The Hunted (33 page)

Haviland tucked the wallet inside his suit jacket and walked the length of the platform before descending a level and searching for a sign of either his partner or Harper Payne.

But he really did not expect to find them. He surmised that Payne had jumped on a train and that Waller had followed him aboard.

Haviland sat down on the bench and spread his arms across the seatback. The station manager had thought he recalled seeing two men matching their description entering the station a few minutes apart, but he could not be sure. Haviland turned his headfirst to the left, then to the right, taking in the expansive, high-ceilinged terminal. Very few people were in the station, and it was unlikely any of them had seen anything. If there had been an altercation, someone would’ve called 9-1-1, and police would be all over the place. Bottom line was that if his partner and Payne had been here, they weren’t here now, and that’s really all that mattered.

Haviland again tried reaching Waller’s cell phone, but was forwarded to his voicemail... which meant that either he had turned it off so it would not ring and give away his position, or he was for some reason unable to answer it. The uncertainty gnawed at him.

Haviland called his wife and told her not to wait up for him. He then slipped the phone back in his jacket pocket and began tapping out a rhythm on the cement floor with his foot.

He thought about calling Knox and informing him of their status. But he did not want to take the chance of someone intercepting the call, let alone that, if his partner was successful in apprehending Payne, he would not want the director to know they had lost him in the first place. No, he would hold off a little longer before hitting the panic button.

For the time being, he could do nothing but wait until Waller called him back.

At a few minutes past one in the morning, Haviland and Waller stood at Douglas Knox’s front door. They had called him a few moments ago to wake him and let him know it was urgent they meet with him immediately.

They sat down heavily in the chairs arranged in front of his desk and briefed their boss on the events of the past few hours.

The director wore a burgundy robe and leather moccasins, his gray hair tousled and his complexion ruddy and disturbed. “What am I supposed to do, huh? What the hell am I supposed to do?” he bellowed.

Waller kept his eyes on the desk in front of him. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Sorry?”

Waller knew it was the wrong thing to say—but he genuinely meant it. He felt responsible for allowing a key witness in one of the most important FBI cases in decades to escape. No matter how he wrote up his report, there was no way to avoid disciplinary action. But how it would affect his career wasn’t his biggest concern. It was saving face in front of the director. “He’s one of us, I thought I could trust him.”

“And the CIA thought it could trust Aldrich Ames,” Knox spat.

Waller cringed at the comparison to one of the most damaging spy cases ever to hit the U.S. intelligence community. He knew the two situations were vastly different, but he kept the thought to himself. “Yes, sir. I blew it. Nothing I say can excuse what I did.”

“I shoulder some of the responsibility as well, sir,” Haviland said.

“Fine, you’re a fuckup, too.” Knox stood, shoved his hands into the robe’s pockets, and began pacing. “How could you let this happen? Do you realize what’s on the line? We’ve got a court date four weeks away. With Payne, I’ve got control over what happens. Without him...”

Waller glanced at Haviland, who was staring straight ahead at the bookcase. Waller felt like reminding the director that they did not have Scarponi either—and without the defendant, the trial would be of limited value. But he decided to keep his thoughts to himself.

“Have you got any idea of where he might be?” Knox finally asked. “Any way of tracking him?”

“Aside from putting out an alert,” Haviland said, “there are no means of tracing him unless he uses one of Jon’s credit cards.”

“We can’t put out an alert,” Waller said. “We still don’t know who leaked the information about Harper’s amnesia. If it gets out that we lost our witness, every TV station would drag us through the stables until we had horseshit coming out of every orifice.”

“Let alone what Scarponi’s attorney will do with it,” Haviland added.

Knox stopped pacing. “He’s not going to use a credit card. It’d give us an immediate electronic trace on his location. He knows that. We’re not dealing with some dumb fugitive here.” There was silence for a moment while Knox stared at his meticulously neat desk. “Okay. Contact Metro PD. Tell them we’ve got a be-on-the-lookout for one of our own, Special Agent Richard Thompson. Tell them we suspect mental instability, and to use extreme caution. We don’t want him harmed. Then have Lindsey put out the same BOLO.” Knox shook his head. “Best we can hope for. Above all else, we need to find him.”

