Steven Gore - Absolute Risk

Gage thought of Elaine Hennessy’s empty DVD cases. “And I take it that was the reason for the burglary at his house.”

Arndt’s eyes widened at Gage. “How did you-“

“Putting two and two together,” Gage said, “and that addition puts you in the middle of a conspiracy-but I’m not telling you something you don’t already know. You realized it when Wycovsky came back from France, but by then you had no way out.”

Arndt lowered his head again. The silence that followed was flat and hard. There was no deep meaning to be probed. It had all come to the surface.

Gage looked past Arndt toward Viz, whose frown and set jaw suggested that he’d seen in Arndt what Gage had: one of those men they’d too often found at domestic crime scenes whose sleepwalk through life had ended with the sound of a gunshot and gunpowder residue on their hands.

“I need you to help me with something late tonight,” Gage said. “Do it, and I’ll make sure you never see the inside of a prison. Don’t do it, and you’ll never get out.”

The gasp of opening elevator doors blew down the silent hallway of Shadden Phillips amp; Wycovsky and past the closed door to Wycovsky’s office. Gage felt himself tense. He glanced at his watch: 3 a.m. They’d completed their search of the lawyer’s computer and his file cabinets and were just seconds from slipping away. He pointed at Arndt and gestured for him to hide behind Wycovsky’s desk. Then at Viz and toward the wall to the right of the door. He then switched off his penlight and crouched on the left side.

Shadows of legs in the hallway crossed the gap between the bottom edge of the door and the carpet.

A whispering voice said, “We missed it. It’s back there.”

Shadows again barred the gap, followed by the scrape and click of the bolt sliding and coming free of the latch plate.

As the door opened, a sliver of light expanded into a beam and then into a flood that was blocked by two man-shaped shadows. A head turned and nodded. The face silhouetted on the carpet appeared jagged and angular.

Gage guessed they were wearing night vision goggles. He had only seconds to surprise them before they spotted him. He waited until the first stepped inside, then sprang between them and punched an elbow into the gut of the trailing man and a fist into the kidney of the leader.

Gage lowered his shoulder into the stomach of the one in the hallway and drove the flailing man into the opposite wall. He then felt a massive weight pound into his side, tumbling him down the hallway. He came to a stop facedown.

“Freeze. Police.”

A cocking weapon above his head froze him in place.

Gage heard the words repeated behind him, then glanced over his shoulder and spotted two men in black tactical jumpsuits holding semiautomatic pistols, one pointing down at him, one aimed through the office doorway. The man he’d tackled lay slumped and groaning between them.

“Put the gun down.” It was Viz’s voice. “Or I’ll drop you where you stand.”

Gage guessed that Viz had wrested a gun away from his man and was using him as a shield. Gage used the stalemate to push himself up to one knee, and then onto his feet. He raised his hands, and turned around.

“Stay cool until we find out who these guys are,” Gage yelled to Viz, and then said to the man in front of him. “Show me a badge and some ID.”

The man reached into his pocket, but instead of retrieving a badge case, pulled out a cell phone, pressed one button, then put it to his ear.

“This is Madison,” the man said into the phone, then listened for a few seconds and asked, “You Gage?” Gage nodded.

Madison holstered his gun, looked behind him down the hallway, and said, “Lower your weapons,” and then handed his cell phone to Gage.

Gage held it down by his side and asked, “You have a search warrant?”

Madison pointed down at the phone. “Ask him.”

“I’m asking you.”

“I’m not a lawyer.”

“Then I’ve got my answer.”

Gage raised the cell phone and asked, “Who is this?”

A male voice answered, “I’m a friend who’d like you to ease on out of there and let us do our work.”

“I’m not interested in playing games. Tell me who you are.”

“I’m not authorized to do that.”

Gage disconnected and pulled out his own cell phone. He yelled down the hallway, “Viz, these guys are either CIA or something close to it,” and watched Madison stiffen.

Madison’s phone vibrated. Gage answered with, “You’ve got five seconds to identify your agency, or I’ll make a call on my phone and whoever is on the other side of this thing will know where I am and what I came for.”

“Don’t.” This time it was a female voice. “Stand by. I need to go up the chain of command.”

Gage pointed at Madison, then past him toward the lobby. “Collect all your people down there.”

Madison didn’t move.

“Look, pal,” Gage said, “the war is over. It’s only a question of the terms of surrender.” He pushed a couple of the phone’s buttons, and then said to the woman, “You’re on loudspeaker. Tell him.”

She spoke again, now issuing an order. “Stand down.”

Madison kept his dignity by saying, “No problem,” then turned away.

“How far up the chain are you ready to go?” Gage asked her.

“That depends on what you found.”

“I found most of the answers I was looking for. And they’re probably the same ones you came after.”

“Hold on.”

The phone line went silent.

Gage watched the agent lying on the floor use the wall to leverage himself onto his feet. Moments after that, another agent limped out of the office, grimacing and holding his side.

The office lights came on and Viz appeared at the door.

“How bad is the damage inside?” Gage asked.

“Things got knocked around, but nothing broken.”

Gage pulled out his digital camera, with which he’d taken photos of the office before they disturbed it, and then walked down the hallway and handed it to Viz.

“Put everything back the way it was.”

Gage glanced into the office. Arndt was standing behind the desk, his arms wrapped around his chest, biting his lower lip.

“It’s okay,” Gage said to him. “Things are under control.”

The phone came alive with a rush of static. “Would you be willing to come to Washington?” Gage looked at his watch. He wanted Arndt present at whatever meetings took place to reassure him that he’d done the right thing in throwing in with Gage and to give him confidence that he’d be protected when Wycovsky realized what he’d done.

“No,” Gage said. “I’ve got someone to protect. We’ll have to do it here.”

Is there any way the CIA hasn’t screwed this up?” Gage asked John Casher, as they faced each other in the living room of a midtown hotel suite. Scattered about the room were Arndt, Viz, Madison, and a CIA deputy director. “A false accusation. Delivering up Ibrahim to be tortured. Hennessy driven to suicide, or set up to be murdered.”

Gage pointed at Arndt sitting on the couch with his shoulders slumped, forearms on his knees. “A fifty-billion-dollar intelligence budget, and it falls on this kid to do your work for you? “

“I’m not going to argue,” Casher said, “but I don’t have evidence in front of me that’ll let me believe you.”

Gage could feel a lump pressing up against his sole: the memory card on which he’d saved images of documents and downloads of Wycovsky’s files. He had no reason to think that the CIA would do any better with that information than it had with everything else Except that Casher hadn’t been appointed director until years after Ibrahim’s indictment, and the fact that he came to meet Gage himself might mean-might mean-that he was trying to find a way to set things right.