The Secret Soldier Page 4

  “Ellis. Please stop. You win.”

  “Who was it, then?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you. Which will be in about five minutes.”

  “Don’t hurt me. I promise I’ll confess to whatever you like.” Shafer hung up before Wells could reply.

  THE FRONT DOOR WAS unlocked. “In the kitchen,” Shafer yelled.

  The kitchen smelled of burnt coffee. Coffee grounds blotched Shafer’s jeans, and he was wearing a T-shirt that said “World’s Best Grandpa.” He raised his arms to hug Wells.

  “No hug. Please. And congratulations, Ellis. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  Wells nodded at the T-shirt.

  “Oh. No. There’s no grandchildren. Lisa, you know, she’s at UVA, and she’s got a boyfriend now. It’s kind of reverse psychology. I figure the shirt is so lame, she’ll be sure to take care when she—”

  “You found the shirt for ninety-nine cents, didn’t you? At Sam’s Club or something.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Ellis, you’re getting weird in your old age.”

  “You sound like my wife. But it’s good to see you. What’s going on?”

  “Sit.” Shafer sat. Wells recounted Janice Robinson’s story, and what she’d asked. By the time he finished, Shafer was leaning forward across the table, his eyes boring into Wells, all the slack gone out of him.

  “You know, I hear this, my first thought is you quit,” Shafer said. “You live up in the sticks with your dog and your new girlfriend.”

  “She’s not my new girlfriend—”

  “Oh, no, no, no. You are some genius at ops, but you couldn’t be more emotionally stunted. Especially about women. And please don’t tell me we’re the same. I’ve been married thirty years. Thirty years, one woman.”

  “I didn’t come here to talk about this.”

  “How about this, then? Call the FBI and be done with it.”

  “Janice Robinson wants me to handle it.”

  “I’m sorry. I missed the section of the criminal code that says the traitor’s ex-wife decides who brings him in. Anyway, she doesn’t want you to handle it. She wants you, period. I remember Jenny telling me, back in the day.”

  “I have a plan.” Wells explained.

  “You understand that’s not a plan. That’s five long-shot bets. Even if you’re right about where he is, what he’s doing, you have to find him. Then you have to get to him. Then you have to hope he doesn’t want to go out in a blaze of glory.”

  “He’s a runner. Not a fighter.”

  “Runners fight when they’re cornered. I understand why you’re doing this. But nothing’s going to make up for what happened last time. Let the Feebs”—Shafer’s unfriendly term for the FBI—“do their job.”

  “Thanks for the advice.” Wells stood to leave.

  “You’re going to be as pigheaded as always, do this on your own.”

  Wells nodded.

  “Then you want some help?”

  Another nod.

  “All right. But let me make one thing clear. I’m not doing this because I think I owe you, I should have quit with you, whatever. I’m doing it so you don’t blow it.”

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON, JANICE led Wells to her kitchen. The counter was strewn with red horses, purple cows, yellow sheep, a menagerie of construction paper.

  “Decorating?”

  She laughed, the sound sweeter than Wells expected. “For my kindergarteners.”

  “You like teaching?”

  “You probably know this, it must be in a file. But Eddie wanted another baby. After our son died. I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t. Maybe things would have been different if I...” She trailed off.

  “Guys like your husband, they find excuses to do what they want. And if they can’t find one, they just make it up.”

  Janice shrugged: I don’t believe you, but I won’t argue. “Anyway, the teaching, it’s D.C., Northeast, a charter school. These kids, they don’t have two nickels to rub together. You see it in the winter, their shoes, these cheap sneakers that soak through if there’s any rain. Much less snow. So I’m trying to show them the world cares about them, even a little bit. Maybe it means something to them. Probably not, but maybe. That’s a long way of saying yes, I like it, John. You don’t mind if I call you John?”

  “Of course not.” Wells touched Janice’s arm and then realized he shouldn’t have. Her face lit like a winning slot machine. “You understand what I want you to do?”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “It’s the only way. Otherwise, I have to tell the FBI.”