“Since we don’t know who the leak is,” Waller said, “I don’t know how long we can keep a lid on things.”

“I don’t either. But you two have left me no choice. That is, unless you find him fast.”

“We’ll do our best.”

“Make sure that’s good enough. I’m giving you forty-eight hours. If we don’t have him by then, you two are suspended indefinitely without pay.”

Waller and Haviland rose from their chairs and turned to leave.

“Forty-eight hours,” Knox called after them as they made their way to the door.

Payne was sitting in a cab, his head resting against the cold window. After leaving Waller cuffed to the subway car, he had boarded another train headed in the opposite direction. He then switched to the Red Line, took it into Maryland, and called a taxi service. He directed the driver to drop him at a small independent motel near Bethesda he had located in the yellow pages.

As the cab glided along the George Washington Memorial Parkway, he closed his eyes for a moment and saw the face of a woman in her midthirties, large brown eyes, and brunet hair. Full lips. “Lauren,” he said, opening his eyes. “That’s Lauren.”

The driver glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “You talking to me?”

Payne sat up straight. “No, no. I just... I just remembered something.” He tried to lock on the memory and suddenly saw himself surrounded by snow-covered mountains with a group of men. They were wearing backpacks and skis... and then the image was gone. The harder he tried to concentrate, the more distant the memory became.

After leaving the interstate, the cab hung a few turns and pulled into a pothole-infested parking lot. The driver called out over his shoulder, “Hey, buddy, this is it. Presidential Motor Lodge.” He paused a moment, taking in the state of the motel. “You sure you don’t want something a little nicer? There’s a Best Western a couple miles up the road—”

Payne craned his neck and squinted out the dirty front windshield at the rundown structure. “No, this is perfect, thanks.” He pulled a roll of bills from his pocket and paid the man, courtesy of Jonathan Waller. “Remember, I want a cab here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Boss already knows. Someone’ll be here.”

After the cab drove away, Payne waited outside the office door, pressing a buzzer and peering at the front desk through the cracked window. It was a small room, perhaps ten by twelve, crammed with tourist brochures and guides, a well-worn brown Formica counter, and a small black-and-white television propped in the corner, its antenna a twisted wire coat hanger.

An unshaven man with a torn white undershirt stretched across his large belly appeared from behind the counter. He stepped as close as he could get to the door. “Yeah?”

“I called forty-five minutes ago, about a room for tonight.”

The man nodded, then waddled over toward the counter and pressed a button connected to a buzzer. Payne pushed on the door and entered the office.

“Payment due up front,” the man said as he slapped a clipboard and registration form on the counter.

Payne filled in the blanks with completely false information. He produced his credentials and flashed them, hoping the man wouldn’t take the time to read the name. “I’m a federal agent,” he said, closing the case and shoving it back in his suit jacket pocket. “I’ll give you my credit card number, but I don’t want you putting it through till I’m ready to check out, is that clear?”

The man nodded.

“I’m doing surveillance on a suspect who’s staying in your motel. But he’s very clever and has an electronic linkup to the credit card companies. If you put this through, they’ll alert him within seconds that I’m here.”

The man nodded again. “It’s that guy in eighteen, isn’t it?”

Payne looked around. “I can’t divulge that information, sir. But you seem like a pretty sharp guy.”

The man nodded, a half smile breaking through his unshaven face. “So I guess you want either seventeen or nineteen.”

Payne reasoned that in a dive like this, both rooms were probably open. “I’d prefer nineteen. Better angle.” The more detailed the lie, the more believable it was.

“I got ya.” The night manager turned to a board with keys dangling from bent nails. He chose a set and handed it to Payne. “Charge won’t go through till mornin’.”

Payne thanked the man and walked around to room 19. As the door swung open, the strong odor of mildew flared his nostrils. “Great,” he said, flicking on a light. He hung his torn suit on the lone wire hanger in the closet, cleaned his oozing thigh wound, washed his abraded hands and face, and sank down into the soft mattress.

