Fade (2005) (17 page)

"Elise, I "

"Hi, Daddy! Daddy?"

Her voice was full of trust and excitement, and for some reason tha t made it hard for him to breathe.

"Hi, honey. How was school?"

"I'm going to be a gymnast."

"Well, that's sort of sudden. What kind of gymnast are you going t o be?"

"We had a class and I did a flip and it was the best one in class an d Ms.

Reynolds said I could be a gymnast. There are things you walk alon g and bars you swing from and "

He heard Elise's distant voice. "Daddy can't talk long, Kali, he ha s to work. Maybe you should tell him all about your class later."

"Okay. Are you coming home tomorrow? I can show you .. ."

"Not tomorrow," Egan said quietly. "But soon, okay? So practice up. I w ant that flip perfect .. ."

When he hung up, he squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out everythin g around him. A poor idea poorly executed. It was time to lock Elis e and Kali in a part of his mind he never traveled. They were nothin g but a liability to him now.

He removed the beer bottle from his chest and forced himself to focu s on the chalkboard again.

It seemed most productive to work this problem based on the assumptio n that Fade would kill him in a stand-up fight. And if Strand's ne w enforcers were unfortunate enough to be there at the time, they'
d probably end up dead, too. And if cops showed up, then the body coun t would just keep on going. That meant that Egan had to be smarter. T
o find a way to slink up behind him .. .

And then what?

Egan shook his head violently, trying again to discipline his mind.

Concentrate on finding him first, then worry about the rest of it.

The first column of writing on the board covered the path the cops wer e taking essentially the most obvious lines of investigation based on th e information they had available to them. According to the reports tha t he'd seen so far, though, their enthusiasm wasn't what he'd expected.

The Collector case was sucking up enormous resources and Pickerin g seemed more interested in making sure his own ass was covered tha n actually finding the man responsible for wiping out his SWAT team.

So far, the police had examined Fade's phone records and found that h e didn't really talk to anyone the most notable recent calls being t o Sharper Image and a model airplane supplier who sold him the things h e needed to turn his house into a giant booby trap. Interviews with hi s neighbors, customers, and colleagues completed a picture of a ma n without a friend in the world.

Egan pulled another beer from the tiny refrigerator behind him, tryin g not to think about what it had taken to turn Fade into the angry , violent, and depressed man he'd become. People used to reschedul e parties if he couldn't attend.

The remaining space on the right side of the board described the res t of the dead ends the police were pursuing. Fade's parents wer e deceased and he and his one sister had never gotten along.

Of course, there was an APB on the car Karen saw him drive away in, bu t he would have dumped it by now. Searches of airports, bus terminals , rental car agencies, and cab records had yielded exactly zip, as ha d their half-hearted examination of local car and motorcycle purchases.

One of the police's fundamental problems was that they assumed Fade wa s running, whereas Egan could pretty much guarantee that he was goin g nowhere until he did what he'd set out to do. Initially, Pickering'
s people had tried to track Fade with his cell phone, using real-tim e information on which repeater was picking up his signal. Unfortunately , though, Fade seemed to have become a bit more technologically savvy i n the past few years and had used cash to purchase a satellite phone wit h a thousand prepaid hours. According to Billy, the best they could hop e for is that he'd be on the phone when the satellite he was linked t o went over the horizon, giving them his longitude and narrowing hi s location down to a not so helpful few thousand square miles.

The car was an opportunity. Fade loved old cars particularl y convertibles. Egan remembered his encyclopedic knowledge and the lon g sermons on the subject that Fade had used to fill the inevitabl e downtime people in his profession suffered. Based on the car Egan ha d seen up on blocks in his yard, that fascination was one of the fe w things he hadn't abandoned.

Fade would see this as his last hurrah and, as such, it seemed lik e he'd want to go out driving something fitting. Money was an issue, o f course, but based on his lifestyle and the fact that the money he'
d made from the Colombians was never used for his back operation, i t seemed reasonable to assume he was cash rich.

Beyond that, Egan didn't have much. The safe house he'd taken Kare n Manning to proved that he'd been ready for somebody from his past t o come after him eventually though he probably hadn't expected it to b e the U
. S
. government. That meant he probably had a number of disguise s and identities set up, as well as an appropriate weapons collection.

Strand's name had been mentioned in Manning's debriefing, but there ha d been no mention of a first name or Homeland Security. The police ha d cross-referenced the thousands of Strands in America with people wh o had done prison time or were suspected of being involved in the dru g trade and come up empty. At this point, it wasn't a line o f investigation they were willing to devote much manpower to. Likewis e Fade's history in Colombia. The buried DEA reports and the CIA stuf f were unavailable to them, so they really had no way even to start dow n that road.

Pickering's people had pulled rental and purchase records of the typ e of real estate Karen had described being taken to, but there wasn'
t much to go on. She had seen only the inside and could only tell the m approximately how long it took to get there from his house. It woul d be found eventually, but it was going to take a while.

The police had a copy of his brief military record, but would run int o a dead end when they tried to look into the now-defunct CIA fron t company he'd worked for after being discharged. Any attempt to trac k down the former employees of Ramsey Security Systems would lead the m into a maze with no outlet.

So Egan was left with something of an advantage over Fade's othe r pursuers. He not only had intimate knowledge of Ramsey Security whic h he'd worked for but access to the CIA background check done on Fade , including detailed information that went back to his early childhood.

Unfortunately, it was a street that went both ways. After years o f friendship, Fade knew Egan's entire life story, too. And what littl e he didn't know wouldn't be terribly hard to find out.

