Alex Berenson: The Secret Soldier

“You probably know this, it must be in a file. But Eddie wanted another baby. After our son died. I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t. Maybe things would have been different if I…” She trailed off.

“Guys like your husband, they find excuses to do what they want. And if they can’t find one, they just make it up.”

Janice shrugged: I don’t believe you, but I won’t argue. “Anyway, the teaching, it’s D.C., Northeast, a charter school. These kids, they don’t have two nickels to rub together. You see it in the winter, their shoes, these cheap sneakers that soak through if there’s any rain. Much less snow. So I’m trying to show them the world cares about them, even a little bit. Maybe it means something to them. Probably not, but maybe. That’s a long way of saying yes, I like it, John. You don’t mind if I call you John?”

“Of course not.” Wells touched Janice’s arm and then realized he shouldn’t have. Her face lit like a winning slot machine. “You understand what I want you to do?”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“It’s the only way. Otherwise, I have to tell the FBI.”

“All right.”

“Good. So tomorrow, somebody’s gonna put a tap and trace on your phone. Keith won’t know it’s there.” Shafer had called in a favor he was owed from an engineer who used to work at NSA. “Tomorrow night, you call him. Sooner or later, he’ll call you back. Don’t ask him where he is. Unless he brings up a visit, don’t mention it.”

“Don’t push.”

“Right. You’ll make him nervous. Don’t be too friendly. Don’t forgive him. Don’t let him think you’re giving in too easily. Deep down he knows this call is a bad idea. You’ve got to make him focus on you instead of that.”

Janice turned away from Wells and opened the kitchen faucet all the way but held her glass a foot above the spout, as if somehow the water could defy gravity.

“He loved me,” she whispered to the window, her voice barely audible above the water sloshing down the drain. “It sounds stupid, but it’s true.”

“I believe you.”

“God. I hope you catch him.”

THE NEXT NIGHT, WITH Wells sitting beside her on her couch, Janice made the call, straight to voicemail. “Eddie. Is that you? I got your cards. Call me.”

Wells figured Robinson would wait weeks to call back. If he ever did. But a few minutes later, with Wells still in the house, the phone rang. Janice grabbed it. “Hello.”

Through the receiver, slow, steady breaths.

“Eddie. Is that you?” She waited. “Why did you send the cards, Eddie?”

“Are you okay, Jan?” His voice was raspy and deep.

“I had a liver transplant.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Go to hell, Eddie.” She slammed down the phone before Wells could stop her and slumped into Wells’s chest. They sat silently for a few minutes as Wells wondered why he’d ever trusted Janice.

“He’s never calling back, is he?” Janice finally said.

“I don’t know.” The phone rang again. Janice reached for the phone, but Wells put a hand on the receiver before she could answer.

“Like I said, he’s definitely calling back. Keep cool. Promise?”

She nodded. He let go of the receiver, and she picked up.

“I deserved that.”

“Why are you calling me?” Her southern twang thickened when she talked to Robinson.

“I wanted to talk.”

“That simple. Like you’ve been away on business instead of — I don’t even know how to describe it—”

“I miss you, Jan. It’s hard out here.” He sounded close to tears. Wells hadn’t understood until now that in addition to everything else, Robinson was simply a spoiled brat.

“Are you sick?”

“Been better. But I have a fine doctor taking care of me. Cuban. Viva Fidel. I’m gonna live forever. I’m gonna learn how to fly.”

“You need to turn yourself in.”

A hollow laugh from the other end. “Not a good idea.”

“What do you want?”

“To talk. To somebody who knows me.”

“I don’t know you. The day they came to the house, I realized that.”

Beside Janice, Wells twisted his hands: Steer the conversation if you can. “I hope you’re doing something good now, Eddie. Making up for what you did.”

Another laugh. “Could say I’m doing a little community service. Helping youngsters in need. I’ve got to go, okay?”

“Tell me how to get hold of you.”

“I’ll get hold of you.”

“Eddie. Are you still in Jamaica? Kingston?” Wells shook his head no, but he was too late.

“Are they there? On the call?”

“No, it’s just me. I swear.”

“Swear on Mark’s grave.”

She looked at Wells. He nodded.

“Don’t make me do that.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Wells wasn’t sure whether she was talking to him or to Robinson.

“Do it.”

“God, Eddie. I swear. It’s just me.” Tears peeped from under her eyelids.

“Yes. I’m in Jamaica. Montego Bay. I’ll call you again.” Click.

Janice swung at Wells, her fist glancing off his chest.

“You shouldn’t have made me say that.”

Wells was all out of compassion. Her husband was about the most miserable human being alive. She’d just had to lie on her dead son’s grave. He was sorry for her. But that didn’t mean he was responsible for her.

“You wanted him? We’ll catch him now. Between the trace and what he told you, we’ll have enough. If he reaches out again, let me know.”

She shrank against the couch. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Please don’t go.”

Wells walked out. He wanted to find a fight, make someone bleed. Instead he got into his Subaru and peeled away, promising himself that Keith Edward Robinson would regret sending those postcards.

SEVEN HOURS AND FIVE hundred thirty miles later, Wells turned off I-91 at Boltonville, Vermont. He had sped through the night Cannonball Run— style. Normally, driving soothed his anger, but tonight he gained no relief from the empty asphalt.

Long ago, in Afghanistan, Wells had converted to Islam. But his faith came and went, pulling away just when he thought he’d mastered it. Of course, no one could master faith. God always hovered around the next curve, the next, the next. The quest to find Him had to be its own reward. Wells understood that much, if nothing more. But tonight the search felt lonelier than ever. He hadn’t seen another vehicle for more than half an hour. As though he were the last man alive.

He swung right onto Route 302, drove through a little town called Wells River — no relation. Past a shuttered gas station and an empty general store and over a low bridge into New Hampshire. Then Woodsville, a metropolis by the standards of the North Country, with a hospital and a bank and a thousand people clustered in steep-sided wooden houses against the winters. Wells gunned the engine to leave the town behind.

A few miles on, he swung right, southeast on Route 112, the Kancamagus Highway, impassible in the winter. He was exhausted and driving too fast now, through old forests of fir and pine, the Subaru a blur in the night, sticking low to the road. The next curve, and the next. Wells felt his eyelids slipping. In the dark now, in the night, he began to murmur through pursed lips the shahada, the essential Muslim creed: There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his messenger. Finally he emerged into the open plain of Conway, a town too quaint for its own good, and turned left toward North Conway.

Anne lived in a farmhouse at the edge of town, run-down and sweet, with maple plank floors and an iron stove in the kitchen. Wells was helping her restore it, painting, sanding the floors, even putting in new sinks — a job that had almost gone disastrously wrong. The place needed new wiring and a new roof, and she couldn’t afford the fixes on a cop’s pay. Wells’s salary had piled up during his years undercover. He wasn’t sure whether he should offer to pay, if he’d be presuming too much.