Thin Line (22 page)

"Let's skip town. Head back to New York."

"Like that's gonna be any better?"

I didn't think it would be, but everything centered around there. It would be where Taylor would return to. It was where McLellan's corpse had turned up.
If we were going to solve anything, it would be there.

"If this is gonna end," I said. "It'll be in the city."

I SPENT THE first hour of the drive looking backward. Couldn't have described one car in front of us. I was more concerned about a black sedan and two
government agents who had somehow tracked us down to a motel north of D.C.

The following hour I remained vigilant, but not obsessed. Bear watched, too. Between the two of us, if we were being followed by a single car, or a tag team
of two or three, we'd spot them. As it was, nothing stood out. Of course, if they were tracking us another way, which I feared, it didn't matter. They'd
find us after we stopped.

"We should ditch our phones," I said.

"Think they're monitoring them?"

"Perhaps." I glanced out the window at the dirty piles of snow that passed in a blur the same way the times I recalled either placing or receiving a call
in the past three days. "Can't hurt."

"Maybe a new rental, too."

"Think they tagged it?"

"Where?"

"Outside of Frank's would be my guess. He knew we were coming. Wouldn't put it past him to have someone waiting outside for the sole purpose of getting
something on this vehicle to track it."

Bear scratched at the growth of hair on his chin. "Possible, I guess."

The next exit had everything we needed. Food, convenience store, and a car rental place. Bear parked in the back of the store lot, and then headed across
the divided highway on foot to get a new rental. I went inside and took care of phones and grabbed drinks and food. Wasn't the best stuff, but it'd do.

I tracked down Bear at the rental place and waited outside, watching for anyone resembling a Fed while he finished up. Ten minutes later, we were in a new
sedan stopped in the middle of a U-turn in front of the convenience store where the old vehicle was parked. The store's front doors popped open, and a man
stepped out. Short, stocky, older. Looked familiar. His shoulders squared up to us. We straddled the median, squared up to him. Sunglasses shielded his
eyes. I couldn't tell where he was looking. He walked toward a Ford Mustang.

The break in traffic Bear waited for appeared. We whipped around the median. I spun in my seat to reestablish visual contact, but the guy was gone.

"What is it?" Bear asked.

"That guy," I said, "he looked familiar."

"From where?"

"That's the problem, man. I don't know."

"One of the guys from the motel?"

"Only saw one."

"How'd you know there were two?"

"When the one guy was getting ready to leave, he said something, or the other guy said something, and the guy in the doorway stopped and shut the door.
Besides, no way someone comes after us while flying solo."

Bear stuck his fist out in between us, expecting me to do the same. "You know that's right."

"Anyway, keep an eye out for a Mustang, a red one."

We never spotted the Mustang, but that didn't prevent my mind from chewing on the man I saw, trying to place him. I'd seen lots of guys like him, from the
moment I stepped foot on Parris Island, South Carolina, for recruit training. Half the guys in our platoon looked like him. Half the guys in the field
working for the CIA looked like him. Almost every Spec Ops guy I ever encountered looked like him.

I called Joe Dunne and left him a message. I figured he'd written us off as being any help to him.

The sun was setting by the time we reached New York. Reds and purples rippled across the sky, fading deeper with every passing second. We pulled into a
public garage and ditched the car on the third level. Bear wiped the interior down, erasing any sign of us ever being inside.

We weren't far from the apartment, but I didn't feel comfortable returning there. Sure, it had cash and weapons, but Bear had secured those earlier that
day while I was at the motel. Going back to the apartment posed a great risk. The Old Man most likely had it staked out. McSweeney probably did too. I
didn't doubt that she knew my identity by this point. If her contact was any good, he'd have figured it out.

"So where to?" Bear asked, stepping over the waist-high concrete barrier on the ground floor of the garage.

I continued to the opening and met him on the sidewalk. We merged into the crowd moving east. There were few people I trusted. Bear was one. The other,
while possibly pissed at me, was our only hope at that time.

