The End Game

16

Federal Plaza, Lower Manhattan

So here I was, in a room I was all too familiar with, only this time I was the guy sitting at the bare metal table and cut off from the outside world by a steel-and-glass door and an eight-digit passcode.

It wasn’t even dawn yet, but we’d been at it for over an hour. Just me, Gallo, and Nick at this point, in the austere, windowless twenty-third floor interview room at Federal Plaza. The forty-one-story building that forms the western edge of Foley Square was the hub of the law enforcement and judicial machinery in Manhattan. It had also been my home away from home for over ten years now. Now, it was my jail. I can’t really say I ever pictured that happening.

I hadn’t lawyered up, although I knew I might well have to bring one in soon. The cameras, which were located high up on opposite walls, were switched off. Gallo had agreed to that, but not before putting up some stern resistance, which was all for show, of course: he knew keeping our initial conversation off the record covered his ass as well as mine and he needed to get a better handle on what he was dealing with before deciding how best to tackle it.

The thrust of my argument was simple. Why would I kill Kirby? He’d helped me the first time around, and I needed his help again. Gallo’s cynical response was, I had to admit, one that was hard to bat away: by my own admission, I was charged up, I was desperate for answers; maybe I pulled my gun to threaten him. Maybe he charged me in a fit of rage. Maybe we struggled for the gun, and he ended up dead. And that was aside from the far-from-inconsequential admission that I had admitted blackmailing an employee of the CIA into passing confidential files to me.

I was getting a taster of how hard it might be to convince a neutral third party about the mystery man in the beard. Of course, Nick and the guys in DC would rake the area for witnesses or CCTV footage that might back up my claims, but frankly, short of a video recording showing him along with what actually happened in that garage, I couldn’t see how that was going to help exonerate me.

This wasn’t looking good.

Also, it hadn’t been as easy to keep Kurt’s name out of it as it had with Nick.

“How’d you ID Kirby as a soft target?” Gallo had asked.

He may be a prick, but he’s not a dumb prick.

I’d ducked the unspoken question with Aparo. I needed to duck it again now. “I asked around.”

“What do you mean, ‘asked around?’ Who?” Gallo’s ego didn’t take kindly to being deflected like that.

“That’s not relevant right now, all right? I needed someone with access and I asked some people and his name came up. Can we move on?”

It took a couple of more to-and-fros, but we grudgingly did.

Gallo’s expression darkened gradually the more I spoke. It was like his eyes were receding into a couple of abysses deep in his skull with every word. I was under no illusions that this was due to any concern over me. It was all about him, obviously. How his lack of oversight could have allowed this to happen, especially seeing as he knew from day one that I was trying to find Reed Corrigan and was getting stonewalled by the CIA at every request.

This risked sinking him too, perhaps not as badly as me, but still-for someone like Gallo, any impediment to the sacred career path was a major disaster.

Which is what Nick and I were banking on. And Nick adroitly steered Gallo to the conclusion we wanted. Whether or not he’d go through with it was another matter.

Throughout all this, an angry cocktail of emotions concerning my partner was roiling inside me. Even though I understood where he was coming from, I was still uber pissed off at how he’d railroaded me; on the other hand, I appreciated how clear-minded and committed he was during all these initial proceedings. I’ve always chided him for his cynical outlook on life, a perspective I’d dubbed “pragmatic nihilism,” as in: life is pretty much bullshit, so you’d better be fully present in those exceptionally rare moments when good stuff happens, because otherwise it’s just completely remorseless bullshit. This wasn’t good stuff in any way and I know he wasn’t enjoying it in any way, but he was totally present and in my corner. But I could see that, even with all the best will in the world, this probably wasn’t going to be enough.

Especially not when the CIA decided to join the party.

They arrived at around seven thirty, two of them.

Annie Deutsch and Nick brought them in before she left again, giving me a glance and a little nod that spoke volumes about the confusion and concern swirling inside her. The door closed, sealing us in, and curt introductions were made. The clear alpha among the two was called Neil Henriksson. He was tall, slim but solid, had carefully trimmed hair that was somehow more beige than blond, and an expression that seemed locked in disdain mode. I could just imagine how much fun he had to be around the house. I didn’t register the name of his minion.

As they were sitting down, Henriksson said, “OK, Special Agent Reilly, let’s start from the beginning, shall we?”

Gallo just turned to them calmly and said, “Special Agent Reilly has taken the Fifth and won’t be answering any questions without the presence of his lawyer.”

Henriksson’s expression shifted dramatically-as in he panned his head around by forty-two degrees.

“Excuse me?”

Gallo said, “You heard me.”

The ADIC was going to try to keep me under his roof. Again, not out of any sudden outpouring of empathy for me. It just gave him more to bargain with in terms of limiting the blowback to his CV before giving me up. And it gave me more time to think and figure out what my next step should be.

Henriksson didn’t miss a beat. “Maybe you don’t quite grasp what we’re dealing with here. This isn’t a run-of-the-mill murder investigation. This is a matter of national security.”

Nick piped in and asked, “How so?”

“Agent Reilly is wanted for questioning in the murder of an employee of the CIA. An employee with significant security access.”

“And how is that a matter of national security?”

“Reilly may be working with elements whose aims are as yet unknown. We need to understand what we’re dealing with and whether or not there has been a breach.”

Nick nodded sympathetically, then said, “I understand. On the other hand, they might have had a falling out over some chick.” He couldn’t have said it more flippantly if he tried. Then he added, “Unless you know something more specific you’re not sharing with us? Maybe about someone at the agency who goes by the handle of Reed Corrigan? You know, the one this office has put in more than one request about, only to be told he doesn’t exist?” He paused for a second, then before Henriksson answered, he said, “Oh, wait, sorry, I know-you can’t, ’cause it’s classified. Right?”

Henriksson’s spine straightened as his gaze bored into Nick. “Like I said, this is a matter of national security. My instructions are to escort Agent Reilly down to Langley where our people and the Arlington County CID can question him.”

“He’s not going anywhere,” Gallo said.

“The man is believed to have shot an employee of the Agency with B-2 clearance,” Henriksson fired back. “We need to understand what happened and contain any potential security breach. Urgently.”

“Look, I’m with you on this,” Gallo replied. “We’re on the same side, remember? But my hands are tied. There’s due process involved. Right now, all we have is Reilly handing himself in and saying someone tried to kill him. That’s all we have right now. He’s offering to tell us exactly what happened once his lawyer’s around, which should happen sometime this morning. We can’t even arrest him yet, not without a formal indictment. You have one?”

Henriksson’s jaw tightened visibly, then he said, “Not yet.”

“Not to worry. I’ve got the DA coming in shortly.”

“The murder took place in Virginia.”

Nick said, “Yeah, but he’s up here, isn’t he?”

Gallo added, “We need the paperwork sorted out. Until that’s ready, our hands are tied. We can’t process him-or release him.”

Henriksson took a breath, like he was deciding whether or not to share something-or at least wanting to give that impression. Then the jurisdictional tussle resumed. As I watched them argue, my mind took a step back and I couldn’t help but take note of how they perfectly encapsulated something I’d noticed years ago regarding the vast distance between the country’s agencies and their employees. More often than not, law enforcement seemed to attract passionate races like the Italians and Irish, fiery emotion-driven extraverts with inferiority complexes who shared an unshakeable moral sense bound-up with Catholicism-whether devout or lapsed-and an idea of society rooted in the extended family and a realism that meant being open to people’s better nature, even while accepting that humans are fundamentally flawed. The intelligence agencies, on the other hand, seemed to attract a far colder type: Northern Europeans like Henriksson-introverted, dour Puritan ideologues possessing a self-hating superiority, who see family as a tortuous chore to be endured and society as little more than a paranoia-inducing crowd of sinners who need to be permanently spied upon and are, even when under 24/7 watch, still sinning in their minds.

I also started to get antsy, like this wasn’t going to work out how Nick imagined. I started to think that I might have to find my own way out of here, which wouldn’t be easy-except that I knew the place inside out. Which meant that although I knew how virtually impossible it would be to escape, I was probably as qualified as it gets to find some minute weakness and exploit it.

Gallo and Nick stood their ground and won-for now. I wasn’t going anywhere yet. Henriksson and his minion were led out by Gallo while Nick stayed behind.

“You must be starving,” he said. “I’ll get you something.”

I nodded, wearily, “Thanks.” I wanted to also thank him for fighting for me, but I was still smarting from his bringing me in. Then my tiredness fell away long enough for me to remember what I needed from him first.

“Forget the food for a second,” I told him as I checked my watch. “Tess should have landed by now.”

“She’s coming in, right?”

“Later, she’s going home first,” I said, then I pointed up at the cameras. “Are they still off?”

Nick nodded.

I dropped my voice anyway and leaned in. “I need you to do something first. I need my laptop secured. I don’t want anyone tampering with it.”

“You want to call her and…?” He didn’t need to finish his thought aloud.

“No.” I kept my voice down. “I don’t want her implicated in any way, I don’t want to give anyone any cause to hassle her.” I looked at him.

“What, you want me to…?”

“I want you to keep it safe. We can do this officially. I’ll give you my formal consent to search my house for evidence. Go there on the basis that you’re bringing her in. Talk to her; tell her what’s going on. Try to give her some reassurance. And take care of that too.”

