J. Black - The Shop

“Did you kill this man?”

“No!”

“Did you kill this man?”

“No! Are you crazy? I couldn’t, I can’t. Someone must have—”

“What? Sneaked in here while you were sleeping? Right here, with your head on the table?”

Then he hammered Frank with questions. Where was he going? Who was on board? Did he know this man? The questions came in a rapid-fire sequence, like a drill sergeant. Frank didn’t have a chance to answer them fully.

Finally he managed to say, “I want my lawyer.”

The agent rose to his feet and stood over him. His face stormy, the anger building up in his chest, his shoulders. He was massive, like a boulder about to roll downhill and crush whatever lay underneath. “Get up.”

“Up?”

“Get up now.”

Frank started sliding across the seat.

“Do it now !”

He scrambled out so quickly he banged his knee on the bench. He registered the throbbing pain, but it was second to the pure adrenaline of his fear, hurtling through his veins. He stood back. Legs shaking.

The agent shoved the cushion to the galley sole and flung open the lid.

The burst of adrenaline was so hard, so explosive, that Frank felt his heart seize. He stared down at another man, this one mercifully head-down, pressed into the box like a broken toy.

41

“So you’re saying they’re Cardamone’s people?” Frank asked. He’d recovered nicely, after a glass of Remy, especially after Agent Salter told him he knew Frank wasn’t responsible for the dead men in the bench seats.

“If we’re correct, their allegiance is to Mike Cardamone.”

“And Cardamone’s people are watching me? And Grace?”

He nodded to a bench seat. “There’s your proof.”

“But they weren’t here to hurt me?”

“We don’t believe so, no. Not at this juncture. But that could change.”

Frank ducked his nose into the snifter and inhaled. Swirled the glass, took a small sip. He still had the headache, but the Remy seemed to have quieted it somewhat. “So you’re saying if I fired my security, I’d have less people to worry about.”

“Fewer.”

“Fewer?”

“Fewer people to worry about.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry, grammar was never my strong suit. I can’t believe you know all this.”

“We’re the FBI.”

“Well, that explains it. Mike was number three at the CIA, you know. He thought the Fibbies were like the Keystone Cops. But now I’m getting the idea it’s the CIA that’s incompetent.”

“That would be a dangerous assumption to make,” Special Agent in Charge Salter said.

“So the whole cousin thing—you made it up? You posed as Nick Holloway to get on this boat? So Nick Holloway isn’t my cousin after all?”

“Oh, he’s your cousin, all right. We intercepted your e-mails.”

“You can do that? Wait, of course you can.” Talk about irony. “Our lawyers had to construct new language to make that happen—it was pretty fancy footwork, let me tell you—a real bitch to do. Jesus, that’s ironic. So Nick meant it when he said he was busy. When he first wrote me back.”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“Why the charade? I don’t understand—”

“We wanted to see if Cardamone was keeping tabs on you. As it turns out, he is. It’s clear he sent these two men to keep an eye on you.”

“Whatever he’s involved in, I have nothing to do with it. We’re friends, and that’s the extent of it.”

“You’re more than that. We have the wiretaps to prove it. We’ve been monitoring Cardamone for some time.”

Franklin had been a prosecutor for a long time. He knew the outlines of a potential plea bargain when he heard it. Time to lay the groundwork. “You know none of this was my idea—what Cardamone and the president were doing.”

“I didn’t think it was. So to review, it was just you three who knew about the program. Cardamone, President Baird, and yourself.”

“That’s right. Just the two of us now that Baird is dead.”

“Then it comes down to you or Cardamone.”

“That’s right.”

Special Agent Salter let it sit there between them for a minute. Then he said, “You could be a big help to us.”

“Turning state’s evidence, right?”

“It’s a good deal.”

“But there’s my reputation to think of. I was the Top Cop. The attorney general of the United States of America. It would kill Grace.”

“Better than the alternative.”

“What alternative?”

The special agent said nothing.

Frank shuddered. “He’d kill all of us.”

“You’re the only witnesses. You and Grace.”

“But Riley’s innocent. And my dad—”

“You know Cardamone. You think that will stop him?”

All of a sudden, the Remy didn’t taste so good. Frank swirled the glass again, his heart speeding up. He did know Cardamone. He knew what the man was capable of. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. They’d been standing up, off and on, for the last week. But still, it was impossible for him to grasp this concept completely. “How would he get away with it?”

“How did you get away with Brienne Cross?” Salter looked down at his notes. “The Egyptian professor from Berkeley—?”

“Okay, okay, I see your point. But won’t Cardamone suspect something if I fire all my security?”

Salter said, “I’m sure you can finesse it. This is going to happen fast. If you can get him to come down here—”

“I can get him to come down here, don’t you worry about that.”

“ If you can get him to come down here,” he repeated, “we’ll take it from there.”

“You’d be putting my family in danger.”

Salter just stared at him.

“My family’s already in danger.”

“Correct.”

“You have people there now?”

“We have the island under surveillance.”

Frank sighed. “Any way you look at this, I’m lucky if I escape jail time.”

Salter’s face was impassive.

“I don’t want Grace exposed.”

“I can’t promise anything. You know that. But if we can get Cardamone to admit what he’s done…we may not need her.”

Frank had a truly lucid moment. He looked straight at Agent Salter. “That’s bullshit.”

Salter stood. “Your choice. Somebody’s going to pay for all those deaths. Conspiracy’s a federal crime, and the death penalty will be enforced . We’d rather it be Cardamone.”

Frank’s future was bleak, any way you looked at it. There was very little wriggle room. He would have to convince Cardamone to come down here. He would have to get him to talk. Never easy—the guy was wary as an ibex.

Maybe there was a way out of this, but right now he couldn’t think of one. There were two dead bodies aboard, and the FBI knew about it. He didn’t think he could have killed them—that just wasn’t part of his makeup—but he couldn’t account for a few hours. He’d had something to drink, and he supposed he could have blacked out. It was within the realm of possibility.

At any rate, they were here, on his boat.

For a while now he’d been afraid that Cardamone would come after him, and worse, he’d come after his family. Special Agent Salter offered a way out, and he’d damn well take it.

For now.

42

By the time Landry and Franklin were through with their talk, it was going on eleven p.m., and Landry had some things to do. He decided to anchor out in the bay just off Panama City and put in to Cape San Blas early in the morning. One reason for this, Landry anticipated trouble when Franklin fired his security team. There might be unpleasantness. No one enjoyed losing a lucrative contract. Unlikely it would come to anything, but the one important lesson Landry had taken from his Boy Scout years was the motto, “Be prepared.”