Frame 232 (6 page)

The money had been gathered over the years.
Accumulated
was the word he preferred, as it was more civilized than
stolen
 
—not that he would ever speak about it to anyone. He felt no guilt, no need to rationalize it. Some of the funds had been skimmed from criminal enterprises of various types, including drug cartels, terrorist organizations, crumbling foreign governments, and so on. Others had been part of operational expenses that went unused. The best situation in that category, he had discovered, was when large sums were passed to field agents who were killed before they could use them. Everyone simply assumed the money had been withdrawn
before
the agent in question died, so no investigations were ever launched. Rydell knew such investigations were rare even under normal circumstances
 
—it was taxpayer money, and those in government who sounded the alarm when taxpayer money was wasted were a very rare breed.

As it came in over the years, he tucked it away in offshore accounts under names of real people who had no idea they were so wealthy. The ability to manipulate information was one of the advantages of his position. If the money ever was discovered, it would lead back to an actual person
 
—but not him. The cash was spread over nearly a dozen accounts, so the chances of it all being found were slim to none. Since he
began the scheme more than three decades ago, his luck had been remarkable
 
—he hadn’t lost a cent. It was easy to beat the system when you were one of the people running it.

The best part was that the money was only one component of a larger plan; the rest was what really got him out of bed in the morning. After his official retirement, he would move down to the Keys and burn a few months, just long enough to do the requisite debriefings, tie up a few other loose ends, and create the illusion that he was settling into the sunset of his life.

Then, when the time was right, an accident would occur. He was leaning toward the Boston Whaler exploding in a spectacular column of flame a mile or so offshore. The following inquiry would suggest he had been out fishing and become the unfortunate victim of a crude bomb, likely planted by someone seeking to even an old score. Considering the number of years and volume of raw energy he had poured into tripping up the bad guys, the list of potential suspects would be endless. No body would be found, of course, so a memorial service would be held. Hundreds would attend, tearfully recounting the exemplary career of this true-blue American. His legend would grow into myth; they might even name a building after him. And all the while, following a meticulously planned alteration of his appearance, he would be sitting on a much larger vessel in the heart of the Caribbean, catching marlin, drinking tequila by the gallon, and learning to forget his previous life until it seemed like some fairy tale he’d read as a child. No more liberal policies aimed at exposing the agency’s doings to the public because the average American had “a right to know.” No more regulations against torturing prisoners. And no more academics in the president’s inner circle promoting heavily
revised political history and whispering that drugs should be legalized, African Americans should be compensated for slavery with tax dollars, and Bobby Kennedy should replace Alexander Hamilton on the ten-dollar bill. Rydell had had enough of these people for ten lifetimes.

And now I’ve reached my goal
 
—five million.

He chuckled to himself, saved and closed the file, then went back to the e-mails. It took about a half hour to dig through them all. Then he swiveled around to the table behind him and began sifting through an intimidating stack of files that needed to be assigned to other agents. The mere sight of it was depressing, but he thought about the tequila and the marlins again, and suddenly it didn’t seem so bad. He grabbed the one on top and flipped it open
 
—a report on a potential terrorist connection with several overseas Internet poker sites. Ironically, the agency’s main concern at this point was about the cash the terrorists might be skimming. The previous administration had attempted to clamp down on online gambling in the U.S., but the new laws turned out to be as porous as America’s border with Mexico.

No sooner had he reached the bottom of the first page than the computer chimed to let him know a new e-mail had arrived. He would have ignored it had it been the normal chime
 
—but this was one of the others. He had programmed the mail application to use different alerts based on specific criteria like sender address and keywords in the subject line. He hadn’t heard this one in over a year.

Rydell spun around and found an auto-forwarded message from his personal address. Getting onto the Internet, he accessed that in-box and found seven messages waiting. All seven appeared to be spam, and six were just that. No one but Rydell would have known the seventh was any different.
It claimed a well-known department store as its point of origin, and the content announced an upcoming sale with special prices on men’s shoes and ladies’ rainwear. But it was entirely fictional, part of a complex alert system Rydell had personally designed, through which he could be informed of certain important events. He decrypted the message, deleted it, then sat back in his chair and stared fixedly into space as the information hit home.

Margaret Baker was dead.

All thoughts of the Caribbean, the marlins, and the tequila were long gone. The arrogant smile vanished, replaced by an expression of deep contemplation. He sat there for a long while, setting his hands in the familiar church-and-steeple configuration, tapping the forefingers together as he considered what to do. One part of him was tempted to disregard the matter altogether.
Huge odds,
he thought.
Huge. Bigger than huge.
But another part
 
—the cautious and conservative part that remained restless until all contingencies had been accounted for
 
—demanded otherwise. And there was another factor involved now, an unexpected emotion he was not accustomed to dealing with
 
—fear.