He held my gaze, then nodded. “OK.”

Despite everything, despite the hurricane of conflicting emotions raging inside me, I had to admit it was a bit of a relief to have him there, as my partner, knowing the whole story, looking out for me. I missed having my partner riding shotgun alongside me. I missed this.

Maybe, one of these days, I’d forgive him after all.

17

Ocracoke, North Carolina

“I just heard from our people in New York. They’re playing hard ball,” Tomblin informed Roos over their encrypted phones.

Gordon Roos was fuming, but, as always, he never showed it. He was too busy moving chess pieces in his head, anticipating reactions and counter-reactions and deciding on how best to handle the crisis that had mushroomed around them.

At least they knew more than they did before the screw-up in Arlington: Reilly had found himself a weak link inside the CIA and had leaned on him to help him find Roos. That leak was now plugged, and Reilly was being blamed for it. That wasn’t a bad result at all. But having Reilly in FBI protective custody-that was far from ideal.

“We need to get him out of their hands fast,” Tomblin added, “shut him up before someone starts taking his blabbing seriously.”

“Or we take care of him while he’s in there.”

“That’s the other option. Riskier, of course.”

“Do we have any assets in place?”

“A couple of promising candidates,” Tomblin said.

Roos knew he could count on the man’s judgment. Edward J. Tomblin wasn’t just Roos’s partner back when Roos was an active agent as well as his oldest friend. He was also a very capable man, one of a handful of top-level CIA employees to have survived six administrations.

They had both been recruited by the CIA straight from college and immediately sent with the legend of medical aid workers to the self-declared Republic of Biafra, where they had forged an unbreakable bond in the ocean of blood that had engulfed south-eastern Nigeria. Although their individual reactions to the atrocities they witnessed there were different-Roos experiencing the first flush of the kill-or-be-killed mindset that had defined him from that point on, while Tomblin established the Zen-like detachment that would serve him equally well, both had emerged with the absolute conviction that they could survive anything.

In the almost forty years since their first posting, this had indeed proved to be true. Together they had survived the final few months of the Vietnam War, the killing fields of Cambodia and Angola, followed by a few years at the spearhead of the Cold War, where they’d first used the two code names of “Reed Corrigan” for Roos and “Frank Fullerton” for Tomblin.

It was around that time that the Janitors were born. They’d achieved so much with that small, covert unit, work they were proud of. Work that had kept the nation safe. And then, after 9/11, their paths had diverged. While the country’s intelligence agencies came under fire, smaller conflicts were brewing and boiling over around the planet. Roos saw the potential to bail on the political infighting and cash in on his connections and expertise by going private. He started hiring himself out to various governments and corporate interests, and he raked in serious fees. He managed to convince Sandman leave the Agency and join him for that ride. With Sandman’s talents to draw on, no boardroom problem was insurmountable, no opposition leader untouchable. They provided discreet, effective solutions to the thorniest of problems. Needless to say, they’d thrived together.

Tomblin, on the other hand, was less of an adventurer and preferred to weather the storms and stay at the agency. He did well. In fact, he hadn’t possessed an official public job title since 2005, which was when the CIA’s National Clandestine Service was first created in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq War. The NCS didn’t do “public.” It was the covert, deep-dark arm of an organization that wasn’t exactly an open book itself, and followed an even more aggressive approach to keeping the nation safe. Under its official remit, it had “the national authority for the coordination, de-confliction, and evaluation of clandestine operations across the Intelligence Community of the United States,” meaning it could pretty much do anything it wanted. As the NCS’s Deputy Director, Tomblin oversaw five of its main divisions. This included the Special Activities Division, which conducted both overt action such as paramilitary raids and assassinations in denied areas, and covert action such as PSYOP-Psychological operations.

And it was because of one aspect of PSYOP-namely, mind control, something they’d both been involved in years earlier, in CIA programs such as MK-Ultra-that they were both in this mess.

Because of a young boy’s father who just won’t let go.

Roos had brought this calamity down upon them all: on himself, on Tomblin-who was Roos’s immensely useful, if unofficial, partner in his private global endeavors-and most of all on the man who initially put together and ran the Janitors unit, the man who now stood to lose more than either of them.

“All right,” he told Tomblin. “I’m expecting an update from Sandman within the hour. Let’s review then.”

“OK.” Tomblin paused, then said, “Reilly has several pressure points we can use, Gordo. And we know how much he treasures them. Especially the woman and the boy.”

Roos smiled inwardly. “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

18

Mamaroneck, New York

Maxed out on caffeine in a vain attempt to counteract a night of maximum stress and zero sleep, Aparo arrived on the tree-lined street on which Reilly and Tess’s house stood and parked his Ford Taurus in front of the three Evidence Response Team vehicles.

He climbed out and went to talk to Max Goodman, the Special Agent in charge of the ERT, who was emerging from a GMC Yukon parked a little farther down the street.

Aparo waved as he approached. “Just give me half an hour, OK?”

He’d called Goodman and asked him to wait till he arrived at the house, making it clear that the inhabitants were a Bureau family and that, right now, his partner wasn’t guilty of anything except fleeing a crime scene.

Goodman shook his head. “You said wait till you arrive, and you’re here now. We need to go in.”

Aparo lowered his voice, trying the conciliatory approach first. “Look, Max, the lady only stepped off the red-eye an hour ago. Let me go in first and talk her through it before your guys go storming in.”

Goodman wasn’t impressed. “You shouldn’t be anywhere near this case. You’re his partner for Christ’s sake! Now get out of my way so I can do my job.”

Aparo put a hand on Goodman’s arm. “Come on, Max. She’s got her mom and two kids in there. A teenage girl and a five-year-old boy. Isn’t that the same age as your kid? How’d you feel if you were in their place? You wouldn’t want your kid going through something like that, would you?”

Goodman didn’t reply.

“They’ll be heading off to school in a few minutes,” Aparo added. “That’s all I’m asking.”

Aparo knew this was the moment it went one of two ways. Either Goodman felt a sizeable stab of sympathy when he imagined his boy looking on as armed storm troopers went through his family home from top to bottom, or the mere mention of the guy’s son in this context risked further harsh words at best, or a fist swung at his face.

Goodman went quiet for a moment then said, “OK. Go. I’ll wait till the kids are gone.”

Aparo hid his smile with an earnest expression of sincere gratitude. “Done. I owe you. And do me a favor, keep the guys out of sight until the kids are gone.”

Tess had arrived home about half an hour earlier, her stress levels off the chart. The Evidence Response Team vehicles were already parked out on the street, though Aparo had texted her to say that no one would try to enter the house before he got there himself.

Her mom was already well into the school routine, with both Kim and Alex finishing their breakfast while Eileen made their lunches. Right now, the kids were oblivious to the events of the past twelve hours. Although Tess knew this couldn’t last, she wanted to see Reilly face to face before she decided what to tell them. Her mom, on the other hand, knew something was wrong the second Tess had called her from La Guardia to say she’d landed-way earlier than expected. Eileen had lived through enough of Reilly and Tess’s misadventures to know when to ask and when to stay quiet. So far, she hadn’t asked, but Tess could read the worry simmering behind her stoic expression.

As Tess tried to help with the lunches-despite her mom trying to brush her away-the doorbell chimed.

She froze, then forced herself to snap out of it. She gave her mom a knowing look. “I’ll get it.”

She glanced at the kids as she headed out of the kitchen. Alex was oblivious, his concentration locked on the box of cereal. Kim, on the other hand, seemed fully aware that something was very wrong. Her questioning eyes followed Tess out of the room, but much to Tess’s relief, Kim seemed to grasp her mother’s unspoken desire to not discuss it just yet.

Feeling sick to her stomach, Tess went to the door and looked through the spy hole.

Aparo. Alone.

She opened the door and let out a breath of relief. “Nick.”

He stepped inside.

She spotted the ERT guys outside as she shut the door behind him. The sight rattled her and her voice went shaky. “What’s going on, Nick? What the hell is this?”

He stepped closer and took her in his arms for a big hug, patting her across the shoulder. “We’ll get through this. It’s going to be fine.”

She pulled back and nodded, wiped her face, then motioned for Aparo to follow her into the study, where she closed the door after them.

Aparo remained standing. “I need Sean’s laptop.”

“Why?”

“He wants it out of here so no one messes with it. I can’t do it, though. I didn’t walk in with anything. Can you carry it out? The ERT guys will be watching us leave, so it needs to look casual.”

Tess looked at her MacBook Air, open on the aluminum desk.

“We’ve got identical machines. Different specs, but same on the outside. I’ll just say it’s mine if anyone asks.”

She went over to a large set of drawers and pulled out another MacBook Air, which she slid into a pink slip case. Then she closed the open laptop and put it in the drawer.

As she stuffed the pink slipcase into her leather shoulder bag, she heard her mother say, “We’re off.”

“Hang on.”

She stepped out of the study, found Eileen, Kim and Alex in the kitchen. Avoiding her daughter’s scrutinizing gaze, Tess put on her best carefree smile.

“See you later, guys. Soak up that knowledge.”

“Mom-” Kim said, but Tess cut her off.

“I’ll see you later, baby,” she said as she leaned in and kissed her on the temple.

