Bodyguard of Lies

CHAPTER 14

Racine slowly drove by the abandoned truck. The two women had left it eighty miles west of the exit at which Racine had sent the two motorcycle thugs after them. He had been impressed with Neeley for the second time. She had handled herself well. Perhaps Gant had had more than pussy on his mind when he’d hooked up with her.

He could have taken them himself, but the restaurant was too public. Some dumb shit would call the cops as they had. The two motorcycle goons had been gathered up but they had no clue that Racine was other than a man who had their phone number and had given them each a thousand in cash.

Better to flush the game and set it running and catch up some place more private. From the way Neeley had handled the Glock back at the Masterson's house and her actions in the restaurant, he decided that Gant's woman could prove difficult. She'd obviously fight like hell to keep the blond bitch alive. The situation was unraveling. Much as he hated to admit it, a more direct approach and some backup were needed. He'd already called the Agency number about the latter requirement and forces were moving.

He looked at the glowing dot on the screen of his tracking computer. It was sitting still in the middle; the bug that he had placed on the truck. He switched frequencies. "Come to papa," he muttered. A new, moving dot lit up on the screen to the west near Kansas City and Racine drove to the on-ramp in pursuit.

It was nearing noon as Neeley and Hannah approached the eastern suburbs of Kansas City. Hannah had fallen asleep a couple of hours ago. It was more of a collapse from complete exhaustion than a pleasant nap. Neeley was grateful for the quiet as she tried to make plans for the immediate future.

They'd dumped the truck in exchange for a four door, white sedan that would be hard for police to spot. Another felony to add to her growing list of crimes. It didn't bother Neeley. If she was ever caught, and the authorities found out who she really was, she had a lot more to worry about than grand theft auto. She'd quickly loaded everything from the truck into the trunk and back seat of the car.

They were going to Boulder, Colorado as Gant had instructed. Gant had another house there. She had no clue what to do with Hannah now that she seemed to have adopted the woman like a stray cat. For better or worse, they were joined together.

Glancing at the briefcases in the backseat, she consoled herself with the knowledge that they had money, and one could do just about anything with the right amount of cash. She also had John's briefcase and the material that was in it.

She was disturbed with the thought of Hannah as her companion in flight. Neeley preferred to work alone as did any true professional. Gant had spent years training her out of the everyday incompetence that ruled most people's lives. Adding another person to a mission doubled your chance of screwing up but it did not double your chance of succeeding. Another of Gant’s rules.

How Neeley was supposed to deal with this bleached blond was a mystery to her. Neeley was tired, though, and she knew they needed a good night's sleep before attempting the long haul across Kansas. She hoped they had some space from the Cellar.

As Hannah's slow regular breathing filled the interior of the sedan, Neeley began to warm to the idea of Boulder. As far as she knew, Gant's house there was an unknown to the Cellar. It was managed by one of the many accounts that had funded Gant's secret world. They had used it mainly as a base for their yearly rock climbing expeditions to nearby Eldorado Canyon.

Climbing was the one physical skill she had brought into the relationship with Gant. Jean-Philippe had introduced her to the sport when they were teenagers. She allowed herself a moment of emotion and remembered the childish excitement she felt every summer when she returned to Strasbourg, her grandmother and Jean-Philippe.

Hannah stirred. "Where are we going?"

"To Boulder, Colorado."

"By car? Don't you know someone who will swoop down and rescue some damsels in distress?"

Neeley wrinkled her nose at the thought of being a damsel but she did get an idea. "I know someone who swoop down and help us for money."

It was Hannah's turn to feign disgust. "My, what charming friends you have."

Neeley snorted. "Hey, I wouldn't talk. I heard you and the bitch brigade playing golf."

"You were the person on the hill!" Hannah exclaimed. "Did you hear everything? What were they saying?"

"Let's get into that when we're not running for our lives," Neeley said.

"I have a feeling that you're always running for your life," Hannah said.

"Better than running from it," Neeley said sharply.

Hannah changed the subject. "So what about our mercenary savior?"

Neeley explained that he was a pilot who could be persuaded to fly anywhere if the price was right. "I'll call him."

Hannah nodded. "Better than driving." Her eyes narrowed. "Why are we going to Boulder?"

