Thirty-Seven
The door was unlocked and opened, and the man who had shot Tom with the tranquilizer dart stepped into the room.
Slung over his right shoulder was his AR-15.
“You okay to go for a walk?” the man said.
Tom nodded.
“Sorry about before,” the man said. “I’m Kevin, Sandy’s husband.” He paused and looked Tom over before saying, “Come on, I’ll take you to him.”
Tom stood.
Exiting that room no bigger than a prison cell was a relief to him, though he found he needed the railing on the stairs to keep his balance.
His head felt heavy, as though it were full of water.
They moved through a narrow pantry and into a country kitchen.
Tom realized that the room he had occupied was some kind of a secret room above the kitchen, accessible only by a set of stairs hidden behind a fake door at the rear of that pantry.
He wondered if the farmhouse had been a place for runaway slaves to hide and rest during their long and dangerous journey on the Underground Railroad.
From the kitchen, he could see into the living room.
He could tell by its layout—large stone hearth dominating a central room—that this house had likely been a Colonial-era tavern when it was first constructed.
The floors were well-worn pine planks held down by wrought iron spikes, the floor and ceiling moldings all dark mahogany.
Built to last centuries—and it had.
Outside, the rain had stopped. By the silvery edge of the clouded eastern horizon, Tom knew dawn was not far off. Kevin was a few feet ahead, walking toward the barn, but halfway between it and the house he stopped and turned to Tom.
Tom’s eyes went to his escort’s hands, looking for any indication that the man was about to reach for his weapon.
Kevin held his hands out. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’m going to reach into my jacket pocket now.”
He did, slowly, and removed something, holding it up for Tom to see.
It was Tom’s smartphone.
“You need to make a call, right? Make it now, but try not to be long.”
He tossed the device to Tom.
Tom immediately hit “Redial.”
Kevin stayed where he was, watching and listening.
Tom understood that having his call monitored in this way was part of the deal.
Stella answered on the first ring.
“Tom?”
“I’m okay,” he said.
“Where are you?”
“At the farm.”
“What took so long?”
“I’ll tell you later. How are you?”
“I’m okay.” She paused. “I was getting worried.”
“I know. I’m sorry. It was unavoidable.”
He realized only then that he was slurring slightly—the lingering effects, no doubt, of the animal tranquilizer that had taken him down.
That made his head feel so heavy, like he was wearing a crash helmet.
“You sound tired,” Stella said.
“I am, a little, yeah. You must be, too. Try to get some sleep.”
“When will you be home?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Why not?”
“Cahill’s here. I’m on my way to talk to him now.”
Another pause. “How . . . is he?” she said finally.
Tom knew what she meant.
And he heard the concern in her voice.
“I’m about to find out,” he said.
“If you don’t call in an hour, we’re coming there to get you.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Whatever he has to say to you, he can say it in an hour.”
“Stella.”
“This isn’t negotiable,” she said. “Go talk to him, Tom. Then come straight home.”
Tom smiled.
How long had it been since Stella texted that same directive to him?
Two days, though it seemed more like months.
Like a long tour of duty.
He was feeling
that
tired, feeling the same profound exhaustion that had numbed him to the bone after his discharge.
That had dogged him as he traveled around, tasting freedom of movement for the first time in eight years and trying to decide whether or not to take Carrington up on his lucrative job offer.
If last Friday seemed like months ago, then those many weeks of drifting five years ago were nothing more than sketchy memories of some other lifetime.
“Okay, you win,” Tom said. “I’ll call you in an hour.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“Be careful.”
“Always.”
They ended the call, and Tom pocketed the smartphone.
Kevin waved for Tom to follow him to the barn.
Reaching it, he opened the door and led Tom inside.
The ground floor of the barn was a vet’s office—large animal and equine, Tom guessed by the open layout and size of the equipment and tables.
Along the right wall of the barn, in line with the garage-style door, was a long bay big enough to accommodate livestock trucks.
In it now were three vehicles.
An extended-cab pickup, the SUV Tom and Hammerton had arrived in, and a Jeep Wrangler.
Tom followed Kevin past the vehicles to the far end of the vast barn.
Here was open space.
And no lights were on.
Despite the darkness, Tom saw that the corner at the rear of the barn contained a room with large windows and a stainless-steel door.
The surgery.
It was empty, and its lights were off as well.
“Wait here,” Kevin said before backtracking to the front entrance and leaving through it.
Alone, Tom remembered his dream and wondered if he should bolt now. He considered doing so for a few seconds, but didn’t.
How far would he actually get?
And if he did somehow make it all the way home, what then?
How far and for how long would he and Stella need to run?
Without even knowing what it was they were running from.
A sound came from the back of the barn. A figure emerged from the door to what looked like a storage room.
It was Cahill. Tom saw that quickly enough.
As Cahill crossed the distance between them, he kept his eyes fixed on Tom.
He still had the hard, lean build of a marine.
And his face still bore the expression of a man in pain.
All kinds of pain.
Tom thought of everything he’d learned about Cahill in the past thirty-six hours.
All the indications that the man was dangerous—to others and maybe even to himself.