“Where’s daddy?” Alex asked.

Tess glanced down at him. Curiously, he seemed worried as well. It was almost like he could also sense the tension, which, given his age, surprised Tess.

She bent down to his level and straightened the collar of his coat. “He went straight to his office, but he said to tell you he misses you a lot. Both of you. Now go on, or you’ll be late.”

She gave Alex a kiss and watched them all head out into the garage, then she hurried back to the study.

“OK,” she told Nick, “talk to me. What the hell is going on?”

“The guy Sean’s been after all this time? The guy that had Alex brainwashed?”

“Reed Corrigan.”

“Yeah. Sean won’t accept that Corrigan is a ghost. He’s still trying to find the bastard. That’s why he went to see that guy in Arlington-the guy who got shot. His name was Stan Kirby. He worked for the CIA.”

Tess’s eyes went wide. “Sean’s accused of killing a CIA agent?”

“As things stand, yes. Well, not exactly-Kirby wasn’t a field agent. He was an analyst.”

“But he didn’t do it, right?”

“Of course he didn’t. And we’re going to help him prove that. We’re going to do everything we can to find Kirby’s real killer. And I’m going to do everything I can to find Corrigan, because finding him may be the only way to prove Sean’s innocence. Everything else is on hold as of last night.”

A sense of utter dread chilled her to the core. “Sean couldn’t find him, Nick. What makes you think you can?”

“Sean was doing this alone, on the side. I’m going to use something Sean didn’t-the entire resource of the Bureau. I’ll even go see the president if I have to.”

That last sentence leapt from Sandman’s earpiece and anchored itself firmly inside Sandman’s mind.

Aparo could turn into another problem, he thought.

He was parked around a corner a hundred yards down from Reilly and Tess’s place. As he listened to the conversation taking place in the house, Sandman could just picture Tess Chaykin’s mind racing. He didn’t have video-cameras, even the tiniest pinhole ones being used for covert surveillance nowadays, had been deemed too much of a risk, in terms of detection. Someone with a keen eye like Reilly might spot them. Audio, on the other hand, was much easier to conceal and yielded the same results.

“So Sean’s been digging into this the whole time?” she said. “Since he brought Alex to live with us?”

“Yep,” he heard Aparo reply.

“And he didn’t tell you?”

“No. And believe me, I asked. I asked a lot.”

“Why wouldn’t he tell you?”

“To help me keep my job. And maybe out of prison. Same goes for you, I guess.”

“Why?”

“He was leaning on Kirby. The guy was sleeping with his wife’s sister.”

“Charming.”

A sentiment with which Sandman concurred.

Aparo didn’t comment. Instead, he added, “He’s had someone helping him out, but he won’t say who. Any ideas?”

Sandman listened as Tess thought about it, his senses alert to a key piece of the puzzle possibly dropping into his lap-then Tess said, “No.”

Sandman frowned. Still, a couple of major gaps in Reilly’s backstory with Kirby had been filled. And he thought he knew where he might find the rest of the answers he was looking for.

Tess let out a tired breath. “I knew something was eating him. All these months… I thought it was this stuff about his dad.”

“That’s part of it too. Or at least Sean believes it is. He’s got it into his head that there’s a connection between Corrigan and his dad. He thinks maybe Corrigan had something to do with his dad’s suicide.”

Tess couldn’t process what she was hearing. It was all so far-fetched. As a plot for one of her novels, she would have dismissed it out of hand. But she also knew that reality often trumped fiction-that there are things that happen in real life that are so bizarre and unexpected they’d never allow for the suspension of disbelief necessary to retell them as a story.

“I need to hear it from him.”

“Of course. That’s where we’re going.”

“OK. Let me grab my things.”

She retrieved her iPad from the kitchen and picked up a more formal jacket from the closet in the front hall. And as she headed for the front door, Tess felt a combination of dull fury and desperate sadness. Anger that the man she loved had needed to conceal all this from her-even if it was to protect her-and sorrow that she hadn’t been able to help him deal with his frustration and uncertainty.

She would do all she could to help now.

They left the house together, Aparo waving his thanks to a tall guy in shades and an FBI windcheater.

She climbed into Aparo’s car and left her house to the mercy of the Evidence Response Team.

Sandman heard his encrypted phone ring as he watched Aparo’s unmarked drive past him.

“Are you still at the target’s house?” the voice asked.

“Yes. His woman and his partner just drove off.”

“There’s another player. We need to find him.”

“I’m on it.”

“We need that laptop.”

“I figured as much. Engagement protocol?” Sandman asked.

“The partner is expendable,” the voice informed him in an even tone.

“The woman?”

“Optional.”

“Copy that.”

Sandman cut the call, fired up the engine, and pulled away from the curb.

19

The pit of Aparo’s stomach was yelling at him.

He hadn’t eaten since he’d shared a Chinese take-out delivery with his latest playmate, food they had burned off shortly afterwards by a couple of hours of mutual cardio workout. And much as he’d enjoyed that, much as he was looking forward to seeing her again, he was glad he’d turned down her offer to spend the night, as it meant he’d been there in his partner’s hour of need.

He turned to Tess. “I haven’t eaten since yesterday. Anywhere we can stop for me to grab a bite?”

“There’s a nice café just after the CVS up ahead. They do decent take-out sandwiches.”

A quarter of a mile later, Aparo pulled into a parking space.

“Can I get you anything?”

“I’m good,” Tess replied.

“Did you eat this morning? It’s probably going to be a long day.”

Tess shook her head. “I’m OK, thanks.”

“A coffee at least?”

She smiled. “No, mom.”

“O-kay.”

Aparo climbed out and walked toward the café.

He reached the door just ahead of a guy in a fedora and a heavy winter coat who was heading in too. Aparo nudged the door open behind him so it didn’t swing back into the man’s path.

The place was clearly popular. Many of the small tables were taken by singles or duos, several of them working at their laptops. Aparo went straight to the counter, where three people were ahead of him. He glanced at the list of offerings as he waited his turn, then ordered the special: sausage and tomato omelet in a baguette, with a large coffee, black.

“Double quick, please,” he said as he handed a ten dollar bill to the ponytail/goatee in the black T-shirt behind the counter. “And keep the change.”

He stepped aside to let the guy in the fedora order.

As he waited, he scrolled through his messages and emails. His inbox was heaving, but there was nothing there that couldn’t wait till he was at the office.

His attention was diverted by a waitress behind the counter who was holding out two brown-paper bags. “Bacon on rye… and an omelet baguette.”

Aparo reached for his order, but as he took it, the guy in the fedora reached across him, knocking Aparo’s bag to the floor.

“Oh Jeez, I’m sorry,” the man said, shaking his head with clear embarrassment. He stooped to pick it off the floor, fussing over it, muttering “I’m such a klutz sometimes,” as he brushed it down before turning to face Aparo and handing it back to him. “I’m really sorry. Let me buy you a replacement.”

Aparo glanced at it. The sandwich was longer than the bag, it’s edge poking out of it. It might have touched the floor, but barely. Also, time was an issue. He was in a rush to get to Federal Plaza. “No, it’s fine.”

“You sure?”

“Sure.”

The man relaxed a touch. “OK. Sorry, again.” He touched his hat in an old-school gesture of deference.

Aparo waved him off with a “No problemo,” took his coffee from the outstretched hand of the waitress, then left the café, bag already open and baguette on its way to being chowed down.

By the time he got back to the car, half the baguette was already in his belly.

Tess couldn’t resist sending her mother a text to see how the kids’ school run had gone.

The message was pointless and Tess knew it. She was just taking a momentary break from the bigger situation looming over her and finding a touch of solace in obsessing over the mundane. Her mom had, predictably, fired back one of her signature replies, informing Tess that everything was miraculously fine and that she was looking forward to a nice mug of coffee with her as soon as her circumstances allowed it. Her mom hadn’t used quote marks around circumstances. She hadn’t needed to. Tess saw them anyway.

She watched as Aparo climbed back into the Taurus with a coffee in one hand and an open sandwich bag in the other. He was wolfing it down.

“Hungry much?” she asked.

“Just what the doctor ordered,” he just about managed in between mouthfuls as he put the vehicle into drive.

They hopped onto I-95 and joined the stream of traffic heading south toward the city.

Tess’s mind was all over the place, exploring all kinds of scenarios about what awaited her and Reilly. She didn’t say much, and Aparo was busy polishing off the baguette and the coffee.

They’d been on the interstate for about ten minutes when Aparo winced. She’d noticed it after she spotted him scrunch up the bag and throw it over his shoulder onto the back seat. It was a habit she imagined was common to all FBI agents due to long hours spent on stake out but one she’d managed to talk Reilly out of, at least when it came to the family car.

Aparo grimaced with pain.

“You OK?” she asked.

“Heartburn.” He balled his fist and slammed it into his chest, moving his left shoulder up and down in an attempt to alleviate his discomfort. “I think I’ve got a bottle of water in the back somewhere, can you pass it over?”

“Sure.” She bent around and rummaged through the clutter on the back seat and found an half-empty bottle. She handed it over just as Aparo clutched at his chest with his left hand and gasped.

“Jesus! Are you all right?”

His right hand was still firmly on the wheel.

