Fortress

68

‘Dean Carter?’

‘Who wants to know?’

Before following him up from the parking lot, Tom had been in and rung the bell to make sure that no one else was home. According to Phoebe, the FBI listed Carter as single, but he had to be sure they’d be alone for their talk. He had also recced the building for security cameras.

Carter stood at the door, his key in the lock, as Tom came towards him. He was in his early forties, balding, but his hair was an unnatural jet black; his fierce little eyes had flabby bags under them. His thin beige raincoat hung off him and his shoulders had the droop of a man who spent a lot of time at a desk, carrying too much around in his head.

Tom pressed the Glock into his right kidney.

‘Hey, what is this?’

‘It’s a gun. Let’s go inside, Dean.’ He gave him a shove so that he stumbled into the room, then quietly closed the door; no need to disturb the neighbours. It was stifling inside. There would be an AC unit but they tended to be noisy.

He indicated the balcony doors.

‘Open them, just a little. Then sit down on the sofa. If you try to make any kind of noise I’ll kill you.’

His flat, quiet tone seemed to get the message across. Carter slid the glass door open, then sat.

‘Okay, if it’s cash, you’re wasting your time, and there’s nothing of value here.’

‘Dean, listen to me. Do I look or sound like I’m interested in your crap? Why don’t you use some of that special-agent intuition and try to work out why I am here?’

Carter turned his palms skywards; he couldn’t work it out.

‘Okay. Just answer a few questions honestly — that means without lying to me — and we’ll get this over with.’

Carter flicked his head from side to side as if more mystery men might have come in behind them. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘I’ve just got in from Houston. I stopped by the Tijuana Motel on my way out of there.’

Carter blinked but that was all.

‘And do you know what I saw there?’

He wagged a finger at Tom. ‘Now let’s get something clear here. I’m a special agent of—’

‘Yeah, yeah. And Beth Adams’s CA.’

His forehead creased into a frown. ‘Wait — are you Buckingham, the SAS guy?’

Tom didn’t answer, which Carter took as a ‘yes’. Relief spread over his face. ‘Ah, okay, so, yeah, it’s a kinda complex situation we have here. Beth’s not been in a good way for a while. It started with the coke — as you probably know. And, basically, she went rogue on us.’

He shook his head in mock-regret. Tom sat on the coffee-table opposite him, keeping close, while Carter improvised a few more details. ‘We kinda had to rein her in and she couldn’t take it. If you knew about her habit, she was on notice…’

Tom remained impassive.

‘… and it all got too much for her. It’s really very sad.’ He looked up at Tom, seeking some sort of acknowledgement.

‘What? Oh, I get it. You actually think I believe this bollocks? This pack of fucking lies? My God, where do they find you people?’

At this conclusive evidence that his performance had not won an Oscar and sent the gullible Brit obligingly on his way, Carter’s indignation got the better of him. ‘Now, I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, fella, but you’re a foreign national and this is US-government business. You need to understand—’

‘What I understand is that she died between ten and twelve this morning in room forty-five at the Tijuana Motel.’

At the revelation that Tom knew something — anything — a look of panic crossed Carter’s face. ‘Well, I don’t have any of that exact detail.’

‘Supposedly of an overdose.’

Though his ordeal was far from over, Carter clung to this apparent concession on Tom’s part. ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.’

‘Except she couldn’t have. Ask me how I know that.’ He shoved the weapon closer.

Carter looked profoundly uncomfortable. Clearly he hadn’t been briefed on this eventuality.

‘How do you know that?’

‘There was blood on the pillow from where she was smothered when the “overdose” didn’t work. Where I come from we have a word for that.’

Carter glanced up at him, and this time Tom detected a flicker of guilt pass across his features.

‘We call it careless.’ Tom whacked him across the head, not enough to knock him out but enough to quench, at least temporarily, his desire to rip the man’s head off and shoot several rounds down his neck.

There was momentary silence while Carter took this in. He was cornered but he wasn’t throwing in the towel yet. Amazingly he came back for another go. ‘Ah, no, listen — she was a real car crash. She really was getting into all kinds of shit—’

‘Look, Dean. Let me stop you there before you make me want to hurt you even more badly than I already do. I’m giving you a chance to make a clean breast of things, but badmouthing Beth is only going to make me want to snap every bone in your pathetic, cowardly little body. She trusted you to look after her. And instead you had her killed.’

‘Look, I’m not gonna sit here and listen to any more of this shit.’

Tom loomed over him and put the muzzle of the suppressor next to his left eye.

‘“The Contact Agent can provide physical and psychological support, can be available in times of danger… at any sign of danger the Under Cover Agent is extracted.” That’s straight from the FBI Career Guide, Dean. That means it’s your job. Maybe you need to go on a refresher course.’

At the words ‘refresher course’, Carter looked truly frightened.

‘The FBI Career Guide also says that only one undercover agent has ever been killed on duty in the Bureau’s entire history, which I find hard to believe, and now you’ve doubled that. So, Dean, let’s discuss what leads an agent with an unremarkable record like yours to resort to having his own colleagues murdered. Let’s start with some names, shall we? Zuabi, Fortress, Stutz.’

‘I’m not — I can’t—’

‘You are and you can. This —’ he indicated the weapon ‘— says you don’t have a choice. Zuabi, Fortress, Stutz. Come on, join up the dots.’

At the mention of the names again, Carter’s expression changed. His face was starting to glisten, as were his eyes, which were opened very wide, as if something was pushing his eyeballs out from behind. When he spoke again, his voice had gone up an octave and came out as a childish whine. ‘You think I can walk out of here if I tell you what I know? You have no idea what you’re dealing with, fella. No idea!’

‘Enlighten me.’

Carter breathed deeply, as if he was trying to compose himself, as if whatever he was about to do there was no going back.

‘Zuabi doesn’t know zip about Stutz or Fortress, okay? Not a thing. He thinks his finance comes from the Saudis. He’s just the conduit to his people.’

‘What people?’

‘Sleepers.’

Carter was panting hard, hyper-ventilating. ‘I gotta get some air.’

Tom nodded. Carter struggled to his feet, a hand against the wall for support. His face was as red as a traffic-light. Tom kept his weapon trained on him as he felt his way to the balcony window.

‘So Stutz is running Zuabi without his knowledge?’

Carter turned back to him, the desperation on his face that of a man who had given up his most precious secret and was trying to absorb the consequences of having crossed that line. He shook his head. ‘You can’t stop him. He’s too well connected.’

Then, as if jolted by a freak burst of electricity, he darted forward through the open window to the wall of the balcony and leaped over. Tom lunged after him and wrapped his arms round his left leg. Carter shook his head frantically. ‘No, no! Let me go!’

Tom fought to get a better grip but he was thrashing, gravity sucking his body out of Tom’s clutches. Tom grabbed the end of his coat but it was no good. The coat detached itself and he was absorbed into the darkness below.