Ghost Rendition Read online

  My watch-and-wait took me through the afternoon and into the evening. I needed to observe the scene in daylight and after dark. I munched on Triscuits and Brie that my mother had forced on me and drank from a Thermos of tea she had prepared. My gut felt like it had been stitched with barbed wire, but I didn’t want to take a painkiller and dull my senses.

  By midnight, I was convinced that I was clear. I made my way quickly and quietly to the house. I checked the windows front and back and on the opposite side of the house to make sure there was no one hiding inside. I didn’t trust my webcams.

  I checked the basement where I had state-of-the-art bug jammers set up. They seemed to be working normally. I searched the rest of the house to make sure I was alone, turned on the security system, took two Vicodin, and went to sleep.

  I woke up to the phone ringing. I looked at the caller ID and saw it was Suzanne’s cell. It was already into the school day for her. Had someone grabbed her and was using her phone?

  “Are you okay?” was my greeting.

  “You’re the one who had surgery,” she said.

  It took me a second to remember that I supposedly had an appendectomy. “I’m fine. You don’t usually call during school time.”

  “I need to talk to you, and I don’t want to do it with Devon in the house. Can you meet me after school?”

  “Is Devon okay?”

  “Yes, we are all okay, Gib. I just need to talk to you. Can you be at the house at 1:30?”

  “Sure. Should I bring Taco Bell?”

  She didn’t laugh even a little, which was a good sign that she was okay and not being coerced. I approached the Big House, the same way I had approached mine. I showed up early and watched. By the time Suzanne came home, I was pretty sure no one was on us. I stashed my gear in the Camry, waited a few minutes, and rang the bell. Suzanne was dressed in her work clothes. She was the cool preschool teacher who wore jeans and a black turtleneck. I always liked her in that look. It wasn’t trying too hard.

  I followed her into the kitchen. Neither of us were coffee drinkers. She had teacups out and a plate of Oreos. Green tea and cookies, it was our version of high tea. Suzanne was not only a vegetarian, she was big on whole, healthy foods. She limited Devon’s junk food consumption, but she had a secret sugar addiction. I sipped my tea and waited for her to talk. It took her a while to warm up when she had something important to say.

  “Dean broke up with me. Out of the blue. Do you have any idea why?” I had some thoughts. I tried not to look too happy.

  “He said that there was still too much going on with you and me. Why would he say that?”

  “He’s not as dumb as he looks?” I said.

  “I asked him if you had talked to him, and he looked scared. Did you threaten him in some way?”

  “As much as I’d like to take credit, what could I possibly say that would scare Rowan?”

  “Dean can be a little full of himself, but he’s not a bad guy. He was considerate, he was honest, and he was there. I don’t understand what would suddenly make him end things,” she said.

  “I won’t pretend I like the guy, but I’m sorry it hurt you.”

  “And you had nothing to do with it?”

  “Of course not. And part of the reason you’re upset is because he picked up on something you don’t want to admit. There are still strong feelings between us.”

  She got up out of her chair and I braced for a slap. Suzanne had a pretty tight hold on her temper, but in the rare instances that it broke free, she could be pretty fierce. What I wasn’t prepared for was a kiss. It felt new and familiar at the same time. It wasn’t the electric jolt I got from Caroline. It took me deeper and more completely. We undressed each other with urgency. We knew what lay beneath and rushed into its familiar embrace. We had never made love on the kitchen floor when we were married. It always felt cliché. And cold linoleum is not exactly an aphrodisiac, but it didn’t matter. We found the best of rediscovery, and the cold didn’t register as we lay panting afterward in each other’s arms.

  “I had a lot of feelings good and bad toward you and I guess they needed to come out,” she said.

  “I am always here to help.”

  Her elbow to the ribs sent pain shooting all the way down to my feet. I could have blocked it, but launching a Krav Maga counterattack on your ex-wife tended to be bad for your cover and your relationship.

