never showed for his plane. You were following him, right? What happened?”
“He’s with me.”
The pause was long. “What do you mean, he’s with you?”
“He’s with me.”
“Are you telling me you’re taking care of the problem?”
“I’m telling you the problem was never Oliver. It was Larson. Killing Oliver would have been a mistake. He can be useful.”
“Useful? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I believe he could be an asset, Peter.”
“An
“I’ll know in a few weeks. I’ll contact you then.”
“What? Hold on! I agree that this was an…unfortunate termination, but, if you’ll remember correctly, Oliver was deemed a potential risk.”
“And I’m telling you he’s
“Are you deliberately trying to throw your career away?” Peter asked.
“I’m not throwing anything away. I’m cultivating an asset.” Durrie paused. “A free pass for three weeks, that’s what I’m asking. No one comes after us. No one bothers us. I’ve done nothing but good work for you, Peter. I’m not trying to screw you
“Jesus, Durrie. You can’t be serious. What can you possibly see in this cop — this
“The same things you saw that made you decide to get rid of him. I don’t like seeing potential wasted.”
“You’re
“Free pass or not? Either way, I’m not changing my mind.”
Peter said nothing for several seconds. “Three weeks. If I don’t hear from you by then, consider both of your lives sacrificed.”
Durrie hung up, not bothering to say goodbye.
25
The cabin was fifty miles from the closest town, tucked into the woods in the Rocky Mountains of central Colorado. It was another safe house, though this one belonged to an organization Durrie had done work for several years earlier that had no ties to the Office. In the recent months, the organization had scaled back its Stateside operations, so Durrie had been confident the building would be unused.
He was right.
By the look of things, no one had been there in more than a year.
The cabin wasn’t as well-equipped as the mobile home south of Phoenix, but it did have a well-made holding cell in the basement, and that was all that really mattered at the moment.
On three separate occasions during the drive there, Durrie had given Oliver BetaSomnol boosters to keep him asleep. It was more drug than he’d really wanted to administer, but he’d had little choice.
Now that he had Oliver in the cell, the drug was no longer necessary. He could do nothing, however, but provide aspirin for the headache Oliver experienced from the withdrawal. A full thirty-six hours passed before the former police officer’s symptoms had lessened enough so that Durrie could move forward.
Using the threat of his stun gun, he had Oliver chain himself to the chair in his room before he carried his own in and sat down.
“You’re one very lucky son of a bitch,” the man said as he took a seat.
Jake almost laughed. “You might have to explain that to me.”
“What do you think I mean?” the man asked.
“I have no idea.”
The man considered him for a moment. “You can do better than that.”
“Why don’t you just tell me, if you think I should know,” Jake said. “Or not. I don’t really care.” Though his headache was gone, he’d never felt so drained in his life, and a verbal game was the last thing he cared about.
The man was silent for a moment, then said, “You don’t see it now, but if it wasn’t for me, your funeral would already be over.”
“Easy to say, hard to prove, but what the hell? Thanks.”
“You think you’re funny sometimes, don’t you? You don’t have to answer. I can tell. You should also know that doesn’t cut it with me. Feel free to tell your jokes, but don’t expect me to laugh.”
“I’ll remember that,” Jake said.
The man stared at him for nearly a minute, then said, “You
“Whatever you say.”
“We’ll talk about your choices later.”
The man stood up and carried his chair out of the room. For a second, Jake thought he was going to leave him shackled to the chair, but then the guy returned and grabbed Jake’s left wrist firmly in one hand. With his other, he unlocked the cuff, then tossed the key on Jake’s lap.
With surprising agility, he released Jake’s wrist and stepped back out of range.
“After you finish unlocking yourself, slide the key under the door,” he said.
“And if I don’t?”
“Then you never see me again.”
The man started to close the door.
“Wait,” Jake said.
The man looked back, silent.
“Do you have a name?”
A moment’s pause, then, “Call me Durrie.” With that, the man shut the door.
Jake unfastened his other wrist and his ankles, then did as the man — as
He lay back on the bed, replaying the conversation in his mind. When he boiled it down, Durrie had basically told him three things besides his name: 1) that Jake would have been dead if Durrie hadn’t kidnapped him, 2) that he had little sense of humor, and 3) that Jake was going to be given some kind of choice.
Of the three things, the only one Jake was sure of was the lack of humor. Beyond that he had to assume it was all just talk. But talk was better than no talk at all, and the longer Jake could keep it going, the better the chance the man would make a mistake. Jake just had to bide his time, and not make a lot of waves.
Easier said than done.
“How?” Durrie asked.
Jake had no idea what time it was. There were no windows in his room. The only thing he knew was that this was their third conversation since his headache had passed, and that he’d slept several hours since the last one.
“What do you mean, ‘how’?” Jake said.
“You found the matchbook at the site. Fine. You followed it back to the hotel. That makes sense. You then convinced the hotel manager and the head of security to allow you to view camera footage from the night in question. But how did you pick us out?”
There was no easy answer to that since Jake himself wasn’t sure how he’d done it. “Just…a feeling, I guess.”
