Fade (2005) (34 page)

The situation had gone from being virtually solved to deterioratin g almost beyond hope. Buckner's corpse and car had been removed an d would never be found, but Strand couldn't put the description of th e ex-soldier's body out of his mind. Buckner hadn't been shot, or eve n efficiently knifed. He appeared to have been beaten to death with som e sort of heavy, blunt instrument. During Banes's report, it had bee n impossible not to picture al Fayed, spattered with blood and bon e fragments, smashing a hammer against Buckner's skull while h e fantasized about his real objective.

Strand folded his arms across his chest and leaned back on his desk , trying to concentrate on the view outside his window, but not reall y seeing it.

Karen Manning had completely disappeared, leaving only an empty vehicl e behind. It seemed certain that she'd been told everything and ha d heard Buckner's side of their phone conversation. The fact that sh e hadn't resurfaced suggested that she was with al Fayed, perhaps seein g him a protector. Right now she would be confused and frightened, bu t her uncertainty wouldn't last forever. She was a highly recognizabl e former cop from a prominent family, making it unlikely that she woul d run. Her options at this point were the police, the press, or he r father. He was covering all three.

Finally, Strand reached for the phone and dialed Egan's number again , and, again, got a recording prompting him to leave a message.

This couldn't be happening. Everything he'd worked for, everythin g he'd accomplished all balancing on the actions of a psychotic nav y grunt and a disgraced street cop.

Matt Egan walked silently through the long grass separating two smal l houses and came out onto the sidewalk. Karen Manning's home wa s directly across the street, still completely dark except for a dim lam p next to the door.

He'd been scouring the neighborhood thoroughly enough that he wa s starting to worry that someone would notice and call the police. S
o far nothing. It seemed likely that Manning had gone out and that Ro y Buckner had followed. Which left him with nothing to do but wait.

Pointlessly, probably. He seriously doubted Fade was going to show u p there and if he did it wouldn't be to find Manning, it would be to fin d him.

Egan was beginning to wonder how much longer was he going to be able t o play this game. His day at home, instead of helping his stress level , had done the exact opposite. He wasn't sure how much waiting he wa s going to be able to stand before he just called Fade to suggest a meeting place. Somewhere to finish this thing.

His phone began vibrating in his pocket and he retrieved it, glancin g at the number before answering.

"Hey, Billy. Tell me you've got some good news."

"I wish. Look, man, you've got to call Hillel."

"Not now."

"Please, Matt. He's going nuts. I can't keep him out of my office an d with him hanging over my shoulder I can't help you."

Egan let out a long breath. "Fine. Patch me through."

"I owe you one."

There was a click on the line and then Strand's voice, soundin g uncharacteristically weak.

"Matt, we've got to talk."

"Go ahead."

"Not over the phone. In person. I want you to come in."

"No."

"Look, we've got to get on the same page here. This is getting way to o dangerous for us not to be working together. I know I've made som e mistakes, but there are some developments that you need to be awar e of."

Egan considered that for a moment. He'd never trusted Strand, but h e was right that the feud they'd developed wasn't exactly productive.

"Fine. Meet me in the parking lot of the Tyson's Corner mall in fron t of Nordstrom in two hours."

"You know I can't do that, Matt. Al Fayed could be " To his credit, h e shut up when he remembered that Egan had been on the street since thi s thing started.

"Your call, Hillel. Good-bye."

"Wait! Wait .. . You win. I'll be there."

Chapter
Forty-Four.

"Could you just put me into his voice mail?" Karen Manning said int o Fade's phone.

"Your father's in his office, Karen. He'll want to talk to you .. ."

"No, I just want to leave a message. I'm .. . I'm about to walk into a meeting and I don't have time to talk right now."

She watched Fade tape off the Cadillac's chrome bumper while he r father's secretary silently fretted. His limp seemed to be getting a little less noticeable and his mood continued to improve. Or maybe i t would be more accurate to say it was on a very delicate upswing.

"Okay, Karen. I'll put you straight into it, but you insisted , right?"

"I insisted."

She waited for the beep and then began speaking in a calculatedl y cheerful voice. "Daddy? I'm afraid I'm going to be tied up for th e next couple of days and I'm not going to be able to do any mor e appearances. Could you tell your PR people to try to carry on withou t me and that I'll call them as soon as I can? And maybe we could ge t together this weekend for dinner? Anyway, I'll chat with you in a couple of days .. ."

She turned off the phone, hoping she'd been convincing, and then wen t back to watching Fade. She still wasn't sure who he was or where sh e stood with him. He wasn't a psychopath of that she was certain. A s ociopath? Maybe, but after hearing his story, it was easy to se e where his rage and lack of conventional morality came from. Was a person who killed legally at the whim of politicians any less a murderer than someone who killed for revenge or personal gain? Had h e been completely reasonable in assuming that she and her team were a mortal danger to him? And if so, had he been justified in protectin g himself? What would she have done in his place?

She shook her head and forced herself to clear it of anything tha t didn't directly relate to getting herself out of this mess.

"I think the green was a mistake," he said, glancing up at her. "Wha t about pink with a big skull and crossbones on the hood?"

"So, kind of a Mary Kay saleswoman from hell feel?"

"Buy this lipstick or your family gets it."

"Can we talk for a minute?"

He ignored her question, instead concentrating on staying away from th e front gun mounts while taping off the headlights.

"Fade?"

"Have you ever had a fun conversation that started with 'can we tal k for a minute?""

"I guess not," she conceded. "Look. You seem like an all-right gu y for a mass murderer "

"Thanks."

"But you understand that I'm not looking to be half of Bonnie an d Clyde."