Neeley figured she needed to take things one step at a time and not overload Hannah. "I have a safe house in Colorado. We'll go there and figure out a plan." She paused. “Do you know what a safe house is?”

“I’ve read a book or two,” Hannah said.

“What was with all those books?” Neeley asked.

Hannah shrugged. “It beat living in the real world as you noted earlier.”

Neeley spotted a truck stop and decided it was a good time to change cars again. Neeley took an exit and parked in the lot. After transferring the load to a new car, she wiped the old car down, removing their prints. She left the windows open and the keys in the ignition. With any luck it would get stolen again. She found a pay phone near the truck stop and left the motor idling while she talked.

"Hello?" a man's voice answered.

"Kent, this is Neeley."

"Hey, lady, how you doing? Been a long time since I heard from you. How's your Gant?"

"Gant's dead, Kent."

"Shit. What happened?"

"Cancer."

"Damn. Sorry to hear that. He was a good man. You could count on him."

"I need a flight."

"I only do domestic service now," Kent said. "Flat fee ten grand anywhere in the Continental United States. One way. No hanging around waiting."

Kent was an old acquaintance of Gant's. He was the one who had flown them up into the mountains for the winter training a few years back. Gant and she had gone to his place in Wyoming twice more to do some skiing over the years.

"I've got the money," Neeley said.

"Where to where and when?" Kent succinctly asked.

"As soon as possible. I'll be in Lawrence, Kansas. I need to get to Boulder, Colorado."

"Hold on a second. Let me check the weather."

While she waited the operator demanded more money and Neeley slid the quarters in.

Kent was back on in two minutes. "I can leave tonight and do IFR. I'll be there in the morning. There’s a small airfield outside Lawrence. No tower." He gave her the directions.

"I'll have one person with me," Neeley said.

"Just double the fee."

"All right."

"See you in the morning."

The phone went dead.

A car pulled into the lot and slowly drove along the front of the restaurant. Neeley recognized the make. The same as the one that had been in the parking lot of the restaurant outside St. Louis. Hannah watched it too.

"Goddamn," Neeley muttered as she hung up the phone. The car rolled through the end of the parking lot and disappeared but Neeley knew it wouldn't go far.

"He knows where we are all the time,” Hannah said.

Neeley headed back toward the Interstate. She glanced at her companion and returned her attention to the speedometer. "You just figured that out? We've got to make it to Lawrence and that plane."

Hannah nodded. "But how do we keep that guy from climbing right on board? He doesn't seem to have any trouble following us and this is a new car. He can’t have bugged it."

Neeley banged her hand on the steering wheel with frustration, causing Hannah to jump. "We're going to have to make a run for it."

Hannah nodded in slow agreement and reached back for her tote in the backseat. She pulled out a brush and began brushing her sleep matted hair.

"What are you doing?"

"What's it look like? Besides, it helps me think."

Neeley gripped the wheel tighter. "What you need is about fifty more IQ points to help you think."

Hannah tossed the brush back in the bag. She pushed the bag on the floorboard and reached for a metal case in the back seat. "And your stuff's perfect, right? Let's see what John had that was so damn important." Popping it open, she murmured, "Oh." Hannah didn't recognize the contents of the case in her lap. "What's this?"

"Wrong case," Neeley said. "That's mine and it's a receiver." Neeley glanced in her rear view mirror. No sign of the trailing car but she knew it was back there. Could he have had observation on them all this time? Neeley had been careful but she supposed it was possible.

Hannah reached along the side of the flat green screen and she pushed the small button that was there. There was a brief hum, the screen glowed and a bright dot showed up square in the center accompanied by a low beeping noise.

"Damn," Neeley whispered as she heard the sound and glanced over.

"What?" Hannah asked. "Did I do something wrong?"

"You didn't do anything wrong." Neeley lifted a hand off the wheel and pointed. "That dot. It represents a tracking bug. We've got one in the car. That's how this guy is following us."

"How can we have one in the car?" Hannah demanded. "We switched cars."

"It's not in the car," Neeley said. "Well, it is, but not on the car."

"What do you mean?" Hannah asked.

"Your thigh," Neeley said. "It's in your thigh. That's why that guy stuck you with the knife. He was putting a bug in you." She should have focused on the fact that the knife had looked strange, but it had been one detail in the middle of a lot of things happening.

