A Murder of Crows (36 page)

He had neglected his meditation and yoga sessions for far too long. That morning, he returned to them. The solitude gave him clarity. The yoga routines gave him strength. He shook off the cobwebs of indecision and chaos of the previous days and focused on himself. He focused on what needed to be done. He’d need such a level of clarity to handle what he knew would face him throughout the coming day.

As he was toweling off after his session, he heard his handheld buzz. It was a text message from Roger.
I’M
BRINGING OUR BOY TO THE TRAIN. SEE YOU IN TWENTY. HERE’S SOMETHING TO MAKE YOU SMILE.

The pictures Roger sent in the following text messages didn’t make Hicks smile, but they proved Cindy had achieved her objective.

Hicks hoped he would be able to say the same when he eventually returned to the Twenty-Third Street facility later that evening.

If he returned at all.

He quickly got dressed, pocketed extra speed loaders for the Ruger, and set out for Penn Station.

A
T
P
ENN
Station, Hicks checked the main departure board in the Amtrak concourse for the eight-thirty train to Washington, D.C. He saw the track number and went downstairs. He had always hated train stations. No matter the station or where it was in the world, they all smelled of stale angst and train grease. Some people found train travel romantic. Hicks found trains tedious and outmoded and slow.

He found Roger leaning against a support beam on the platform. For a man who had been up all night, Roger looked like he had stepped out of a spa. His tan sport coat was pressed and his matching pocket square was perfect.

Hicks skipped the pleasantries. “Where’s our boy?”

Roger inclined his head toward the train car. “The guy with his head against the window. He’s hung over as hell and guilty as sin.” Roger smiled. “Exactly as you wanted him.”

Hicks saw a brown-haired man slumped against the window of the business class coach. He hadn’t expected him to look as clean-cut and bright-eyed as he did in his government ID photo, but he still didn’t like what he saw. “He looks like shit. I told you this won’t work if he’s too fucked up to follow directions.”

“Stop being such a puritan. I made sure he’s only hurting enough to make him pliable for your charms. He’s a cocky little prick when he’s sober, but right now, he’s a mewling mess. He’s suffering from the remorse of the indulgent. He doesn’t regret what happened, only that he’s paying for it now.”

Hicks knew better than to argue with him. When it came to drunken depravity, Roger was usually right. “How much does he remember from last night?”

“Not much,” Roger admitted, “but that was the point, wasn’t it? He’s been begging me all morning to give him something to help kill the hangover. I played the helpful drinking buddy and told him I knew a guy who could get him something to help him straighten out.” He playfully poked Hicks in the chest. “You’re the guy.”

Roger handed him a clear plastic baggie full of pills of various shapes, sizes, and colors. “Tell him to take these on the ride home. I’ve already given him a large bottle of water for the train. I spiked it with some electrolytes to help him recover even faster. Tell him to take a handful of these pills and drink all the water he can before he arrives in D.C. The more water he drinks, the better the pills will work. He’ll be functional by the time he gets to the office.”

Hicks looked at the bag of multicolored pills. “What are they?”

“They’re like vitamins on steroids,” Roger explained. “They’ll begin to quell the effects of his hangover as soon as he swallows them. A clear mind will help the seeds you plant take root. Like you said, this doesn’t work if he’s fucked up.”

“I’ll take it from here.” Hicks put the bag of pills in his jacket pocket. “You and I have a full day ahead of us, so you’d better get some breakfast in the food court upstairs.”

Roger looked like he’d thrown a dead fish in his lap. “Me? In a fucking food court? Don’t be insulting. I’ll wait for you here.”

H
ICKS BOARDED
the train and found Dan Finch alone in a three-seater inside the doorway. Even from several feet away, Hicks could smell several hours’ worth of vodka seeping through his pores. Finch’s head was slumped against the window and he was wearing the same blue suit Hicks had seen him wearing in Roger’s surveillance pictures. It was an expensive suit bought from a respectable men’s clothing store chain in D.C., but not custom made. According to OMNI’s profile of the man, Dan Finch had long dreamed of owning a closet full of custom made clothes. Today may be his first step toward getting it, if he was smart enough to follow Hicks’ orders.

Finch had pulled up the collar of his overcoat in an effort to shield his eyes from the invasive glare of the train car lights, even though the lights weren’t bright. He’d even tucked his train ticket in the headrest off the aisle seat so he could sleep off his drunk without the conductor disturbing him.

Finch barely stirred when Hicks dropped into the seat next to him and nudged him with an elbow. “I hear you might need some help.”

Finch slowly opened his eyes and winced at the light. He was only thirty-one years old, but thanks to a late night at his hotel’s lobby bar, looked a hell of a lot older. “You the guy Sam sent?”

Hicks figured ‘Sam’ must have been the fake name Roger had given him. He dug the bag of vitamins out of his pocket and tossed them on Finch’s lap. “If you take a handful of those, you’ll get better before you know it. Keep drinking as much water as you can on the ride back to D.C. if you want them to work as well as they should.”

Finch slowly pushed himself upright and fumbled to keep the bag of pills from falling off his lap. He blindly pawed around the seat for the bottle of water. He found it between his back and the window. “Thanks, man. I guess I overdid it last night.”

Hicks smiled. “Bright lights, big city. It’s been known to happen from time to time. Those pills and the water will straighten you out fine.”

Finch took a handful of pills and gulped them down with some of Roger’s water. He looked at Hicks with heavy red eyes. “No change. My head’s still pounding and my hands are still shaking.”

“Like most good things in life, it takes time. We’ll need you to be in good shape by the time you get to the office.”

Finch took another healthy gulp of water. “Office? Are you kidding? I’m in no shape to go near the office today, man. I already called in and told them I’m working remotely.”