Strand, though, was a different story. Fade knew only his name an d that he worked at Homeland Security. In addition, Strand's phon e number and address were unlisted, making finding him even harder. O
f course, Fade could try to acquire him at the office, but that was kin d of risky and obvious.

Would it be possible to use Strand to draw Fade in? Maybe place som e false information in the public record? Honestly, the idea of usin g Strand as bait was pretty attractive essentially, a no-lose situation.

If it helped him find Fade, great. On the other hand, if Strand ende d up stopping a bullet, oh well.

Unfortunately, he seemed a little reluctant to leave his office thes e days.

Egan laid his head back on the mattress and stared up at the ceiling.

Finally, he took a deep breath and spoke aloud to the empty room. "Ho w the hell did we get here, Fade?"

Chapter
Twenty-One.

"Close the door and grab a chair, Bill," Strand said, moving his ow n out from behind his desk and into a position that would make th e meeting feel less autocratic. Fraiser did as he was told, sitting nex t to Lauren and running a hand through his hair. It was ten o'clock a t night and the three of them were the only people left in the office. N
o one had said anything out loud, but none of them were going home.

Strand had sent for his clothes and other supplies, and he knew tha t both Lauren and Fraiser were quietly making similar arrangements.

Having his team scared and sleeping on the floor wasn't ideal, but i t was the price he had to pay for their unwavering focus an d round-the-clock vigilance. He was convinced that telling them al Faye d had threatened them was the right decision.

"I just wanted to talk a little to get a feel for how things are going , how you're holding up, and maybe to bounce around some ideas." Stran d kept his tone as relaxed as he could manage, though under th e circumstances it took a fair amount of concentration just to keep hi s voice even. "Why don't you start by giving me a run-down on where w e stand right now."

Lauren looked over at Fraiser, but neither spoke.

"Is there a problem?"

"We don't really stand anywhere," Lauren said finally. "We gathered u p the initial information that you and Matt asked for and he just walke d out of here with it. When we tried to talk to him, he basically tol d me to shut up and shoved me out of the way .. ."

Fraiser stared uncomfortably at the floor. He undoubtedly wanted t o defend his boss, but was smart enough to know that, in the end, h e worked for Strand.

"I see. Bill? Do you know what Matt's up to?"

"He's not at home he's afraid al Fayed could acquire him there. He'
s at a hotel going through the information we gave him and figuring ou t the best way to track him."

"Do we know what hotel?"

Fraiser shook his head. "I never asked. I could find out."

"Do it. Have you talked to him since he left?"

Another shake of the head. "But he'll call. He just needs som e time."

Strand leaned back in his chair, fighting to keep his expressio n completely passive. How in the fuck had this happened? The plan he'
d devised couldn't have been more simple or foolproof. Who could hav e anticipated that the police were too stupid and incompetent to arrest a single man? And now that incompetence had left him almost completel y reliant on Matt Egan a man with questionable loyalties and th e political instincts of a head of cabbage.

"I think we need to give him a chance, Lauren. Matt's a good man .. ."

Strand let his voice trail off, leaving an obvious "but" at the end o f his sentence. He put a finger to his lips and pretended to be mullin g over what to say next. Finally, "That brings me to a difficult point.

Matt's had a long friendship with al Fayed and while that has positiv e aspects for us, it could also have some drawbacks."

The trick here was to create just enough suspicion to ensure tha t Fraiser and Lauren's loyalties stayed with him, but not so much tha t they might undermine Egan's efforts. It seemed likely that he wa s harboring some half-assed idea about trying to extricate al Fayed fro m the position he was in and that it would likely blow up in their faces.

Over the years, Strand had learned to tolerate all the Neandertha l military brotherhood crap that swirled around this part of th e government, but hell if he was going to let it get him killed.

"Obviously, Matt is a very loyal and honorable man and, because o f that, he must be struggling with this situation. If he conics face t o face with al Fayed, will he hesitate? And if he does, will al Faye d escape? Or worse, kill him? What I'm saying here is that Matt'
s judgment might be a bit clouded and that we need to be thinking an d questioning all the time. If you have any problems ideas that w e should be looking at, or if you feel like Matt may not be giving yo u the whole story, I want you to come straight to me. If we work as a team, I have no doubt that we're going to get through this. Al Faye d has virtually no resources and ours are pretty much unlimited."

Lauren and Fraiser nodded weakly.

"Look, we don't want Matt taking this thing on by himself or, for tha t matter, anyone doing anything on their own. We may have only on e chance at al Fayed and we need to make sure that we don't blow tha t chance."

In truth, his objective was to remove Egan from everything hi s involvement wasn't critical to. Strand already had Lauren quietl y sanitizing the police reports of any mention that al Fayed ha d contacted Karen Manning. The cops continued to display their idiocy b y assuming that al Fayed had fled and weren't even bothering to watc h Manning. He wouldn't make the same mistake.

"So, in order to be sure we have a grasp of what's going on, I wan t everything you get to come straight to me for approval before it goe s out to Matt. Is that understood?"

More nods.

"Finally, we need to start tracking the news agencies. Al Fayed migh t try to go to someone to get his story out. Bill, why don't you tak e the lead on that." Yes, sir.

"Okay. Are we all on the same page? Again, I'm not trying to singl e Matt out here, I'm just saying that we need to have multiple eyes o n everything that comes through we can't afford to miss anything. Doe s everyone understand? Bill?"

"I understand."

"But do you agree? Because if you don't or you have some other idea s on the subject, I want to hear them. That's why we're here."

"No, sir, I don't. I think you're right we can't afford to mis s anything."