Breakwater

26

When Lubec, Rochester and Glover picked Huck up near the quirky American Society for the Study of Plants and Animals, he told them he was taking the afternoon off and would find his own way back to Breakwater. He didn’t offer any explanations. Lubec didn’t like it, but he had a helicopter waiting-no time to argue with a low-level employee like Huck Boone.

Diego Clemente, who, as Huck had expected, had just arrived in Washington, picked him up in front of the White House and took him out to Arlington and the historic northern Virginia house where Nate Winter lived with his wife and the ghosts of Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee.

“Find another ride back to the Neck,” Diego said. “I’m going to check on Harlowe.”

“You’re still ticked off at her because she made you.”

Diego had made his opinion plain about Quinn Harlowe turning her research and analysis talents onto the two of them. He scowled. “Ever think she could have hooked up with these vigilante pukes and be playing us?”

“No.”

“Historians,” he said, as if that explained everything.

The second Huck shut the truck door, Clemente backed out, as if he’d seen ghosts coming out of the old house’s chimney. Most likely, he just didn’t want anyone making him stick around for a high-level meeting. Diego hated meetings. Huck had called Nate Winter an hour ago and said he was on the way. He didn’t know who Winter had managed to get out to the house in the meantime.

He walked around to the back of the pre-Civil War house. Sarah Dunnemore, Winter’s wife, was in charge of getting it ready to open to the public. They’d bought their own place. Huck noticed the boxes on the back porch and wondered what it was like to be that settled, moving into a home of his own.

Winter stood at the top of the porch steps. A tall, rangy, naturally impatient man with an unusual family background, he was fast becoming a legend in the Marshals Service. Last spring, he had survived a sniper-style shooting in Central Park. The incident had, however, led him to Sarah Dunnemore of Night’s Landing, Tennessee, surrogate daughter to John Wesley Poe, former Tennessee governor and now the U.S. president. That had to complicate Nate’s life, Huck thought.

As he mounted the steps and shook Winter’s hand, Huck considered how much his own life had just been complicated by Quinn Harlowe.

“Where’s Clemente?” Winter asked.

“On his way back to Yorkville.”

Winter didn’t seem surprised. “No point in risking anyone from town seeing the two of you together. Juliet Longstreet and Ethan Brooker are here.”

“I don’t mean to disturb you at home. Your wife-”

“She’s out with my sister and brother-in-law.” Winter’s voice had tightened slightly. “It was my suggestion we meet here. It’s safer for you. The U.S. attorney working with us wanted to be here but couldn’t make it on such short notice.”

“FBI?”

“No.”

Nothing had been said, but Huck didn’t doubt the FBI would have preferred to have one of their own working undercover with the vigilantes, not some deputy marshal from California who’d pretty much stumbled on them. He shrugged. “Good.”

Juliet Longstreet-it had to be her, since she was the only woman on the porch-got up from the porch rail and introduced herself, then introduced a man in a dark suit, Ethan Brooker, a Special Forces officer who was now a presidential adviser. Diego’s pal from his own Special Forces days.

Huck could feel their misgivings about him. He understood.

At least they didn’t ask him if he’d been followed, a minor nod to his abilities.

“Have a seat,” Winter said.

Huck shook his head. “That’s okay.”

A small table was set with a stainless-steel urn of coffee, white mugs, a matching sugar pot and creamer, a stack of pansy-decorated cocktail napkins and a plate of quartered pimiento-cheese sandwiches. Not Winter’s doing, for sure, Huck thought, helping himself to a couple of the pimiento-cheese triangles. No one else was eating. Longstreet watched him with the kind of frank skepticism he could appreciate. Brooker was harder to read. The two of them supposedly were an item, but Huck hadn’t heard anything about wedding bells.

“Steve Eisenhardt,” he said to the assembled group. “What do we know about him?”

Winter sat next to the food table. “He works under Gerard Lattimore.”

“I know that much. He turned up at Harlowe’s office after I was dispatched to keep her occupied.” He inhaled, impatient with himself. “I miscalculated. I thought they wanted me to find out how much she knew about their operation.”

“You think they had Eisenhardt search her office?” Longstreet asked, dubious. “Middle of the day, building full of people-why take that risk?”

“What, as opposed to breaking in with crowbars and triggering alarms?”

She shrugged. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it.”

Brooker had loosened his tie. He was dark-haired, dark-eyed, quiet-Diego had said he had attitude, especially after his wife’s murder almost two years ago. “Did he take anything?” he asked.

“I don’t know. Her laptop was still there.” And stacks of books, notebooks, files, mail and letters, the one on top asking her if she would be interested in speaking with a certain congressman about her perspective on transnational crime. Her work before, during and since she was at the Department of Justice had brought her credibility and respect. “Harlowe took a quick look but didn’t notice anything missing.”

“If she finds out something is missing-”

“She’ll call Kowalski.”

Winter didn’t react to what was said. “Kowalski’s up to speed on the task force and the investigation. It’s safer that way.”

“I like to know who’s aware of my status and who isn’t.”

