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“The stuff on this flash drive isn't just random information that got out,” Charlie said. “It's a
confession
. Calvin Pope wanted people to know. For whatever reason, he wanted your wife to know.”

A long silent moment. It stretched into another.

“You there, Major?”

“Charlie, I don't know what to do.”

This time it was Charlie's turn to pause. “Maybe we need to call somebody. This is bigger than we thought at first. There are people besides Payne who won't want this flash drive making it to the public. We're getting into some deep water here. Deep water with sharks.”

David thought about it. The information on the flash drive could put Payne behind bars. But that wasn't a guarantee. There were never guarantees. Only one course of action would guarantee that Dante Payne would leave him and his family alone, and that was to make Dante Payne go away forever. Knowing what was on the flash drive didn't change that plan of action.

“I've got to think about this,” David said. “Call you back in a few.”

“I'll be here.”

They hung up.

David felt a strong urge to call Amy, but the urge to wait until he had better news was stronger. He was failing. He'd spent the night killing men, and yet he was still failing. The strongest feeling of all was shame. He was ashamed of himself for his attitude these past weeks. He'd felt sorry for himself. Pathetic. A sad selfish man, wondering if the Army would call him back to work. To do what? Strap on a gun? To do
this
?

David would give anything to return to his drab life of a few days ago, to make Amy coffee in the morning, to drive the kids to school and clean the house and trade banal pleasantries with the moms in front of Anna's school.

He'd give anything to go back to a time when his wife and kids were safe and happy.

And if he ever started feeling sorry for himself again, he would remember this moment right now. Sitting in a rusty Dodge Aspen with no idea if he'd be able to save his family or not. If he made it through this, he would get out the goddamn charcoal grill and make goddamn hamburgers on a Saturday afternoon. He'd talk to his neighbor over the fence. He'd go to the PTA meetings.

All he needed was the chance.

David let out a long, tired sigh.

He turned his head, and his eyes fell upon the logbook he'd taken from Jerry's. He pulled it into his lap and opened it, began scanning the pages, name after name in Gina's tight, neat penmanship. He paused and raised an eyebrow a few times at prominent names. Dante Payne's reach went even further than David had guessed, but at the moment none of those names suited his purpose.

David had to go back nearly six months before he found the name he'd been looking for. He wondered absently if Gina had seen to Calvin Pope's needs personally, or if she'd simply supervised, bringing in a redhead or a blonde or a black girl, whatever it had taken for Payne to cement his hold on the man.

Except he hadn't cemented it at all, had he? Calvin Pope had betrayed his government when he'd taken Payne's money. And then he'd betrayed Payne. Considering the situation, David thought Pope was currently short on friends.

Maybe he could use one.

He scanned across the page, taking in what little information there was that Gina had seen fit to include in the log. No notations about any deviant sexual proclivities, no other personal information. Under contact information, Gina had listed a single phone number. David didn't recognize the area code, probably a cell.

He pulled the cell phone he'd appropriated from his pocket, dialed the number. His thumb hovered over the Send button.

Pope won't answer, just like Charlie didn't when he didn't recognize the number
.

David erased the number and switched to text messaging.

I want to talk. This is David Sparrow.

He remembered the text would show up as somebody else and followed up with:

I took this phone from one of Payne's men.

He couldn't think of anything else to say that might convince Pope to reply, so he simply waited. Five minutes turned into ten. At the twenty-minute mark, David figured it was time to come up with plan B. Maybe he could call Charlie back and find out if—

The cell phone vibrated in his hand.

He looked at the phone, eagerly read the incoming text.

Prove it.

Prove it. How was David supposed to prove who he was?

He sat back in the car seat and closed his eyes, trying to recall the memory techniques from training. David had met Pope on only a few occasions, and he tried to recall the last time. An Air Force hangar in Frankfurt, Germany. He tried to place the faces, reconstruct the scene.

Calvin Pope came into focus. David saw him clearly in his mind. A heavyset man, but more thick than fat. He wore a dark, rumpled suit, tie pulled loose. Pope needed a haircut, brown hair down over his neck. Glasses. He shook a cigarette loose from a crumpled pack.

David texted:

You smoke unfiltered Camels.

The return text:

Quit two years ago.

David:

Air Force Hangar in Germany. Bringing back the runaway Al Qaeda prisoner. You were still smoking then.

Pope:

Okay. What else you got?

David closed his eyes, picturing the scene again and zoomed in on Pope. The tie pulled loose. It was U.S. Naval Academy tie.

You went to the Naval Academy.

Pope replied:

Not true. You lose.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck
. David worked the keypad frantically.

I only said that because of your tie. In Germany, you were wearing an Academy tie.

Nothing.

Come on, come on
.

David stared at the phone, willed Pope to text him back. The man was in hiding, likely paranoid as hell. He'd see traps around every corner. What would David do in his position?

I wouldn't believe some stranger sending me texts out of the blue, either. That's for damn sure
.

But if the man's desperate …

The phone rang and startled him.

“Hello,” he answered.

“Remember this address.” The voice was barely above a whisper and told David an address and an apartment number. “Thirty minutes.”

He hung up.

David cranked the Dodge and was already calling Charlie as he pulled into traffic and headed for his next stop.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

David parked across from the old building on the edge of Chinatown, the neighborhood gray and shabby and quiet. Nobody on the street this time of night. He watched the walk-up for signs of life as he called Charlie back.

“It's me.”

“You look up that address?” David asked.

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “It's a put-up job all right. The apartment is leased to somebody named Sean Doolittle, social security number, paystubs, everything you need. But Doolittle didn't exist before two months ago. It's a pretty sloppy job by certain standards, but good enough if you're looking for a crap apartment to hide out in.”

