‘You know it hurts. It hurts to lose my only good bartender.’ Ollie was famous for bemoaning the sad quality of his hired help. ‘And for you to be a thief.’
‘I left an IOU.’
‘Which I believed, oddly,’ Ollie said. ‘I didn’t call the cops on you.’
‘The gun wasn’t registered anyway, Ollie,’ I said dryly. ‘I lost it but I brought you a better one.’ I handed him a sleek Beretta and a box of ammo I’d taken from The Last Minute.
‘This is fancy,’ he said. ‘I’ll never learn to shoot it.’
‘You never learned to shoot the other one,’ I said.
‘True. Where did you go?’
‘I went to go find my wife and my son.’ For some reason I was done lying with Ollie. I’d answer a direct question as much as I could. He was a good man. Mila adored him, had wanted to buy his bar for years. She and I had first met here; she was scouting me as a possible recruit.
This confession made Ollie blink. ‘Did you?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s good.’
‘I’m trying to find August without using a phone,’ I said. ‘I thought you might be willing to pass him a message for me.’
‘Are you allergic to phones?’
‘No.’
‘I hear they might cause brain cancer.’ Ollie was happiest when worrying. ‘He’s out front and he’s had a bit much.’
‘Is he alone?’
‘Yes, although there’s a good-looking lady eyeing him up four stools down.’
‘I am not one to interfere with the course of true love but do you think you could get him back here to talk to me without anyone knowing?’
‘Why should I do you a favor, Sam? After how you treated me?’
‘Ollie, do you want to retire?’
‘Yes.’
‘I will buy this bar from you when you retire. You don’t have to worry about that, I’ll pay a more than fair price.’
He blinked. ‘Quit your joshing.’
‘How many guys would come back and make stealing a gun right?’
‘Not many, but could I get that in writing?’
‘Like the IOU I was good for?’
‘Yep.’
I tore a label off a case of Newcastle Brown Ale and wrote on the back: I promise to buy Ollie’s Bar at a fair price when he’s ready to retire. Samuel Clemens Capra.
‘That’s your full name? You poor kid.’ Ollie inspected my handwriting for legibility and legal loopholes. ‘Huh. I thought your answer would be because I’m a nice guy.’
‘Well, that too.’
‘Okay. I’ll tell him I need him to help me move a beer keg. He’s drunk enough it might work.’
‘Thank you, Ollie.’
Two minutes later August came into the backroom. ‘Oh, hell,’ he said.
‘Hi.’
He regarded me with a shake of his head and sat down on a stack of cases of Heineken. ‘What the hell are you thinking? Well, taking you in with a broken arm should be easier.’
‘You’re not taking me in. We’re not going to fight. We have to figure out a way to work together. Are you okay? I’m sorry I hit you.’
‘I had to have three stitches.’ He pointed at the back of his head. ‘The Kum-ba-ya approach is a little late, Sam. You cost me my job today.’
I let ten seconds tick away. I couldn’t tell if he was furious or numb. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Well, that happens when you are supposed to pick up an untrained asset, who tells you to lose your tails because he’s hacked the camera system following you, and you and your team can’t subdue one ex-agent and you lose your asset.’ His voice rose in anger. ‘I’m sorry. I know you are doing this for your kid but, hell, you can’t do this, Sam. You’re in my custody.’
‘August. If you want your job back listen to me.’
‘I think bringing you in will get me my job back.’
‘It won’t. Because something inside Special Projects is broken, and you know it.’
August frowned at me.
‘You know Special Projects has been compromised. Either you have a mole, or your communications or networks are being monitored.’
‘We’ve found nothing.’
‘Jack Ming, in his old New York hacker days, his specialty was getting computer systems, as in printers, to send him information secretly. Tiny little sneaky bits of code that hide in other programs and harvest him what he needs. I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what he wrote for Nine Suns, and they’ve been using these software spies to extort and control people in key positions in business and in government.’
August rubbed at his chin. ‘Every traitor we’ve arrested since Lucy, they claimed they were blackmailed into doing this. We didn’t believe them.’
‘Either your systems have been compromised, or someone else has turned bad.’
‘Hell.’ August is not a big cusser.
‘August, you’re not the traitor, are you?’
‘No.’ He raised an eyebrow.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I had to ask.’
August tapped his foot against the concrete. ‘Those women you killed, what do you know about them?’
‘They were accused murderers, a sister act, who got a fresh start and new names. A man named Ray Brewster hid them and used them as hit women for hire. The guy I killed in New Jersey, who kidnapped Jack Ming’s mom, I think he might have worked for Brewster as well.’
‘Someone who gives murderers and psychopaths fresh IDs and a job as hired muscle.’
‘Do you know Ray Brewster?’
‘No.’ August shook his head. ‘Do you know the name Lindsay Partridge?’
‘No.’
‘She’s your red-haired sidekick.’
I waited.
‘Ex-forger and counterfeiter, CIA informant, we paid her off well, then two years ago she vanished.’
‘She gives people new identities now. Novem Soles has her kid, too.’
‘Part of her file is locked. I can’t open it, even with a Special Projects access. What’s her secret?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘Who are these bastards?’
‘One of them is a sex slaver named Yaakov Zviman. He seems to have moved into extortion as his mainstay, but he’s the one who put the million dollars on Mila’s head. I think he’s a power in the organization. You ever hear of him?’
‘No.’
‘I think that whatever information Jack Ming has relates to whatever Zviman’s doing now for Nine Suns. Maybe it’s the list of people that they control. We get that, we cut off a major source of information for them. The kind of programs Ming wrote would give Nine Suns power over people who could help them profit.’
August ran a hand through his blond hair. ‘Have you heard of Associated Languages School?’
‘Yeah. The owners of the property where Mrs Ming was taken. Old abandoned house in Morris County.’
August stood and began to pace by the cases of beer. ‘This fine language school also employs one of the dead women.’
‘Meggie or Lizzie Pearson? Those were their real names. Lizzie struck me as a person who would not work well with others.’
‘So they’re Nine Suns?’
‘Since they were trying to capture me, and I was Nine Suns’ errand boy, I think not. I believe they are working for someone else who wants to collect the money on Mila. They talked about putting me in a cage and extracting information from me. Apparently kidnapping and interrogation were their specialties.’
‘So we have Nine Suns after Jack Ming, and then a third party, and we don’t know how and even if they’re connected?’
‘We do not.’
‘I would love to have access to Special Projects files to see what we have on the women, but I’m supposed to go back to Langley next week and I’ll be given a janitorial job. Or maybe fry cook in the cafeteria.’
‘That’s honest work.’
‘Nothing wrong with it,’ August said. ‘My career is gone, Sam.’
I considered. ‘Was your boss eager to get rid of you?’
‘Not particularly. But today was a massive screw-up. A head had to roll and it wasn’t going to be his although he could survive the bullet. He could survive anything.’
‘Why?’
‘He’s retired officially, just brought back inside a couple of months ago to stiffen our backs and straighten our spines. Very old school, very much concerned about the honor of the Company, protecting its reputation. His name is Braun. Did you ever meet him?’