COLBY, LONG ISLAND
Late Friday afternoon
Erwin exited the Long Island Expressway and headed to Colby. “About twenty-five thousand people live here, mostly retirees in houses too big for them. And about as many squirrels, ducking golf balls all over the golf courses. Good place for a safe house.”
Giusti said, “The house is at the end of a long block. It’s quiet and private, an easy perimeter. And yes, lots of squirrels.”
“And too many oaks and maples,” Erwin said. “I could get to someone in that house, no problem.”
“Yeah, so you’ve told us, Pip. But you’d have to find us first and have feet as light as those squirrels.” She turned to Sherlock and Cal. “Pip thinks he can walk in a room without anyone hearing him. What does your wife say about that?”
“All June ever said was she’d never cheat on me, not worth the risk of getting caught. Really, Kelly, I’m only saying there are too many spots for snipers in those trees. We can’t cover them all. If we lose Conklin, that’s how it’ll happen.”
“Everyone knows that, Pip. We have to deal with the site we have until they move us again, which will be soon. Nasim’s safer here than in federal lockup, without a doubt. No one followed us here, you and I made sure of that. Not that anyone would have known to follow us, in any case.”
They pulled to a stop at the curb of an out-of-the-way 1960s clapboard house at the end of a cul-de-sac. It was a weathered gray that needed serious touch-ups and maybe a new roof. It looked passable for the neighborhood, though barely, and didn’t call attention to itself. A fence enclosed the property, about six feet high, and Cal wagered it was alarmed, maybe electrified. Would anyone wonder about seeing a fence like that around such an ordinary, nondescript house?
Pip Erwin was right to worry about all the oaks and thick maples—not those on the property, where they’d been cleared near the house, but on the lots around it. The house windows were mostly small, at least, their curtains pulled. A deep porch surrounded the house, no doubt alarmed. Cal knew there had to be cameras discreetly placed, as well as motion sensors and listening devices. He wondered how often squirrels and rabbits tripped the alarms and made the agents inside skip a heartbeat or, worse, get complacent about them. Giusti was right, though. It would be difficult to get past them all. And only a few people could possibly know Conklin was here.
Giusti’s cell rang out the theme from Star Wars. Cal perked up, pleased at that bit of whimsy from Ms. Commandant.
She answered and spoke low. “Four of us, Pip and me and Agents Sherlock and McLain up from Washington. No sign of pursuit coming out of the city. Pip stopped off for sandwiches to make sure.”
And here Cal had believed hunger the motive for the stop for sandwiches. It was standard procedure.
A buzzer sounded and a discreet gate swung open. Erwin drove the SUV through with inches to spare on each side and stopped behind an old Chevy, beige and boring, not too new and not too old. Cal didn’t see a single agent. Good.
An agent opened the front door, came out to stand on the porch. He wore jeans and a Kevlar vest over a white T-shirt, an open shirt on top, a Glock held at his side. He shook hands, introduced himself as Elliott Travers.
He showed them inside the small house, closing and locking the door behind them. Before he said anything else, he walked to a front window, pulled back the dark curtains an inch, and looked out. He stepped back, nodded to Giusti, and called out, “Jo, no worries. All clear.”
A female agent wearing jeans and a blue Giants sweatshirt, doubtless with a vest beneath it, strolled into the living room, nodded to Erwin and Giusti. She was about Pip’s age, fit, with salt-and-pepper hair and shining blue eyes. Cal could imagine her cheering at the top of her lungs at a Giants game. “Back’s clear.” She smiled at Cal and Sherlock. “Welcome to our humble abode. I’m Jo Hoag.” She stuck out her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Agent Sherlock. What you did at JFK—you made all of us in law enforcement proud. Kelly told you Nasim will only speak to you. He won’t tell us why, keeps repeating he wants to speak to the redheaded agent from JFK. You’d think you’d be the last person he’d ever want to see after what you did to him.”
She turned as another agent who looked to be in his forties and built like a fireplug walked into the room. “And this is Arlo.”
Agent Arlo Crocker stuck out his hand, shook theirs. “I thought we could talk him around, but no, he insists it has to be you, Agent Sherlock. You guys want some iced tea before Sherlock has a go at him?”
Sherlock shook her head. “Not right now, Arlo. I’d really like to speak to Nasim right away.”
Giusti said, “Look over there, Sherlock.”
Nasim Conklin sat in front of her on a high-definition monitor hung at eye height on the living room wall. “He’s in the back bedroom,” Jo said. “You see he’s shackled to a chair, watching TV. He watches the news. Other than that he reads—newspapers, magazines, whatever we give him. He doesn’t sleep much, hasn’t eaten much. When he’s not reading or watching the news, he sits there looking like the world is over. I suppose it is for him, and he knows it. He leaves that room to use the bathroom, and the half-hour we gave him outside last night when it was full-on dark.”
Giusti said, “We’ll wait out here.”
Jo escorted Sherlock to the back bedroom, unlocked the door, and pushed it wide. “Nasim, here’s your Agent Sherlock,” she said, and stepped aside to let Sherlock pass. She started to close the door, but Cal shook his head and followed Sherlock into the bedroom. It was a small room with little furniture; a single bed in the middle was covered with a dark blue spread. Nasim Conklin had to ask to be moved from the chair to the bed, and those were his only choices. A pile of magazines, books, and newspapers was beside him.
Sherlock walked directly to Nasim Conklin and stopped in front of him.
“Hello, Nasim. I’m still amazed the grenade didn’t blow us both to bits.”
He slowly raised his head, stared at her, his eyes shining with intelligence, but also with pain. Agent Hoag was right. Nasim Conklin looked like he knew this was the end of the road for him. But how he’d gotten to this point, that was what Sherlock had to find out.
“No,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact. “I don’t think you were close enough, but you’d have had to wash me off you.” He gave a laugh, raw and bitter. “That is if I’d had courage enough to use it.” He spoke in fluent British English, but with a French accent, and something else. She knew his origins were Syrian.
She sat down on the edge of the bed. “It did blow eventually—thankfully, in the bomb box.”
She saw his hands were cuffed loosely together in front of him, fastened to a belt he wore, allowing him only enough movement to turn book pages and scratch his nose. The wrist she’d broken at JFK was in a thin cast.
“I could have thrown it at you, watched you explode into a million bloody bits right before my eyes.”
“Now, there’s a visual,” Sherlock said. “I’ve got to say, I’m glad you didn’t.”
He nodded toward Cal, who stood against the door, his arms folded over his chest. “I don’t want him here. Make him go away. Just you.”
“Pretend I’m not here,” Cal said.
“You her bodyguard?” Nasim rattled his shackles. “I can’t do much of anything to her now.”
Cal leaned back against the closed door, his arms still crossed over his chest. “As I recall, you couldn’t do much of anything to her the first time.”
Nasim smiled, let it fall away. “A pity, perhaps, but you’re right.” He studied Cal for another full minute, then turned back to Sherlock.
“Why didn’t you talk to the other agents, Nasim? Why me?”
He looked at her full-on and said simply, “Because you don’t fear death.”