“Change of plans, Danny Boy, because you need to go into the office today. You’ve got a hell of a lot of work to do. That’s why I gave you those pills.”

Finch lowered the water bottle. “You…you know my name?”

“Sure I do. Dan Finch, All-American boy and scholar from the sovereign state of Indiana. Graduated from Butler ten years ago with a B.A. in Political Science. Graduated in the middle of your class, unfortunately, but grades aren’t important, not for a man with your kind of ambition.”

Finch seemed to forget all about his hangover for a moment. “Wait a second. Who…”

Hicks went on. “And look at where your ambition got you. Chief of Staff to the senior senator from the sovereign state of Indiana. Mom and dad are so proud. They bore the shit out of their friends on Facebook with updates of how their little Danny is doing out there in Washington. That picture with the president at the Christmas party last year was a big hit, even though he is a Democrat.”

Finch tried to push himself away from Hicks, but he was already in the corner of the train seat. “How did you know all this? Who the fuck are you?” He looked around the train car, but no one else was paying attention. “What is this?”

“Who I am isn’t important.” Hicks removed his handheld from his inside pocket. “You’re not important, either. But your boss? He’s important. He’s the reason why you and I are having this conversation right now because I know you don’t want him to see what I’m about to show you.”

Hicks tapped the handheld’s screen and brought up one of the images Roger had sent him that morning. “That’s you and your buddies at the bar last night, slinging that ‘House of Cards’ bullshit for the drunks and the tourists who don’t know any better.”

Finch looked at Hicks cycling through the pictures of him and his friends talking to various people at the bar. “Wait. How’d you…”

Hicks stopped at the photo of Cindy standing in the middle of Finch and the others. “But when this girl walked in, politics suddenly didn’t seem so interesting anymore. Pretty girl, wasn’t she? She’s obviously not like those corn-fed girls you’ve got back home in Indiana.”

Hicks thumbed to the picture showing the two of them kissing at the hotel elevator. “I’ve got pictures of what happened upstairs, too. Want to see?”

Before Finch could object, Hicks thumbed to another picture of Finch performing fellatio on Cindy. “My, oh my,” Hicks said. “Look at what you’re doing there. What would the folks back in Indiana say?”

Finch made a clumsy attempt to grab the phone.

Hicks gave him a short elbow to the gut, sending him back against the window. The shot wasn’t hard enough to break a rib or draw attention from the other travelers, but hard enough to make a point.

“Don’t do that again.”

Finch cradled his sore belly. “You son of a bitch. You set me up. You and Sam. You drugged me!”

“No one drugged you, asshole. You got drunk all by yourself, just like you made the decision to take her up to your room all by yourself. We baited the hook, but you decided to bite.”

“Who the hell are you? What the hell do you want?”

“Those are all the wrong questions, Danno. You’re worried about these pictures when you should be grateful I have them instead of someone else. Like someone in the media, for instance. Or a blogger. Or your boss. Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with what you did, but the senator’s constituents back in Indiana aren’t as open-minded as the rest of us. Can you imagine what would happen if these images ever got out? You’d lose your job. Your reputation would be ruined. Your Conservative friends would shun you and your Liberal enemies would love to watch you starve. No hiring manager in any government agency in the country would touch you. All of the political consultants in the business would view you as a liability. You’ve seen it happen before, so you know I’m right.”

Finch groaned as he slumped against the window. He looked worse now than when Hicks had first walked onto the train. “Why are you doing this to me? Who sent you?”

Hicks put the handheld back in his pocket. “You’re still asking all the wrong questions, Ace. Don’t focus on who sent me. Don’t even focus on the pictures. Instead, focus on what you can do to make sure no one ever sees these pictures except you and me. Right now you’re between a cock and a hard place, but I’ve got a way out of this which will benefit all of us.”

“Let me guess.” Finch’s bloodshot eyes got nasty. “Especially you.”

“I’m going to ask you to do something I need done. If you do it, you’ll come off looking like a hero. And you’ll gain a good friend in the bargain. Me.”

Finch tried to flatten his ruffled overcoat collar. “I don’t know what you want, but whatever it is won’t work. I’m not a criminal, and I won’t break the law for you no matter what you’re threatening me with. I always get caught.” He looked at the pocket where Hicks had placed his handheld. “I never get away with anything.”

“That’s the beauty of this conversation, because I’m not asking you to break a single law. In fact, what I need you to do falls well within the parameters of your job and is one hundred percent legal.”

Finch tried to push himself up straighter. “Legal? Then why the…” He looked again at where Hicks had his phone. “Why did you do all this?”

“Insurance to make sure I’ll have your undivided attention to what I need done as soon as possible. In a couple of minutes, you’re going to receive an email explaining everything I need you to do and how I want you to do it. You will not deviate from the steps I give you.”

“You’ve got to at least tell me what to look out for.”

“You’re going to receive an email from an anonymous whistleblower who is sending you damaging information about an intelligence agency over-stepping its authority on American soil. The email will be traceable to an actual person inside the intelligence community. Since your boss is also the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, you will do your level best to make sure he launches a formal—and public—investigation into the allegations. The only thing is, I’m going to need you to make sure this information is leaked to the press this afternoon.”

As drunk as he still was, Finch had a few brain cells firing. “You’ve gone through all this bullshit to leak something to the press? You could do that yourself.”

“Sure, but I’m a nobody. Who would publish anything I’d give them? They’d want to vet the material before they ran it and vetting takes time. And if there’s one thing neither of us have it’s time. Someone might make the material disappear if we wait too long and neither of us can let that happen. Thanks to your contacts in the media, that won’t happen. You’re an unimpeachable source, so if this information comes from you, they’ll run with it. Your boss will look like a reformer taking hold of unlawful government action and you look like the hero for giving him the information. We all win, including me.”