Chris Mooney - World Without End

"Pasha."

"That your spook girlfriend? The one who called the house?"

"Yeah."

Booker stared at him, preparing a question.

"I trust her," Conway said.

"How much?"

"As much as I trust you."

Booker nodded, blew out a bubble and then popped it.

"You CIA guys love to give code names to operations, right?"

"Yeah."

"We'll call this one Operation Oreo. Soft white center protected by hard black shells. Don't worry, Steve, the guys after you, they ain't going to be pissing in the playground much longer."

Jonathan Cole sat in a swivel chair in the back of a bulky Channel 5 Action News van that was parked near the State House. He drank a cup of green tea with skim milk serenity tea, the woman at Starbucks had called it and over the steam watched as Owen Lee sat hunched over the controls of the surveillance equipment. Owen had the ear pad of a headphone set against the side of his head. Lee's partner, Mark Alves, also known as the Elf, sat behind the wheel.

Lee tossed the headphones onto the console and pivoted around in his swivel chair. He wore jeans, Timberland boots, and a red bandana. When he removed the Blow-Pop from his mouth, his lips made a wet, smacking sound. A gold loop dangled from each ear.

"I still can't hear a goddamn thing," Lee said.

"Then move your men closer," Cole said. They had men with surveillance equipment shadowing Conway.

"I can't without spooking Conway. The dude's a pro. Why the fuck would he remove all of his gear? I can't hear anything off the bugs."

Because I called and threatened to kill his friend's kids that's why.

Cole placed the call late yesterday afternoon. He wanted to throw Conway's balance off, overload his brain with concern for the safety of his friend's family. By the end of this evening, Cole would have Conway and the cloaking suit.

"I say we bring him in now," Lee said.

"Make him spill what he knows."

"He won't talk."

"What did you manage to get out of the girl? You were down there for a long time."

"Renee told me she witnessed everything and burned it onto a CD."

Lee swallowed and licked his lips. He looked pale. The Elf turned around in the driver's seat. Cole drank his tea, waited, enjoying this.

"A CD," Lee said.

"Yes."

"Where is it?" Lee asked.

"She wouldn't say." Which was true. The woman's heart gave out from terror or blood loss, Cole wasn't sure, but she stopped talking and faded away before giving up the location of the CD.

But he was sure that Steve Conway knew about the CD and its location, and that Conway was going to use his friend to help him retrieve it. If Cole could get his hands on the CD, he would trade it for the cloaking suit. That morning inside the bathroom, he knew that Raymond had no intention of handing it over. Cole always suspected Raymond wanted him out of the way. The woman's story now confirmed it.

"She say anything else?" Lee asked.

She also tipped me off on what you and Raymond have planned for me. I'm going to love watchir?you scream, Owen.

Cole said, "Did you bug Mr. Booker's office?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Can't get inside there without tripping the alarms. I tried, believe me. Look, I think Conway's onto us. We should bring him in, right now."

"Stephen doesn't trust anyone and doesn't want to talk. Everyone around him is lying and scheming. Frankly, I can't blame him for being secretive."

"That what he told you during your private ride yesterday?"

"Something like that."

"Yesterday at the Aquarium, the broad must have told Conway something.

He's got to know about the CD."

"We'll follow Stephen and see what the day brings us. Are you feeling okay, Owen? You're sweating."

"I don't like having this psycho Angel Eves in the "I thought it might have had something to do with hosing down the basement."

Lee wiped his brow against the sleeve of his sweatshirt.

"I just want to put this gig behind me. Take some time off."

Cole's callused fingertips were stained a dull brown with Renee Kaufmann's blood. He rubbed the tips of his fingers across his lips and nose, inhaling the still-lingering coppery scent, and remembered the way her ear tasted in his mouth, his tongue cupping the hard edges of the cartilage in a moment of rapture before spitting it out.

"Patience, Owen. Everyone's going to get exactly what they deserve."

Booker pulled his black Lincoln Navigator against the curb, right in front of the Eastern Bank on Broadway in Lynn, a half-hour ride north of Boston. It was just after three-thirty in the afternoon, and as always during this time of the year in New England, the light in the sky was performing its quick fade. In less than an hour, the world would turn pitch black. Conway watched the people, tough lower-middle-class types, walk in and out of the bank.

"Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin," Booker said.

"You ever spend any time here?"

Conway thought about his Palm Pilot and watch. He told Booker about how each item worked, and after much discussion, Conway went back to the condo to retrieve the gear from his gym bag. He hoped Cole and his men were tracking him right now. It was the only way the plan would work. So he kept talking.

"I had a short stay in a foster home right across the street, up on that hill. Boynton Street," Conway said. Through the bank's glass doors he could see the small line of people huddled between the red ropes as they waited for the next teller. Inside the bank, he spotted two of Booker's men, black guys dressed in identical sharp blue suits, black overcoats, and black shoes, both of them carrying burgundy-colored leather briefcases. Conway was dressed in the same suit and carried an identical briefcase. Booker's men stood against the wall near the chairs where people were seated as they waited to talk to a bank representative. Beyond the desks was the entrance to the safety-deposit boxes.

Conway shifted his attention and looked back out the front window. One van, black, was parked across the street in front of the small, modest, ramshackle homes. Was Cole in there? Or Angel Eyes.

I won't let them burn yu, Stephen, Angel Eyes had said. I'll protect you. I give you my word.

The world was darkening and Angel Eyes was somewhere out there, hiding.

Planning.

"You nervous?" Booker asked. He knew this conversation was being monitored.

"Angel Eyes is here. The second I step back out of the bank I'm a target."

"We went over this."

"I know."

Conway turned to Booker, who leaned against the driver's-side window and chewed his gum, his eyes serene, as if he had kicked back in a beach chair and was now looking out at the calm water lapping under a magnificent sunset. The SUV's windows contained a transparent layer of armor made up of resilient polycarbonate, similar to that used in military jet canopies.

The Lincoln Navigator was an armored vehicle with a level-five rating, its shell strong enough to withstand a shot from a high-powered military rifle. The entire SUV, in fact, came with an exhaustive list of features: concealed gun ports that allowed a passenger to safely return fire from within the vehicle; an encrypted satellite-communications system; hands-free night-vision goggles to allow the driver to turn off the headlights and drive in the dark; a kidnap recovery system; and a host of countersurveillance measures to protect the occupants. Booker had used the armored SUV for the company's bodyguard work, mainly high-profile celebrities and government officials who needed to feel reassured by the extra protection in a vehicle that by all rights belonged in a James Bond movie. The same company who had provided the armored SUVs to Booker's company had worked on vehicles for the president and a number of prominent senators and businessmen.