CL Hart -From A Distance (52 page)

Physically and emotionally exhausted, Kenzie sighed loudly. "The senator is dead," she said abruptly.

"What?"

"Senator Palmer is dead. It was self defense," she interjected before the judge could ask.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Tired, but fine." Kenzie knew she was way past tired. She had read the file and had a pretty good understanding of what had been going on, and it made her physically ill to know that she'd had a part in it, however unwitting. Feeling raw and exposed, she realized how much she hated who she had become. There was no honor in what she had been doing. "Have you ever heard of Maquinar?" she finally asked.

"No. Who is it?"

"It's not a 'who', it's a 'what'." She glanced over as the cab driver emerged from the gas station mini-mart with two large coffees. "The good senator was kind enough to have everything in a file. It lists names, places, dates, you name it. I don't understand it all yet, but I get the general idea of what was going on. "

"Bring it to me."

"No, not yet. I want answers from Manuck. He and the senator were behind it all."

"Katherine, if the file has what you say it has, you don't need to do any more. Come in. Let me take the file to the proper authorities."

Kenzie accepted her coffee from the cab driver, and then waited until he was back behind the wheel. "I can't. I need to do this for me. I need to see him. I need to hear it from his mouth."

"Just turn yourself in, Katherine."

Kenzie felt lost, disillusioned. "To whom, Ben?" she asked, using his first name for the first time since they had met.

"Then come in, or at least meet us somewhere."

"I can't do that. I'm too hot right now, and I won't put either of you in any further danger."

"Katherine-"

Cori had heard enough. She could tell the judge was getting nowhere with Kenzie, so she grabbed the phone from him, cutting off his plea.

"Kenzie."

The simple sound of her name whispered by the woman she loved was almost enough to make her forget it all. All she wanted was Cori.

"Are you okay?"

Looking up at the blinking red lights atop Quest Field, Kenzie knew she didn't have an answer, even for a question that simple.

"Kenzie, are you there?"

"I'm here. I'm sorry I walked out on you today. That wasn't my intention when I left the coffee shop."

Just hearing Kenzie's voice gave Cori the relief she was looking for. "Things happen, right?" Cori's eyes welled up with tears of release.

"Yeah," Kenzie answered softly, not trusting her own voice.

"Are you gonna be okay?"

Kenzie sighed deeply, unsure of the answer. "Depends. Are you going to be sticking around after this is all over?"

"That was kinda what I had in mind," Cori said as she smiled through her tears.

Standing alone, leaning against the cold trunk of the taxicab, Kenzie questioned her own intentions. Maybe the judge was right after all, it might be better to hand the whole thing over to someone else. Let them sort through it. In the time it took her to formulate that thought, she realized the government rarely admitted to its mistakes, and when it did, it was those at the bottom of the ladder that found themselves in the deepest shit.

"Kenzie," Cori's whispered plea brought her back, "come back to me."

"I'm working on it."

A half-empty bottle of Crown Royal sat in front of Deputy Director Bucannon. He had not slept and he had no intention of trying. Sitting on his sofa, he swirled the alcohol in his glass and then tossed it back, draining the remains. He leaned forward, poured himself another liberal libation, and then reached for his phone. No one had called him all night and he was beginning to feel like he was no longer part of the solution, but part of the problem. Dialing the senator's number from memory, he had to wait for only one ring before an unfamiliar voice answered the phone.

"Senator?" he slurred.

"Who's calling?"

"Who is this?" Bucannon asked, sitting up a little straighter.

"May I ask who is calling?" the authoritative voice repeated.

"No, you may not. Who is this and where's the senator?"

"This is Detective Montenegro, Seattle PD. Now it's your turn... Hello...hello." Bucannon quickly hung up the phone.

The detective turned to a junior officer. "Find out who that was."

Terry Bucannon's heart was beating loudly as he licked at his dry lips.
Seattle PD! What the hell are the cops doing there? Calm down, calm down.
He dialed the senator's cell phone.

Kenzie was sipping her coffee in the back of the taxi that was still in the parking lot of the gas station. When she told the driver she had nowhere in particular to go, he asked if they could just stay where they were. He explained that the cost of the gas came out of his pocket, and she understood. Also, it was easier to read from the file sitting still.

The cell phone on the seat next to her lit up and vibrated, dancing in an erratic circle on the worn upholstery. She picked it up, looked at the name on the Caller ID, and recognized it from the file. Terry Bucannon. Glancing down at his file, she noted his picture neatly stapled to the corner of his dossier. For the first time she knew the name of the man she had dubbed "Kevin", the man who had sat across the table from her so long ago when Colonel Manuck had recruited her.

The phone vibrated again in her hand as she climbed from the cab. She opened the phone and put it to her ear.

