“Just send me, then. I’ll go alone. Work the trail. See if I can bring him in. Surely the director can’t object to that.”
O’Brien frowned. Said nothing. Thompson’s eyes widened in understanding.
“This isn’t coming from the director, is it? This is you. You’re the one making the call not to go get him.”
“Listen, Charlie-”
“Why should I? It’s clear you haven’t been listening to me.”
O’Brien’s face showed hurt and anger. “You’d do well to take a breath and remember who you’re talking to. Right now, fiancée has to take a backseat to commanding officer.”
“Fine. As my commanding officer, you need to let me do my goddamn job. Tell me, did you even ask the director? When you were on the conference call, did you even bring Segreti up?”
“What do you want me to say? No, I didn’t fucking bring him up. The country is under attack. You really think I ought to tell my boss and every AD in the Bureau that we should divert time and effort from hunting down the TIC because the employee I’m sleeping with has a bee in her bonnet?”
“So now I’m just some office lay with a head full of silly notions?”
“Of course not. But as hurtful as he was, your father was right about one thing: we need to look at this objectively, to think about how others in the Bureau would see it.”
“And here I thought they’d see it as an opportunity to rectify one of the biggest blunders in Bureau history. But then, you never gave them the chance.”
“Believe me, Charlie. I did you a favor. If I pitched your pet project today of all days, neither of us would be taken seriously again.”
“Fine. Then let me go get him.”
“I can’t. You know I can’t.”
“Just give me seventy-two hours-that’s all I ask.”
“I’m sorry. There’s too much work to do. The director’s ordered both of us to return to DC as soon as possible. I’m going to get us on the next flight. We can have one of the staffers here drive your car back down.”
“You know what? I think I’ll save them the trouble and drive it back myself. I could use a few hours to cool off.”
11.
SAL LOMBINO TOOK a breath to steady himself and plucked the handset from its cradle. He dialed the number of the chairman’s latest burner from memory. Sal had a head for figures. It used to come in handy when he had to calculate the vig back in his loan-shark days.
The phone rang seven times before the chairman answered, the voice mail, as ever, disabled.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve calling me today. Don’t you watch the news?”
“I do, Mr. Chairman,” Sal replied. “In fact, that’s why I’m calling.”
“I’m afraid I don’t follow.”
“That old guy on the cell-phone video they been showing every ten seconds? That’s Frank Segreti. As in-”
“I know who he is,” the chairman snapped, irritated that Sal had broken his cardinal rule: never use a name when talking on an unsecured phone line.
“Then you know the damage he could do to all our efforts if he were to resurface. Which means we need to find him and ensure he never does.”
“Then convene a meeting. Take a vote. And leave me out of it.”
“There isn’t time, and even if there were, there’s no guarantee that the vote would go our way.”
“So, what, then? You want my approval to spend Council funds to go after him? You’ve got it.”
“Thank you, sir. But I’m afraid I need more than money.”
“Like what?”
“We’ve got an asset in our pocket who stands to lose at least as much as we do if the, uh, gentleman in question reappears. But right now, he’s otherwise occupied, so I wouldn’t dare call on him without your say-so.”
“Are you kidding me? Do you realize what you’re asking? We need him to stay on task. If he’s burned now, a key component of our endgame will be compromised.”
“I’m aware of that, sir. And I won’t lie-it’s a possibility. But our endgame’s in jeopardy either way if we don’t neutralize this threat. Besides, under the circumstances, I’d say he owes us big.”
“On that, we are agreed-but are you sure that he’s the right man for the job? You know what a goddamn mess he made the last time, and apparently, he still managed to miss his fucking target.”
Sal knew all too well. He’d seen the coroner’s reports. Limbs torn from bodies. Flesh and hair reduced to ash. Shattered fragments of tooth and bone picked out of ceiling joists. “I don’t think we have much choice-but this time, I’ll insist on video confirmation.”
There was a long pause on the chairman’s end. “Fine. Do it. And leave me out of this from here on in. I don’t want to hear another peep from you until Segre-until the matter is settled,” he said carefully. “Am I understood?”
“Yes, Mr. Chairman.”
“Good. Because your continued…employment…depends on it.”
The chairman disconnected. Sal sat there for a moment listening to the hiss of the dead line. Then he returned the phone’s receiver to its cradle and let out a ragged sigh.
“Who was that, Daddy?”
Sal looked up to see his daughter, Izzie, in the doorway. He’d left her finger-painting in the kitchen, her reward for half an hour’s piano practice. Her hands were smeared with paint in every color of the rainbow. There was a dot of glossy green on her nose.
“Nobody, sweetheart. A wrong number. C’mon, let’s get you washed up.”
12.
YOU READY?” Cameron asked.
Hendricks checked to be sure the bedsheet they’d used to tie his ankles to the far end of the futon frame was secure, and he looped his arms around the metal armrest that currently served as its headboard. He rolled his neck, eliciting a crack, and exhaled deeply, willing himself to relax. Then he nodded. He was unable to speak because Cameron’s belt was clenched between his teeth.
“Good. That makes one of us.” She uncapped the bottle of rubbing alcohol she was holding and then placed a hand on the towel resting against Hendricks’s knife wound. Until recently, her belt had held it in place. “Hold on tight-this is gonna suck.”
She peeled back the towel. Clotted blood caused Hendricks’s skin to stick to it for a moment before releasing. When raw wound met open air, he drew a sharp breath and bit down harder on the belt. Cameron recoiled at the sight of his parted flesh striated pink and red. Then, with obvious reluctance, she doused it liberally with alcohol.
Every muscle in Hendricks body tensed at once. He lurched uncontrollably on the futon, his neck corded, his face red and then purple. His entire body broke out in a sheen of acrid sweat. A hex nut loosened by his thrashing shook free, and the support strut on the futon frame gave out. It banged against the floor, and the mattress canted precariously.
Eventually, Hendricks’s agony subsided. His muscles relaxed, and he released the armrest. He collapsed atop the tilted mattress, limbs quivering, and gulped air while he marshaled his wits.
That’s when he noticed a sharp rapping-from the door, he thought at first, visions of an approaching SWAT team dancing through his head. But then he realized it was coming from the floor.
Cameron noted Hendricks’s narrowed eyes, his calculating expression, and said, “Don’t worry. That’s just my downstairs neighbor, Wayne.” Then, toward the floor, she shouted, “You can stop anytime now, Wayne! I’m not making noise anymore!”
The rapping stopped. Hendricks looked from the floor to Cameron. “Do we have to worry about him?” he asked.
“Worry how?”
“That he’ll get suspicious. That he’ll call the cops.”
Cameron laughed. “Oh, he’s plenty suspicious already. But unless he stopped dealing weed since I left for work this morning, I think we’re okay.”