O’Brien’s jaw clenched. She shook with rage. “Get out of my sight. As of now, you’re relieved.”
“Now? You can’t be serious.”
“Yes, now. I don’t trust you anymore, which means you’re of no use to me.”
“So, what-you want me to just go home and sit on my hands in the middle of an investigation?”
“No,” O’Brien replied, tears brimming. “I want you to go home and pack.”
“You’re kicking me out?”
“I…I don’t know. But what I do know is, I need some space, because right now, I can’t even look at you.”
“Kate, c’mon. You know me. You know I didn’t mean for this to happen-or for any of it to blow back on you.”
“I thought I did,” O’Brien said. “It turns out, I don’t know you at all.”
35.
WHEN A BLEATING horn pierced the quiet, Hendricks went, by instinct, for his gun. Then he realized the sound was coming from his burner phone. Cameron-ever the technological smartass-must have set his ringer to the James Bond theme when she was mucking with it on the plane. He hadn’t heard it before because the phone had been silenced. Now the brassy music echoed shrilly through the cavernous space. He couldn’t help but think that Lester would’ve approved.
He and Segreti were holed up in a warehouse at the water’s edge. It was used to clean and store boats. The interior reeked of mildew and toluene. Water lapped against the nearby pilings. Amber light spilled through the filthy windows from the streetlights outside.
All around them were yachts of various sizes, shrink-wrapped in white plastic and propped up with rusted stands that looked like camera tripods. The warehouse doors-front, back, and enormous overhead garage-style-were sealed with police tape (which parted easily when sliced with an X-Acto knife and cut so cleanly that when the door was closed, it still appeared unbroken from a distance), and an official notice stuck to each declared the building cleared. The cops had searched it and moved on, which made it the perfect place to hide.
They never would’ve made it out of the Presidio if it hadn’t been for the fog, which only grew denser as the night wore on. Though the neighborhood surrounding the Broussard house was soon crawling with patrols, and the park’s perimeter was on high alert, no one could see more than ten feet in any direction. The toughest challenge in eluding them was not wrapping the Jaguar around a tree.
They ditched the car soon after, in a parking lot beside the Palace of Fine Arts. Then they hoofed it downslope to the marina. A lone uniformed cop walked its grounds. Slipping by him had been a breeze.
One of the larger yachts had an inflatable dinghy strapped to its stern. Hendricks and Segreti wrestled it into the water, and Hendricks rowed it into the bay, taking them as far as his arms could manage. Once they were a ways from shore, he let the motor do the work, wincing as it rumbled noisily to life.
Hendricks had been trying to contact Cameron ever since. Phone. Text. The e-mail account they’d set up for her in case she was forced to ditch her phone. But the calls went unanswered, the texts and e-mails unread. His failed attempts hung like ellipses, like a circuit waiting to be completed.
He answered the phone “Cameron?”
“Who the hell is Cameron?” was the reply.
Shit. Thompson.
“No one. Don’t worry about it. Why the hell are you calling me?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Your handiwork at the Presidio is all over CNN.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he lied-immediate, automatic.
“Cut the bullshit. I’ve seen pictures. You were there.”
Pictures? How? And then it clicked. “Son of a bitch,” Hendricks muttered, as much to himself as Thompson. “The Bellum operatives were wearing body cameras, weren’t they?”
“Yeah. Which means you can add the death of Lois Broussard, conspiracy to commit an act of terror, and a handful of federal assault charges to your résumé. The Bellum men are expected to pull through, in case you’re wondering.”
“I wasn’t. If I’d wanted to kill them, they’d be dead.”
“Like the Broussard woman?”
“I didn’t kill Lois-Yancey did.”
“That’s a fucking relief. Oh, wait-no, it’s not, because now my boss, my…” Thompson’s voice hitched with emotion. She gathered herself and tried again. “Now O’Brien knows we’ve been in touch. Knows I sent you. My career is ruined. I might wind up in jail.”
“You’re not going to wind up in jail. In fact, they’ll probably throw you a goddamn parade once you bring Segreti in from the cold and he clears this whole mess up.”
There was a long pause, and when Thompson next spoke, her tone was tinged with hope. “You’re telling me you have him, and he’s willing to testify?”
“He’s got some demands, but yeah.”
“What kind of demands?”
“For one, he’ll talk only to you-and he wants you to personally oversee the details of his protection.”
“Me? Why?”
“He remembers you a bit. Thought you seemed like a straight shooter.”
“I doubt it. When we met, I was just a green kid in over my head.”
“Yeah, well, I also might’ve vouched for you. Said you were trustworthy. That you’d keep him safe.”
“Okay,” she said, “what else?”
Hendricks hesitated. “Wherever you stash him, it has to be near a hospital with a decent oncology department.”
“You mean…”
“He’s sick.”
“How sick?”
“Hard to say. Last time he saw a doc was seven years ago. She told him he was in remission but that it could return at any time. He’s pretty sure it’s returned.”
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. You know how hard it is to make a case on the videotaped testimony of a criminal?”
“No. My methods are a little more direct.”
“Your methods are illegal.”
“So’s jaywalking. That doesn’t mean it’s not the fastest route. Consider his illness motivation to make your case in a timely fashion.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah.” Hendricks filled her in on the rest of Segreti’s demands. “So what do you say? Can you make that happen?”
“I-I think so.”
“You think so?”
“Well, I’m not exactly in the Bureau’s good graces right this second, but I’ll try.”
“Okay,” Hendricks said.
“Okay as in he’ll do it?”
“Okay as in I’ll talk to him and see what he has to say.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Stay safe out there. And try not to shoot anyone else.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said.
He hung up. Segreti, beside him, asked, “So how’d it go?”
“About as well as could be expected.”
“You okay? You ain’t looking too good.”
“I’ll be fine,” Hendricks said-although in truth, he was pretty sure his wound was infected. He felt achy and feverish. His skin was slick with sweat and radiated heat. He crossed his arms to quell his shivering. “Right now, I’m more worried about keeping you alive long enough to deliver you to Thompson.”
“Thanks, but I’ll tell you, I’d trade places with Lois in a heartbeat if I could.”
“Were, uh, you two…”
Segreti looked aghast. “No! Nothing like that. Not that I wouldn’t have…it’s just…when I found her, she was in a bad way. Her husband was on the bridge when the tugboat hit.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. We met by accident. I thought I was busting into an empty house. Turns out, I interrupted her while she was trying to off herself. She thought maybe I was meant to, that God had sent me to save her life. I don’t usually go in for that kind of thinking, but I really wanted to believe her. She was a nice lady. A good person. The world was better with her in it, and I figured that if I’d played a part in keeping her here, maybe my life wasn’t so worthless after all.”