| |
SEATTLE (Monday, Dec. 3, 2012, 7 p.m.) — Mac watched the house, the roof and the shorefront over Danny’s body. He almost shot Nick Rodriguez and Stan Warren as they came around the corner of the house. He shoved his weapon out of sight, in the back of his pants, and shrugged his shirt down over it.
“Bout time you showed up,” Mac said.
“Got a call from my ma,” Warren said. He looked at Danny’s body. “Dead?” Warren asked. Mac nodded. Warren glanced up at the roofline.
“Parker here?” he asked next.
Mac shook his head. “They took him out by boat hours ago — about the time I got out of jail,” he said with a glance at Rodriguez. Rodriguez was calling for an ambulance for Danny’s body.
“No way to pin it on Parker?”
“No.”
“Damn,” Warren said. There was a note to his voice Mac couldn’t quite place. Warren turned away to start back around the house.
“You quitting, Agent Warren?” Mac asked softly.
“You win some, you lose some.” Warren shrugged. “If I’m not going to win, I don’t need to let the landslide bury me.”
Mac filed that statement away. Something going on there. He’d figure it out eventually. “If you give me a ride, I’ll introduce you to someone you want to meet, however,” Mac said matter-of-factly.
Warren stopped, turned around and walked back toward him. “OK,” he said slowly. He didn’t ask who.
Rodriguez covered his phone, and said, “You two aren’t going anywhere without me. For one thing, I’m pretty sure a shoot-out at the Parker place is a bail violation, and for the second, I drove.”
Mac snorted. He stretched his hands behind him, cracking his spine. The adrenaline and focus were leaving, he felt drained without it.
“OK,” Rodriguez said, shutting off the phone. “We can go.”
Mac shook his head. “Not until the body goes,” he said.
The three waited in silence. Several times Warren started to say something but stopped. Mac was too tired to care. He’d killed a man today — a man he had known for a long time, had respected once. He never had to do that before.
There were bodies in his past. Faceless enemies in war, for instance. Twice during college he’d taken on an enforcer job. He had needed the money; his friends had needed his abilities. But he swore he wouldn’t do that again. The money was good, but the price was high. He’d kept the Glock under his bed as reminder.
‘Course, it wasn’t under his bed anymore. Ironic, he thought, years later that Glock was being used to accuse him of a murder he didn’t commit.
Today was different. An eye for an eye, and all that. Still, he’d walked up to a man, and shot him point blank. It made him feel drained.
And angry. Mac could still feel the rage burning hot deep inside of him. He wanted Parker. Kellerman had not been a bad man. Parker had used Kellerman as a pawn in some shitty game, sacrificed for Parker’s fucking career. Kellerman had been loyal to Parker; and in return? Got a bullet to the gut. Wasn’t right.
Kellerman had been surprised Mac shot him. “I didn’t think you would,” he’d tried to say. Mac scowled, bothered by it. What had Kellerman expected? For Mac to let Danny die without retribution? He could have had him arrested; Mac guessed. Maybe they could have adjoining jail cells. With Parker’s strings, chances were that Kellerman would be out, the charges swept under the rug — after all Danny was shot trespassing in a town that didn’t tolerate trespassers. The semi-automatic weapons might be a bit hard to explain.... Mac snorted.
The medics came around the end of the house with a stretcher, and Mac set aside his thoughts to focus on getting Danny’s body hauled out. He watched the medics take the body away, then ran scratched his chin.
“You said you had a car?” he asked Kellerman.
Mac escorted the two men up the front steps to his house. Kristy opened the door. “Danny?” she whispered.
Mac shook his head. “He didn’t make it,” he said as gently as he knew how. “I’m sorry.”
Kristy nodded silently, tears welling up in her eyes. She stepped back to let them inside.
Shorty was sprawled in a leather armchair usually reserved for Mac as it had the best view of the TV; Troy was on the couch. Someone had tried to pick things up a bit. The cushions were back on the couch, but it still wasn’t up to normal housekeeping standards. The television had a basketball game on; no one was watching.
“Agent Warren, Troy Maxim,” Mac said.
“We’ve met,” Warren said. “But I’m damn glad to see him safe and sound again.”
Mac repeated, “You’ve met. I see.”
Troy said nothing, looked at no one.