“Now you know. Kowalski doesn’t like Alicia Miller showing up at Breakwater the morning before she drowned or the mysterious black sedan that picked her up in Washington. Then there’s the timing-she’s agitated and upset, and yet soon after she arrives back in Yorkville, she goes kayaking?”

“She was obsessed with ospreys. There are nests all along the Yorkville waterfront.”

“One right in front of the cottage she was borrowing,” Winter said. “Why not put her kayak in there? Why take it two miles up the road?”

“She wasn’t thinking straight. I don’t have any answers, either. I wish I’d gotten to Breakwater sooner. I might have a better fix on what kind of relationship she had with Crawford and his crowd. I don’t know, though. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck…” He ate the pimiento-cheese triangle in two bites, although he wasn’t hungry. “Usually it’s a duck.”

Brooker spoke, his tone mild. “You believe her death was an accident or suicide as a result of her agitated mental state.”

“I don’t believe anything. I just can’t see someone killing her by getting her into a kayak and then knocking her out of it. It’s possible someone took advantage of the situation and let her drown. The weather was bad that day. Worse than expected.”

“If someone did seize the moment, so to speak,” Juliet Longstreet said, “who?”

“Lubec.” Huck didn’t hesitate. “He and Sharon Riccardi have worked for Crawford longer than the rest of us at Breakwater. Something’s bothering Joe Riccardi. He’s not obvious about it, but there’s no question he’s on alert.”

“Does he trust you?” Juliet asked.

“I’m not sure he trusts any of us. He’s ex-military. He’s in a job now that plays by different rules. He might do better with the ex-military and ex-law enforcement guys. I think he regards the rest of us as a bunch of thugs.”

Longstreet poured herself a cup of coffee. “You are a bunch of thugs.”

Huck didn’t disagree. “I’ve been spewing the vigilante line since I got to Breakwater. Joe Riccardi doesn’t bite. He says he wants Breakwater to be an elite, legitimate, respectable security firm with highly trained personnel. That’s his mantra. If there’s a thug quotient early on, he’ll stamp it out in training, get rid of people who don’t belong.”

“‘Elite’ usually means small,” Longstreet said.

“That’s right. Both Riccardis say they’re not looking to be one of the big players in the security field.”

“This Joe Riccardi has a lot of responsibility,” Brooker said. “Breakwater is a start-up with no reputation-he’s building it from the ground up. One mistake-a training accident, anything-and they’re out of business. He’ll be living off his military pension.”

Winter looked out at the landscape, at the height of its spring beauty. He seemed preoccupied. “The network we’re trying to penetrate is loosely coordinated, which makes the people involved more difficult to track. When they act, they’re brazen.”

“It’s their arrogance.” Brooker stood, his eyes on Huck. “I ran into some of these guys in Afghanistan. They set up their own torture chamber to interrogate people they detained, under no authority whatsoever but their own. They were so convinced they were right that they assumed we would applaud their efforts and give them carte blanche. They were surprised and outraged when we turned them over to the Afghan government. Too bad we weren’t able to break open their entire network then.”

“They’re not total whack jobs,” Huck said. “If I’m on the right track, they’re rational and very deliberate. They believe they’re preventing, not sowing, chaos and self-destruction.”

Nate turned from the view of the yard he’d be leaving within hours. “What about Quinn Harlowe?”

Huck didn’t mince words. “She’s made me. And Diego.”

Winter had no visible reaction, but Juliet Longstreet threw up her hands and groaned. “How? If she-”

“She was focused on me. She has access to information the Breakwater guys don’t. She’s an expert on this sort of thing. She’s a natural bird dog. Once she’s got the scent, she won’t let go.” Huck realized he didn’t like being in the position of defending her, or vouching for her. “She still has a high-level security clearance.”

“You trust her?” Nate asked.

“It’s not a question of trust. My first instinct was to pull her off the street. But if we shut her down now, these guys will crawl back under their rocks just as they’re starting to come out into the light. If they blame her for upsetting their plans, she’ll be worse off. I’m willing to keep going. Clemente is, too. A couple Californians like us-we went to a lot of trouble to make ourselves fit in out here.”

“We’re not risking this woman-”

“It’s safer for her if we don’t interfere with her.” Huck picked up a couple more pimiento-cheese triangles; nobody else seemed interested. “She’s not on the government payroll anymore. She answers to herself. What she does is up to her.”

“I don’t like it,” Nate said.

“I’m not worried about me-or Diego. And we’re not going to do anything to endanger Harlowe. Last thing we need is to have to put on the brakes to rescue her.”

Juliet stirred. “I’ll bet having you rescue her is right there with having her fingernails plucked out with pliers. My take? Quinn Harlowe’s asking questions because she’s trying to get used to her friend’s tragic death. She’ll settle down.”

Ethan Brooker and Nate Winter didn’t look as optimistic.

Finally, Winter sighed. “I’ll pull you out in a heartbeat, McCabe, if I think you’re taking unnecessary risks.”

Huck finished off his pimiento-cheese triangles. Winter, Longstreet, Brooker. He had to trust them.

And they had to trust him.

“Relax. I can do my job.”