Resistant (35 page)

The young desk clerk was clearly destined for bigger things.

Again, Lou found himself speculating on how Burke might escape the hotel, and wondering if it would be wise to go after him. Again, the internal debate ended quickly. Alexander Burke was a man to stay away from unless Cap’s life or Humphrey’s depended on bringing him down.

“No worries,” Lou said to the desk clerk. “It only did it once. Just wanted you to know.”

From the corner of his eye, Lou saw some would-be rescuers making their way in from the pool, and hurried off. In spite of himself, he ignored the mismatch of a soaking wet doc versus a heavily armed killer, and skidded to a stop at the elevators. There were four of them, two on each side of the bay. All were in use, but none of them was on the sixth floor. At that moment, his common sense took over. It was doubtful Burke was anywhere near the sixth floor. He could have taken the stairs or gone out a service entrance. Either way, he had the notebook. The Neighbors would want it ASAP, and Lou would most likely be put on his to-do list.

Lou avoided the front desk and Reynaldo, and hurried out the revolving doors. The rain had largely abated, but the wind remained, along with a thick band of humid air that gave his sodden clothes the heft of a suit of armor. Ignoring the uniformed doorman, Lou climbed into a cab that was idling on the hotel’s circular driveway.

The cab lurched forward, and the driver, an African American man with a congenial smile, glanced over his shoulder.

“Going to the aquarium?” he asked.

“That was pretty funny.”

“I have my moments.”

The cabbie slowed, waiting for instructions.

Stubborn to the last, Lou was still scanning for Burke.

“Just drive,” he said.

“Your dime.”

There was reason to be hopeful, Lou was thinking. Horrible as it was, it was telling that Burke killed the home health aide, but not Humphrey. One Hundred Neighbors were frantic. According to Cap’s doctors, the germ had mutated. It could be the Neighbors had lost their leverage to negotiate with Washington, but were keeping that fact secret for as long as possible. Assuming their treatment was no longer effective, it made no sense that Humphrey was dead.

Lou removed his sodden wallet from his pants pocket and gave the driver the address to the FBI’s Atlanta field office.

“Do you have a cell phone I could borrow?” he asked.

The driver looked at Lou through his rearview mirror.

“You’re not going to call a girlfriend in Canada, are you?” His laugh was genuine.

“No, I’m going to call my brother at the FBI,” Lou said, deadpan.

The man’s expression turned serious.

“Oh, well, in that case…”

He passed his phone back. The numbers Vaill had scrawled on his card were still legible, although the ink was running. Reluctant even to consider going into the field office, Lou didn’t have a plan B. As things shook down, he didn’t have to. A second after he hit the last number, Vaill answered.

“Yeah, Vaill here.”

“It’s Lou.”

“What number is this?”

No pleasantries, no small talk. The man was all business, and totally suspicious of everything.

“I borrowed it from my cab driver. I’m on my way to you now.”

“Just stay away from the front of the building,” Vaill said. “Park across the street and a block down. Believe it or not, I was just going to call. I’ve put together a DVD like you suggested. There’s one thing I think we should go over together—it’s a DVD recording Burke sent to his wife. It’s been checked by the evidence analysts, but it may be worth looking at again.”

“Well, I’ve learned a little bit about Burke, too,” Lou said. “He just showed up in my hotel room. He used your name to get me to open the door. Then he tried to do his thing.”

“How’d you get away from him?”

“Let’s just say I got a seven from the Polish judge.”

Lou heard Vaill suck in a breath.

“You dove?”

“Cannonball. I did a six-story cannonball. I’m sore but okay. Tim, he’s got Humphrey’s notebook.”

“As long as he doesn’t have your scalp on his lodge pole. Do you need anything?”

“A change of clothes and size nine New Balances.”

“We’ll find a place to do that. Have the cab park near the Starbucks across the street. I’m going to pack up and meet you. Where are you now?” Lou got the address from the driver and relayed it back to Vaill. “Okay, I think you’re about fifteen minutes away. And, doc?”

“Yeah?”

“That puts you and me together in a unique group.”

“What group is that?”

“As far as I know, we’re the only two Alexander Burke has ever tried to kill and didn’t.”

