Fade (2005) (35 page)

Egan tightened his grip on the wheel in an effort not to wrap the m around Strand's neck. There was no way in hell Fade had gone afte r Karen Manning.

"If that woman's dead, Hillel, I swear to God I'm go "

"She's not dead!" Strand said, some of the anger Egan was accustome d to creeping into his voice. "Let me finish! When I talked to Buckner , he sounded .. . strange. You were right about him. He was unstable ..

."

"Jesus Christ, Hillel. Get to the point. What happened?"

Strand avoided the question, staying with a narrative that sounded a bit over rehearsed "He told me where he was and I sent Banes an d De-spain right away. When they got there, al Fayed and Manning wer e driving up the road. They got away."

Egan let out a long, slow breath. "And Buckner?"

"Dead."

Strand settled back in the seat, apparently finished, and let Egan tr y to absorb what he'd been told.

Of course it was all bullshit. Hillel had been concerned that Fade ha d told Manning his story and he'd realized that he was in a position t o kill them both a tidy little murder/suicide that wouldn't generate to o many questions. Except Buckner had fucked it up. So now Strand ha d the director's staff starting to dig, Fade still breathing down hi s neck, and Karen Manning wondering what to do about the fact that sh e had government contractors trying to kill her. Lovely.

Egan's phone rang and he grabbed it off the dash.

"What?"

"Matt! Thank God." Bill Fraiser's voice.

"Hang on." He put in his earpiece as Strand looked on. "What's up?"

"First of all, Hillel seems to be gone and so are his goons. I don'
t know where, but according to my sources he actually left the building.

Watch your back it would take something major to get him out o f here."

"I got it covered, thanks "

"Wait! Are you still there?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sitting down?"

"Uh huh."

"He used one of his credit cards."

Egan felt a weak jolt of adrenaline probably all he had left but kep t his voice passive. "Go on."

"He must be running low on cash. We've got a charge from Computer Cit y and from a store that sells auto paint."

"Details?"

"A couple hundred bucks at the Computer City, but I'm having som e trouble getting a list of the items he bought. On the brighter side , the guy at the auto store remembered him. He's apparently going fo r burgundy."

"Where?"

"It's up near Baltimore, but I may be able to do better. There wa s another charge from an Internet service provider. They're closed righ t now but I'm trying to get the owner at home. If al Fayed signed up fo r access he'd have to give his physical address."

"Hang on a second," Egan said, leaning over and throwing open th e passenger-side door. A hard shove, combined with a sharp left turn , sent Strand flying out onto the pavement. Egan watched him tumble to a stop in the rearview mirror and aimed the car at the mall exit.

"Sorry, Billy. Now what were you saying?"

Chapter
Forty-Six.

Karen Manning leaned back against the futon and tapped a few mor e sentences into Fade's laptop. A couple years ago, she'd taken an adul t education class on Web programming a horrible ordeal that she'd stuc k with solely because of the mild crush she'd developed on th e instructor. And while things hadn't worked out with him, she ha d managed to create a rather pathetic but more or less functional We b site that earned her the only C she'd ever received. Particularl y humiliating in light of the fact that she was sleeping with th e professor when the final grades were posted. If she'd known that he r life might someday depend on her programming skills, she'd have spen t less time messing around and more time studying.

Glancing out the open door, she saw Fade in the same position he'd bee n in for the last hour: sitting on the floor with his back wedged into a corner staring blankly at the wall. He'd finally agreed to her pla n and then plunged with startling speed into a semicatatonic depressio n that she knew she was responsible for. He saw what she was doing a s the end of any chance he might have had to get the men who ha d destroyed his life and she couldn't help feeling a pang of irrationa l guilt at putting a stop to his spree. Insanity, it seemed, wa s contagious.

"What were the dates you worked for that CIA front company, Fade? An d who exactly did you report to?"

He adjusted his gaze from the wall to her but didn't answer.

"Fade? Can you focus for a minute?"

"You're going to piss a lot of people off with this stuff, Karen.

Everything you're writing about is heavily classified. Why don't w e just kill them?"

"We're not killing anyone, Fade. So just let it go, okay? Come on , this is a great piece of revenge. Not only is it going to completel y screw Hillel Strand, but it's going to get your story out there fo r everyone to see. But if we don't tell the whole story completel y straight those assholes will use every inaccuracy and omission t o destroy our credibility."

He pushed himself to his feet and crossed the room, disappearing fro m her line of sight. A moment later she heard the television go on.

"Fade, turn off the TV and come in here. I can't do this on my own."

Again, no answer.

She laid the laptop down next to an open copy of Building a Web Sit e for Dummies and walked to the doorway, flipping the light switch tha t controlled a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. "Fade?"

He pointed at the television and she walked up behind him, leaning ove r his shoulder to see.

"We now have confirmation that the man depicted here is Harold Logner , a suspect in the Collector case," a disembodied voice said as a shak y video that looked like it had been shot from a helicopter began t o play. It followed three police cruisers chasing a blue minivan wit h heavily tinted windows. One of the tires blew as the van swerved ont o a freeway off ramp and a moment later the driver was on foot, runnin g to the edge of the road and trying to climb down a concrete barrie r wall. He'd only made it about five feet when he lost his footing an d pitched over backward, falling a good twenty more before landing har d in a grassy median. The police were on foot now, too, with all but on e running back along the road to find a safe place to get down. Th e remaining cop was standing at the rail where Logner had gone over , watching his motionless body below. When Logner began to move agai n and then managed to get to his feet, the cop just jumped over the rail.