  “I’m sorry. I forgot you’re still recovering.”

  “I will never recover,” I said.

  “That makes you sound like the victim and that’s not fair.”

  “I am a victim, of my own making. But I never wanted to make you one, you or Devon,” I said.

  “You’re a good father, a little deluded sometimes, but I know that’s out of love.”

  “But not a good husband,” I said.

  “It’s funny, I think about that a lot. It’s not like you were ever mean or that you neglected me. It’s just that you weren’t all there. There was some part of you that you wouldn’t share. And I thought I could live with that. But it started to drive me crazy. And finally I realized I deserved all of you and I couldn’t settle for less.”

  “You did have all of me. You still do,” I said.

  “You couldn’t even tell me the truth about that blonde woman you were with.”

  “We’re working together and that is absolutely the truth.”

  She looked at me for a long moment. “I believe you. And I still feel like there’s more you’re not telling me.”

  This was why it was impossible for contractors to stay married. The more your spouse got to know you, the more they could tell when you were lying. And you could never tell them the whole truth. “I love you, Suzanne. There is no one else. There never has been.”

  “And as much as I like to hear that, you still didn’t answer my question.”

  “It’s funny, I thought I did.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem. It’s not that we can’t find the right answers. We’re asking different questions,” she said.

  “That sounds like something that could be worked out,” I said.

  “I don’t know, Gib. I don’t know if I have the energy to try again.”

  “Then I’ll make it easy for you. Agree to dinner tonight. You don’t need much energy for dinner. We can go to that new Mediterranean place that opened in town. It’s all vegetarian.”

  “You’re going to give up meat for a night? Now I know you love me,” she said.

  “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

  “Gib . . .”

  “I’m coming here at seven, either way. Don’t make me grovel in front of our son,” I said.

  “If you’re going to grovel, beg him to do his homework.”

  “I thought that he was better about that now.”

  “He says he is, but he still spends all his time in his room with the door closed.”

  It was domestic talk after sex as only married couples share. There was a time when I had wished for sexier post coital banter, but now I realized I missed it. Devon was a bond only the two of us shared.

  “Maybe he’s jerking off,” I said.

  “I wish it were that simple.”

  “I could advise him. I’m very good at it.”

  “Oh, is that what you’re good at,” she said.

  “Not the only thing.” I kissed her on the neck. She always loved to be kissed on the neck. She laughed and squirmed away.

  “I have to take a shower and get ready to pick up Devon.”

  “Let me pick him up,” I said.

  “So you can advise him?”

  “So I can spend time with him. And with you.”

  She stopped squirming away and started squirming in the right way.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I parked around the corner from the school and waited for Devon. I had texted him that I was going to pick him up, and he had given me a two-letter response, “OK.” I wondered if he was okay. You know your child from the mome
nt they come into the world, so you assume that you understand them. You see yourself in them. You imagine that they think and feel the way you did. In my heart I felt sure that Devon was a good, levelheaded kid who would find his place as he grew older. But was that wishful thinking? I’m sure my parents assumed the same about me, and my life hadn’t exactly turned out the way any of us had imagined.

  “One step at a time,” I told myself. None of this would matter if I couldn’t keep them safe. My mind tends to race after sex. It’s like when my body opens up, my mind does too. That’s why I didn’t catch the movement quicker. It was more like a subtle change in shadow and light, but I should have registered it immediately. Someone was hiding in the broken phone booth. They knew that taking me would be easiest when I was with Devon. I needed to act quickly before Devon got here. If I died doing it, at least they would have no motive to hurt Devon.

  I didn’t take the time to set up my belt buckle gun. I opened the car door and slid out into a crouch on the driver’s side as I had when I’d hit Rob. This time I wouldn’t pull my punch. I would strike to kill. If my assailant had backup, which was likely, I would get a bullet in the head, but I didn’t have any other options. I slipped around back of the car and exploded out of my crouch into a dead run. I reached the phone booth as I had with Rob and found no one. It had been a feint. I dropped to the ground and scanned for my assailant. Again I saw nothing. I got up slowly. There was no hail of bullets, no onrushing attackers. Had I imagined what I saw, a product of my post-coital flush? I walked slowly back to the Camry and found Rob sitting in the passenger seat.

