The Temporary Agent (22 page)

Forty-Four

Tom followed Kevin to the farmhouse.

Inside the kitchen door, Kevin paused and reached into his shirt pocket.

Removing a slip of paper, he showed it to Tom.

On it was a phone number.

Tom recognized the handwriting as Savelle’s, but the number was different from the one she had shown him two nights before in the sedan.

“If you have any trouble, call this number,” Kevin said. “A suspicious car you don’t like the sight of, a medical emergency or quick exfil, even trouble with the law, anything from a traffic ticket to a weapons charge. You name it and they will take care of it, and fast.”

Tom took the card and placed it in his shirt pocket, along with his single .45 round.

“So let’s get you guys on the road,” Kevin said.

Hammerton was in a small room off the tavern-style living room.

Cleaned up like Tom, his cuts tended to, he was stretched out on a cot placed against the wall, one arm at his side, the other draped over his eyes.

He looked anything but comfortable.

Tom approached and asked how he was doing.

“I’m good,” Hammerton said.

It was an obvious lie, spoken more for Hammerton’s own benefit than Tom’s.

Tom helped him up to his feet and wedged in beside him, then wound Hammerton’s right arm around his neck.

Together they made it outside to an extended-cab pickup parked behind the farmhouse.

Hammerton sat in the back, Tom in the passenger seat, Kevin behind the wheel.

From his jacket, Kevin removed Hammerton’s SIG p226, its slide locked back and breech open.

He handed the empty pistol back to Hammerton, along with its magazine.

“I don’t have any spare SIG mags,” Kevin said. “But I loaded yours for you.”

Hammerton took the pistol, inserted the mag into the grip, and released the slide.

“Thanks,” he said.

Another pair of black SUVs was just arriving as Kevin steered the truck around the horseshoe-shaped driveway and down to the main road.

The sudden activity overtaking the small farm reminded Tom of the forward operating base where he and Cahill had met.

Rushing vehicles, armed men moving about with purpose, an atmosphere of imminent danger—this had been their daily life back then.

Tom had left that world behind, though the war he’d been a small part of was still ongoing.

He would be glad to leave this world behind as well, its own secret war just gearing up.

He’d chosen a different life for himself and was finally free now to return to it.

Return to it and never look back.

He embraced that phrase like a new mantra, replacing the one he’d been taught by Carrington more than a decade ago.

The one he’d hung on to for all that time.

The only way out is through.

Once Kevin Montrose’s pickup was northbound on Route 63, Tom sent Stella a text that contained just two words.

Coming home.

Once they reached the commuter lot off Route 8, Tom retrieved a flashlight from the toolbox mounted to the truck’s bed and searched every inch of his vehicle, top to bottom, engine compartment to rear bumper.

Only when he was certain that there was no tracking device anywhere did he help Hammerton into the passenger seat.

Every movement caused the man pain, but he bore it well, like a former SAS trooper would.

Hammerton settled into the seat, the SIG resting in his lap, his right hand loose around the grip. Tom retrieved the empty Colt 1911 from his toolbox mounted to the truck bed.

Getting in behind the wheel, Tom handed the pistol to Hammerton and told him that the magazines were in the center console.

As Tom drove, Hammerton inserted a mag into the Colt, then racked the slide, chambering the round.

Tom removed the cartridge from his shirt pocket and gave it to Hammerton, who dropped the mag from the Colt and topped it off with that round.

Reinserting the fully loaded mag, he passed the locked and cocked Colt to Tom, who placed it between the driver’s seat and center console.

Neither said anything for much of the ride.

At first, Tom checked the rearview mirror frequently to make certain they weren’t being followed.

Hammerton did the same with the side view mirror beyond the passenger window.

As the miles ticked by, neither man saw anything he didn’t like.

By the time they had passed through Litchfield, it became clear that they weren’t being tailed or driving into an ambush.

It seemed more and more likely they just might make it home without a fight.

Eventually both men, exhausted and injured, became lost in thought, Tom finding himself driving for long stretches at times as if on automatic pilot.

Barely seeing the road ahead, his numbed mind wandering.

Still, he had the presence of mind to recognize, when he reached it, the exact strip of grass-lined road he had dreamed about a few hours before.

The spot where the vehicle he had stolen simply died and, stepping out, he had found himself back in the desert.

And face-to-face with Carrington.

We’re in more danger than you know,
the man had said.

It seemed to Tom that even in his dreams, his former commanding officer only spoke lies.

It was just after seven when Tom pulled into his spot in the lot behind Stella’s building.

Looking up at the bedroom window, he saw that Stella was standing in it.

Just as she had been when he’d left for New York City two nights before.

