Betrayal

Evan drew a pained breath. 'I don't like to think that's really happening.' He looked around at the prison walls. 'But then again, I don't like to think that any of this is really happening either.'

The call came in at a little after one o'clock, just after Hardy arrived back at his office.

'Mr. Hardy. Jack Allstrong.' He had his hearty good-guy voice back on. 'This morning I received a copy of the appeal that you're filing in this Evan Scholler case. Mr. Loy says we can probably expect an application for a writ of habeas corpus to follow. He admires your work, Mr. Hardy, and advises me that there is a fair chance the court will at least order a hearing into your issue. I think we might have gotten off on the wrong foot in our last conversation, and I wondered if you might be free to come down to my headquarters office this afternoon.'

Hardy didn't think it would hurt to play a little hard to get. 'If you don't know anything about Mr. Nolan's connection to the Khalils, and last time you made it pretty clear that you didn't, I'm not sure we have much to talk about.'

'Well, you seem fairly certain that Scholler didn't kill Ron Nolan, and if that's the case, there might be something we can do to help. I think it might be worthwhile to discuss it.'

Hardy let him hang for a few more seconds. 'I could give you a couple of hours this afternoon, but I really think this meeting should take place in my office.'

Hardy sat at his desk with his legal pad in front him. He'd already written a few notes to remind him of things he needed to cover in his upcoming conversation. Feeling mostly embarrassed at himself for believing that he might actually have the need for it, he'd placed his gun in the top desk drawer on his left, in easy reach if in fact it came to that.

As Phyllis let Allstrong into the room, he pretended to be writing. Looking up-'Excuse me, a few more seconds'-he motioned to the straight-backed Queen Anne chair that he'd placed in front of his desk, indicating that Allstrong take it. While he did, placing his briefcase down next to the chair, Phyllis closed the door on her way out. Scrawling some more lines, Hardy finally put down his pen and pushed the pad to one side.

'It appears,' Hardy said, 'you've got a guardian angel someplace in Washington who's taken care of making the police investigation into the Bowens go away. But as long as Evan Scholler is alive and in prison, either me or someone like me is going to be digging into the connection between Allstrong, Ron Nolan, and the Khalils. Whoever tried to have Evan killed has missed his chance and, with him held in protective custody from now on, isn't likely to get another one. And as you've recently found out, appellate lawyers are interchangeable. And, trust me, Mr. Allstrong, anyone who reads my file and my notes, of which there are several copies, will start this inquiry right where I left off. Does that about sum up the situation?'

Allstrong, wearing alligator cowboy boots with his light green gabardine suit, sat back and crossed a leg, his facial features relaxed, nearly friendly. 'It adequately elucidates your understanding, certainly,' he said. 'Although, as I said in our conversation the other day, any assumption you're making that I've committed any kind of crime at all is false. I'm sure that federal investigators will find no evidence implicating me or Allstrong Security in what's happened to either of the Bowens.'

'I'm sure they won't,' Hardy said.

'And likewise they'll find no evidence that I ordered Ron Nolan to kill anybody. That's not the way I do business.' His pro forma pitch completed, he flashed a quick salesman's smile.

'Since you've arranged to have Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles assigned to the investigation,' Hardy said, 'I'd be surprised if they could find Allstrong in the phone book. But that's not the point. What I'm going to uncover is the evidence the FBI already gathered that connects Nolan and your company to whatever it was that happened in Iraq that got the Khalils murdered. And if, in getting to Nolan, your company gets mixed up in a very public scandal, that's just an added bonus.'

Allstrong sat impassively. 'What makes you think the FBI has evidence tying Allstrong to these killings?'

'The agents told the Khalil family. What the agents found, I can find.'

'I understood that the agents further told them that the contract had come from Kuvan Krekar. Isn't that so?' Allstrong asked.

Hardy nodded. 'That's my understanding too.'

'Well, then?'

'Well then what?'

'Well, then, it's obvious where the contract originated, isn't it? With Kuvan, not with me, and not with Allstrong.'

'That would be obvious except for one thing. Or rather, except for two people. The Bowens. The whole thing with Nolan and Kuvan and the Khalils was a closed circle until Charlie Bowen pried it open again. If the Bowens were still alive, I might have believed that killing the Khalils was Kuvan's idea and Kuvan's contract. But Kuvan was already dead when Charlie Bowen started sniffing around, and that kind of neatly eliminated the possibility that Kuvan was Bowen's killer. But somebody still needed Charlie dead because he was going to find out and expose who'd really put out the contract on the Khalils. And you know who that was, Jack. You know because that was you.'

Allstrong let his shoulders sag for a moment. 'Back to that,' he said.

'I'm afraid so.' Hardy met his adversary's eyes, unyielding.

Allstrong shrugged, nodded, leaned down, picked up his briefcase, brought it up to his lap, and snapped it open. 'Regrettably,' he said, 'this has become a very inconvenient situation.'

And for an irrational moment, Hardy thought he'd miscalculated and in another half second he would be dead. Before he could even react to reach for his own gun, which he'd so stupidly, stupidly placed in the closed top drawer, Allstrong's silenced bullet would explode with no warning at all through the expensive briefcase and blow Hardy into oblivion. That would put an end to Hardy's threat right here, right now.

Hardy's left hand went to his drawer, started to pull it out.

He wasn't going to have enough time.

It was over. His life was over.

But in the moment Allstrong would have taken his shot if he could, instead of firing a weapon he'd perhaps concealed in his briefcase, he simply continued talking. 'I have to admire your tenacity and industry. In fact, I'd like to offer you a retainer to take on some of my legal work. Mr. Loy is a fine corporate attorney but lacks the killer instinct sometimes required in my business. Like all our senior employees, you will be paid in cash.'

Allstrong turned the briefcase around, showing Hardy the neatly stacked packages of one-hundred-dollar bills. And no sign of a gun.

Hardy quietly exhaled and brought his shaking hands together, clasped now white-knuckled on his desktop.

And Allstrong continued. 'This is two hundred thousand dollars, Mr. Hardy. I'd like to offer it to you against billings for the first year. If you prefer, I could arrange to have this deposited in an offshore account, a Swiss bank account, or any other place that you choose. You would in fact be retained by one of our Iraqi subsidiaries, who do not file tax returns in the United States. So whether you choose to report this to the IRS as income is completely up to you.'

'I wonder how many of those are my tax dollars,' Hardy said.

'Don't be naive,' Allstrong countered. 'And don't trifle with me.' The bribe offer having already, albeit tacitly, admitted his complicity in everything that Hardy had accused him of, he went on. 'I'd strongly advise you to consider what I'm offering. As you yourself have noticed, other alternatives, though perhaps risky and more costly, are still available to me.'

Hardy clucked and cracked a grin. 'I really thought we'd moved beyond that, Jack.'

Allstrong slowly and carefully closed up the briefcase, setting it down again beside him. Sitting back, he eyed Hardy for a long moment. 'So, Mr. Hardy, do we have an understanding?'

'Oh, we understand each other, Jack. But, no, we don't have a deal. I thought I'd made it clear. I want Evan Scholler out of prison. I don't care how it happens, but that's my price.'

'What if the FBI suddenly found evidence that did implicate Nolan in the Khalils' deaths? What if there were surveillance reports linking some members of the Khalil family to terrorist organizations? And wiretaps where they