Nantucket Five-Spot (22 page)

“I—it's…are you all right?”

She sat up and let the covers fall to her lap. She looked gorgeous and tussled in the pale gray half-light of sunrise, but I refused to let myself be distracted,

She put her hand on my thigh and squeezed it gently. She was waking up now. “What is it?”

“I have a theory,” I said.

She took her hand back, pulled it through her hair, twisted to face me. “Okay.”

“I just want you to listen with an open mind.”

“Okay.”

“It's not too early?”

“I'm fine. What are you thinking?”

“There's someone else involved with this plot.”

“Okay.”

“Beaumont needed an accessory. It had to be someone involved with the investigation.”

“I'm with you.”

“I think it's Jack.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, dug her chin into her palm. “Jack Tornovitch? Special Agent in Charge of Domestic Investigations, Department of Homeland Security? That Jack Tornovitch.”

“That very one.”

Her voice was quiet. “Okay.”

“I did inventory, the way we did in L.A. All the key moments that pointed the investigation at Haden Krakauer. All those winter tomatoes. The way Jack jumped on Billy's accusations. It was a total 180, but he seemed totally on board with the idea that Haden was setting up a frame. And that wild goose chase before the bomb went off—Jack sent Haden on that one. If you wanted to create a situation where someone would have no alibi, you couldn't do much better than that. And why do you think he wouldn't let anyone else talk to Haden for all this time? Haden would have been telling anyone and everyone about Beaumont, and Jack couldn't afford that. Then today—you said it yourself, it looked like someone had just pulled out from that garage. Let's say that's true. Who else knew we were going there? Who else could have warned Beaumont? Nobody.”

“Unless your office was bugged.”

I hadn't told her about my discovery yet. “It was.”

“But Jack checked out the whole station himself. He—”

“What?” But of course I already knew. She wasn't even putting it together, she was watching, staring at an airport departures board as the flights rescheduled after a weather delay. But every plane was headed to the same destination at this moment and they were all on time.

She looked pale. She stood and started getting dressed. I watched her pull on that tiny thong and button her dress. Was there a tremor in her hand? I had never seen that before. I stood up myself, grabbed my pants, and hopped into them. We stood facing each other across the rumpled bed.

Finally she finished her thought. “It's just…Jack insisted we take this case. It was out of the chain of command. Normally he wouldn't involve himself with this type of incident. I mean, at the time it was just one phone call, remember? But he was treating it like an all-out terrorist attack. And he hates field work, Hank. He delegates stuff like this. I've worked a lot of our cases alone and then shipped him the paperwork to sign. But he was all over this one. It didn't make any sense. I thought he wanted a couple of weeks' vacation on the government tab.”

“So it's possible?”

“I don't know, Hank. I mean—why would he do this? What connection could he possibly have to Ezekiel Beaumont?”

“I've thought about that one, too. It started with something you said at my place after dinner, the night of the golf club bomb. Do you remember?”

“No, I have no idea. We said a lot of things—”

“We were talking about Jack. You said he really wasn't such a bad guy. You told me about that girlfriend of his that died. He wound up crying in the bathroom in some DC restaurant. And he wasn't even drunk, that was what you said.”

She found her sandals, slipped them on while I grabbed a clean shirt from my bureau. She started making the bed and I stepped over to help her. She was in motion—that was a good sign. We were setting the pillows against the headboard when she spoke.

“Kuwait,” she said. “He met that girl in Kuwait. During the war.”

“And she died, and Zeke's beef with Haden has to do with a drug bust that cut off the supply of safe heroin for almost a month.”

“So what are you saying? She was a drug addict?”

“And Jack was her pusher. Why not? Say he ran the networks that Zeke supplied. That would be the connection. And it explains why Zeke didn't roll over on him at the time. They both had bigger plans. They needed each other. For this.”

“I don't know.”

“What else can it be? How else can you fit the pieces together? Or arrange the furniture?”

“It's just…it's so creepy. I think of revenge as something hot headed and impulsive. Why would he wait around for so long?”

“Because if he waited, Zeke would do the dirty work for him. Zeke had the computer skills. Zeke had the balls to break into people's houses and plant evidence and steal things. He had the contacts to get the C-4 and the nerve to use it. Jack developed his position—the power to expedite things, to make sure the investigation went the right way, to run it from afar like a general. The way he does everything else. And in the end, if there's a problem he walks away clean and Zeke takes the fall. Just like in Kuwait. Because there's no real evidence against him.”

