CHAPTER 38

           When it comes to commitment, you are either fully engaged or not, for there is no gray area. Half measures will avail us nothing.

        —LANCASTER R. HILL, 100 Neighbors, SAWYER RIVER BOOKS, 1939

His ringing cell phone roused Vaill from a dreamless sleep. Even before answering it, he began testing himself. Stiff sheets, unfamiliar mattress, LG TV propped up on the dresser at the foot of the bed. He was in a hotel—a Marriott in downtown Atlanta. The room curtains were like lead shields, and if the sun had already come up, it was impossible to tell. The ringing continued. Vaill fumbled for the phone, knocking over his bottle of Tylenol. His voice was sleep-drenched.

“Yeah, Vaill here.”

“Tim, it’s Chuck.”

Vaill brightened.

“Hey, buddy, what’s going on? What time is it?”

“Sorry to wake you, sleeping beauty. I actually thought you’d already be gone. It’s eight-thirty.”

“Shit.”

Vaill sat up and felt a twinge behind his eyes, but nothing materialized. He had planned to get Welcome to the Richard B. Russell Federal Building and the district court magistrate judge before nine. Now he’d be hard-pressed to make it there by ten. No big deal, he supposed.

“Don’t worry about it,” McCall said. “It’s probably just as well if Welcome’s not moved around too much.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“I just got a call from the team Snyder sent over with a warrant to Miller’s apartment. They found the place trashed, and a dead body in a pool of clotted blood in the middle of the floor. Humphrey’s gone. The guys are knocking on doors now, but so far no one saw or heard anything. The victim’s name is Cassie Bayard. She works for a company that provides home health services. Took two in the chest from close range.”

Burke!

“Shit,” Vaill muttered again. “What’s the T.O.D.?”

“The police forensic guys checked body temperature and stiffness of the corpse and put the T.O.D. between five-thirty and seven-thirty this morning, but the pathologist should be able to narrow that down even more.”

“What did Snyder say?”

“She’s freaked and so am I. It was her call on my advice to get the search warrant for the lab first and use that as probable cause to get a warrant to search Miller’s apartment and question him. That may have cost us a couple of hours. Now she’s feeling the heat from above.”

Vaill never questioned Snyder’s decision to move cautiously on Miller. She never acted impulsively, which is why there were jokes about her sleeping with the FBI’s procedures manual under her pillow. Snyder’s commitment to protocol was probably the reason she’d risen in the ranks while Vaill was still in the field.

Now, in spite of himself, Vaill began considering a rushing stream of other explanations for this latest disaster—especially the possibility that Burke wasn’t the only one in the agency who was working for the Society of One Hundred Neighbors.

The first mention of Humphrey Miller and his connection to Ahmed Kazimi had come from Lou Welcome at two-thirty that morning, and had almost immediately been relayed to Beth by McCall. Who she talked to after that was anyone’s guess. Now Miller was gone and a woman was dead in his apartment, with the stench of Alexander Burke’s close-range M.O. hanging heavy in the air. Even after exhaustive backtracking, to this day, nobody knew how the killer had infiltrated the organization. Did he have help from the inside? If so, someone else in the agency was on One Hundred Neighbors’ payroll.

“Chuck,” Vaill asked, “did you put Humphrey Miller’s name into the I.D.W. after you phoned it in to Beth?”

I.D.W. stood for Investigation Data Warehouse, and it was where all leads associated with active cases got logged in by the investigating agents. Vaill knew that he was being intentionally cagey with his partner. Their pairing was fairly new. How much did he really know about the man? What if McCall had worked his way onto the investigation team the same way Burke had infiltrated Kazimi’s security detail?

Vaill’s mind was spinning.

This was the second major security breach. Who in the hell could he trust?

“Right after I called Snyder I keyed the new leads into the I.D.W. from my phone,” McCall replied.

More possible sources of leaks. The I.D.W hadn’t been in place long, and already had a reputation as a sieve.

Vaill pried the curtains apart. Bright sunlight hit him like a straight-on jab. He squinted against the glare and the renewed throbbing, and sucked down three extra-strength Tylenols without any water. In passing, he considered reporting his suspicions to Internal Affairs. But if the leaker turned out to be someone high up the food chain, they’d probably get Vaill kicked off the investigation within hours, if not out of the agency altogether. For the moment at least, he decided that his best chance to avenge Maria would be to operate in the shadows while keeping his mistrust for the FBI a secret.

“So,” McCall was saying, “how about letting Welcome fester a bit longer in jail and come check out Miller’s apartment with me?”

There were rules for how long Welcome could be detained without due process, but like anything pertaining to terrorism, those rules could be bent or even broken. Still, McCall had unknowingly brought up yet another consideration. If One Hundred Neighbors wanted Humphrey dead or captured, it was reasonable to assume they could be targeting Lou Welcome as well. Those two men were more than passing acquaintances. Since he no longer trusted the FBI, Vaill knew he alone had to protect Welcome, at least until he got more facts.

“I’m getting another call, Chuck,” Vaill lied. “Hang on the line a second.”

Vaill cupped the phone and counted slowly to twenty. Maria often complimented his ability to think creatively. Exhausted as he was, he at least had not lost a step in that regard.

“Chuck, are you still there?” he asked finally.

“I’m here.”

“That was Welcome. Apparently he’s got more information to share about the Neighbors, and he wants to cut a deal. But for whatever reason he says he’ll only talk to me, and he won’t do it there. I’m going to go and get him.”

“Then what are you going to do?” McCall asked. “You need help?”

“Not as long as there are handcuffs in the world. I’ll take him into protective custody and just learn what he has to say.”

It was a good lie because McCall would have no reason to bring it to Snyder’s attention … unless the two of them were connected in other ways.

“Okay,” McCall said. “I’ll be at Miller’s. Call or meet me there after.”

He gave Vaill the address.

“Sounds good. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Vaill showered quickly and got dressed, thinking that if McCall turned out to be the mole, he’d have no problem shooting to kill.