Cut Out (10 page)

Riley leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes, considering the situation. Giannini didn’t give him much time for reflection. “Hey, listen, Dave. I’m asking this as a personal favor.”

She didn’t bother to add that he owed her one—indeed Riley owed her his life—but he had already added it into his mental calculations. “All right. I’m on my way.”

“Thanks, Dave. Get in contact with me once you talk to her and tell me what’s going on.”

“Okay.” Riley hung up the phone and headed out. He stuck his head inside the company commander’s door before exiting the fourth floor. “Hey, sir, I’ve got to take care of some stuff. I’ll be out the rest of the day.”

“Roger.” Major Welch didn’t even bother to look up from the mountain of paperwork. His men spent more than half their time out of the building, mostly at Camp Mackall, so Riley’s absence would be nothing unusual.

Trust was something that good commanders in Special Forces granted their men as a normal part of everyday activities.

Instead of immediately heading west, Riley took a detour off post to his townhouse. It was a two-story, two-bedroom place off Yadkin Road, one of the main drags onto Fort Bragg. He ran inside and hauled a footlocker out of the back of his closet. After surveying the contents and considering the situation, he pulled out a 9mm Beretta pistol in a shoulder holster and strapped it on inside his camouflage fatigue shirt. Then he grabbed a High Standard silenced .22-caliber automatic pistol and wrapped it in a towel. He carried it out to his black Bronco II and put it between the front seats, handle up for ready access.

Reversing direction, he drove back on post, past the 7th and 3d Special Forces Group areas to Chicken Road. From there it was a straight shot due west, along the south side of Fort Bragg, out to Camp Mackall. Then Riley would take back roads up to Gordontown.

Chapter 6

GORDONTOWN, NORTH CAROLINA

29 OCTOBER, 11:23 a.m.

The town square in the center of Gordontown featured a courthouse with police headquarters directly across the street. Lisa Cobb sat in the small restaurant two doors down from the police station and sipped on her eighth cup of coffee. Her time had been split between watching, drinking, and going to the bathroom.

Calling her brother had been an act of desperation, but Tommy had bailed her out of more than one scrape in her life. When both their parents died in a car wreck when she was fourteen, it had been Tommy, seven years older, who had taken care of her and helped put her through college. Lisa was grateful for his help, but sometimes she wished he had been as generous with his advice as he had been with his money. It was only after her husband had been picked up by the police that Tommy had expressed his disapproval of Philip and of her marriage—a disapproval that dated from the time she had first gone out with the man. From anyone else, Lisa might have made a change of hindsight, but she believed Tommy—he had never lied to her. He had not spoken his mind back then, he said, because he thought it was futile: people in love will never believe they’re making a mistake. While awaiting the trial, he’d urged her to divorce Philip, but to Lisa that was not an option. She felt she couldn’t abandon her husband at this worst possible time; it seemed as immoral as what he had done to her. Tommy tried to convince her, telling her it wouldn’t get any better. But the thought of starting a new life alone on the shattered remains of her old one had seemed overwhelming. More than anything, what she had wanted was time—time removed from crisis to sort things out, and the Program had seemed to offer her that. How ironic that the “solution” had unraveled the remaining strands of her life. Now she had nothing left.

Lisa spotted the black Ford Bronco II on its first loop around the square. The vehicle and driver fit the description her brother had forwarded to her on the second phone call. She gave it three loops and watched as the Bronco pulled into a spot facing the courthouse steps. Then she forced herself to wait another ten minutes—the memory of the incident at the rest stop all too fresh in her mind.

She finally stepped out into the sun-drenched street and came up on the vehicle from behind. She was surprised when the passenger door swung open without the driver even turning his head. She hopped in, and he had the truck started and out into the traffic before he even looked at her.

“I’m Dave Riley.” He wore camouflage fatigues, and a faded green beret lay between the seats on top of a crumpled towel.

“Lisa Cobb.”

He nodded, his eyes flicking from the rearview mirror to the streets and buildings and finally to her, then immediately back to a scan of the surroundings.

“Have you spotted anyone here in town who might be one of the people who have been after you?”

“No.”

“We’re heading to Fayetteville, which is about two hours away. I’m going to put you up in my apartment, where you’ll be safe. I need to know what’s going on, so why don’t you start from the very beginning and tell me all that’s happened.”

The last thing Lisa felt like doing was tracing the events of the past twenty-four hours. She wanted to sit back in the cushions of the seat, close her eyes, and escape from the world. The cross-country walk toward the lights of the town, then the hours spent shivering on the outskirts before entering at daylight, had drained what little energy she had left. She knew she looked ragged, although she had done the best she could to clean up in the restroom of the coffee shop.

“Please,” Riley said, this time really looking at her as he halted briefly at a stop sign. “I know you’re probably beat, but to help you I’ve got to know what’s going on. Your brother got in contact with a friend of mine on the Chicago police force, and she also needs to know so she can help. As soon as we get to Fayetteville, I’ll give her a call and fill her in. So if you can hang in there for another couple of hours, I promise you a hot shower and some good rack time.”

Lisa nodded and began her tale.

CHICAGO

29 OCTOBER, 12:38 p.m.

The police file on the Torrentino case filled four cardboard boxes. Giannini shuddered to think what the court file looked like; it would probably fill her office and flow out into the corridor. At least whoever had put it together had labeled the folders. She began her search, thumbing through the volumes of paperwork, looking for anything that might help her understand what was going on. Within five minutes, she knew there was something wrong with the file—pages were missing and certain names had been blacked out on all copies.