CHAPTER 45

           Secrecy and discretion are more important to a tactical revolutionary movement than numbers.

        
—LANCASTER R. HILL,
100 Neighbors
, SAWYER RIVER BOOKS, 1939, P. 156

Burke showing up at Lou’s hotel had only heightened Vaill’s paranoia and his conviction that they were dealing with a mole in the agency. Moments after Lou hung up, he had called back to move their meeting place down two blocks.

As the cab cruised past the field office and neared the spot, Lou dropped two limp wrinkled twenties onto the front seat and bolted before they had come to a complete stop. As best as his still-saturated jeans would allow, he got into a crouch and weaved to Vaill’s passenger’s-side door like a man afraid of getting shot by a sniper, which, essentially, he was.

Alexander Burke had proved his skill as an agent as well as his viciousness and absolute remorseless. Now it was time for Vaill to take charge and lead them in some sort of counterstrike. Two problems: even in top form, it was unlikely he was a match for the killer, and at the moment, post-op with a rainbow scar and unpredictable, disabling headaches, he most certainly was not in top form.

“Buckle up, buddy,” he said. “If I pick up a tail, we’re going to have to do some fancy driving to lose him, or even better, to come up behind him. Just like the fighter pilots.”

“I don’t think he’s out there, Tim. At least not right now.”

“Explain.”

“He’s got what the Neighbors want, Humphrey’s notebook, and now he’s got to deliver it to wherever they are, probably as quickly as possible.”

“I suppose.”

“That doesn’t mean forget about him, but I am willing to take the chance he’s postponing coming after either of us until his mission is complete. Then maybe he’ll come after us instead of taking a well-earned vacation to the Caribbean or something. All that is by way of saying I need to get out of these damn clothes and into something dry.”

“How about we find a place to stay first?”

“How about we stop by a store for some sweats and a pair of sneakers? My inner thighs can only take so much of this.”

For the first time, Vaill cracked a smile.

“You got it,” he said.

To the credit of the staff at Richie’s Sporting Goods, no one reacted to the disheveled, sodden, shoeless customer with an “M.D.” following the name on his MasterCard, which, not surprisingly, failed to work after its soaking. Vaill quickly pulled out a wad of cash before the clerk even started keying in the account number by hand. Fifteen minutes of rapid shopping, and Lou left the store with a set of sweats, a sharp pair of New Balance running shoes, shorts, socks, underwear, T-shirts, an Atlanta Falcons jacket, an Atlanta Braves cap, an Atlanta Hawks sweatshirt, and $270 owed to his new partner.

“My delicate inner thighs thank you,” Lou said as they drove away.

“In nearly a month working together, Chuck McCall never cost me a dime,” Vaill replied. “And he never mentioned his delicate inner thighs, neither. Now, let’s first make certain Burke isn’t even better than we fear, and then find somewhere to settle in and look at this evidence I brought.”

The place they settled on, after nearly half an hour of evasive driving, was a no-frills Great Southern Inn and Suites. In truth, the Great Southern was the exact sort of place Lou would have picked had he not accumulated an abundance of credit card points. The irony was not lost on him that those points had most likely saved his life. There was only a micro-sized pool at the two-story motel, and no balcony from which he could have jumped.

Vaill registered as Gregg Campbell from Houston, and had a license and credit cards to back that up.

“I have half a dozen of these sets,” he said to Lou in a more than passable Texas drawl. “Passports, letters of credit, the works. Gregg Campbell is one of my favorites, although the truth is he would probably never stay here. Oil, dontcha know.”

“Our tax dollars at work,” Lou said.

He liked it when Vaill shed his grim mantle, but he well understood why he didn’t do it often.

The Great Southern was up a long drive, about a quarter mile off a sparsely traveled highway. They found it because of a large sign on a very tall pole. Lou wondered what a six-story-tall pole would look like. After they registered for a second-floor suite, Vaill waited in the shadows near the entrance for a good while, fixed on the driveway and the parking lot. Finally, satisfied enough, he led Lou up to their room.

“I wouldn’t put it past the monster to leave his car someplace and walk a mile or so to come up behind this place,” he said.

