Nameless Night (35 page)

“Quite a time gap.”

“Quite a career,” he corrected. He waited for a long moment.

“And you don’t know anything about any of this?”

“I don’t remember a thing before I woke up in the hospital seven years ago, and most of that’s real fuzzy because my brain wasn’t working right.” The leprechaun anticipated his next question. “All I had was this name floating around in my head . . . Wesley Allen Howard.”

“Which took you to Water Street.”

“Yes.”

The agent entwined his fingers and cracked his knuckles. “Want to hear something funny?” he asked.

“I’m all ears.”

“Couple of the Water Street neighbors claimed to have seen our mystery man in the neighborhood.”

“Lately.”

“On and off for years.”

“You showed them a picture?”

“Of the stiff.”

“Gotta be a mistake.”

“You think so?”

Randy shrugged. “Unless you’ve got a better explanation.”

The agent waved a nonchalant hand in the air. “And, throughout this whole thing, you didn’t hurt a living soul?”

“No.”

“What about a cop named Chester Berry?”

If he hadn’t been leaning against the building, the leprechaun would have fallen to the sidewalk. “Never heard of him,” he said.

“Not that the world isn’t a better place without Chester Berry, mind you.”

“I’ll have to take your word for it.”

“Interesting thing is . . .” He waited a beat. “Your fingerprints are all over his car.”

“I stole it from him,” the leprechaun said, and then told him an abridged version of the rest area story, leaving Acey, the dope, and the money out of it.

“How’d he get his car back, then?”

“Musta had friends on the force.”

FBI nearly smiled. “That it?”

The leprechaun thought it over. He reached inside the costume and came out with a prepaid cell phone. “I took this off the nameless guy,” he said. The FBI guy grabbed him by the shoulder.

“I got a call on it,” the leprechaun said.

The grip lessened. “From?”

“He didn’t give me his name.”

“A call regarding what?”

“He wanted to buy another hit.”

The fed let go. “On who?”

“Robert Reese.”

The name brought the agent up short. He whistled. “And how were you supposed to get close enough to a deputy cabinet minister to do the job?”

“That’s what I asked.”

“And?”

“He’s going to bring him to me.”

The FBI agent tried for nonplussed but came up considerably short. “Where and when?” he wanted to know.

“He said he’d call back with that.”

The agent’s jaw muscles rippled like a snake.

“That name I just gave you,” the leprechaun said.

“What about it.”

“He work for NASA seven or eight years ago?”

The fed’s face stayed blank.

“Quid pro quo,” the leprechaun reminded him. “You want to know when this thing’s coming down, you better humor me.”

“Okay . . . yeah, he worked for NASA.”

“Which tells you who was on the other end of my phone call, doesn’t it?”

“Pretty much,” the agent admitted.

“You want to enlighten me?”

“Not much,” the agent said. He checked the street in all directions. Sighed and then sighed again. “The third guy in project management was Ronald Jacobson.” He looked around again. “Who, in case you don’t keep track of such things, is presently the deputy director for the NSA.”

“Sounds like Mr. Jacobson is trying to tie up his loose ends.”

“Yeah . . . it does.”

The leprechaun tilted his oversize head. “The Bureau’s interest in this didn’t just start, did it?” he asked. “How long have you guys been looking into this?”

The agent rubbed the corners of his mouth with his thumb and forefinger. “Before the shuttle ever went down.” He paused to let the news sink in. “The Bureau got a call from an engineer . . . guy on the space program named Roland Barber . . . says he sent a letter up the chain of command saying the thermal protection tiles were likely to be a serious problem upon reentry.”

“Sent to who?”

“The guy said he sent it to project management. According to NASA’s records, no such letter was ever sent or received.”

“So?”

“So we went through their records.”

“And found no such letter.”

He shook his head. “Not until it appeared in this guy Walter Hybridge’s papers last week. A copy, of course, but addressed to Hybridge.”

“Just so happens Mr. Hybridge isn’t around to defend himself.”

“Amazing, huh?”

“So . . . your engineer. That’s all he did? Send a couple letters and then just let it go at that?”

“They transferred him. Next business day. To Iowa. Customer liaison to General Dynamics. That was a Tuesday. Friday morning on his way to the office, Roland Barber was struck and killed by a hit-and-run driver.”

