Bodyguard of Lies

CHAPTER 4

Neeley was parked outside the Greyhound Station in Hartford, Connecticut. She looked at the thin manila envelope she had retrieved from the locker. She peeled away the tape and slid the contents onto her lap, wedging them up against the steering wheel. On top, there were two photos, a man and a woman. The man was a typical businessman in his gray suit. A little soft looking with a red blush to his cheeks. A drinker, Neeley thought. The woman was more interesting, sharp looking with blond hair and dark eyes. Neeley stared at the photos for a few moments, committing the details to memory.

There was a third item in the envelope. A piece of notebook paper with Gant's handwriting scribbled across it.

Neeley read the note once more. For all the years they’d been together, there was still so much she didn’t know. There were no tears staring at Gant’s writing. She’d spent them on the mountain. She put the note and the photo on the passenger seat and then weighed them down with the pistol Gant had given her on her birthday two years ago.

The Glock Model 20 had been Gant’s weapon of choice and although initially Neeley had preferred the Model 17, the smaller 9mm version, Gant had finally convinced her to go for the larger caliber. His point was that 9mm was a magic number in pistols and many variations of body armor were designed for the magic number and that the 10mm slug would penetrate and kill where the 9mm would just piss someone off.

The Model 20 held 15 rounds of 10mm ammunition. It had an integrated laser sight built into gun, replacing the recoil spring guide assembly, just below the barrel. Touching the trigger activated the laser. With no external hammer, the gun could smoothly be drawn without catching, and the safety was built into the trigger allowing rapid fire. The finish was flat black, designed not to absorb light.

Gant had also taught her that the gun was only fifty percent of the equation. The bullets were the other half. The rounds in the gun had been handcrafted by Gant for high muzzle velocity and penetrating power. She had several spare magazines loaded with the same. She also had his loading equipment in the bed of the truck and had spent many hours at his side practicing the art until her efforts matched his.

Neeley threw the truck into gear and headed for the Interstate. She had a long drive ahead of her. As her tires rumbled, she kept her eyes on the road but her mind drifted to more memories of Berlin.

After defusing the bomb and leaving Templehoff, Gant took Neeley to a part of Berlin she had not seen during the time she had been there with Jean-Philippe. The sticker on the car windshield brought them a wave through at the base security checkpoint and suddenly they were no longer in Berlin or even in Germany. The American sector could have been any American army post back in the States.

They drove past large housing complexes and schools, small shops and administrative offices. Gant slowly pulled into a large parking lot and took an empty slot close to the building marked commissary. He left her the keys and promised to return quickly. She watched him disappear into the cavernous building and began to shiver. Jean-Philippe had urged her into the cut-offs and t-shirt that morning and she was beginning to understand why. He had hoped any suspicion would be allayed by the promising scenery of her bare skin. Now her skin was mottled by goose bumps and she felt more alone than ever before. She had no idea who the stranger was, only that she trusted him so far.

She watched the shoppers leaving the grocery store and felt her isolation grow. Who were all these women in khaki slacks and ponytails, their toddlers clutching tightly to hands or pants legs, any surface that offered protection? The people Jean-Philippe had associated with had all flashed large amounts of money. They wouldn’t have been caught dead in the outfits these people wore.

When Gant walked back through the electronic doors, Neeley studied her benefactor as he strode toward the car. He appeared to be in his early thirties and was large and powerfully built. He toted the bags as though they were empty, all the while scanning the area to his front and side. She supposed he was handsome in a masculine, rugged fashion but to Neeley that was no comparison to Jean-Philippe's delicate features and long curling hair. The thought of her lover's face rising above her brought tears to her eyes and she was using her fingers to wipe them away as the car door opened.

If Gant noticed her crying, he said nothing but he did nod toward the food as if it would banish her sorrow. "I wasn't expecting any company so the house is kind of bare."

Neeley grew nervous at the mention of his house.

As if sensing this, he offered her a large hand. "My name is Anthony Gant, but everyone just calls me Gant."

She took his hand with trepidation and mumbled, "Neeley."

"Well, Neeley, it seems we've been tossed together for a while. If it makes you feel any better, what happened this morning will be our secret. I've had stranger mornings."

Neeley looked at him. "If that's supposed to make me feel better, it doesn't. It's definitely been the strangest morning of my life and strange isn't even coming close. I could have been responsible for hundreds of deaths today. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?"

Gant stared at her hard. "Actually, I do."

The conversation ended with that and they avoided even glancing at each other during the short trip to Gant's house.

Gant's home turned out to be part of a large multi-family dwelling made from the same yellow stone as the commissary. There were children everywhere. As Neeley and Gant walked the chalk-streaked sidewalk to his door, they dodged bikes, skates and curious glances.

"This is the last place I'd expect a man like you to live," Neeley said. "Isn't your wife going to be surprised?"

Gant paused as he unlocked the door. "My wife's not here."