He pulled the small desk over in front of the closed pull-out, set up his laptop, and inserted one of two DVDs.

“I thought we could start with the one Burke’s wife gave to me and McCall. I showed her graphic photos of what he did to Maria, and she cracked and gave this to us. There’s nothing really of use on it, but I thought it would be a good place to start. Want me to go out for some popcorn for the matinee?”

“Let me see if I can recall what happened the last time you left me alone in a hotel room,” Lou replied.

“Okay, no popcorn, no Raisinets.”

“So there’s not much to this recording?”

“It’s a tearjerker featuring a murderer. Doesn’t even get a PG rating.”

“Sounds like at least you guys are making use of the warehousing technology.”

“This is a video of Burke, sent to his wife. It’s been analyzed by one of our very best intelligence people. No, make that our absolutely best intelligence people. Like I said, he didn’t come up with much. But if nothing else, it presents some interesting insights into the man.”

Vaill hit play and Lou felt his insides go cold. The screen lit up with the image of Alexander Burke, although not the Alexander Burke who had attacked him at the hotel.

“Amazing disguise he wore,” Lou said.

“Believe me, this one’s the real deal.”

This man, clean-shaven, had gray eyes, a different-shaped nose, and straw-colored hair. He was totally at ease, and dashingly good looking, perched on a high, bar-type stool, set on a swath of brownish green lawn. Behind him, an endless expanse of steel ocean churned before an arcing horizon, and on either side, small groves of trees set off his carefully staged tableau. A small plastic device—a remote, Lou assumed—dangled in his hand. The camera, rock steady, was probably set on a tripod, and it did not look as if the killer had help in making the recording.

“Hi, Lola, hey sweet baby.” His voice was nothing like the one Lou had heard in the hotel room. His inflection was warm and full of love, incongruous with the cold eyes and the harsh memories Lou held of him. “You’re not going to hear anything from me in the coming months. But sooner or later you will, and none of it is going to be very flattering. I wish I could be there with you when it all comes out, in order to comfort you in what is going to be a difficult time. But I can’t. I have to be where I am, doing what I will be doing.”

Vaill paused the recording.

“Like I said, this has been analyzed by our best. But it’s good that we’re starting at the beginning. Pay attention to voice, his manner, the way he holds himself. I guess the best thing we could hope for is some clue as to where this film was made, but I believe that’s asking too much.”

“Got it,” Lou said. “Keep rolling.”

Burke’s image again became animated.

“You understand our cause,” he was saying, his tone far calmer than the white-capped ocean behind him. “You know what’s at stake. It’s not just about our future, but the future of this country. Somebody has to take a stand. The politicians have had their chances and it’s time for my organization to step up and make a real difference.

“I told you when we first met that I didn’t want children, because I didn’t want them raised in this corrupt and weak society. But every day I wished we had a bunch. You would have made an amazing mother, and I would have been the luckiest man in the world. As it is,
I am
lucky. I’m blessed to have the opportunity to make it possible for other people to have children and raise them in a country that is as strong and as financially stable as the original foundation upon which our forefathers built it.

“I miss you, Lola, and I love you with all my heart and soul. I want to tell you that I will come for you when it’s safe. If there is a way, I will come get you. But that might not happen. More likely is that I will be a wanted man—wanted for doing what I believe in my soul is right. But know this: my heart is pure, my conscience is clean, and my conviction in the cause is as unwavering as my love for you.”

Burke raised the remote control and the image on the screen went to black.

Lou sat quietly, stunned by what he had just watched. Nothing leaped out at him, except that the emotion expressed in the recording was as true as a bullet—as bright as the torch Lou still carried for Emily’s mother, Renee. Also, it was clear that Burke was not simply a hired gun. He was invested in the principles espoused by the Neighbors. Their cause was his, and he was willing to kill to support it.

Lou shared those thoughts with Vaill.

“Anything else?” Vaill asked. “Anything that would give us other insights into the man, or maybe something that would give us a clue as to where this was made?”

Lou shook his head. “The only things I saw were ocean, trees, grass, the stool, and a few large rocks, mostly embedded in the earth.”