  “All right.”

  “Good. So tomorrow, somebody’s gonna put a tap and trace on your phone. Keith won’t know it’s there.” Shafer had called in a favor he was owed from an engineer who used to work at NSA. “Tomorrow night, you call him. Sooner or later, he’ll call you back. Don’t ask him where he is. Unless he brings up a visit, don’t mention it.”

  “Don’t push.”

  “Right. You’ll make him nervous. Don’t be too friendly. Don’t forgive him. Don’t let him think you’re giving in too easily. Deep down he knows this call is a bad idea. You’ve got to make him focus on you instead of that.”

  Janice turned away from Wells and opened the kitchen faucet all the way but held her glass a foot above the spout, as if somehow the water could defy gravity.

  “He loved me,” she whispered to the window, her voice barely audible above the water sloshing down the drain. “It sounds stupid, but it’s true.”

  “I believe you.”

  “God. I hope you catch him.”

  THE NEXT NIGHT, WITH Wells sitting beside her on her couch, Janice made the call, straight to voicemail. “Eddie. Is that you? I got your cards. Call me.”

  Wells figured Robinson would wait weeks to call back. If he ever did. But a few minutes later, with Wells still in the house, the phone rang. Janice grabbed it. “Hello.”

  Through the receiver, slow, steady breaths.

  “Eddie. Is that you?” She waited. “Why did you send the cards, Eddie?”

  “Are you okay, Jan?” His voice was raspy and deep.

  “I had a liver transplant.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Go to hell, Eddie.” She slammed down the phone before Wells could stop her and slumped into Wells’s chest. They sat silently for a few minutes as Wells wondered why he’d ever trusted Janice.

  “He’s never calling back, is he?” Janice finally said.

  “I don’t know.” The phone rang again. Janice reached for the phone, but Wells put a hand on the receiver before she could answer.

  “Like I said, he’s definitely calling back. Keep cool. Promise?”

  She nodded. He let go of the receiver, and she picked up.

  “I deserved that.”

  “Why are you calling me?” Her southern twang thickened when she talked to Robinson.

  “I wanted to talk.”

  “That simple. Like you’ve been away on business instead of—I don’t even know how to describe it—”

  “I miss you, Jan. It’s hard out here.” He sounded close to tears. Wells hadn’t understood until now that in addition to everything else, Robinson was simply a spoiled brat.

  “Are you sick?”

  “Been better. But I have a fine doctor taking care of me. Cuban. Viva Fidel. I’m gonna live forever. I’m gonna learn how to fly.”

  “You need to turn yourself in.”

  A hollow laugh from the other end. “Not a good idea.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To talk. To somebody who knows me.”

  “I don’t know you. The day they came to the house, I realized that.”

  Beside Janice, Wells twisted his hands: Steer the conversation if you can. “I hope you’re doing something good now, Eddie. Making up for what you did.”

  Another laugh. “Could say I’m doing a little community service. Helping youngsters in need. I’ve g
ot to go, okay?”

  “Tell me how to get hold of you.”

  “I’ll get hold of you.”

  “Eddie. Are you still in Jamaica? Kingston?” Wells shook his head no, but he was too late.

  “Are they there? On the call?”

  “No, it’s just me. I swear.”

  “Swear on Mark’s grave.”

  She looked at Wells. He nodded.

  “Don’t make me do that.” She squeezed her eyes shut. Wells wasn’t sure whether she was talking to him or to Robinson.

  “Do it.”

  “God, Eddie. I swear. It’s just me.” Tears peeped from under her eyelids.

  “Yes. I’m in Jamaica. Montego Bay. I’ll call you again.” Click.

  Janice swung at Wells, her fist glancing off his chest.

  “You shouldn’t have made me say that.”

  Wells was all out of compassion. Her husband was about the most miserable human being alive. She’d just had to lie on her dead son’s grave. He was sorry for her. But that didn’t mean he was responsible for her.

  “You wanted him? We’ll catch him now. Between the trace and what he told you, we’ll have enough. If he reaches out again, let me know.”