They stared at each other for a moment before Stella stepped quickly away. Tom opened the driver’s door and climbed out.

Two state troopers dressed in street clothes appeared and escorted Tom as he helped Hammerton around to the sidewalk.

Canaan Village was empty, as it should be so early on a Sunday morning.

Empty save for the five state trooper cruisers parked like a blockade along the curb outside Stella’s building.

Tom got his friend as far as the front entrance.

Once inside the stairwell, the door closed and locked behind them, the two troopers took over and together got Hammerton up the narrow stairs.

It was only after the three of them were inside the apartment and leading Hammerton to the couch that Stella appeared in the open doorway above, Conrad standing behind her.

She said nothing as Tom began to climb the steep steps.

He moved steadily upward, never taking his eyes off her.

At the top, Tom closed the remaining distance between them and wrapped his arms around Stella, pulling her close.

Conrad quietly retreated into the kitchen as Stella wound her arms up and around Tom’s back, clinging to him fiercely.

They stayed that way for a while.

Forty-Five

Tom struggled all that day with a troubled sleep.

This was not the restorative sleep he had counted on.

The sleep that would prepare him for work tomorrow morning, the sleep during which his cuts and burns and bruises would begin to heal.

This was the restlessness of a man wrestling with doubts he was as yet unable to fully understand.

Lying still, Stella motionless beside him, Tom’s tired mind was plagued by images he could not shake.

Images of what Stella had endured—what he had viewed, helpless, via the webcam.

More than any other image, he saw Stella in a prone shooting position on that motel bathroom floor, firing her .357 at her attackers.

Men who had come to take her.

Men who would not hesitate to torment her, if ordered.

But it wasn’t just images that replayed for Tom.

He heard the words Kadyrov had spoken, too.

The threats the man had made in an effort to coerce Tom.

As well as the private details Kadyrov had shared.

Details that only someone who had been eavesdropping on Tom and Stella on Friday night could know.

You two like it rough, no?

She says things to you about all the other men in town.

Tom’s tumbling mind eventually shifted to events that had not occurred.

He saw self-inflicted projections of the terror Stella would have faced had she not been armed.

Had her father not passed on to her certain skills—skills that Tom had no idea she possessed but was immensely grateful that she did.

Gradually, though, Tom began to realize that it was more than that, more than Stella’s retreating to the bathroom and running the shower as a diversion and positioning herself on the floor that had saved her.

More than her marksmanship and ability to stay calm and think.

Because her skills would not have mattered had the men sent by Carrington been smarter.

Had they known that she was armed and acted accordingly, had they adjusted their approach to the closed bathroom door, as Tom would have done.

A frightening thing, then, Tom thought, for Stella’s life to have hinged on Carrington not passing along that one simple but crucial detail.

On Carrington failing to warn the men he had sent to abduct Stella of the powerful firearm in her possession . . . 

The gray November sky beyond their bedroom window was beginning to darken when Tom finally gave up on sleep.

Sitting up, he moved to the edge of the mattress, doing so carefully as not to disturb Stella.

He felt as if his unconscious mind had been building a case.

Had been working to filter through the noise of the past two days and eventually lock on to something that Tom could not ignore.

A singular fact that stood out.

A contradiction that had to be reconciled.

In the name of justice.

He worked backward, starting with the conversation he had with Sandy Montrose prior to leaving her farm.

You knew the work Cahill was doing?
Tom had asked.

Yes.

And you knew about his affair with Erica DiSalvo?

No. No one did. He kept that a secret.

Something else she had said emerged.

I know he truly believed he could protect her.

And then another comment.

It’s a terrible thing when the person closest to us turns on us. Uses everything they know about us against us.

From there Tom moved farther back, to when he was standing in the underground bunker with Savelle and Raveis and Cahill.

A tracking device had been placed on Erica’s car,
Cahill had said.
That’s how the Chechens knew where to find us.

Then Cahill had concluded,
Same make, same model.

And finally, Raveis had said,
It’s clear what this evidence tells us.

It’s still only circumstantial,
Tom had protested.

Fortunately, we aren’t building a legal case here.

Tom dwelled on that for a while before recalling the things that had been said to him by Kadyrov, captor to captive.

I’m told the freedom to choose is important to you, and that giving you a choice in this matter might make things go more quickly.

That’s all that’s being asked of you. To kill for your country one more time.

You
can
save her. You
can
choose to save her. Simply kill a traitor.

You needn’t bother yourself with the why, Tomas. It’s best for men like us to leave the big picture to those who are paid to think on that scale . . . 

Finally, Tom remembered meeting with Carrington at Tallmadge’s tomb in Litchfield.

