The Hunted (48 page)

“Sequestered?”
Lauren asked.

Knox looked from Michael to Lauren. “Benjamin Fox, meet Amy Fox. The two of you are entering witness protection.”

“But if Scarponi’s men think Harper Payne’s dead, then Nick—I mean Harper—and Michael are safe.”

Michael shook his head. “Scarponi had a very loyal, extensive network. We don’t know what kind of state it’s in, but it looks like he moved quickly to reassemble it. If that’s the case, it’s still very dangerous.”

“And they think you’re Payne,” Lauren said.

Michael nodded. “Exactly.”

“We prefer to be somewhat conservative,” Knox said. “We’re not taking any chances.” He reached into his attaché and removed a couple of large envelopes. “Your new lives are in here. Passports, driver’s licenses, bank accounts, cash, credit cards, birth certificates, the whole nine yards. You’ve got jobs in the town of Bellevue, Washington. Michael will be an agent with the Bureau’s resident agency there. After spending all that effort on his training, we may as well get some return on our investment,” Knox said wryly.

“And you’re a family mediation specialist,” Michael said.

“Well, I wanted a new start in life. Guess we’re both getting one.”

“Ben Fox has that one-syllable ring to it,” Michael said, “don’t you think? Bond. James Bond. Fox. Ben Fox.”

Knox smiled. “I had something else in mind. I thought Fox was a name worthy of both of you.”

They looked at Knox.

“How so?” Lauren asked.

“A fox uses its cunning and ability to fight off its predators out in the wild. Both of you have those qualities.”

Lauren grinned. “As a family mediation specialist, they’ll come in handy.”

Just then, the truck pulled over to the side of the road and came to an abrupt stop.

“So that’s it?” Lauren asked. “New life, new identities?”

Knox nodded. “That’s the way it’s done. The U.S. marshal’s been doing it for fifty years. They’ve got their shit together. One of our people there arranged all of this for you. I didn’t run it through the usual channels. These identities won’t show up anywhere in the marshal’s database. Hector DeSantos is in charge of your case. You have a problem, speak only to him. He’s one of the best. His info’s in there, along with your personal bios. Read them, memorize them, then burn them.”

“But our house, our belongings,” Lauren said. “My clothes, my car, photos... Tucker—”

“Gone. Friends, family, all gone. You can never have any further contact with anyone or it could severely endanger your lives. No letters, no phone calls. Even e-mails are risky. I’ll find a way of getting your dog to you, but even that’s a risk.”

Lauren shared a brief look of uncertainty with Michael.

The director rose and extended a hand. “Thank you, Agent Fox, for everything.” Knox moved over to Lauren, whose head was bowed, staring off at the ground. “Best of luck to you, Amy. I hope this is the start of good things for both of you.”

With that, Knox turned and left through the door in the rear of the truck. A second later, the army vehicle pulled back onto the road. Ben reached into the manila envelope and pulled out a black wallet. He let it fall open, exposing his FBI credentials.

Amy reached out to him. Instead of taking her hand, he pulled her close. As he held her, feeling her warmth, her strength, he realized that even if he did not remember one more detail or event, it would not matter. He ran his fingers through her tousled hair as the swaying bulb played an odd pattern of dim light and shadow across the interior of the truck.

Lying there in his arms, her body finally began to relax. This is where she wanted to be. She felt safe, strangely complete. The last time she remembered feeling that way was when she’d lain in her daddy’s lap as a young child. She closed her eyes for a moment and was instantly back in time, resting with her father in their hammock, the wind blowing gently through her hair, not a care in the world.

She reached into her blouse and pulled out her chain. The gold key was dangling there, swaying with the hypnotic rocking of the truck.

“I’ve still got the two most important things that matter to me. You, and a keepsake from my father.”

“After all you’ve been through,” Ben said, “your father would’ve been very proud of you.”

“Yes,” she said as she fingered the key, “I bet he would’ve been.”

Hector DeSantos waited in the black Volvo cab-over truck, the engine idling and an incessant pounding of flesh on metal banging against his eardrums. He had done his part for God and country... but most of all, for his fallen friend and comrade, Brian Archer. Like a shark, he had tracked down his prey... and if what he thought was going to happen did, in fact, occur, then justice would be served.

A moment later, an army transport vehicle pulled up behind him and flashed its headlights three times: two long and one short. DeSantos placed his infrared goggles on and scanned the countryside in front of him, then tapped his brakes twice to signal all clear.

Douglas Knox climbed into the cab of DeSantos’s truck and slammed the door behind him. “It’s done.”

“Good,” DeSantos said, and hung a U-turn, heading back toward Washington. The banging in the back cargo hold continued. Knox did not comment or ask what it was. It was clear that he did not need to.

“I know about CARD and Memogen,” DeSantos said, using buzzwords he and Archer had captured from the encrypted document. He didn’t know for sure how it all fit together, but like a loose thread on a piece of clothing, he had to either yank on it or leave it alone and ignore it. He couldn’t ignore it.

Knox turned away and looked out the dark side window. “It’s better we don’t talk about it.”

“Better for who? I need to know, I need to close this chapter in Brian’s life.”

“You’d be closing this chapter and opening another. It’s a need-to-know situation.”

DeSantos looked at Knox’s reflection in the black glass. “I need to know, sir.”

“You know how this works, Hector. Once I tell you, you’re committed. In for a penny, in for a million dollars.”

