Cut and Run (3 page)

If she spotted him before he spotted her, what would come of it? Larson wondered. Would she fight through the crowd to be in his arms? Would she run? Again he put his own training onto her, deciding for her that she'd selected an aisle seat near an exit. She'd probably make for that exit rather than risk running into him.

He'd lost all track of the play. The audience erupted in laughter, and he'd missed the joke. He continued to imagine various ways this could possibly be her, but none made sense. Not here. Not St. Louis. Not unless she, too, were looking for him.

Six years
. It seemed alternately to him like both a matter of days and a lifetime. What would he say to her? Her to him? Would she even care?

Larson wiped his damp palms on the thighs of his khakis. Again, a wave of laughter washed over the crowd. But this time, something different: her distinctive laugh was no longer a part of it. Larson turned again in his seat, scanning various exits. No sign of Hope, but slightly behind him, a pair of men in dark suits stood with an usher, both dutifully scanning the crowd.

In an audience of twenty-five hundred, there were plenty of men wearing suits—but none quite like these two. Conservative haircuts, thick builds. The big guy looked all too familiar. Federal agents, like himself. Though not like him at all. FBI maybe, or ATF, or even Missouri boys, working for the governor. A WITSEC deputy? The federal witness security and protection service was now a separate entity, but had recently been part of the Marshals Service.

Larson knew many of those guys, but not all. These two, WITSEC? He doubted it.

He might have thought they were looking for Hope, but the big one looked right at him and locked on. This man somehow knew the row, the seat—he knew where to find Larson. Cocking his head, the agent directed Larson to meet up with them. Larson held off acknowledging while he thought long and hard about how to play this, the earlier buzzing of his BlackBerry now more persistent in his memory.

As with Hope's laugh, two deputy marshals, or agents, materializing at the Fox was anything but coincidence.

He felt tempted to check the BlackBerry but didn't want to leave his head down that long. The big guy's posture and the way he bit his lower lip revealed a gnawing anxiety, a nagging unrest. This wasn't a social call.

A nearby woman wore too much perfume. He'd been struggling with it through the performance, driven to distraction. Only now did he find it nauseating.

The audience laughed uproariously.

Larson chanced a last strained look toward the balcony, then gave it up.

Hope didn't miss anything. Whether she'd seen Larson or not, she'd likely have spotted the suits by now, and therefore was already well on her way to gone.

Intermission arrived with a wave of crushing applause. The stage fell dark. By the time the houselights came up, Larson had already slipped past four sets of knees, avoided a handbag, and laid his big hand on a stranger's shoulder.

Hope would now head in the opposite direction from the two agents; she would quickly put as much distance between herself and the theater as possible. Seek cover. Avoid public space. She would never look back and would not hurry, no matter how desperate she believed her situation. Her walk would be controlled, yet deceptively swift, her demeanor casual though determined. She would never return to the theater again, no matter what the show. If he were to catch her, he would have to run; and if he ran, the two bloodhounds were sure to follow; and if they followed, and if he led them to her, then he'd prove himself a traitor to her.

Stuck. Larson tested the agents' purpose by mixing himself into the throng and making for the opposite exit. But his head traveled a full head above most, like a parade float.

As expected, the two immediately followed, rudely pushing open a route to attempt to intersect Larson's path. Larson got caught in a snag of people as a wheelchair blocked the aisle. He cut through a now-empty row, working away from the men. Copies of
Playbill
littered the floor. He joined the right flank and pressed on toward an interior lobby, where people mingled looking lost.

Out of habit, he tested his skills, scanning the crowd for any woman wearing a headscarf or a hat, any woman making quickly for the main lobby and the doors beyond. He didn't spot her, and all the better. He had no desire to get her tangled up with these two.

Someone shouted and he knew it was for him. Adrenaline pricked his nerves. His stomach turned with the mixture of human sweat, cologne, and perfume. He pushed on to his left, his swollen bladder taking him down a long, wide set of elegant stairs as he joined a phalanx of men eager for urinals. He heard his name called out and cringed. It reminded him, not favorably, of being singled out by a coach, or the school principal.