He got out of the chair, retrieved a phone from his overcoat, and went into the private bathroom. The phone was connected to a government satellite and used a virtually impenetrable 256-bit encryption formula. It was unavailable to the public and issued only to high-ranking members of the intelligence community.

He locked the door, turned on the exhaust fan, and tapped in a number.

EDWARD BIRK
lay on his back with the silk sheets pulled up just above his waist. He stared mindlessly at the ceiling, hands tucked behind his head.

The woman lying next to him, a tiny Asian thing with a perfect tan, was on her stomach, head turned the other way. Her black hair fell in sheets over her shoulders and piled up on the pillow. Somehow the posture did not strike Birk as befitting a woman of such natural beauty. Then again, neither did the snoring. She was as light and delicate as a bird, but she snored like a sailor. He found this distasteful and also a bit pathetic when he recalled how she had carried herself with the untouchable air of a starlet the night before.

He got up and pulled on a pair of drawstring pajama pants. The only light in the room came from the vertical crack between a pair of heavy curtains on the opposite side.
Morning sun,
Birk thought. Or was it afternoon? A glance at the digital clock on the dresser resolved the issue
 
—12:44.

He went into the bathroom and switched on the light. The first order of business was a quick self-appraisal in the mirrored shower door. He was unable to pass any reflective
surface without taking a glance. He knew he was handsome, and he loved the sight of himself. Excellent build, short brown hair, green eyes, sharp facial contours. The only flaws were the scars on his torso, both front and back. There were several knife wounds, two roughly circular bullet scars, and multiple cigarette burns on his back courtesy of the alcoholic mother who was long dead. His father hadn’t left marks; he’d been too smart for that. Only bruises, which would fade. Birk didn’t know where the old man was these days and didn’t care. The only person he cared about was the one staring back at him now. He put his usual smile on the male-model face
 
—a barely detectable rising of the mouth on one side, designed to taunt, to project arrogance. It said that he was pulling one over on the rest of the world and was pleased about it. He loved that look.

He thought about shaving. Then he decided it wasn’t necessary and instead reached behind the vanity light to retrieve a plastic baggie. There were several pills inside, plus a small bottle of clear fluid, a syringe, and a packet of white powder. He took out one of the pills and swallowed it without water. Carefully rewrapping the bag and returning it to its perch, he gave no thought to sharing any more of the stash with his guest. That would be a waste. It had been used as bait to get her here in the first place, and it worked
 
—she came, and she had served her purpose. If she wanted a fix now, she could get her own. He sat on the toilet and closed his eyes.

He emerged fifteen minutes later and was relieved to discover the room dead silent; the snoring had ceased. But then the girl launched into a fresh wave after a combination backfire grunt and full-body jerk. Shaking his head in irritation, Birk shuffled through the dimness toward the vertical light line. He slid the glass door aside and stepped out onto the balcony. It was a calendar-beautiful day, the sky shimmering
and cloudless as the ocean washed gently against the beach several stories below.

There was no one else within view, perfect weather notwithstanding. Nor did Birk expect there to be. This wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where people brought their dogs to catch Frisbees or where
Brady Bunch
families took their kids on vacation. This was where you came to get narcotics, cheap liquor, or a gun with its serial number sanded off. Half the condos in the complex were empty and would likely remain so until the property owner declared bankruptcy and the place was demolished. It had been built, Birk was told, in a halfhearted attempt at gentrification some years back. When the political landscape shifted, the effort perished. Developers lost their shirts, the outgoing government apologized and meant it, and that was that.

Leaning against the rail with his hands folded, Birk thought about what he would do today. There was no formal plan; he didn’t make plans if he didn’t have to.
One priority, though, is to get this girl out of here.
He tried to remember her name. Sunni? Suri? Something like that. A fake, he was sure. He’d never met a prostitute willing to give a real one. But then he never gave his, either.

Whatever her name, she had to go. He was hungry and didn’t want company while he ate. This evening he would hunt down a new prospect. One for every night of the month was the goal. So far he was on eighteen
 
—more than halfway there.

As he stepped back inside, his cell phone twittered. He found it in the pocket of his faded jeans. At first he didn’t recognize the number
 
—maybe a random, computer-generated call from a solicitor. Then he remembered
 
—it was part of an alert system he had set up. He cursed softly.

Grabbing his leather blazer from the back of a chair, he went into the bathroom again, locked the door, and turned on the overhead fan
 
—exactly as he knew the caller would have done only moments before. He removed a second phone from inside a secret pocket in the blazer’s lining. It was thinner than most, had no brand name or caller ID, and could only vibrate, not ring. He had been given firm instructions to carry it at all times and make sure it was always fully charged. Two extra batteries had been supplied to make certain of this. He had also been told of the punishment he would receive if he ever failed to answer.

He thumbed the Answer button and brought the phone to his ear.

“Yes.”

