Fade (2005) (22 page)

Egan shook his head, deciding that the truth was the only thing tha t had even the slightest chance of getting him what he wanted. Frankli n had the look of a serious skeptic.

"I used to work with him. He thinks I set him up and he told me he'
s going to kill me. I want to find him before he can accomplish that."

Franklin seemed to have been expecting a more complex line of bullshi t and it took a moment for Egan's explanation to process.

"Did you?"

"What?"

"Set him up."

"That's a complicated question."

"Is it?"

"Let's just say that I didn't have his back like I should have."

Franklin nodded silently and looked around the room at his people.

"Well, Matt, it sounds like you've landed yourself in some deep shit.

But I'm not sure why I care if Sal kills you or not."

"Because we have the same interests on this."

"How you figure?"

"We're both friends of his who, unfortunately, need him dead. Me , because he wants to kill me, and you, because you hooked him up wit h the Colombians and I'm guessing with a stack of fake IDs. The longe r this thing drags out, the better the chance the cops are going to ge t around to you. I don't have to tell you that they're not all tha t happy about the deaths of their men. They're looking for somebody t o take the blame."

Franklin chewed his lip for a moment and then waved a hand in the air.

For a moment Egan thought he'd been dismissed, but then the othe r people in the room began filing out. He caught the man who had friske d him by the arm as he went by. "Hey, could you do me a favor? I thin k I've got a shadow. White guy about my age a real dangerous redneck so n of a bitch. Could you take a look around and if you see him, maybe as k him to wait for me? I'd like to talk with him."

Franklin nodded his assent and Egan released the man's arm. When th e door clicked shut and they were alone, he motioned for Egan to sit.

"I've known Sal since we were kids. I wanted him to come work for m e but for some reason, he ran off and joined the navy. Why the fuc k anyone would want to wake up every morning at five a . M
. with som e asshole white guy screaming at him is beyond me. But then, he wa s always kinda weird. He never seemed that interested in what was goin g on in the neighborhood. So I was pretty surprised when he showed up o n my doorstep after I haven't seen him for years and asked me fo r work."

"Did you give it to him?"

"Fuck no. I'm not tall enough to ride that ride, man. You go hirin g some badass Navy SEAL and people start getting nervous, you know? The y think maybe you're looking to upset the balance of things."

"But the Colombians aren't as concerned about balance."

"Bunch of fucking freaks. They got more money than they could spend i n ten lifetimes and it's not enough. I mean, what the fuck do you buy i n Colombia? They don't even have paved roads. But, yeah. I put Sal i n touch with them. I understand he did a good job and made some bank.

But as far as I know he "walked away from that a long time ago."

Egan nodded but didn't say anything.

"So what do you want from me, man?"

"He was prepared for something like this to happen, Javan. He had a safe house set up, he has money, he has disguises, and so it stands t o reason that he'd have some aliases. It occurs to me that you'd be th e go-to guy on something like that."

Franklin leaned back in his chair, apparently not happy with where th e conversation was going.

"Look, Javan, Salam did this to himself. It's not your fault. Yo u helped him the best you could and that's left you involved with a ma n of Arab extraction running around killing cops. I mean, the press i s already spouting a bunch of bullshit about possible ties to al Qaeda.

How long before Homeland Security gets involved? I'm willing to be t you have a hell of a lawyer, but he isn't going to do you much good i f you're stuck in a five-by-five cage on the beach in Guantanamo."

Franklin drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair for a few moments , eyes locked on Egan, and then pulled a small pad from his shirt pocket.

After scribbling something on it, he tore the page off, folded it, an d held it out. "I gave him this name, but I don't know what he did wit h it. Seriously."

Egan took it and started for the door.

"Hey, Matt?"

He stopped with his hand on the knob. "Yeah?"

"You better think hard about whether you really want to find Sal.

Because if you do, that little girl's not gonna have a father n o more."

"Over there," his escort said, stopping on the sidewalk and pointing.

"Behind the Dumpster."

Egan hesitated for a moment and then stepped into the garbage-strew n alley, wishing he'd retrieved his gun when he'd passed by his car. O
n the bright side, though, the kid he'd paid to watch it was stil l sitting patiently on the hood waiting for his other fifty.

He continued forward, moving as far left as the narrow alley woul d allow and focusing on the area behind a large Dumpster that wa s becoming visible as he approached.

Roy Buckner was pretty much like he remembered. His retirement fro m the military hadn't altered his choice of haircuts, but it had put a little weight on him. His slightly hooked nose looked a little les s severe with the extra flesh around it, but his eyes had sunken a bit t o compensate. There was a trickle of blood running from the side of hi s mouth and, judging by his expression, he was more than a little put ou t by the fact that he was being held at bay by four black high schoo l kids with automatic pistols.

"How you doing, Roy?"

He pursed his swelling lips in a way that was meant to suggest that h e was in complete control of the situation. "I'm doing okay, Matt. Ho w about you?"

"Can't complain."

Egan slipped by one of the kids and wrapped an arm around Buckner'
s shoulders, leading him back down the alley followed closely by his ne w team. "This is the thing, Roy. I don't want you following me. Th e thought that I could get between you and Fade, frankly, scares the shi t out of me."

"Not really my problem, is it, Matt?"

"Well, it is kind of. Because if I ever see you again, I'm going t o shoot you.

Chapter
Twenty-Eight.

Hillel Strand's receptionist seemed to be doing pretty well fo r herself. Even in the dark, the neighborhood had a brand new feel to i t unmarked pavement, fledgling trees held to stakes by pieces of gree n hose, and empty cul de sacs. The houses that had been completed wer e homogenous and sprawling, nearly overwhelming the narrow lots tha t contained them.