  She shrank against the couch. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Please don’t go.”

  Wells walked out. He wanted to find a fight, make someone bleed. Instead he got into his Subaru and peeled away, promising himself that Keith Edward Robinson would regret sending those postcards.

  SEVEN HOURS AND FIVE hundred thirty miles later, Wells turned off I-91 at Boltonville, Vermont. He had sped through the night Cannonball Run—style. Normally, driving soothed his anger, but tonight he gained no relief from the empty asphalt.

  Long ago, in Afghanistan, Wells had converted to Islam. But his faith came and went, pulling away just when he thought he’d mastered it. Of course, no one could master faith. God always hovered around the next curve, the next, the next. The quest to find Him had to be its own reward. Wells understood that much, if nothing more. But tonight the search felt lonelier than ever. He hadn’t seen another vehicle for more than half an hour. As though he were the last man alive.

  He swung right onto Route 302, drove through a little town called Wells River—no relation. Past a shuttered gas station and an empty general store and over a low bridge into New Hampshire. Then Woodsville, a metropolis by the standards of the North Country, with a hospital and a bank and a thousand people clustered in steep-sided wooden houses against the winters. Wells gunned the engine to leave the town behind.

  A few miles on, he swung right, southeast on Route 112, the Kancamagus Highway, impassible in the winter. He was exhausted and driving too fast now, through old forests of fir and pine, the Subaru a blur in the night, sticking low to the road. The next curve, and the next. Wells felt his eyelids slipping. In the dark now, in the night, he began to murmur through pursed lips the shahada, the essential Muslim creed: There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his messenger. Finally he emerged into the open plain of Conway, a town too quaint for its own good, and turned left toward North Conway.

  Anne lived in a farmhouse at the edge of town, run-down and sweet, with maple plank floors and an iron stove in the kitchen. Wells was helping her restore it, painting, sanding the floors, even putting in new sinks—a job that had almost gone disastrously wrong. The place needed new wiring and a new roof, and she couldn’t afford the fixes on a cop’s pay. Wells’s salary had piled up during his years undercover. He wasn’t sure whether he should offer to pay, if he’d be presuming too much.

  He slipped the Subaru into the garage beside the house and padded into the kitchen through the unlocked back door. Tonka, his dog, a German shepherd mutt, trotted up to greet him, her big tail wagging wildly. She put her paws on him, buried her head in his chest. He’d bought jerky at the gas station, and he fed it to her strip by strip.

  “John?”

  Anne’s bedroom was upstairs. She slept sideways across the bed, stretched like a cat under a down comforter. He slipped under the blankets and hugged her warm, sleepy body and kissed her slowly.

  “Flannel pajamas. Sexy.” He tried to reach under them, but she twisted away. “You stink of the road. Brush your teeth and come back. I’m not going anywhere.”

  And she wasn’t.

  An hour later, she lay beside him, touching the scar on his upper arm, a knuckle-sized knot from a bullet he’d taken long before. She rolled the dead flesh between her fingers like a marble. “Does it ache?”

  “No.”

  She pinched it. “Does it now?”

  “I thought we were supposed to be relaxing.”

  “You never struck me as the cuddling type.”

  He closed his eyes, and she rubbed his face, tracing slow circles over his cheeks. In seconds he fell into a doze, imagining an endless narrow highway. But he woke to find her hand sliding down his stomach.

  “Really? Again?”

  “If you can handle it.”

  “Easy for you to say. I do all the work and you get all the credit.”

  “Is that so?” She lifted her hand, tweaked the tip of his nose.

  Wells turned sideways so they were face-to-face. “Maybe not always.”

  Again she dropped her arm. He was eight inches taller than she was, and she had to scoot halfway under the blanket to follow her hand. “I’m looking for something.” Her hand was on his stomach now.

  “You found it.”

  “That’s your belly button.”

  He leaned down, and their mouths met.

  “There it is.” She paused. “You’re worn out. But I can fix that.”

  “We’ll see. Maybe ... Yes. Yes, you can.”

