Point of Contact

52

Paul didn’t feel good.

In fact, he felt like hell. His head throbbed and his stomach was queasy. He’d been in bed when Jack called before. Now the alarm was screaming at him.

Feeling this bad, Paul thought he’d caught pneumonia. But he quickly realized it was the Bushmills that had put his head in a vise and his stomach on a merry-go-round.

He closed his eyes. The whirlies began again. He got dizzy in just a couple seconds and his knotted stomach turned from queasy to pre-projectile. He forced his eyes open and pushed himself up into a sitting position.

Better.

But still not good.

Tea. That would be good.

Coffee. Black coffee.

Better.

He scratched his ample gut and stood on his wobbly legs, wiggled his feet into his slippers, and headed downstairs for the kitchen.

He leaned heavily on the handrail as he made his way down the staircase, his mind a welter of confusion. Where had Jack been all night? At the warehouse? Or somewhere else? But this was just the latest thing. What about the other day when he came home from his night out with Lian Fairchild? He’d obviously been in some kind of a fight. Jack definitely carried himself like a guy who was used to that sort of thing, even if he never bragged about it.

Come to think of it, Jack looked like he’d been through it the day they met with Rhodes and got the assignment. He swore Jack had a black eye he was trying to cover up with makeup. Jack’s excuse — that he’d been on vacation and fell on a hike — didn’t smell right at the time, but Paul had shrugged it off.

Paul limped off the last stair riser and padded toward the kitchen. He’d never known a financial analyst to get into so much trouble or get injured so much in such a short amount of time. He was acting more like an operator than an auditor.

Paul stopped in his tracks. A cold lump of ice spun in his gut, like the floor had suddenly fallen out from under his feet.

Was he being played?

Paul scratched his thinning, uncombed hair. Jack? An agent? If so, for whom?

He headed toward the cabinet with the coffee and filters.

If Jack was CIA, was he working for Rhodes? Rhodes was working with Langley — technically, so was he, through Rhodes. So why wouldn’t Rhodes have told him Jack was CIA?

He would have, unless Jack wasn’t CIA. But then who was he working for? DIA? DOJ? FBI?

Paul scooped black Sumatran coffee into a filter and poured water into the coffeemaker.

No. Jack worked for Hendley Associates. He knew that for sure. He wasn’t on the government payroll.

But then again, neither was he, and he was working for the CIA.

“Right?” Paul asked himself. “The CIA. That’s what Rhodes said.”

Unless Rhodes was lying.

And if Rhodes wasn’t CIA, where did that leave him?

Paul shook his head to clear the confusion. Big mistake. He felt his brain rattle against his skull, exploding his headache.

Coffee, then shower, then think.

“In that order,” he told himself, watching the steam rise from the wheezing coffeemaker.

“And then talk to Jack.”

Paul was dressed and ready to go when Jack finally came downstairs, limping stiffly into the kitchen. Paul thought he saw a few more bruises on his face and hands.

“I’ve got hot coffee in a carafe,” Paul said. “Or I can make tea.”

“Just a cup of coffee. I need to hit the shower so we can get going.”

Jack followed Paul into the kitchen. Paul poured him a cup of dark brewed coffee, black as motor oil but smooth as silk.

Jack looked pretty rough, Paul thought. Worse than he remembered. A swollen bruise had formed on the hand with the red knuckles. He looked like he’d spent the night bear-wrestling.

“You okay?”

Jack shrugged. “Yeah, fine. Considering.”

“Considering… what?”

Jack shook his head and rubbed his face. “Oh, crap. I forgot to tell you. I was in a hit-and-run accident last night.”

Forgot to tell me? That’s a load of bull. Paul swallowed his anger. “Where? When?”

“Across town. Checking out the warehouse we talked about — actually, a different one.”

“You need to see a doctor.”

“Nah. Just a couple of bruises. The airbag hit me hard after the truck rear-ended me, and I got knocked around pretty good. I guess I blacked out for a little bit.”

Paul frowned with worry. “You really should get to a doctor.”

“Not here.” Jack took a sip of coffee. “Maybe when I get back.”

“Is that why you have a black eye?”

“What?” Jack turned around and searched the counter. He found the shiny silver toaster and picked it up, examining his face with it like a mirror. It was a small black eye, in nearly the exact same place as the one he got when he slammed his head against the steel ladder in the North Sea. Was it the same bruise? Or a new one? Or did he make the old one worse again? He had no idea.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Any idea who hit you?”