DeSantos was unfazed by this challenge. He knew the score and what it meant. This was something he had to know. “What does CARD stand for?”

Knox sat silent for a moment, then, keeping his eyes on the dark road before him, said, “Covert Arms Research Division. It’s an offshoot of the Boys in the Basement. It’s a joint effort and has roots in the NSA and ISA, but it’s run by the Defense Department. They develop and test, analyze, and gather intelligence on new weapons potential... both in the U.S. and abroad. They were one of the groups monitoring the Soviet Bonfire Project germ-warfare experiments during the late eighties.”

The banging in the back had stopped, easing DeSantos’s already tattered nerves. “How does all this fit together with Scarponi? Is he a former CARD agent?”

“One of CARD’s ongoing research projects involves mind control. There was a very significant study being done at the Mao Institute in China in the eighties and early nineties. After the Ames debacle, Scarponi was one of our operatives who was captured and sent to China. According to the ISA, he was used, basically, as a guinea pig. How extensive it was, we don’t know. CARD felt that the Chinese techniques warranted further study. Scarponi was the key.”

“But you couldn’t study him while he was in prison,” DeSantos said. “You needed him at CARD’s research facility. So you created a bogus ‘new witness’ who could challenge the government’s original evidence against Scarponi.”

“We used someone OPSIG has worked with overseas, someone who could take the stand and convincingly prove Scarponi’s alibi for the Vincent Foster murder.”

“So you released Scarponi with an electronic monitoring device. But everything got all fucked up and he got out of it.”

Knox nodded. “Sounds like you had most of it figured out.”

DeSantos glanced over at the thick metal wall that separated the truck’s cab from its cargo hold. “You know, I wanted Scarponi dead. For Brian.”

“I know you did. But you kept your emotions in check. That’s why I’ve always known I can rely on you, Hector.”

The banging in the rear compartment suddenly resumed, this time accompanied by shouting and primal screams in what sounded like Chinese.

DeSantos thought of everything Knox had just told him and knew he was not being given the whole story. But in the end, it didn’t really matter. He was now involved, and like it or not, he would get all the details in time, when he needed to know them. With covert ops, that was just the way things were done.

He continued staring at the dark road ahead, thickets of brush blowing by in the white beams of his headlights, while the incessant banging of a hand slamming against metal echoed in his mind... and the benign shouts of a crazed man in an iron cage floated away into nothingness.

The hunter had become the hunted.

Karen Vail is no ordinary FBI agent. She’s a profiler, brought to life by Alan Jacobson’s seven years of unprecedented access to, and research with, the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit.
The 7th Victim
has been raved about by reviewers, readers...even one of the founding fathers of the real Behavioral Analysis Unit.

The
Library Journal
named
The 7th Victim
one of the Top 5 Best Books of the Year (2008). So step into the world of Karen Vail and discover a character James Patterson called “as compelling as any created by Patricia Cornwell, or yours truly.”

The 7th Victim.
Copyright © 2008 by Alan Jacobson
Published by Vanguard Press
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved.

PROLOGUE

SIX YEARS AGO
Queens, New York

“Dispatch, this is Agent Vail. I’m in position, thirty feet from the bank’s entrance. I’ve got a visual on three well-armed men dressed in black clothing, wearing masks. ETA on backup? I’m solo here. Over.”

“Copy. Stand by.”

Stand by. Easy for you to say. My ass is flapping in the breeze outside a bank with a group of heavily armed mercenaries inside, and you tell me to stand by. Sure, I’ll just sit here and wait.

FBI Special Agent Karen Vail was crouched behind her open car door, her Glock-23 forty-caliber sidearm steadied against the window frame. No match for what looked like MAC-10s the bank robbers were toting, but what can you do?
Sometimes you’re just fucked.

Radio crackle. “Agent Vail, are you there? Over.”

No, I left on vacation. Leave a message.
“Still here. No movement inside, far as I can tell. View’s partially blocked by a large window sign. Bank’s offering free checking, by the way.”

Vail hadn’t been involved in an armed response since leaving the NYPD five years ago. Back then she welcomed the calls, the adrenaline rush as she raced through the streets of Manhattan to track down the scumbags who were doing their best to add some spice to an otherwise bland shift. But after the birth of her son Jonathan, Vail decided the life of a cop carried too much risk. She eventually made it to the Bureau—a career advancement that had the primary benefit of keeping her keester out of the line of fire.

Until today.

“Local SWAT is en route,” the voice droned over the two-way. “ETA six minutes.”

“A lot of shit can happen in six minutes.”
Did I say that out loud?

“Repeat, Agent Vail?”

“I said, ‘A lot of sittin’ for the next six minutes.’” The last thing she needed was to have her radio transmission played back in front of everyone; she’d be ridiculed for weeks.

“Unit Five approaching, Queens Boulevard and Forty-eighth.”

Mike Hartman’s voice sounded unusually confident over the radio. Vail was surprised Mike and his new partner were responding to this call. She’d worked with Mike for six months and found him decent enough, but a marginal agent in terms of execution. At the moment, she’d take marginal execution ... the more firepower the good guys had, the more likely the gunmen inside the bank would be intimidated, and the greater the odds of resolving this in the Bureau’s favor. Translation: she’d come out of this in one piece and the slimeballs would be wearing silver bracelets ... tightened that one extra notch—just enough to make them wince when she ratcheted them down around their wrist bones, for all the trouble they caused her.