airlifted by special medevac personnel to the base hospital, where he was treated by a covert trauma team.”
“You’re making it sound worse than it is,” Michael said. “I’m fine, just a little bruised—”
“He’s got a fractured left forearm and, more importantly, a mild concussion,” Knox said. “Which, in his current state, needs to be closely monitored.”
Michael took Lauren’s hand and they sat down together on the wooden bench that ran the length of the covered cargo vehicle. The truck began to move, and they all grabbed for something to hold on to.
She reached over to stroke Michael’s hair and felt the lump on the side of his head, saw the bruises on his neck from Scarponi’s fingers. “They told me you were dead.”
“Again,” Knox said, “please accept my apologies for everything we’ve put you through. If it’s any consolation, I just received word that Anthony Scarponi was fatally wounded in a confrontation with some of my men.”
Lauren closed her eyes and sighed. “Thank God.” She rested her head against Michael’s shoulder and took his hand. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“These bumps and bruises... they’re nothing. The break will heal in a couple of months. And my memory is a whole lot better than it was even a week ago. Every day I remember more. That new knock on the head didn’t screw things up too badly.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m still trying to get over the shock of learning I wasn’t really an FBI agent. Another identity crisis to deal with.”
She smiled. “That much I can help you with.”
“Most important thing is that I have you back. I was told the real Harper Payne took good care of you.”
Lauren lowered her gaze. “I grew very close to him. But it’s all so infuriating. It was all an act, everything he told me was a lie.”
“Agent Payne thinks the world of you,” Knox said. “From what he told me, you turned out to be more than he’d bargained for. He may have filled a void for you, but you filled a void for him as well. When he went into witness protection, he left behind his wife and four-year-old daughter. Leaving them was the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.”
“The child he lost...” she mumbled.
“What?” Michael asked.
Lauren turned to Knox. “We kind of left things in a bad way. I didn’t know... can I see him, talk to him for a moment?”
Knox glanced at Michael. “I’m afraid you’ll never cross paths with Harper Payne again. He’s going back underground. But thanks to you, he’ll be able to see his daughter again, even if it’s only on a very limited basis. His wife’s remarried, but that’s something he’ll have to come to terms with. At least he’ll be able to have contact with the ones he loves.”
Lauren stared off at the dark wall behind Knox.
“You don’t have to worry about him,” Knox said. “As you’ve seen, he’s a survivor. He’ll deal with it.” The director picked up a leather attaché from the floor and popped open the latches. “On a happier note, you and Michael have each other. I’ve arranged for you two to be sequestered together.”