Hannah stared at the spot on her thigh with her first sign of emotion in quite a while. "Get it out."

Neeley switched out of the fast lane and headed for the nearest downtown exit. "Hold your horses, Hannah, I'm driving."

Hannah spoke in short clipped words. "I don't care. Get it out! Get it out now!"

"Well, at least we know how he's tracking us. We need to set up a trap and get rid of this guy."

Racine knew they had spotted him. He didn’t want them to become complacent. He always found it best to keep the quarry off-balance.

He stopped at the booth the tall one had been in. He called the operator for the company that serviced the phone. Using his FBI badge number, another perk from the Cellar, he had her give him the last number called from that phone.

After he hung up, Racine looked at the number for a few seconds. The area code was Montana. The shadow world covered the entire planet but the population that dwelled inside the borders of that world was a small one. Racine closed his eyes and his mind flashed through names and faces until it clicked.

“Damn,” Racine muttered as he got back in the car. The bitches were going to fly. He couldn’t allow that. Then Nero would get involved further and it would be out of his hands. He would have to stop them before they got on that plane.

Racine stood still for several seconds, thinking, coming up with his plans. Plan A was to stop them himself. But he knew he needed a plan B, just in case.

Neeley was slowly navigating through the crowded business district and looking for a place to park. They left the car and headed for a mostly empty restaurant, Neeley carrying a small black kit and John's briefcase. In the bathroom, Hannah looked down at the hole in her thigh as Neeley dabbed away the blood. "They can really make one that small?"

"They can make transmitters extremely small," Neeley said. "The problem is the battery. That's what takes up most of the space." Neeley looked about. “But I don’t think he was worrying about it having to last very long. Just long enough to catch us.”

Neeley felt with her fingers in the cut and Hannah took a sharp breath, but didn't make any other noise. "I can't feel anything in there."

Neeley reached into the kit. She pulled a small scalpel and tweezers out. "I'm going to have to dig. It'll hurt."

Hannah nodded and looked at the wall over Neeley's shoulder. "How did you end up like this?"

Neeley turned the faucet on hot, letting the water run until it started steaming the glass over the sink. Then she put the blade under the water and held it there.

Neeley turned to look at Hannah. It was a question she had only answered for Gant. She thought about it for a few moments, and then spoke. "My earliest memories are of my mother locked up in her room whenever my dad was gone. He was some kind of low-level Department of Defense spook and he was gone a lot. That's the way it was; dinner would stop, she would stop, our lives would come to a standstill while she waited for him to come home. He was gone for months at a time.

"I swore I'd never be like that, so dependent on another human being, but I followed in her footsteps like I'd been in training my whole life. His name was Jean-Philippe.

"He was a boy I knew in Strasbourg. My mother was French — my father met her when he was stationed in Germany — and every summer I went to my grandparents. You had John, I had my Jean-Philippe. I'd spend those weeks exploring the city with him and bettering my French. Every year he was taller and more beautiful and every year it was harder for me to leave.”

Someone knocked on the locked door. “Cleaning,” Neeley yelled. The person went away and Neeley resumed her story as she heated the blade. "Finally, after high school, I moved there to go to college and Jean-Philippe and I became lovers. By then he was involved in a lot of weird businesses I barely understood. I really didn't even pay attention. I just loved the image of it. Me and my handsome French lover with his friends in a smoky café. Jean-Philippe was making money, a lot of money, and hanging with other people with a lot of money. For a nineteen year old it was pretty wild.”

Neeley checked the blade, and put it back under the water.

"It was an exciting, wonderful time. My own studies were suffering, but that was all right because Jean-Philippe seemed to want me close all the time. As he was drawn further into his business, people appeared in our lives that should have frightened me.

"Today I know those people are the machine: they are the probes and tentacles that slither around from the main body and search for souls to feed it.” She looked at the other woman. “They are not a particular cause, Hannah. They have no fixed values in their heart but just want to make money and don’t care what they have to do in order to achieve that goal.”

Neeley pulled the scalpel out of the water and came closer to Hannah. "Are you ready?"

Hannah nodded.

Neeley continued talking as she carefully pushed the blade into the cut. "I was so far in with Jean-Philippe, so dependent on him, that I didn’t see the reality. Then some really dangerous people found us and nothing would ever be the same. They sensed our immaturity and used us. At the time it seemed like fate. Today I know you make your own fate. When you're empty and weak, other people give you your fate."

