John Miller - Side by Side

Peanut bristled. “You mean to sit there and poke a barky stick up our butts and say smile? Buddy, the damned Berlin Wall came a-tumbling down. In case you didn’t notice, you lost.”

Sarnov tilted his head, breaking off his gaze on the cigarette, and, looking at Ross, said, “I never allow hired help to sit in on business meetings. If I require their presence, I do not allow them to speak, and to insult a guest would demand severe punishment. You should explain to your help the fact that you are winning here. It costs you a little bit of money; we get a fair settlement and we don’t have to bury anybody. And, for the benefit of the severely misinformed, the fact is that the Wall came down to allow us better access to business opportunities.”

“I don’t threaten easy,” Peanut growled, rising from the ottoman, looming like a thunderstorm over the narrow Russian seated on the couch. His anger had canceled his ability to reason beyond the present. “You communist piece of-” He was already swinging his fist down at Sarnov’s face, knowing that the man was as good as unconscious.

It was odd the way Peanut’s perspective suddenly changed and, before the lights went out, he was somehow looking up at a fluorescent light fixture in the ceiling.

The North Carolina Piedmont, once a sleepy southern backwater with one hand on the plow, one on a loom, gold ore in its pocket, eyes on the Bible, and its nose to the grindstone, had become over the centuries the nation’s second-largest banking center.

Winter was fond of most of the additions to Charlotte’s skyline in the years since he had come to North Carolina to work in the satellite office of the United States Marshals Service, serving under Hank Trammel. The vast majority of the additions to the skyline seemed to have crossed the city’s “traditional Presbyterian brick-solid” with a sense of whimsy. Towering buildings like Bank of America’s headquarters and the Hearst Tower looked like inhabitable sculpture. Trammel liked to say the city was looking like the set for a Batman movie.

The Westin Hotel, one of Charlotte’s newer buildings, was a sleek glass-skinned structure with the visual warmth of an ice cube.

Winter parked in the deck, grabbed his overnighter from the passenger’s seat, and strode across the courtyard, going inside through one of the glass doors opened by a man in a black suit. At the front desk, he dropped his name and the clerk handed him a pair of electronic keys to room 412. No check-in required. As was his habit, he scanned the lobby for anything worth noting, allowing his mind to sort and file away its impressions.

He took the elevator up to the fourth floor, used the key and entered a room that could have been in any first-class hotel in the world. He set his bag on the bed, opened it, took out his shoulder rig and slipped it on. He unrolled a microfiber windbreaker and put it on over the weapon.

Winter had turned in his federal badge, but thanks to grateful friends in very high places, he had been issued a rare concealed-weapon permit that was valid in any state in the union. Unlike a normal civilian permit, Winter’s allowed him to enter any business, any building or facility, state and federal government structures included, while armed.

As he was opening the note that had been left on one of the beds, he heard raised voices in the adjoining room. Winter opened the note and unfolded it.Welcome, Massey. Room next door at your earliest.

He moved to the door on his side of the wall, opened it quietly, and knuckle-tapped on the second door. Alexa opened it.

“Good afternoon, Lex,” Winter said. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“No. Please come in. There’s somebody you need to meet,” she said, stepping aside and gesturing him into the room, which was pretty much identical to his.

The bearded man on the couch stood up reluctantly. He was medium height and looked like a man who didn’t waste time exercising. His mouse-brown hair was far thinner than the graying Vandyke beard he wore. Under bushy brows, his bored eyes were light brown, and a Falcon pipe with a dull aluminum stem jutted from between his plump lips. The knit shirt was too snug around his middle, the green khakis too high over his well-broken-in chukkas.

“Winter Massey,” Alexa said, “this is-”

“Clayton Able,” the man said, usurping Alexa’s introduction. He crossed the room with his hand extended and Winter shook it. Able’s palm was warm and damp. “Pleased to meet you,” he said.

“My pleasure,” Winter replied, fighting the urge to wipe his palm on his pant leg.

“I’ve learned quite a lot about you,” Clayton told him. “You are an impressive individual.”

“Alexa said nice things about me?”

“Yes, of course she did. But my knowledge of you is mostly from sources other than Special FBI Agent Keen here. There’s no shortage of material on the Deputy U.S. Marshal Winter Massey.” Clayton Able had a manner reminiscent of professors Winter had known; men who were so deeply embedded in academia they believed degrees were not only badges of rank, but accurate measurements of intelligence.

“Nobody regrets that more than I do,” he answered, only partly joking.

At that, Clayton’s eyes reflected the sort of self-amusement that often precedes a smart-ass remark, but none was forthcoming. Instead Clayton put the pipe in his mouth and sucked hungrily on its stem.

Winter turned questioning eyes to Alexa. Who is this prick?

“Clayton is a colleague.”

“I see,” Winter said, although he didn’t.

“He’s giving us assistance with intelligence.”

“FBI?” Winter wondered.

“Heavens, no. I am a freelance information worm,” Clayton said around the pipe’s stem.

“I’ve utilized Clayton’s considerable talents in the past,” Alexa explained.

“With the Bureau’s blessing?” Winter asked.

“Of course not.” She frowned.

“Not exactly fans of mine,” Clayton snorted. “They resent my success where they have failed. They are not able to utilize the same techniques of intelligence acquisition and therefore resent what they covet.”

“What sort of techniques? You’re a hacker?” Winter asked.

“Guilty as charged on that score,” the man said. “Also I acquire tidbits through other avenues and I swap information with select people.”

“Believe me,” Alexa told Winter, “we couldn’t do this without him. You’ll understand when you see what he’s compiled. We’re not starting from scratch thanks to Clayton.”

Puffing up proudly, Clayton added, “I have gathered up a basket of goodies from the FBI, CIA, DEA, ATF, Interpol, Military Intelligence, and the NSA.”

On its face, Able’s claim sounded to Winter like that of someone suffering from delusions of grandeur, but Alexa vouched for him.

“Tell him what you just told me,” Alexa told Clayton.

“Military Intelligence is aware of the Dockerys’ abduction, and they know that Judge Fondren intends to let Bryce go in order to get them back.”

“So why doesn’t M.I. just notify the FBI? The Bureau will step in and the Attorney General will prevent that ruling. Then the FBI can get to work on the kidnapping,” Winter said.

“M.I. can’t tell a soul,” Clayton said.

“Why?”

“Because they learned it from a wiretap they have on Hailey Fondren’s telephone to gather intelligence on Bryce’s trial.”

“They tapped a federal judge’s phone?” Winter was stunned. Not because Military Intelligence did it, but because Clayton knew about it. If it was true, Clayton was plugged into a golden source.

“They can’t share their information with the Attorney General or the FBI or anyone else without admitting to the source of that intelligence. M.I. has a very big stake in this case. If you two don’t find the Dockerys, people in the highest places will have to make sure Judge Fondren convicts Bryce anyway. There are two factions within M.I. Those who want Bryce freed for profit reasons and to keep him from selling them out to save his own skin, and those who want him convicted so they can get the names of his accomplices.”