He fell almost thirty feet before landing directly on top of th e suspect, leaving both unconscious.

"Shit," Fade said, walking over to the sink and filling a pot wit h water. "You should have had that guy on your SWAT team."

The tape ended rather suddenly and the small screen filled with th e face of the news anchor. "I understand that we have a live feed at th e hospital where the suspect was taken."

The scene cut again and, instead of a reporter, the camera focused on a small man with neat hair and a meticulously groomed mustache lying in a hospital bed. His hands and left leg were covered with a blanket, bu t it was still obvious that they were secured to the metal rails alon g each side. His right leg was in a cast and was suspended above th e mattress with a cable.

He was squinting a bit against the lights being shined on him by wha t looked like every news crew in town, but otherwise appeared to be i n good spirits.

"Oh my God," Karen said quietly. "That's him? Fade, come and look!"

He seemed more interested in watching his water boil.

"As you can see," Logner said in a slightly effeminate voice, "th e police were a bit heavy-handed in apprehending me and I suffered a severely broken hip and leg as well as a hairline fracture to m y collarbone. That kind of violence by the government against it s citizens is absolutely unacceptable and I'm looking into lega l remedies."

"Since when do the cops let people like that do interviews?" Fad e said.

Karen kept her eyes glued to the television. It was a good question.

"I know what you are all wondering," Logner continued. "And the answe r is yes on both counts. I have Elizabeth Henrich and she's very muc h alive. Of course I'm not currently at liberty to disclose her locatio n ..."

"He's not even denying it," Karen said. "Jesus. It's really him. The y got him ..."

Fade dumped a box of mac and cheese into the water and moved to a position where he could see the screen.

"Ms. Henrich a lovely young lady, by the way has enough water t o survive for another few days. Though I suppose it's conceivable tha t she could live longer if she's careful .. ."

"What is it you're asking in return for information on he r whereabouts?" a reporter asked.

"I think it should be obvious. I want to be released and put on a plane to Brazil. When I get there and I've settled in, I'll happil y make her location public."

"You've got to be kidding!" Karen shouted, jumping to her fee t suddenly enough to almost catch Fade under his chin with the top of he r head. "I'm going to go down there and choke the life out of that so n of a bitch. Ten minutes and I'd wipe that condescending smile righ t off his face!"

"You seem kind of tense," Fade observed.

She spun, jerking to a stop with their noses about six inches apart.

"What?"

"This is a good thing, Karen. Right? They caught him. Even if thi s Henrich girl dies, there won't be a next one."

"What, were you an accountant in a previous life? This isn't los t money or spoiled produce, Fade. It's a girl's life!"

"Why don't we forget the mac and cheese," he suggested. "Go out. Hav e a few beers and a decent dinner. Get your mind off things."

"There's a woman slowly dying in some horrible prison that this frea k built for her and that makes you want to go out to eat?"

He shrugged. "A thousand people starve to death or die of thirst ever y day, Karen. I never let it keep me out of restaurants before."

She moved forward a little bit until their noses were almost touching.

"Is your point that I'm a hypocrite? Is that your point?"

He took a step back. "I don't have a point. No point at all."

She wanted to shout at him, to take a swing at him, to make him car e about that girl. But nothing she said was going to change the thing s he'd seen and done and suffered.

"I do what I can, Fade. There's only so much .. ."

He walked back to his corner and sat, fixing his eyes on the wal l across from him again. "I know. I did, too."

She just stood there, watching him sink into himself and trying t o untangle the flood of sensations washing over her. Exhaustion, fear , anger, elation, guilt.. .

"I'm not really crazy, you know," he said, as though he was talking t o the wall. "I'm just hopelessly, irretrievably fucked. It's not craz y to want to enjoy the time I have left."

She walked back into the bedroom, unable to look at him any longer.

It was like his life, what made him who he was, was just leaking away.

And there was nothing she or anyone else could do about it.

Pulling the computer back onto her lap, she tried to concentrate on th e screen but could barely see it. She'd be dead if it weren't for him.

Of course, it was his fault that she was involved at all but still, sh e couldn't shake a nagging sense of obligation.

"I'll tell you what," she said, leaning to the side far enough to se e him through the door. "Why don't you sit down with me and help m e finish writing the content for the Web site and then maybe we can hav e a few drinks and something decent to eat. Here, though, okay? I thin k it makes sense to stay under cover as much as we can."

Chapter
Forty-Seven.

Most of the spotlights bolted to the decaying brick buildings wer e broken, adding to the post-Armageddon atmosphere and making i t difficult not to trip over the debris littering the ground. Ega n continued carefully forward, getting close enough to read the buildin g number on an old machine shop and confirming that he was still movin g in the right direction.

The road came to a T and he took a deep breath before running across a n exposed thirty-foot stretch and slipping behind a Dumpster. His hear t was pounding harder than could be justified by the brief burst of spee d and he stayed there for a moment, willing it to slow. The building s lining either side of the street gave the impression of bunkerlike min i storage units. There were no windows and no conventional doors in an y of them -just a single metal garage-type door centered in eac h facade.

Egan leaned around the Dumpster and squinted at another number, the n ducked back under cover. Billy had called him an hour ago with th e address obtained from the Internet service provider Fade had signed u p with. It was less than thirty feet away.

His heart rate rose again and he cursed silently to himself. This ha d just never been his thing. Fade used to say that combat focused hi m made him forget all the bullshit the modern world crowded into hi s mind. As far as Egan was concerned, though, combat was all about bein g cold , wet, and scared while people tried to kill you. And all for less tha n you could make working at a gas station.