Never Go Home (27 page)

“Jack, do you
think it’s…” He looked up at the ceiling, then back at me. “Safe?”

“Stay out of
town for a few days. Hell, a week. If you don’t hear from me by then, go home.”

I opened the
door and slid off the leather seat. My feet hit the ground. I took a step away,
flicked the door shut, and didn’t look back.

Inside the
airport, I used my cell to purchase a plane ticket. I had nothing to check in,
so I found my way to the gate, scanned the code on my phone and went through
security. I ordered a double espresso at the Starbucks placed at the entrance
to the terminal where my flight would later depart from. The girl behind the
counter lifted an eyebrow and asked if I was sure. I smiled politely and
nodded.

I finished my
coffee, then located my gate. I didn’t stop there, instead continuing on until
I reached an empty stretch of seats. Using the phone Sasha had given me, I gave
her a call.

“Jack,” she
said. “I’ve been wondering when you would call.”

“I had a few
people to visit before I left town.”

“Oh, are they
doing OK?”

“You could say
that.”

She said
nothing for a moment. Neither did I. We both tried to speak at the same time.

“You go ahead,”
I said.

“You’re on a
secure line?” she said.

“The phone you
gave me.”

“Good enough.
OK, where to start? Marcia was not Marcia at all. She wasn’t Vera either. We’re
not sure who she really is, or was, yet. She never worked in MI5. We think she
might have been CIA at one time. Again, that’s something we’re chasing down. We
have our friends over there working on that now.”

“Any idea what
this has to do with me?”

“Well, perhaps.
We did a lot of digging, tracing her cell phone records. Most of the calls were
to me, or other legitimate numbers. But there were a ton of texts and calls
that went to a, I don’t know, I guess some kind of server. This server
basically squashes the trace. She then rerouted her calls to their destination.
That’s how it has been explained to me, at least. I’m guessing those calls went
to the guy in the sheriff’s office.”

An old contact
of mine had a similar system. He had explained it in a similar fashion.

“OK, makes
sense. But that has nothing to do with me.”

“Tell me what
she told you, Jack.”

I leaned back.
My head touched the window. The glass felt cold. I stared at the plain ceiling
and recalled everything I could remember.

“She said she
worked undercover. One of her investigations brought her in touch with Jessie.
It was around that time her cover was blown. She returned to England, started a
law practice, started going after bigwigs and built a name for herself.
Politics, so forth, you know that.”

“Right,” Sasha
said. “And that’s about the time we pick up on her. Nothing before, though.
Obviously, outside of the contacts required, she had the education. Who knows
from where, though?”

I took a deep
breath, exhaled, said, “So, again, what’s—”

“I know, I
know. This is tricky, because I don’t want to worry you too much. There’s a
threat, but it’s not enough for us to deem it credible. At least, not anymore.”

“Against me?”

“In a
roundabout way, Jack. Your friend, Jessie, she saw Marcia on the tele or in the
paper or online, whatever, right? She recognized her and knew that the woman
was not who she claimed to be. She saw that as her chance to break free. She
reached out, said she could offer the woman up, plus a handful of documents in
exchange for whoever controlled her letting her go from their grasp.”

“Does this have
something to do with that FATF task force?”

“That’s
irrelevant, actually. Your name on that piece of paper wasn’t.”

“Why was it
there?”

She sighed. “I
hate to say this, but we can’t be one hundred percent sure. That truth behind
that died with Jessie and possibly Marcia.”

“So how did
Marcia find out about Jessie’s plan to out her?”

“We can only
presume the answer to that. Currently, we think that—”

“You think?”

“Yes, we
think
that whoever Jessie told notified Marcia. It’s very much a possibility that
Marcia and that person still worked together.”

“Still? As in
this person might be out there?”

“Yes.” Sasha
exhaled heavily. “Again, this is all based on presumption.”

“So, what
you’re telling me is we don’t know anything.”

“Pretty much.”