“Yeah. It’s nothing. Just zero sleep, an empty stomach, stuffing my face and-”

He moaned as his head lolled back against the headrest and his right arm went slack, sending the car swerving into the passing lane.

“Nick!”

Tess grabbed the wheel, fighting to steer the car back into the center lane. An SUV blew past to their left, barely missing them.

“Jesus! Nick! Wake up!”

She yanked the wheel too fast, causing the Taurus to bounce off a semi speeding past on the inside lane and hurtle across back toward the median divider. A cacophony of squealing brakes and panicked horns filled her ears as the car cut across a flatbed truck, clipped a compact and bounced off it.

Tess watched in horror as the compact careened back into the inside lane, slamming into a panel van that had swerved to avoid them.

There was no way she was going to reach the brake pedal. She swung the wheel away from her and the car flew across the lanes again and into the divider. Sparks flew from the screeching interface of car and metal, but the vehicle was still traveling too fast.

Glancing over her shoulder to see if the cars immediately behind her were anywhere close, she slammed the Taurus into neutral and pulled the handbrake.

The car fishtailed as it began to slow, noise and smoke filling her senses before it finally came to a stop about a hundred yards farther on.

Tess screwed up her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief, then turned to Aparo. He wasn’t breathing. The driver’s door was wedged against the divider. A trail of damaged cars and trucks littered the highway behind her, and to her right was a now-slow stream of traffic, all of it trying to avoid the pile up that was now blocking the inside lane. There was no way for her to get out of the car safely.

She reached over the prone agent and released the lever to throw his seat back, then clambered onto him and started CPR.

“Nick! Wake up! Do you hear me? Wake up!”

Aparo didn’t move.

She tried again.

Some air hissed from between his lips, but there was no gasp or cough to signal that he’d started breathing for himself again.

She raised her right first and hammered it down onto Aparo’s chest. Then again.

“Come on!” She pounded, again and again.

With no result.

20

Tess’s heart broke as the deepest of all primal instincts told her that the man sitting beside her was now gone, and never coming back.

She rolled off Aparo and fell back into her seat, her head throbbing from where it had slammed against something during the mayhem.

Up ahead, a grey sedan had pulled into the lane in front of her. Its driver, a man with short hair and a thick coat, was already walking back toward the Taurus. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but her mind was too flooded with stimuli to be any clearer than that. Within seconds, he was near by her door and looking in.

“Are you all right?”

She stared at him, still shaken and dazed, and didn’t answer at first.

“Miss? Are you all right?”

He yanked against the door handle, but the door was locked. He pointed at the inside of the panel.

“Can you unlock the door? Miss?” He was mouthing the words more clearly now, like he thought she couldn’t hear him. “You need to unlock the door.”

His words sank in and she pulled the door handle. The door creaked open.

The man helped her out. “What happened? Are you all right?”

“I don’t know,” she stuttered. “He just-he just stopped breathing.” She was on the brink of tears.

“Let me have a look,” he said, ushering her away from the door so he could climb inside the car.

Tess didn’t move. She was still in shock and couldn’t peel her eyes off Aparo’s still body. Then a thought cut through the haze and she pulled out her phone to dial 911.

“Miss,” the man was saying. “Can you step aside?”

She raised her gaze at him, his words at the edge of her consciousness-and she nodded. As she moved aside to let him past and her finger was about to hit the call button, she heard a siren behind her. A Highway Patrol car speeding down the empty passing lane toward them and pulling up just behind the mangled sedan, the lights on its roof rack still flashing.

She watched the uniform step out of his car, then noticed the man beside her step away from her and head back to his car. He turned to glance at her as he walked off, gave her a little knowing nod, then got in his car and drove off.

“You OK, miss?” the patrolman was asking.

She turned, nodded, and, still foggy-brained, called Federal Plaza.

Deutsch was listening to Gallo and Lendowski argue about Reilly’s gun and the prints report that had come in from the DC Field Office when her desk phone lit up.

It was the switchboard. “I’ve got a call here for Agent Reilly,” the operator said. “What are we doing with his calls?”

“Put it through.”

Deutsch didn’t recognize the voice at first. It was a woman, and her tone was urgent. “I need to speak to Sean. This is Tess. Tess Chaykin. Something terrible’s happened. Please.”

Deutsch’s spine tightened. “Miss Chaykin, this is Agent Deutsch. What happened? Where are you?”

“I’m… I’m somewhere on I-95. We were on our way down to Federal Plaza, Nick and me, and-there was an accident. Nick, he’s-he’s dead.”

Deutsch felt the blood literally drain from her face and she just froze, the surreal words echoing inside her without finding purchase. After a moment, she barely managed to ask, “Nick’s dead?”

She could hear Tess’s voice break as her weak reply came back. “He’s dead. I’m right here next to him. He’s-he’s gone.”

It can’t be, Deutsch thought. It can’t-and yet, it was true. Just like that. It had to be. Tess was not a flake.

Aparo was gone.

“Jesus,” Deutsch managed, “but-how? I don’t-”

“He just-I don’t know, it’s like he had a heart attack or an embolism or something. He just went. Just like that. He was driving, and-we hit the barrier.”

“What about you-are you OK?”

“I’m all right. I wasn’t hurt. But I need to speak to Sean. Oh my God, Nick’s son. We need to tell Lisa.”

“Hang on.”

She looked up, and through eyes that seemed resolutely unwilling to focus clearly, she saw that Gallo and Lendowski were still locked in heavy discussion. She cupped the phone’s mouthpiece.

“Hey,” she called out to them, then shouted, angrily, “Hey.”

They both turned, visibly surprised by her outburst.

She sat there in silence for a moment, still processing it and not quite sure how to say it. When she spoke, her voice was so quiet it was almost inaudible.

“It’s about Aparo. He’s… he’s dead.”

She saw their expressions cloud up, gave them a second to let it sink in, then added, quickly, as she held up the phone, “I’ve got Tess Chaykin on the line. Reilly’s wife-his partner,” she corrected herself. “She was with him. They were in a car crash. She’s in shock and she needs to talk to Reilly.” She focused on Gallo. “OK if I take him the call?”

Gallo looked at her, confusion lining his face, as he steadied himself against Lendowski’s desk. Then he said, “Sure. Go ahead.”

She nodded, told the operator to transfer the call to her cell phone, and rushed toward the interview room.

She was at the keypad when her cell phone rang. She took the call as she keyed in the code, trying to keep her voice even, to stay professional. “Miss Chaykin? I’m passing him over to you, hang on.”

The doors slid open. Reilly-she still couldn’t get used to calling him Sean-was in his chair, scowling at the wall.

“I’ve got Tess. Something awful’s happened.”

Reilly rose to his feet and grabbed her cell phone. “Tess?”

Deutsch watched as he listened, his eyes filling with disbelief, then horror, then the unmistakable glistening of tears.

21

I felt like every muscle in my body was trying to rip its way out through my skin.

A raging, boiling centrifuge of blistering anger, bottomless grief and creeping dread had me unable to form a coherent thought beyond that brutal, soul-crushing realization, much less decide what to do next.

The doors slid open and Lendowski came in with a coffee and a sandwich.

“Gallo told me to bring you this,” he said. Because, of course, he’d never have done it without clear instruction from a superior. Like I didn’t know that.

He placed the coffee mug and sandwich down on the table.

I asked, “Any news on Nick?”

I could see him adjusting his attitude-partners were sacred, even if you had good reason to hate one half of said partnership. Plus he and Nick were gym buddies.

“Were”-not “are.”

Surreal.

“Still waiting on the postmortem,” he said, “but it sounds like he had a heart attack.”

I pulled the coffee toward me, tore off the lid and took a gulp, the burning sensation at the back of my throat dulling the deeper, more intractable pain, which had needle-sharp tentacles smothering every nerve ending.

I took another sip, fuming at the idea of his pointless death.

“He treats his body like a dumpster all these years, then, what, six months into this new gym routine and being more careful with his food, this happens?”

Lendowski shrugged. “When your time’s up, it’s up, right?”

I shook my head in disbelief. I’d heard about guys dropping dead after over-exerting themselves after years of doing nothing and it had always struck me as somewhat absurdly ironic. This was beyond absurd-it was just cruel.

Lendowski scratched his head. “You knew him much better than I did, but like you said, all that junk food, zero exercise and chasing tail, not to mention a high-stress job and a dick for a partner… It’ll catch up to you.”

He couldn’t resist the dig, and he smiled as he said it, unwilling to fight over Aparo’s corpse.

I wasn’t willing to do that either. “Not now, Len. All right?”

He seemed taken aback, then just said, “Sure.”

He turned to go, then turned back. “He was a good agent. The Bureau was built on guys like him.”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“There but for the grace of God, you know what I’m saying?”

I just shrugged and Lendowski keyed in the code and left the room.

I was hungry, not having eaten since the train ride down to DC, which was-how many hours ago? I’d lost track. Still, I couldn’t face that sandwich. Nick and I had been partners for more than ten years. Apart from all the life-and-death situations we’d been in, the times we’d saved each other’s lives, I’d also lived through some great times with him, lots of laughs, lots of long late-night chats, as well as suffering with him through his personal hardships-the problems in his marriage, the women, the divorce… and now it was all over, just like that. A friend, a partner, a vibrant man with a hearty appetite for life, a father, an eleven-year-old son’s dad, gone in the blink of an eye. Snuffed out.

