“What?” Tom said, trying to encourage her. “It’s fine, tell me.” He looked into the house over her shoulder, saw Anthony was nowhere in sight. “It’ll be just between the two of us if you like. I won’t tell him anything you don’t want me to.”
She hesitated further, too long, and then Anthony was beside her. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Just a friend, he needs a favor.”
Tom nodded along, though he didn’t believe a word of it. “Sure.”
“Well, it’s been good to see you, bro,” Anthony said, sending him on his way. “Don’t be such a stranger, huh?”
“Well, I can’t promise that,” Tom said. “But I’ll be sure to be here when the baby’s born.”
Alejandra cupped her stomach, then reached out and embraced him. “Stay safe,” she said, into his ear.
For a moment, Tom can feel her breath again, speaking those words in his ear, tickling his lobe. He grits his teeth.
They were in Texas. Why would Anthony now be with their father in New Mexico, and why no mention of Alejandra? Have they split up, is that why Tom has been summoned? He doubts it’s anything as banal as this. He can’t imagine why he would be drawn into a domestic squabble between his brother and his pregnant girlfriend.
Tom doesn’t know what it is, why he’s needed, and he won’t know until he reaches his father. Until then, his mind will continue to race, to imagine ever new and worrying scenarios that flip his stomach, tighten his throat.
Earlier in his journey, when his thoughts became too much, he pulled over, tried to call his father. There was no answer. Jeffrey’s burner phone rang out. He left it to ring out. This made Tom feel worse. He hasn’t tried to call again.
He wants to get there sooner, as fast as he can, but he can’t speed. Has to maintain a low profile. Can’t run the risk of being pulled over, for being caught over something as stupid as a speeding ticket. Especially not now. Especially not when he has such a bad feeling about why his father and his brother might need him.
8
Special Agent Ben Fitzgerald sits in the office of Supervisory Special Agent Jake Lofton and bites down on the inside of his cheek. It’s an old habit, a nervous habit, goes all the way back to when he was a child. He chews and he chews, the wet flesh there getting all tattered and frayed, the taste of blood filling his mouth. The way he’s felt after recent events, he’s amazed he hasn’t chewed a hole right through.
Jake Lofton wants to talk all about the recent events. “Did you hear what the papers are calling it?”
Ben releases the bloodied cheek from between his teeth long enough to say, “No.”
“They’re calling it a Night of the Long Knives style purging,” Jake says, raising his eyebrows. “I’ve seen them literally call it that, Part Two. You believe that?”
Ben shrugs one shoulder. “I suppose it’s fitting.”
The two men are stationed in the Dallas field office, but what happened extends further than just Texas. It hit New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Arizona, too. Twelve men and women killed in one night, each one of them undercover with various neo-Nazi cells. Their details leaked, seemingly from within the FBI itself. No one else could have had this knowledge.
The various cells acted fast, each one independent of the other. If they’d known they were going to make such a big noise in one night, in five different states, it’s questionable whether they still would have gone ahead. On Jake’s desk and in Ben’s lap are the names of the twelve men and women killed. It doesn’t say how they died, but Ben knows. Knows that if he looks at this name, they were set on fire. This one was shot through the head. This one had their hands cut off, then their throat slit. One of them was Jewish. She was crucified.
Two names are missing from the list, though. Jake is unaware of them, but Ben knows them. Hasn’t been able to stop thinking about them.
Anthony Rollins and Alejandra Flores.
He doesn’t know where Anthony is now, but he knows exactly where Alejandra is. What happened to her haunts his dreams.
But he can’t talk about it. Not with Jake.
Jake puts his paperwork aside. “Listen,” he says, leaning forward. “Our undercovers are getting antsy – they look at this, they know it’s a leak, they’re asking themselves, What if it happens again? What if it happens to me? They want out. Half our people with white supremacist cells have already gotten out, a lot of them unofficially. They aren’t waiting around to see if this is going to turn into a national thing.”
“Can’t say I blame them,” Ben says.
“No, neither can I, but it’s still leaving us in the lurch. How many did you lose?”
“On the night, or since?”
“Both.”
“On the night, two.” Texas was hit hardest. Of the twelve (official) deaths, six of them were in Texas. “Since, I’ve had about four say they’re out.” Ben does not include Anthony and Alejandra in his numbers, not to Jake. To himself, though, they’re there all the time.
“That’s bad, but it isn’t the highest I’ve heard. One of our handlers lost all his charges, all his informants, after it happened. None on the night, but that didn’t matter. Didn’t even matter whether they were with Nazis or not, they got out.” Jake presses a finger down onto a paper, the one with all the names on it. The dead names. “We have to find who’s responsible for this, Agent Fitzgerald.”
Ben nods. He understands.
“It could be someone within the FBI. It could be a hacker. I don’t care where they came from, I don’t care what their affiliation is, I want them found. And as soon as possible.”
Ben gets to his feet. “Got it.”
“Fast, Ben,” Jake reiterates.