“No.”

“Did you get a license-plate number?”

Jack lied. “No.”

“I guess the Audi’s totaled. Too bad. That TT was a sweet ride.”

Jack shook his head. “I wasn’t in the Audi.”

“Oh?”

“I borrowed a van from Dalfan.”

“Why?”

“Long story.”

“We’ve got time.”

“No, we don’t. It’s nearly ten o’clock. I need to grab a shower so we can get to work.” Jack finished the rest of his coffee and dropped the cup in the stainless-steel sink.

Paul’s eyes narrowed at the blow-off.

Jack turned around, scratching his stubbly beard. “Question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“That file you found, marked ‘QC.’ Did you download a copy?”

“No. Didn’t think about it. Why?”

Jack’s face soured. “Why not?”

“Just forgot. Why?”

“I’m not convinced there isn’t a problem at Dalfan, and I’m afraid that file is all we have to prove it.”

“Okay. We’ll grab a copy when we get to the office.”

Jack rubbed his aching neck. “Any Tylenol around here?”

“There’s Advil in the third drawer on the left.”

“Thanks.” Jack yanked open the drawer, popped open the bottle, and tossed a couple pills into his mouth. He leaned over the sink and drank a few big gulps of water straight from the tap, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“You should see a doctor,” Paul said.

“Heard you the first time, Mom.”

Paul forced a smile. “I hear you.”

“Heading for the shower.” Jack shuffled achingly toward the stairs.

“You sure you’re all right?”

Jack called over his shoulder, “Never better.”

Paul stared after Jack, not at all sure he could trust him for anything anymore, especially the truth.

Jack stared at the billowing steam pouring out of the shower, his aching muscles begging to get in. But it suddenly occurred to him that he needed to contact Gavin with that plate number for the truck. Probably a dead end, but it needed to be checked anyway.

He ambled over to his dresser drawer and picked up his phone. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with Gavin at the moment, so he opted for a text. It was late anyway.

Jack typed in the license-plate number as far as he could remember it, SAM 00. He started to hit send, but his sore thumb wavered. Was that the plate number?

No.

He wasn’t sure where he got that from. The truck plate was six digits; he remembered that for sure. He saw the rear plate in his mind’s eye again, racing away from the crash scene. Yeah. It began with an X. He was certain of that. And then he saw the rest.

He smiled to himself, happy his brain was returning to normal. He deleted SAM 00 and typed in the correct plate number. He hit send and headed for the shower, hoping beyond hope that Gavin could find that truck.

Paul heard Jack’s shower kick on when he sat down at the table with a cup of hot coffee and opened his laptop, checking for e-mails. He thought about working on his other Hendley Associates project, but he was too distracted at the moment. Too much going on, too much at stake.

And a headache that still wouldn’t go away.

Rhodes’s stinging rebuke still rang in his ears. He had until midnight tonight to capture the Dalfan encryption code, transfer it onto his CIA drive, then load the CIA drive onto the Dalfan desktop without anybody noticing, especially Bai. He also had to find a way to sneak the CIA drive past Dalfan security. There was plenty of time. He just needed the opportunity.

He hoped the CIA program didn’t leave any traces behind. If it did, the Dalfan IT guys would be able to trace the upload directly to his drive — that was part of the security system, too. He couldn’t plausibly deny that he’d done it by blaming someone else for stealing it and using it because it was biometrically coded to him and him alone with the thumbprint mechanism. He doubted Rhodes was setting him up. What good would it do him or the CIA to let him get blamed for the upload?

No, Rhodes wouldn’t risk getting caught up in a scandal like that. He was, after all, a board member of Marin Aerospace. He risked losing everything if he was implicated in an illegal act of industrial espionage. Rhodes was also a vain and arrogant prick. If he got caught and implicated Rhodes, Langley would consider that a failure and would never call on his services again. Clearly, Rhodes was invested heavily in Paul’s success. That probably explained his rude behavior last night. The man had every reason to worry. There was a lot at stake for him. And when there was a lot at stake, Rhodes did what every cornered rat did — he lashed out.

Paul took another sip of coffee. The image of Rhodes, angry and anxious, triggered the memory of the senator when they were both much younger men. A memory Paul seldom allowed to surface.

A memory too terrible to forget.