Hard to accept.

I know, we’re all heading that way. The only question is when. I thought of Nick’s son, Lorenzo. Eleven years old. A year older than I was when my dad died. I knew what he’d be going through. I’d need to try to be there for him, when-if-I ever managed to get my life back on track. Lisa, his ex-wife, would need our help too. Despite everything, they’d still spent fifteen years together, twelve as husband and wife, eleven as parents, and that doesn’t go away, not unless there was a major hurt involved, and there wasn’t. She’d be hurting now, I was sure. It just made me angrier that I was in here, not there, with them, helping them through this.

Selfishly perhaps, it also made me think about Tess again. About our life together. About Alex and Kim. About whether or not I was really living the life I wanted.

The twister spinning inside me was throwing out all kinds of wild thoughts. What I couldn’t still get my head around was the timing of the shooter appearing in Arlington, as in: why kill me now? That had been their plan after all. Kirby was just collateral damage-fortunate collateral damage, at that. I mean, I’d been chasing after Corrigan for months, so why had it taken him this long to deal with me? Kurt and I had been treading water. No, something else must have forced Corrigan’s hand, and if that thing was mission critical enough to decide to send me to an early grave, it was unlikely anything would be allowed to screw with the plan-meaning they still needed me dead.

Even with Corrigan’s reach, his design was beyond the resource of one man. He had to have help beyond feet on the ground, someone inside the CIA. The question was, how many of them was I up against?

When it came to colleagues, the preference among spooks seemed to be either long-term allegiances or selling them out for short-term advantage, with nothing much in between. Corrigan’s inside man at the CIA could even be “Frank Fullerton,” his partner back in the day, according to the files Kirby had given me-or whatever his name really is. Kurt and I had got nowhere with Fullerton either. Maybe it was worth putting Gigi on his trail.

And then, something that had tugged at the back of my head since Deutsch had handed me her cell almost an hour earlier, started to crystallize more fully.

My “Deep Throat” not showing up at Times Square. The bearded man at Kirby’s. The CIA at Defcon One over an analyst, meaning they knew he leaked the files. And yet they’d waited until now to do something about it. What had changed?

The call from my “Deep Throat.”

That had to be what had them spooked. But he hadn’t yet given me anything.

Maybe they thought he had.

And then Nick dies. Just after he swore he was going to leave no stone unturned and push the Bureau into doing everything it can to help me. This made him more dangerous to them than I was, and two questions were clawing at me: one, could Corrigan have known just how dedicated Nick now was-I closed my eyes, had been-to tracking him down, and two, could they have killed him?

Impossible.

But the coincidence in the timing was hard to ignore.

I mean, if they’d poisoned him somehow, it would show up in the postmortem. But if they did, if they could kill Nick that easily, what was to stop them killing me where I sat? Especially without having him to look out for me?

I stared at the coffee, then at the sandwich, and decided to leave them where they sat.

I had to get out of here.

Deutsch could see the accident scene up ahead.

The whole southbound freeway was closed and would be for at least another hour. Surprisingly, it seemed that Aparo was the only fatality, though she’d heard that occupants of a few of the other vehicles involved had suffered some superficial injuries and one broken leg.

She left her car at the cordon, flashed her badge and hurried toward a cluster of smashed-up vehicles, Highway Patrol cars and ambulances, one of which headed off noisily as she approached, ferrying more injured to the ER at White Plains Hospital.

A striking woman with curly blond hair was sitting on the tailgate of a Westchester EMS ambulance, an ice pack against her head. An EMT had just finished checking her over and a state trooper stood a few feet away, talking into his radio. It looked like he was waiting to take the woman’s statement.

From the author photographs on the dust jackets of her books, Deutsch knew this was Tess Chaykin-and she could see why Reilly had fallen for her. Even after living through the past couple of hours, there was a poise and self-possession about her that seemed almost otherworldly. A poise she needed to regain herself.

She showed her badge to the state trooper. “Give me a couple minutes, will you?” The trooper nodded, and Deutsch walked over to the woman. “Miss Chaykin?

Tess looked up, and Deutsch immediately noticed her warm green eyes. She pictured her and Reilly and felt a quiver of jealousy, then chastised herself as she remembered that the woman’s partner was languishing in a holding cell and suspected of murder.

“Tess,” the woman replied.

Deutsch held out her hand.

“I’m Annie Deutsch. We talked on the phone.”

Tess shook her hand. “You’re the agent with the jackass for a partner, right? At a bar the other night.”

Deutsch found the stirring of a smile. “Yes. Reilly was very… chivalrous. How’s your head?”

“Sore, but the EMT says it’s not a concussion.”

“That’s something.”

An uncomfortable silence settled over them for a moment, then Deutsch asked, “Where have they taken Nick?”

“He’s on his way to White Plains,” Tess told her.

Deutsch nodded, staring into the distance, following the ambulance’s ghostly wake. “They’ll need to do a postmortem.”

Tess looked crushed, the finality of Aparo’s death clearly still hitting her hard.

Deutsch asked, “What happened?”

“I don’t know. One second he was fine, then he just… went.” She paused, then said, “I need to see Sean.”

“I’m here to drive you back, but before we go,” Deutsch said as she gestured at the waiting patrolman, “they need you to give a statement.”

Tess nodded, then repositioned the ice pack on her head. “I’ll make it quick.”

It wasn’t the best plan I’d ever come up with, or the safest.

In fact, it was definitively one of the craziest, borderline demented ideas I’d ever thought up.

Right now, I had nothing else.

So I took a deep breath and called out for Gallo.

Two minutes later, a junior agent who’s name I couldn’t remember brought me a phone and sat across the table from me to wait till I was done.

I called Tess’s cell. She answered immediately.

“Sean?”

“Are you OK?”

“I’m fine. Sean… God, it was horrible. I can’t believe he’s-” I heard the dam burst and she started to sob.

I let her feel it for a few seconds.

“Tess, I’ll see you soon. Annie’s going to bring you over. OK?”

“Lisa…’ she said, referring to Nick’s ex-wife. “Someone needs to tell her. And Lorenzo… my God.”

“I’ll take care of it,” I told her. “I’ll call her. You’ve been through enough for now.”

“OK,” she said, her breath catching.

I gave her a moment to regroup. I needed her to get what I was going to say.

“It’s all just,” I finally said, “crazy. It’s like the stars are aligned against me lately. Like what you were saying, the other night. About karma and our past lives. Remember?”

I heard Tess hesitate and was silently willing her to get it-given that we hadn’t talked about anything like that anytime recently.

Please, Tess. Focus. Be my wingman on this.

“Of course I do,” she said.

Good girl. Great girl.

“Maybe I did something in the past that I’m paying for now. I mean, how else can you explain all the crap that’s been happening to us?” I paused, more to add a bit of drama for the junior agent’s benefit than out of need. “I wish I could go back and find out. You know what I’m saying?”

It took her a couple of seconds, then she said, “You think that would be useful?”

She was reading me.

“I think it would. Big time.” I thought I’d add an extra hint, just to make sure. “It’s like what Nick always used to say-”

I heard the confusion in her tone. “What?”

Almost imperceptibly, I slowed my words, subtly altering my tone-not so the junior agent could notice any change, but enough that someone I’d spent thousands of hours with would notice.

“He used to say: ‘Close, but no cigar.’ Well, that’s me right now. No cigar. And with Nick gone, I need every grain of help I can get…” I slipped straight back to normal speed and tone. “I need that cigar, Tess. Doesn’t have to be a whole cigar-just a couple of puffs, to give me hope.” I paused. “You understand what I’m saying, right?”

I could hear the cogs in her brain engaging, spinning around and clicking into place.

“You know where that expression comes from, don’t you?” she said, her voice shaky. I knew this was all for Deutsch’s benefit, because Tess was now-I hoped-covering for the fact that she knew exactly what I was trying to tell her. “They used to hand out cigars as prizes at fairgrounds. Back when the games of strength were for grown-ups. So when you slammed the giant hammer down on the metal plate and the bell didn’t ring, the guy would say ‘Close, but no cigar!’”

“You should put that in your next book.”

“Maybe… OK, I’ll see you shortly-I just need to go back to the house first. I…” her voice softened and got a bit muffled, as if her mouth was closer to the phone now. “I need to change. I kind of messed myself up during the whole thing. Do you mind if Annie drives me home first?”

I felt a small twinge of relief as I pictured her saying that while looking at Deutsch, who’d be nodding sympathetically.

Relief-and hope.

She definitely got my message.

22

Tess kept her nerves in check as Annie Deutsch swept the Chevy into the employee entrance by the small playground at Federal Plaza.

She’d never done anything like this before-anything that could land her with some serious jail time. She tried not to allow the possibility any room to breathe, and kept pounding it back every time it did a Whack-A-Mole on her. She needed to do this.

Reilly needed her to do this.

She followed in Deutsch’s shadow as the agent escorted her through the busy lobby and across to the line of bulletproof doors that protected the FBI's separate set of elevators. There, Deutsch fast-tracked her through the metal detector and a quick handbag search at security. The pills did trigger a curious pause, but given everything that had happened, it was perfectly normal for her to have some headache capsules with her.

