The Silent Places (13 page)

“Yes. Yes, he did. And you can’t touch him. He was an ambitious young man and he wanted a conviction. It’s what ambitious men do. In and out of the CIA. You can’t change it now. It’s done.”

“Take this next exit,” Reese said.

“Reese, don’t do this. I can—don’t do this.”

“You can what? Sign another affidavit saying you lied the first time? Even if you kept such a promise—and I don’t think you would—who would believe it? I’ve had you at gunpoint.”

“You can’t kill me. Please. Listen to me. I’ll testify. I’ll give a deposition.”

“It’s too late for that.”

Sinclair opened his mouth to press his case further.

“Stop talking,” Reese said.

They rode in silence, save for the times Reese gave him curt directions. Left here, right there. Thirty minutes passed and they were on a narrow country road lined by trees. They were in the Chattahoochee National Forest. Richard Sinclair tried not to imagine the worst. A freshly dug grave waiting for him in the secluded woods …

Reese directed Sinclair to drive down a dirt road. Darkness enveloped them. They drove a few miles, the forest closing in.

Reese said, “Stop here. … Turn the ignition off. … Now hand me the keys. … Now get out this way.
This
way.” Reese gestured for Sinclair to follow him out the passenger door.

Once out, Reese made him turn around and place his hands on the roof of the car. Reese went through his pockets and found his cell phone. He put the cell phone in his pocket. Then he grabbed Sinclair by the back of his suit jacket and propelled him down the road, ahead of the car.

“Keep your hands above your head,” Reese said. “Keep walking.”

Reese kept pace a few steps behind him. Then he stopped after a few feet.

“Keep walking,” Reese said.

Sinclair continued walking, his feet sinking slightly in the soft, muddy dirt. He was conscious of the cold, the complete darkness, the helpless feeling of being alone. It was dark, but he did not contemplate running. He tried to avoid thoughts of a bullet hitting him between the shoulder blades.

A long minute passed. And another one started and Sinclair heard the car start. For a moment, he was illuminated by the car’s headlights and he saw his own shadow before him. Growing and then ending as the BMW turned around and drove off in the other direction.

After the car was out of sight, Richard Sinclair began to shake—the reaction to a near-death experience. He managed not to cry, but it wasn’t easy.

It took Richard Sinclair almost three hours of walking before he saw a house with a light. He knocked on the owner’s door and managed to talk himself in. His first telephone call was to his wife. He explained to her briefly that he had been carjacked but that he was all right. His wife asked him if he had telephoned the police. Sinclair said he had not but would take care of it later. He asked her to call their son in Smyrna to come get him.

After finishing that call, Richard Sinclair started thinking. He would have about two hours to decide what he would do.

He had almost wept out there on that dark road. Almost wept like a child. He thought now that it was because he’d been relieved that he had not been shot. The shame he felt did not extend from betrayal, but from having been frightened and, to his mind, humiliated.

His car had been stolen. He would have to report that. But what about Reese? Did the police have to know that it was Reese who’d abducted him? If they knew, they would want to know what it was all about. Who was this man who had kidnapped him? What did he want?

He had never met John Reese before tonight. Reese was a number, an unknown man working overseas. Woods had known him. But to Sinclair and other members of management, Reese had been a nonentity.

He wondered if Reese had believed him. For what he had told Reese was mostly the truth. They had tried to persuade Preston to with draw the affidavit. Maybe they hadn’t tried hard enough, but they had made some attempt. Okay, so no one had gone around the U.S. attorney’s office and informed the judge or Reese’s lawyer. But that would have been asking too much. It just hadn’t seemed that important. Reese was a nobody. For all they knew, he could have been dirty. Many of the green badgers were. Mercenaries, most of them, just trying to line their own pockets. What did they owe such people? Certainly, Gelmers had said Reese was a crook and a traitor. Selling C4 explosives to the Syrians, for God’s sake. Why had no one warned him that Reese had escaped from prison? Why hadn’t it been on the news?

The problem for now was, How much should he tell the police? If he told them the whole truth, it could bring scandal to him and his family. He might lose his well-paying job at Henderson Aerospace. He might even be subject to criminal charges for perjury and withholding evidence.

