Fade (2005) (40 page)

"So, you end up in jail and Hillel gets a medal for doing his civi c duty."

"If I live that long."

Crenshaw scooted his chair around so he could tilt it back and lea n against the wall. "You know what pisses me off, Matt? I'll tell you.

It's when people assume that because I was career military I'm som e sort of fascist jerk-off who wants to declare martial law and star t shooting Arabs on sight. Every morning, when I turn on my computer, a quote by Ben Franklin comes up on the screen. You know what it says?

It says "Anyone who would give up liberty for safety deserves neither."

I've got a bunch of politicians running around the world scaring an d pissing off everybody they can and then looking to me to protect the m from all those pissed-off and scared people. And I've got Americans a little too willing to let the government play games with their right s in return for some bullshit promise that we'll keep them out of harm'
s way."

"Then why do you do it?"

"Why do you?"

"Because I'm good at it? Because somebody's got to? Sometimes I'm no t sure."

Crenshaw fell silent for a few minutes and finished his drink. Finally , he set his empty glass on the windowsill and leaned forward, droppin g the front legs of his chair to the floor with a loud crack. "You fucke d up here, Matt. I have to say I'm disappointed in you. I don't mea n about the Colombian thing I understand that sometimes you just have t o stand behind your men. I'm disappointed that you didn't come to me o n this."

"What would you have done, sir? You'd have put together a team tha t wouldn't make the same mistakes as the police. They'd have eithe r executed Fade or buried him in a brig somewhere for what's left of hi s life. He deserved better."

"Yeah, he did. But you weren't going to be able to give him better.

And now, on top of everything else, I've got SWATKILLER
. C
OM to dea l with."

"Yes, sir."

"So now Strand thinks I've got no choice but to stand behind him an d all his bullshit about the Ramirez brothers and Roy Buckner. To le t him walk away after perverting the authority the American people hav e so unwisely given us."

"As much as I hate to say it, sir, it seems like your best option."

"And sacrifice you up as a diversion, right?"

"Yes, sir."

Crenshaw stood and walked around the den, examining the record industr y memorabilia on the walls. "What would you say if I told you tha t Hillel had sent Roy Buckner a number of encrypted e-mails and that som e of them are extremely incriminating?"

Egan didn't respond immediately, trying to work through what he'd jus t heard. "I'm sorry, sir, I don't think I understand."

"What's to understand? We have a whole trail of communications betwee n the two from Buckner's laptop all definitely sent from Strand'
s computer with his encryption signature."

"Uh .. ."

"Cat got your tongue?"

"Well, sir, encrypted e-mail is a good way to communicate I use i t myself sometimes. But it sort of presupposes that the person you'r e sending the mail to is smart enough to delete it. I can't imagin e Hillel would make an obvious mistake like that. In fact, I'm findin g it hard to believe that Buckner even owned a computer."

Crenshaw turned away from a particularly glowing review of Elise's las t CD and faced him. "You're right. He didn't. The whole thing's a complete fabrication."

"Sir?"

"You know Strand's assistant, Lauren? Bright girl. Ambitious. Helpe d us create the whole thing."

"I'm sorry, sir. You've lost me."

"I have no interest in spending the next five years of my life i n hearings over this thing. Besides, I've been wanting to make a clea r statement regarding how I feel about us overstepping our bounds that i t won't be tolerated."

Egan wasn't sure what to say.

"Are you shocked, Matt?"

"I guess I am. And a little confused."

"Understandable, I suppose."

Crenshaw started for the door, but then paused. "So are you going t o just sit here in your house getting drunk and waiting for al Fayed t o get around to killing you?"

"I honestly don't know."

"You should have shot him in Baltimore, Matt. It was a stupi d mistake." He tapped a picture of Kali on the wall. "You have a lot o f responsibilities."

"I wanted to. But it turned out to be harder than I thought."

Crenshaw nodded. "I understand that your wife and daughter are at he r mother's house. Why don't you get on the phone and convince her you'r e going to make this up to her? Then take a nice trip. I had tha t doctor who was going to do the surgery on al Fayed look at SWAT KILLER

Assuming Fade's being honest about the numbness and paralysis he'
s experiencing, the doc says that it'll be one week, maybe two at th e outside before he's in a wheelchair. Or worse."

Egan let out a long breath and stared down at the glass in his hand.

"I'm going to do what I can to protect you," Crenshaw said, startin g down the hall. "Talented people are damn near impossible to find thes e days."

Chapter
Fifty-Four.

How long had Karen been gone? He didn't really know the drone of th e television just seemed endless and the heavy curtains were pulle d closed, leaving nothing but unwavering artificial light. Fade let hi s head loll to the left and looked for the gun that had been on th e nightstand. Gone. Clever girl. She'd forced him into a decision: e ither get up and do something or lie there and wait for the cops t o drag him away.

His eyes wanted to close again but he wouldn't let them, instead tryin g to focus on the slow collapse of the ceiling above. At first he jus t felt like he was drowning, but the more he concentrated, the more h e seemed to come back to life.

He'd finally reached the dead end that had been coming for so long.

Karen would give the police the address of this hotel and a detaile d description of his car. Matt would have to give up his aliases an d credit cards. Nearly everyone in the world knew what he looked lik e from the photograph on the Web site. And his hundred-yard dash was no w measured in minutes, not seconds.

Fade swung his feet to the floor and tried to stand but his right le g collapsed, sending his knee into the sharp edge of the nightstand. N
o sensation at all. He rammed it against the unyielding wood again, eve n harder, and listened to the dull, empty thud it made. A moment later , he found himself hammering his knee repeatedly into the small table , trying to force himself to feel something that would prove he was stil l alive.

