The wind licking off the runway of Teterboro Airport rocked the little Honda as I drove north along Industrial Avenue, headed for the Homeland Security hangar that served the FBI and a handful of federal agencies whenever they needed a ride. Teterboro sat around ten miles west of Manhattan, in Bergen County, New Jersey. It was home to a bunch of private air charter companies that hauled goods and people. I’d once dated a girl in nearby Moonachie, and we’d drive down Industrial Avenue and then sit on the hood of my beat-up Chevy and split a six-pack while the planes roared overhead.
As I drove I tried to keep Christine out of my thoughts. In my mind I replayed my conversation with Langhiemer. He had no love for David. Probably hated him. But was that enough to kill Clara to set up David for murder? At my core, I knew David didn’t kill Clara. But I wondered whether I was being conned by David, or was conning myself into believing he was innocent.
One way or another, I needed to stop this before the firm’s tattooed man dropped a bowl of acid on Christine, David, or me.
The Honda slammed over a speed hump that I hadn’t seen. My head hit the ceiling and I swore.
As soon as I relaxed my mind and stopped thinking about David and Langhiemer, my mind went straight to Christine. Replaying our phone call not a half hour ago.
Christine told me she didn’t want to leave New York. She wanted to stay and tough it out. She was plenty tough, but in the way that lawyers are often tough: crusading against the odds and playing the risks. This was a different situation. I told her she wasn’t safe and that if she didn’t get on the damn plane with Amy that I would throw her on board and tie her to the seat.
Guilt.
I blamed Ben Harland and Gerry Sinton for their greed, for their cowardice in using the junior associates at their firm as patsies for their fraud.
And I blamed myself.
When Amy was born Christine said she didn’t want to work until Amy was well into her teens. I figured it was to do with Christine’s upbringing. Her mom had worked long hours and Christine had spent most of her early years with nannies and babysitters, rarely getting much time with her parents, even on weekends.
Guilt.
The only reason Christine took the job at Harland and Sinton was because I couldn’t make ends meet for my family. Christine had worked in prestigious firms after she passed the bar exam and so her résumé opened a lot of doors. Just before Christmas, Christine took the job in Harland and Sinton, part-time at first, then more hours. By the end of January she was doing sixty-hour weeks. She didn’t want the job. She wanted time with Amy. Time that I denied them both by not bringing home the dollars.
A light rain had begun to fall, and I struggled to see much ahead of me in the tiny headlight beams. After ten minutes with my nose close to the windshield, watchful for speed humps, I saw the taillights of a small aircraft up ahead on the right and the beacon light from an airfield hangar just beyond the plane. I turned in to the lot and made for the hangar.
As I got closer I saw Dell’s car parked outside the open hangar doors.
Christine, her sister, and Amy would be arriving soon.
I parked the Honda, folded the collar of my suit jacket around my neck, and jogged to the hangar door. By the time I’d stepped inside, I was wet through. A yellow-orange glow from the overhead lights gave a false impression of heat. The hangar was like a meat locker. Standing by the small plane I saw Dell, Kennedy, and two or three other agents in suits, Ferrar and Weinstein among them. Weinstein still cradled his strapped-up fingers.
A hand in the air from Dell silenced Kennedy as I approached them. Both men wore long overcoats and gloves.
“I knew I could rely on you, Eddie,” said Dell. He nodded and smiled.
“Kennedy knows I always deliver,” I said.
“Thank God,” said Kennedy, in a way that somehow made me understand that he was against the whole setup from the start. While Kennedy and I would never be buddies, I suspected he didn’t appreciate Dell’s methods. Kennedy had a family, too.
A tech opened up a laptop on the hood of a black SUV, and Dell held out his hand for the pen drive. Farther back in the hangar I saw another black SUV, but I didn’t pay it any further thought.
“We want to make sure you’re not conning us, Eddie. If you don’t mind, we want to look at the kind of data that’s on the drive,” said Dell.
“You won’t be able to read it, not without the password,” I said, handing it over.
The tech inserted the drive into the laptop and I heard the machine purr as it came to life, running its checkups and alert systems as it began to access the memory.
A thumbs-up.
“There’s a lot of data here,” said Dell.
“It’s there. Let me see the money,” I said.
An agent produced a large sports bag and opened it. One-hundred-dollar bills—twenty-five of them in each bundle. I emptied the money onto the poured concrete floor and tossed the bag away. Stack by stack, I flicked through the bills, making sure there were no devices like a tracer or an ink bomb and that each bill carried a portrait of Benjamin Franklin. As I assessed each bundle I piled them up neatly beside me and began to build a small tower of cash. They all looked the same, felt the same, and weighed about the same.
“If I find any tracer spray on these bills…”
“They’re good,” said Dell.
Satisfied, I stood. The rain grew louder on the aluminum roof of the hangar. Even over the pounding noise, I heard a car approach and saw the headlights reflected in the sheets of fat, heavy rain. The car stopped outside the hangar. It was Carmel’s Lexus with Christine and Amy inside.
“Your passengers?” asked Dell.
“That’s them.”
“Then we’re all here. The password please, Eddie.”
“The agreements first.”
Stepping forward, Kennedy drew out two envelopes. He placed one of them on the hood of the truck and gave the other to Dell.
The first envelope contained an immunity agreement for Christine—signed by both Kennedy and District Attorney Zader, confirming that no state or federal criminal charges of any kind would be filed against Christine White arising out of her employment at Harland and Sinton.
But there was a condition.
There’s always a condition.
Her immunity hinged on her testifying against Benjamin K. Harland and Gerald Sinton at their subsequent trials.
I folded the document back into the envelope and slipped it into my jacket. Dell mirrored my move and placed the second envelope into his coat.
“I need to see David’s agreement,” I said, extending my hand.
“We don’t know what you’ve really got on that drive. If it’s good, he’ll get what he deserves,” said Dell, who began walking toward the open doors. He gestured for me to follow him. Ferrar grabbed an umbrella, stepped in beside Dell, and winced as he tried to open it. He switched the umbrella to his left hand. His right arm must’ve still been ringing from the brass knuckles.
I joined them at the threshold of the hangar, where the wind whipped the rain into our faces. The rain seemed to chill the hot, leaden pain in my neck. I let it wash over my face—breathed it in.
“We had a deal. The agreements first,” I said.
“Where are you taking my plane?” said Dell.
“You don’t need to know.”
“She’ll need to tell the pilot, at least. He’ll have to radio in the destination, so you might was well tell me now.”
“When the plane is in the air, I’ll let you know,” I said.
“I don’t suppose it matters much,” he replied, sniffing the air and letting his gaze fall into the dark sky. “There’s a storm coming,” he said.