He hazarded a look: The big one with the leather face and edgy disposition was following him, the younger one immediately on his heels.

He stopped on the stairs, and the current of impatient men streamed around him. He addressed his two pursuers as they drew closer, the face of the more senior of them revealing his surprise that Larson would allow himself to be caught.

“Gimme a minute of privacy,” Larson said as he continued down, determined to appear unruffled.

Reaching the basement level, he entered a cavernous anteroom that held only a mirror, a small wooden table, and twin tapestry chairs that looked to be from a museum. Beyond this anteroom was the actual bathroom, about the size of a soccer field. Sinks straight ahead. To his left, a room of stalls; to his right a roomful of old porcelain urinals—there must have been thirty or forty of them. Built into the wall and floor, and so obviously antiques, the urinals looked surprisingly beautiful to him.

Larson took his place in line and emptied his bladder. One of the great pleasures in life.

“We need to talk.” The same low voice, now directly behind him. The big one had followed him down. Junior Mint was no doubt standing sentry at the top of the stairs, ensuring that Larson didn't slip out.

“And I need to pee,” Larson said, not looking back, but the magic of the moment spoiled.

A hand fell firmly onto his shoulder.

“Fuck off!” Larson shrugged and wrenched himself forward, dislodging the grip. Thankfully the man stepped back and let him finish. As he washed his hands he saw two images of the big pain in the ass in the cracked mirror.

“That was unnecessary,” Larson cautioned. He wanted to establish some rules.

The agent said, “We were told you could be slippery. To respect that in you. That's why the hardball.”

The guy at the next sink over stopped washing and eavesdropped on them.

“You trying to butter me up?” Larson asked. “You've got a funny way of doing that.”

“I'm trying to get a message to you.”

Larson had to stare down the man at the adjacent sink to get him to leave.

“So, deliver it.”

“Here?”

Larson turned and faced the man, Larson taller by several inches. “Here.”

Seen close up, this other guy's face carried an unintentional intensity—something, somewhere, was very, very wrong.

The man cupped his hand and leaned in toward Larson, who did nothing to block him, as his own hands were now engaged with a paper towel. The guy's breath felt warm against Larson's neck, causing a shiver as he said, “I was told to tell you that we've lost Uncle Leo.”

Larson dumped the towel into the bin and heard himself mumble, “Oh, shit.”

CHAPTER TWO

Larson had picked up people from private jets
before: a supervisor; some WITSEC brass; a witness or two came to mind. But he'd never flown in a private jet himself, so although the cause was a man's disappearance, and the resulting tension inside the aircraft nearly palpable, he got a kick out of it nonetheless. Leather seats the size of first class held his large frame comfortably. Wood trim, polished like the dash of a Jaguar, surrounded a wall-mounted flat-panel TV that currently displayed their flight route over ground but probably could have handled a video, had either of the agents been interested in some entertainment. There was even an air phone that none of them had permission to use. Heady stuff, despite the lack of any offer of food or drink, beyond bottled water, and the general mood of its inhabitants, both of whom bordered on morose.

Larson wished his parents had been alive to hear about this, but he'd lost them both to twentieth-century plagues: his father to smoking, his mother to drink. He'd had a sister once, but she'd gotten lost in her high school years and had run away, never to be heard from again. He'd never used his tracking skills to hunt her down, and he wondered if someday he might.

The explanation for him taking this flight had been cryptic at best—Uncle Leo had gone missing. The wherefore and how had yet to reach him. But the promise of a nearly instant return flight once there, also on the private jet, had convinced him not to challenge this assignment. Few people could summon a government jet at a moment's notice; fewer still to transport his rank of deputy marshal. He was considered little more than a glorified bounty hunter, so why the special treatment? He'd decided to ride this one out, despite his tendency to question orders and cause headaches for his superiors, because he suspected that Scott Rotem, his immediate superior and boss, was behind the order. Neither of his companions would confirm this.