“If it's even true.”

“Exactly—if it's even true.”

“There's one bright spot.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, in a sense they outsmarted themselves…if they're actually doing this, if Jack is really a part of it. Or maybe they underestimated us. We caught on too quickly. Most of the evidence we found was probably supposed to come out after the fact. Now with Haden in custody, their whole plan is ruined.”

The thought had occurred to me—jail was the perfect alibi. But not the corollary. Franny must have grasped it at the same second.

“They'll try to break him out,” she said.

“Impossible. I'm driving Haden to the airport, the first car in a ten-car motorcade. No way Jack could pull him out of that—and even if he could the blowback would destroy him. He could never talk himself out of that one, Franny. Mr. Law and Order.”

“So they abort?”

“What else can they do?”

“So we win?”

“I guess so.”

“So why doesn't it feel that way?”

“Because we're still missing something.”

“Maybe. Or maybe we're just anal compulsive cynics who can't leave well enough alone.”

“That's what Miranda would say.”

“Which is why you divorced her.”

“Actually, she divorced me.” We stared at each other for a few more seconds. “It doesn't matter. She never understood police work. We both know something bad is going to happen today, and we're the only ones who can stop it.”

“So let's go to work.”

I nodded, “Protect and serve.”

Ten seconds later we were out the door. Ten minutes later we were at the station, working the case, trying or find some scrap of evidence we could use to arrest Jack Tornovitch. We both knew it had to be airtight. We weren't going to get a second chance. Don't attack the King unless you know you can kill him.

We found nothing, and at ten o'clock in the morning our time was up. Haden Krakauer was headed for the airport.

Tornovitch strode up to me as I was putting Haden into the back seat of the cruiser.

I slammed the door and stood up to face my nemesis.

“You look like hell, Kennis,” Tornovitch said. “You need more sleep. And cut down on the booze. My people don't drink. We celebrate with seltzer. That's a slogan I wrote. You like it?”

“It's great, Jack.”

“Try living by it. You won't embarrass yourself.”

I chose not to inform him that one of his people had been celebrating right along with me all night and with anything but soda water. I wouldn't have gotten the chance, anyway—he was already striding back to the first following car. He climbed into the black Expedition and we were set to go: three police cruisers and three DHS vehicles. The FBI agents were taking up the rear.

It was absurd, of course. Two cops could have taken Haden to the airport in a taxi. But Tornovitch liked ceremony, and in fairness, so did the town. The Wicked Witch was dead—or at least handcuffed and on his way to prison—so the Munchkins wanted to celebrate. They lined Old South Road to watch the motorcade go by, and I remained as baffled as Dorothy among the midget festivities.

I felt alert, but exhausted people often do when the adrenaline kicks in. And I was cocky because I was convinced Tornovitch had given up. Besides, I controlled the lock on the rear doors of the cruiser, and I had a small army of law enforcement professionals for backup.

Nothing could go wrong. But Tornovitch had perfect timing and the element of surprise. It happened at the Lover's Lane crosswalk. It didn't occur to me until after it was all over how appropriate that was.

Beaumont must have rigged Tornovitch a remote for the door locks. They opened with a loud click as I waited for a man and three small children to cross the road. Haden registered a moment of awareness and decision, then he brought both fists up hard into the throat of the FBI man next to him, lunged across the choking agent's lap, slammed the door open and dove into the street. He hit the asphalt in a tumbler's roll and was on his feet a moment later, sprinting for the woods.

He was gone before anyone could respond, darting ahead of a Marine Home Center truck heading the other way. I ripped my door open and plunged after him, banging my shin on the bumper as I ran around the front of the car, shouting his name. I was halfway across the road when someone tackled me from behind. I came down hard on the heels of my palms and rolled over to face the bulk of Special Agent Knightley, his throat already bruising from where Haden had hit him, pointing a gun in my face.

Tornovitch loomed above us.

“You're under arrest Kennis. Adding and abetting a fugitive, conspiracy to commit multiple felonies. And resisting arrest. Did he resist arrest, Agent Daly?”

“Yes sir. He sure did,”

“All right, then. Cuff him and get him back in the car. You know your rights, Kennis. Read them to yourself. You've got plenty of time.”

The plan was on again. Haden Krakauer was an escaped criminal now. The genius of the remote was that everyone would assume I had unlocked the car doors. I was about to be thrown into my own jail, expertly framed, my word worthless and my options gone.

