Дэвид Балдаччи - The Fix

“What really happened to your face? I’ll find out eventually.”

Decker took a few minutes to tell her what had happened. Brown’s jaw sank lower with each sentence.

“Is Jamison okay?”

“Not now, but she will be. It’s not easy, killing someone. You don’t just get over it in a day.” He looked over at her. “You know that feeling.”

She nodded. “The guy in your parking lot was not my first. And though I know I didn’t show it that night, I went home, drank a bottle of wine, and didn’t sleep a wink. I kept looking down at my hand and thinking that there was one less person alive that day because of me.”

“I figured as much.”

She smiled weakly. “I guess I’m not as tough as you thought I was.”

“Actually, that makes you tougher than I thought you were.”

“Every time I think I have you figured out, Mr. Decker, you throw me a curve.”

“Not my intention.”

“I wonder.”

“How did you leave things with Melvin?”

“That I very much wanted to see him again.”

“We still have a case to work,” he replied.

“I compartmentalize with the best of them. Speaking of the case, any revelations since we were last together?”

“Berkshire was a spy or a spy’s handler. Dabney may or may not have been her mole. We have no real record of her past ten years ago. She might not have been in this area all that time, but Dabney has. Same house, same wife, big family.”

“So you’re saying there’s an incongruity if we think Dabney and Berkshire were working together long-term?”

“You tell me. Do the spy and the handler need to be in the same place?”

“Absolutely not. I mentioned Montes before? Her handlers were in Cuba. She’d meet with them sometimes. They’d either come here or she’d go to them. But only periodically.”

“So Dabney, who undoubtedly traveled a lot for his business, would have had the means to go to her?”

“Yes. And use the cover of his business to do so.”

“And since we have no idea where Berkshire was thirty years ago, we can’t trace that. But—”

Brown said, “But we know where she was maybe ten years ago. And we could match that up with Dabney’s travel during that same period.”

“If she met him in the places where she lived. If not, we might be able to check where she traveled, if she went by train or plane or bus.”

“So you’re leaning to the conclusion that these two have worked together before.”

“Let’s put it this way, I can’t rule it out,” replied Decker.

“But we haven’t had any other instances of spying that we could connect to Dabney, other than the secrets sold to pay off the gambling debts.”

“But Dabney didn’t just work with DIA. He worked with the FBI, NSA, and at least a half dozen other government agencies.”

Brown’s features tightened. “If he stole from all of them, it’s a big problem.”

“I always thought this was a big problem,” retorted Decker.

“We can start checking out the travel angle to see if we can place these two in the same place at the same time.”

“I’ll have Bogart’s people get on it.”

“But Decker, if Dabney and Berkshire were working together all this time, why would he kill her on the street in front of the Hoover Building?”

“Regret? Some friction or falling-out we don’t know about?”

“Well, if they were working together, her contacts got him the ten million bucks to pay off his son-in-law’s gambling debt and save his daughter’s and granddaughter’s lives. You’d think he would have been grateful toward her, not homicidal.”

“It’s funny how the human mind works. It all depends on perspective.”

“And the third party you mentioned? The one who almost killed you and stole the flash drive you discovered?”

“They’re clearly still out there. They’re connected to this at a level I don’t understand yet, but that connection is deep. And I have a feeling we’re going to have to go face-to-face with them before we solve this thing.”

Brown took out her Beretta and laid it on the table. “Well, let’s hope they don’t get us before we get them,” she said.

Decker had come home from Brown’s to find Jamison still asleep. He caught a few hours of sleep, showered, and changed. By the time he was done, Jamison was up and dressed and sitting at the kitchen table.

“You need some food,” said Decker. “And so do I. Let’s go.”

They drove to a nearby restaurant and ordered breakfast for lunch.

Thirty minutes later Jamison put a last mouthful of scrambled eggs in her mouth while Decker finished his third cup of coffee. He eyed her closely. “How are you really doing?”

“Better actually than I thought I would. Which makes me feel guilty.”

“Some people just have it coming, and the guy last night did, Alex. But then I’m biased since you saved my life in the process.”

She looked despondently over at him. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for this. I was thinking before that maybe I should just go do something else with my life.”

“Maybe you don’t need to think about that right now.”

“But I do, Decker. I mean, I’m not getting any younger, and I have to make decisions about my life.”

“You’re a good investigator. Ross would not have brought you on if he didn’t think that.”

“Come on, Decker, Bogart brought me on because of you.”

“Why would he have needed to do that? And you were the one who deduced that Dabney was maybe a longtime spy because of how quickly he found someone to buy his secrets. Even if it turns out not to be the case, I didn’t think of that, and neither did Ross or Todd.”

“I’m not saying I don’t have my moments.”

“You have more than moments, Alex. Look, if you want to bag it and go do something else, fine. But don’t do it because you think you’re not cut out for this, because you are.”

She looked at him hopefully. “Do you really think that? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better?”

“As you know better than most, that’s not how my mind works.”

“But I did kill a man,” she said, her expression turning dark again. “I’m not sure I could face doing that again.”

“This job doesn’t call for us to get into shootouts with people. Alvarez wasn’t tied to our work at the FBI. So that may very likely be the first and only time you have to draw your weapon.”

“Apparently not if I keep hanging around with you.”

“You need to get your mind off it. Luckily, we have a very complex case to solve.”

“Hey, do you want to call Melvin and have him come with us? He’s had some good ideas on this too.”

Decker hesitated long enough that she looked at him suspiciously. “What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on!”

“It’s nothing.”

“Decker, you’re a shitty liar.”

“I just think we need to let Melvin sleep in.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Just a feeling.”

“Decker!”

“He had a long night.”

“What do you mean by that? He went home the same—” She stopped and stared wide-eyed at him. “Holy shit. Are you not telling me what I think you’re not telling me?”

“Alex, I don’t even know how to begin to answer that question.”

“I’ll ask you a simpler one then. Did Melvin sleep with Harper Brown?” Her voice had risen to where people at two other tables stared over at them.

“Why do you think that?”

“Why do I think that? Hello, it couldn’t have been more obvious that she wanted him.”

“It couldn’t?”

“Oh, come on, for a guy who misses nothing, you really have a blind spot sometimes.”