The Last Family (24 page)

“It won’t matter. We will end this problem. As soon as Martin shows himself, get him to the car, open the car door, and step back. Between my two men there’ll be nothing left to chance.”

George Spivey made it sound as though facing Martin on the dock would be no more dangerous than a walk in Jackson Square at high noon. Even given Martin’s demise, it was always possible that Spivey might decide to bury everything in one big hole. In that case … what could he do anyway? Nada.

“You know I am not used to this sort of—”

The man outside the car put a hand on Lallo’s shoulder and applied too much pressure, the way a schoolyard bully would—measured for discomfort but not pain. A promise. “And for a bonus you get to keep the money you shorted him. No one will know Martin is gone but us.”

“What about the police? They could hear the rifle.”

“There will be no noise and no police. Just make sure you step out of the way after you open the door.”

“Sí.”
Lallo shook his head.
Bullets have no eyes
.

“Lallo, when all is said and done, Martin Fletcher is just another nickel-and-dime cleaner gone off the deep end. He’s been lucky, that’s all. Besides”—he patted the man’s cheek—“he’s an old man now.”

Lallo shook his head. “And you are young. Never underestimate your elders and the experience that comes only to those who live to see the next sunrise. This old man has been evading you people for, what, five years? You should have sent experienced men to kill him in the jungle when you had the chance. Not boys.”

There was no answer. The man who called himself George Spivey was gone. How George Spivey had got the information he had on Lallo was a question Lallo could not fathom. He was a professional. A cold man. Surely he was working for the CIA. Maybe freelance; there didn’t appear to be any red tape wrapping Spivey. He was officially tied in, at any rate. How long would
these
federales
keep making Lallo do their will? Maybe it would continue until they killed him themselves, or leaked word to the cartel that Lallo was playing games on the wrong side.

Lallo stepped from the car and went back into the house. But there was no question of trying to sleep, so Lallo used his key to let himself into the maid’s bedroom off the kitchen, where he could lose himself in her soft, fragrant embrace until morning.

George Spivey sat in his car, opened his cellular phone, and hooked a small black box onto the telephone’s mouthpiece to scramble his voice. He dialed a number in New Orleans that was a relay extension and sent the signal to some receiver in a location unknown to Spivey. The man who answered the telephone spoke in a flat, monotonous drone.

“Nature Center,” he said.

“It’s Terrence,” George Spivey said. “We’re about to tag the purple martin. The Amazonian parrot should be migrating north immediately.”

“I have that,” the voice answered. “Another thing.”

“I’m listening.”

“That one-eyed eagle from up in the mountains?”

“Yeah, I know the one.”

“He’s no longer on the endangered-species list. He’s out of his nest in the sanctuary, and it seems he’s circling the farm.”

“I know.”

“If he flies over the henhouse, he’s fair game.”

“If he interferes?”

“As long as he flies, an eagle’s a threat.”

“So he’s not protected.”

“The checkbook wants him brought down.”

“Under what circumstances?”

“If there is a clean shot.”

“That wasn’t part of the arrangement. The deal was to tag the martin.”

“There’s a new grant that should cover the additional fieldwork. The deposit is already in your account.”

“That’s a go.”

“Happy hunting, Terrence.”

George Spivey ended the call and unhooked the box from the telephone.

He thought about Paul Masterson. It was a shame he had decided to get involved, but so went the world. Things were never easy. He made a note to check with the bank in Switzerland. Just to make sure. He understood that this was all in the interests of national security, but he wasn’t an employee with a retirement plan. He was a nice guy, but he’d be damned if he’d do Masterson for nothing, national-security risk or not.

23

S
TEPHANIE THOUGHT THAT TIME WAS AGAINST THE MAIL SEARCH’S
success. After the first night Andy Lustiv started delivering Eve’s mail to the van so they wouldn’t have to show up at the post office during office hours. She placed Eve’s mail on the table and began by opening a gas bill and running the scanner over it. A few partials, no matches. She looked at Larry Burrows, who was yawning, a midafternoon slump. She took the next piece, an envelope with a condominium-development return address, and placed it onto the scanner plate. There were several prints, but none of them Martin’s. She opened the envelope, and on the cover of the enclosed brochure she isolated three good prints. As she rubbed her eyes, the computer beeped, and when she looked up, there was a message on the screen. Her heart felt as if it had stopped beating, her throat closed.