Fade strode down the sidewalk, navigating by the light of widely space d streetlamps, and tried to remember the word he'd heard for houses lik e these.

McMansions. That was it. As flawlessly conceived a word as he'd eve r heard.

Predictably, the numbers descended in perfect order and were uniforml y lit. When he arrived at six-nineteen he turned up the right side o f the driveway and slipped through an unlocked gate that led to th e backyard.

From his position in an unfinished home a few doors down, Fade ha d watched Kelly Braith and her husband pack two teenaged boys into a minivan and drive off a few hours ago. He hadn't moved until it wa s dark enough to give him cover and to allow him to confirm that no on e was still home to turn on lights.

The backyard was completely encircled by a wooden fence built more fo r privacy than security. Fade listened for activity in the adjoinin g yards, and hearing none, used his elbow to knock through one of th e glass panels in the back door. After reaching through and flipping th e lock, he took a step back and waited for the beeping of an alar m system. Nothing. The Braiths must have blown the whole wad o n upgrading to the genuine faux-cherry kitchen cabinets.

Fade removed a dead bird from the plastic grocery bag he was carryin g and carefully arranged it on the ground to look like it had broken it s neck flying into the glass, then padded quietly inside. His tim e exploring the similar floor plan of the house down the street paid of f and he was able to make his way to a small den behind the living roo m without turning on any lights.

Slipping into the chair behind a cluttered desk, he reached for a keyboard and watched a flat panel display come to life in an exuberan t family portrait. After a few moments, he found the My Documents folde r and began going through the files contained in it.

Most of them related to Braith's husband's electronics store but ther e were occasional interesting tidbits. The address book contained a fai r amount of personal information on Strand and Egan including birt h dates, addresses, and phone numbers. In fact, Strand was turning fift y in only a few days. Unless, of course, things went in Fade'
s direction.

While a lot easier than going through land records and a lot mor e sanitary than sifting through garbage, no groundbreaking piece o f information jumped to the screen. Neither man would be out mowing hi s lawn this weekend and he doubted Strand would be throwing himself a bi g birthday bash in a venue with lots of unprotected angles of attack.

What about appointments that might force them out of hiding? He pulle d up the computer's calendar program and did a quick search but, no t surprisingly, Kelly didn't keep her boss's schedule on it. He wa s about to close it when an entry two days in the future caught hi s eye.

Pick up cake.

He froze for a moment and then went back to the address book , confirming Strand's birth date. Two days from now.

A smile spread across his face as a plan began to form in his mind. No t just any plan either. An Albert Einstein of a plan. A Leonardo d a Vinci of a plan. A plan so sublime and elegant that if Mozart wer e still alive, he'd write a symphony to honor it.

The rumble of a garage door opener drifted in from the other side o f the house and Fade started back toward the kitchen, his grin continuin g to widen. As was almost always the case, the logistical details woul d cause all kinds of complications but if he could just focus and thin k them through, it could actually work. What he really needed was Mat t Egan to help him create an airtight plan. But, in the absence of that , he'd count on the luck he always seemed to have when it came to killin g people.

Chapter
Twenty-Nine.

Hillel Strand flipped a page in the police report and used a Magi c Marker to blacken out a paragraph at the top. That fucking moro n Pickering had been so obvious and unbending in his efforts to use Kare n Manning to cover his ass that she'd quit introducing yet anothe r unpredictable element into an already nearly uncontrollable situation.

He grabbed a pen and wrote a note in the margin of the report. Lauren: What's she going to do now? The press? MONITOR!]

Strand flipped another page and put an X through the remainder o f Manning's written report on the call she'd received from al Fayed , making certain that all mention of their contact would be remove d before the file was scanned and e-mailed to Matt Egan. Al Fayed'
s apparent interest in Manning was the best lead they had that Ega n wasn't involved in. Doug Banes was watching her and if al Fayed eve r decided to try to make physical contact he'd disappear forever with n o concerns about hand-wringing and old loyalties.

It was an avenue the police, in their questionable wisdom, had chose n to more or less ignore. Manning had agreed to a tap on her phone bu t beyond that, they were just trusting her to report anything of interes t that didn't show up on that tap. They continued to rely on th e assumption that al Fayed was on the run and were giving little though t to the possibility that he was lurking around D
. C
. playing a fuckin g game.

Strand shoved the file aside and looked down at the pile of clothe s folded neatly on the floor. He hadn't left the office in nearly a wee k and it seemed that with every passing hour, his anger and frustratio n were doubling. That this uneducated former enlisted man could affec t his life at all was enough to infuriate him, but the fact that he wa s now imprisoned on this floor, sharing a bathroom with his assistants , living on cold takeout, made him want to kill someone.

He sat quietly, eyes closed, forcing himself to believe that all thi s was going to go away when his private line rang. He snatched up th e phone and pressed it to his ear.

"What?"

"He made me."

Strand remained motionless for a moment and then grabbed the electri c pencil sharpener on his desk and threw it into a wall, sending a clou d of wood dust and shattered plastic across his folded clothes.

"What the fuck are you talking about, Roy? You told me there was n o chance of that! You told me that this was not a problem!"

"Don't know what happened, man. He didn't see me, I guarantee it.

Hell, he's been calling my house leaving messages for me. There mus t be a leak on your end."

Strand jumped up from behind his desk but didn't have anywhere to go.

Egan had been right about Roy Buckner he was an arrogant asshole wh o overestimated his own abilities. But he had a background in th e Special Forces and he hated al Fayed with irrational passion. Tha t gave him certain unique qualifications that had forced Strand to ignor e his drawbacks.