Now there was nothing to stop them from blowing up the Pops concert. The rage and frustration climbed my throat, choking me. No one was going to find the bomb—Jack would make sure of that. They were going to wipe out the business and political elites of the state along with most of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and a few thousand other innocent people. They were going to turn Jetties Beach into a smoking bloody crater—all to enact their psychotic vision of revenge. And they were going to get away with it, and Haden was going to take the blame. I was helpless, that was the real nightmare strangling me. I was powerless, futile, defeated. And all in the space of a few seconds. The urge to lash out was overwhelming, but my hands were lashed behind my back. Too tightly, Daly had made sure of that. The metal bite of the handcuffs was cutting off my circulation.

Through the rage and horror, the thought kept rebounding in my head—why had Haden done it? Why had he gone along with their plan? The safest situation—and the one outcome his enemies had to avoid at all costs—was him sitting in jail, with the perfect alibi that would render all their carefully laid plans worthless. So why go along with these men who hated him, sealing his own fate?

I had no answers and there was nothing I could do but sit in a holding cell, watching the clock tick down to zero.

Ezekiel Beaumont: Ten Seconds Ago

Haden Krakauer crashed through the scabby forest of pitch pine, cutting his face on the branches, stumbling over the exposed roots, catching himself, flinging himself forward away from the road and the police motorcade and the thugs who were taking him to jail.

He was wearing his police uniform, his hands unshackled as a professional courtesy. In fact Jack had just wanted to give him the best chance possible for a clean escape. But Haden had still wanted to improve his chances. He had seen a small oblong bulge in Knightley's pocket. A Swiss Army Knife.

It wasn't that he didn't trust the Department of Homeland Security. He didn't trust anyone these days, except his boss. Okay, Henry had been involved with the escape, but there was more than one way to unlock a car door. If the chief had been planning to work the remote, he would have said something back at the station. Maybe that was the wrong note that worried Haden. He had always been especially good at those “What's wrong with this picture?” puzzles, and something was definitely wrong here.

Slowly, carefully, using the swaying of the car as cover, he had slipped two fingers past the stitched flap and started easing the knife free, by a sixteenth of an inch when they swerved around a moped, and another fraction when they bumped over a seam in the road.

Then Haden heard the doors unlock. He knew the time had come, giving him a few seconds at most. He pulled the knife free and wrapped his fingers around it to brace his fist as he struck Knightley in the throat.

Now, running through the woods, he slipped the little red oblong of plastic with its nested blades up past the tight cuff of his uniform shirt. He ducked under a low branch, crested a hill, and saw the Range Rover. Homeland Security had a fleet of Ford Escapes and Expeditions—the fancy English SUV struck another wrong note. But he didn't have time to think about it. He could hear the curse and clatter of pursuit behind him. Jack couldn't call them back without giving away the plan. Haden was on his own until he got to the rendezvous.

He stumbled down the hill and almost fell into the man who stepped out from behind the car. Haden grabbed the roof rack to regain his balance. He stared at the grinning face in front of him, the crooked nose, the unruly blond hair, those radioactive blue eyes.

Ten years later and he hadn't changed a bit.

Staring at Beaumont, the sudden detonation of understanding collapsed Haden Krakauer's life like a building imploding. What did they call it? Controlled demolition. The perfect phrase.

He understood everything, but too late. Ten seconds too late, more or less—whatever, it might as well have been ten years, and in fact it was ten years, since Beaumont's court-martial. And now he was out, probably with time off for good behavior. That was certainly an error of judgment.

Haden listened to the approaching police, hoping they would catch him, but somehow knowing they wouldn't, and said the only word that mattered.

“Tornovitch.”

Zeke grinned. “Yep. Looks like you trusted the wrong guy, Lieutenant Krakauer. The same way I did.”

Then Haden saw a flash of metal, and the world went black.

***

Haden woke up tipped over in the backseat of Beaumont's Range Rover, his wrists flex-cuffed together, his arms tucked into his chest, the Swiss Army knife nestled between the inside of his forearm and his bicep. At first all he felt was the headache, a drill boring into the base of his skull. Then the other voices joined the chorus—his back, stiff from the half reclining position, plus his face and neck burning from dozens of cuts and scratches. His knee was throbbing. He'd twisted it. But he had a weapon, at least, and that meant he had a chance.

“Stop faking,” the driver said. “I didn't hit you that hard.”

The voice brought everything back.

