“Brian’s fault,” DeSantos said. “He was complaining about how cold he was. I was trying to distract him, take his mind off it.”
Archer threw DeSantos a nasty look, then turned to Knox. “You said it was urgent.”
The director nodded, then shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. “Payne is going to be in Fredericksburg tomorrow night, five-thirty, Princess Anne Building. He’s set up a rendezvous with his wife.”
DeSantos was itching to ask how Knox had gotten hold of that information, but in the intelligence community, such details were unimportant. When a job was bearing down on you, what mattered was the here and now, and what lay ahead. The past was old news. If you knew and trusted your sources, how certain data came across your desk was generally of little importance.
“Does Payne know we’re going to be there?” Archer asked.
“As far as he’s concerned, he’s going there to meet his wife. We’re not part of the equation. If he senses we’re there, he’ll take off. We’re not his favorite people right now.”
“Obviously you don’t need us to be chaperones,” DeSantos said wryly.
“Scarponi is going to be there, too.”
A shrill gust kicked up a swirl of loose soil and slapped it against their coats. Archer shrugged it off and took a step closer to Knox, who was rubbing some grains of dirt from his eyes. “Are you sure?”
“The news leak on Payne’s amnesia,” Knox said. “I had it back-traced and found its source. Not the person, but the pathway. I planted a dummy message and sent it back along the same channels. I’m betting our mole forwards it on to Scarponi.”
“This the same mole who was feeding Scarponi six years ago, after his trial?”
“I’m sure of it,” Knox said.
“A bit risky, isn’t it?” Archer asked.
Knox squinted angrily, then hung his head and began to pace. After moving a handful of steps in each direction, he zeroed in on Archer’s face. DeSantos moved closer as well, and the three of them now formed a tight triad. If nothing else, their proximity generated heat.
“I intend to recapture Scarponi,” Knox said firmly. “I won’t — I can’t — tell the president he’s escaped. And I sure as hell can’t tell him that Payne also took leave of our company either, now, can I? The buck stops on my desk, gentlemen. So if I have a chance to capture both of them in one operation, I’m going to take that stone and kill the two birds.” He paused for a long second, then said, “To make this happen, I need your help.”
DeSantos looked at Archer and instantly knew what his partner was thinking: How much of what Knox was saying was the truth, and how much was bullshit, laid out for the purpose of using them to get Scarponi back for his group? In the split second that this all bounced around in his mind, he decided not to broach the topic, and he hoped that Archer would feel the same way. With all they had seen so far, he did not feel they could fully trust Knox. At least, not yet.
“I need one of you to hover on the perimeter, the other on the inside. Grab Scarponi and take him safely into custody.” Knox said it matter-of-factly, as if he were asking them to go shopping for groceries. “Once you have him in your vehicle, you will proceed to the safe house on Mission. And I don’t have to tell you to exercise extreme caution with him at all times.”
“What kind of backup will we have?” DeSantos asked, already knowing the answer.
“None. No one can know we’re expecting Scarponi to be there. All other available agents will be focused on identifying and safely securing Payne.” Knox pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Archer, who opened it. “A map of historic Fredericksburg. The X’s show where all my agents will be. You two are the Y’s. We can only guess where Scarponi will be, but I’ve denoted his possible locations with Z’s.”
“This is gonna be one hell of a fucked-up operation,” DeSantos said, shaking his head. The logistics of it all were fraught with problems, a fact he was sure Knox was aware of.
The director’s face hardened suddenly, and with barren trees swaying in the wind against the park’s streetlights, shadows cut angrily across his features. “No, this will not be a fucked-up operation, Hector. If it is, we lose Scarponi, maybe for good. No matter how much he wants Payne, at some point he may decide it’s not worth it. In which case we’ll never see his sorry ass again.” Knox pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket and ignited the corner of the map Archer was holding. The paper began to burn, the flames flickering in the wind, reducing the map to carbon.
As the ashes floated away on the breeze, a blast of wind caught DeSantos’s wool coat and ruffled the bottom, sending tendrils of cold air up his back. They skipped across the gooseflesh that was covering his arms and legs, causing him to shiver.
DeSantos thought about what Knox was proposing and was uneasy. He had studied Scarponi’s file in depth. Like a dog trained to sniff ordnance, he felt he understood his adversary well. And he knew that Scarponi would never give up. Not until his target had successfully been neutralized. No, either Harper Payne or Anthony Scarponi was going to end up dead in Fredericksburg.
And it was becoming increasingly clear that if Knox had his way, the one carted away in the meat wagon was going to be Harper Payne.
57
When Harper Payne awoke in the small, cheap Fredericksburg motel room, he rubbed his eyes, wondering if the dreams he’d had last night were authentic memories of times with Lauren or fabrications of what he imagined their lives to have been like. They were so real… they had to be real. He sat on the edge of the mattress, grinding his teeth, angry at himself for having lost his memory, at having lost his connection to a life that he was beginning to think must have been enormously satisfying and fulfilling.
He thought of Lauren, of what he remembered — or imagined — her to be like. More memories began to crackle in his mind like the flash of lightning against a clouded night sky…
The time they got lost in Tahoe while hiking in the mountains, spending the evening wrapped in each other’s arms.
The white splash of stars across the night sky, the sound of coyotes howling in the distance. What had begun as an intensely frightening experience became a fiercely romantic one…
Feelings, emotions, isolated images. They had to be real.
Sitting there on the bed, he thought of what it would be like seeing her face again, smelling her hair, holding her.
He could feel her now. Her soft skin, the shape of her toned arms, the sloping curve of her back as it swooped down into her waist. How wonderful it felt to be able to see her again, to be able to remember. It was like being liberated from solitary confinement. In some ways, it was worse… unlike a jailed felon, he had done nothing wrong — he was a victim of a mind trapped within itself, unable to find a way out.
With his memories coming back to him, he felt energized. Stronger, more determined. He stood up and walked into the bathroom to shower. Five hours until he would see her again.
Only this time, it would not be a dream.
It was four-thirty in the afternoon and the sun had begun its orange burn as it headed for cover behind the backs of buildings and, ultimately, the horizon.
Payne had chosen to reunite with Lauren in historic Fredericksburg, a small colonial Virginia town. There were museums, such as the one devoted to former president James Monroe, as well as the Mary Washington House and the old-time Hugh Mercer Apothecary, where the sick were treated with bloodletting, anesthetic-less limb amputations, and crude, homemade pharmaceutical remedies.