Before the leprechaun could react, the agent asked, “You want to guess who his replacement was?”

The leprechaun nodded his big plastic head. “Wesley Allen Howard.”

“Touchdown,” the agent said.

“What now?”

“We’ll take it from here.”

The leprechaun stepped in as close as the oversize head would permit.

“I can’t just walk away here,” he said.

“You don’t have a choice.”

“Sure I do. He’s expecting me on the other end of the phone when he calls back with the details. You want my help, you’re going to have to let me see this thing through.”

His lip curled. “No way I could let a civilian get involved with this.”

“Remember . . . they’ve met before.”

The special agent’s eyes wandered over him like wasps. “How do you know that?” he asked in a strained voice.

“He said he’d hoped we—meaning him and Mr. No Name— would never have to meet again.”

“We’ll work around it,” the agent said quickly. “You just—” The leprechaun cut him off. “Then you handle it without me.”

“I’ll clap your ass in a federal detention facility.”

“Be that as it may,” the leprechaun said.

The agent set his teeth and looked away. When he looked back, his eyes were hard as stones. “This isn’t some damn game here, Mr. Hope. This is a potentially dangerous situation.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Ronald Jacobson has more potential deniability than practically anyone in the nation. He can refuse to answer questions on the basis that it endangers national security and there’s not a damn thing anybody can do about it. You understand what I’m telling you.” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Jacobson could shoot you in the head in Macy’s window and get away with it. You grasp what I’m telling you here, Mr. . . . all he’d have to say was that the matter concerned national security or the war on terror or both and that would be the end of the inquiry.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

The leprechaun twisted his plastic head a quarter turn to the right and then used both hands to lift the brightly painted bucket from his head. The two men stood eye to eye beneath the dripping overhang.

“These people stole my fucking life,” Randy said. “This is identity theft . . . the real kind, not some unfortunate slob losing his wallet and having to stop all his charge cards. These guys sidetracked my entire life.” His voice rose above the din. “They pushed me over onto a siding and left me for dead. I have no idea who I am, no idea of who I used to be or how I got there. All I know for sure is I’ve got no intention of being this guy Adrian Hope and . . .” He shook his finger in the air. “If I’ve got a chance to hang some trouble on the people who did this to me . . . well then, I’m goddamn gonna do it . . . period.” The agent started to speak. Randy cut him off. “If Jacobson’s got the kind of deniability you say he does, then you’re going to need a smoking gun. You’re gonna need to catch him in the act of paying me off.”

“Even that might not be enough.”

“All the more reason you need me.”

The agent looked Randy over. “You and Mr. Mystery are about the same size and body type.”

“Mustache . . . a change in hair color,” Randy said.

“Might work from across the street,” the agent admitted.

“And then you’ve got him.”

“Or he’s got you.”

“I can handle myself.”

“So can Jacobson,” the agent. “He goes down to Quantico and qualifies with a nine-millimeter. He scores better than most of us. ” “Well then, you and your guys are going to have to be Johnnyon-the-spot, aren’t you?”

FBI leaned Randy’s way. “Has it occurred to you that you’re a loose end, Mr. Lucky Charms?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

“About the time you kill Reese and Jacobson kills you, he’s fresh out of loose ends and free as a bird.”

“It’s crossed my mind.”

“Okay,” the agent said, as much to himself as to Randy. The Fort Harrison Drum and Bugle Corps were as crisp as their uniforms were soggy.

“When this is over . . .” the leprechaun began.

“Yeah?”

“I walk. No questions asked. No strings.”

“Okay.”

“You got a business card?”

FBI produced a gray leather card case, scribbled on the back of one, and handed it to the leprechaun. “Day or night,” the agent said.

The leprechaun held the plastic head beneath his arm as he stepped out into the driving rain. “Erin go bragh,” he said before walking off into the melee.

52

Kirsten Kane lost her grip on the cardboard box. It fell to the ground, spilling some of its contents. The framed copy of her Georgetown Law degree landed faceup on the front steps of her apartment building. She squatted and began to stuff the memorabilia back into the bursting box. Amazing how much crap one collects in nine years, she thought to herself.

“Let me help you there,” said a voice.

“I’ve got it,” she said, too engrossed in her own thoughts to pay any real attention to the would-be good Samaritan. She had replaced everything in the box when the voice spoke again.