He moved on to the gleaming chrome of the front grill. "You were th e one driving, Karen. You could have pointed the car anywhere yo u wanted. I wasn't stopping you."

"I'm not saying you were. I mean, I'm in a little bit of a bind her e and I'm not sure who to turn to. It seems likely that Strand i s covering the press and the police .. ."

"FBI?" he said, refusing to look at her.

"I thought about that, but let's face it, the lines between Homelan d Security and the FBI are pretty blurry these days."

"What about your dad? Isn't he Bill Gates or something?"

"There's no way I'm getting him involved in this. No way."

He smiled. "Sounds like you're stuck with me then."

"Fade .. ."

Finally, he stood and turned toward her. "Look, Karen, we have th e same problem: Hillel Strand. You're a good investigator, right? An d let's face it, I'm a good killer. Why not put those abilities togethe r and solve the problem?"

"Because I'm not a murderer. And even if I was, we wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting him. He's got all the resource s in the world and we've got nothing."

Fade nodded, disappointed but obviously not surprised. "I assume thi s is leading to some kind of point?"

"More like an observation. The only reason Hillel Strand wants me dea d is to keep all this quiet."

"So?"

"So we need to get it out into the open."

Fade turned and started wrapping tape around the car's antenna. "Yo u said it yourself, Karen. They're going to be watching the media an d they're going to threaten them with all kinds of Patriot Act bullshi t to keep this quiet."

"I agree. We've got to get around the mainstream press."

"The National Enquirer? Salam al Fayed is the father of my alien lov e child?"

She frowned deeply. "The Internet."

Fade stopped taping. "No."

"Why not?"

"Why not? Because as much as secrecy helps Hillel, it helps me, too.

If this all goes public, it's going to be impossible for me to ge t anywhere near him or Matt. They'll end up transferred to Antarctica o r put in the witness protection program or something. No way. Shining a light on this thing just makes my job harder."

"Your job? What job is that, Fade? Shooting them? I don't care abou t your stupid revenge. This is my life!"

His limp seemed to get worse again as he moved around to the other sid e of the car, reminding her of the paralysis that was slowly spreadin g from his injured spine.

"I'm .. . I'm sorry Fade. I can't even imagine how I'd feel if I wa s in your position. I'd probably be doing the same thing. But as a n outsider looking in, I can tell you that killing them isn't going t o undo what's been done. What about this? What if I promise you tha t we'll put those assholes in jail? How would that be?"

Fade didn't seem impressed. "I never wanted any of this to happen t o you, Karen. I know it's my fault. But.. ." his voice trailed off.

"I know."

| She kept wracking her brain, trying to find a way out for Fade. N
o I matter how she twisted the problem, though, she always came to a dea d r end. The fact that he'd killed a bunch of cops, half poisoned a n entire division of Homeland Security, and then tried to shoot up a hospital wa s | inescapable. But what if, by some miracle, he managed to beat thos e charges? By the time he made his way through the courts, would he b e strapped into a mechanical wheelchair unable to move or speak? Sh e tried i to look into his face, but then just turned away and stared a t a cracked brick wall.

"Okay," he said, finally breaking the silence between them.

"Hypothetically speaking, what are we talking about?"

Chapter
Forty-five.

Egan turned off his headlights, navigating entirely by the glow comin g off the closed shopping mall. When he coasted up behind a lone ca r parked at the far edge of the lot, three men stepped out.

Hillel Strand was careful to stay safely between Banes and Despain , moving his head in jerky, birdlike movements as they approached th e passenger-side door that Egan had thrown open. Strand slid silentl y into the seat, but when Banes grabbed the handle to the back door h e found it locked.

"Just you," Egan said.

Strand seemed uncertain for a moment, though it was hard to read hi s expression through the semidarkness and the lingering effects of Fade'
s birthday surprise. Finally he nodded and Egan pressed the accelerator , aiming the car at the road that circled the mall. He kept his eyes o n the rearview mirror, but Banes and Despain just disappeared back int o their car and stayed there.

"So what's important enough to make you crawl out from under your des k to tell me?"

Strand ignored the insult. "We need to put our differences behind us , Matt. We aren't going to get through this otherwise."

"I'm listening."

"Have you spoken to the director yet?"

Egan shook his head.

"After the attacks on us at our office and the hospital, his staff'
s all over me. You made a mistake going in there and throwing th e haz-mat people out "

Egan started to laugh and Strand held his hand out in a n uncharacteristically submissive call for silence. "I'm not trying t o allocate blame here, Matt. All I'm trying to say is that it's a situation we're going to have to deal with. Crenshaw wants to know ho w you knew it wasn't a biological attack. We're moving forward with th e story that you spoke to the doctors when you were at the hospital an d they told you it was chemical. Obviously, I've made serious mistakes , too ..."

There was something in his tone that suggested he wasn't talking abou t his general stupidity for getting them into this situation bu t something more specific and recent.

"After you shook Roy Buckner loose, I put him on Karen Manning," Stran d continued. "It was kind of a wild hunch but I thought al Fayed migh t try to contact her."

Egan frowned but caught himself before it became deep enough for Stran d to see it in the intermittent light. He didn't know that Lauren ha d spilled the beans about the censuring of the police files and he wasn'
t going to mention the fact that his "wild hunch" was based on a numbe r of taped phone conversations between Manning and Fade. Hardly a goo d start to trying to bring the trust back to their relationship.

"And?"

"The hunch paid off. Buckner called me and told me he had Fade i n custody at a trailhead outside D
. C
. He also told me that he had bee n too late to save Karen Manning. That al Fayed had killed her."