Martin Fletcher … Left index … Left middle … Left thumb
.

“Bingo!”
she shouted.

Larry straightened up and turned his gaze onto the screen.

“I’ll get McLean,” he said.

“No, I’ll tell Joe McLean,” she said. “This is one announcement I want to make personally.”

So what does this say? Where’s the message?” Joe checked each of the faces in the van’s radio-control room. He was holding a photocopy of the condo brochure and asking a rhetorical question for the tenth time. “We need to figure this out, people. We have to make sure we don’t miss anything. Anything.” He had just got off the telephone, having told Paul they had struck pay dirt on the prints.

Sierra was keeping an eye on the screen, which showed Eve sitting in her chair, clipping her toenails, and watching television. “Maybe he’s going to meet her in Colorado?” she said. “I mean, really meet her there.”

“Too obvious,” Joe said.

“It’s a code for another destination,” Stephanie said. “Given the level of paranoia Martin Fletcher exhibits, I’d imagine there’s a system of messages they worked out in advance.”

Joe nodded. He seemed to be really listening to Stephanie for a change. “That’s a fair assumption. Whatever the message, we have to stay with her from the second she leaves the house. She’s lost every tail she’s ever had on her. Maybe they weren’t trying very hard, but if we lose her, it won’t be due to lack of effort or manpower. Look at her, for Christ’s sake, she can’t be that smart. He plans all her moves. The lost tails were flawless. I imagine he set down the location last time they met. I’m sure the brochure just means it’s a go.”

Stephanie hated the way he had taken her thoughts as his own. Or maybe he had thought it all out before. It made sense. “We keep watching the Eve Fletcher show. And if it looks like she’s going to get away from us, we grab her and hope Martin moves to take her back from
us. He’ll be close by, watching when she gets to her destination.”

Walter said, “This surveillance is like bad BBC in freeze-frame. The most exciting thing that happens is when she gets her bowels to turn over.”

Joe spoke without turning his head. “Stephanie, check all the travel agencies and airlines on the off chance that she’s already made reservations or he’s made some for her.”

“Sure,” she said, her voice barely over a whisper.

“When she moves, we have to be ahead of her,” Joe said. “And, Stephanie, run any tickets in names that might be obvious aliases,” Joe said.

Stephanie did a slow burn.
Stephanie, please do some shit work far me while Larry and Walter sit on their asses
.

“Eve hasn’t seen Stephanie or Larry yet. They’ll provide close cover. She’s seen you other two, but if we alter you enough, we should be okay. She’s almost blind. Martin would recognize me. We’re closing in on E day, kids—let’s stay alert,” Joe said.

An hour later Stephanie came into the room and held up the pad she had been writing on. “I have it. In two days.” Stephanie put her notes down on the table. “She’s flying to Dallas/Fort Worth with a change for Denver.”

“That was
too
easy,” Joe said, frowning.

“That’s what I thought, so I looked closer. There’s a suspicious reservation on a flight to Miami on a different airline one concourse over, a few minutes later. And I called the charter services, and there’s a private charter booked under that same name from Miami to Orlando. To be paid for in cash. And there’s a reservation at one of the hotels at Disney World for two days and three nights.”

“Too close for coincidence?” Joe said.

“Well, I didn’t give up there. Seems the Evelyn St. Martin return is back here, Charlotte,” Stephanie said proudly. “Also, while I was checking, I discovered mirror reservations exist in remarkably similar names over the three days following.” She looked at the paper in her
hand. “E. Martindale, Milton Martin, and Eve Farmingdale. The others have charters scheduled at different services at Miami International. Haven’t checked the hotel reservations on those yet.”

“All right!” Joe slapped his hands together. “She’s planning to ditch the tail at Dallas/Fort Worth and double back to Miami. Figures we can’t follow the charter. And she could change the destination in the air, I imagine. God, we’re good,” Joe said. “Do the hotels, but once she’s on the ground, she may change all that. Besides, she’ll be transmitting.”

Aren’t
we
good
, Stephanie thought to herself.
You’re welcome, asshole
.

