Fade (2005) (38 page)

Chapter
Fifty.

Matt Egan narrowly avoided skidding into the back of his wife's van an d jumped from the car. As he ran toward the house, he tried to cal m himself down by picturing her sitting in the basement with he r earphones on, oblivious to the world. If he could just get lucky thi s one time .. .

When he burst through the front door, the first thing he saw was a startling shock of green hair. Of course.

The woman spun and spread her arms so that her hands touched eithe r side of the hallway. "She doesn't want to talk to you."

"Out of the way, Amy."

"Didn't you hear me? You're not welcome here!" She was able t o contain the grin trying to break through the carefully constructed rag e on her face. It was probably the greatest day of her life she got t o be involved in sticking it to her least favorite person in the worl d and had undoubtedly deluded herself into thinking that Elise would se e the error of her ways and run right into her arms.

He had to hand it to Fade or, more likely, Karen Manning. The Web sit e was a work of art. It was all there in teeth-grinding accuracy an d detail: Fade's SEAL training, his transfer to a CIA front company , narratives on his more interesting missions abroad including exhaustiv e accounts of Egan's involvement in them, his injury, Hillel, the SWAT
t eam, Buckner. His entire adult life laid out in lively prose an d wrapped in a well-designed package that featured a picture of him an d Karen holding yesterday's newspaper. And then there was the name. Tha t was best part. SWATKILLER
. C
OM.

"Last warning, Amy."

She stood her ground and stared at him with eyes that were probabl y pretty but that he'd always thought of as beady.

"I assume you looked at Fade's Web site," he said. "Was there anythin g in there about me that suggested it would be a good idea to get betwee n me and my wife?"

Her expression turned uncertain and by the time he reached her, she'
d retracted her arms to let him pass.

He found Elise in Kali's room, pulling things from the closet an d stuffing them into a tiny Power pufF Girls suitcase. She didn'
t acknowledge him at all but his daughter did, silently moving her wid e eyes from her mother to him.

"Why don't you go play with Amy for a few minutes, honey?"

She screwed up her face.

"I know. But do it for me, okay? Just for a few minutes."

She gave him a nervous hug as she passed, glancing back at her mothe r as though she was going to get in trouble for it. Then she disappeare d through the door.

"Hello, Elise."

She didn't turn, instead shooting a furtive glance into the mirro r above Kali's dresser. She didn't seem surprised at his swollen fac e but then, why would she be? It was covered in gory detail o n SWAT KILLER

"Amy called me about it this morning," she said finally. "When I firs t looked at it, I thought it wasn't true. But truth has a funny qualit y a sound and feel all its own."

Everything he'd planned to say suddenly left his mind and he stoo d there in silence as she started packing again. After another thirt y seconds or so, she suddenly stopped.

"Come on, Matt. Deny it. Say something."

In what was undoubtedly a very carefully crafted "fuck you," everythin g Fade had written about him was factual and more or less fair. The so n of a bitch had done it on purpose left him with no room to spin a t all.

"It's all true," Egan said finally. "Every word."

She put a hand on her forehead and stared down into the open suitcas e without really seeing it. "Oh, Christ.. ." Her voice was barely a whisper.

"Elise, I "

"Why didn't you tell me, Matt? How could you lie to me like this? Wha t else have you lied about? What "

"How could I? How could I drag you into all this?"

"So you're saying you did this for me? Is that a joke?"

"That's not what I meant," he said, finding it impossible to meet he r eye. "The truth is, I didn't want my past to be ... well, to be i n quite that sharp of focus."

"So you just didn't say anything? You put me and Kali in dange r without saying a word? How could you do that? What about my right t o make my own decisions and decisions for our daughter? How could yo u just take that away from me?"

"Look, I understand how much I've hurt you, Elise, but I want you t o listen very carefully. You and Kali were never in any danger.

Never."

"How can you be sure, Matt? You know what that man is capable of. He'
s killed children before. You .. . you sent him to do it."

It would have been nice if that bastard could have omitted a few of th e more lurid mission details from his descriptions. What could Egan '
s ay? Gee, honey, we didn't actually set out to kill children, but yo u can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

"People call you the baby killer behind my back. They didn't think I k new, but I did. I didn't care. Hell, I used to laugh about it. Jus t more of my naivete, huh, Matt? Maybe when you think one thing an d everyone else thinks something else, you should be wondering if they'r e right."

"I don't know, Elise. Maybe they are. But I'll tell you somethin g that I honestly believe: The world needs people like you to make i t worth living in. But it also needs people like me to make it possibl e to live in."

"By killing people. By going to another country and doing things t o people we would never do to our own citizens. How has that helped th e world, Matt? How has that created peace?"

It was a good question one that almost everyone in his position ha d asked once or twice.

"How many people have you killed, Matt?"

"Come on, Elise. The things Fade "

"Forget Fade. I don't want to hear about how many people you'v e ordered dead or contributed to the deaths of. I want to know how man y people you've personally killed."

He leaned back against the wall and stared down at the floor. "No. Yo u really don't."

Then the tears came. She slammed the suitcase shut and ran past hi m into the hall. He didn't bother to follow.

Elise and Kali had been gone for an hour, but the house felt like i t had been empty forever. Egan reached for the bottle of vodka on th e desk but instead picked up the phone and dialed a number from memory.

It rang a few times and then a recorded message began to play. "You'v e reached the phone of Salam al Fayed. I'm on a tri state killing spre e now, but if you leave a message after the beep I'll try to get back t o you as soon as possible."