"Clarissa's," I said.

"She ain't gonna let you in, man. Maybe me, but definitely not you."

"I'll take my chances." We crossed the street, continued toward the bar. "Besides, she's not ready to kick me to the curb yet."

"How can you tell?"

I shrugged. "Just a feeling. Our story isn't complete."

"Whatever." The big man stepped ahead and pulled on the bar's front door.

Soft chatter rose up the six steps that led to the dining room. There were two couples seated at one corner of the bar. Four booths were occupied by
unrelated parties. Clarissa stood behind the counter. I crossed the room. She looked up when I placed my hands on the counter.

"Jesus, Jack," she said. Her eyes misted over. "What the hell happened in France?"

"What are you talking about?"

She wiped her eyes with her sleeve as her cheeks reddened. The concerned look on her face turned to one of anger. She stormed toward the kitchen. Looking
back at me, she kicked the door open and gestured for me to follow her in.

"I could care less how classified whatever you were doing is or was," she said before I fully crossed the threshold. "You were on TV, fifty or a hundred
feet from a man-made crater. They said the bomb was detonated by a terrorist. What the hell is going on?"

I wanted to ask her about the footage she saw. Frank hadn't mentioned it. Pierre hadn't called about it. Instead, I tried to calm Clarissa down. "Look,
you're right, I can't talk about that. But it's over, and I'm OK, and so is Bear."

Clarissa looked down at the floor in an effort to hide her tears from me. One dropped, creating a tiny lake on the tile between us. She brought her palms
to her face and wiped the rest away. Looking up, her eyeliner smeared along the ridge of her cheekbone, she said, "And this detective. She won't leave me
alone."

"McSweeney?"

Clarissa nodded. "And she knows a lot about you, Jack. Too much."

"Like what?"

"Your last name, for starters. She knows you were in the Marines, said your files were classified, but that she knew our connection."

"What'd she say about your father?"

"She knew he was murdered. Said things that I'm pretty sure the public shouldn't have access to."

"Such as?"

"She knew what my dad did, a few details of the program and who you co-oped with. I don't think she realized his murder was connected."

"McSweeney's got a source, a relative or something, working in the NSA. At least I think it's the NSA. They have access to files. Could be any other
agency, really, or even someone inside the Pentagon. High enough up, it all blends together."

"What do I do about her, Jack?"

"You tell her where I live?"

"She already knew." She wiped her face again with her sleeve, turning the cloth from white to black. Glancing down at it, she said, "I look like a clown
now, don't I?"

"I didn't want to say anything."

Clarissa hit my chest. "Bastard." She smiled, seemingly forgiving me for all past transgressions, if only for a moment.

"As far as McSweeney goes, play her game for now. It might get us further with her."

"OK. Help yourselves to whatever you want behind the bar. I'm gonna clean up. Back out in a sec."

Bear had already helped himself, and a few of the patrons. He'd gone so far as to tie a white apron around his waist. In less than a minute it had three
stains. He nodded as I approached, leaned back against the wall.

"Having fun?" I said.

Bear shrugged. "What'd she have to say?"

"The detective knows too much." I took a second to look around the room. Nothing had changed since we walked in with the exception of one person leaving
the bar to pick a song on the jukebox. Amos Lee started serenading us through the ceiling-mounted speakers.

"What kind of stuff?"

"Everything. What it really means is that her source knows everything and is feeding it to her."

"Who do you think it is?"

"You know how classified this stuff is. So, pick an acronym and you might be right."

Clarissa returned to the bar, all makeup washed away from her face. It made her look less jaded, more pure. Maybe even more attractive.

"What are you staring at?" she asked.

I said nothing.

"You want to stay at my place tonight?"

"Both of us?" I glanced at Bear, then back at her. "Probably better off in a hotel."

"You know," Bear said, "with all that's going on, and that detective sniffing around, it might be best if we're around her. I think she's good alone here,
in public, but at home, maybe we should be there."