And if he didn’t say anything about Reese, what then? If he said a stranger had carjacked him so he could steal a high-dollar vehicle, what then? Would Reese go after Preston? Now Senator Preston. Would keeping silent make him partially responsible for Preston’s death?

Sinclair thought about it and decided that it wouldn’t. After all, Reese had not killed him. Maybe Reese was just insane. Maybe he just wanted vengeance in small doses. Steal a man’s vehicle, frighten him, bring him to the verge of tears. Maybe that was all he had in mind for Preston. And what did he—Sinclair—owe Preston anyway? He barely knew the man.

Besides, Preston was a senator now, and a powerful one at that. He would be well protected. Sinclair asked himself what Preston would do if their positions were reversed. He knew the answer, and it gave him some comfort.

Before his son arrived, Sinclair remembered that his car was equipped with a GPS device. Maybe he could find the car without alerting the police at all. A phone call placed to the national dealership could resolve everything.

That was how he found the car. It was left at a downtown parking garage. He never did call the police or anyone else.

They had flipped a coin to see who would go in the theater with the senator and his wife. The Senator’s daughter was in the university’s play.
Holiday
, by Philip Barry. Hastings won the coin toss and took a seat behind the senator and Mrs. Preston. Emily Preston played the lead.

For most of the first act, Hastings was pretty bored. He probably had not seen a play performed since he was in high school.
South Pacific
or
Oklahoma
, one of those. He read the program and saw that the play had been written in the twenties, by the same guy whohad written
The Philadelphia Story
. Hastings watched Emily Preston and compared her to Katharine Hepburn. Emily Preston wasn’t affecting a British or a Yankee accent, but she was trying to affect something he couldn’t quite figure out. She was an attractive young lady, but too masculine-featured in the face. Not as pretty as her mother.

There were parts during the play when people in the audience laughed and Hastings didn’t. It made him think of Homer Simpson watching Garrison Keillor on television, Homer crying out, “I don’t
get
it.” Hastings didn’t get Philip Barry. But even he could see that the male lead had been miscast. A young midwestern student trying to channel Cary Grant or Ronald Colman, and it just wasn’t working.

He saw Klosterman in the lobby during the intermission.

“How’s the play?” Klosterman asked.

Hastings grunted.

“Do you want me to go in for the third act?”

“If you want,” Hastings said.

“If you don’t mind,” Klosterman said. “I’m getting bored out here. Any sign of an assassin?”

“No.” Hastings turned his cell phone on, checking for messages.

Klosterman said, “Carol call?”

“No.”

“You expecting her to?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’d forget about it if I were you.”

“You’re not me.”

Klosterman said, “You know, I never dreamed I’d agree with your ex-wife about anything. But I think she’s got a point.”

“You can’t stand Eileen.”

“Hey, broken clock’s right twice a day.”

“I shouldn’t have told you what she said.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. But you did. Georgie, never marry the first woman you date after you divorce.”

“I wasn’t going to marry her.”

“That’s the problem. She knew it, too.”

“Are you through?”

“No,” Klosterman said. He lifted his head as Mrs. Preston walked up to them. “Ma’am,” Klosterman said.

She acknowledged him politely, then turned her attention to Hastings.

“The lights are dimming,” Sylvia Preston said. “Ready to go back in?”

“Uh,” Hastings said, “Sergeant Klosterman’s going to take my seat for the third act.”

“Are you not enjoying it?”

“Of course I am,” Hastings said. “Your daughter’s very talented. But he’s been on his feet for a while and…”

She did not hide her disappointment. “Well, okay,” she said.

She walked away. Klosterman glanced at her backside, then turned and gave Hastings a “What have we here?” look.

“Shut up,” Hastings said.

“I don’t know what it is about you and these high-class types.…”

“Go cultivate yourself.”

They came out about thirty minutes later. Klosterman was dabbing his moist eyes with a handkerchief.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Hastings said.

“What?” Klosterman said. “It was a great ending. The fuckup brother raising his glass to toast. You missed it.”

“Let’s go,” Hastings said.