“Looks like somebody’s reinventing herself.”

And then she knew. She left the box on the sidewalk and straightened up.

“You quit or he fire you?” Randy asked.

“I quit before he could fire me.”

“How’s it feel?”

“Weird. I haven’t been unemployed since I was a sophomore in high school.”

He nodded. “I know what you mean. I keep feeling like I ought to be doing something, except I don’t have any idea what it is I should be doing.”

“I’m going to take my time,” she said. “I’m not in any hurry to move on to whatever comes next.”

“Me neither,” he said.

“You going to continue your quest to find out who you are?”

“I already know.”

“Really?”

“I used to think that once I knew my name and my past history, I’d know who I was.” He laughed a bitter laugh. “Turns out to be too corny for words. Turns out . . . it’s not about having a name or a history . . . turns out who I am is inside of me, not something out there in the great beyond somewhere.” He waved a huge hand in the air.

“That’s not corny.”

“Sounds like the last line of a bad movie.”

“It does not.”

“You don’t think so?”

“No. I think it’s great you found yourself.”

An uneasy silence settled over the street. He seemed to be having an internal discussion with himself. She reached for the box.

“I had an idea,” he said.

She straightened up. “About what?”

“Reinvention.”

“Oh?”

“I was thinking Rome.”

“Rome?”

“I was thinking it might be just the place to . . . you know, just the place to take stock before, you know . . . before moving on.”

“I’ve never been to Rome.”

“So why don’t you come along?” he said.

Her jaw moved a couple of times before words came out of her mouth. “You mean like . . . you and me . . . like . . . in Rome?”

“Yeah. Like that.”

“That’s crazy. You and I hardly—” The rest of the sentence stuck in her throat. “I’d have to think it over,” she said finally.

“There you go being sensible again.”

She grinned. “It’s in the blood, I guess.”

“Okay,” he said, picking up the box and handing it to her. “Take care now.”

“You, too.”

He turned and walked up the sidewalk. She watched him go. He reached the corner of Franklin and Densmore and started to cross the street.

“Hey,” she called.

He turned.

“I thought it over,” she called.

He smiled and wandered back her way. “I’ve got a spot of business to take care of before we can go.”

“Me too,” she said.

“A week or so,” he said.

“Okay.”

53

Jacobson wasn’t hard to spot, standing resolute and rigid on the street corner, exactly where he was supposed to be, diagonally across the street from the park. The guy had the prominent government official look down pat, not a bit like the kind of riffraff who would hire a hit man to kill an esteemed colleague. The question was whether or not Randy looked enough like Jacobson’s hit man to set things in motion. If not, the jig was going to be up before it ever began and Jacobson was probably going to be able to slide back behind his curtain of deniability. Randy stood with his back to the thick concrete railing. He stretched and checked the street . . . a groaning garbage truck and two people walking dogs. The rest of the city was still asleep. The fake mustache felt like a caterpillar crawling on his lip. He wore a black Barcelino cabbie’s cap and a pair of oversize sunglasses, from behind which he took Jacobson in, before removing the cap and running his fingers through his new ginger-colored hair in their prearranged signal.

Jacobson nodded back. The message was: “He’s there.”

They were on.

Randy watched as Jacobson turned and walked through the revolving doors. Randy held his ground for long enough to see the guy seat himself in the window of the second-floor coffee shop. The aluminum attaché case by his feet gleamed like a silver beacon. Randy bumped himself off the banister and started down the stairs into the park.

BOB WAS MIFFED. These clandestine little meetings needed to stop. Not only was this get-together on short notice, but they were meeting in the same place they’d met once before, down beneath the stairway in Conroy Park, back against the retaining wall where he’d have to force his way through the shrubs, probably ruin his coat. Jacobson was going to hear about this in no uncertain terms. This matter was supposed to be handled by now. Just as they’d planned, Walter Hybridge was taking the heat. His family was already issuing tearful denials on television. It was a done deal. What could possibly merit a meeting first thing on a Monday morning? He leaned back against the wall. Above his head, the traffic rushed and roared as the city came to life. He wondered how many people were still suffering the lingering effects of St. Patrick’s Day, still a bit green around the gills as they made their way back to their normal workaday worlds.