Collision

“Holy Jesus, Ben. He played both sides. As the Dragon, he set up the attack on Gumalar that the CIA wanted done. He must have even killed his own informants, put their hands in that bag-if he was vanishing as the Dragon, he didn’t want any locals who could name him or ID him. The Indonesian intel guys in the park were there because he told them I would be there, doing a job on their own soil. Then he switched sides, told the Indonesians he could get the CIA to back off if they gave him a security contract. He launched his company with the blood of innocent people… He profits from ruining a perfect CIA operation. He makes it look like he’s lost his cover and even his buddies at the CIA buy it; they stay in bed with him. Maybe he paid them off. He profits from protecting people who were funding terrorists.” Pilgrim shook his head. “He destroyed my life…”

Ben reached for Pilgrim, touched his shoulder. Pilgrim flinched, pressed his fist against his mouth.

“I told them the Dragon was alive; they told me I’d killed him with that shot before I ran. They covered for him and sold me out. Jesus.” He sank to the floor, cupping his head in his hands. “I’m going to kill him.”

“No wonder you preferred not to have a partner all these years,” Ben said. “What was your family told?”

“I looked up the news accounts later… They were fed a story that I was smuggling drugs on the side. I’m sure they were told that I died in the jailbreak Teach staged.”

“I’m sorry, Pilgrim.” He thought of the drawings of the girl, her imagined transition from toddler to teen, Pilgrim’s only connection to his daughter.

“So he gets you out of the way and uses my name.” Ben was quiet. “That means…” He stopped.

“Finish the sentence, Ben. It means the Lynch brothers worked for him. It means the gunmen were in Hector’s pocket, too, and he sent the gunmen into the Homeland office to kill us all. Including his own people. Just like back in Indonesia.”

Ben’s temples began a slow drumbeat pound. “You understand this goes against everything I’ve ever known about this man. He puts loyalty and country ahead of all. He kept me going when Emily died.. . he was there for me…”

“You understand he spent years living a double life. Fooling you, or anyone else, is going to be easy for him. He pulled the double frame on us. It’s no coincidence Barker gave me your identity. Hector knows I’m a threat to his takeover of the Cellar. You’re somehow a threat to him, too.”

“No.”

“Those dates you showed me. You said Emily died two years ago. Same time McKeen gets bought by a mystery company. She was an accountant. Maybe she found money being used she wasn’t supposed to know about.”

“Now you’re reaching too far. Sam adored Emily.” He thought of Emily, laughing on the phone with Sam, in the minutes before the bullet ended her life. No.

“Get it through your head. You don’t truly know this guy. He’s a trained killer, Ben, and the most manipulative bastard I’ve ever known. Jackie is driving a car registered to a company he once had dealings with. He’s connected.”

Ben was silent for a long minute, thinking of Sam’s insistence on not meeting him in a public place, of the soft, bored click of the abacus while Ben had begged Sam for help. “Okay,” he finally said.

“We’re going to his house,” Pilgrim said. “Force him to tell us where Teach is.”

“No, we’re not. That’s suicide right now. His house will be a fortress. It’s also exactly what he would expect,” Ben said. “We’re going to beat him by doing what he doesn’t expect.”

29

Five past midnight, a quiet Saturday. Jackie sat and drank the shot of vodka neat. The alcohol stung the cuts in his lip but he didn’t care. He closed his eyes and let them water, then blinked.

He’d escaped from the delivery van, easing out at the first stop when the deliveryman busied himself loading an oven onto the dolly. Jackie had crawled out of the truck, unseen. He spotted a busy thoroughfare a block away, which saved the trucker’s life-Jackie didn’t need to kill him to get away, and disposing of a full furniture truck would have been a hassle. Jackie walked a quarter mile, until he reached a gas station and called Hector to come pick him up.

Hector wasn’t happy that Ben was free and Jackie had lost a car. Jackie didn’t care.

He peered out the window, bored, restless, ready to hurt someone. Hector had well over a dozen security personnel-as arrogant as the British Army had been, he thought, in the Belfast of his youth-wandering the property. The men made Jackie feel safer, but their presence was a pain; he and Teach had to be kept out of sight. Hector did not want to explain to his squad of respectable former policemen and ex-military why a woman was being held against her will. No one was allowed in the main house but Hector.