“So he’s taken the chemicals someplace else.”
“And we don’t have a fucking clue where,” the FBI agent muttered. “We’ll keep looking. I’ll get back to you, Harry.”
The line went dead.
“No luck,” Middleton muttered. He sipped coffee and finished a candy bar. He told himself it was for the energy; in fact, he mostly needed the comfort of the chocolate. “At least I gave Faust the wrong information about the code in the music. He can only get so far with the gas.”
“But with trial and error,” Kaminski asked, “he could he come up with the right formula?”
“Yeah, he could. And a lot of people’ll die — and the deaths’d be real unpleasant.”
They sat silently for a moment then he glanced at Perez. “You looked pretty comfortable with that Beretta.” As he had with the Colt when he took down Eleana Soberski.
His son in law laughed. “I stayed clear of the family business in it Lose-iana. “But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t aware of the family business.” A coy smile. “But you know that, right?”
Middleton shrugged. “I ran a check on you, sure. You were marrying my daughter…If there’d been a spec of dirt in your closet, Charley wouldn’t have a hyphenated name right now.”
“I respect looking out for kin, Harry. I’ll be the same way with my…” His voice faded and he looked down, thinking, of course, of the child they’d almost had. Middleton touched his arm, squeezed.
Kaminski asked, “My uncle knew you as a musicologist, uno professore. But you are much more than that, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Well, I was. I worked for the army and the government. Then I had a group that tracked down war criminals.”
“Like the man who killed my uncle?”
“Yes.”
“You said ‘had.’ What happened?”
“The group broke up.”
“Why?” Perez asked.
Middleton decided to share the story with them. “There was an incident in Africa. The four of us tracked down a warlord in Darfur. He’d been stealing AIDS drugs from the locals and selling children as soldiers. We did an extraordinary rendition — lured him to international waters and were going to fly him back to The Hague for trial. Then our main witnesses against him all died quote accidentally in a fire. They were in a safe house. The doors were locked and it burned. Most of them had their families with them. Twenty children died. Without the witnesses there was no trial. We had to let him go. I was going to head back to Darfur and make a case against him for the fire but Val — Valentin Brocco — lost it. He heard the man smirking about how he’d beaten us. Val pulled him out back and shot him in the head.
“I couldn’t keep going after that. I disbanded the group. You’ve got to play by the rules. If you don’t, their side wins. We’re no better than they are.”
“It looks like it bothered you very much,” Kaminski said.
“They were my friends. It was hard.”
And one of them was much more than just a friend. But this was part of the story Middleton didn’t share.
His phone beeped. He glanced at the screen and read the lengthy SMS message. “Speak of the devil…It’s Lespasse and Nora,” he explained. “This is interesting…They talked to one of our old contacts. He found out that machinery that could be used to make a bio-weapon delivery systems was shipped to a factory in downtown Baltimore yesterday.” He looked up. “I’ve got an address. I think I’ll go check it out.” He said to Perez, “You take Felicia someplace safe and—”
The man shook his head. “I’m going with you.”
“It’s not your fight, Jack.”
“These are terrorists. It’s everybody’s fight. I’m with you.”
“You sure about that?”
“You’re not going anywhere without me.”
Middleton gave him an affectionate nod. He then subtly pulled his service Glock from his waistband and, holding the gun under the table, checked the ammunition. “I’m short a few rounds. Let me see your Beretta.”
Perez slipped him the weapon, out of sight.
Middleton looked over the clip. “You’ve got twelve and one in the hole. I’m going to borrow three or four.”
“Ah, you don’t have to pay me back,” his son-in-law said, grim-faced. Then smiled. “Give ‘em to Faust instead.”
Middleton laughed.
They left the diner and walked Kaminski to a hotel up the street. Middleton gave her some money and told her to check in and stay out of sight until they called.
“I want to go,” she protested.
“No, Felicia.”
“My uncle’s dead because of this man.”
He smiled at her. “This isn’t your line of work. Leave it to the experts.”
Reluctantly she nodded and turned toward the hotel lobby.
Middleton climbed into the driver’s seat of Perez’s car and together the men sped over streets that grew progressively rougher as cobblestones showed through the worn asphalt.
He said, “The delivery was to Four Thirty Eight West Ellicott Street. It’s about a mile from here.” Middleton then glanced to his right. Perez was shaking his head, smiling.
The father-in-law squinted in curiosity. “What?”
“Funny. You and your friends.”
“Who? Lespasse and Nora?”
“Yeah.”
“What about them?”
The voice was now sharp with sarcasm. “Supposed to be so fuckin’ good at your job. And here you are, chasing down a bum lead.”
“What’re you talking about?”
The Beretta appeared fast. Middleton flinched as he felt the muzzle against his neck. His son-in-law took the Glock, tossed it in the back, along with Middleton’s cell phone. Then he undid his father-in-law’s seatbelt, but kept his own hooked.
“What’s going on?” Middleton gasped.
“The gas delivery system was shipped to Virginia, not Baltimore. We drove it up. Whatever’s on Ellicott Street, it doesn’t have anything to do with us.”
“Us?” Middleton whispered. “You’re with them, Jack?”
“’fraid so, Dad. Turn right here. Head to the waterfront.”
“But—”
The black automatic prodding Middleton’s ear. “Now.”
He did as he was told, following directions to a deserted pier, lined with old warehouses. Perez ordered him to stop. The pistol never wavering, he directed Middleton out of the car and pushed him through an old doorway.
Faust glanced up as if they were guests right on time for a party. In overalls, wearing thick gloves, he was standing at a cluttered worktable littered with tools, tubing and electronic or computer parts. A pallet of gas tanks was nearby. There were 50 or so of them. “Danger — Biohazard” was printed on them in six languages.
Faust gave a fast appraisal of Middleton. “Search him.”
“I already—”
“Search him.”
Perez patted him down. “Clean.”
Middleton shook his head. “I don’t get it…Jack shot Nacho.”
Faust grimaced. “We had to sacrifice the greasy little prick — so you’d believe Mr. Perez here and give us the real musical code. I doubted you’d be honest with me back there.”
“He wasn’t,” Perez confirmed. “He claimed he wasn’t thinking clearly. But I’m sure he was lying. He told me how it works.” He explained what Middleton had said about adjusting the pitch of A and using a simple electronic tuning device to decode the formula.
Faust was nodding. “Hadn’t considered that. Of course.”