on any of the airport tapes.” Paul shook his head. He stared at the yellow stains between his fingers as he spoke. “Fletcher left the country after he escaped from prison, and he had his face changed in Spain.”
“How’s agency intelligence on Martin?”
“We’re getting files on him from the Navy, FBI, and the CIA but the CIA may not be as cooperative as the others. They certainly won’t open any of the Black Operations files. They may, in fact, still be protecting him. The agency’ll ship what they compile to us as soon as it’s assembled,” Paul said. “We need to check for other possible suspects. We know the ranger had red hair, mirrored glasses, and a fancy pistol on his hip. He used a three-eighty on the scout leader-silenced, maybe. Nobody heard a shot.”
“Why did you come? He told you he would stop if you didn’t come after him.”
“I don’t believe it for a minute.”
Rainey looked at Paul and seemed to be measuring him. “Gonna poke the snake with a stick?”
“He has to be stopped, Rainey. Doesn’t matter what he said, even if I believed him. Can’t walk after what he’s already done.”
“Once on stakeout he dressed up like a derelict and called himself Willie the wino,” Rainey said. “He disguised his voice and had this pair of pants that he’d pissed on days before. Smelled like a truck-stop bathroom. Trained to do makeup by one of those Hollywood experts. And got the government to pay for it. So tell me what Robertson said. Pissed, right?”
“I think he saw the wisdom of my idea.”
“T.C. wouldn’t give you green dog shit he scraped off his shoe.”
“I talked to Senator Stanton’s aide the day before I saw T.C. An informal dinner in Arlington. He passed my request for help on to the senator.”
“And the senator was receptive?”
“Absolutely.”
“He agreed?” Rainey slowly shook his head.
“Thorne and I have been reinstated as special agents to apprehend Fletcher, who is also a fleeing felon. He is to be returned forthwith to Marion, Illinois, where a cell awaits him. If he resists capture, we are to use whatever force appears necessary.”
“Great!” Rainey’s eyes glazed over and lost their focus for a few seconds.
“T.C. was very cooperative. Postal inspectors, U.S. marshals, Secret Service, FBI, and the CIA are to cooperate in whatever manner we see fit, if we need ’em. Thorne and McLean have been reassigned to me.”
“And I’m on your team. Not going back to what I was.”
Paul didn’t answer. Rainey was on extended leave, and Paul didn’t want him activated yet, if at all. Paul said, “Look, I know we’ll get Martin. But the reality is that we may or may not get him before he moves against Laura and the kids. Logically, they have to be his next target. I have to know that someone I can depend on will make sure he doesn’t get them. Otherwise, I’ll have to go myself.”
Rainey couldn’t conceal how ridiculous the idea of Paul pitted one on one against Martin Fletcher was to him. “And see if maybe he’d just kill you and go away?”
“We’re roughly the same size,” Paul said in self-defense. They both knew it was a ludicrous statement.
“Me. I’ll go because I’m the best choice,” Rainey said.
Naturally, Paul knew that Rainey wanted to sit and wait for Martin to show up. His own hatred would give him infinite patience and the courage to face him.
“Rainey, who out of the agency or any other agency I’ve mentioned would be best suited to watch over my family? Aside from you. You’ve been around while I’ve been out of circulation. I need for you to be my right hand on this. Who besides you?”
Rainey looked down into his lap and contemplated the request. “Thorne Greer,” he said finally. “Thorne Greer is the best guy for that. He has the patience of a rock, he’s a crack shot, and he always had great reflexes.”
Paul didn’t speak the rest of the way to the office. He had said more in the space of the past few days than he had in six years, and it had tired him. Rainey spent the rest of the time in traffic drumming his fingers against the Bible on his lap and humming to himself. Paul hoped the operation would give Rainey a chance to regain some balance. It was obvious to him that the deaths had altered him in some fundamental way-how could they not have? Of all three agents who had lost their families, Rainey was the one most likely to spin out of control when he got the scent of Martin Fletcher.
Paul had to keep the operation as quiet as possible. Powerful people trusted Paul to see that all the i’s were dotted and the bodies, if any, were buried quietly. Rainey Lee’s addition to the team wasn’t a good idea, but Paul wanted to help his old friend.
The operation was a hunting party staffed with people who were conflicted by circumstance and driven by revenge. And there were the others in the mix, the new guys. Then there was Tod Peoples’s wild card, Woodrow Poole. Paul hadn’t been able to get any background information on him through his sources at DEA or Justice. The CIA had no one listed with that name, nor did FBI, Secret Service, marshals or anyone else tied into the government-employee database he had access to. So Woody Poole was either an alias for a known agent, deep cover, Black Operational, or freelance.
Paul eyed the people passing in their cars and trucks and wondered what they were thinking as he and Rainey were planning the destruction of a mad killer. A man Paul now knew he should have killed years earlier. Paul tried not to dwell on the fact that he was responsible for letting Fletcher live. He knew that it was his moral stance, his refusal to allow the man to be taken out, that had paved the way for innocent deaths, the destruction of lives, and his own downfall. There was no moral element to the equation now. Martin Fletcher would die.
10
Joe McLean had been chain smoking cigarettes, and the small ashtray leaked gray ash onto the conference table’s laminated wood surface. He looked across at Thorne Greer, who rolled his eyes at the ceiling to let McLean know how he felt, working with kids again. Rookies for a job that clearly called for hard-core pros.
There were seven people sitting in the small conference room awaiting Paul’s arrival. The five younger agents were making small talk, sipping sodas or mineral water, and trading the war stories they had heard since they’d joined the DEA. Stories Thorne and Joe had told at the same stage in their own careers. Two of the five were women. McLean pegged all of them at between twenty-three and thirty tops; thirty-four was cutoff age for joining the DEA. A couple still had Quantico, Virginia, soil on their shoes. Only one of the women was attractive, to Joe’s way of measuring, the other looked like a lesbian to him.
Rainey’s secretary, Sherry Lander, had made sure everyone was offered coffee, soda, or mineral water. The agents fresh from the training academy or backwater outposts were excited. McLean and Greer were beyond being excited. The old pros were both wishing Paul had pulled in some freelance or dark-angel pros who’d run Martin to the ground and eat the meat off his bones.
The agents’ eyes followed as Paul appeared in the doorway, then limped to the table, carrying the cane like a shotgun in the crook of his left arm and a valise filled with files in the right. Rainey Lee followed like a tall shadow, carrying the slide projector and a box containing a carousel. Paul’s appearance brought the room to immediate silence. He could almost hear the smoke roll off the cigarette in Joe’s hand. Thorne and Joe got up and shook Rainey’s hand.
“Rainey!” Joe said. “God, it’s great to see you.”
“Hey, Rainey,” Thorne added. “We were planning to get out to see you this afternoon.”
Rainey nodded and smiled weakly. The two agents exchanged glances and took their seats.
“My name’s Paul Masterson. You new troops don’t know me, but I know all of you.” He reached into the valise, pulled six files and tossed them onto the table in front of him. “I wasn’t always this handsome,” he said, unsmiling. He pointed at his eye patch. “This is what can happen to you if you don’t stay on your toes. I assume you’ve heard the story of what happened in Miami a few years back. I understand you studied it at the academy under ‘don’t let this happen to you’ or something similar.”
He saw a flash of recognition in their eyes. Greer and McLean were smiling. He wished they had discussed his appearance with the new agents before he’d come in. He hated looking into the virgin mirrors of other people’s