He pushed her through the door into the living room of the small apartment. "She left a few weeks ago and went back to the States with my son." He continued to talk as he carried the bags into the kitchen and unpacked them. "I can't really blame her. I've been gone eleven out of the last twelve months. Her note said if she was going to live alone, then she wanted to live alone. I was going to fly over and plead my case when I saw you at the airport."

He shook his head at her look of surprise. "Don't worry. You haven't altered my family's life plan or anything. She wouldn't have come back and I was just going for myself. You know, to say I did, that I tried. My son barely knows who I am and the only way that would change is if I became someone I'm not. Sometimes it pays to know one’s limitations as much as one’s capabilities."

Neeley sank down on the Swedish modern couch and closed her eyes. There was something disturbing about what he said and yet he had saved her life and many more. She leaned her head back and was sound asleep when he returned with eggs and toast. He gently woke her. After eating, he took her to a small bedroom and she immediately crawled into the bed he offered and fell asleep once more.

She slept a long time, waking only once to note her surroundings. She was in a child's room, in the bottom bunk. She could distinguish the outlines of toys and spaceships and when she lifted her head to adjust the pillow, the faint moonlight fell on the happy faces of the most recent Star Wars characters. She fell back asleep as easily as throwing a switch.

When she awoke again it was light outside and there was a persistent tapping at the door.

Gant's voice was muffled but audible. "Neeley, are you awake?"

She threw back the comforter and tried to sit up but banged her head on the top bunk in the process. In the daylight she could see the entire room was homage to Star Wars. Neeley felt sadness for the little boy who had left everything he loved. She knew exactly what that boy was feeling.

She walked out of the room. Gant was seated in a chair facing the front window, his fingers steepled, a cup of steaming coffee next to him, and one for her on a small card table.

"Do you know why you were given that bomb?" Gant asked.

Neeley suddenly felt tired despite her night's rest. She told Gant about Jean-Philippe, the strange people he associated with, and the last couple of years of her life. If he was surprised at any of it, he didn't show it.

"I don't know why Jean-Philippe wanted me dead," she concluded, which brought a ghost of a smile to Gant's lips.

"I doubt you were the objective of the bomb," he said. “You say he worked as an oil broker?”

“Yes,” Neeley said. “There’s a large black market for oil that can’t go through normal channels, for example that coming out of Iraq despite the embargo. Jean-Philippe would put together the deals. He worked with a loose-knit group of men who did this.”

Gant had nodded. “The shadow world. There’s one for every niche and they all touch each other at some point.”

Gant left her alone that day as he searched Berlin for her old associates. The business house was empty and wiped clean. The small group had completely disappeared, leaving no tracks of itself behind. Gant did as much as he could without arousing suspicion but he said little to Neeley about how his days were spent. She had enough awareness to realize that his place here was a cover; that he was beyond the Army, even beyond the classified Special Forces unit he was apparently assigned to in Berlin. A cover within a cover. There had been whispers among Jean-Philippe’s friends of a special American unit hidden in Berlin, but nothing specific.

After a few days, Neeley questioned Gant about his work. They were watching the news and there was more coverage of the crisis in Mogadishu, the failed raid and the attempts to get back the pilot.

"I had instructions to get the hell away for a while," he told her.

Neeley looked over from the television and President Clinton’s haggard face as he discussed what had gone wrong in Africa. "What does that mean?"

Gant pointed to the television. "That. That cluster-fuck. They just want me to disappear for a while. I think I might make it longer than just a while. I’ve got a strong suspicion they may not want me back at all."

As if sensing her surprise, Gant continued, "Look, Neeley, we've been thrown together and it's going to take us some time to figure out what we're doing. I've been thinking about some things and I want to talk to you about them. In the meantime, just understand that I did some work for the US government that those who gave the orders want to hide. I left what you would call the normal military a long time ago and I've been in the dark for so long it's hard to get used to talking at all. Another reason this house is empty.

"I've got only one real talent and it's the one my bosses needed the most. It's patience. I can sit in the same spot and wait. For days, weeks, even months if I have to. Then I can do what I'm told to do in an efficient manner. You're going to have to develop some patience. We have to sit quietly and come up with a plan. A good plan because we both have enemies out there in the world and we need to keep them off our backs. I’m not sure what exactly is going on and I don’t know if I ever will figure it all out, but my priority right now is our safety so I’m going to see what kind of deal I can get for us."

That night, she slipped out of the little bunk bed and tiptoed to the other bedroom. She put her hand on the knob and slowly turned. The door silently opened onto more darkness. She felt in the dark for the furniture and, finding the bed, moved around to climb under the covers. Gant was a still form lying on his back. She started to slide her hand down his stomach but he stopped her with a firm grasp of her wrist. Holding her hand in his, he pulled her until his warm body was spooned behind her. "Why are you here?" he whispered in her ear.

"Because you've been so good to me. Taken care of me."

"I don't take barter, Neeley."

She started to answer and he hushed her. "We'll call this rule number two. Never use your body when you can use your brain. And Neeley, next time you sneak up on someone in the dark, remember it's more than likely they have a gun pointed at your face. I'll let it slide tonight because that's how you learn. Now, get some sleep. Big day tomorrow."