They rode the elevator up in silence, then Tess followed as Deutsch led her through. The floor was quiet, though there were still several agents at their desks. With each step, she felt her strength draining away. It was all becoming more real and more irreversible. She couldn’t help but worry if any of it was going to work, and had to suppress a strong urge to turn around and hightail it out of the building. It was a bad enough risk for Reilly, but she knew she was potentially compromising her own freedom and any chance that Kim and Alex would have of her being around for the next few years. But then she flashed again on all the times that Reilly had saved her life-from the trunk of the car at the Vatican; from the explosives-laden vest in Turkey; from drowning when De Angelis sank the dive boat in the hell of that Biblical storm. She owed him this, no matter the cost-and she owed herself the chance of being with the man she’d chosen, both of them free from the terrible weight that was transforming Reilly into someone she barely recognized.

Within minutes, they were at the door of the interview room.

Through the glass, Tess glimpsed Reilly, sitting there in the bare room. He sensed her and looked up, and their eyes met. A gale of mixed emotions rushed through her: a short-lived elation at finally seeing him, being within reach of his arms, his lips, his solid embrace, that was quickly eclipsed by the paralyzing visceral dread of seeing her Reilly, her Special Agent, her uncompromising champion of law and order, locked away like some petty criminal.

Deutsch was about to punch the keypad and usher Tess in to Reilly’s interview room when a heavily built man Tess had never met decided to butt in.

“Hold on there, Annie,” he said, obviously addressing Deutsch. “I assume this is Reilly’s other half?” He looked at Tess. “Miss Chaykin, right?”

Deutsch’s fingers hovered at the keypad while Tess studied him, her instincts telling her the guy was bad news.

He put out his hand. “Nat Lendowski,” he said. “But everyone calls me Len.”

Lendowski. So this was the cretin Reilly had talked about, the guy who’d harassed Deutsch at the bar.

Tess shook his hand warily.

“I’m sorry we’re meeting under such grim circumstances,” he told her, “but I’m glad you’re OK.”

Tess nodded politely. “Thanks.”

Lendowski indicated the interview room with a flick of his head. “Bet he’ll be happy to see you. It’s been a long night.”

“Been long for us all,” Tess replied. She glanced at Deutsch, sending her an unspoken prompt to move along and get her to Reilly.

“OK then,” Deutsch said as she turned and started pressing the keypad-

Lendowski interjected, “Hang on, you’re not letting her take that in with her, are you?”

Deutsch stopped, and she and Tess turned to face him, momentarily confused.

He was pointing at Tess’s handbag.

“Excuse me?” Tess said.

“Your handbag,” he told her. “You can’t take that in with you.”

Deutsch held both palms up, irritated, and said, “Len, for God’s sake, are you serious? She was cleared by security-”

“Annie,” he interrupted her, firmly. “He’s being held for questioning. About a murder.”

“His partner just died,” Deutsch countered, her tone sharp. “She was in the car with him.”

“Irrelevant,” he replied. “Security protocols still apply. You remember them, don’t you?” He wasn’t bothering to mask the condescension in his tone.

He kept his gaze on her, and waited.

Tess turned to Deutsch. “It’s not a problem.”

“No, this is ridiculous-”

“Annie. It’s fine,” Tess insisted. She peeled the strap off her shoulder and handed her bag over to Lendowski. “I assume it’ll be safe with you?”

“I wouldn’t be too sure,” Annie put in, scowling at her partner.

“I’ll guard it with my life,” Lendowski grinned.

Tess nodded, then spread her arms out wide, so they were horizontal. “I suppose you’re going to want to frisk me too?”

Lendowski went rigid, visibly taken aback by the unexpected offer. Tess just stood there, teasingly, one eyebrow slightly raised, her arms spread wide, her stare locked on him, challenging him, totally serious about it.

She watched as Lendowski’s eyes jumped over to Deutsch and back, a flicker of nervousness. He opened his mouth slightly, a lag between that and the words coming out. “No,” he said. “That won’t be necessary.”

“You sure? Protocol and what not?” she goaded him.

“That’s fine,” he said, somewhat sheepishly.

“OK then.” Tess turned to Deutsch, a minuscule glint of victory brightening her face. “Can I see him now?”

“Of course.”

Deutsch punched the code in and the door clicked open. The two women stepped inside.

Reilly was already on his feet, and Tess didn’t wait for an invitation. She brushed past Deutsch and flung her arms around Reilly’s neck, pulling him into a tight embrace and kissing him on the mouth.

“Tess, please,” Deutsch told her. “No touching.”

“Oh, baby. It’s so good to see you,” she said as she pulled back, ignoring Deutsch’s comment and keeping her arms still around him. She cupped his face with her hands, held them there for a moment, then slid them together behind his neck.

“Thank God you’re all right,” Reilly told her.

“It was horrible, Sean. Just horrible.”

She kept her arms around his neck. Which earned her another rebuke from Deutsch. “Tess. You need to step back from him.”

Tess glanced back at her. “Yes, yes, I’m sorry.”

She needed to move fast.

What Deutsch couldn’t see, what Tess made sure she couldn’t see, was what her hands were doing.

Rummaging into the fold of the cuff of her shirt.

Pulling out the two gelatin capsules she’d hidden there during her quick visit to the house, the ones she’d hastily emptied of whatever supplement they contained-turmeric, was it?-before refilling them with the brownish powder she’d taken out of the stainless steel vial Reilly kept tucked away behind a loose panel in his cupboard, the vial he’d brought back from Mexico.

The vial she and Reilly referred to as the “cigar tube”.

“No cigar.”

The two capsules were now tucked inside her right hand. It was time to pass them to Reilly.

She slid her arms down and took both his hands in hers. “We’re going to beat this, right? We’re going to get you home soon?”

“Tess,” Deutsch repeated. “Come on.”

“OK,” Tess said, and complied-but not before she’d slipped the two capsules to Reilly.

She sat down in the chair and Reilly did the same in his. Deutsch stayed standing, to one side.

“I’ll be home soon. We’re going to beat this,” Reilly said, his tone calm and reassuring.

“We need to get you a lawyer. A good one. Anyone specific you want to use?”

Reilly glanced at Deutsch, a finger pointing up at the cameras. “Did Gallo agree?” he asked.

Deutsch nodded. “Just while she’s in here, yes. They’re off.”

Reilly acknowledged her reply, then carried on talking to Tess. They talked about Aparo’s ex-wife, and Reilly told her he’d spoken to her, told her what had happened. He asked Tess how their own kids were doing, then he filled her in on what had happened since they’d parted at Union Station, told her what had preceded it, repeating his story yet again. They talked about how and what she would tell the kids, and what she’d say to her mom. And throughout it all, the one thought Tess couldn’t suppress was wondering about whether or not what Reilly was about to attempt was going to work-or whether he’d survive it.

She didn’t want to leave, because leaving meant he would go through with his plan. But after a while, she had to. They both knew it. But before she went, she had to take the role to its conclusion, for Deutsch’s benefit. The less they suspected something was going on, the more chances Reilly had to get away with it.

“You couldn’t let it be, could you?” she asked him.

“What, let the bastard get away with it?”

“He already has-don’t you see that? You’re the one who’s about to be charged with murder and he’s… he’s a ghost. A mirage.” She tried to fake anger, but it was sadness and fear that were now searing through her. “You still don’t even know his real name.”

She knew they were both walking a tightrope here. It was fortuitous that something they shared was exceptional self-control. Indeed, it was one of the things that first attracted her to Reilly-his immense self-discipline and single-mindedness. But unlike most other positive traits, it was one that could go catastrophically wrong.

His anger as real as hers, though, she knew, similarly controlled, Reilly slammed the table with both fists, but stayed seated.

“Everyone keeps saying leave the past behind, but it’s the past that defines us. It makes us who we are and shapes what we become. I don’t want my life controlled by the bad things that happened when I was a kid any more than I want Alex’s future affected the same way. But the only way to stop that happening is to confront it head on and deal with it before it does that.”

“Alex, and Kim… they need a father, not an avenging angel.”

“It’s not vengeance, Tess. It’s justice. They’re not the same thing.”

“Maybe not, but one often pretends to be the other. Especially when it’s the obsession of one man.”

Her eyes were flooding-with anger and hurt, but also with fear.

It was time to go.

She got up, looked over at Deutsch. The agent understood and nodded.

Tess turned to Reilly, bent down and hugged him again, burying her face in his neck.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she whispered in his ear. “I need you with me. Always.”

“I’ll see you soon,” he replied. “Promise.”

“You’d better,” she said. Then she kissed him, hard and desperate, before tearing herself away and leaving the room.

23

I checked my watch-0300 hours.

They’d let me keep it, but only after humorless expressions in response to my joke about the timepiece’s frustrating lack of Bond-style garrotes or lasers. I’d be waving it goodbye once I was processed formally and once I was in the system that way, it would be much, much harder to get out.

I had to make my move tonight.

