“You want me to turn myself in?”
Hardesty sighed. “You running like this isn’t good for you, it isn’t good for American black ops, and it isn’t good for ?t goodyour family.”
Clark nodded now, looked at his watch. “Maybe I’ll do that.”
“It’s best.”
“You’d better get on home now before SSG calls it in.”
The men shook hands. “Think about what I said.”
“I will.” Clark turned away from Hardesty, stepped into the trees lining the playground, and headed for the bus stop.
He had a plan now, a direction.
He wasn’t going to turn himself in.
No, he was going to Germany.
45
Clark sat in the back of a CVS pharmacy in the Sand-town neighborhood of West Baltimore. It was a blighted part of the city, rife with crime and decay, but it was also a good place for Clark to lie low.
Seated around him were locals, most old and sickly, waiting for their prescriptions to be filled. John himself kept his coat bunched up around his neck and his knit cap pulled down over his ears — it made him look like he was fighting a bad cold, but it also served to cover his facial features in case anyone around was looking for him.
Clark knew Baltimore; he’d walked these streets as a young man. Back then, he had been forced to disguise himself as a homeless person while he tracked the drug gang who had raped and then murdered his girlfriend, Pam. He’d killed a lot of people here in Baltimore, a lot of people who deserved to die.
That was around the time when he’d joined the Agency. Admiral Jim Greer had helped him cover up his exploits here in Baltimore so that he could work with the Special Activities Division. It was also the time when he’d met Sandy O’Toole, who later became Sandy Clark, his wife.
He wondered where Sandy was right now, but he would not call. He knew she would be under surveillance, and he also knew Ding would be taking care of her.
Right now, he needed to concentrate on his plan.
John knew that, as soon as the FBI missed him up in Emmitsburg, there would be a BOLO, a “Be on the lookout” order, broadcast among law enforcement agencies of the area, ensuring that everyone from traffic cops to organized-crime detectives would have his picture and his description and an order to pick him up if they saw him. In addition to this, Clark had no doubt the FBI was using its huge resources to hunt him down.
He felt somewhat secure right now, in this place, with this semi-disguise and this low-profile action, but he knew he wouldn’t last long before he was spotted.
Though he sat with others in the pharmacy, he wasn’t getting a prescription filled himself. Instead he was watching the mirrors high at the back of the store, looking for anyone following him.
For ten minutes he watched and waited.
But he saw nothing.
Next he bought a throwaway phone at the pharmacy and wandered the store while he took it out of its packaging and turned it on. He then thumbed a two-line text message to Domingo Chavez. He had no way of knowing if Ding was under surveillance himself, or exactly how far this had all spread, so he’d avoided Ding and The Campus since finding out the FBI was looking for him the previous evening. But he and Chavez had established codes between t?he two of them, should a situation arise where one could not be certain the other was clean.
A group of loud and rough-looking African-American teenagers entered Clark’s aisle and immediately went silent. They gave him a long look, sizing him up like predators sizing up prey. Clark had been fumbling with his new phone, but he stopped what he was doing, stared back at the six youths just to let them know he was aware of their presence and their interest in him. This was more than enough to get the young toughs to move on to easier pickings, and John focused again on his work.
John received a text message.
John nodded at the phone, then tapped back.
Three minutes later he walked north on Stricker Street, removing the battery from the phone as he did so. He tossed his empty coffee cup, the phone, and the battery, in a drain culvert, and continued walking.
* * *
Seconds before nine o’clock that evening, Domingo Chavez stood on the dark ramp in front of Maryland Charter Aviation Services. A cold rain fell on him, wetting the brim of his ball cap and causing a steady drip in front of his eyes. His windbreaker shielded him from the wet, but not the cold.
Fifty yards off his left shoulder, the Hendley Associates Gulfstream G550 sat parked and ready, though at present it had filed no flight plan. Captain Reid and First Officer Hicks sat in the cockpit, and Adara Sherman readied the cabin, though they had no idea where they might be heading.
Ding looked at his Luminox watch. The tritium gas — filled tubes glowed in the dark here, just outside the residual lighting emitted by the aircraft fifty yards away.
Nine o’clock on the nose.
Just then a figure appeared out of the darkness. Clark wore a black hooded coat and carried no luggage at all. He looked like he could be an airport ground employee.
“Ding,” he said with a curt nod.
“How you holding up, John?”
“I’m okay.”
“Long day?”
“Nothing I haven’t been through a hundred times before. Doesn’t usually happen in my own country, though.”
“This is fucking bullshit.”
“No argument here. Any news?”
Chavez shrugged. “Just a little. The White House is using you to get to Ryan. No idea if they know about The Campus or that you have been working at Hendley Associates since retirement from the Agency. The indictment has been sealed, and no one is talking. If the existence of The Campus is known, or suspected, Kealty’s people are tight-lipped about it. They are going about this like it’s some cold-case file that just got a shake, and your name fell out.”
“How ’bout the family?”
“Sandy is fine. We are all fine. I’ll watch out for them, and if someone comes for me, the Ryans will take over. Everyone sends their love and support.”
Clark nodded, sighed out a burst of steam that shone in lights from the auxiliary power unit.
Ding motioned to the Gulfstream. “And Hendley sent this. He wants you to go into hiding.”
“I’m not going into higoing inding.”
Chavez nodded thoughtfully. “You’re going to need some help, then.”
“No, Ding. I need to do this alone. I want you with The Campus. There is too much going on right now. I’ll figure out who is behind this on my own.”
“I understand you want to keep the shop insulated, but let me come with you. Cathy Ryan will make sure Sandy is okay while we’re gone. We make a hell of a team, and you are going to need me to watch your back.”
Clark shook his head. “Appreciate it, but The Campus needs you more than I do. The OPTEMPO is too high for both of us to be gone. I’ll check in on back channels if I need a hand.”