“Okay,” David said. “I'm going in. Call you later if I don't get killed.”

David left the Dodge behind and crossed the street to the walk-up. He wore his new shirt untucked to cover the Browning stuck in the front of his pants and the Glock in the back. He hoped this wasn't a shooting trip. He needed Pope to talk.

He needed answers.

David climbed the stairs to the second level and went down the hall to number three, paused and listened. Somebody upstairs played a television too loudly, so he had to press his ear flat against the door. When he didn't hear anything coming from within the apartment, he knocked on the door.

No answer. He knocked again. Waited.

David put his hand on the knob and turned it slowly. The door wasn't locked. He eased the door open two inches and peeked inside. Not a fancy place to live, bare floor and walls. A scratched, wooden table with a single chair. An open throughway led off somewhere David couldn't see. Maybe a kitchen.

David cleared his throat. “Pope?”

Pope wasn't a behind-the-lines solo operative like David, but he was plenty dangerous in his own way. If he didn't respect the man's abilities, the results could be lethal. David raised his voice and tried again. “Pope.”

He pushed the door open. It creaked on old hinges.

David entered, shut the door behind him.

He drew the Browning and slowly moved into the apartment. There was an issue of
Sports Illustrated
and a half-full ashtray on the table.

Quit, huh?

The whole place had a musty closed-in smell, like the windows hadn't been open in a year.

He moved into the kitchen. Scratched linoleum and appliances from the Carter administration. A Chinese takeout menu stuck to the front of the refrigerator with a NY Mets magnet. David opened the refrigerator and looked inside. Takeout cartons, a jar of pickles, and half a six-pack of Heineken.

He passed back through the living room, took a quick look in the bathroom. A faded green towel hanging on the rack. No shower curtain.

The bedroom was the last room. A single bed with rumpled covers. Nothing in the closet. No suitcase. Not a stitch of clothing.

“Shit.”

Calvin Pope had reconsidered. Whatever part of him had wanted to talk to David Sparrow, a stronger part of him had overruled the idea. Maybe the part that was afraid. Whatever light Pope could have shed on this mess was gone now. David didn't really even know Pope's background. CIA? Military intelligence? He was a smart and devious man and could be anywhere by now.

David left the apartment and returned to the Dodge.

Back to square one. He couldn't spend time tracking down a man that didn't want to be found. He sat there behind the wheel wondering where to go next.

Sudden motion in the rearview mirror made him flinch and reach for his pistol.

“Don't do it.” And the sound of a gun cocking.

David put his hands on the steering wheel. “I won't.”

“I don't want to shoot you,” the man said from the backseat. “But I'll just keep this gun pointed at the back of your head anyway. Just as a matter of routine, you understand.”

“I understand.”

David's eyes shifted back to the rearview mirror.

Calvin Pope looked grayer than the last time David had seen him, his skin hung slack and sallow, red eyes sunken back in his head. Dark circles, hair greasy and matted. He was a wreck. A man at the end of his rope.

“University of Maryland.”

David blinked. “What?”

“I didn't go to Annapolis,” Pope said. “I went to Maryland. I spilled coffee down my front that morning in Frankfurt. I had a spare shirt but not another tie. An Envoy pal of mine was a Navy man. He lent me the tie.”

“That explains it,” David said.

Pope plucked a cigarette from the pack with his lips, then lit it with a cheap disposable. He puffed it. “I like your car.”

“At least it's paid for.”

Pope grinned, puffed his cigarette.

“I thought you'd quit,” David said.

“Yeah, I quit the unfiltered ones.” Pope took a long drag on the cigarette, let a plume of gray smoke out slowly. “Those fuckers will kill you.”

“Mr. Pope,” David said. “The flash drive shows all the men you've relocated and where.”

“Yes.”

“And the bribes you took.”

Pope took another long drag on the cigarette. “Yes.”

“Maybe you'd like to tell me what's going on,” David suggested.

Pope smoked some more, thinking it over. David figured he was gathering it all in, putting it in some kind of order so he could make a story out of it and looking for a place to start.

“The thing is … I wanted the money,” Pope said. “I have no wife or family. I had twenty-two years with Uncle Sam. What was that? What did it mean? So Dante Payne offered me money, and I took it. I didn't stop to think what would happen next. You know, I still have no idea. What happens next, I mean. Payne gave me a lot of money, but my life was still my life.”

“You had a job to do like the rest of us.” David wasn't sure what he'd meant to accomplish by that comment. Maybe the idea that Pope felt sorry for himself hit too close to home.

“You know what I think about that job?” Pope said. “Let me ask you a question. They'd drop you behind enemy lines and tell you to find somebody and bring them out, right?”

“Sometimes.”

“You locate your target,” Pope said, “but if you can't bring him out. What do you do?”

“Usually the order is to terminate,” David said. “To keep certain information from being compromised.”

“So my question is,” Pope said. “Why not skip right to the termination? These people are the worst scum of the Earth, and we feel we owe them something because they sold out their pals or provided information on some shit bags who are also scum of the Earth. But we owe them, so we relocate them to our soil.”

David said nothing. Whatever Pope wanted to say, he didn't need prompting.

“Because we're America,” Pope said. “We're supposed to be the good guys, so we remember who helps us. Even if they're evil or murderers or rapists. We're the good guys. What a bunch of shit. So here we are drowning in our own good intentions. We're bringing these people over here and then what? Like we don't have enough of our own criminals.”

“So your taking bribes from Payne squares that how?” David asked.

Pope chuckled, but it sounded hollow. “I didn't mean to imply that I was trying to help, just that I was disillusioned.”

“The flash drive,” David said. “Why?”

“Insurance,” Pope said. “Against Payne. If I went down or if something happened to me then it happened to him, too. Turns out I was too clever for my own good.”