Cut and Run

“Do I need my representative present?” Geldwig asked.

“It’s certainly your right to make such a request. You tell me: Do you need a rep present?”

“Not if there’s a deal to be made beforehand.”

“You’ve been carrying on an affair with Assistant Marshal Bob Mosley,” Rotem said.

“Sue me.” She contained her body language well but could not prevent the scarlet blush that moved up from her fashionable suit’s shirt collar to its hiding place behind her ears.

“Mosley came clean earlier this morning, and we’ve had the day to review your own activities, assignments, and your overall participation within the Service. You’re a hard worker. You moved around a lot within WITSEC. Now you’re here. You’ve moved through the ranks surprisingly quickly.”

“All legitimate promotions.”

“I’m sure.”

Tina, the attorney, took notes, her pen working furiously so that it looked as if she were a stenographer.

“What’s your point?”

“Ms. Geldwig, this may have started out as some kind of game to you. I’m not sure. Maybe it was for the money, because God knows we’d all like more in this job. Maybe it was the secrecy or the joy of feeling so damn important to someone. Or maybe they-and in this case I’m specifically talking about the Romero syndicate-had collected some piece of information that they could use against you. Hold over you. Your sex life, your vices, your spending habits, your family. I mention these only because they are the most commonly seen in cases like this.”

“Cases like what?” She fumbled in her clutch purse and came out with a delicate handkerchief that she used to dab at her nose, more nervous habit than necessity.

“Bob Mosley remembers everything he told you. Everything you asked.”

For Rotem, the inconceivable thing in this case was that a guy like Mosley would ever believe a woman such as this could fall for him in the first place. He’d now have twenty to thirty years to think about it, and so would Ms. Geldwig, thanks to his testimony. “What you seem to be missing in this, Deputy Marshal Geldwig, is that Mosley’s told us everything. The longer you play the naïf, the less time you have to get on the other side of this and help yourself.”

Finally Wank joined the discussion. “You’ve been with Fugitive Apprehension for a little over three months, Ms. Geldwig. Perhaps you can explain what was behind your decision to transfer.”

When she failed to answer, Rotem did it for her. “WITSEC might be considered the more prestigious, more interesting employment. And yet you transferred over to the FATF.”

“I wanted away from Mosley. Besides, I think you’re wrong, sir. This is where the action is.”

“We know for a fact that Mosley told you everything there is to know about Leopold Markowitz and what came to be known as Laena,” Rotem said. “Do you know what Laena means, Deputy Geldwig? Where the term came from?”

She cleared her throat. “It’s Latin or Greek for ‘cloak,’ as I recall.”

Rotem now forced himself to lock eyes with her. “And you’ve removed that cloak, haven’t you?” He avoided mention of the recent executions-she’d lawyer up given that information. “Exposed several thousand lives to possible execution. And all for what, Ms. Geldwig? The seven hundred thousand dollars in commercial real estate? The time-share in Paris? We know about those, Ms. Geldwig, and we’ll find out more. We’ve seized all your property, all your assets-or rather, Ms. Wank has. As of this moment you don’t have two nickels to rub together. Are you sure you don’t want to talk?”

“RICO,” the attorney said.

“We own you. And you’ve run out of time to explain yourself.”

A knock on the door was followed by an aide poking his head inside. It had to be important.

Rotem stood, walked around the table, and passed close to Geldwig. She smelled darkly sweet and earthy, a perfume designed to engorge a man. The effect lingered as Rotem reached his aide, who apologized for the interruption.

The aide, a young man in his late twenties, handed him a sheaf of papers. “Her movement through the network, sir. What files she accessed. I highlighted the few of interest.”

Rotem sca

The aide said, “We can go back further as time allows.”

Rotem flipped pages, waiting for the yellow highlight. On page four his thumb found the line and his eyes carried over.

“What the hell? What is this, utilities for what?”

“She’d been surfing the utility records-the billing records, sir-for our various safe houses. A change in utility consumption.”

“Indicates activity at a particular safe house.” Rotem jumped ahead to what this meant, but restrained himself, needing to confirm his suspicions before sounding the alarm. “And these particular billing records?” he asked.

“Are for the Orchard House, sir. But I checked with WITSEC and they don’t have anyone assigned to the Orchard House at present.” The young man noticed Rotem’s sudden pallor. “Or do they?”

Rotem swallowed dryly. “Get Larson on the phone. Now. Right now! You don’t send him an e-mail, you don’t leave him a message, you get him on the phone. I need to speak to him right now.”

He glanced back at the closed door to the conference room, thinking a gun to the head would serve the taxpayers far better where Geldwig was concerned.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Paolo drove past the farmhouse and kept right on going. At first glance, his guess was that the info they’d been given was bad. From what he’d seen of the house, pushed back off the road and in a cluster of barren trees, it was decrepit and hardly the kind of place the government would use as a safe house. The feds leaned more toward motels and hotels, military facilities and public housing, not a neglected farmhouse, isolated and out in the middle of nowhere. Defending such a place would require a minimum of two, probably more like four to six, which again struck him as far too rich for federal law enforcement.

He also couldn’t be sure it would be the same mark as he was after, but the assignment had been handed to him, passed along to Philippe by a supposedly reliable source, and he had to stick with it. How many witnesses in and around St. Louis could they be protecting on a given day? He followed the map, making a full circle of the area, driving close to five miles before pulling around and back up the steep hill again, and passing the same rock outcropping that looked this time like some sort of face: part human, part devil.

He’d left Pe

He slowed and studied the surrounding property, held in the evening dusk as if sprinkled with fireplace ash. He turned the car up a muddy, rut-covered track, stopped at a rusted metal gate, climbed out, and swung it open. The air smelled different here, the way really cold water from a bottle tasted more like melted snow than tap water. Once through the gate, he backed up and parked, tucking the car in alongside a hedgerow of overgrown, weedy trees and shrubs. From here, the track rose into the spines of gnarly, barren apple trees that cast a chill in the air, forewarning winter’s approach. The hill rose up to a rocky queen’s crown, the swells of the orchard below rolling, once up and then back down, before slipping left toward a crumbling fence line in disrepair, and just beyond, leveling to nearly flat ground and the fading farmhouse, now only a suggestion in the dwindling light. Paolo charted a course through the orchard to the house, committing it to memory so that he could return to the car by one of two different routes.