Thin Line (32 page)

The coffee ready, I grabbed a mug, made my way through the garage, and stepped outside, using the overhang to shield me from the falling frozen rain. Each
drop hit the pavement, scattered a few feet, like kicked-up gravel. Each breath of cold air awakened me further. Each sip of the hot liquid in my mug
loosened up my throat and chest, allowing me to breathe deeper.

I spent twenty minutes out there, staring into the darkened woods, wondering if anyone was staring back.

As I turned to head back inside, I received a call.

The display said unknown. Against my better judgment, I answered.

"Hello, Mr. Jack," the Old Man said.

"Don't you sleep?" I said.

"Sleep is for those who don't want to get ahead in life, Mr. Jack."

"I think you've made pretty big strides. You can afford to nap for a while."

"Indeed." He paused, then added, "Aren't you tired of chasing your tail?"

"Never met a dog that tired of doing that."

"You consider yourself a dog?"

"Better than considering myself a cat."

The Old Man cackled.

"Look, I rescued the guy, made the girl happy, lost a friend, but also made a new one. All in all, a good day's work. I think I'm done with this. You can
do what you will."

Through the thickness of trees, I made out headlights. They held steady maybe fifty yards ahead. Couldn't tell if it was a car or truck or van. They
passed, and for a moment the red from their taillights was visible. The falling ice steadily pelting the ground made it difficult to focus on the rumbling
engine. The vehicle could have continued on, or it could've stopped.

"Come see me, Mr. Jack. I have the answers you seek. These are answers that you want. Even if your Mr. Skinner agrees to call off the job, this will not
end for you, not unless you know what I know."

"I don't like to play games. If you've got something to tell me, then do it now."

"I've already said more than I care to over the phone. From Harrisburg, it should take you no more than four hours to get here, even with traffic. I'd
suggest you leave now. Failure to arrive by nine a.m. will result in me pulling the plug on my Jack Noble experiment."

"The hell are you talking about?"

"Brett is no longer the target. You are." With that, the Old Man ended the call.

I stepped out from under the protection of the overhang and wrapped my hands behind my head and looked up. Frozen rain stung my face, numbed my skin.
Above, the clouds had parted, leaving a jagged oval, like a hole in the ice on a lake after someone had fallen through. That was how I felt. The ice had
cracked a day or two ago. I stepped in the wrong spot and was trapped underneath.

Smothered.

And now I was on my own.

ALMOST FOUR HOURS later, I was driving through Queens. Navigating by memory. Looking for the first signs of the Old Man's compound.

The guys on the street corner were the first confirmation that I was close.

I didn't have to wait long to make a decision. The Old Man knew I was there. From what I knew of his organization, he had the reach to make something major
happen within a half hour if he wanted to. I didn't want to put Bear at risk in his current state, and after all Brandon had done for us, including putting
us up for the night, the worst way to repay him would be to allow a bunch of gangsters to descend upon the man's house.

I knew there was a chance the Old Man was bluffing. Fine. So be it. He could show me what he had in person, and we'd go from there. For whatever reason,
the guy had a hard-on for me. Who was I to refuse him?

An hour after leaving Brandon's, I gave Bear a wake-up call. He'd been pissed I'd left him there, but after I relayed the conversation I'd had with the Old
Man that morning, Bear understood. He resigned himself to watching over Brandon, so long as I promised that any further action would involve him.

And I was sure there would be more to do after this meeting.

Charles's Cadillac sped toward me. I rolled to a stop. He slammed on his brakes. Smoke wafted in through my open window. For a moment, it smelled like I
sat in a chemical factory. He pulled up next to me, rolled down his window.

"Didn't think you'd show up, Jack."

"Nothing better to do this morning."

Charles regarded me for a moment, nodded, said, "Follow me."

I made a hasty three-point turn in an effort to keep up with the fleeing Caddy. He sped away from where I estimated the Old Man's compound to be located.

