David Baldacci - Memory Man

Bogart nodded and then looked at the other two agents, both burly men who looked like they wanted to kill someone, anyone. “Turn her over.”

The ME pulled back the sheet, revealing the body of Special Agent Lafferty. Her skin was very pale in front. The ME had of course already cut her open; the Y-incision track sutures across her upper torso looked brutal, menacing, like twin zipper tracks cut into human flesh. Her facial skin drooped a bit because it had been sheared off in one large piece and then put back up. Her skull had been sawed open and her brain taken out before the procedure was reversed and everything was put back together.

When they turned her over the paleness was gone. Her skin there was red, almost burnt-looking from where the blood had pooled.

Decker was not focused on that.

He was looking at what was on her back.

He drew closer because the skin discoloration made it hard to see clearly.

But then he did see it.

Someone had cut something into Lafferty’s back.

Someone had carved out words with the blade of a knife using her body as paper. There were two lines of writing, one directly below the other.

When will it end bro

You tell me

They all walked outside. Bogart looked at his men and said, “Give us a minute. I’ll meet you at the vehicles.” They left. Bogart turned to Lancaster. “I’d like a private word with your partner.”

Lancaster glanced at Decker, who said, “I’ll see you later, Mary.”

“You sure?”

“He’s sure,” said Bogart sharply.

Lancaster stared at Bogart. “I’m sorry about Agent Lafferty.”

“ Special Agent Lafferty. Thanks.”

She turned and walked off, glancing back over her shoulder once before she rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.

The next moment Bogart had pushed Decker up against the brick wall of the morgue. He wedged his forearm against his throat.

“Okay, you fat-ass son of a bitch, we’re going to have this out right here and now.”

Bogart was big, strong, and in far better shape than Decker. And he had a freight train load of hate and frustration fueling his physical side. Still, Decker had him by well over a hundred pounds and had once been a professional football player. After the men struggled for about a minute, each trying to gain the upper hand, Decker bent his knees and pushed off the wall, and that momentum combined with his bulk thrust both men forward, although it was really backward for Bogart. At the same time Decker hooked his left ankle behind the FBI agent’s right one and the man went down. Decker landed right on top of him with the impact of a wall collapsing.

While lying flat on his back with over three hundred and fifty pounds wedged on top of him, Bogart still managed to clock Decker in the jaw. Decker tasted his own blood and felt a tooth loosen. He slammed his elbow into the side of Bogart’s head and heard the other man groan with the impact as his skull ricocheted off the pavement.

“I will kill you!” screamed Bogart as he continued to kick and punch while Decker tried to subdue the flailing limbs.

Decker rose a few inches off Bogart and then dropped heavily down, driving his massive shoulder right into the man’s diaphragm. Then he did it once more. Bogart grunted, gasped, moaned, and then stopped struggling.

Decker rose off him, staggered back, bent over, and tried to regain his own breath, his hands on his shaky knees, his gut heaving, his lungs doing the same.

When he looked over, Bogart had sat up and his gun was pointed at Decker’s head. In obvious pain, the man slowly rose, keeping his pistol aimed at Decker.

“You just assaulted a federal agent,” gasped Bogart, holding his injured, bleeding head with his free hand.

Decker looked at the gun and then at Bogart.

“I could arrest you,” added the federal agent.

Decker straightened and then collapsed against the brick wall for support. Finally getting his breathing under control, he said, “Didn’t you want to tell me something?”

Keeping his gun pointed at Decker, Bogart swiped his hair out of his face and smoothed out his tie. He moved closer. “What?”

“You said you wanted to have it out. I don’t think that meant kicking my ass. I think that meant saying something.”

Bogart pointed at the door of the morgue. “He left a message on... on my agent that was directed at you .”

“I know he did.”

“Which means you must know this guy. You must have done something to this guy. He calls you bro .” Bogart shouted out this last part.

Decker gave one last heaving breath and pushed off the wall, standing on his own. “I don’t know this guy. And I’m not his bro.”

“You say you never forget. Well, apparently neither does this guy. You did something. Maybe you didn’t realize what it was, but he’s killed... he’s killed...” Bogart’s voice trailed off and he lowered his weapon and then stared at the pavement shaking his head, his expression one of complete despair.

Decker rubbed at the cut and bruise on his cheek where Bogart had punched him. His tongue pushed against the loosened tooth.

“He’s killed a dozen people, including my family and Special Agent Nora Lafferty,” said Decker.

Bogart glanced up at him and nodded slowly. “Including Nora.” Bogart put his weapon away. “Look, I’m sorry I... If you want to press charges, go ahead. It was indefensible.”

Decker said, “I’m not sure what happened, other than I stumbled and fell and took you with me. Pretty clumsy. But then I’m a big, fat, out-of-shape guy. I think you might need to dry-clean your suit and see to that cut on your head.”

Bogart rubbed at some dirt on his sleeve and then glanced at Decker. “Where do we go from here?”

“With all we’ve done we’ve really gotten nowhere. You find anything useful at the Army base?”

“Nothing. It was a petri dish of crap. All degraded to mush. And the Pentagon has yet to get back to us. Not sure what they could add anyway. What about that story in the paper?”

“I talked to the reporter.”

“Lancaster told us. Gave us the IP info. My guys are tracking it, no luck so far.”

“I doubt it will lead anywhere. Too obvious.”

“So we’ve still got nothing, then?” said Bogart miserably.

“We have a lot of things, if we can make sense of them. We have Sebastian Leopold.”

“But he had alibis for both sets of murders.”

“But not Lafferty’s.”

“So you’re saying he’s working with someone? That’s what you meant when you said no one can be in two places at the same time?”

Decker nodded.

“But how can you be sure he killed Nora?”

“I can’t. But I don’t think it was Leopold who carved those words in her.”

“Why?”

“I met Leopold. I would’ve remembered this guy if I’d seen him before. But I don’t, which means I didn’t. That leaves his partner. This guy wouldn’t have allowed Leopold to do it. It was personal. I’m his bro. No one else. He’s the one with the beef against me.”

“But Decker, how could you have run across this other guy and not remember him? If he hates you so much that he’s slaughtering people?”

“I can’t answer that because I have no answer,” admitted Decker. “But I promise you that I will.”

Decker stared up at the front of the bar. Then he looked on the right side of the façade and then on the left. The buildings here were brick and dilapidated.

He walked down the stairs and into the dark, smoky interior.

He gazed around and saw two working-class men at a booth in the back, both hefting beer mugs. There was a woman alone at a counter-height round table with a glass of white wine in one hand and a half-smoked cigarette in the other. As he watched she placed her cigarette in a black plastic ashtray and set her wineglass down, pulled a compact and lipstick from her purse, and redid her mouth.