Mac gestured to Kristy. “This is Kristy Brown, Danny’s sister.” She held out her hand, both Warren and Rodriguez shook it.
“Nick Rodriguez. Shorty.” Mac completed the introductions.
“Did you ever see Howard Parker?” Warren asked urgently.
“Shit, no,” Troy said. He had his head tipped back against the couch; his eyes closed. He hadn’t looked at anyone. “Kellerman. Some FBI dude I don’t know. A couple of others. But Howard Parker kept his deniability all the way through.”
Warren grimaced but didn’t look surprised. “Start from the beginning,” he said, taking a dining room chair. Rodriguez leaned against the wall. Mac urged Kristy to the center of the couch, sat next to her.
Troy sighed, sat up. “I blew it,” he said simply.
“That we know,” Mac growled. “Tell us what we don’t know.”
“I suppose you think you could have done better,” Troy snapped back.
“I did do better.”
“Then why didn’t you help when I called you?” Troy said, enraged.
Shorty flicked off the television. “You called Mac?” he asked curiously. He looked at Mac.
“You said you had something you needed guarded and who better than the best Marine you ever served with?” Mac began, so angry it was hard for him to get the words out. It had been bugging him for days now.
“Yeah, and you said you weren’t into that shit,” Troy said.
Mac leaned forward to glare at Troy around Kristy. “Did you for one fucking moment think about what business I am in these days?” he asked, dangerously still. “I’m a fucking reporter. Did it ever occur to you that if you had said, hey bro, I’ve got the dirt on one of the nominees for Cabinet, you want the story? That I wouldn’t have done everything in my power to help you?”
Troy looked at him blankly. Warren snickered. Even Rodriguez blinked.
“I don’t think of you like that,” Troy said lamely.
“Not many people do,” Warren murmured, his lips twitching with amusement.
“Shit,” Mac said with disgust. He leaned back against the couch. “Talk, then.”
Troy looked at his hands. “We’re up shit creek,” he said. “I don’t know where Danny hid the papers.”
Warren frowned. “Why does that matter? You know what was in them don’t you? Between the two of you?”
Troy sighed. “Oh yeah, about the drug thing in New Mexico. But that’s not all of it. It’s all I had when I talked to you. When I called Danny the first time. But then someone called me. Offered me more stuff. He knew what I had, said there was more. That operation wasn’t even the worst of it. So he said.”
Troy paused. Mac leaned over Kristy, grabbed Troy’s face and forced him to look his way. “If you don’t tell the story without the melodramatic pauses and sighs, I am going to bust you up. Is that clear?” Mac said through clenched teeth. “Talk!”
“There’d been some pressure at work — Senator Murray said she’d gotten a call from someone saying I was spying for a foreign government. She didn’t believe it — the guy should have said I was spying for the Republicans. That might have worried her.”
Troy told about getting the briefcase, about someone trying to break in. “That’s when I called Mac,” Troy told the attentive group in Mac’s living room. “I knew I needed backup. I didn’t know what I had, didn’t think about anything except getting backup. Mac chewed me out, hung up on me.”
Mac growled low in his throat; Kristy looked at him anxiously. She patted his arm. He forced himself to smile at her.
Troy hurried on. “The briefcase had a computer disk in it, and three or four folders of pages. Someone had gone through a computer and downloaded current stuff, then through paper files and copied them. Some of it made sense, but a lot of it was just ... stuff. It was going to take time to sort through it all. The computer disk was formatted for a Mac, and I have a PC at home.” Troy ran his hand over his close-cropped hair and sighed. He caught Mac’s eye and hurried on.
“My girlfriend said she was stalked one night. The security guard at my apartment complex said someone had tried two nights in a row to break into it. The night I got the tip, I also got a threatening call. Someone said my family would die if I pursued my investigation. One by one.” Troy swallowed.
Warren interrupted. “Did it sound like they knew what you had? Or just the questions you’d been asking? What we’d talked about?”
Troy shook his head as if to clear it. “Just my questions. I was terrified. What if they knew I had more files? So, I ran. I took the files to Danny.”
“And the kidnapping?” Warren asked.
Troy shrugged. “They were waiting for me after work the day I got back. Said they were FBI, probably were, they had badges. Said I was wanted for questioning in the violation of the National Security Act. I started to protest, but they hustled me out to a car. One guy, older guy with a gravelly voice, knocked me out as soon as I ducked inside the back.”