Beaumont and Tornovitch. How could he have not suspected Tornovitch? Actually, it made sense. Villains usually tried to conceal their true natures, they worked undercover. Jack had worked the reverse. He was too big a prick to be anything worse than that. But why? Why team up with Beaumont? How had they even met? Haden shifted position, releasing a new pain in his head—something sharp pushing at his temples. Red protoplasm swarmed in front of his eyes. He shut them. It didn't help.

Thinking distracted from the pain. Iraq, it had to have been Iraq. Tornovitch served in the war, Haden had checked his record. Jack had even been stationed at Doha briefly, but they had never met. Well, Haden must have done something to piss the guy off. God knows what. Maybe Jack was involved in the drug business with Beaumont. But it had to be more than that.

He thought back to the interrogation. Jack had been so convincing, following his lead, letting him talk. At first it seemed like Haden had gone crazy—blacking out and doing bad things and then not remembering them. But he knew where he was on the night he had supposedly placed the bomb at the golf course. He had been at home, talking to his mother on the telephone—it was her birthday.

So he wasn't insane, and if he wasn't doing these things someone else was. That led him to Beaumont. Jack had given Haden the benefit of the doubt, sending agents to the Steamship Authority and the airlines, the car rental places, the guest houses and hotels. They'd remember Beaumont if they saw him. But Jack had pointed out—looks like his were easy to conceal. Gain ten pounds, dye the hair, and put in some brown contact lenses—you blend right into the crowd. Beaumont was tall, but not freakishly so. It would have worked. Haden's hopes had dried up.

Tornovitch hung in there though, suggesting that it might be someone else from that time, someone who was eavesdropping at the officers club while Haden rambled on to Beaumont? But Haden had to demur. He didn't have an enemy in the world, apart from Beaumont. Jack had smiled at that, a strange squinting smile, lips crinkled like he had just bitten down on a kumquat. That smile should have been the giveaway. But Haden hadn't recognized it.

When he had finally given up all hope, Jack came to him with a proposition. A routine check by the DHS revealed that Ezekiel Beaumont had more or less vanished off the face of the earth, two months after his release from the Miramar brig. No contact with the halfway house personnel or the job search liaison office, no checks written, no credit card charges, no utility or rent payments, no phone calls or e-mails.

Apparently this disappearing act had convinced Tornovitch that Haden was telling the truth.

“That's right Krakauer,” he had said, handing Haden a cup of coffee. “I actually believe your cockamamie story. People say ‘Do the math.' Well, I actually do it and I stand by the results. I've been working the new intel, and I have a pretty good idea what this Beaumont is planning. But with you in custody—it's like you said. There's no point if he can't hang the bombing on you. Once you're gone, he's in the wind, and I'm not going to let that happen. It turns out we baited the perfect trap for this little sociopath, and he's not walking away from it because we're smarter than he thought we were, and we arrested you ahead of schedule. So you're going to escape. Make it look good, break for the woods. Someone from the JTTF will pick you up and get you to a safe house. You can be America's number one fugitive for a couple of days, watch it all on TV. Eat some take-out, drink a few twelve-packs. Maybe we'll get you a Homeland Security Distinguished Service Medal. We'll handle Beaumont. All you have to do is run when you get the chance. You'll know the moment when you see it. Don't fuck it up.”

Haden had believed him and Haden had run, because he wanted to believe it, because despite all his snide talk, he wanted to trust the Department of Homeland Security, because he wanted to clear his own name, because he wanted to be the hero.

Because he was a fool.

Haden squeezed his eyes closed and let the pain thrash him. He wanted to hurt. He deserved it.

A few minutes later, that grating drawl cut through the haze again. “Wake up, sleepyhead. We're almost there.”

Haden used the slight centrifugal g-force of the turn to leverage himself to a sitting position. His back screamed as if he'd been stabbed in the spine. But it didn't matter, he had to get a look out the car windows—he needed every bit of visual information he could gather in the next few minutes.

He saw instantly that they were moving down Deacon's Way, off Cliff Road. They pulled up to a house at the end of the short street, a classic trophy home with a lattice of roses and a handsome widow's walk on the roof. There was a big, open garage with a Chris-Craft on a trailer parked in front of it.

He let the Swiss Army knife slip into the crook of his elbow, squeezed it against his bicep.

He had the beginnings of a plan.

***

“So have you seen the woman again, Lieutenant?”

They were sitting in what the new people liked to call the Great Room. He glanced over at the big cracker, slouched down in the opposite chair. “What?”