They walked behind the Prestons through a poorly lit parking lot. Hastings saw no tears in the senator’s eyes. He remembered that the senator hadn’t laughed at all during the play. He’d seemed even more bored than Hastings. Another thing: He didn’t look at his wife much. He wondered about Senator Preston. A rich, successful man. Yet when he wasn’t involved in some sort of power play, he seemed unhappy much of the time, perhaps even bitter. Like a compulsive gambler away from the blackjack table.

Hastings listened for snatches of conversation between the two. The senator was saying their daughter needed to go to law school. Something about her being a decent actress, but not a great one.

It did not occur to Hastings that he was invading their privacy. Much of his adult life had been dedicated to observing people, looking for weaknesses. It was not something he could easily turn off. When he thought about it—which was infrequently—he realized he wasn’t much interested in turning it off.

Now the senator’s car was in sight. They had been brought here by a driver. Now the driver wasn’t here.

Hastings touched Klosterman’s arm and they moved forward, coming up even with the Prestons.

“Just a minute,” Hastings said. “Where’s your driver?”

“I don’t know,” Senator Preston said. “He’s supposed to be with the car.”

“Stay with them,” Hastings said to Klosterman.

Hastings moved to the other side of the parking lot, circling back to a dark sedan he had seen when they’d first entered the lot. A man was sitting behind the wheel of the car. Older, late forties or early fifties. Large-jawed and pale-skinned, hair blond or gray. There was a grass knoll separating the parking lot from Grand Boulevard, and Hastings walked behind the knoll and came back up behind the car, now seeing the man’s back. His hair blond …

Hastings pulled his service revolver from his holster. He held the gun at his side, the barrel pointed at the ground. Then he walked up to the driver’s door and yanked it open.

The man in the car turned, startled.

“Police,” Hastings said. “Step out of the car, please.”

“Jesus!”

“Out of the car.
Now
. ”

The man got out and Hastings pushed him against the car, told him to spread his hands on the roof. Hastings checked him for weapons. He didn’t find any.

“What’s going on?” the man said. “I have money. Please—”

“Be quiet,” Hastings said. He looked into the car for weapons but didn’t see any there. “What are you doing here?”

The man said, “I’m waiting for my girlfriend. She works at the library.”

“A little old to be dating a student, aren’t you?”

“She’s not a’ Jesus, what is this?”

“You’re waiting for your girlfriend. Where is she?”

“I just told you. She works at the library. She’s not a student here. God.”

Now Hastings looked across the parking lot and saw something that cleared things up. A heavyset girl was approaching the car with a confused, frightened look on her face.

She said, “Harvey? What’s going on?”

“Marcia!” the man said. “Call the police. This guy’s crazy.”

“I am the—”

Then Hastings saw something else: the driver of the senator’s car now standing with Klosterman and the Prestons. The driver was holding a cup of coffee and a packaged Pop-Tart.

“I am the police,” Hastings said, his voice a little lower now. He stepped back and the girl came forward.

“Sorry,” Hastings said.

“What’s the matter with you?” the man said, his voice a mixture of fear and anger now.

Hastings apologized again and moved away. A few steps away, he heard the girlfriend call out, “Asshole.”

When he got back to the Prestons and Klosterman, the senator was looking at him and shaking his head.

“Nice work,” Senator Preston said. “Very impressive.”

“Alan,” Sylvia said, admonishing him.

“Sorry,” Hastings said. He wondered how many times he would have to say it tonight.

Later, they were back at the house, across the street from the senator’s home. Hastings was at the window, Klosterman lying on the cot, watching Jay Leno. A commercial came on and Klosterman pressed the mute button on the remote control.

Klosterman said, “You know Lincoln was killed during a play.”

“I know,” Hastings said.

“Yeah, I guess you do. You still pissed at him?”

“Who? Lincoln?”

“No, not Lincoln. Senator Dickhead, that’s who.”

“Not really.”

“Asshole,” Klosterman said. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to him.”

“What could you have said?”

“I could have told him we’re here because he requested our protection. We do our jobs and then he gives us shit about it so he can look good in front of his wife. Chickenshit.”