"You'll be happy to know that Elise left me. She thinks I was riskin g her and Kali's lives by not telling her about you. Oh, and after al l these years of marriage, she finally asked me how many people I'
d killed. Thanks for that, Fade. Tell you what. I'm at my house. Wh y don't you stop by. We'll have a drink and then we'll finish this thin g once and for all."

Chapter
Fifty-One.

"Sir, I "

"Shut the fuck up and sit down," Darren Crenshaw said, not bothering t o hide his disgust and anger. "You know what woke me up this morning , Hillel? A phone call telling me that the entire life story of one o f our CIA assassins is plastered all over the Internet. Can you gues s what I said to that?"

Strand remained silent, resisting the urge to crane his neck around a s Crenshaw moved behind him.

"I said, 'well, get it off the damn Internet." And you know what the y told me then? That we can't. That in addition to SWATKILLER
. C
OM
, there's also SWATKILLER
. I R in Iran and a SWATKILLER
. S
Y in Syria. I t won't surprise you to know that based on the content of that Web site , neither of those countries are feeling terribly cooperative righ t now."

Strand knew this already. He'd discovered the existence of the sit e hours before Crenshaw had and tried himself to shut it down.

"Now here's what we're going to do, Hillel. We're going to forget al l the bullshit you fed me at our last meeting and we're going to star t over."

"Sir .. ." Strand said, but then had to pause when he realized tha t his mouth was too dry to speak clearly.

"Be careful," Crenshaw warned, walking around him and starting a recorder sitting on the desk. "Keep in mind that I've read every wor d on SWAT KILLER -just like everyone else in the goddamn world and I'v e got ten people researching its accuracy."

"Yes, sir. I understand."

"You're aware you're being recorded?"

"Yes."

"Talk."

Strand took a deep breath, trying to control the panic that had bee n getting hold of him over the last few hours. Walking away from thi s thing unscathed was no longer a possibility. Damage control was al l that he could hope for and even that would have to be done ver y carefully. Al Fayed and that bitch Karen Manning had ended his caree r in the government and any political aspirations he might have had. Th e only question now was whether or not he could avoid prosecution.

"Salam al Fayed was highly qualified for our .. . project. The mos t qualified candidate we had, in fact. I wanted him for the job and whe n he turned us down, I had my people do some research on him to see i f there was anything we could do to change his mind."

"But Matt thought you should just let it go."

Apparently, the researchers he had working for him were doing more tha n just looking into the allegations in SWAT KILLER

"That's correct, sir. But I disagreed. I felt we needed men like a l Fayed and that we should do everything possible to get him."

"So I gather."

Strand ignored the sarcasm and continued on with the story he'd bee n crafting since he'd discovered the site.

"My people turned up the fact that al Fayed had gone to work for th e cartels and .. ." He feigned discomfort. "And that Matt had covere d up those activities. We also had some admittedly circumstantia l evidence that al Fayed might have been involved in the recent deaths o f the Ramirez brothers. So what started as a relatively straightforwar d situation became very complicated. We now had information that a l Fayed had been employed as an enforcer for the Colombians and might no w be working in that capacity inside the U
. S
. Based on that, we obviousl y didn't want him anymore, and the question became what do we do with ou r information?

Obviously, it wasn't a Homeland Security matter. In the end, I decide d to inform the police. Anonymously, so as not to get us involved. The n we'd just let them run with it or not as they saw fit."

"Al Fayed gives a rather detailed list of all the people he's killed,"

Crenshaw said. "Interesting how the Ramirez brothers aren't on it. I n fact, no one in the U
. S
. is except for those cops."

"Yes, sir. As I said, our information on that point wasn't concrete.

It may be that he wasn't involved in their deaths or he may hav e omitted those killings from the Web site to increase public sympath y for him."

"Public sympathy," Crenshaw repeated. "Right. Go on."

"The police sent an entire SWAT team because of al Fayed's militar y background and .. . well, you know what happened."

"And then you covered up your involvement."

"My involvement was pretty much nonexistent, sir. There was nothing t o cover up. I gave the police information about a criminal. That'
s all."

"Well, if you're such a good citizen, Hillel, why did you walk in her e a few days ago and lie through your teeth to me?"

"I made a mistake. I thought I was protecting my career. While I d on't believe I did anything wrong, I did provide the police wit h information that got a bunch of their men killed. Someone's going t o be blamed for that and I didn't want it to be me. I felt that we coul d handle the situation quickly and quietly."

"And by 'handle the situation," you mean execute al Fayed and dump hi s body on the steps of the nearest police precinct."

Strand glanced down at the recorder. "As you know, he had threatene d my life and Matt's. It wasn't our intention to execute him, but w e wanted to put an end to the threat he posed to us, to the public, t o the police, to the government.. ."

There was no question that Crenshaw would have to take decisive actio n on this issue and Strand knew that action would take one of two forms: The director could defend his organization and deny wrongdoing, or h e could admit to an abuse of power and very publicly punish anyon e involved. Strand had to make sure Crenshaw had a reasonable enoug h explanation for what had happened to make the first option the mor e attractive.

"And to do that," Crenshaw said, "you withheld information from th e police. You knew that al Fayed was still in town because you knew h e was after you. Hell, you had the cops put out an APB on him and tol d them not to approach."

"I didn't want any more of them killed "

Crenshaw actually laughed at that. "Goddamn, Hillel. I'll give yo u one thing. You're the master of spin. And on such short notice, too.