Recall (26 page)

 

Tony “Red” Harmon glanced at unrepaired holes from automatic weapons fire that had stitched a neat line in beige siding beneath his neighbor's second-story window. The wet team had hit three weeks ago. You'd think the Cutlers could have gotten a contractor to patch up the five-five-six millimeter perforations by now. Considering how many times the covenant committee had told Red to cut his own grass, surely they'd be hot to get the punctures fixed so the place didn't look like a Beirut slum. He could imagine the blond witch from the homeowners' association visiting Mr. Cutler now, tossing her head.
Bullet holes and unkempt yards bring down property values
, she'd say.

Red stepped on to the pitcher's mound centered in his cramped backyard and flipped a Wiffle ball from palm to back of hand. He smiled as he waited for his four-year-old son, Nick, kneeling in the batter's box, to tie mismatched laces. No matter. His kid would be tripping over them again in minutes. But his boy just had to have real sneakers. The ones without Velcro. Nick switched to the other foot, fingers gripping 550 paracord. Red could almost read Nick's mind as he made the loop.
Around the tree and through the—

Something moved off to the side. Another neighbor snapping shut white-lined curtains, blue scalloped hem, then tugging the edges so they sealed tight. The night of the attack, their home had escaped with only a single hole punched through the garage door. The projectile had been 9mm, copper with a hardened tungsten steel core, coated with polytetrafluoroethylene.

Red and his family hadn't been back since armor-piercing bullets had flown through their middle-class neighborhood by the magful. But he'd promised the kids a good-bye to their home, because that's what this house had been called for the last six years.

He stepped off the mound toward second base. It was Sunday, but no one was outside except them. He shouldn't have brought the family back here, not even for this quick last visit.

A white Chevy Suburban parked out front weighed almost twice what it had coming off the assembly line, heavy now with bulletproof glass and armor plates hidden inside the doors. The engine had been supercharged to compensate, the drivetrain beefed up as well. The driver had a Glock 17 beneath a shoulder, an MP5 in the center console. A single day in this vehicle and Nick had already managed to empty a juice box into the adjoining leather seat, while Penny had dropped her bubble gum on the carpet.

Penny wound up and threw a second Wiffle ball back to Red, this time necessitating a jog outside third base. He stifled a contented laugh as he stooped and picked it up. She had been all ballet and Barbie dolls for years, but now had a 50-cal for an arm. Get some accuracy and college was paid. Jackson and Nick were still too young to predict.

“Okay, kids. We need to go.”

Penny's shoulders slumped. “Dad-de-e-e! We just got here. You
promised
.”

“I promised you could say good-bye, not play a whole baseball game. One more pitch.”

Red planted a boot atop the brown spot where the dog had peed and burned the grass—now his pitcher's mound. Nick stood in the batter's box, thick orange plastic bat slung atop a shoulder like a hobo's satchel. This would be quick.

Red's arm drew a slow arc back, giving the boy plenty of forewarning. Nick pounded home plate with the bat like Bam-Bam from the Flintstones, closed his eyes, and swung. A hollow
tunk
and the ball flew between first and second. He stood there, motionless.

Penny slapped his calf. “Run, dork!”

Nick hesitated, then turned toward third base. His older brother, Jackson, shoved him at first. The boy looked down at his feet as if expecting them to decide, then started pumping in a half-trot, flinging the bat back toward Penny's head. The ball smashed into a holly hedge against a gray-patinaed privacy fence and dropped out of sight in the prickly green shrub.

Red raised arms and shouted, “Home run! We're done. Inside.”

“But what about my ball?” whined Nick.

“I'll get you another.”

“But it won't be a home run ball!”

Red stomped over to the bushes. Dandelions rubbed his cheek as he searched under the branches on hands and knees. Dandelions that wouldn't die no matter what chemical he sprayed. Dandelions he no longer gave a damn about, now that
new identity
had landed atop the family's to-do list. Their home was property of the CIA. In fact, county tax records showed it had never been their own. Someone by the name of Marsha Peekly was listed on the trumped-up deed. Ms. Peekly was selling it because a new job was sending her to Arizona, or Alabama, or one of those other A states.