“How did this
woman fool every intelligence agency out there? Think about it, Sasha. She
worked for someone over here and managed to escape from them. She builds a
reputation over there, including a top-secret persona within MI5, but prior to
five years ago Marcia Stanton didn’t exist.”

Sasha said
nothing.

“So either she
or the person she still worked with had some high-level contacts or the ability
to hack into and manipulate what should be the most encrypted databases in the
world.”

“See, lots of
presumptions.”

“Am I crazy in
saying that this sounds like one huge coincidence? I don’t know, a big web that
we were all drawn into somehow? This woman wants Jessie dead. Makes it happen.
I go down there. She pieces it together, realizes that I have to go because I’m
too close to figuring it out. In the end, it’s me or her.”

“Jack, that’s
about as plausible as anything we’ve come up with. Like I said, we’ll continue
to work on it. If we come up with something, you’ll be the first to 
know.”

I said nothing.
Someone who could make things happen was out there. They might know my name,
and they might have reason to make something happen to me. I studied the faces
that passed by. Any one of them could be a murderer. Most people had no idea
how close they came to a stone cold killer on a daily basis.

“Anyway,” Sasha
said. “I can get you out on a flight this evening. I’ll pick you up and get you
back to your flat.”

“I’m not going
back,” I said.

“What are you
talking about, Jack?”

“I quit.”

“You can’t
quit.”

“Then I’m
taking leave.”

“You…why?”

“Personal
reasons.”

“What about
Mia?”

“Erin is
understanding. She’ll work something out.”

A voice came
over the intercom and announced boarding had commenced for my flight. Since I
had a first-class ticket, I rose and walked toward the gate.

“Jack, think
this through please.”

“I have. I’m
done.”

“Are you at the
airport?”

“I am.”

“Where are you
going?”

“I’m going
home, Sasha.”

I hung up and
tossed both phones in the first trashcan I came across.

Neon lights
reflected in pools of water that gathered in the middle of the street. The
storm hit hard and fast. By the time I found cover, the rain had soaked me. At
that point, I had no reason to seek shelter. I walked through the rain and let
it wash over me.

The cab could
have dropped me off in front of the apartment building. Something about the
night air in the city made me want to walk. After all, it’s hard to pass up a
gorgeous night in New York City.

When the rain
stopped, I stared up at the sky. City lights bounced off low, racing clouds.
Thunder rumbled, but it headed away. Although, it could have been a truck
running over a pothole.

My apartment
building loomed up ahead. I turned my eye to the street. The wet sidewalk
shimmered from a combination of oil runoff and overhead lights. Since I
couldn’t look up and see a sky full of stars, the illuminated concrete would
have to do.

I looked up
when the entrance was a dozen steps away. I hadn’t been there in months, but I
knew the moment my left foot hit how many more I had to go.

The old man who
worked the door at night watched me. It appeared that he failed to recognize
me. Then his eyes lit up, he smiled, and nodded.

“What do ya
say, Mr. Jack? Haven’t seen you around here in quite some time.”

I had never
heard him talk to anyone else like that. Perhaps I didn’t come off as stiff as
the rest of the building’s inhabitants.

“How’s it
going, Willie?” I said. “Anyone been by to see me?”

At least a half-dozen
people knew I lived here. A couple were friends. A couple weren’t. I never knew
when someone showed up what the outcome would be.

“Nah, you
haven’t had a visitor in months. Shoot, at least since before you went and
disappeared. Where you been, anyway?”

I stuck my
hands in my pockets and shrugged. “Here and there. You know how it is.”

“That’s the
truth. All right, get yourself out of this muggy New York air.”

I smiled. This
was nothing compared to Florida. I pulled my hand from my pocket with a twenty
tucked in my palm. I reached out. Willie met me halfway. He winked after the
exchange.

They’d done
away with the carpet and installed tile while I’d been gone. It looked like
marble. I doubted it was. Probably something cheaper, able to withstand another
seventy years. The furniture was the same. Someone had told me it was the
original from way back in the forties. The rest of the building had been
remodeled over the years, but they kept a few things original, like the
furniture and some of the light fixtures and mirrors. My apartment was modern.
That was one of the things I liked about the place. Old and new at the same
time.

