It was also just barely possible that the document was legitimate. That, through one machination or another, Atticus Kodiak had been presented to Interpol as an assassin-for-hire. I had no doubt that the crimes listed had actually occurred, and in that case, it would have been a small matter to manufacture the evidence that linked me to these murders. We were talking about The Ten, after all; we were talking about people like Alena and Oxford. When they did their work, they left little behind in the way of evidence. For them, supposition and rumor were often all that existed to tie their presence to the crime.
Bowles arched his left eyebrow in amusement. "You think I made this up?"
"No," I said.
"Good."
"I think you're too busy being someone else's errand boy," I said. "You probably had a lackey do it back at the White House."
"I'm in the private sector now, Atticus."
"You weren't when you recruited Illya."
"Having trouble recalling that name, actually."
"So who are you working for?" I asked. "Who is it who's pulling your strings, giving you your orders? Someone in the administration? Someone connected to it?"
He rocked back in his chair in mock surprise. "You've got questions?"
"Bushels of them. I want to know who, and I want to know where, and I might even go after the why, if I feel like it."
"Why?"
"Cold Spring." I looked past Bowles, to Sean, still seated on the couch. If he'd moved at all, I couldn't tell. "Why this guy and his gun-buddies Grant and Mark tried to kill me. Why the second team went after the safe house. Questions like that. After the thing with Oxford, it was supposed to be finished, Matt. You'd pulled the plug. You said that was that."
At the mention of the gunfight, Sean's right hand moved slightly, started up towards his shoulder. He arrested it, dropped it back into his lap. The eyefuck that had been at an eleven stayed steady and straight, and it struck me that it was his act, his part in these proceedings. Whether or not he actually hated my guts for shooting him, I couldn't tell, but I wouldn't have blamed him if he did.
"Does it ache?" I asked him. "Because of the cold?"
"There was a lot of blood on the ground," Sean remarked. "Some of it was yours."
"Some of it was. But none of it was because of you."
Bowles moved his right hand, waving it slightly back in Sean's direction, keeping him from retorting. He needn't have bothered. Sean didn't seem at all inclined to take the bait.
"You've got so many questions," Bowles told me. "I have only one: Where is she?"
I creased my brow. "Drama?"
"Yes. Where is she, Patriot?"
"Fuck if I know," I said. "Haven't seen her since that clusterfuck of yours three years ago."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"Not really, no."
"Where is she?"
"I don't know," I said, and it sounded honest because it was honest.
"We need to talk to her," Bowles said. "You bring her in, we can do a deal for the two of you."
"A deal?"
Bowles nodded.
"I'm trying to guess what that would be," I said. "All I can come up with is two head shots for the price of one."
"What happened in Cold Spring was a mistake. Let's move past that. It was fallout from Oxford, that's all it was. An overzealous mistake. Orders got confused, wires got crossed. It was a mistake."
"You're right," I agreed. "It was."
He missed my meaning entirely, continuing. "We're trying to correct that. We've been trying to correct that for the last few years, here. But you and Drama, the two of you up and vanished. How were we going to make it right when we couldn't even find you guys to do it?"
"So you make it right by beating me, cuffing me, and then dragging me into the middle of the woods to ask some questions?"
"If I'd just come knocking on your door back in Whitefish all alone, you'd have been happy to talk? With you blaming me for what happened in Cold Spring, like you just said?"
"I put in the passport application for a reason."
"You wanted us to find you, I get that. What you don't seem to get is that you're one of The Ten, Atticus. You're one of the motherfucking Ten, you're one of the most lethal, most dangerous, most skilled professional assassins working in the world today. You're Oxford, Atticus. You're Drama. You've become the person that-back when your head was on straight and you protected people for a living instead of whacking them-scared you so bad you would pee yourself."
"Flatterer," I said.
"So you can understand why I might be suspicious of your motives, how I might think going to meet you by myself would be a good way to end up quickly dead."
"I put the application in for a reason," I repeated.
"Because you have questions."
I moved my cuffed hands up and touched my nose with an index finger.
"Back where we started," Bowles said. "Where is Drama?"
"I told you, I don't know. Who wants us dead? Who was it who put Sean here and his Soldier of Fortune buddies on us?"
Bowles shook his head, growing aggravated. "Not going to work like that."
"If it's someone in the current administration, it's someone pretty high up but not high-profile. Someone with enough influence to shut down any media attention about what happened that morning in Cold Spring, at the least. How many dead? Two at the Citgo and another six or so at the safe house? That really should have made the news, don't you think? Someone had to dance pretty damn quick to hush it all up."
Bowles shook his head again. "Where is she, Atticus?"
"You want something for nothing," I said. "You've got me cuffed and beaten here, you think I'm going to just give up the only bargaining chip I have?"
"Yes," he said. "I think you will."
Sean and his buddy on the couch got to their feet.
"You're not going to beat it out of me," I told Bowles.
"You are an arrogant son of a bitch," he snapped, suddenly furious. "You're standing on nothing, you realize that? You're standing on fucking thin air, you're the goddamn coyote in those cartoons the second before he realizes he's off the cliff, you're just too damn stupid or stubborn to realize that gravity's got you by the balls. You cannot beat this thing, don't you get it? You're one of The Ten, now, you've got no friends, you've got nothing. I make one call, every cop in five hundred miles comes hunting for you. I make a second one, the FBI joins the chase."
The one who wasn't Sean moved to the hall, called out a "hey." Almost instantly, the two he'd been speaking with when he went to fetch the water emerged from the kitchen. Like the others, they were Caucasians, mid-to-late thirties, wearing more denim and flannel. The one who wasn't Sean motioned them to join us.
Bowles got out of his chair, closing the lid of his laptop. "You're going to give her up. You can save yourself a lot of discomfort if you do it now."
"Who gave the order?" I asked. "Who sent you here?"
"Take him outside," Bowles told Sean.
"A name," I told him. "Just give me the name, I'll give you what you want."
Bowles shot a glance at me, ripe with disgust.
"Even if I gave it to you, Atticus, you wouldn't be able to do a damn thing with it," Matthew Bowles said.
CHAPTER
When he said, "Take him outside," what Bowles actually meant was take him outside, strip him down, and then beat the living shit out of him, preferably by knocking him down in the snow over and over again. It meant don't speak to him, and it meant don't do anything that will keep him from talking when he eventually decides to, and it meant take your time, because the cold is frankly more effective than your feet or your fists will be, but all three in concert, that should do the trick quite nicely.
It meant that bringing a bucket of water from the bathroom and throwing it on him might also be a good idea, just to help things along. When they moved to grab me, I went for Bowles's laptop and broke the nose of the guy who'd brought me water with it. Then I tried to kill one of the others by ramming the corner of the computer into his trachea. He moved, and I missed, and hit him high on the sternum instead, and since I was having to deal with the three others at the same time, I don't fault myself for failing. I got a kick into the side of someone's knee, and had the gratification of hearing him cry out before Sean tackled me, and then I lost the laptop.