“I can't see it,” he said. “It's not under here.”

“There it is!” Nick exclaimed, kneeling beside him. He pointed toward the back of the holly row, near the bottom of the fence.

Red followed the line of Nick's index finger. His hand still held the scent of citrus from the orange Lori had given him in the Suburban. It was the two boys' favorite treat. “Come on. Not even Br'er Rabbit could wiggle in there.”

Penny's nose wrinkled. “Who's Briar Rabbit?”

Red gasped. “You mean, I never—we've never . . . Oh, forget it.” He lay on his belly and stretched an arm under the hedge. Stiff twigs pushed up his sleeve and leaf barbs clawed at his wrist. His hand was still a couple of feet short. Muttering low curses, he ducked again and low-crawled underneath, breathing in damp partially decayed leaves. A brown wolf spider sprinted out, just below his forehead. He closed his eyes and shoved in a few more inches, the sharp leaves now scoring his neck. His fingers landed upon the plastic orb. He hooked two fingers into the holes and wriggled out backward.

The ball caught on a branch and popped off. He shoved a hand back in after it and hit something else—something cold, hard, like metal. Maybe a beer can from a summer barbeque? No, heavier. The ratchet he'd lost two years ago? How'd it get way out here?

He wrapped his fingers around the thing and it fell knowingly into his palm, like the familiar tool it was. No, not a ratchet.

* * *

A light turned green and the supercharger gulped air, force-feeding the engine, singing a muffled high note. The driver of the Suburban rolled a shoulder back, as if his holster was chafing. He pressed a phone to one ear and spoke in low tones, probably to another CIA goon, about a UPS shipment, tracking numbers, arrival dates, and other drivel. Red sat in the seat behind him, jacket folded across his lap. He lifted the corner toward Lori, next to him.

“What is it?” she asked, glancing down.

He turned to look at the third seat. All three kids were strapped in, heads down, each thumbing some small electronic gadget. The driver was still mumbling something in code. “A pistol,” Red whispered.

She rolled her eyes. “Of course. I meant where'd you get it?”

“Under the hedge out back.”

She held a breath. “What type?”

“Holly.”

The tendons between her jaw and temple stretched tight. She was gorgeous when angry. “Not in the mood, dammit.”

That was Lori's warning to get serious, quit kidding, or otherwise straighten up. He whispered, “German, P-08 Luger Mauser, I think. Stamped 1941 on the barrel.”

A clump of her blond bangs hung over an eye. The visible one was rimmed in red, dark flesh puffy beneath it.

“Wasn't trying to piss you off.”

“Just comes naturally.” She leaned back but kept her voice low. “We'll talk about it later. Not in front of the kids.”

Jackson made
boom-boom-boom
gun noises behind them. Both flinched when he yelled, “Got 'em!” His gaze never left the gadget in his hands.

Red inched closer to Lori. “It needs to get to your guys.”

She frowned. “Then you should've left it under the hedge and called forensics.” She glanced up at the distracted driver.

“Forensics missed it the first time. Haven't turned up anything for three weeks. No one is getting it. The more time passes, the longer whoever took a shot at us the first time has for a second chance. I'm tired of waiting. We've got to get this to someone who knows what to do with it.”

Her nostrils flared and she shoved a hand beneath the weapon. “See this scar?” She tapped an indentation at the bottom of the grip. “This was shot out of the guy's hand. A round hit there.”

“A
guy
. How do you know it was a man?”

“Right-handed one, at that.”

His forehead knitted. “Seriously, how you figure?”

A glow of interest lit her eyes. “The slide is locked open. He emptied the entire clip. More concerned with quantity than quality.” An accusatory glance. “A guy thing, obviously.”

“You're straying from the subject.”

Lori held the handle toward him, displaying a brown crust across the butt. “Also, it hit near the bottom, yet the round drew blood. It's stained into the wood. So the shooter had a big hand. Again, probably male.”

