Дэвид Балдаччи - Hell's Corner

He slipped the papers in his briefcase and returned to work.

Annabelle and Reuben reached Pennsylvania around three that afternoon. They drove first to Keystone Tree Farm. It was obviously still secured by the FBI. Barricades and black SUVs were everywhere. And Pennsylvania state troopers were there to support the federal agents.

Annabelle, who was driving, said, “No surprise there. That place will be out of circulation for a long time. Let’s keep rolling.”

“You want to try the trailer park?” asked Reuben.

“Might as well, but I have to believe it’ll be the same crime scene scenario there.”

And it was. Cops and Feds in abundance. The road into the trailer park was completely closed off.

“Want to bluff our way in?” asked Reuben. “If we say we live there?”

“Something tells me that’s way too risky for the potential reward. But I have another idea.”

“Good, because Oliver wants information and I’m not sure how we’re supposed to get it.”

“There’s always a way, Reuben. We just have to find it.”

At four-thirty that afternoon, Annabelle found it. Parked outside the tree farm, they watched as a pickup truck pulled out with four of the Latino workers from the farm inside.

“Quitting time,” said Reuben.

“No. I doubt there’s much work going on there. Feds probably interviewed all of them and then let them go. If they try to leave the area, they’ll probably be really sorry. Let’s see if they’re keeping them under surveillance.”

The truck pulled onto the road and sped off. They waited for thirty seconds but no other car followed.

Annabelle put her car in gear. “Okay, the Feds are very trusting. And we’re not.”

“Where do you think they’re headed?” asked Reuben.

“There’s a bar in that direction. Let’s hope they pull off for happy hour after all that interrogation.”

They did go to the bar. And Annabelle and Reuben waited for them to go inside before slipping out of the car and heading in.

“You speak Spanish?” Reuben asked.

“I spent a long time in L.A., so yeah, pretty fluently. You?”

“I know more Vietnamese than Spanish.”

“Then order your beer in English and let me do the talking.”

“And my role?”

“If a guy who we’re not interested in hits on me, take him out.”

“Great, thanks. Nice to use my finely honed skills.”

Inside, the four Latinos were huddled around one table, beers already in hand. They were talking in low voices and casting furtive glances at the few other people in the bar.

Annabelle and Reuben sat at a table near them and then Annabelle put some money in the jukebox. On the way back she dropped her car keys near the table. One of the men bent down to pick them up. When he handed them back, she thanked him in Spanish. Then she pulled a map from her pocket and asked him directions, explaining that she and her friend were trying to find a tree farm. The man told her that he and his friends worked at this very same tree farm.

Annabelle smiled and pulled up a chair, motioning Reuben to stay where he was. She sat down and said, “We’re looking to buy a dozen cypress and were told that your place had some excellent specimens. I work for a landscaping firm in Delaware,” she explained. All of this was spoken in rapid Spanish and seemed to put the men at ease.

The first man told Annabelle that they indeed had such trees, but she could not get them.

“Why not?” she asked.

He explained about what had happened.

“Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “That’s awful. I read about it in the paper, of course, but they didn’t say the name of the tree farm, so I never associated it with yours. I hope they caught who did it.”

The men shook their heads.

“And was this John Kravitz a friend of yours? His name was the one I was actually given when I was coming up here.”

Kravitz had not been a close friend, and the men seemed stunned to learn that he had been involved with the bombing in Washington.

“That’s really a shame,” said Annabelle.

One of the men said that he believed John Kravitz to be innocent.

“But I heard on the news that they found bomb-making material at his home. That’s pretty serious.”

Whether the man had heard this too wasn’t clear. He insisted that Kravitz was innocent.

“And were you all there when the people were killed?”

They nodded.

“That must have been horrible. I guess you’re lucky you weren’t killed too.”

They had been out in the fields, they told her. They had heard and seen nothing.

“I guess the police have questioned you,” said Annabelle.

The surly looks on the men’s faces confirmed that.

“Well, it looks like whoever did it might get away. Too bad,” she said. Annabelle left that comment hanging out there to see what reaction it might inspire. One of the men whispered something to the first. He looked at Annabelle.

“The police didn’t ask about the basketball hoop,” he said.

“Basketball hoop?” Annabelle feigned ignorance even though Stone had told her about the missing hoop.

“We had a basketball hoop up at one of the outbuildings. We would play ball there at lunch. John played too sometimes. He was good.”

“And what happened to the hoop?”

The first man glanced over at his companion who’d whispered to him.

“What’s up?” Annabelle asked innocently.

“Miguel saw something that night.”

“What night?”

“The night before the people were killed. He came back to pick up his sweater he left there.”

“What did he see?”

“He saw someone taking down the basketball hoop.”

“Taking down the hoop? Did he see who it was?”

“No. But it wasn’t John. It was a smaller man. And older. Then another man came. Another stranger. They talked.”

“Miguel, did you hear what they said?”

Miguel shook his head. “They spoke a funny language. I didn’t understand it.”

“Did you try and talk to them?”

“No. I was afraid. I was hiding behind another building.”

“Did you tell the police this?”

“They didn’t ask.”

“Okay,” said Annabelle. “Well, I guess we’ll have to look somewhere else for the trees. Thanks.”

She returned to the table with Reuben and filled him in on the parts he hadn’t overheard.

“Taking down a basketball hoop. And speaking a funny language, huh?”

“Well, it obviously wasn’t Spanish.”

When they left the bar a man who had been sitting near the jukebox sipping on a beer followed them. When their car pulled out, so did his. And then he clicked a number on his phone and spoke into it. A half mile away another vehicle started up and sped toward the direction Annabelle and Reuben were traveling.

Stone was sitting at a desk in Chapman’s room at the British embassy listening to the sound of the shower running. A minute later Chapman walked out of the bathroom wrapped in a white terrycloth robe, her feet bare. She was drying her hair with a towel.

“Getting a bloody night’s sleep and bathing with regularity is a little tough around you lot,” she said.

“I’m sure it’s the time difference,” he said. Stone was going over some documents on the table and occasionally glancing at the laptop computer set up on the desk. He paused to look around the room.

“MI6 takes good care of its agents.”

“The British embassy is known for its first-class accommodations,” noted Chapman as she sat on the couch. “And a hotel just doesn’t cut it when one is examining classified documents and carrying a laptop with highly secret data.” She rose. “Give me a sec to dress and we’ll have a spot of tea.”