Smoke and Mirrors

53

Hands behind his head, Winter finished his crunches. He hadn’t gone for a run since he’d arrived in Mississippi, and he wouldn’t get back to his schedule until after this was over.

Alexa seemed off her game to Winter, but he knew she’d worked a difficult abduction case in New Orleans-right as Katrina had hit-and that it had taken a heavy emotional toll on her. She was as tough as she was intelligent, but he often wondered if perhaps she wasn’t too sensitive for what she did. She took her job seriously, and when she succeeded, she merely met her own expectations, but when she failed-and failure was a constant occurrence in her work-she blamed herself.

Winter knew that Alexa had seen a psychiatrist after that case, but he doubted she had given the doctor much to work with. Alexa didn’t trust people easily. Alexa’s reputation in law enforcement circles was second only to Winter Massey’s, quite a coincidence considering their twenty-year relationship, and their common geographical backgrounds-or given their strong personalities, perhaps not quite so remarkable.

The sound of Alexa’s door closing was followed by a light rapping on his door.

“Come in, Lex,” he said, standing up and grabbing a towel to wipe the perspiration from his face.

The door opened and Alexa came into his room. “You aren’t sleeping?”

“I was working out,” he said. “You?”

“Nah. I was thinking about Leigh Gardner.” She closed the door gently, and sat on the end of his bed. “You talk to Sean tonight?”

“She took the kids home this morning. I didn’t think she’d go until this was wound up. I guess she figured since you’re here, she could do what I wanted her to do,” he said.

“You think?”

“Lex. I assume that she called you and told you about Styer’s DNA. That’s why you came down here, right?”

“You should have leveled with me, Massey.” She was quietly angry. “As soon as you suspected Styer was here, you should have gotten the hell out and let the people handle it who are equipped to do so. This is, if not out of your league, spitting distance from it. You have a family to consider.”

“Styer somehow put this deal together to get me involved. I assume he plans to kill me, and if that’s true, then no matter where I go, he’ll just change locations. At least this way, my family isn’t in danger of being used against me. But now you’re in danger. I wish you’d have stayed out.”

“I was on my way before Sean called.”

“You’re the world’s crummiest liar, Lex. I want you to promise me that you won’t try to take him on. No matter what happens, if you find yourself standing between him and the door, let him go through it. Even if I’m down.”

“You know I can’t promise you any such thing,” Alexa said. “If I can stop him, I’ll have to do it. He’s a man of considerable ability, but he isn’t bulletproof. You thought he had Cyn, didn’t you?”

“He’s certainly capable of that. She would have been a great card to play. But I believe he’s working with the casino, and he’d know that taking Cyn could have had an adverse effect on the land acquisition.”

Winter was quiet for a few seconds before he told Alexa what had been troubling him for some time now.

“A year ago I was in Rogers, Arkansas, consulting with Wal-Mart’s security director about executive protection in other parts of the world. After I got to the airport, a man I’d never seen before sat down beside me. He started a conversation about Wal-Mart before he told me that if he was Paulus Styer, I’d be dead. He told me he was delivering a message for the people who wanted to find Styer. He told me that Styer killed the Russian KGB colonel who trained Styer, a man who was a father figure to him-the man who had betrayed him. Styer was no longer connected to any organization and was without the restraints that brings.”

“Why did the colonel betray Styer?”

“The CIA cut him a deal for Styer’s head because he made them look bad by killing people they were protecting.”

“Anyway, this colonel was paranoid and he knew Styer better than anybody. He was heavily guarded. One night he goes to bed with a young woman. There are guards just outside the room. In the morning they open the bathroom door to find the colonel has been skinned alive. The woman was in bed asleep. Styer left behind a single red toothpick soaked in clove oil. He is still being paid to kill, but nobody knows who’s paying him. I’m wondering if Styer found out about that cutout I met in Arkansas. Why else would he have shown up? The way we left it…”

“You said, if you left him alone, he’d do the same.”

“I made a deal with the devil, and based on what I know about him, he’d have kept it. At least I always believed he would. If I’d wanted to track him, it would have been all but impossible for me.”

“You saying he’s an honorable man?”

“No. Well, yes, I guess I am. Maybe I misread him, but I thought there was a glimmer of some kind of honor or decency in him. That maybe leaving me alone was a way to atone for what he’d done to Hank and Millie Trammel. But maybe he always planned to come after me, and this was his opportunity.”

Alexa said, “Hatcher’s call is still bugging me. There’s no way he should have known about my request for intel on RRI. I called Louis, and Louis called me back. He told me that there was no active file on RRI. If so, why did Hatcher call me? And I’m sure he already knew you were here.”

“You think he’s been listening in?”

“If that’s the case, I’m worried on lots of levels.”

Winter said, “J. Edgar is alive and kicking.”

“You should worry about Brad,” she said. “He’s way out of his element here. No matter what you’ve told him about Styer, he has no frame of reference for a man like that.”

Winter shrugged. “All I know is this is my opportunity to stop Styer.”

Alexa shook her head slowly.

“We should get some rest,” Winter told Alexa.

“Massey, just do your ripping-shit-apart thing. I got your back,” Alexa said, slapping his foot playfully.

You always have, he thought, smiling.