The Hunted

48

Scott Haviland stood at the bright opening to the Metro’s Archives-Navy Memorial Station. He stared down at the wallet in his left hand and saw Jonathan Waller’s smiling face looking up at him from the Virginia driver’s license. Not surprisingly, the wallet was nearly empty; photos of Waller’s two brothers were still inside, but the cash and credit cards were gone.

Haviland tucked the wallet inside his suit jacket and walked the length of the platform before descending a level and searching for a sign of either his partner or Harper Payne.

But he really did not expect to find them. He surmised that Payne had jumped on a train and that Waller had followed him aboard.

Haviland sat down on the bench and spread his arms across the seatback. The station manager had thought he recalled seeing two men matching their description entering the station a few minutes apart, but he could not be sure. Haviland turned his headfirst to the left, then to the right, taking in the expansive, high-ceilinged terminal. Very few people were in the station, and it was unlikely any of them had seen anything. If there had been an altercation, someone would’ve called 9-1-1, and police would be all over the place. Bottom line was that if his partner and Payne had been here, they weren’t here now, and that’s really all that mattered.

Haviland again tried reaching Waller’s cell phone, but was forwarded to his voicemail… which meant that either he had turned it off so it would not ring and give away his position, or he was for some reason unable to answer it. The uncertainty gnawed at him.

Haviland called his wife and told her not to wait up for him. He then slipped the phone back in his jacket pocket and began tapping out a rhythm on the cement floor with his foot.

He thought about calling Knox and informing him of their status. But he did not want to take the chance of someone intercepting the call, let alone that, if his partner was successful in apprehending Payne, he would not want the director to know they had lost him in the first place. No, he would hold off a little longer before hitting the panic button.

For the time being, he could do nothing but wait until Waller called him back.

At a few minutes past one in the morning, Haviland and Waller stood at Douglas Knox’s front door. They had called him a few moments ago to wake him and let him know it was urgent they meet with him immediately.

They sat down heavily in the chairs arranged in front of his desk and briefed their boss on the events of the past few hours.

The director wore a burgundy robe and leather moccasins, his gray hair tousled and his complexion ruddy and disturbed. “What am I supposed to do, huh? What the hell am I supposed to do?” he bellowed.

Waller kept his eyes on the desk in front of him. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Sorry?”

Waller knew it was the wrong thing to say — but he genuinely meant it. He felt responsible for allowing a key witness in one of the most important FBI cases in decades to escape. No matter how he wrote up his report, there was no way to avoid disciplinary action. But how it would affect his career wasn’t his biggest concern. It was saving face in front of the director. “He’s one of us, I thought I could trust him.”

“And the CIA thought it could trust Aldrich Ames,” Knox spat.

Waller cringed at the comparison to one of the most damaging spy cases ever to hit the U.S. intelligence community. He knew the two situations were vastly different, but he kept the thought to himself. “Yes, sir. I blew it. Nothing I say can excuse what I did.”

“I shoulder some of the responsibility as well, sir,” Haviland said.

“Fine, you’re a fuckup, too.” Knox stood, shoved his hands into the robe’s pockets, and began pacing. “How could you let this happen? Do you realize what’s on the line? We’ve got a court date four weeks away. With Payne, I’ve got control over what happens. Without him…”

Waller glanced at Haviland, who was staring straight ahead at the bookcase. Waller felt like reminding the director that they did not have Scarponi either — and without the defendant, the trial would be of limited value. But he decided to keep his thoughts to himself.

“Have you got any idea of where he might be?” Knox finally asked. “Any way of tracking him?”

“Aside from putting out an alert,” Haviland said, “there are no means of tracing him unless he uses one of Jon’s credit cards.”

“We can’t put out an alert,” Waller said. “We still don’t know who leaked the information about Harper’s amnesia. If it gets out that we lost our witness, every TV station would drag us through the stables until we had horseshit coming out of every orifice.”

“Let alone what Scarponi’s attorney will do with it,” Haviland added.

Knox stopped pacing. “He’s not going to use a credit card. It’d give us an immediate electronic trace on his location. He knows that. We’re not dealing with some dumb fugitive here.” There was silence for a moment while Knox stared at his meticulously neat desk. “Okay. Contact Metro PD. Tell them we’ve got a be-on-the-lookout for one of our own, Special Agent Richard Thompson. Tell them we suspect mental instability, and to use extreme caution. We don’t want him harmed. Then have Lindsey put out the same BOLO.” Knox shook his head. “Best we can hope for. Above all else, we need to find him.”

“Since we don’t know who the leak is,” Waller said, “I don’t know how long we can keep a lid on things.”

“I don’t either. But you two have left me no choice. That is, unless you find him fast.”

“We’ll do our best.”

“Make sure that’s good enough. I’m giving you forty-eight hours. If we don’t have him by then, you two are suspended indefinitely without pay.”

Waller and Haviland rose from their chairs and turned to leave.

“Forty-eight hours,” Knox called after them as they made their way to the door.