Tom thought again of the dream, but this time he was remembering what Carrington had said as the swirling desert sand had risen like a storm between them.
The man will never be the same.
And then the warning he had called out as he was consumed by the chaos.
Be careful, son.
Because we’re in more danger than you know.
Thirty-Eight
As Cahill got nearer, Tom spotted a firearm tucked into the waistband of his jeans at the appendix position.
He immediately identified it by its grip as a 1911.
The sidearm of choice of Force Reconnaissance Marines.
Several yards from Tom, safely beyond his reach, Cahill stopped.
He looked Tom up and down.
Tom waited for him to speak.
Or make anything resembling an aggressive move.
“Did you make your phone call?” Cahill said finally.
His voice was even—not hostile, but not friendly, either.
All business.
Tom told him that he had and thanked him for letting him do that.
Cahill nodded, still studying him. “Your friend Hammerton told us what happened,” he said.
“Is he going to be okay?”
“Yes. He was lucky. X-rays show no internal injuries. Sandy wants to keep him under observation for a while longer, though.”
“Thank her for me. For taking care of him.”
“She swore an oath,” Cahill said. He studied Tom for another moment. “Before we proceed, I’ll need to hear from you exactly what happened in New Haven last night.”
Tom understood why.
Cahill wanted to compare his story with Hammerton’s.
Tom also understood that while he had been searching for Cahill, Cahill had been waiting for someone to find him.
Find him with orders to kill him.
Hammerton’s account proved that Tom was not there for that reason.
More than that, it proved that Tom had refused to kill Cahill, even when the woman Tom loved was being threatened.
Of course, though, Hammerton’s account could simply be a story.
And if Tom’s version didn’t jibe with his, well, then there’d be a problem.
“I’ll tell you whatever you need to know,” Tom said.
“Then start at the beginning.”
“Friday night I was asked to find you.”
“By James Carrington. Your former CO.”
“No. Carrington arranged a meeting with the people who asked me to find you.”
“A man named Sam Raveis.”
“Raveis and a woman named Alexa Savelle. He apparently has some personal interest in you. She’s NSA.”
Cahill said nothing.
“Savelle provided me with files to look through,” Tom continued. “She hoped that because you and I had a history that I might see something she had missed. Something that would indicate where you would go for emergency medical assistance. We were getting close to finding you—”
“We?”
“Stella and me. Well, Stella, actually.”
“Your girlfriend.”
“Yes. We were getting close to finding you when Carrington asked me to meet him again.”
“And when was this?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“And then he sent you to that building in New Haven.”
“He provided the address but said the order came from Raveis via Savelle.”
“And what were you supposed to do there?”
“I was told that the building was your safe house and that we—Hammerton and Simpson and me—were to look around and gather intel.”
“What happened when you got there?”
“We discovered a cache of weapons. A large cache.”
“What kind of weapons?”
“Mixed arms. Automatic shotguns, fifty-cal Barretts, grenades, Uzis.”
“Do you know which model Uzi?”
“I was told it was the Uzi-PRO.”
Cahill thought about that, then said, “Hammerton tells us that men were waiting inside and that you were ambushed.”
“Yes.”
“How many men?”
“Four.”
“And how did they ambush you exactly?”
“Hammerton was the point man. He and I were examining the weapons when Simpson ran upstairs ahead of us. We went up after him and were hit with a stun grenade.” Tom paused. “It’s pretty obvious now that Simpson was working with the men who were waiting for us.”
“We’ll come back to that,” Cahill said. “The men who ambushed you, they had a leader. Describe him.”
Tom sensed that Cahill was eager for this particular information.
“He had a Slavic accent of some kind,” Tom said. “I couldn’t place it. He was well dressed, though. Well spoken, too. And he walked with a limp.”
“Which leg?”
“Right.”
“Bad quad, calf, ankle, what?”
“Calf.”
Another pause, then: “What did this man want?”
“He wanted me to kill you.”
“How was he going to get you to do this?”
“I had hidden Stella in an out-of-the-way motel. I thought she’d be safe there, but the leader had a team in the next room, waiting to take her hostage.”
“How did they find her if she was hidden?”
“Someone had attached a tracking device to my pickup while I was in the city meeting with Raveis and Savelle.”
“Someone?”
“The leader implicated Carrington.”
This was followed by a long silence.
“We’ll come back to that, too,” Cahill said finally. “How did this man—this Slav—know that you knew where I was?”
“His men had eavesdropped on Stella earlier. They’d heard her tell me over the phone that she’d found you. If I didn’t kill you, they’d . . .”
Tom didn’t see the need to elaborate.
“She killed the men who came after her,” Cahill said.
“Yes.”
“And she’s okay now.”
Tom shrugged.
“Carrington’s other man,” Cahill said. “Simpson. He gave you a sidearm that was nonfunctional.”
“Yes.”
“It didn’t jam on you.”
“No. The firing pin had been removed. And the leader had a bodyguard who confirmed that the weapon had been tampered with. He seemed to enjoy telling me that, actually.”
“Describe him.”
“Russian accent. Dressed in Blackwater-type tactical gear. Carried a Desert Eagle in a vertical shoulder rig.”
