Collision

5

Vochek drove the car with Kidwell, Ben, and the two guards toward downtown. Traffic thickened; a set of streets to the north had been closed by police-Ben remembered hearing the tidbit on the radio about a shooting-and the area between Austin’s high-end Second Street and the restaurant-and-club-heavy Warehouse District thronged with concertgoers for a blues-focused music festival.

Off Second Street Vochek pulled up in a lot next to an abandoned, squat brick hotel called the Waterloo Arms. Every other building on the block had been redone or undone in the latest spasm of urban gentrification. An early evening crowd of well-heeled music lovers and drinkers wandered among the bars, restaurants, and music venues along the streets. A wire fence blocked the lot of the hotel, a sign announcing that the Waterloo Arms was being remodeled into premier office and restaurant space.

A thousand words crowded the back of Ben’s throat, arguments in defense of his good name, but he decided to keep his mouth shut. Say nothing more until he got a lawyer. Silence was the refuge of the calm and the innocent. As they neared the Waterloo, Joanna Vochek’s eyes met his in the rearview and he wasn’t sure what he saw in her brown eyes: pity or confusion or disgust.

The guards tucked their guns into holsters under dark jackets.

Kidwell turned to face Ben. “We’re going to get out of the car now. We’re walking into the building. No one else is inside. If you run, if you scream, I will hit you so hard in the spinal juncture in your neck that I might very well paralyze you for life. Do you understand me?”

Ben saw Vochek’s gaze flash again in the mirror, as though Kidwell were crossing a line, but she said nothing.

“Yes.” Ben saw the shine of ambition in Kidwell’s eyes. Of course. A high-profile case like this was a rocket to ride. A friend who’d made a personal plea for Kidwell’s aid; a man who helps companies score highly lucrative contracts; and a notorious assassin linking the two together. The possibilities smacked of deep and headline-screeching scandal. And bringing that scandal to light was an ideal career booster for Kidwell.

They got out of the car. Vochek and Kidwell walked on each side of Ben as the guards unlocked the gates. The group walked under the haloes of concertina wire to keep out the vandals and the curious. The two men in suits peeled off from them, taking stations at the fence.

No one was inside the Waterloo; it looked nearly ready for office tenants. Kidwell, Vochek, and Ben took an elevator up five flights to a remodeled floor. They walked down a short corridor and into a windowless room. It held a table and three chairs. A palm-sized digital recorder sat on the table.

“Sit down,” Kidwell said and Ben obeyed.

Kidwell turned on the recorder, gave the date, the time, and stated that Ben was speaking willingly. Kidwell began to pace, hands behind his back. Vochek stood in the corner. Not looking at Ben.

“Outline your dealings with Adam Reynolds,” Kidwell said.

Ben leaned close to the recorder. “This is Ben Forsberg and I protest at how I’ve been treated. I’m innocent, I’ve been denied a call to legal counsel-”

Kidwell hit Ben. Once. From behind, a closed fist impacting behind his ear and Ben’s face slammed down into the desk. Kidwell erased the recording, gave his intro again, stopped the recorder.

“Kidwell…” Vochek offered Ben a handkerchief for his bloodied nose.

“We’re breaking him, Agent Vochek.” Kidwell said it as a statement of fact. “Now.”

“You don’t need to assault him,” she said. “Our mandate-”

“Our mandate says do the job, ask for forgiveness later.”

Vochek stayed in the corner, her expression unchanged, but Ben saw a creeping of color, of anger, touch her cheeks.

Kidwell leaned close to Ben. “Ben, how much you help me is how much I help you. I’m going to turn on the recorder and you’re going to talk, talk till your throat’s raw, or I’m going to turn off the recorder again and I’ll get one of those tough young guys downstairs and let him beat the shit out of you. I bet you’ve never truly been beaten, Ben. I bet you don’t really know how much a solid fifteen minutes of fist against flesh will hurt.” He turned on the digital recorder again. “The victim, Adam Reynolds, phoned you at home to confirm a business meeting. Describe the nature of the meeting.”

“You are threatening the wrong guy,” Ben said. His clients were important people; they would be his allies in clearing up this nightmare. “Sam Hector is my biggest client. He runs Hector Global in Dallas.”

“I know who Sam Hector is,” Kidwell said.

“He does millions of dollars’ worth of contracting for Homeland Security. He’ll vouch for me. He’s a longtime friend.”

“You’re right, Homeland Security does a great deal of business with Mr. Hector. So if I call him, and tell him to drop you as a consultant, he will.” Kidwell glanced at Vochek. “Joanna, get Mr. Hector’s number for me. We’ll call him on Ben’s own phone.”

“I think we could learn more by asking Ben…”

“Do as I ask, please.”

“Yes… sir.” She started to navigate through the numbers on Ben’s smartphone, a frown on her face.

“Your biggest client, you’re going to lose him, Ben. I promise Hector will pick us over you. Tell me about your meeting with Adam.”

“If I could help you I would. God knows I would.” A hot tickle caught in Ben’s throat.

“I’m going to call every firm that contracts with Homeland Security and tell them you’re under suspicion of consorting with a known terrorist. You’ll be blackballed. You’ll never work in this business again.”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

“I’m also going to freeze your bank accounts. Your savings accounts. You won’t be able to pay your bills. Pay your mortgage.” Kidwell crossed his arms. “You’ll be out on the street. You have a girlfriend?”

“No.” Emily’s face swam up in front of him and he blinked.

“I’m going to find someone you love. Someone you care about. Lover, aunt, uncle, neighbor, college roommate, best friend. I’m going to freeze their accounts as well.”

