was best, he thought, to weave truth and lie together.
“Who killed her?” one of the men asked.
He clicked another button. Pilgrim’s face appeared on the screen. “She was found dead in an apartment leased to this man. He is a Cellar operative known as Pilgrim. He is also responsible for the deaths of three other Cellar agents.” Pilgrim flashed the file photos of Barker, Green, and De La Pena, one by one, and let the growing anger fill the room. “He killed one in Austin, two in Dallas. This is the most grievous attack on the Cellar in its history, especially coming as it did from within.”
“Why did he turn on us?” one of the women asked.
“For profit. He got bribed by our target.” Hector slicked the words with disdain. “We just came into possession of information about a terrorist group called Blood of Fire being underground here in New Orleans. They are gathered here to launch an attack. We’re going to kill them.” He moved the screen to a detailed map showing a house near the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, in the Lakeview neighborhood. “Tonight. We move fast because they leave the house tomorrow. We’re not giving these bastards a chance.” He handed them copies of files, photos, of the six young men.
“Why isn’t Homeland handling this, why not just arrest them?” the second woman asked.
“We haven’t fed the information to Homeland. The terrorists know about us from Pilgrim. We don’t want the terrorists captured and talking about us. They go in the ground. All of them.”
The phone rang. He glanced at the number display. “Excuse me. Study the maps of the locale and of the house. This is a fairly straightforward operation, but I welcome your suggestions.” He displayed tactical maps on the screen, stepped into the other room, shut the door, and answered the phone.
It was Margaret Pritchard. “We have a problem,” she said.
He wanted to say, Then solve it, but she still believed the only agenda at work here was hers. “Yes, Margaret?”
“Two of the people from the covert group-I’m told they call it the Cellar-took one of my agents and her plane and they’re in New Orleans. One of them, Choate, offered a deal to tell everything he knows about the Cellar to us, but he and his partner ran once they got here. They wanted me to tell you they were being held for questioning by Homeland. I’m wondering why they’d make that request, why they’d want you to believe they were out of the loop.”
Hector stayed calm. Pilgrim didn’t know the location of the safe house; only Teach had. But did he know the target, would he try to interfere? He couldn’t know. He couldn’t.
“You should know serious allegations about you are being made by one of my agents, Sam. I think you’ve done a wonderful job in flushing out these people, but we have to find the rest of them and I want to talk to you about your methods.”
“Is this Agent Vochek? Is she the one they, um, kidnapped?” He remembered the name of the woman who’d called him in Dallas; he’d never returned her message. She’d been in a plane with Pilgrim and Forsberg. He wondered what had been said, what deal might be struck between them and this Vochek woman. This was a disaster for him.
Goddamn Nicky Lynch, missing Pilgrim when he had the chance to kill him. If he’d only shot him and Jackie planted the photos-then Pilgrim would be dead, Ben Forsberg would be under suspicion for having ties to a dead rogue CIA agent, with evidence pointing back to his wife’s murder planted on the dead agent’s body. A millimeter was making a huge difference in his life right now.
“Yes. She’s here with me now. I’m not sharing her allegations with anyone, and I’ve asked her to keep quiet for now. But, Sam, I have serious concerns…”
“Margaret. I know it’s late, but I can come over now and we can sort this out. You’re at your usual suite?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I’ll see you shortly.”
He walked back into the room; the team was gathered around a map. “New information. They may be rolling earlier than we thought. We need to go now.” He explained his basic plan of how they were to approach, kill any sentry, and rip through the house in an orderly fashion, room by room. “This group is not remotely ready for our level of expertise.”
“A bit rushed,” one of the men said in a tone of doubt.
“It’s a two-story house. They’re mostly sleeping. You have more guns. They don’t. It’s not calculus,” Hector said. He forced the iron out of his voice, because now they were all watching him. They weren’t contractors, he remembered. These were a different breed, ex-Agency like him. “I know Teach’s loss is devastating. But these guys have every reason to expose us if Pilgrim gives away our entire organization. So we take them out before they do.”
He left them discussing the maps, sharing thoughts on how best to proceed given their skill sets and styles.
He gestured Jackie down the hallway to the den.
Jackie shut the door, crossed his arms. “Quite a bit of fiction you’ve told.”
Hector realized, too late, he’d given Jackie an unwelcome taste of power, letting him attend the meeting, listen to the lies. Jackie could expose him as a fraud.
“Not all of it’s fiction,” Hector said.
Jackie rolled his eyes.
Hector leaned close to Jackie’s ear. “I have a job for you. I need you to kill two people.”
“All right.”
“Do you know New Orleans?”
“I can find any place if I got a map.”
“Use the GPS in the rental car. You’ll be killing two women. One in her late fifties, Margaret Pritchard, and the other a younger woman, Joanna Vochek. They’re at this hotel, this suite number. I need it done silent and fast. Both may be armed. Pritchard is a fool but Vochek isn’t. They’re expecting me; they’ll be getting you.”
Jackie studied the address, put it in his pocket.
“Pilgrim and Forsberg are in New Orleans. We don’t know where.”
Jackie blew an irritated sigh. “What if Pilgrim and Ben know where you’re headed?”
The corner of Hector’s mouth jerked. “They don’t. They couldn’t.”
“Never say couldn’t.”
“Then my new colleagues in the Cellar will be happy to kill them.”
Behind them, the clock chimed midnight.
Khaled’s Report-New Orleans
I can’t sleep. I hear snoring coming from the other rooms, but I cannot settle my thoughts. My mind is too full of worry. Later today I begin my work, and I must do it perfectly. With no room for error, no mistakes. It is strange to think of a job this way.
Tonight I saw on the news more coverage about the attack on the Homeland Security office that had not even officially opened yet in Austin, by a group of Lebanese men. I could feel everyone in the room tonight watch me when it was announced they were Lebanese, as though I brought a contagion of incompetence with me. Perhaps I am imagining it; reading so much into every reaction, because I am aware of the constant lie that my life is about to become.
A lie until I die. It is an odd, discomfiting feeling, one that works into your bones. I feel like tonight is the last night forever of the life I knew. Before I thought my very identity-who I am at heart-changed when I was recruited. That my uselessness ended then, and I became hopeful and useful all at once. But tonight is truly the end of my old life, and the beginning of another for me.
I lay awake, feeling the change in my bones.
39
“I really need your help,” Ben said with a tourist’s awkward grin. The night clerk at the Hotel Marquis de