Keep your eyes open, okay?
Carrington had said.
Trust your gut. If you see something you don’t like, just get the hell out of there. You owe Cahill, yes, but he may not be the man you remember.

And then, moments later:

Simpson has a sidearm for you.

I’d rather if it comes down to it that your life didn’t depend on a relic from seventy years ago.

Simpson had handed him the Beretta and spare magazine.

After Carrington was long gone.

It didn’t take long before Tom was on his feet and pulling on his jeans.

From the darkness, Stella whispered, “Everything okay?”

Tom zipped up and sat on the edge of the bed.

“We’re okay,” he said. “But we need to leave.”

“Why?”

Several strands of Stella’s curls obscured her eyes.

Tom gently brushed them away as he thought of his drug-induced dream about Carrington.

The two of them back in the desert, Carrington disappearing into the rising sandstorm, speaking as he did.

Tom had no intention of keeping the truth from Stella.

She deserved to know everything he knew.

“Because I think we’re in more danger than I realized,” he said.

Stella nodded and asked Tom what he needed her to do.

He told to her get dressed, and that he was going to talk to
Hammerton for a few minutes, after which they would be heading out.

“Where to?”

“I’m not sure yet. I’d like you to call Conrad, okay?”

“Why?”

“So he can take you somewhere safe. Somewhere I don’t even know about.”

“Why somewhere you don’t know about?”

“Just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“In case this goes wrong again.”

Stella shook her head and said flatly, “No, Tom. I’m coming with you.”

“It will be easier for me to do what I have to do if I know you’re safe.”

“Will I really be safe anywhere? And anyway, that’s not the point. I can’t sit in some motel again, staring at a can of coins balanced on a doorknob. And I don’t want to be surrounded by a bunch of men, waiting for a cell phone to ring or not ring. I need to be beside you, okay? I’d rather die with you than live without you. So I’m either riding along with you or following you in my own car. That much is your choice. But the rest isn’t negotiable. Okay?”

Tom didn’t have it in him to fight her.

And anyway, he knew she was right.

He said, “You’ll do what I say, when I say it.”

“I won’t let you down, Tom. I promise.”

They looked at each other for a moment.

Tom remembered what Sandy Montrose had said about Cahill’s guilt over Erica DiSalvo’s death.

I know he truly believed he could protect her
.

Tom would have no choice, then, but to succeed where Cahill had failed.

It was as simple as that.

“Pack only what you need,” Tom said. “I’ll be in the living room.”

Tom stood and finished dressing—T-shirt, black sweater, work boots.

On his nightstand were the cocked and locked 1911, the two spare mags, his multitool and keys, driver’s license and pistol permit, as well as a new prepaid smartphone and emergency cash.

One thousand dollars.

Not a lot to run on.

Nor the biggest operational budget, especially when compared to what those he might have to stand against had at their disposal.

But it was something, and every edge counted now.

Tom picked up the 1911 and confirmed that the thumb safety was engaged before tucking the firearm into his waistband at the small of his back.

Distributing the other items among various pockets, he waited till Stella was dressed—jeans over boy shorts, black T-shirt over her pearls, cardigan over that.

Another phone, identical to Tom’s, was on Stella’s nightstand alongside her .357 Smith and Wesson.

Stella was reaching for them both as Tom left the bedroom.

Hammerton was asleep on the living room couch.

Despite the fact that the room was lit only by the pale glow of the streetlights outside the windows, Tom could see his SIG p226 resting on the coffee table.

Within Hammerton’s easy reach.

Tom quietly walked to one of the two front windows that overlooked Main Street.

He scanned the sidewalks and street thoroughly, saw nothing he didn’t like, nothing he hadn’t seen every evening during his six months there.

A peaceful and isolated small town, more or less unchanged for decades.

The kind of place in which a man like him could come safely to a stop for a time.

But that time may have run its course.

Tom was aware that there was a very good chance they would not be returning anytime soon—if at all.

Stepping away from the window, he entered the small kitchen.

On the table was a glass of water containing the listening device that Conrad and his buddies had found during their basement-to-attic search of Stella’s building.

Smaller than a housefly, it had been dropped in the water immediately upon discovery to render it inert.

Also on the table was Tom’s Kindle.

He stared at both items for a moment before finally returning to the living room.

The sound of his approach woke Hammerton, who immediately reached out for his weapon.

“It’s okay,” Tom said. “It’s me.”

Hammerton’s arm remained extended, his hand lingering on the pistol’s grip. “What’s up?”

“We need to talk.”

“What about?”

“Carrington.”

Hammerton paused before withdrawing his hand.

“Something on your mind, Tom?”

“Yeah.”

Hammerton nodded. “All right, mate,” he said. “Pull up a chair. Let’s talk.”