“No.”
Payne chambered a bullet and held his Glock out in front of him.
Waller looked at the barrel of the gun and swallowed hard. “You’re not going to use that on me, you just said so yourself.”
“Truth is, Jon, I don’t know how I’m gonna react. I’m so damned confused… the stress is unbearable. I got hit in the head so hard I don’t even remember my wife. When you’re confused and stressed-out, and your back’s up against a wall, you get paranoid, you do things. Things you may regret later. Do you really wanna push me?”
Waller hesitated, his gaze shifting between Payne’s hollow, intense eyes and the barrel of the gun. He dug into his pocket, produced a small ring of keys, and tossed them at Payne, who removed the long, thin, black key. He dropped the rest to the floor and kicked them beneath Waller’s seat.
Payne motioned him on with the gun. “Now the bracelets.”
Waller reached behind him and pulled out the handcuffs.
“Attach one end to that pole in front of you.” Payne approached cautiously, keeping the weapon as far away from Waller’s reach as possible. He took the free end of the cuffs and fastened them to his partner’s right wrist. He reached into Waller’s inside suit pocket, removed his cell phone, and turned it off.
“Why are you doing this to me, Harper? I’ve been trying to help you.”
“Because I’ve got a whole bunch of questions and no answers. I need those answers to get on with my life. You’ve helped me, yes. You’ve done your job. You’ve shown me who I was. But now I need to find out who I am. Lauren Chambers has the answers I need, and for some reason, you’re keeping me from communicating with her. What are you afraid of?”
Waller sighed, shook his head. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but Knox was concerned that if you spoke with this woman who claimed to be your wife, we’d be placing her in danger, and you’d lose your focus on the trial. He wanted you to be totally free of any extraneous thoughts or complications. It was just going to be for a few more weeks.”
“That complication is my wife, Jon. I need to know how I fit into her life now.”
“A little while ago, you wanted to stay on the job, remember?”
“What’s that got to do with anything? I’m glad I’m back, I told you that. Believe me, that’s not the problem—”
“Then don’t fuck it up, Harper. Do your thing, take the stand and testify. Then your life’s your own. Stay or go. Your choice.”
“She thinks I’m missing. I need to at least tell her I’m okay.”
“I’ll see about getting word to her. We’ll make things right by you, I promise. But you’ve gotta help us out.” Waller nodded toward the cuffs. “You can start by getting these things off me.”
The train pulled to a stop at the Foggy Bottom station. Payne backed toward the door, then stopped.
“I need to do some thinking. Figure some things out.”
“Harper — don’t leave me here.”
“I need some space, some time.”
The tone sounded and the doors began to close. Payne jumped through them and stood there, watching Waller through the window. Waller’s face was a deep crimson, and he was yelling, using language Payne would’ve taken offense to if this had been some other time.
But this wasn’t some other time.
Payne turned away and headed toward the escalator. “Like you said, Jon… we do what we have to do.”
48
Scott Haviland stood at the bright opening to the Metro’s Archives-Navy Memorial Station. He stared down at the wallet in his left hand and saw Jonathan Waller’s smiling face looking up at him from the Virginia driver’s license. Not surprisingly, the wallet was nearly empty; photos of Waller’s two brothers were still inside, but the cash and credit cards were gone.
Haviland tucked the wallet inside his suit jacket and walked the length of the platform before descending a level and searching for a sign of either his partner or Harper Payne.
But he really did not expect to find them. He surmised that Payne had jumped on a train and that Waller had followed him aboard.
Haviland sat down on the bench and spread his arms across the seatback. The station manager had thought he recalled seeing two men matching their description entering the station a few minutes apart, but he could not be sure. Haviland turned his headfirst to the left, then to the right, taking in the expansive, high-ceilinged terminal. Very few people were in the station, and it was unlikely any of them had seen anything. If there had been an altercation, someone would’ve called 9-1-1, and police would be all over the place. Bottom line was that if his partner and Payne had been here, they weren’t here now, and that’s really all that mattered.
Haviland again tried reaching Waller’s cell phone, but was forwarded to his voicemail… which meant that either he had turned it off so it would not ring and give away his position, or he was for some reason unable to answer it. The uncertainty gnawed at him.
Haviland called his wife and told her not to wait up for him. He then slipped the phone back in his jacket pocket and began tapping out a rhythm on the cement floor with his foot.
He thought about calling Knox and informing him of their status. But he did not want to take the chance of someone intercepting the call, let alone that, if his partner was successful in apprehending Payne, he would not want the director to know they had lost him in the first place. No, he would hold off a little longer before hitting the panic button.
For the time being, he could do nothing but wait until Waller called him back.
At a few minutes past one in the morning, Haviland and Waller stood at Douglas Knox’s front door. They had called him a few moments ago to wake him and let him know it was urgent they meet with him immediately.
They sat down heavily in the chairs arranged in front of his desk and briefed their boss on the events of the past few hours.
The director wore a burgundy robe and leather moccasins, his gray hair tousled and his complexion ruddy and disturbed. “What am I supposed to do, huh? What the hell am I supposed to do?” he bellowed.
Waller kept his eyes on the desk in front of him. “I’m sorry, sir.”
“Sorry?”
Waller knew it was the wrong thing to say — but he genuinely meant it. He felt responsible for allowing a key witness in one of the most important FBI cases in decades to escape. No matter how he wrote up his report, there was no way to avoid disciplinary action. But how it would affect his career wasn’t his biggest concern. It was saving face in front of the director. “He’s one of us, I thought I could trust him.”
“And the CIA thought it could trust Aldrich Ames,” Knox spat.
Waller cringed at the comparison to one of the most damaging spy cases ever to hit the U.S. intelligence community. He knew the two situations were vastly different, but he kept the thought to himself. “Yes, sir. I blew it. Nothing I say can excuse what I did.”
“I shoulder some of the responsibility as well, sir,” Haviland said.
“Fine, you’re a fuckup, too.” Knox stood, shoved his hands into the robe’s pockets, and began pacing. “How could you let this happen? Do you realize what’s on the line? We’ve got a court date four weeks away. With Payne, I’ve got control over what happens. Without him…”
Waller glanced at Haviland, who was staring straight ahead at the bookcase. Waller felt like reminding the director that they did not have Scarponi either — and without the defendant, the trial would be of limited value. But he decided to keep his thoughts to himself.
“Have you got any idea of where he might be?” Knox finally asked. “Any way of tracking him?”