Then Joe did something out of character: he hugged her and spun her around in the small room. “You are brilliant, Stephanie,” he said. “With minds like yours on our side, the bad guys don’t have a fuckin’ chance.”

Until that moment Stephanie had felt as though she had been doing the lion’s share of the work on the team and that he’d take the credit as most of the superiors in the agency did. It was part of paying dues, she’d been told. Now she knew he was using her so much for the detail work because he thought she was the one who’d get results. His motives were simple—he just wanted Martin Fletcher’s blood on the floor, and he loved anyone who could help him draw it.

24

A
S SOON AS
R
EB STEPPED DOWN OFF THE BUS AND PASSED THROUGH
the gate, the agents watching him could relax. But he didn’t climb down from the bus and go into the house as he was supposed to. Instead he stood beside a large oak, holding his backpack, and stared at Alice Walters’s house across the street. Thorne Greer trained the binoculars on him and waited. As Thorne watched, Reb began walking toward the Walters house. Woody sat up from the monitors and stood behind Thorne.

“Shit!” Thorne said. “What in hell’s he up to?”

Reb crossed the street and didn’t stop until he was halfway across the lawn. When he stopped, he looked up at Thorne and yelled, “Hey, Mr. Greer, I want to talk to you!”

“What’s going on?” the local agent, Alton Vance, who had been following the bus, asked over the radio. He was down the street watching from the Volvo.

“I don’t know,” Thorne said. “He’s yelling that he wants to see me.”

“Better do something,” Woody said, entertained.

“Wish I was in on your joke. This is shit. With my luck Martin will drive by and see—”

“A boy talking to a house?” Woody laughed again.

“I’ll open the front door,” Thorne said.

“Do you imagine that Martin doesn’t know we’re here? I assumed he was supposed to see us,” Woody said.

“What do you mean?”

Woody shrugged. “I assumed you wanted him to know we’re here. That it’s just supposed to
look
like we’re trying to stay secret.”

“What are you saying?”

“We did everything but take out billboards. We could have stayed invisible, but you had us doing close cover. Hell, we were spotted by kids! You’re too good to be that sloppy.”

Thorne walked to the door. “Orders shouldn’t be questioned. I don’t know exactly what Paul’s thinking, but I trust his judgment.”

“So did what’s their names—Hill and Barnett, was it?”

Thorne was in the hallway, but he whirled and cast a look of pure fury back into the room.

Woody opened his hands and shrugged. Then, when Thorne was clear, he smiled.

Thorne stormed down the stairs to the front door. He waved Reb inside. Reb stepped to the edge of the front steps and no farther.

“Reb. You aren’t supposed to know we’re here. Remember? See, if you don’t know we’re here, then you can’t be yelling at me or standing in the yard. Because someone could see us. Remember?”

The boy stood firm and fixed his eyes on Thorne. “I want to see my father.”

“Reb, that isn’t something I can control. I mean—”

“Then I won’t cooperate. I’m going to wave at Woody and Sean and you, too. Every day I am going to
stand here until I get to talk to him. He’s in there, isn’t he?”

“No, he isn’t. Come on in,” Thorne said. “We can talk.”

“After I see him.”

“After you satisfy yourself that he isn’t here.”

25

R
AINEY
L
EE SEATED HIMSELF ACROSS FROM
P
AUL AND LOCKED HIS
long fingers together on the conference table. “The Buchanans will be at home tomorrow night. I told them I’d call them then to see if they’d changed their minds. I’ll pop over then.”

Paul started to tell Rainey about the hit on the brochure when the telephone rang. Before Paul could pick it up, Sherry did. She lifted the receiver to her ear. “Yes?” She listened for a second and then held the receiver in the air. “It’s Agent McLean in Charlotte.”

Paul lifted his receiver. Rainey sat forward. “Joe. What is it?” Paul listened, smiled, and stuck his thumb up in the air so Sherry could see it from her desk. “Just now? Great. Miami to Orlando. Okay, that’s possible. Don’t close any doors unless you’re two hundred percent sure. By the way, I’ve been thinking about the other prints on the brochure.” He listened for a moment. “Forward
them all to D.C. Sherry has the address for someone I want to take a look at them.”