We headed south, over a bridge, eventually reaching Rockaway. Charles turned into a deserted public beach access parking lot. Sand skated along the
pavement, rising, falling, shifting, ever-changing. I pulled into a spot three down from where he'd parked.

He exited his vehicle, lifted both hands in the air, and walked around the back of the Caddy. Twenty-four feet of asphalt and loose sand separated us.

I glanced in the rear-view. Two cars drove past. Old beaters. One blue, the other rust. Neither stopped. The sidewalk was empty. Nothing but cracked
concrete with brown grass poking through. The store across the street stood deserted like a graveyard with its caretaker stuck inside a bulletproof box.

Charles didn't move. He'd stuffed his hands in his pockets and crossed his left leg over his right. He was a little shorter than Bear, but wider, thicker.
Reminded me of a bull.

I opened my door and slid out. We squared off. Him at his car, me at mine. He made no outward signs of aggression. Finally, after thirty seconds of
enduring angry, biting sand and frigid winds, Charles gestured with his head toward the beach.

A weathered wooden walkway stretched from the parking lot through the dunes to the beach. Sand had accumulated on the planks like snowdrifts, inches high
in some spots. I turned away from Charles and set off toward the ocean.

The walkway rose upward, taking me eight to ten feet higher. As I walked past the first dune, I saw a lone, fragile figure walking along the edge of the
water. Waves broke, flinging a frothy head into the air. After the salt water retreated into the mouth of the ocean, the foam clung to damp sand.

Seagulls hovered near the Old Man. At least a couple dozen of them, squawking like a bunch of teenagers in the mall. I noticed a worn canvas bag dangling
from the Old Man's left hand. He reached into it with his right, pulled out a handful of its contents, which he tossed into the air. Gulls raced toward the
fragments of food, fighting in mid-air for the rights to it. Pieces fell to the ground, and the birds descended upon them. They knocked one another away,
usually allowing a waiting gull to swoop in and scoop up the prize.

And on it went.

The Old Man looked back, spotted me, turned while raising the bag into the air. With his other hand, he gestured for me to join him.

I journeyed into the fray, keenly aware of the location of the birds. With so many this close, it'd be hard to avoid the errant droppings that fell.

The Old Man dumped the contents of the bag on the ground and began walking northeast along the shifting shoreline. The waves crashed, and water and foam
rolled over his tennis shoes and the bottom of his sweatpants. The Old Man didn't care. He kept walking.

I started in the same direction, increasing my pace until I caught up to him. He glanced over, smiled, looked back down at the ground and continued on.
Gusts of wind whipped up off the water, sending sea foam into the air. It fell back to the earth like thick snow.

He stopped, faced the sea. I watched as he lifted one arm over his head, then the other. The Old Man held the pose for a few seconds. As his arms fell to
his side, he spoke.

"Are you ready to work with me?"

I positioned myself next to him, facing the sea, back to the road. Uncomfortable, but he hadn't brought me out here to kill me.

He turned his head, smiled briefly. "Well?"

"I'm not in the mood to discuss that. I need answers." A pod of porpoises passed in front of us, maybe forty feet out. Like sea serpents, their sleek, dark
bodies rose out of the water and slunk back in. "You said I was the target now." I paused to allow the Old Man to speak. He nodded, eyes focused on the
ocean. "Who targeted me and why? Was Frank Skinner behind this?"

The Old Man filled his lungs with salty air and exhaled slowly. His right hand gripped his left wrist behind his back. He turned to the left and began
walking at a slow pace until I joined him.

"Excuse me, Mr. Jack, I just don't like staying in one spot too long unless I'm at home." He smiled, presumably for my benefit, because there was no life
or charm associated with the gesture. "Consider the contract on Brett Taylor's life to be null and void."

"You said he wasn't the target anymore."

"And you believed me."

"So this had nothing to do with me."

"Wrong, Mr. Jack. It had everything to do with you."

"You're making no sense." I fought to keep an even tone. I hated being jerked around, much less driving four hours for the privilege.