After that, he’d been shifted from place to place. Questioned. Threatened. “Finally, I told them I had backup plans. If I died, someone would release everything.”
“That’s not the instructions you gave Danny,” Mac observed. “He said you told him to dump them in the ocean if you ended up dead. If Kristy hadn’t been kidnapped, he probably would have.”
“If this was too much trouble for me to handle, you really think Danny could have broken the story?” Troy asked. He saw Mac’s expression and swallowed hard. He hurried on filling in the details.
“The next thing I know I’m flown out here in a military jet and taken to the house you just busted us out of. And then they brought in Kristy.”
Warren nodded. “It wouldn’t be hard to figure out that you’d go to one of your three buddies — especially if they think that’s all you’ve got. Seeing Blankenship is still in Saudi, that narrowed it down to two. They make a run at Danny, get Kristy. It’s a possible, but not for sure; they try a bit of blackmail. They take Kristy’s picture with them, flash it at Mac. He doesn’t seem to click into it, so they aren’t sure there either. They toss him in the Sound.”
Mac frowned. It didn’t add up completely. Why shoot a cop with his gun, frame him and then try to drown him? It seemed like overkill.
“I guess,” Troy said tiredly. “Anyway, without those files, all I’ve got is that he ran an undercover mission for the DEA/CIA 10 years ago. Not enough to scuttle a nomination — hell, look at Ollie North. They elected him for that kind of embarrassment.”
“What do you mean, not enough?” Kristy burst out. “He had us kidnapped. Danny’s dead because of him. You’re going to let him be on the Cabinet?”
Now it was Warren’s turn to look hassled. “Every time I dig up something on the man, he slides out of it. Someone pulls a string. Someone smooths it out. Troy’s story was the most promising. This other stuff sounds even better. But....” Warren shrugged. “Unless you saw him in all this, none of the cover up is going to fall to him. Kellerman will take the fall for most of it.”
“What about the drug operation?” Mac asked. “That would be pretty embarrassing if it came out.”
Warren nodded. “I’m still going to pursue that. The more I learn the more I’m sure that Parker shouldn’t be one of the leaders of the free world.” He rolled his eyes at the phrase. “But Troy is right. In some circles that kind of black bag mission would raise his stature. And I’m afraid some of those people are going to be the ones deciding who is on this administration’s cabinet.”
Mac said slowly. “Bad publicity, however....”
Warren looked at Mac, no emotion showing. “You got enough for a story? One your paper would print? Hell, right now, you don’t even have a job, technically.”
“True,” Mac admitted. Shorty snickered, the first sound he’d made in an hour. At Mac’s glare, he sank back into watchful silence.
“If it wasn’t for the fact that your boss has more balls than most men I know, you’d still be sitting in jail waiting for your aunt to post bail,” Warren said sourly.
“I doubt your boss would appreciate the description,” said a crisp voice from the kitchen door. “And what the hell happened to my house?”
Mac looked at his aunt. “Now is not a good time to be surprising us, Lindy,” he said. The others in the room relaxed. Rodriguez sheepishly eased his hand off his gun holstered under his left arm.
Lindy turned back to the kitchen. “If you all are that jumpy, food sounds in order. You can explain about the house later.”
Kristy made a movement as if to go help her, but Mac shook his head. “You need to hear this,” he said.
Mac sighed, then shrugged. “So, the answer is no, I probably couldn’t print a story based on what I have now,” Mac admitted. “Danny’s death would incriminate me, for one thing, and I’m still on bail.” He glowered at Rodriguez.
“Not for long, surely!” Kristy said with surprise.
Mac smiled at Rodriguez with no humor apparent. “Yes, detective, explain that to her.”
“Parker is pulling in favors and pulling strings all over town,” Rodriguez admitted. “Including some in the D.A.’s office. You have to admit the Glock and the fingerprints are pretty damning. Those charges will stick for a while.”
Kristy fidgeted on the couch. “So, do you all think there is nothing to be done, and he walks,” she said flatly. “I take my brother home and bury him. Parker goes on to be one of the top men in the country — I can watch my brother’s murderer on national television. That’s what you all are going to let happen?”