Finally, he fell back on the bed, trying to focus on his labore d breathing and not the numbness that was inching its way through hi s body.

The volume of the television suddenly increased and he looked over a t the screen as the newscaster was replaced by a woman in her fiftie s speaking through intermittent sobs.

"We just want our daughter home safe," she got out before being force d to use a crinkled hanky to wipe her nose. "She's such a wonderfu l girl. She has so many people who love her. She's studying nursing ..

. All she ever wanted to do was help people .. ."

Fade found himself mesmerized by the woman's unwavering intensity a s she told stories of Elizabeth Henrich's childhood, her love of animals , the plans she'd had for her life. Why couldn't he turn away?

Finally, the scene changed and the camera focused on a reporte r standing outside a sprawling building surrounded with people shoutin g and pumping their fists in the air. He recognized it as the hospita l where he'd almost put an end to Hillel Strand.

"Harold Logner, known widely as the Collector, is still a patient o f the orthopedic ward of this hospital. He's still refusing to give th e whereabouts of Elizabeth Henrich and continues to insist on bein g provided sanctuary in Brazil. A spokesman for the Brazilian embass y has publicly stated that his country will agree to take Mr. Logner i f they're requested to do so. So far, no reaction at all from th e American authorities."

"Are we expecting one soon?" came the disembodied voice of the anchor.

"My understanding is that we are running out of time."

"That's absolutely correct. By Mr. Logner's own estimate, Elizabet h Henrich can only survive for another few days. Having said that, th e sense here is that he's just playing a game that he knows it's unlikel y that the Brazilians would refuse extradition after Ms. Henrich i s found."

"And the protestors behind you? What's your sense of their mood?"

"Confusion, really. I've talked with quite a few of them and ther e seems to be no consensus about what should be done. It's more a venting of frustration and anger than anything else."

Fade listened for a while longer, then reached for the phone lying nex t to him and retrieved his messages. Nothing at all from Karen, just th e normal mob of reporters, crazies, and cops. There were a fe w exceptions toward the end, though. General Crenshaw had personall y called and guaranteed his safety if he were to turn himself in and Mat t Egan had left a message saying that his wife had left and inviting hi m to come by his house and finish things.

He dropped the phone back on the bed and returned his attention to th e gory history of the Collector murders. He and Harold Logner had a lo t in common. All they did was cause pain. The world would be a bette r place if neither of them had ever been born.

Fade finally pushed himself off the bed again and hobbled to th e closet, digging through one of the drawers inside and coming up with a small sewing kit. He took both that and his laptop to a desk in th e corner of the room and after a few near misses, managed to use th e hotel's data line to get onto the Internet.

His research skills had been steadily improving and it took him a little less than two hours to find a phone number that mos t nine-year-olds could have turned up in a few minutes. He stood again , using his chair as a crutch, and crawled back onto the bed. There wa s a half-full water glass on the nightstand and he smashed it against th e headboard as he dialed his phone.

"Hello?" An older woman's voice, understandably suspicious sounding.

"May I speak to Elise, please," Fade said, using one of the large r pieces of broken glass to cut his right pant leg off just above th e knee.

"She isn't here. Who is this?"

"Salam al Fayed."

She hung up and he hit redial.

"I'm going to call the police," the woman said when she picked u p again. "What are you thinking, call "

"Ma'am! Please! I really am Salam al Fayed. Look, I wrote on my We b site that I met Elise at her concert a few days ago. What I didn't sa y is that I was wearing a white shirt with a mandarin collar, jeans, an d a pair of glasses with blue lenses. Could you tell her that , please?"

Another brief silence. "I'm not saying she's here, you understand. Bu t hold on."

Fade examined his knee while he waited. It had already started t o swell and turn yellow from his tantrum earlier and he used his inde x finger to poke at his kneecap, trying to determine if it was broken.

Not that it really mattered.

"Hello?" The voice was uncharacteristically timid, but stil l unmistakable.. "Hi, Elise."

"How did you get this number?" she said, obviously realizing that i f he had the phone number, he probably had the address, too.

"Well, first, I asked myself where would a woman in your situation go.

Back to her folks, right? So I pulled up your bio on your recor d company's site and found out where you were from originally. Then I p ulled up copies of your CD jackets and enlarged them enough that I c ould see the names of the people you thanked. And there were you r parents' names, right near the top. Then all I had to do was "

"What do you want?"

He held the piece of glass in his hand like a pencil and used it to cu t a deep arc in the side of his knee. It was strange not to be able t o feel anything. Kind of like slicing into a piece of fruit.

"I heard one of your songs on the radio yesterday. And today there wa s concert footage of you on the news .. ."

"My record company says they're printing another twenty-five thousan d of my CDs. They tell me my last one's ranked number ten on Amazon.

It's amazing what a murderous psychopath can do for your career."

"I'm not really a psychopath, you know."

"I was referring to my husband."

"Oh. Right."

He probably should have threaded the damn needle before he'd slice d through his knee. The blood was running down his shin in sheets and h e hadn't even gotten close to hitting the eye yet. It wasn't going t o get any easier if he started getting light-headed.

"I heard you left him."

"What do you want, Mr. al Fayed?"

"I guess I want a chance to explain some things that might be hard fo r you to understand."

She didn't respond, but she didn't hang up either.

"First of all, you and your daughter were never in any danger. Never.