“Three rings.”

“I was in the other room. I’m alone, and the phone was sitting on the bed while I was shaving.”

“Try to avoid that in the future.”

“Yes, sir.”

“This is very important.”

“Okay.”

“You have to go to Dallas. Get there immediately, and check into the Grand Hyatt, 2337 International Parkway. There will be a room reserved under your operative name.”

Birk felt the urge to laugh but held back.
Operative name . . .
In this case, that would be “Brian Clarke.” Generic, easily forgotten. The man on the other end had given it to him long ago, and the irony was Birk didn’t even know
his
name. In spite of being on his payroll for years, Birk knew virtually nothing about him. But he paid on time, in full, and very well. That was good enough.

“When you get there, you will find a dossier on the
woman, along with all the equipment you’ll need. Then you’ll receive further instructions.”

“Right.”

“And you’ll get your usual fee once the job is done.”

“That’s fine.”

It was more than fine, but Birk wasn’t about to admit that. He had just under half a million left in the Singapore account, which wouldn’t last forever considering the lifestyle he was now addicted to. He was in desperate need of replenishment.

“As always, you are to discuss this with no one, and you are to follow all instructions to the letter.”

“Of course.”

The line went dead.

Birk moved swiftly. He replaced the phone in its hidden pocket and went back to the bedroom. As he dressed, he shook the still-snoring prostitute awake.

“Time to go,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Huh?”

“Come on, get up. You need to get out of here.”

She looked around, puzzled, then dropped her head back onto the pillow. “I’ll get up later. I’m too ti
 
—”

“Let’s
go
,” Birk boomed, yanking her out from under the sheets by one arm.

“Oww! What’s the matter with you?”

He picked up her outfit, which included a leather miniskirt and bright red heels, and tossed it in her direction. She caught about half of it.

“Get dressed,” he said as he continued to do so himself. She didn’t obey but instead suggested an action that was
physically impossible, and in language that was normally reserved for bathroom graffiti.

His response to this was to grab her with one hand, gather up her remaining clothes with the other, then drag her, screaming obscenities, to the door. He pushed her out into the hallway and dropped the clothes in a heap.

“You owe me five hundred bucks!” she screeched.

“You weren’t worth half that,” he said before closing the door and locking it.

The pounding began almost immediately, accompanied by more profanity. Birk ignored it and finished dressing. Then he went through the process of removing every piece of evidence that he had been here
 
—the sheets on the bed, soap in the shower, leftovers in the fridge. This was not his unit but rather one of the many in the complex that was officially unoccupied. In spite of that, the water ran and the electricity was always on. Since the owner never bothered checking, Birk used it as a venue for his conquests. He had furnished it sparsely and changed the locks, and he could leave it behind on a moment’s notice. It was perfect. The last time the mystery man called, Birk was in Panama for over a month.

He stuffed everything into a paper bag and set it by the door. The pounding had stopped; the girl had finally given up and left.

He checked each room one last time, then went out, locked the door, and tossed the bag into the incinerator chute at the end of the hallway.

Slipping on his mirrored, wraparound sunglasses, Birk walked the six flights down rather than take the elevator. The garage at the bottom was open-air style, with no walls on the
east or west sides. There were very few other cars around. His was a blue Ford Mustang sitting alone near the exit.

As he drew closer, a BMW with mag wheels and smoked windows zoomed off the road and into the lot. Birk was close to one of the cement columns and stayed near it as the vehicle approached. It stopped with a squeal, the decorative chrome discs inside the mags still spinning. The doors flew open.

The driver appeared to be of Italian descent and in his late twenties or early thirties. He was tall and lean and moved with a confident, confrontational stride. He was dressed head to toe in black, the button-down silk shirt open about midway down his hairless, muscular chest and untucked at the waist. Several gold chains ran around his neck, and there were rings on the outer fingers of both hands.

The other person, from the passenger side, wasn’t quite so refined. Short, dumpy, dressed in filthy jeans, a gray hoodie, and a skullcap. This was a street punk. His face was ravaged by acne, and the eyes drooped in a way that was both lifeless and unsettling. His big sneakered feet clomped as he came forward, and both hands were kept in the hoodie pockets.

The driver paused, pointed at Birk, and looked back. It was then that Birk noticed the prostitute in the backseat, wrapped in a blanket. She nodded, and the other kid, watching her, said, “Yeah, Romeo, she says that’s him.”

Romeo started toward Birk again. “Yo, tough guy, c’mere for a second.” He snapped his fingers and waved toward himself. “I think we have a problem.” The kid came forward too, and Birk noticed his hand moving within the hoodie pocket.

The transformation Birk made could’ve earned an Academy Award. In a matter of seconds, he went from cool and cocky to squeamish and terrified. His eyes widened,
shifting between Romeo and his sidekick, and he took a short step backward while putting his hands up defensively.