Mac watched the others. No one wanted to meet anyone’s eyes. Who let the idealist sit in on this meeting? he thought with amusement.
Warren stood up. “I hope it doesn’t turn out that way,” he said. “But without more than this....” He shrugged. “I’ll pass on the concern about the drug operation and how all this went down. Maybe sane heads will rule.” His tone said he doubted it.
Mac followed Warren and Rodriguez onto the front porch. They walked down the steps to Rodriguez’s car, talking about something. Getting quite chummy, Mac noticed. He sat in the porch chair, looking out, trying not to think, not to feel. It had begun to rain, ending the unseasonable dry weather. It wasn’t a torrential rain, like that in some places he’d lived. It was a steady drizzle, wetting down everything. It always seemed to Mac that he was damp most of the time from October to May. Most Seattlites didn’t bother with umbrellas, you got wet, you dried off, you got wet again. He sighed. He almost wished for a good old storm, with lightning and thunder and a real downpour of rain. It would suit his mood better than this steady, monotonous gray drizzle of Seattle.
“May I join you?” Kristy said quietly from the front door.
Mac shrugged, gestured to the other chair. “I’m not likely to be good company,” he said.
She sat down, reached for his hand. “You rescued us,” she said simply. “And I haven’t even said thanks.”
Mac flinched. “I fucked up. If I hadn’t fucked up you wouldn’t have been kidnapped in the first place, Danny wouldn’t be dead, and C.J. ...,” he trailed off.
She stroked his hand. “Right,” she said, a soft southern lilt to her voice told him she was poking mild fun at him. “You take too much upon yourself.”
Mac shook his head. “No, I’m not,” he said in a low voice. She leaned forward to hear him, and he cleared his throat, spoke a little louder. “If I had helped Troy when he called, it wouldn’t have turned out like this.”
“You didn’t owe him that.”
“Yeah, I did.” Mac searched for the words. “You gotta be loyal to your friends, your family. You gotta take care of them, because they’re the ones who will take care of you. Troy has saved my butt in battle I don’t know how many times, and I’ve saved his. He had the right to call me for help, and I... I fucked it up.”
Kristy was silent for a moment. “Why did you say no then?”
Mac looked out at the dark street glistening in the rain. A car drove by.
“I work downtown,” he said slowly. “I go to the office in nice clothes and polished shoes. The people I work with, they’ve got college degrees like I do, and we gripe about things like the rain, and the Mariners, and the traffic. My friends and I go out to a bar and listen to music, debate the merits of the new rappers compared to old school hip-hop. We dance. Laugh. Go home, make love, maybe. Good things, you know.”
“Normal things.”
“For you maybe. I know you and Danny had some rough times growing up, but I....” He shook his head, steadied his voice.
“So when Troy called, I was pissed off. I didn’t want to go back to a world where I had to be the biggest, fastest badass just to stay alive. So I said no way. I’m not going back. I’m going to stay where it is warm and light and clean.”
Kristy protested, “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
Mac gave her a wry smile. “Didn’t matter. Troy had the right to ask, and I wasn’t there for him. Danny was. He wasn’t up to doing what needed to be done, but he gave it the old Marine try — you don’t have to come back, but when the orders come, you have to go out. Your brother was a man, Kristy, and you should be proud of him.”
Kristy sighed. “He practically worshipped you and Troy; you know. I’ve heard stories about you for years. Danny wanted family, wanted it in ways I will never understand completely. When mom and dad died, he was determined we would stay together. Somehow he managed it, and that isn’t easy in the foster system. People thought he was weird for living with me, but it wasn’t like that. He wanted to marry someday, wanted me to marry. Wanted both of us to have lots of kids. So we’d be family, you know?”
Her voice faltered, she stopped, and then went on with a firmer voice. “He thought of you as brothers, you and Troy. You’re right, he was a good man. But his death isn’t your responsibility. He’d be the first to tell you that. You’re a good man, too, I think. You just do the best you can.”
Mac shook his head. “No. I’m not good. That’s the point. Troy came to me first because I’m tough.” He shrugged. “I fucked up.”
“Mac?” Shorty’s voice came from inside. “Your aunt wants you.”
“Coming.” Mac looked out at the rainy street one more time. Kristy stood up, tugged at his hand, pulling him back inside the house.