Forty minutes later, a large shadow filled her doorway. She glanced up to see Mike Guyton leaning against the doorframe, cleaning his teeth with a toothpick.

“A little bird told me someone had pulled the Torrentino case.”

Giannini didn’t say anything, waiting for Guyton to get to the point.

“It’s closed, Giannini.”

“Yeah, I can read.”

Irritation flashed across Guyton’s face. “So why are you looking at it?”

“That’s my job, in case you haven’t heard. To go through these old cases and then put them away downstairs.”

Guyton shook his head. “Not the Torrentino case. The captain didn’t give that to you to close out. I closed it out two weeks ago. You drew it out of the basement.”

Shit, Giannini thought to herself. Caught in one lie already. Why was Guyton so uptight about this? He must have told the clerk downstairs to call him if anyone asked for the Torrentino file. Guyton had been in the papers big time throughout the trial, sharing the fame and credit for breaking the case with the FBI task force—a most unusual scene of cooperation between local and federal authorities. Most likely, Giannini figured, he was worried about anybody messing with his prize baby.

Unless he was worried about the pages that weren’t in the file. Giannini felt a small worm of fear begin to crawl about in her gut.

“All right, Mike, you caught me. I’m just curious is all. I wanted to check it out.”

“Get curious somewhere else, doll.” He pointed at the boxes. “Those go back downstairs right now.”

Giannini bristled but held herself in check as the big man turned and swaggered down the hall. She knew he’d be waiting to get a phone call from the clerk confirming that the file had been replaced, so she quickly packed up the boxes and returned them to the holding area.

CHARLOTTE

29 OCTOBER 1:16 p.m.

The phone was picked up on the first buzz and Master began speaking immediately. “Master here. Primary was terminated. Secondary is still free. Everything’s been swept clean.”

“You’ve had two tries now.” The voice on the other end was blunt. “We can’t afford any more screwups.”

A muscle twitched on the side of Master’s face. “She was lucky.” The other members of his team were silent, sitting amidst debris from several fast-food restaurants scattered about the motel room.

“Luck is a variable that shouldn’t stand up in the face of superior firepower.”

The muscle flicked several times, but Master continued. “We lost contact on the secondary. We need help in locating her.”

There was a long pause. “I’ll get back to you.” The phone went dead.

FAYETTEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

29 OCTOBER, 1:42 p.m.

“You’re sure it was the same people at the rest area and at the motel?”

Lisa frowned. “No, I’m not sure. I didn’t get a good look at the two men at the motel, and I really didn’t have much chance to check out the men at the rest area. But it had to be the same people.”

Riley nodded. “I suppose.” It had taken Lisa almost an hour to tell her story from the Chicago courtroom to Gordontown. Riley had remained silent until just now, letting the words pour out. “So, you think they—whoever they are—found you because your husband called this Fastone woman?”

Lisa had spent the time in Gordontown running through the events of the past twenty-four hours, trying to make some sense of the madness. “1 think it’s the only way they could have found us. He must have told her about Charlotte when he went to the bathroom just before we left the courthouse. He probably used the judge’s own phone—he was gone long enough.”

“So you figure Fastone flew into Charlotte, and then your husband called her again when he went out to get those sodas and told her exactly where you were?”

“He must have coordinated with her to stay at a certain place and called her there,” Lisa said. “And the mob must have followed her down and then followed her to the motel.”

“Unless she was working with them,” Riley noted. “You only recognized your husband’s body, right?”

Lisa blinked and tried to concentrate. “Yes.”

“For all you know, she set him up.”

Lisa closed her eyes and leaned back against the headrest. “Maybe. But does it matter now? He’s dead.”

“We assume he’s dead,” Riley corrected. “So why didn’t you call the number this lady in Chicago gave you again?”

“1 tried that once,” Lisa snapped. “The bad guys got there before the good ones. They must have that number bugged or something.”

“The bad guys probably followed you to the rest area.”

Lisa shook her head. “I told you Bubba ran the van following us off the road. They could have found me only by tracing the phone call, or whatever it is they do to find out where you’re calling from.”

Riley had already considered that. “If they were professional, they had more than one vehicle following you. Bubba probably just took out their lead chase vehicle. There was most likely another one farther back. Running that van off the road just forced them to take some extra time to get coordinated for the second attack. Since you called from a pay phone, there’s no way your end of the conversation could have been bugged or traced. And I very much doubt that the Witness Protection Program’s end was tapped.”

“Are you saying I should call that number again?”

“We’re going to have to eventually, but not right away. And when we do, we’ll take some precautions.” Riley glanced over at her. “Why’d you call your brother for help?”

“He’s the only one I could trust.”

“Why’d he call Giannini?”

“I guess because he trusts her. They went out together a long time ago. Even got engaged.”

Riley raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”

“He went into the navy. He wanted her to move to San Diego. She wanted to keep working as a cop. They called it off rather amicably. I think they were both scared of committing.” She didn’t add that Tom had been laid off at his construction job and had gone into the navy to ensure a steady income to help support her schooling.

“So, he’s back in Chicago?” Riley asked, wondering at the twinge of emotion that provoked the question.

“Yes.” Lisa looked at him, ignoring for a moment her own misery. “How do you know Donna?”