Within minutes he was asleep, again dreaming of the brunet woman he knew only as Lauren Chambers.

A chilling drizzle misted the air along the path that rimmed the Tidal Basin, but Hector DeSantos did not mind it. The way he saw it, the thick air made it more difficult for someone to electronically eavesdrop on his conversation. Sometimes all it took to defeat high technology was good old-fashioned Mother Nature.

DeSantos’s legs had a spring to them this morning, giving him the impression he could run twenty miles if he wanted to. He sucked in a mouthful of moist air and blew it out, enjoying the solitude of the moment. As it currently stood, life wasn’t too bad for him.

He increased his pace and streaked past the Jefferson Memorial, where another runner joined in stride beside him. It was Brian Archer, dressed in gray sweats and a Redskins ball cap pulled down low over his brow.

“So what’s the urgency?” Archer asked. “And why here?”

“Thought we’d go for a run, spend some quality time together. We haven’t done this in months.”

“I could’ve slept another hour, Hector. This better be good.”

“Good isn’t the word, bro.”

Archer waited a few strides, then said, “Well, you gonna share the news or did you invite me out here to play games?”

“You’re uptight this a.m., my man! Loosen up!”

“You’re in too good a mood, Hector. You had some bizarre session with Maggie this morning, didn’t you?” Archer puffed. “I can tell.”

“I got some answers on that document.”

Archer kept his gaze straight ahead. “Oh yeah? That con came through?”

DeSantos’s eyes quickly danced over at his partner. “This is amazing shit, Brian. Kind of stuff we’re usually smack in the middle of, not shut out of.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Archer looked over at DeSantos, whose long, lean legs had slipped into a rhythmic stride with gazelle like grace.

“Hell yeah,” DeSantos said, then paused to gulp some air. “This is the shit I live for.”

Archer moved right to allow another runner to slip between them. “Then maybe we should handle this at my place. Somewhere secure.”

“We’re here,” DeSantos said, “let’s at least get the run in first.”

They jogged for another fifteen minutes, passing many of the three thousand winter-barren Japanese cherry trees. After circling back, they drove into nearby Georgetown, where the Archers owned a modest two-story brick house trimmed with steel-blue-and-oyster shutters, and accented by an ornate wreath that hung from a brass hook on the front door.

Small security cameras mounted high above on the eaves recorded their arrival. DeSantos good-naturedly waved to the one above his head, then wiped his running shoes on the bristly welcome mat. He followed his partner into the hallway and glanced at the decor. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”

Archer followed his partner’s gaze, which took in the rustic country motif: distressed oak furniture, frilly white curtains with denim trim, braided rugs, old pottery tastefully placed around the kitchen. DeSantos flashed on the last time he was invited over for dinner three months ago. He had tracked in soil on the bottom of his shoes and scratched the entryway’s twenty-five-year-old wood flooring. The Archers had just dropped $2, 000 refinishing the floor, and DeSantos had spent the next few days feeling guilty and begging for forgiveness.

“Remember the re-fi?” Archer asked. “We pulled ten grand out and this is what it got me. Lots of furniture and... all this fancy country stuff.” He walked into the kitchen and grabbed a couple of glasses from the cupboard. “I was fine with my La-Z-Boy and the old Hide-A-Bed.”

DeSantos filled his glass with water. “The shit didn’t match, Brian.”

Archer shrugged. “It’s better to take on more debt?”

“Hey, you’re married, bro. Debt comes with the territory. Speaking of which, where’s Trish?”

“In the nursery, sewing some curtains. She’s really getting into this baby stuff.”

“Her first kid. Must be like playing with dolls.”

Archer placed his glass in the sink, then regarded his partner. “That’s very intuitive, Hector. Where the hell did that come from? What do you know about mothers and babies?”

DeSantos shrugged, left his glass on the counter, and moved down the hall toward the basement door. “I’m a very intuitive person, especially when it comes to women. You know that.”

Archer slapped him across the back of the head. “You’re so full of it.”

DeSantos flipped on the stairwell light and headed down into the damp basement. Archer followed him and watched as his partner pulled a tiny electronic device out of his front pocket.