The Book of Fate

75

What’d you do?” The Roman asked, his voice squawking through the scrambled satellite phone.

“It’s fine. Problem solved,” O’Shea replied, keeping the phone close and staring out the small oval window of the chartered seaplane.

“What does that mean? Let me speak to Micah!”

“Yeah, well… that’s a little harder than it used to be,” O’Shea said as the plane dropped down, approaching the aquamarine waves of Lake Worth. From the current height — barely a few hundred feet above the water — the backyards of the Palm Beach mansions whizzed by in a blur.

“O’Shea, don’t tell me— What’d you do to him?”

“Don’t lecture me, okay? I didn’t have a choice.”

“You killed him?”

O’Shea stared out the window as the plane sank down to just a few feet above the waves. “Be smart. He’s covert in Directorate of Operations. He shouldn’t be working on U.S. soil. And for some reason, he’s caught standing on the track at the speedway? Once Wes IDed him, they would’ve brought him right in.”

“That doesn’t mean he’d talk!”

“You think so? You think if they offered him a deal and said they’d go easy on him, every one of Micah’s fingers wouldn’t’ve pointed our way?”

“He’s still CIA!” The Roman shouted through the phone. “You have any idea what kinda fire that starts? You just lit the damn volcano!”

“You think I enjoyed it? I’ve known Micah since War College. He was at my niece’s communion.”

“Well, I guess there goes his invite for her sweet sixteen!”

With a final jolt, the plane dropped down for its landing. The instant the floats hit the water, the plane bounced and wobbled, slowing down until it was cruising with the current.

“Enough,” O’Shea warned as the floating plane chugged toward the floating dock of the Rybovich Spencer boatyard. “It was hard enough as it is.”

“Really? Then maybe you should’ve thought twice before you decided to put a bullet in him! You know how hard it’s gonna be to find another person inside the Agency?”

“You’re lecturing me about forethought? Have you forgotten why we’re even stamping around in all this manure? It’s the same jackass thing you did with our so-called six-million-dollar payment for Blackbird. You rush in, stick your finger in all the electrical sockets, then get mad at me when I have to deal with the cleanup.”

“Don’t even— Blackbird was a mutual decision!” The Roman exploded. “We voted on that!”

“No, you voted. You’re the one who put the number that high. Then when they decided they weren’t paying it, you came crying that we needed an assist from the inside.”

“Okay, so now you didn’t want that six mil?”

“What I didn’t want was to have to ask for that kinda cash twice. We spent nearly a decade building up your damn Roman identity — all those tips we snatched and passed your way so it looked like you had some big, great informant out there — hell, they still think The Roman’s a real person who feeds the government info — all for the goal of going in for that one huge multimillion-dollar hit. One time! One ask! That’s all it was supposed to be — until you got the dollar signs in your eyes and thought we could do it on a regular basis.”

“We could’ve done it on a regular basis — fifty, sixty, seventy million, easy. You know you agreed.”

“Then you should’ve listened to us and never approached Boyle first,” O’Shea said, his voice calmer than ever. “And unlike last time, I’m done letting a loose end come back to bite us in the ass. As long as Wes is out there with that photo, we’ve both got targets on our chests.”

“What, so now you’re putting Wes on your hit list as well? I thought you agreed he was just bait.”

Without a word, O’Shea watched as the seaplane angled past half a dozen pristine yachts and nosed up to the floating dock.

“Check out that sailboat in front of us,” the pilot announced as he pulled off his headphones and entered the back of the plane. “That’s Jimmy Buffett’s day sailer. You see the name of it? Chill.”

O’Shea nodded as the pilot opened the hatch, stepped outside, and tossed the grab line to the dock.

“O’Shea, before you get stupid, think about next month,” The Roman said through the phone. “If this thing comes through in India…”

“Are you even listening? There is no next month! There’s no India! Or Prague! Or Liberia! Or Lusaka! We brought our resources together — we created the perfect virtual informant — and we made some cash. But now I’m done, pal. D’you understand? The pot of gold — the seventy million — it’s bullshit. I’m over.”

“But if you—”

“I don’t care,” O’Shea said, heading for the door and stepping out to the edge of the plane’s floats. A short hop took him onto the dock, where he waved a thank-you to the pilot and followed the path toward the buildings of the boatyard.

“O’Shea, don’t be such a mule,” The Roman continued. “If you touch Wes now—”

“Are you listening? I. Don’t. Care. I don’t care that he’s bait. I don’t care that he’s our best bet for getting Boyle. I don’t even care that Nico might get to him first. That kid knows my name, he knows what I look like, and worst of all—”

There was a soft beep on O’Shea’s phone. He stopped midstep, halfway up the dock. Caller ID said Unavailable. On this line, there was only one person that could be.

“O’Shea, listen to me,” The Roman threatened.

“Sorry, signal’s bad here. I’ll call you later.” With a click, he switched over to the other line. “This is O’Shea.”

“And this is your conscience — stop having sex with men at truck stops. Go to a bar — it’s easier,” Paul Kessiminan said, laughing, in his fat Chicago accent.

O’Shea didn’t even bother responding to the joke. Tech guys — especially those in the Bureau’s Investigative Technology Division — always thought they were funnier than they were. “Please tell me you got a hit on Wes’s phone,” O’Shea said.

“Nope. But after taking your advice and watching his friends, I did get a hit on the fat kid’s.”

“Rogo’s?”

“For the past few hours, it’s quiet as death. Then ping, incoming call from a number registered to an Eve Goldstein.”

“Who’s Eve Goldstein?”

“Which is why I looked her up. Y’know how many Eve Goldsteins there are in Palm Beach County? Seven. One owns a Judaica store, one’s a school principal, two retirees—”

“Paulie!”

“… and one who writes the gardening section for the Palm Beach Post.”

“They switched phones.”

“Ooooh, you’re good. You should get a job with the FBI.”

“So Wes is still with Lisbeth?”

“I don’t think so. I just called the newsroom. She’s apparently on another line. I think she gave Wes her friend’s phone and ditched his on the plane or something. Telling you — boy’s smart,” Paul said. “Lucky for you, I’m smarter.”

“But you traced the new phone to his current location?”

“It’s an old model, so there’s no GPS. But I can get you to the closest cell tower. Cell site 626A. On County Road, just a few blocks south of Via Las Brisas.”

At the center of the long dock, O’Shea froze. “Las Brisas? You think he went to—?”

“Only one way to find out, Tonto. Be careful, though. With Nico out there, headquarters just opened their own investigation.”

Nodding to himself, O’Shea reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a black ostrich-skin wallet and matching CIA badge. As he flipped it open, he took one last look at the picture in Micah’s driver’s license. From the messy brown hairstyle and the crooked bottom teeth, the photo had to be almost a decade old. Before the teeth were fixed. Before the hair got meticulously slicked back. Before they were making real money.

O’Shea didn’t like lifting his old friend’s wallet, but he knew it’d buy him at least a day in IDing the body. Though right now, as he readjusted his shoulder holster and rechecked his gun, all he needed was an hour or so to wrap things up and leave this life behind.

They’d created an alter ego for Egen as The Roman. Certainly, O’Shea could create something new for himself.

“How fast you think you can get there?” Paul asked through the phone.

Grinning to himself, O’Shea tossed Micah’s IDs from the dock into the water. They floated for half a second, then sank out of sight. “At this rate? I’ll be in and out lickety-split.”