  LATER SHE NESTLED AGAINST him, her breathing soft and steady.

  “You’ve got a mission coming. An operation. Whatever you call it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I saw it when you came in. In your shoulders. Want to tell me?”

  “It’s old business.” He waited. “Are you mad I can’t tell you?”

  “John. Please. Do you want me to say I am, so you have an excuse to leave? You don’t need an excuse.”

  He was silent. Then, finally: “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s like you want to reinvent yourself but you know there’s no point in trying, because you know that you can only be who you already are.”

  “Isn’t that the same for everyone?”

  “Most of us have some give. You’re cut from rock.”

  “Let’s go to sleep.”

  “You want to spend your life with me here, you will. If not, you won’t. Just don’t ask me to fall in love with you while you’re deciding. I have to protect myself, too.”

  He closed his eyes. He felt that somehow she was accusing him, though he wasn’t sure of what. Anyway, everything she said was true.

  He slept heavily and without dreams. When he woke, she was gone. She worked the afternoon shift. He padded downstairs to find that she’d left coffee and a tray of freshly baked biscuits. He always wound up with women kinder than he deserved.

  Wells drank the coffee as he considered his next move. He was guessing that Robinson dealt drugs small-time. He’d be handy to the local dealers. As a white face, he’d be less likely to frighten tourists who wanted to score.

  Wells wondered how long Robinson had been playing this game, and why. Maybe he’d drunk or smoked though his cash and was supporting his habits by dealing. Maybe he had the insane idea that if he put together a big enough nut, he could get back to the United States. Maybe he was hoping to relive the thrills he’d had as a mole. Even he might not know the answer. Guys who listed pros and cons on a yellow pad didn’t wind up as double agents.

  Now that Robinson had given up his best defense, his invisibility, Wells figured that finding him shouldn’t be too difficult. Montego Bay was only so large. Still, Wells wanted backup for the mission, a face that Robinson wouldn’t recognize. He thumbed through his phone, found Gaffan’s numbe
r.

  MONTEGO BAY WAS JAMAICA’S second-largest city, the hub of the tourist trade. From November to April, cruise ships disgorged clumps of sunburned Americans to buy T-shirts and rum at a heavily policed mall near the port. They were back on board by nightfall to head to the Bahamas or Puerto Rico.

  Montego also had a busy international airport. Many wealthier visitors saw the city only on their way to the fancy all-inclusive resorts outside of town. But younger tourists on tighter budgets often stayed in Montego itself, in an area south of the airport called the Hip Strip, a name that immediately proclaimed a trying-too-hard uncoolness. Centered around Gloucester Avenue, the Hip Strip mixed hotels and clubs with shops selling overpriced bongs and bead necklaces. The hotel rooms facing Gloucester were useful for heavy partiers or heavy sleepers only. Until early morning, reggae and rap boomed from beat-up Chevy Caprices, the old square ones, and Toyota RAV4s with tinted windows. Outside the clubs, barkers promised drink specials and Bob Marley cover bands. Wells and Gaffan had rented a room just off Gloucester. Wells figured they would cruise the clubs until they ran across Robinson.

  But catching Robinson had proven more difficult than Wells had hoped. Until he arrived, he hadn’t understood the scope of the drug trade in Jamaica. Pot and other drugs were technically illegal on the island, but at every corner on Gloucester, dreadlocked men cooed, “Smoke. Spliff. Ganja, man. Purple Haze.” After a while, the words blended into background noise. “Spliffsmokeganjaman.” The Jamaican national anthem.

  The Montego Bay cops were around, too, walking the avenue. As far as Wells could tell, they weren’t trying to stop the trade. Their presence was intentionally obvious, giving the dealers plenty of warning. The only people they caught were tourists too stupid or high to hide their smoking. Wells had seen an arrest, a barely disguised shakedown. A young woman—mid-twenties, maybe—passed a tiny joint to her husband when the cops approached. “Come here,” one of the cops said. The couple wore narrow wedding rings of bright, cheap gold. “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to disrespect your country.”