“But why right-handed?”

“Look at the scar. The round hit and ricocheted that way. If he'd been left-handed, the projectile probably would've hit him square in the chest. Then you'd have found a body instead of just the gun.”

Red squinted. “How do you know all this?”

She glanced at the kids. “Not now, dear.”

Married for ten years—or so he'd been told—he knew less about the woman sitting next to him today than on their honeymoon. He'd thought his life was relatively normal, till the kidnapping, then recall. The realization his past wasn't . . . just wasn't. Memory had been artificially suppressed. The doctors never gave a satisfactory answer as to method, and Red held doubts that even they understood, but they'd cleared him for duty. “You've got full recall,” Dr. Genova had said.

Bullshit. What about the nagging feeling something important wasn't back yet? Something else obscured by fog. A shadow still indecipherable. Maybe it was sitting next to him, palming a Luger, saying
Not now, dear
. Even so, the scent of Extatic drew his nose closer to her neck, and he left a kiss there.

“I've gotta do something with it,” Red whispered. “Your folks are the cleanup crew. Get it to someone who will know what the hell it means. Your side deals with it.”

She leaned close. “They won't care. They've already closed the file, reassigned personnel. In their minds, taking us off the grid will fix all this. They'll run forensics, then stick it in an evidence warehouse. The weapon won't be traceable. They never are.”

“Then what?”

She looked him in the eye, as if resigned to discussing this now, after all. “You do it.”

“The Det?”

“You guys have access to the same intel, maybe even more.”

“We're operational. That's part of the deal. Someone else figures out who owns the thing. We just, you know—kill 'em.”

“Just?” she snorted. “What if he's on our side?”

“Above my pay grade, honey. We stick this Luger in his mouth and he talks. We're the gorillas. Someone else plays detective. Give me an investigation and I'll screw it up.”

The Suburban slowed at a stoplight, pausing next to a green Honda Odyssey. Paint peeling on the hood. The wife yawning, husband's cheek pushed against the passenger window, breath fogging it in rhythm, eyes closed. Two car seats with snoozing toddlers in back.

“That'll be us in another week,” she said. “No more escort. Be nice to get back to normal.”

“Hmm,” he breathed. In whose world is this normal? Being an operative felt as natural as an alpha wolf leading a pack, marking territory, sniffing out rivals, hunting mule deer. But when the op's over, you're safe. Obscured by the Det, a fusion cell, a non-organization held together by a thousand handshake agreements. Now someone had cut through that nicely painted top-secret canvas, ripped it open to look behind. How much had they seen? This constant worry about who's behind you, remembering faces, doubling back to take a pretend second look at a store window, trying to shake a tail while shopping with your kids for size-three sneakers—no. All this spook stuff was crap. “You think this guy is a danger to us? Or the kids?”

Lori tucked the weapon into his jacket pocket and crossed her arms. “Don't need that to know
someone's
after at least one of us. Or who we work for. Reinserting us on the grid will only delay them discovering us again. Maybe not even much.”

“So, I'd better figure it out.”

She threw up her hands. “Red, it's only one piece of a puzzle! One in a box on a shelf in a warehouse full of a million others. The only way it'll get opened again is if something actionable comes up. That's not gonna happen, not with the agency spread as thin as it is.
This
is our new reality, even in a new home. We've got to accept it.”

“But if something actionable turned up?”

“Then maybe the powers that be would let your gorillas out of the cage.” Her slender fingers brushed his cheek, pulling his face to her. “Honey, look. This may be something we just can't fix. You've got to be okay with that. Once information is out, it's like a virus. It spreads, fast. Secrecy is our only ally. We may even have to hop the grid again sometime.”

Red pulled the jacket close to his belly and leaned in to her ear. “But intel is always stored. Maybe on a computer—or on paper. Or just in someone's head. I have
fixed
all that stuff before. Sniff out the trail, back to the source, then kill the source.” He winked. “I'll take it. Our kids may have a normal life yet.”