Collision

He stood up and splashed more bourbon in his glass. “This is the part I won’t repeat. When I started digging at Sam Hector, I got leaned on hard. Avalanche hard. By my supervisor and by a suit from Washington. I was told Sam Hector was not a suspect, could not be a suspect, and did not merit further scrutiny. I asked why, because I do not like getting leaned on and I thought, he’s got big government connections, he’s just throwing his dic-pardon, his weight around. I mean, could you do something that looked more guilty?” He touched the fresh bourbon to his lips. “I got into police work for two reasons. My dad was a cop and I admired him more than anyone I ever knew. Second was, I have a basic problem with unfairness. I know that sounds naive but it’s the way God made me.”

She offered him an awkward smile. “I’m the same way.” She thought of the dead Afghan kids, cut down in their pajamas. She understood Taggart and thought he understood her. He would have made a far better partner in work than Kidwell. “But we live in an inherently unfair world.”

He shrugged. “I felt Sam Hector wasn’t making my corner of the world more fair. So I dug a bit and found that the suit from Washington who warned me off was a senior CIA official.”

She set down her glass. “Why would the CIA care about Sam Hector?”

“At first, I thought, well, maybe the CIA’s a big client of Hector’s, he seems to do work for every government agency. But the CIA protecting him is an inverse in the power relationship. If he’s in trouble because of a crime he committed, and they’ve hired him, they’re going to cut him loose.”

“But instead they back him.”

“So they warned me off, and I let myself be warned off. But I always wondered, why did the CIA not want me to dig at Hector? Why would the CIA be shielding him?”

She drove from Cedar Hill back into the heart of Dallas, headed north on Central Expressway, cut across Plano to the private air park, and let herself into the safe house. The pilot who’d flown her up from Austin had thoughtfully stocked the refrigerator with basics, and she made herself a salad and a sandwich. She hadn’t realized until the bourbon inched into her stomach that she was starving.

The phone rang. “Vochek,” she said.

“Delia Moon is dead,” Pritchard said.

The words hit like a hammer to her chest. “What? How?”

“A man matching Ben Forsberg’s description was seen driving at high speed from her neighborhood. A man in a Mercedes who was either chasing him or fleeing with him shot at a police officer who responded to a report of shots fired. A woman was checking out a house being built down the street and heard the shots and called the police.”

“Ben… killed Delia?”

“We don’t know yet. What the hell is going on, Vochek?”

She didn’t like the chiding tone in Pritchard’s voice. “This software that Adam Reynolds was developing, about searching financial databases-what has the team found on it?”

“Why do you ask?”

It was not the response she expected. “Because Delia was dodgy about a project he was working on, said it was a prototype. She didn’t want to describe it to me. She was worried we wouldn’t return his property.”

Silence for a moment. “He was working on a way to identify and track people using false identities via combining information from lots of different databases. At least that’s what an encoded prototype on the system appears to be. But he didn’t save any queries or results from the program-I’m not sure this program would even work. And we can’t test it, we don’t have access to all those different databases.”

Vochek said, “False identity. One you invent, or one you steal.” The competing charges on Ben’s credit card made more sense to her now- especially if someone had stolen Ben’s identity. “I want to know why you told me to stay away from Sam Hector.”

“He’s just a contractor. We’re under the gun to produce results here, Joanna. He has nothing to do with-”

“He knows Ben Forsberg. He might be of help in finding him.”

“He’s not going to give shelter or help to a fugitive. It would be career suicide.”

Vochek couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice. “You’re the second government agency to be shielding Hector during a criminal investigation. Why?”

“I am hardly shielding him; I am keeping you focused on what matters, Joanna.”

“I want you to find out for me if Sam Hector is ex-CIA.”

“You want.”

“Please.”

“Well, he’s not. There’s an extensive government file on him. He’s ex-army. Not CIA.”

“Never mind what his file says.” She tempered her tone.

“Joanna. Leave it alone. Just find Randall Choate. That’s all that matters. Don’t get distracted.”

“If Hector is ex-CIA, don’t you think we should know that little fact?”

“Sleeping dogs,” Pritchard said. “But I can tell you won’t give this up, so fine. I’ll see what I can find.”

“Thank you, Margaret.” Vochek hung up. She had a sinking feeling that she’d opened a box best left sealed. Sam Hector was a powerful and respected man, but too many of the threads seemed to loop back toward him.