"I have many friends here, and abroad." He performed a sweeping gesture across the ocean. "Partners across the Atlantic were having trouble with a
nuisance. They asked me to help. A little digging uncovered that the man was former military, Army in fact, and former CIA. He'd done quite a bit in twelve
years. I knew that in order to kill a specially trained individual, you needed a highly skilled team. Now, my guys are good, but I didn't want to involve
them in this, as it was tantamount to espionage."

"So you called a friend in the U.S. government."

The Old Man nodded.

"And would this friend happen to work on Capitol Hill with an office in the Cannon HOB?"

The Old Man's silence answered my question, and now Frank's reason for being at the building was clear.

"Can you give me a name?"

Again, the Old Man said nothing.

"So, I get the job. But then it's botched. There's a dead man in the bed, who turns out to be associated with Brett. Brett's not there, and we can't figure
out how he got out and the other guy got in. Come to find that there's a way to enter through the basement."

"We'll discuss Brett first."

The Old Man reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. After several failed attempts to light it in the heavy winds, he snapped the smoke
in two and flicked it toward the water. A seagull dove down and snatched it from the grasp of the sea.

"With the US government failing me," he said, "I used leverage I had with Brett's asset and had her set up a meeting with him. In fact, I provided her with
false documents. And then we tipped off my associates. Things should have worked themselves out the natural way."

"Only they arrived at the worst moment, and then did the stupidest thing possible."

The Old Man nodded several times. "Irregardless, now. They've hunkered down and you likely won't hear from them for a year. Maybe more. And that's
according to them. I think they've screwed themselves, and will likely dissolve and return to whichever country they were from, or join up with another
fledgling group."

"You supported terrorists." I decided against mentioning al-Sharaa.

"Terror doesn't pay, Mr. Jack. I've got no ideological dog in this fight. No, I supported criminals doing my bidding. The rest of that stuff was their own
doing."

"But they used your money."

The Old Man hiked his shoulders an inch. "I'm not going to tell anyone what to do with the money they receive for a job competently completed. Buy a car.
Buy a bomb. Makes no difference to me."

Perhaps the line wasn't as thin as I'd thought.

"What did they do for you?" I asked.

He said nothing.

"Forget it. It'll come back to haunt you."

"I love when people say things like that, Mr. Jack. I've been doing this for over forty years, employing those who get the job done, and offering services
to the highest bidder. It has made me wealthy beyond anything you and most people can comprehend. I don't feel the least bit bad about it, either.
Generations of my descendants will be provided for, if the world manages to hang on for that long. So what if someone puts a bullet in my brain? I'm old.
I'm ready to go."

I stopped. "You know what, I didn't come here to listen to your philosophies on life and how it relates to what you've accomplished. You said I was
targeted. I want to know by who."

The Old Man turned a few feet in front of me. "Let's go to my car, Mr. Jack. I've got something you'll want to see."

THE BLACK LEXUS sat alone in the sand-covered parking lot. Every gust of wind brought a new wave of biting particles. They slapped us across the face and
went on to settle on the ground and his car, replacing those that had blown away.

He gestured for me to take a seat on the passenger side. I glanced around the lot, across the street, then got in. The Old Man opened the back door. He
reached for a leather bag. The zipper slid effortlessly, and he reached in and pulled out a folder. A moment later he was seated next to me.

"I think this will answer your questions."

He backed out of the spot. Tires spun on sand, caught the pavement. With a chirp, we lurched forward.

I opened the folder, which contained several five-by-eight pictures. Some were black and white. Others in color. The first was of Brett's empty apartment.
What followed was an exact sequence of events. At least, according to the Old Man it was.

McLellan had entered first. According to the timestamp, he was alone for two minutes before someone else appeared. Through four pictures, all shot in the
main room, the new guy had his back to the camera. He was short and wide and the kind of guy who'd bled and killed and didn't take shit off anyone.

A few pictures later, a third man showed up. I expected this. What I didn't count on was recognizing the jacket and hoodie combination the man was wearing.
The photos tracked him through the house. None showed his face.