Trauma

CHAPTER 50

Everyone crammed into the compact foyer of the Bryants’ home to say good-bye to Detective Kowalski.

At the door Kowalski paused and focused on Carrie once more. “You have my card,” he said. “Anything changes, you let me know.”

“I will,” Carrie said. “And thank you, Detective, for everything you’ve done.”

“Wish I could do more,” Kowalski said. “I’m sorry this happened to you, I really am. Just know we’re going to do everything possible to figure out who this guy was and what he wanted.”

Carrie felt a stab of guilt, knowing it would be wasted effort. If the police even sniffed around DARPA, she firmly believed the whole operation would be shuttered, evidence purged, and everything Carrie had endured would be for naught. She owed it to Steve Abington and Eric Fasciani to hand the federal district attorneys an airtight case against Goodwin, Richardson, and Trent. Perhaps they would find the missing vets, or maybe evidence that Goodwin and Trent had plotted her murder, or that of Sam Rockwell.

Carrie had already formulated the next steps in her mind. What she needed now was time alone with David to finalize those plans. With Kowalski gone, Howard and Irene returned to the kitchen to clean up, and Carrie went outside for a breath of fresh air. David followed.

Carrie ambled down the walkway and David caught up with her just before she reached the driveway. He took her hand again and pulled her in close to him.

“You made the right call,” David said.

“Right call about what?”

Carrie and David whirled at the sound of Adam’s voice. He wore the same saturnine look Carrie had observed in the kitchen, something truly unsettled.

Adam folded his arms across his chest in a hostile manner, but kept his distance. “Right about what?” he repeated.

“Nothing, Adam,” Carrie said. “Just something David and I were discussing. It’s private.”

Adam closed the gap between them until only a few feet remained.

“Here’s what I think,” Adam said, his voice directed solely at David. A shadow crossed Adam’s face, a darkness Carrie found deeply troublesome. “I think since you two have been hanging out, a lot of bad things have happened to my sister.”

David took a single step toward Adam. He remained calm and composed, nonthreatening, nonconfrontational. Of course, Adam did not see it that way. His eyes dared David to throw the first punch.

“Adam, no,” David said. “This has nothing to do with me.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t see it that way,” Adam said. “Carrie’s been followed, somebody broke into her bedroom, somebody ran her off the road, and now someone tried to kill her. All that happened when? When, David?”

Carrie came forward. She knew how close Adam was to exploding. “Adam, this isn’t David’s doing,” Carrie said.

Adam maneuvered so close to David the two could almost touch noses. To his credit, David did not back away. But to Carrie’s eyes, David was nervous, and rightly so.

“Let’s be level-headed about this, Adam,” David said.

“Yeah, let’s,” Adam said in David’s face. “This is my sister and I love her, and I’d do anything to protect her. Anything. So I think the level-headed thing to do is stay away from her. Whatever you’re doing is dangerous, and if something happens to my sister, something happens to you. How’s that sound?”

Adam did not give an inch. His stare made Carrie hold her breath.

“Are you going to hit me again?” David asked in a calm voice.

By this point, Howard and Irene had noticed something going on, and they came outside to investigate.

Irene rushed down the walkway. “What’s happening?” she called.

The spell seemed to break. Not a second too soon, Carrie thought.

Adam turned around. “Nothing, Mom,” he said. He locked eyes with David once more. “David was just leaving, and I came out to say good-bye.”

Braxton Price stood on the bank of the Charles River and watched the sailboats carve graceful lines across the rippling water. Any minute now the call would come with his directive. Fifty-fifty, he thought. He knew which direction he wanted it to go. Gantry was a brother and a friend, and Carrie Bryant needed to die.

How a brain surgeon had taken down Gantry, a well-trained, hard-core soldier, was difficult for Price to fathom, but his friend was dead and that was that. The plan all along had been to take Carrie out in the parking lot early that morning, silent-like — certainly not in the hospital, which had a larger police presence. Gantry had evidently improvised, and somehow she got the better of him.

Pity.

Something like this was bound to happen, and Price had warned his employers on several occasions about the risk of continuing after Rockwell’s decommissioning. But once a grunt, always a grunt, and Price knew the suits were not about to take that kind of strategic direction from a low-level operator. Whatever. At least the group within DARPA who got this program off the ground had listened to him when it mattered most.

Nothing about Price’s motivations was especially patriotic. It was all about the money, and he’d balked at the notion of getting his muscle from a ragtag group of mercenaries whose loyalties could easily be compromised. Employing members from Price’s former squad, like Gantry, assured him that even under extreme duress his team would not falter. As individuals, each one of them had been tested, and while bones and bodies broke over in Afghanistan, allegiances never did. Price did not fight for his country; he fought solely for his brothers. When Gantry took that pill, he’d metaphorically leapt on a grenade to save his comrades. So Price would avenge him. It was not a matter of if, but when.

The air was still and warm, not unusual for this time of year. Price wanted to remove his jacket, but it hid the wires that would scramble the expected call. It also concealed his favorite pistol, a Beretta 92FS with a fifteen-round magazine and impeccable long-range accuracy.

At four thirty the call came in. Price wore an earpiece, but that was commonplace these days, so nobody took notice of him talking to himself on the bank of the Charles River. Price reached into his jacket pocket and pushed the Talk button without needing to check the phone’s display.

“Speak,” Price said.

“It’s a no-go,” a man’s voice said in his ear.

“Fine.”

“Too much scrutiny right now. There’s another way to get her removed.”

“Are we going dark?”

“No.”

“Bad idea. We should go dark.”

“Not my call,” the man said.

Price could not help but smile. “Yeah,” he said with a chuckle. “We’re all just players here.”