“He’s the man who shot your friend.”
“Yes.”
“And who tried to kill you with a grenade.”
Tom nodded.
It was obvious that Cahill understood the significance of Tom having come face-to-face again with that particular type of weapon.
He looked Tom up and down once more.
It was obvious, too, that Cahill wanted to ask something.
Maybe he wanted to know what it was like.
Whatever it was that was on his mind, Cahill pushed the thought aside and returned to the cold, hard facts.
He asked if Tom had killed the Russian.
“No. He and his boss got away.”
“But not before remotely triggering the timer of an explosive device.”
“Correct.”
“Did you get a look at it?”
“Yes. Two twenty-gallon containers with a C-4 trigger and digital timer.”
“A truck bomb.”
“Yeah.”
“I understand you two barely made it out.”
Tom nodded.
“And you had to all but carry your friend.”
Tom said nothing.
After a moment, Cahill said, “What else can you tell me about the leader?”
“He alluded to something Stella had said to me Friday night. While we were in her apartment. Something . . . intimate.”
“Was it something she said before or after you went into the city?”
“Before. Right before, actually.”
“Someone bugged your place.”
“It’s the only way.”
“The bug is probably still there.”
“I hope so.”
“Why?”
“Carrington will know that Stella’s untouchable right now.”
“Untouchable how?”
“She’s surrounded by a half-dozen state troopers. In a building we control completely. On a busy-enough street in the town center, a few blocks from the police station.”
“Smart,” Cahill said. “You know, that might be a good way to plant some misinformation. Should we need to.”
“Stella’s out of this,” Tom said.
Cahill didn’t argue with that.
“So our accounts jibe?” Tom said. “Hammerton’s and mine? You understand now that I’m not here to kill you.”
“I do now, yes.”
“Then I’d like to ask you a question.”
“Of course.”
“What the fuck is going on?”
“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it,” Cahill said. “I’m thinking, Tom, that maybe between the two of us, we have a decent shot of figuring that out. But one thing is becoming clear. And I’m afraid it isn’t good news for you.”
“Carrington,” Tom said.
Cahill nodded. “I know what he means to you, the role he played in your life. Sandy’s father played a similar role in mine. I’d hate to have to face what you might be facing. But we’re talking national security here. High treason.” He paused. “And the murder of the woman I loved.”
“I’ll tell you whatever you need to know,” Tom said. “But then I’m gone. I need to be with Stella.” He paused. “And this . . . this isn’t what I wanted.”
Cahill nodded again, as if to say he understood. “I am glad she’s okay. Or at least alive and will be okay.”
Neither said anything for a moment.
“How was it for you?” Cahill said finally.
“How was what?”
“The first time someone tried to kill me—I mean, when I wasn’t wearing a uniform—it was a . . . shock. On the battlefield it’s different, you know. It’s the enemy who’s trying to kill you. And it’s your friends you’re fighting for, the men you’ve trained with and lived with. Back here, it’s nowhere near as cut-and-dried. Oftentimes it’s a friend who tries to end you. And sometimes it’s the one person in the world you trust the most. If you’re lucky, you survive those. But you never get over them. You’re never the same again.”
Tom said nothing.
“Come with me, Tom,” Cahill said.
“Where to?”
“A place we can talk.”
Cahill turned and headed toward the door through which he had appeared.
Tom waited a moment before following.
Unlocking and opening that door, Cahill stepped aside to let Tom in. At the end of the narrow room was another door, this one made of reinforced steel.
As was the frame in which it was set.
Cahill moved to that door and opened it, too.
Tom was now looking down a steep flight of metal stairs.
He knew the entrance to an underground bunker when he saw one.
But he made no move to cross the threshold before him.
“I’m either an insane killer luring you down into his labyrinth,” Cahill said, “or we’re among the few people either of us can trust right now. Five years ago, you saved my life and I saved yours. That’s how I remember it. You led the rescue, and my men would have been massacred had you not done that, me along with them. What I did, when I laid down between that grenade and you, how could I not? For the man who risked everything to save my men?”
This new perspective left Tom feeling stunned, as if he’d been tagged by a punch. All he could really do was wait for Cahill to continue.
“You don’t owe me anything, Tom. Do you understand? We were both doing our duty, which was keeping our men alive so they could go home and live their lives and, decades from now, die as old men in their beds. You’ve more than earned your life with Stella. And it’s a life I want to get you back to as soon as possible.”
Cahill was face-to-face with him now.
No safe distance between them, no buffer.
It was the closest Tom had been to the man since that cold and violent night in the desert.
“I need to know who ordered the hit,” Cahill said. “I need to be certain, though, beyond any doubt, and I can’t achieve that certainty without you. So I need your help, for just a little bit longer. I need your help erasing from this fucking world the man who killed a defenseless woman. We suspect he’s connected to the same men who tried to kill you and the one thing you hold dear. Men who are at this moment, we believe, preparing to kill a lot more innocent people.”
Cahill paused, then said, “Will you do that? Will you help me?”
Tom’s answer was to turn and start down the stairs.
The stairwell was dark, but there was a light source below.
Grabbing this railing, too, Tom descended toward that light.