Bear had a point. We had at least three, maybe up to five, different groups to deal with. Between the Old Man and his organization, Frank and the SIS, and
whoever McLellan worked for, someone might stoop low enough to go after a person we cared about.

Clarissa made the ideal target on several levels. Past, present, future; it was all there.

Not only would we stay with her, I considered cashing in a favor and getting an ex-Special Forces friend to be her bodyguard for the next forty-eight
hours.

"So about the Old Man," Bear said. "You really thinking about caving to him?"

The thought had played on my mind as well. "Thing is, Bear, battling him would be the same as taking on a small country. Alone, or with little support." I
nodded in his direction.

He nodded back, said nothing.

"He's got his hands into everything, and everywhere. I don't know how far he's penetrated the government, but just the fact that he has makes this
difficult. He's got ins with the FBI. I'm sure the CIA, too. Probably a contact or two at the Pentagon. No doubt his local politicians have pockets lined
with the Old Man's money. Possibly some at the national level. Is this who I, we, want to go to war with?"

Bear thought it over for a moment. His fingertips worked their way through the growth on his face. We both hadn't shaved the same number of days, yet his
beard was three times as thick as mine. Hell, I looked like an out-of-work coffee house barista. He looked like he belonged in the woods, chopping down
trees.

"We don't want to go to war with him, no," Bear said. "But do we want to work for him?"

"If you'd have asked me that a few days ago, I'd have said no, absolutely not. But after what we've been through, and the obvious fact that someone we
should be able to trust to not stab us in the back has gone and done just that…" I paused and watched Clarissa as she crossed the floor to deliver a
round to a table of guys in their early twenties. They were all dressed alike. Chinos and designer shirts. Expensive gel held their spiked, disheveled hair
in place.

"I get what you're saying, Jack."

I glanced at the ground and traced an imaginary line with the tip of my foot. "Let's just say that, when it comes to compromising my values and working
with the Old Man, the line has grown so thin, I don't know if it even exists anymore."

The bells hanging on the front door jingled as it opened. I looked up, first catching Clarissa's eye. She looked toward the door, then avoided me as her
head spun the other direction. Slowly, my gaze drifted, taking in every person at every table in the second it took to sweep the room.

And then I saw McSweeney.

THE DETECTIVE WAS dressed in blue jeans and an off-white sweater. She had unzipped her leather jacket, but left it on. Her hair fell across her shoulders
in waves. This was the first time I'd seen it down. The soles of her boots rapped rhythmically against the floor as she crossed the room toward me. Men
seated behind her, unable to resist the allure of her footfalls, turned away from their dates to get a glimpse of McSweeney. Her jacket brushed open as she
moved, revealing her holstered Glock. She looked from me to Bear, sizing up the big man. Then, with a gesture that lasted a second, she tossed a glance and
a nod in Clarissa's direction, confirming what I feared earlier.

Up to that point, there had been two people I knew would never sell me out. Now Bear stood alone.

McSweeney swung her left leg over a barstool, rose over the padded seat, and then settled onto it. The air in the padding hissed out. She seemed
comfortable, almost to a fault, for a woman who faced two trained killers. Ones she had to presume were armed.

"Get you something?" Bear said sarcastically.

McSweeney smiled, shook her head, said, "Jack, don't blame Clarissa for this. I had her in a pretty bad spot. If she didn't do this for me, she'd be facing
some serious consequences."

I heard the kitchen door swing open and shut. The swishing grew faster and higher pitched with each successive pass through the door frame.

"I need answers from you," McSweeney continued. "Tell me who these men were, and what all of you were doing in the same location."

"Which men?" I said.

"Don't play dumb, Jack."

"Hear from the FBI recently?"

"What's that got to do with this?"

I shrugged, said nothing.

"I hear from them quite often, but not over this. Yet, at least." She sipped from the glass of water Bear had set in front of her. "Back to my question."

"Can't your source tell you this?"

She looked past me, toward the mirrored wall, and shook her head. "Current intelligence isn't their strong suit."