Hell's Corner

CHAPTER 90

Joe Knox was a burly man who at age fifty still had the build of the college linebacker he had once been. He and Stone had spent time in a max security prison together, without having had the benefit of a trial much less a conviction. Knox had been assigned to hunt Stone down by what turned out to be a rogue superior at the CIA. But having survived the prison ordeal largely by trusting each other, Knox and Stone had developed a strong friendship.

“I’ve followed it all,” Knox told Stone as they sat across from each other in Stone’s caretaker’s cottage. “Either in the papers or else scuttlebutt, official or otherwise, at the Agency.” Alex Ford had helped Knox’s daughter find her father when he’d been kidnapped and slapped in that prison, and Knox had never forgotten that. The expression on the man’s face clearly revealed his desire to bring in the people who’d put Alex near death.

“Let’s not waste time then,” replied Stone. “Which Mexican cartel has recently moved large amounts of money in the Caribbean bank chains and then rescinded a half-billon-dollar payment?”

“It’s not good, Oliver.”

“Carlos Montoya?”

Knox nodded. “When the Russians came in they sliced up his mother and his wife and his three kids and left them in a ditch. So no love lost there. He’s based on the outskirts of Mexico City. And even though his business has shrunk by about ninety percent he still has muscle and reach all over the world.”

“That’s actually good for our purposes. Friedman will have to exercise maximum caution. Which will slow her escape down.”

Knox thought about this. “She also has another problem.”

“She needs protection.”

“Obviously, but she won’t get it from the Latinos. None of them will side with her against a man like Montoya. And American muscle will probably stay away from her. They don’t like to get mixed up in presidential assassination attempts. The penalties are too stiff and the Feds coming after you are too many. She could go to the Eastern Europeans — the Russians don’t give a damn who they take on — or else the Far East Asians maybe.”

“Which means we have to find out if, say, a half dozen of them or more have slipped into the country in the last few days. Think you can find that out?”

“Even on a bad day,” said Knox. He paused, studying his hands. “So what’s the prognosis on Alex?”

“Not great,” admitted Stone.

“He’s a first-class agent and man.”

“Yes,” said Stone, “he is.”

“Saved our butts.”

“Which means we have to finish this the right way. For him.”

Knox rose. “I’ll have something for you within six hours.”

After his friend left, Stone walked out of his cottage and strolled along the paths between the graves. He reached a bench under a sprawling oak and sat down. He had already lost one close friend. Any moment now it could become two.

He eyed one of the old tombstones. In a cemetery not too far from here Milton Farb lay under the earth. Soon Alex Ford might be occupying a similar position.

It would either be Friedman or him. Both would not survive this. Not after what the lady had done.

Either he would walk away from this. Or she would.

There was no other way it could be.