“He was a software designer, so he had to be using technology to find and discover our activities. But we have no idea how he did it.”
“And you dragged my name in.”
“We needed to find out why he was after us and who funded him. Teach got an old CIA contact to tell Adam Reynolds a contractor consultant named Ben Forsberg might be able to help him land funding for a start-up software company, to build products based on his ideas. But I thought Ben Forsberg was just an identity Barker made up along with a history.”
“Barker bought the cell phones in my name. Opened the credit accounts. Rented the office space.” Ben shook his head. “Sparta Consulting, that’s what he used as a cover.”
“Sparta’s a front company for the Cellar, a way to camouflage our financial dealings.” Pilgrim coughed, winced at the pain. “I got three meetings with Adam and I told him I represented a bunch of government contractors interested in backing his software ideas. I could help him set up his own company, fund the work, share the profits. Of course all I wanted to do was find out how he’d found us and who’d paid him to hunt us down.”
“You wrote the business proposal, with my name on it, that Kidwell and Vochek found in his office,” Ben said. Nausea clawed into his guts.
“I wanted to learn how he found our aliases, see who his business contacts were, find who funded his search for the Cellar.”
“So why did he get killed?”
“He knew this afternoon that I wasn’t Ben Forsberg. I tried to make him understand I could protect him, but he told me he’d called Homeland. But I don’t think he worked for Homeland in trying to find the Cellar.”
“Why?”
“Homeland Security doesn’t hire Arab gunmen to kidnap people. They’re not into assassination. And they have no reason to frame you.”
“So his boss is who?”
“No idea. And if his boss knew Adam was bolting… clearly he didn’t want Adam talking about his search for us.”
“And the Cellar is the threat to national security he described to Kidwell?”
“Clearly he viewed us as a threat.”
Ben got up from the bed, walked to the window. “So Nicky Lynch killed him and you killed Lynch. You put my business card in Lynch’s pocket.” The rage swelled in his chest, held its breath, and then was gone; replaced by a exhausting realization of how bad his situation was. He couldn’t afford the distraction of anger. He shivered as he stood by the window, even though the room was warm.
“Ben, listen, I didn’t know you were a real person… my cover had been blown. I thought I was leaving a nonexistent man as the fall guy, an empty trail for the police to follow.” He shook his head. “I didn’t know I would be pointing a finger at you.”
Ben sat down on his bed. “If Nicky Lynch killed you and Adam, it would come out quick enough that you weren’t me. So I’m not convinced that, whoever your enemy is, he’s also mine. Your guy Barker could have just decided to use my name since I’m in the line of work you needed for your cover story.”
Pilgrim refilled his cup with wine. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when I’m in Austin, pretending to be you, you’re out of town. Who knew you were gone?”
Ben hesitated. “My clients. I told them so they would know I wouldn’t be answering phone calls or e- mails.”
“And Sam Hector-whose people were guarding you for Homeland-is one of your clients.”
“Yes. My most valued client. My friend.”
Pilgrim studied the empty plastic cup, frowned.
“The government contracting world is a small one,” Ben said. “Hector probably has dozens of people working on Homeland projects. Just because he has a security detail working with Homeland…”
“Then imagine this. Nicky Lynch shoots straight, I’m lying dead, with a wallet with your name inside. The authorities would want to know if you were connected to me.”
“They’d just assume you stole my identity. It seems… incomplete as a frame-up.”
“But let’s say the government thought we were working together. You, a contractor, and me, a guy who’s not supposed to exist who works for an off-the-books group. Your reputation in the government might die the death of a thousand small cuts. You very well could lose your business.”
Ben shifted on the bed. “Kidwell’s Office of Strategic Initiatives. Did you ever hear of it inside Homeland?”
Pilgrim eased himself into a new position on the bed, trying to get comfortable. “No. But I don’t much pay attention to bureaucracies. They’re poison.”
He put the wine cup down; exhaustion filled his face.
“Kidwell’s team could be as dirty as yours,” Ben said. “He sure wasn’t about to give me due process.”
“The only way we get free and clear of this mess,” he said, “is to expose whoever took Teach. They framed us. We get caught, we have no means of nailing whoever hired Adam.”
Ben got up, began to pace, to think.
“I need to sleep now.” Pilgrim closed his eyes, exhaustion gripping him. “We’ll get to Dallas in the morning.”
“One minute. Who would attack the Cellar?”
“Any number of enemies. Terrorists, for sure. I’m sure that certain foreign governments would be glad for the Cellar to shut up shop. They might suspect we exist but they can’t prove it. Fewer than five people outside of the Cellar even know we exist.”
“And now me.”
Pilgrim nodded, his eyes closed. “And now you. Lucky you.”
Ben watched him fall asleep over the next several minutes. If he ran now-abandoned Pilgrim-he might very well be walking straight into a bullet’s path. Whoever had attacked the Cellar had used his name. Pilgrim was right; it couldn’t be coincidence. It was safer, for now, to stay close to Pilgrim. See what he could find out, because he could find out nothing from a jail cell or a Homeland Security interrogation room.
He wondered if Vochek was still locked in the closet.
Ben lay down, pressed his face into his pillow. He felt like he’d fallen into an alternate world, a Wonderland gone dark, where a crazy guy used his name and police hunted for him and vicious men held guns to his head. This morning he had woken up on a low-key vacation; now his life was in tatters.
Don’t kid yourself. Your life has been in tatters since Emily died.
He couldn’t sleep and he sat up and turned on CNN. And saw his name, his face on the television. His driver’s license picture. The anchor described Ben as a person of interest-public-relations-speak for suspect. Homeland Security wanted to know his connection to a purported contract killer with ties to terrorist cells who had been found dead in Austin after shooting a victim who also had connections to Forsberg. The anchor announced Ben had escaped from Homeland custody in a shoot-out in which a respected, decorated Homeland agent died. Anyone with information on Forsberg or his whereabouts was asked to call a special number at Homeland Security.
He had barely managed to rebuild after Emily died; he had survived the stares, the whispers, but never the guilt: the pointless guilt of taking her to Maui for the honeymoon, the endless guilt of being alive when she was dead. Now something far more poisonous than guilt-suspicion. His wife had been murdered and his name was tied to a contract killer. He wasn’t going to get a second chance, in the judicial system or the court of public opinion, unless his name was absolutely cleared.
Escaped from custody. He heard the anchor’s words echo in his head. Ben touched his own face on the television screen. He was now a hunted man.
16
Vochek didn’t much like kids; but she could never forget the two dead boys.
She had first seen the small, crumpled bodies when she stepped into a bullet-blasted living room, six months