"Jesus Christ, Palmer. I just called your house and the cops are there. What's going on?" His voice was slurred with alcohol and panic.

"Deputy Director, Terry Bucannon, NCS, National Clandestine Service, CIA," Kenzie read from the file. "Graduated Harvard law, in 1976. Joined the CIA in-"

Just the sound of the woman's voice was enough to shut him up as the air slowly escaped from his lungs through his open mouth. He didn't need to ask, but he did anyhow. "Who is this?"

"I think you know who I am. We met once before, though we were never introduced."

"LeGault!" he said. "Where's the senator?"

"He's dead." There was a long pause and she could almost feel his rising panic through the phone. "I know about Maquinar. I have the file."

"Jesus Christ!"

Kenzie glanced through the window at the file spread out over the backseat of the cab. "It has all been meticulously documented: names, dates, assignments...bank accounts."

Bucannon sat back as an eerie calm came over him. It was over, and surprisingly enough, he felt relief.

"The only thing I don't understand is...why?" Kenzie said, "Was it all just for money?"

Foregoing the glass, Bucannon put the bottle to his lips and took a long drink. He welcomed the burn of the alcohol as it slid down his throat. Placing the bottle back on the table, he wiped his lips before he answered her. "It wasn't for the money, at least not for me, not in the beginning."

"Then explain it to me."

Taking a long, slow breath, Bucannon wondered how he could have let things go so far. Their plans in the beginning had seemed so honorable and just. He wondered how he could put it all into perspective for her. "If we could have taken out Osama bin Laden before 9-11, what would that have been worth to the people of the world?"

"Him, I would have done for free. But isn't that part of what the NCS is about - fighting terrorists?"

"Yes. The National Clandestine Service was created in the wake of the 9-11 attacks, but you have to understand-"

"I do understand, but we weren't killing terrorists, Mr. Bucannon."

"We only call them terrorists after they have committed an act of terrorism. What if we could eliminate them before they have a chance to kill thousands of people, or what if we could take out a dictator before he becomes a tyrant putting lives and freedoms in harm's way? People questioned why no one stopped Hitler before he murdered millions of Jews and tried to take over the world, but by the time we knew what he was doing, it was too late."

"So Maquinar was created to kill these people, these civilians, before they did anything?"

"They weren't civilians," Bucannon said defensively.

"Cori Evans is a civilian."

The statement and the name caught him off guard, and it took him a moment to respond. "That was different. That was Palmer's remedy to his own problem. Cori Evans knew too much about the distribution of the money. She put the whole operation in jeopardy."

"So it was about the money?"

"It wasn't about the money," Bucannon said with conviction. "It was about saving lives and trying to bring stability to a world out of control."

"So by killing people, you gain control of the governments and their leaders, thereby getting control of their money."

"Yes...no, it wasn't about the money." But Bucannon was no longer convincing even himself. "At least not in the beginning."

"Well, it's all over now. Maquinar is finished. Your career is finished," she said with disdain. "And when I've found and dealt with Manuck, I'm coming after you."

"Don't bother," Bucannon said as he reached into his side table, pulled out his gun, and put it into his mouth.

The rolling ticker at the bottom of the TV screen had been announcing the senator's death for over an hour. Manuck desperately wanted to know the particulars, but there was no way for him to make inquires without drawing unwanted attention. He knew LeGault had a hand in it, just as she had with Viper's death. He kept asking himself where she was now, and how much she knew.

His phone rang, and when he looked at the call display, he smirked. The senator was dead, so there was only one person who would have the guts to call him from the senator's cell phone. "I wondered how long I was going to have to wait to hear from you."

"Colonel." Kenzie addressed him with his military rank more out of habit than respect. "The senator and Bucannon are dead."

He had been concerned when he hadn't heard from Bucannon after the news about the senator broke. Now he knew. Not surprisingly, the information did not bother him in the least. It was one loose end he no longer had to tie up. "I didn't know about Bucannon, but thanks for the update. So now what? Are you coming after me?"

"I want to meet."

The colonel laughed. "So you can put a bullet in my head? I think not. I'm not that stupid."

"I don't need to kill you. This is over. I'm finished, and so is your career."

The truth of her statement burned inside of him. He didn't trust her, but he was curious. "Why meet then?"

"Because I want answers and only you can provide them," she said honestly.

"So, ask away."

"Not on the phone. I don't trust you any more than you trust me. I want to be able to look you in the eye."

"Again I say, so that you can kill me?"

"You pick the place and the time."

He thought about it for a moment, quickly weighing his options. It had to be someplace public, but not too public. There would have to be people, even at this time of the morning, and it would have to have good access in and out. If he played his cards right, he could finish her off, then lay low until the whole mess blew over. Maybe a meeting wasn't such a bad idea after all. "The boardwalk at Waterfront Park, in front of the fountain. Two hours."