Neeley heard the soft click of the pistol hammer being lowered, then Gant's other hand was wrapped around her, holding her tight.

The day after she had snuck into Gant's room, her life changed forever. Gant told her that both hers and his old lives were over. To try and go back would mean death.

A new identity would just be a way for her enemies to find her one day. Gant offered her a different life. A life in the shadows with him with no identity. She wouldn't need all the names and numbers that held the normal people to their place on the planet.

They disappeared together and started as teacher and pupil. They each had so much the other needed. Neeley remembered those years as physically exhausting yet intensely fulfilling. She traveled the world with Gant, learning the backdoors of most of the world's cities.

Gant's business he kept to himself and she didn't pry but she knew he received money each month. He told her he was retired, but she wondered at that. She knew the less he told her, the more he was protecting her in the perverse way of the covert world where black was white and white was black and things only made sense to those who could think very differently from the average person in the street. He didn’t tell her much about the Cellar, the organization he had worked for, just enough to let her know it existed.

The only constant was that Neeley learned and worked and sweated and every time she thought she couldn't possibly run another mile, do another pull up or strip down another weapon, Gant would be there, whispering encouragement sometimes, but always reminding her that she had to do it, she had no other choice. She had to be ready. It was strange, but Neeley had never pinned him down on what it was exactly she was supposed to be ready for. It just seemed a natural part of their strange life together to do all these things. It made the here and now important and deflected reflection on the past or concern about the future.

Now, driving through southern Connecticut, she still had no choice. She and Gant had been one. His legacy was all she had left. And it wasn't a legacy he could have just handed her. She would have to earn it as she had in the Bronx. She knew that as instinctively as she had known it was a bomb on her lap on that plane so many years ago.

Gant may have died, but she would go on. She would have to pick up all that he had once held and make it her own in order to protect herself. The money was the first part. John Masterson was the second.

Hannah wandered the house. Only the main floor. Not the upstairs. That reminded her too much of her earlier major failure. The room she had spent months on readying for the baby. And then the miscarriage that had stopped those plans and that work abruptly.

That brought another choked sob to her lips. If they’d had a child would John have stayed?

She stopped in front of the large mirror in the foyer, staring at herself. She didn’t have a clue why he had left; how could she know what would have made him stay? Her eyes shifted over her own shoulder to the wall behind her, the only one not coved in books. The photographs in the large frame. All of her and John. No one else. Not only no children, but no family for either of them.

She’d had no one blood relations and neither had he. Another lock to chain them together. Two orphans against the world. John had never talked about his past before he met her and she had had no desire to talk about hers either. It was as if by being together they could start with a fresh slate.

Hannah reached forward and placed her hands against the mirror, staring at the reflected palms that met her own. Another sob forced its way out her throat and she slid down to the floor, until she sitting in the foyer, her head against the glass, her palms still meeting the one of the crying woman the mirror showed.

After a few moments, she pushed herself away from the glass. She went into John’s home office, where he had spent many nights working late. She’d never gone through his stuff, an implicit agreement between them that his space was totally his own. What she had learned in Howard Brumley’s office removed that agreement. If John wasn’t coming back, then he had no rights in this house.

Hannah worked methodically, going drawer by drawer, file by file.

Nothing. No sign of a mistress, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, trouble at work, blackmail. Nothing that would explain his sudden departure.

There were a couple of odd things, though, that Hannah couldn’t figure out. One was a folder labeled H that held a thick sheaf of papers stapled together. On each page books were listed by title, author and publisher. Hannah recognized every title — they were the books that John had brought home to her over the years. Each one had a little check mark in pencil next to it. Where had he gotten such a list, she wondered. There was nothing else in the file other than the book list.

She shrugged it off, realizing it wasn’t important at this point.

She also found an old map, stuffed in the back of the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. She took it out and opened it. It showed southern Asia. There were two red lines drawn on it, both originating in Turkmenistan. One went south and west, crossing Afghanistan and terminating at the Arabian Sea. The other went south and east across Afghanistan and ending in Pakistan.

Hannah frowned. John’s work at Tyro involved pipelines so she assumed that’s what these lines represented but she had never heard of any such lines being built. The map was old so she had to assume these were proposals that had never come to fruition. She folded the map up and put it back in the rear of the drawer.

The thing that was curious to her was that there was nothing in John’s office that predated the time they met. No school records, photos, army records — nothing. John had always kept a veil around his past, but it had never bothered Hannah because she felt the same way about her past. The last thing she had wanted to do with John was discuss her childhood. They’d met in college and for her all that had occurred since then had been enough. Apparently not, she thought as she slammed shut his file drawer.

She looked at his computer. She pushed the on-button and waited. It booted, but instead of getting a desktop, it stopped loading and a flashing box appeared, asking for a password. Hannah knew John worked with classified material at his job, so she figured this was just an extension of that. She tried his birth date, their anniversary, every name or number combination that came to mind. None worked.

Hannah sighed and leaned back in the chair. She was no closer to understanding why John had done what he did.

How could she have been so ignorant?