“The woman! You know what I'm talking about! That sweet piece of ass your buddy knocked up, back in the day. You enlisted so you wouldn't have to see that big belly buying a flat of annuals at Bartlett Farm. Your exact words, Lieutenant.”

Haden ignored the gloating little jape. “How does Tornovitch fit into this? I've been trying to figure it out.”

Zeke shrugged. “Whatcha got so far?”

“Well…you served in Iraq together. You were probably in the drug business together. Claymore handled supply, you were sales. I'm guessing Jack was distribution.”

“Go on, Sherlock.”

“But that's where I stop. You took the fall, not him. If he had even a few of your contacts he could have been back in business within a week—and doing even better. It's always a sound move to cut out the middleman. So what's his grudge? I did him a favor.”

“Yeah, but he don't see it that way since your little drug bust forced his girlfriend to buy from some local boys and she OD'd on a bad load. Guess he figures you killed her.”

“This is nuts. I never even met the guy.”

“But you signed off on his transfer papers when his tour finished out. One day he's going home, the next day he's playing whack-a-mole with a bunch Sunni insurgents in Fallujah.”

“We signed off on hundreds of transfers! I had no idea who he was.”

“Well, I guess that makes it OK then, Lieutenant. But Scooter thinks different. He sees you as the cause of all his problems. He sees you as the curse of his life. And I see his point. Anyway, I wasn't gonna try and talk him out of it. I needed the help. Never could have gotten this far without him.”

Haden sat back in the chair and closed his eyes. “Jesus Christ.”

Zeke stood up and stood over him. “The woman, Lieutenant. We got off the subject. I was asking about the woman. She still get your knickers in a twist?”

“I haven't even seen her.”

“How about the daughter? She could have been yours. Sweet little thing. Quite the daddy's girl. That must smart.”

“I'm over it, Beaumont. I've been over it for years.”

“I don't think so, Lieutenant. I don't think you ever get over nothing.”

“Stop calling me that! I'm not in the Army anymore.”

“Yeah, well. Maybe not. But you'll always be that true blue, got-your-back commanding officer to me.”

“So I betrayed you, is that it? I wrecked your fucking pathetic life? There are going to be ten thousand people on that beach tonight! Ten thousand people! That's more people than you've met in your whole life. There'll be families there! There'll be kids!”

He pushed his chair back and jumped to his feet, face to chest with Beaumont. It was ludicrous—mortifying. He wasn't even short! He stood five foot eleven, almost five foot eleven. Still this reptile towered over him. It wasn't fair.

But then inspiration hit.

Haden jumped up onto the coffee table. He almost slipped on a pile of
Architectural Digest
magazines, but he got his balance back and now they were standing face to face, and Beaumont was shocked into silence. Good thing, because Haden Krakauer was on a roll.

“What is this drama in your head—
The Count of Monte Cristo?
The tormented hero out for revenge? I have news for you, ass-face. You're the villain! And you always were. Self-pity doesn't change that. You went to jail? So what? You deserved it! Those were teenagers over there! Kids just out of high school, and you were selling them goddamn methamphetamine and cocaine! You know how you get over a meth addiction? Huh? Want to guess? You don't! Those kids are ruined forever, don't you get that? All they wanted to do was serve their country but they were weak and stupid and you took advantage of that and you destroyed their future—for money! For a few bucks you don't even remember spending. You're a criminal! They never should have let you out.”

Beaumont stepped away, silent, but the creepy smile was gone—that was something. Finally he spoke. “I have things to do. Preparations for tonight. The front and back doors of this house are locked inside and out by electronic remote. The phone lines and the cable are cut. There's no basement and the crawlspace is sealed. I nailed the windows shut and disabled the alarm, so no one's gonna come running if you try to escape. Oh yeah, you'd like that wouldn't you? Back in a cozy jail cell with the perfect alibi. Forget it. You sit tight and think about what's going to happen—all those people dying and you taking the blame. Not just going to jail for the rest of your life, but knowing that everyone left alive on your precious little island is going to hate you forever. That's what you have to look forward to, Lieutenant.”

Then he walked away, the length of the long high room to the stairs and down.

Haden stepped off the coffee table, feeling a first flicker of hope. So much depended on so much—if Beaumont was really as careless as he seemed, or as ignorant about the history and construction of Nantucket houses. If Haden could be swift and quiet enough. If he was physically up to the ordeal, and just as important—mentally up to it. He hated heights.