  A range of thoughts went through my head. Had one of Westfield’s contractors been cut to look like Rob? Was I dreaming? What if having sex with Suzanne had been a dream too? That would suck.

  “I didn’t want to get hit this time,” Rob said.

  He sounded like Rob, and who else would know that I had hit him in similar circumstances? That left either a dream or I had lost my mind. I was hoping for the dream.

  “Get in. We don’t have much time,” he said.

  I stared at him.

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t contact you earlier, but I had to let things play out for a while,” he said.

  This was something Rob would say. But I had Nachash in my head, and he sounded convincing too. “You mean you had to be sure you could trust me,” I said.

  “I staked my career that I could trust you.”

  “But not your life,” I said.

  “I had to be sure I didn’t compromise you.”

  “You faked your death,” I said.

  “I am sorry I had to put you through that.”

  “And your family?”

  “I moved them before events got out of hand. It took some elaborate lies and some big favors, but they’re safe,” he said.

  “Let me guess. Spending time in Israel on some kind of cultural exchange program you made up.” Rob didn’t react. He had a world-class poker face. “You didn’t want Pratt renditioned, and Westfield was after you, so you sent me in. Then you waited for him to move on you and let him believe he’d succeeded. I’m guessing a cadaver in the house and accelerant to make sure the fire burned it enough to make a real ID impossible. But he didn’t totally buy it, did he?”

  “He’s calling himself Westfield, is he? That’s his own in-joke. He’s a genius with data, but he’s sensitive that he was never a field agent. He would always say that guarding the Western World was his field.”

  “Funny guy. He tipped the Russians to mess up the rendition?”

  “And to pin it on me. His story was that I had sold Pratt to them, the deal went awry, and they killed me.”

  “You did have a nice house,” I said.

  “Family money, which he’s frozen. Fortunately, I have other resources. He promoted me to separate me from my contractors. When I refused to give you up, he tried to have you killed during the Khalid job. He’s very thorough.”

  “You tipped the Israelis to counter the Russians and because they would hide your family.”

  “I had their word that they wouldn’t hurt you or Pratt.”

  “One of them didn’t get the memo,” I said.

  “But you dealt with him.”

  “Caroline keeps you informed.”

  “My information comes from way above her pay grade. She was told only what was necessary.”

  “I made a deal with her. Israel gets Tiresias for a year, then they share it with us,” I said.

  “I authorized it.”

  “Why use me at all? Why not have the Israelis take him from the start?” The answer hit me as I asked the question. “You didn’t trust them. You needed me to play keep away long enough for you to get to Westfield and clear yourself. Once the Israelis get Pratt, you lose your leverage. They might not protect your family as enthusiastically. Why wouldn’t you just tell me? After all this time, you didn’t trust me enough to let me in on the plan?”

  “You know that’s not how we work,” he said.

  “I can’t give up what I don’t know. And you wanted plausible deniability in case your plan went sideways. You already had the Russians pinned on you, the rest would land on me.”

  “I had confidence you could handle it. I still do.”

  “Did Pratt know?”

  Rob shook his head. “I just messaged him. He seems a lot happier to know I’m alive than you do.”

  “He thinks you recruited him to be a ‘secret agent.’ You were worried that he might go rogue and blow the whistle, so you sold him the spy bullshit as an excuse to keep an eye on him. The only thing I can’t figure out is why you’re risking your career, your family’s safety, to stop him from being renditioned.”

  “The same reason you are,” Rob said.

  “You didn’t show up to let me know you’re alive. This is another manipulation. Well, guess what? That’s over. You’re going to tell me how to find Westfield, I’m going to kill him and this is all going to end.”