He thought once more of the woman's laugh in the Fox, and the state of panic in him that it had caused. He laughed out loud at his flight of fancy, then covered his mouth with his hand and tried to wipe the grin off his face: Of all the unhealthy indulgences. Why her? Why now?

The agents looked at him like he was supposed to share the joke. Both of his keepers carried Justice Department credentials. The older one with the pained eyes answered to one of those names that rang familiar to Larson: Wilcox. Larson knew a couple different guys named Wilcox, one a running coach at a private college, the other a former FATF deputy said to be one of the most reliable and most entertaining stakeout partners out there. This guy was neither of them and, whereas Larson felt a little tired, Wilcox saw eleven o'clock pass still rigidly upright and wide awake in his padded seat, like he had a broomstick up his ass. He typed aggressively, as if the laptop had pissed him off in some way, or else the report he was generating was his last will and testament.

“What about Hampton and Stubblefield?” Larson asked suddenly. Hampton and Stubblefield had survived their wounds. The two had transferred with him and were members of his FATF squad. Larson depended upon them. “Have they been called?”

Wilcox pursed his lips and returned to his typing. “You find out when we get there.”

Larson stared out the window, the night's black canvas mixing with his own reflection of deep set green eyes, lips set in a constant smirk, and skin that needed a shave. Below, city lights shimmered, small and clustered. The world looked so simple from above.

Hope's offer, six years earlier, had been straightforward enough itself. The bus incident, the failed attempt on her life, had forced the Marshals Service to request her immediate placement into WITSEC, an unusual but not unheard-of pretrial tactic.

There had been nothing romantic or sentimental in Hope's proposal perhaps because, like him, she feared they were being watched. There was never time for just the two of them. While Larson appeared at briefings covering the bus incident, Hope had been placed into a safe house—the Orchard House, an old farmhouse out of town—and guarded by Larson's team, limiting Larson's contact with her. The days ticked down toward a full “identity” wash, after which Hope Stevens would cease to exist, even for Larson.

“Come with me,” she'd said in a businesslike tone.

They were standing in the safe house's backyard. A winter wind blew through his clothes; this was how he explained to himself the full-length shiver that swept through him at that moment.

His fantasy and the culmination of his fears. “What?”

“Request a new identity and come with me. We'll start over together.”

She knew—they both knew—that this was nothing short of a proposal of marriage. Where she was going, it was permanent. Once into WITSEC, there was no going back, no reconnection to one's past. It was a case of self-invoked amnesia. Suddenly it seemed to Larson that on so many levels they barely knew each other. Could he make this decision without thinking it through, without a chance to say some important good-byes?

Adding to the difficulty was his insider's knowledge of how difficult—
impossible—
WITSEC could be on the protected witness. Even the most hardened criminal cracked when shut off from all contact with family members. Many ended up attending baptisms, weddings, or funerals, exposing themselves, breaking the anonymity of their protection, risking their lives for a few minutes of the familiar.

How long would Hope hold up? What if he gave up the years of his training and employment only to have the relationship self-destruct six months into the struggle to remake themselves? How well would
he
hold up?

He didn't speak any of this, didn't voice his concerns, but he clearly wore them on his face, for she grew pale, turning away from the wind and him along with it.

“Oh,” she said.

“It's not that . . . It is just so out of the blue is all . . .”

“Is it?”

“Me joining the program? WITSEC? Yeah, it is. It's like a doctor becoming a patient. The warden becoming a prisoner. It's just something you don't ever see happening to you, when you're on this side of protection.”

“Well, I'm asking you to see it.”

“Will they even let me? I doubt it.” He had no idea how such a request would be treated. Fraternization was discouraged, sometimes punished. All deputies were instructed to avoid what most protected witnesses wanted most: safety in the form of friendship with the marshals. “It's complicated.”