Gold-plated
doors parted in the middle. I stepped onto the elevator and pressed the button
labeled twenty-eight. Second from the top. After a minute or so, the doors
reopened. I stepped into the hall. The lights were always on, never too bright.
The carpet on the floor was muted. There were four apartments on the floor. I’d
been there seven years and had never spoken with one of my neighbors. It was
rare any of us were in the hallway at the same time. If I encountered them in
the elevator, I pretended to get a phone call, or looked at a newspaper or a
magazine if I had one.

My apartment
had an electronic access panel. They weren’t crazy about me installing it, but
in the end they let me. I reached out and entered the eight-digit code. I held
my breath while opening the door. Anticipation built. I half expected an
explosion.

But nothing
happened.

A puff of
fragranced air blew out. I never canceled the cleaning service. Apparently,
they’d been coming the entire time.

The door swung
open quietly and effortlessly. I stepped inside. I had expected an inch or two
of dust to coat everything. There was none. The place was clean and organized.
I went into the kitchen, pulled open the refrigerator door. They had dumped all
the expired food. The only thing in there was a twelve pack.

Of water.

I shrugged and
turned and grabbed the phone off the wall. A three-tone beep greeted me.
Messages were waiting. I dialed into the mailbox. Turned out at least ten
people thought I was worthy of receiving a message. Half of those were
solicitors. Four others were wrong numbers.

The last
message had been left from a Florida area code. I straightened up. My finger hovered
over the play button before pressing.

“Jack, hi. It’s
Jessie. I know it must be strange that I’m calling you after all these years.
I’m not trying to reenter your life or anything like that. It’s just, well, I’m
in trouble. The big kind. And I have reason to believe you are, too. Look, I
need you to call me. We need to meet. This woman, she’s a politician in
England. She’s not who she says she is, though. I know her secret. She’s gone
crazy. I think she’s trying to have me killed. There’s more to it than that. A
lot more. On top of that, I have some information that has to do with you,
Jack, and it’s not good. I’m sorry I’m telling you all this in a voicemail. We
need to meet. Take down my number and call me as soon as you can.”

The message had
been left over a week ago. Whatever information she had, died with her. Of
course, it could have been nothing more than I already knew. That was what I
made myself believe as I erased the message and hung up the phone.

Jessie, April,
and several others were gone. Would Jessie have died if I had arrived a week
earlier? Would the others have lived had I never shown up at all? There was no
way to answer the questions that pervaded.

And I never
wanted to think about any of it again.

Those who knew
well the man sitting at the head of the table called him Butch. He let his
subordinates call him by his last name, Monaco. Even at age sixty-three he was
tall and straight and lean and lanky. A smooth scar a centimeter in width ran
the length of his cheek from the corner of his mouth to the spot where his
earlobe met his head. The reminder stood out most when his skin was tanned,
like now. When asked, he’d always told different versions of over a dozen
stories. A single version of one of those stories contained the truth. Only
Butch knew which. Despite the danger that plagued his life for so long, he had
aged well. Aside from a few wrinkles around his eyes and his mouth, he looked
much the same as he did the last time he held a secret meeting in Aspen,
Colorado.

He couldn’t say
the same for the five men he knew in the room. They’d gone bald, or had bellies
that hung over their guts, or sprouted double chins, or had faces that looked
like scuffed leather. Taken as a whole, the description described one of the
men to a tee. The rest were some variation. He let three of those men call him
Butch. Two addressed him as Monaco.

The other five
men at the table were unknown. And chances were that the last time he held a
meeting around that same table in that same room, those five guys were in high
school or college. Perhaps they’d had some experience since then. Maybe not. At
least not the kind Butch accepted. It didn’t matter, because he needed ten men
in the room for the meeting and the other five original members of the group
were dead. Some from natural causes. The others, not so much.