  “If I knew that, I would have done it myself.”

  “You don’t want him dead, at least not until you can prove that he tipped the Russians, and you can square yourself with the Agency. But I don’t give a shit. My family is at risk. Westfield has to be eliminated, and then you can spin whatever new lies you need to in order to save your neck. That’s all you care about. I’m sure you’ll be creative.”

  “You know that’s not all I care about.”

  “I cried when I thought you were dead. For the first time since I was a kid, I cried. Now I know how Suzanne feels. Everything you ever tell me is a lie.”

  “I’ve always told you as much truth as I could.”

  “Very touching, I might cry again. Give me his fucking name or you of all people know what I’m capable of.”

  “His real name is Don Bradford, but you’ll never find him. He has no family, no friends, no permanent residence. He never allows himself to be photographed. He almost never goes to a CIA office, and if he does, he personally expunges his image from the security feeds. The directors laugh about him, but never to his face. He’s a fanatic, but he’s useful to them. And he’s a hero to the hawks at the Agency. They call him the Ghost because he never leaves a trace.”

  “A ghost who orders ghost renditions, it’s almost poetic.”

  “Believe me, there is no poetry in this man’s soul.”

  “But you have a plan. There’s always a plan.”

  “Pratt’s good, but Bradford will find you eventually. And then I’ll be there.”

  “As my guardian angel.”

  “As your backup.”

  “The way you’ve backed me up so far?”

  “I couldn’t expose myself and risk letting Bradford know I’m alive. And as I said, I have full confidence in you.”

  “Don’t you ever get tired of all the bullshit? I mean when does it end? When do even you stop knowing what the truth is?”

  “It ends when the job is over.”

  “Get the fuck out of my
car. Devon will be here soon and I don’t want you anywhere near him.”

  “Gib . . .”

  “Get out.”

  “You always know how to reach me,” he said.

  It hit me in full measure, only when he had vanished from sight, Rob was alive. I was furious with him for deceiving me. I was angry with myself for letting him. And I was still happy to see him.

  “Hey, Dad. Mom send you to talk to me again?” Devon said, hopping into the car.

  “Huh?” I was having a hard time shifting gears.

  “She told you that I’m spending all my time in my room, and you both think I’m hacking into the school server again, right?”

  “We don’t think that. You’re not, right?”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  “I know you’re not. You’re too smart for your age. Your brains are ahead of your emotions, which isn’t easy.”

  “I like hacking. It’s not that big a deal,” he said.

  “You sound like Pratt.”

  “Is he done with his job?” Devon asked.

  “No, it’s a pretty long-term thing.”

  Devon’s shoulders slumped as they always did when he was disappointed. Had he formed a bond with Pratt that quickly? Or was he just that lonely.

  “I’m going out to dinner with your mother tonight,” I said.

  I had planned on letting Suzanne tell him, but it just came out.

  “Because Dean dumped her?”

  “I don’t know if he dumped her . . .”

  “I’m glad he did. What an asshole.”

  “Well, anyone who would let your mom get away is certainly an asshole.”

  “Don’t screw it up, okay?” he said.

  “I won’t,” I said, and hoped it was true.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Getting dressed for my date with my wife, I was more nervous than when I was trying to keep the Suit from killing me. In combat situations, you learn to channel your emotions. “Turn fear into purpose,” is how Nachash put it. The best professional athletes can do the same thing. The ones who come through with the game on the line are able to harness their emotions. The others are called chokers. I hadn’t been a fan of organized sports as a kid, but I came to appreciate them as an adult. I don’t have the rabid attachment to a particular team that lifelong fans do, but I like to watch the athletes perform under pressure and see how they respond. And right now, I was choking. Literally. It felt like my throat was closing. I actually got my Maglite out and checked in the bathroom mirror to make sure I wasn’t going into anaphylactic shock. I was almost disappointed that I wasn’t.