Rage flooded Ben, surged past the fear he felt. “You can’t. Absolutely you cannot.”

“Whatever I do, it will be on your head.” Kidwell raised his hands in mock surrender.

Ben turned to Vochek. “You seem reasonable, Agent Vochek. Please. You can’t endorse what he’s doing.”

“I don’t endorse what you’re doing, Ben, which is stonewalling us. Tell him what he wants to know.” She held the phone out to Kidwell. “I found Sam Hector’s number. Are we calling him?”

Kidwell smiled. “Are we, Ben?”

Ben swallowed. “I’d like to know if there’s any other evidence against me.”

Kidwell stopped his pacing and pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “You have three other cellular accounts.”

“No.” Ben shook his head.

Kidwell read off three numbers, all with 512 area codes in Austin. “Those aren’t my phone numbers.”

“They were opened in your name a week ago.”

“Tell me which branch opened the accounts. I want someone to ID me as the guy who conducted the transaction.”

“You rented office space last week, off North Lamar.” Kidwell read an address off the paper.

“Wrong.”

“The office was rented through an agent. Sparta Consulting.”

“Never heard of them. I never hired an agent. Maybe this is a case of identity theft.”

Vochek said, “People who steal IDs buy TVs and golf clubs and diamond rings, not rent office space.”

“Does your report tell you I have new credit card accounts, too?”

Kidwell nodded. “Three. In the past week.”

“Great. Examine my credit history. I don’t open new accounts. I have one credit card I’ve had for six years, and I pay it off each month.” He looked again at Vochek. “I have no motive for wanting Reynolds dead.”

“Talk to me, not her,” Kidwell said.

“Talking to you is like talking to brick.”

A dark scowl crossed Kidwell’s face.

“Do any of these new phone numbers point to Adam Reynolds or Nicky Lynch?” Ben asked. He had to keep them, he thought, on the defensive, force them to acknowledge a weakness in their case. Because they were wrong.

To Kidwell, Vochek said, “We just got the records faxed over to us. Adam Reynolds only made calls today to Ben’s new cell number and home, to your office in Houston, and several calls to a number in Dallas.” Vochek showed Kidwell two printouts. “Ben’s new cell phone number has several calls to Reynolds’s office.”

“Fantastic,” Ben said. “I want to know the time of all those calls I supposedly made. Because I’m betting I can prove I didn’t make them.” Vochek started to bring him the sheets and Kidwell stopped her.

“No. Show him nothing.”

Ben spoke to Vochek, meeting her gaze with his own. “Before you start threatening me or bullying my clients, you better check your evidence more closely. You better have it be watertight. Because Sam Hector’s a mover-and-shaker in DC, and I doubt you want to be accusing his friends. Especially me. I helped make him a wealthy man. A powerful man.”

Kidwell’s lips went tight. Ben wanted the heat of the exchange to pass; he wanted to let Kidwell save face, for his own sake.

“May I please go to the bathroom?” Ben said. Kidwell switched off the recorder and nodded his assent, as if he welcomed a few minutes of quiet thought.

Vochek escorted him down the hall. Ben washed his face twice, cleaning the blood from his nose. The ache faded to a dull throb. At least it wasn’t broken. He went back out into the hallway. Vochek stood with arms crossed.

“Is this when you pretend to be the good cop?”

“No.”

“You can’t be worse than Kidwell. You know he’s breaking the law in how he’s dealing with me. I can’t imagine this is how Homeland Security operates. I know too many good and dedicated people who work there to believe Kidwell’s typical.” He shook his head. “Office of Strategic Initiatives. I don’t recall ever seeing that name on a Homeland org chart. Who exactly are you people?”

She crossed her arms.

“Fine, you won’t tell me. Why should I help you?”

“To help yourself.”

“You’ve got it backwards. I’m owed basic rights as a citizen, I’m presumed innocent,” he said. “Until I get counsel I’m unsure why I should help Kidwell steamroll me.” He shook his head. “I thought I could reason with you. I saw how you looked at him when he went nuclear on me.”

“Ben…” But she went silent and Ben walked away from her. They went back into the room.

“Sit your ass down,” Kidwell said.

Ben sat. He looked again at Vochek, who lingered in the doorway.

“I’ll check what you say. But you consider what’s going to happen to you if you’ve lied to me. Think long and hard about it, Ben. Knock on the door if there’s anything else you want to share to save us time.”

Kidwell got up and turned out the lights and walked out. Vochek gave Ben a backward glance. The door clanged shut behind them, killing the soft envelope of light from the hallway, and Ben sat in total darkness.

"He’s soft,” Kidwell said as Vochek sat down at the laptop. “He’ll do exactly what we expect. Deny, plead for a lawyer, but when he gets confronted with more evidence, he’ll crack.”

“I’m not so sure,” she said.

“Why?”

“Here’s the hole in all this mess. Ben strikes me as an intelligent guy, and he barely tried to cover his tracks.”

“People are idiots. Or so arrogant they think they won’t get caught,” Kidwell said. “I want to find every link between him and Adam Reynolds. Find this Sparta Consulting that rented the office for him, see how Forsberg’s tied to it. I want to know everything Forsberg’s done or bought or who he’s talked to in the past few days.”

She opened her laptop, saw a new e-mail from their office in Houston titled “FORSBERG REPORT.” She opened it and scanned it and said, “Norman. Read this.” Her throat went dry.

Norman Kidwell leaned close, read the e-mail, and smiled. “Goodness. Mr. Innocent here left out a key detail.”