I was lucky to still be here, in a holding cell at Federal Plaza for the night. This wasn’t standard procedure, by any means, but by the time Gallo received the formal indictment, it was too late for me to be processed by the Marshal's Service, interviewed by the Pretrial Services Agency, and walked across to the new federal courthouse at 500 Pearl Street which loomed over the classic, hexagonal state courthouse on the east side of Foley Square for presentment before a federal magistrate judge. Best they could manage was to escort me up to the twenty-sixth floor to be photographed and fingerprinted before bringing me back down to the interview room. I needed to be lodged overnight before being taken to be arraigned in the morning. Normally, they would have shipped me over to the MCC, the Metropolitan Correctional Center just across the square, behind the courthouse. But the facility was perennially overpopulated, and whoever was pulling the strings would have ample opportunity to kill me while I awaited my arraignment, with a menu of wide-ranging options: false-flag terrorist, corrupt guard, white-power psychopath or just some poor schmo blackmailed into doing their bidding. I felt it would be much safer to be under this roof for the night, and Gallo grudgingly agreed to keep me there for the night. Everyone was too shaken up by Nick’s death anyway, so it was all put on hold until tomorrow. Which suited me fine.

I was moved to a holding cell and given a blanket and a pillow to soften up the hardwood bench.

Not that I cared about any of that.

My mind was totally elsewhere. Mostly thinking of Nick, of course. He was still there vividly inside my head, and I kept finding myself thinking I could ask him to help with this or that before reminding myself that he was gone. I guess it still hadn’t sunk in fully.

Mostly, though, it was in the context of what I was about to attempt.

I still had the two capsules in my hand, aware that every time I moved, the more likely it was to look like I was concealing something, even in the middle of the night.

Lendowski-I’d seen the agent through the open doors when Tess had left-was probably half-asleep in his chair, but I couldn’t risk being seen acting in any way that appeared suspicious. Protocol was to monitor the holding room’s audio and video, so even if Lendowski was dozing right now I knew he could easily be wide awake at any moment.

Tess knew where I’d hidden the small stainless steel vial I’d kept in my possession after that nightmare we all went through in Mexico last summer. We’d talked about it a lot, as she was-no surprise there-fascinated by what it contained, the only known sample of the raw, unprocessed drug that countless people had died fighting over, from the adventurer-chemist who had discovered it, to El Brujo, the drug baron who wanted to unleash it on the world.

Good times. Not.

In a tranquil space, the raw drug was supposed to bring about visions that were either genuine memories of that person’s past lives, or images at once so timelessly primal and so deeply personal that this was the only way to rationalize them, the alternative being an experience so unbelievably irrational and so threateningly surreal that the mind simply had no way to frame it.

I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure exactly where I stood on the matter. One thing I did know, though, was that taking the drug now, in my depleted and exhausted state, would wreak havoc on my body and my mind. I just couldn’t see any other way out.

Leaning back in the chair, I carefully took apart the capsules, then I moved both hands up to my face, palms level with my mouth, like someone trying to rub wakefulness into a head that was already more than half-asleep. I popped the capsules into my mouth then swallowed hard, barely managing to force the hard gelatin shells past my esophagus.

My guess was I’d just ingested about a gram of the drug. Thankfully I hadn’t tasted it much as I’d swallowed them fast, but what I did taste was vile, somewhere between burnt cabbage and a dog food concoction Purina had rejected. I quickly found myself fighting the urge to gag.

I sat perfectly still, trying to regulate my breathing, waiting for the effects to take hold.

It didn’t take long.

Within a few minutes, I felt the urge to vomit. I forced my chin down onto my chest-if I threw up now, the drug wouldn’t have time to work and I’d be staying exactly where I was. I clamped my mouth shut and held my breath, willing my stomach to accept the alien mixture. I released the breath as slowly as I could, letting the air escape from my nose while keeping my mouth firmly closed.

I waited as long as I could, then sucked in a lungful of air. My stomach felt like it was trying to expel a barrel-load of psychotic piranhas and I twisted on my chair, trying to resist the urge to stand up and give my insides more space to flip about.

Obviously the drug still had some potency, though exactly what it would do to me next was anyone’s guess. I was bargaining on the compound’s deeper hallucinatory aspects not kicking in first, giving me a window in which I could put the drug’s physiological effect to good use.

I gasped involuntarily from a vicious pain in the back of my throat, a sensation like multiple bee stings. Swallowing hard, I felt like I was finally winning the battle against my stomach’s attempt to empty itself.

My extremities had started to perspire. I could feel my palms becoming clammy and beads of sweat starting to pop on my forehead. My temperature was definitely on the rise, even if I was keeping my bile down for now.

The table came up to meet my chest as I doubled over in agony, my abdomen feeling like it had just been slammed by a Lee Mazzilli bat swing.

I couldn’t help but yelp from the pain. My throat was burning now, my mouth dry. I felt like I was going to pass out.

If it was going to happen, it needed to happen now.

I started pulling against my cuffs, rattling the chain against the table while forcing my entire body back against the chair.

Staring directly at a camera I filled my lungs then shouted as loudly as I could, “Hey! Hey! I need some help in here!”

The gamble that I’d already absorbed enough of the drug to screw up my metabolism would hopefully pay off, because it was time to eject the contents of my stomach, with maximum choking for full effect.

I relaxed my entire body, focusing everything on the roiling in my stomach and the nausea at the front of my head.

Bile shot out of my mouth as my stomach tried to expel the foreign matter that had only landed there a few minutes earlier.

I balled up my fists and smashed them down against the top of the table. Then again. And a third time.

“Hey! Help me! Anyone!”

My stomach sent a geyser of bile up through my throat and out of my mouth.

I thrashed against the chair, no longer knowing how much of my behavior was natural and how much was for show. I was close to losing the ability to control the situation and that would render the entire plan useless.

From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed the doors slide open and Lendowski run in, closely followed by Deutsch. The rapidly receding part of me that could still think straight noted that this was in my favor.

“What the hell?” Lendowski grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up off the table, ensuring that my airway was clear. I wasn’t even aware that I’d slumped forward, but my lungs burnt as I gasped for air. I’d clearly been well on the way to asphyxiation.

“Nice try, buddy, but I’d expect more from you than the old two-fingers.”

I gulped down some more air before trying to speak. “I’m not! I’m burning up, Len.”

Deutsch stepped toward me, grabbed my face and peered into my eyes. “His pupils are blown and he’s running a serious fever.”

I fought the intense nausea so I could watch Lendowski’s reaction.

“Bullshit. He’s fine. Aren’t you, Reilly?”

I tried to speak, but all that came out was a loud moan.

“He’s made himself barf, that’s all it is. It’s what all those beanpole models do in the john at restaurants.”

Deutsch stood to face her partner. “He needs medical attention. Now.”

I retched again. Nothing came up this time, but my insides felt like they were being ripped apart.

I tried to stagger to my feet, but there wasn’t enough give in the cuffs and I crashed back down into the chair.

Deutsch was shouting now, “We need to call 911.”

“Forget it.”

“Len, listen to me. He’s in really bad shape and he needs help right now.”

I could see Lendowski fuming inside. “Fuck this!”

“It’ll be faster to take him ourselves. Presbyterian is less than two miles away. Come on!”

Deutsch uncuffed me, then lifted me upright and grabbed my waist with her right arm, flipping my left arm up and around her shoulders. She was deceptively strong for her size. She glared at Lendowski. “Help me lift him.”

They dragged me toward the door, then Lendowski stopped to wipe some vomit from his jacket.

Deutsch turned back, wondering what the hell was going on. “Move!”

Lendowski walked over to the exit and keyed in the code. The doors slid open. I could hear him speed-dialing Gallo. It would take the ADIC at least forty minutes to make it back to Manhattan, so at least I’d be spared his gloating if I failed.

Taking my other arm, Lendowski helped Deutsch march me down the corridor toward the elevator.

Lendowski was finally starting to show some concern. “Jesus, he’s shaking like he swallowed a jackhammer.”

Deutsch leaned in toward me. “Just breathe, Sean. Breathe.”

My whole body was flip-flopping between a lightness that felt like my skin was filled with helium and heaviness so extreme that I was convinced I would literally sink through the floor and ooze from the ceiling of the floor underneath.

I could feel myself starting to drift out of consciousness. The last thought to crawl across my mind as it shut down was simply this:

This isn’t going to work.

24

I came to with a jolt as Lendowski shoved me into the back seat of his Explorer. Deutsch followed me inside, pushing me upright so I wouldn’t choke to death.

It must have been only a couple of minutes, but it felt like hours.

Somehow my head felt absolutely clear-like on those rare occasions when your body is allowed to wake up when it’s ready, rather than when your smartphone demands it. But it was much more than that. A lucidity I’d never experienced, as though I were at once inside the moment and outside it, looking in.

Maybe this is going to work after all.

Multiple signals hit me at the same time:

My wrists weren’t cuffed. Deutsch was right-handed, but she was sitting to my left, directly behind Lendowski. I smelled like a bum. I was about to make things ten times worse than they already were.

Deutsch was thrown backward as the Explorer lurched into drive. She muttered a curse under her breath and fastened her seat belt.

I allowed my head to loll forward.

My left wrist felt Deutsch’s forefingers as she tried to find my radial artery.

“His pulse rate is too damn slow. Hurry!”

The vehicle bumped up the ramp and screeched out onto Broadway.