Hannah glanced at Neeley and seemed about to say something, but didn't.

"Jean-Philippe and I left France and spent the next two years working for those people in various places, particularly Berlin. I learned to worship values that weren't my own and in the end I lost the only thing I ever loved."

Hannah finally spoke. "You lost Jean-Philippe."

"No." Neeley looked up from the blood. "I lost myself.

"When the final betrayal came, I was little more than a robot, an emotionless thing following him. One day Jean-Philippe forgot his love for me because he was told to by someone who probably paid him a lot of money, which I know now was more important to him than any person. That was the end for me. I wasn't human any more, just another tentacle of the machine."

Hannah leaned back against the bathroom wall, not looking at what Neeley's hands were doing. "And who was this Gant guy?"

Neeley smiled something that was a cross between pure pleasure and immeasurable grief. "He was the man who saved me." She reached with her free hand and pushed a finger into the wound she had widened. "There's something in here."

She pulled out fingers dripping blood and grabbed the tweezers. She pushed them into the cut flesh, ignoring Hannah's hiss of pain and clamped down. She pulled out a small piece of metal, half the size of the nail on her pinkie. "That's it."

Neeley placed it down on the counter top and took a small spray bottle of antiseptic out of the aid kit. "This will sting."

"Like what you just finished doing felt good," Hannah said.

Neeley squirted the wound, soaking it. Then she used gauze and tape to bind it. "You need to walk on it."

"Excuse me?" Hannah said.

"You need to keep the muscle from tightening up on you."

"I thought we were flying west, not walking," Hannah said as she carefully hopped down from the counter.

"We are, but you need to be ready."

"You sound like a girl scout troop leader," Hannah complained, but she was gingerly walking about, testing the thigh. "It's not too bad."

"That's the second time today you've impressed me," Neeley said.

Hannah paused. "Don't try to boost my ego with false flattery. You would probably be running a half-marathon with this injury. If you want me to believe you, then talk to me honestly, not like a child."

Neeley slowly nodded. "All right. That's the second time today you've impressed me." She looked at her watch. "We have to get rid of this guy who had you stuck with this."

Neeley dropped the bug in her pocket. Then she reached down and put John's briefcase on the counter. Hannah walked over and silently watched as Neeley flipped open the latches. She swung the lid up and both women stared at the contents.

A stack of papers and plans were inside. Neeley picked them and thumbed through. “Plans for two pipelines in Afghanistan like John said. Contracts.”

Hannah took some of the papers and they spent several minutes reading.

“I don’t get it,” Neeley finally said. “Yeah, these papers implicate Senator Collins and Cintgo in a deal with the Taliban to build these pipeline but these are dated 1993.”

Hannah ran a hand across her chin in thought. “According to John, Collins tried to tie up all loose ends on this deal back then in ’93. He failed and because Gant had the video and John these papers, they were able to hold things in a status quo. But something’s missing.”

“What do you mean?” Neeley asked.

“Didn’t you say Gant told you there were three pieces?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the third?” Hannah didn’t wait for an answer. “That’s the critical thing. The video — if it shows Collins in the same screen with Bin Laden will certainly be damaging, but at the time it wasn’t. And these papers appear to be legitimate business documents. We’re missing the critical piece.”

“In his note Gant said I needed the who, what and why,” Neeley said. “We know who — Senator Collins and Bin Laden; we know what — the Afghanistan pipelines; but we don’t know why. We still haven’t seen the video, so maybe that will give it to us. But I agree with you — I think the third piece, whatever it is, is critical.”

Neeley took the papers and slid them back into the case and shut the lid. "We have to think fast before this guy chasing us is on top of us. Let's go." She didn’t mention her surprise at Hannah’s observations.

They were back on the sidewalk. Neeley fed more quarters into the parking meter and looked for Hannah. Hannah was staring at a store across the street and the beginning of a very slight smile was curling her pale lips. "I say we take the upper hand and use our advantages for a change."

Neeley looked at the store and grimaced. "No way."

Hannah pulled her arm. "Please, just this once let's do it my way. Bring the bug with you so our Prince Charming can find us."

Neeley did as she was told and followed Hannah across the street. "OK, but we're not buying anything."