“So let’s talk about it.”
“I don’t want to get in trouble.”
“I don’t want that either.”
“Yeah, but can you guarantee it?”
“If you’ve done nothing wrong, I can. And even if you have screwed up, depending on what you tell me, you might very well get a walk.”
Annabelle started twisting her fingers. “It’s complicated.”
“Trust me, my job never involves anything remotely simple.”
“What exactly is your job?” she said bluntly.
He pulled over and parked on the street and turned off the truck. “Let’s get one thing straight. This is not an information exchange. You talk, I listen. If it’s good, I help you. If you’re screwing me over, well, just don’t.”
She drew a long breath and plunged in. “Oliver was very secretive. Nobody really knew anything concrete about his past. But we could all tell he was special, different. You probably saw the books in his cottage. He spoke different languages. He just carried himself in a different way.”
“His past I’m reasonably well-informed on. It’s his current location that I’m most interested in.”
“I don’t know that.”
“So why’d you call me?”
“Oliver had some information on Carter Gray. That was why Gray resigned when he did.”
“What kind of information?”
Annabelle shook her head. “He never said, but he visited Gray and the next day Gray resigned, so it must’ve been pretty incriminating.”
“But then Gray got his old position back.”
“That’s because he got the evidence that Oliver had back.”
“The Capitol Visitor Center?” Knox said sharply.
“I think so. It wasn’t like I was there. It’s just something Oliver said right before he vanished.”
“What else did he say?”
“That it’s better no one ever finds out the real truth. That it could hurt this country and he would never want that.”
Knox smiled. “You’d make a great witness for the defense.”
“Do you know about his military service?”
“Guy was a helluva soldier. So what about Senator Simpson? What’s the connection there?”
“Oliver said he worked for the CIA before he got into politics.”
“That’s right, he did. So Oliver knew him back then?”
“I guess. If he did work for the CIA, I mean. I have no proof that Oliver ever did.”
“Let me worry about the proof. Does the term Triple Six mean anything to you?”
“I heard Oliver mention it once, but he never explained what it was.”
“I bet he didn’t.”
“He was a good man. He helped break up a spy ring. He got a commendation letter from the FBI director.”
“Good for him. So why do you think he killed Gray and Simpson?”
“I have no reason to believe that he did.”
“Come on, Susan, or whatever your real name is, you’re obviously not stupid. You know Carr and Stone are the same person. He’s been hiding out for thirty years.”
“If that’s so, why do you think he’s been hiding out?”
“You tell me.”
“Maybe people were after him.”
“What people?”
“People looking to kill him, I think.”
“Is that what he said?”
“He told me once that with some agencies, even if you want to leave, they won’t let you. They’d rather you’d be dead than not working for them.”
This remark hit Knox like a hard slap but he didn’t show it. That one I can believe.
“So let’s assume for the moment he was a Triple Six who wanted out. They didn’t want him to leave?”
“I know he was married and had a daughter. But he said they were both dead now.”
Knox sat back against the seat, his fingers still gripping the steering wheel. “Suggesting that whoever was after him killed them?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Knox let go of the steering wheel and stared out at the traffic whipping by down Pennsylvania Avenue. His thoughts turned momentarily to his own son and daughter. Maybe his son was safer in Iraq than his daughter was in Washington. That was a brutally numbing thought.
“Do you have a family?” she asked.
Knox snapped back. “What else can you tell me? His last few days with you? Anything that might show where he went?”
“If he did kill Gray and Simpson they probably deserved it.”
“That’s not what I asked, and, by the way, talk like that could wind you up in jail.”
“I owe Oliver my life.”
“That’s you, not me.”
“So when you find him are you going to kill him?”
“I work for the federal government. I’m not a hired killer.”
“So you’re telling me that if you do catch him he’ll end up being tried, in a court of law?”
Knox hesitated. “That’s not my call. A lot of it depends on him.”
“Yeah, I thought that might be what you’d say.”
“We’re talking about a killer, Ms. Hunter.”
“No, we’re talking about my friend who was pushed past all human limits.”
“You know that to be a fact?”
“I know him. That’s how he’s built. Was he capable of violence, of killing? Sure. Was he a cold-blooded killer? No.”
“I have information that says otherwise.”
“Then your information is wrong.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“My gut.”
“Your gut? That’s it?”
“Yeah, the same gut that’s telling me you really don’t want any part of this job. I’m betting you have a family and a dream of being retired. But you got called into this shit and now you don’t know which side is playing you for a fool.”
It was a testament to Knox’s iron-hard nerves that he didn’t even blink in the face of this spot-on observation.
“Unless you have anything to add, I’ll drop you back off.”
“So am I in trouble?”
“You’ll be the first to know.”
Back in Georgetown she climbed out of the Rover. Before she closed the door he said, “With something like this, Ms. Hunter, everybody needs to watch his back.”
He drove off.
Annabelle pulled her coat tighter around her and watched, stone-faced, as Reuben’s truck edged past her and took up the tail on Joe Knox.
The fox had now become the hunted.
A minute later an ancient Chevy with a stuttering tailpipe stopped at the curb, Caleb at the wheel. Annabelle climbed in and they drove off in the opposite direction.
Annabelle glanced at Caleb and he looked at her.
“We’re being followed too, you know,” Annabelle said.