I focused on my breathing, ensuring it was as shallow as I could make it without becoming light-headed.

My temperature had dropped, but I was so soaked in sweat there was no way Deutsch could know this.

I gave thanks that Lendowski had decided not to use the siren. Traffic was sparse on the snow-dusted streets and the icy sidewalks were empty. All a sound-and-light show would have done was attract attention.

We sped south past City Hall Park, my left hand slowly edging its way toward Deutsch’s sidearm.

When I looked up to check she hadn’t noticed, it wasn’t Deutsch I was staring at, but a skinned corpse with pale blue eyes. Its limbs abnormally elongated. Gills either side of its chest and what looked like a long boney fin pressing into the seat from its flayed back. Brackish water seeped from the gill slits.

What the-?

I scrunched my eyes shut till my eyeballs ached. When I opened them, I was looking at Deutsch again.

The drug was supposed to make you relive scenes from your past lives. Supposed to-because the only one who had told me they’d experienced it firsthand was the cartel boss El Brujo, admittedly not the most reliable of attestants given how warped his brain had to be after a lifetime’s kaleidoscope of drugs. If it actually worked, I’d been hoping for something more along the lines of finding myself in Renaissance Italy or maybe even a romp as a Templar during the Crusades.

This was… different. It seemed to be taking me much farther back, maybe to some kind of primordial state of existence-or it was just mining the deepest, dormant trenches of my imagination.

I went through my options, hoping the crazy-ass visions would abate for a few minutes. I could point a gun at Deutsch, but there was a sizeable chance Lendowski would simply call my bluff, which would do me no good at all as I had zero intention of seriously harming either of them.

Aim at Lendowski first and Deutsch was liable to attempt to reclaim her gun, which could get very messy indeed.

I needed the vehicle roadworthy, but I quickly realized I had no option but to crash it.

Something was tugging at my ankle. I looked down into the footwell. A mess of disgusting super-sized leech-like creatures-only leech-like because they appeared to be covered in thick fur-were crawling over each other in a mad rush to attach themselves to my legs.

The urge to stamp down on the sickening aberrations was so strong that I actually felt my right leg lift off the floor, before I wrested control back from my reptilian brain and returned my foot firmly to the Explorer’s carpet, from where the leeches had retreated.

This was going to get worse before it was going to get better. Plus we were closing in on the hospital. It wouldn’t be long before we got there.

Screw it.

It was time to make my move.

As Lendowski swung the vehicle left off Park Row into Spruce Street, I balled my right hand and drove it hard into Deutsch’s stomach, simultaneously grabbing her regulation-issue Glock 23 with my left and, in one continuous motion, swinging it full force against Lendowski’s head, knocking him out cold.

He slumped forward. The Explorer bounced up onto the sidewalk between a couple of trees and slammed into the side of the Pace University building.

Deutsch was almost upright again, but I already had her cuffs-which she wore cop-style-off her belt.

“Hands. Now,” I ordered.

“What are you-?”

“Now, Annie.”

Her eyes burned into me. “You’re making a big mistake. Sean, listen to me-”

I cut her off. “I’ve got no choice.”

For a moment, her pride got the better of her. I could see it in her eyes-fight was getting the better of flight-but her expression quickly changed to one of reluctant acceptance as she held out both hands. I clamped one of the cuffs on her right wrist and kept firm hold of the other end.

“Out.”

She exited the vehicle and I followed her out the same side.

“Help me with him.”

I took Lendowski’s handgun out of its holster and tucked it into my trousers, then we dragged him from the driver’s seat and propped him against one of the trees.

From the corner of one eye I glimpsed a wild-eyed ape sitting in the tree, dark blood oozing from its mouth as it chewed on the lump of torn flesh it was holding in one hand.

Although I was still just about able to distinguish between reality and my increasingly disturbing visions, with each passing minute I could feel more of my awareness pulled toward the world of the drug and away from the here and now.

I shook my head violently as I clamped the open end of Deutsch’s cuffs to Lendowski’s left wrist, grabbed his phone, his badge holder and his wallet, then turned to Deutsch. “Your cell.”

She handed it to me as I returned Lendowski’s wallet to him minus the bills. I kept his FBI creds, figuring they might come in handy since I didn’t have mine any more.

“Sean, don’t do this.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

“Of course you do.

“I didn’t kill him, Annie.”

“Then let us find the guy who did. Like Nick said, we’ve got to have each other’s backs.”

“The people I’ve pissed off, maybe they killed Nick. And they’d go through all of you to get to me. I can’t risk that.”

I saw surprise light up her face regarding what I said about Nick’s death as I said it. “It’s our job, Sean.”

“It’s my fight.”

I turned away from her, amazed that she was still willing to engage with me after what I’d just done.

Although there was little chance she’d be able to drag Lendowski more than a few feet, I went back to the Explorer and retrieved the cuffs from the glove compartment where I knew Lendowski kept them.

I cuffed Deutsch’s left wrist to Lendowski’s right so that the two of them encircled the tree, then removed his tie, balled it up and stuffed it into her mouth.

“Sorry about the punch-and about this.”

She shook her head in resignation.

I climbed into the Explorer, hoping it still drove.

There was a crunching, shearing sound as I reversed away from the concrete wall, down off the sidewalk and back onto Spruce, then a wet squeal of tires as I sped away.

25

I guessed I had minutes before the shit hit the fan. I had no idea how long my current state would last, and no clue whether the next phase would be a hundred times worse. My body appeared to be following my commands even though it felt like I was moving in slow motion. If I was indeed moving as slowly as it appeared, I’d be back in custody before dawn.

That was the worst case scenario. What I was hoping for was that I threatened both the FBI and the CIA with such monumental embarrassment that they’d try to keep a lid on my escape, at least till morning, when everyone had been interviewed and a decision had been made about who to blame. I also bargained on Corrigan staying out of the way-at least till it looked like they weren’t going to find me on their own. I had a whole lot to do before then.

I stripped the batteries from both phones and dropped the pieces out of the window as I turned right onto Gold, passing Lower Manhattan hospital, our original destination, then turned right onto Fulton. I could see 1 WTC up ahead, its shimmer brilliant in the darkness.

The Explorer skidded in the snow as I turned into a blind alley. I killed the engine, climbed out and checked the back, looking for anything I could use to cover my vomit-stained clothes. I was grateful for the cold weather as I laid eyes on his winter parka, along with a spare suit he kept in there and a holdall for his gym stuff. I also saw his flashlight in there and grabbed it too.

Parka on, hood up, suit, flashlight and both FBI-issued Glocks stuffed in Lendowski’s holdall, I started to walk back down Fulton Street. I knew there was a twenty-four-hour parking garage about five hundred yards south of Gold Street and I was hoping that I’d be able to hotwire at least one of the cars left there overnight.

I jogged up the ramp of the multi-level building, scanning to the left and right for a car old enough not to be controlled by a computer. As I moved my head, everything started to warp and buckle-like my field of vision was spread across a sheet blowing in the wind. Leeches were squirming under the cars. I heard a pounding sound behind me. I turned to see the feral ape from the tree. It was bouncing something off the bonnet of a Toyota Corolla. I moved closer, edging around the vehicle, and saw my father’s severed head, its blood-matted hair gripped in the ape’s hand. His eyes-still open-looked exactly as they had when I found him sitting at his desk with his brains blown out.

My instinct was to continue on, but somewhere from deep within came the urge to take the head from the ape-to stop it inflicting any more pain. I felt myself moving toward the Corolla as the ape continued to smash the head against the bodywork, its movements growing ever more manic. I was less than five yards out-close enough to see the individual hairs on the ape’s skin-when instinct won. I turned and dragged myself away, heading for the up ramp.

By the third level, I was again gasping for breath. After a couple of minutes spent doubled over, the visions again receding, I straightened up and saw what looked like an early nineties Caprice over in a far corner. If it was indeed a Caprice, then it was likely it could be trusted. It wasn’t by random choice that so many police departments chose the vehicle before it was usurped by the Ford Crown Victoria.

As I dragged myself toward the car, a searing light flashed behind my eyes. I felt like I was plummeting down a bottomless well. I tried to shake my head clear but my vision was blurred. I forced myself to keep walking toward the car.

My eyes cleared and I found myself standing directly in front of the Caprice. I smashed the rear right-hand window, opened the door, and eased myself inside.

The steering column cover came off easily and I started to fish for the ignition wires.

A shooting pain ran up my spine as I leant into the steering wheel, but my fingers had already found the right ones.

The engine sprung into life.

My pupils felt like they were the size of pinheads. My field of vision had been narrowed to about twenty degrees, but I managed to steer the car down the ramp, crashing through the barrier and out onto Fulton. I took a left on Pearl and got onto the FDR, my autopilot following the route I usually took back to Mamaroneck. Traffic was sparse, but steady and I kept my speed down and tried to drive as though I didn’t have a psychoactive drug doing cartwheels in my veins, but I quickly discovered I needed to pull over. I managed to get off the FDR at Houston and wormed my way through a couple of deserted streets before pulling into a free spot and killing the engine.

I needed new ID and a change of appearance.

I needed to get hold of Tess without putting her in jeopardy.

But first, I needed to sleep off the primordial demons running amok inside my head.