circle. My guy at the AG’s office thinks it’s a woman, but he wasn’t sure of that. You just need to tell Hernandez that he’s got a spy, and then Hernandez needs to clean his own house. Without the informant, the government’s got no case. No case, no arrest. No arrest, you get to retire alive.”
There, finally, was the glimmer of hope. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of it himself. “You need to get me a name.”
“You say that like it’s easy. If I coulda got you a name, I’d have done it.”
“How much?” Munro asked.
“How much what?”
Returning anger started diluting his fear. “Don’t be obtuse,” he said. “How much will a name cost me?”
Sjogren put a hand over his chest, as if to fend off a heart attack. “You offend me, Trev. You make it like I do this only for the money.”
Munro shot a look that triggered another laugh. “How much?”
“Ten thousand.”
“
Sjogren made a show of stroking the lush leather interior of the Porsche. “This is really a nice car, Trev. The whole poverty thing doesn’t resonate well with you.”
Typical talk from a lout like Sjogren. “But ten thousand dollars? That’s outrageous.”
“Hey, you asked me, okay? You want the name, you pay the money. You don’t, you don’t. I don’t give much of a shit either way.”
Munro ran the options through his head and determined within seconds that he didn’t have any. “First the name, and then the payment,” he said. “I’m not going to pay that kind of money on a roll of the dice.”
“Fine by me. I figure you know the penalty for stiffing me, so what the hell?” He slapped Munro on the shoulder again. “See, Trev? We got us a trusting working relationship now. When you foul things up, I’m always there to help you clean up the mess.”
Munro felt his face flush. Just once, he wanted to hear Sjogren-or Abrams, or whatever the hell he wanted to call himself-face up to his own mistakes. That’s what bothered Munro the most in his dealings with the Bostonian: he managed to remain self-righteously smug, even as he shared at least half the blame.
“When can you get it to me?” Munro asked. “The name, I mean.”
“I don’t know that I can. I don’t know that my guy even has it. Even within the AG’s office, people tend to be pretty tight-lipped. Or so I’m told.”
“You need to hurry,” Munro pressed.
“I can just make something up, if you want,” Sjogren said. “That’s what you get when you hurry. I’ll do what I can, and then we’ll see what we end up with.”
Munro executed a treacherous U-turn in the middle of a block, throwing Sjogren against his door, and pressing him there with centrifugal force.
“Who the hell taught you to drive?” Sjogren bitched. “Don’t they have police officers in this burg?”
“I want it by tonight,” Munro said.
“And I want a date with a supermodel. Wanting it don’t make it so, you know? Even when you’re a big-friggin’- shot with the CIA. I’ll do what I can. Keep your cell phone handy.”
Munro recognized the closing line of their last meeting being turned against him, but pretended he didn’t. They drove back to the library in silence, only this time, Munro avoided the tough left turn entirely and instead pulled into a parking lot across the street.
“I’ll let you out here,” Munro said.
Sjogren pulled the latch and pushed the door open. It was a comical thing to watch him unfold himself and find his feet.
“Hey, Mr. Abrams,” Munro said as the door was about to close.
Sjogren bent at the waist and peered back into the vehicle.
“This source you have. Why does he give you this information? What’s his angle?”
Sjogren’s smile betrayed the fact that he’d been waiting for the question. “That’s the coolest part of all,” he said. “In Washington, D.C., everybody’s got secrets to share. All you gotta do is tell them that you’re an investigative reporter. I even have fake business cards, just in case, but not one of these self-righteous bozos has ever asked for one.”
Munro scoffed and shook his head. What was the world coming to?
“And before you get all high-horsey on me,” Sjogren said, “you spooky guys at the Funny Farm are the worst of the lot.”
With that, he slammed the door and walked away.
So, now they were marching. And sweating. They’d become a part of the jungle, bait not just to the gajil-lion insects that had already feasted on every square inch of Tristan’s exposed skin, but now to sharp-toothed mammals as well, now that the afternoon was dying and darkness lay only three or four hours ahead.
Until, say, five hours ago, Tristan would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that he’d already reached the bottom of his life experience. Hah!
This was the stuff of nightmares. All the killing, all the blood. He wondered if he’d ever be able to close his eyes and not have those images invade his brain.
Would it ever be possible to be happy again? Would he ever be able to think about Allison and Ray and Mrs. Charlton and the others and see them in his mind the way they used to look, or would those memories forever be dominated by shattered bone and extruding brain tissue?
What was it that Scorpion had said to him before? That he’d served in war with soldiers who were younger than Tristan. He wondered now if those were all the ones who came back mentally crippled from the experience. If you can never find happiness, then what’s left for your life other than anger, depression, and suicide?
Even the ever-optimistic, ever-cheerful Dad, whose pancreatic cancer had taken him out within three weeks of his initial diagnosis. That had been one time, in fact, when Tristan had decided to take the positive route, if only because the negative was so depressing.
All things considered, calling Tristan’s life a catastrophe sounded more like a statement of fact than a projection of gloom.
Since it was too dangerous to use the Pathfinder anymore, they’d formed a three-person parade, with Scorpion in front and Big Guy in the rear. Big Guy had modified one of the dead guys’ bulletproof vests so that it would fit Tristan, so now, despite the zillion-degree heat, he was wearing a thirty-pound sweat machine that was crammed with magazines for the rifle that he’d practiced so diligently to load and unload.
He also carried a rifle they’d taken from one of the dead Mexicans, slung as the commandos’ rifles were slung, hanging across his chest. He kept his hand on the grip because that was where it felt most comfortable (and, he thought, looked most cool). Consequently, he endured a reminder every few minutes from Big Guy to make sure that the safety was still on. That seemed to be a real sore spot for him.
Tristan tried not to notice the bloodstains on the vest. At least it was black, and Scorpion had done his best to wash them off. If you didn’t look too hard, you couldn’t even see them.
When they’d first started out, this hike was announced to be about twelve miles in duration. Tristan wasn’t sure it was possible to drink enough water to keep up with the sweat that poured out of him. In the oppressive humidity, none of it evaporated, either. He didn’t get how Scorpion and Big Guy could do this with the long sleeves and long pants and the backpacks. Then again, their legs probably weren’t bloodied from thorns and bug bites. Everything’s a trade-off, he supposed.
The exhaustion and dehydration and the insects were to be expected, he thought, as unpleasant as they were. What really surprised him was how badly the jungle stank. Take the worst combination of gym socks, skid-marked underwear, and mold and blow the resulting smell through a hot, mildewed towel, and you’d come close.
