SHE SERIOUSLY considered taking the train north to Croton-on-Hudson. Though they talked regularly, she hadn’t laid eyes on her mother in months, and it would have been good to get the visual evidence that she was in decent shape. But to go to her mother, to even call her, would be to direct her would-be murderers to Croton, which could not end well.
In a Cuban dive in Chelsea, she ate boliche—beef roast stuffed with chorizo and potatoes—which brought her down to just a few dozen dollars. She tried to get her head around things. It was hard, because all she had was a handful of notable facts and too few lines of connection. Were there connections, or was her Bureau mind merely desperate to create an intricate web when in fact she was looking at parallel lines of inquiry that would never meet?
There was July 4, and the assassinations that Kevin had taken part in. This had always troubled her, for it was incredibly shortsighted. This one act of revolution could only ruin the image of the group and push its agenda back a decade. With that act—instigated, apparently, by Benjamin Mittag—they had ruined everything, even targeting some politicians who were relatively sympathetic; Hanes and Trumble had been prepared to face off with Plains Capital and IfW for helping international billionaires commit tax fraud. How did their murders make sense, even to a hothead like Mittag?
Then there was the Brigade itself, and its funding, which had led to Laura Anderson, an old woman in an Australian nursing home. She was obviously a cutout for someone else, but whom? Her old employer, the United Nations? Down that path lay unhinged conspiracies—next thing, she’d be marching across town to bang on the door of its headquarters. Besides, the UN survived on a shoestring budget, every penny meticulously accounted for, and funding a movement to undermine its largest contributor made little sense.
What about James Sullivan, her mysterious person of interest from nine years ago? An American who spoke perfect-sounding Russian and pretended—or maybe he wasn’t pretending?—to work for a pharmaceutical in Switzerland. Was he the financial through-line between his employers and Martin Bishop, using Laura Anderson?
And then the murder of Martin Bishop. Had the Bureau done it? As Kevin had pointed out, that was logistically impossible. There was simply no time between his call to Fordham and the shooting for even the Federal Bureau of Investigation to pull it off. Ben Mittag was the more believable culprit, but what was he aiming to achieve? To take over an organization that was synonymous with Bishop’s name?
And what about Sam Schumer? That purveyor of self-promotion masked as objective news had learned of Bishop’s murder before the Bureau had. Maybe Vale was right—maybe a witness had decided to call Schumer’s hotline but not inform anyone else. But Sarah Vale had smoked her green e-cigarette and waited for news of Rachel’s murder, so anything she said was in doubt.
Rachel got up and paid, thinking that this was too much for her to deal with alone. She needed help, but help was something she couldn’t depend on. Kevin wanted nothing to do with it, while David was a man motivated by fear. Her colleagues at the office were loyal to the Bureau, and she didn’t know how she stood with her employer. Maybe Ashley would be willing to look into something; maybe not.
When she returned to Penn Station, rush hour was under way, and she joined the cattle-car press of warm bodies trying to get home. If she was going to be on the run, she didn’t want to be trapped on the island of Manhattan.
She boarded the train, looking over her shoulder but finding only strangers’ eyes, then settled next to a sad-looking woman with a Macy’s bag. Where, she wondered, could she hope to find answers?
In the final report, perhaps. The timing was too perfect—they had asked for her version of the Massive Brigade story, then asked her to give up her right to ever speak of it again. Her refusal had signed her death warrant, which could only mean that she had contradicted their version of events. In what way, they hadn’t told her. Certainly Watertown would look different, but was protecting Owen’s job enough to justify murder? If so, then she was living in an even darker world than she’d imagined.
Of course it was about more than just Owen’s job, because this hadn’t been their first attempt on her life; her sore leg attested to that. As early as last year, they believed that she knew something, or could find out something, that would make trouble for them. That they’d left her alone for so long suggested that they assumed the attack in Arlington had knocked the fight out of her. In many ways, they had been right.
They, she thought with dismay. That all-encompassing they, that evil shadow behind all conspiracy theories. She’d become the kind of person she despised.
By the time the train left a station called Lebanon, two stops from the end of the line, most of the car had cleared out and she was plotting the near future: picking up her car and driving upstate and crossing over to the vast farmlands of New Hampshire, where she could find a small town and lie low for a while. Money was an issue, but that was tomorrow’s problem. She was thinking in terms of hours, not weeks or even days, and this left her in a state of anxiety that she knew would exhaust her sooner rather than later.
As the train stopped, released its passengers, then continued on, she thought that what she really needed, more than anything, was a drink.
And as if on cue, Kevin Moore sat down in the seat across from her. She straightened, shocked.
“Where you headed?” he asked.
She didn’t know if she should reply. Maybe—and this was only a passing thought—she’d dreamed him up as a kind of salvation. No. He was here, and he was asking her a question. “End of the line,” she said.
He shook his head and stood slowly. “No, you’re getting off at Annandale. It’s the next stop. My truck’s parked there.”
“Am I?”
He shrugged, looking down at her. “Your choice, Rachel. But I’d take this chance if I were you.”