Chapter Five – Kris

 

“He did what?” Tabitha nearly screeched into the phone. “How? How did he pull that off?”

Sighing, I pulled a face, my ears aching from the high frequency, high decibel exclamation. “Apparently, you can’t even trust your ears anymore. Whoever you spoke to over the phone, that was one of the colonel’s men using some voice masking software to mimic my voice. That doesn’t matter, though.”

“Doesn’t matter?” she hissed. “He fucking kidnapped you, Kris! You’ve been gone for three months! Why wouldn’t that fucking matter? And to do what? Sit and have a nice chat about the weather?”

“Look, I’m over it. He gave me his reasons, and they seemed reasonable. No turning back time now. I need you to get me and Hunter both on a flight to St. Louis in the morning.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Yes,” I snapped. “Over it. Now, you can either help me, or I can call up one of the guys and get them to do it for me. Which one is it?”

She groaned. “Fine. Done. Anything else?”

I bit my lower lip as I looked around my basic hotel room, my soaked-through boots thrown in the corner and my damp winter coat tossed on the back of the desk chair. The bed was comfy enough as I sat there, one leg pulled up beneath me.

What I wanted to tell her was what little I knew about the PDB, and to have her start looking into the institution. But, while I could almost guarantee the security of this room’s telephone line, strictly because of our having chosen it randomly on the way into town, I couldn’t say the same about the FSB number back in St. Louis. Nor whether there were any electronic devices in her office.

Going forward, I needed to be careful about what I said and did. Some things about this shift to the PDB, and how reticent Col. Harrington was being, had struck a chord in me, and I wasn’t completely sure how I wanted to proceed.

“Kris? You there? Anything else? Should I tell the guys anything?”

“What?” I asked, blinking in the dim light of the hotel room. “No, not yet.”

“They’re going to ask questions when you show up tomorrow.”

“I’ll think of something, okay? Let me worry about it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“ Don’t do anything yet, just book the flight for me. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Got it.” She paused. “Kris? Did you really find him?”

“Yep. I found him. Rather, we found him.”

“Is he coming back?” she asked, a little bit of daughterly adoration in her voice.

“No, Tabitha. I don’t think so.”

She sighed a little, a simple, sad sigh through just her nose, almost like a child who wants to know what they did wrong when something bad happens to them, even though it’s just the universe’s weird change and randomness that caused the problem in the first place.

“Okay,” she said, her words small-sounding over the phone. “I’ll get your flight booked. Still have your phone?”

“It’s dead, but I’m charging it right now. You can email the flight info there. And Tabitha?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry you’ve been stuck with all my responsibilities the last three months. That couldn’t have been easy.”

“Honestly, I’m just glad you’re okay. The way you spoke to me, or I guess the way the person pretending to be you spoke to me, was pretty harsh. For a while there, I thought you were considering leaving us.”

I winced, unable to think of anything to say. Instead, I simply cleared my throat and let a nervous chuckle escape. How had she nailed it so on the head?

“You are planning on staying with us,” she replied, emphasizing the word “are.” “Right?”

“What?” I asked, feigning surprise. Which, truthfully wasn’t too difficult considering how on the nose her question had been. “Of course I am, Tabs. This was just a weird glitch. Now, get the flights ordered so I can get home.”

“Right. Yeah, of course. I’ll send it over in just a little bit. Two tickets coming up.”

“Thanks, Tabitha.”

“No problem, boss. You know that.”

I smiled a little, despite the sinking feeling in my guts that I was intentionally betraying her and everyone else at the agency. That they were flying me back in, just so I could utilize their resources one last time before I left.

Or, rather, decided if I was going to leave.

After we hung up, I sat there on the bed, leg still curled up beneath me, staring at my handgun on the nightstand.

How long had I been doing this for, working in the defense and espionage sectors? Fifteen years with Col. Harrington, and five more before that? Nearly two decades, then, of trying to keep civilians safe and sound, of moving from one threat to the next.

When Harrington had come up with the idea of starting Full Moon Security, I’d been sold on the idea of being able to settle down somewhere. Of being able to work on cases, and not cloak and dagger bullshit. It seemed like here was the opportunity for me to be able to look myself in the mirror and know exactly who was staring back.

And we’d had a good run, too, for the few years it lasted. We’d solved a lot of cases, put down a lot of creatures that needed to be put down. Maybe we hadn’t brought much solace to the victims we couldn’t protect, or the families we could never fully explain the supernatural to, but at least we’d stopped those monsters from killing any more innocents.

And, for once, it had been good to not truck in constant deception.

My eyes drifted over to the credenza, to the flat screen TV and the beaten and worn file I’d set on the counter next to it. Hunter’s file. The key to his freedom.

Another bit of deceit to weigh down my conscience.

With Tabitha, at least my lies were strictly for security reasons. I wanted to tell her the truth of what was going on, but security needs dictated I keep things quiet. That was fine. That was manageable.

That file, on the other hand.

The mattress springs creaked as I went to stand. My socked feet barely made a sound as I crossed over and picked up the file, looking curiously down at it.

Everything that I was doing was necessary, to one degree or another. But this file? This was the greatest deception of them all. I had promised Hunter I would help him find the blackmail file Harrington had on him. I had given my word that I’d give it to him once we found Harrington.

But here I was, still holding it in my hand, my fingers playing over the smooth cardstock surface like it was some ancient artifact, or bar of gold.

I could go give it to him now, if I wanted. Just go, knock on his door, and hand it to him when he answered. I could just…set him free. Let him know his time with the PRB and FMS was over. That he didn’t need to work for me anymore if didn’t want to, though I’d appreciate his staying on. After all, he’d been right earlier. His skill set was not only particular, but also useful. More importantly, it was rare.

I didn’t do any of that, though.

Instead, I walked slowly over to the bed and sat down in my still warm spot. I pulled the lamp closer as I rested the folder on my lap, flipped it open, and began to read.

Each report I read, I removed from the file and laid out on the bedspread in front of me, forming a grid of Hunter Jackson’s larceny.

The 70s opened with Hunter just cutting his teeth on the con game. He befriended a young man, Pierre. Convinced him of an investment in a diamond mine in South Africa, where the owner was deeply in debt because of gambling and women, and how it would be a coup to invest without telling his father. Hunter wrangled a way to empty the kid’s bank account for him, then Pierre handed the cash over to him so he could take the money to Africa and do the deal in person. Needless to say, Pierre never received his deed to the diamond mine, nor did he ever see Hunter again.

In the 80s, a mansion in Switzerland was robbed. Countless paintings and sculptures were removed without the security system going off once. When the owner of the mansion awoke the next morning, all that was found was a small origami sculpture of a Japanese fox, folded from a piece of grey paper. Over the next several years, the individual works of art began to appear around the world in private collections, primarily in Israel and the United States.

1990 Italy, a businessman was hacked. All of his stocks were sold, all of his hard assets were liquefied overnight, and he himself apparently removed everything from his banks. He insisted he had done no such thing, but there was video evidence of his signing the withdrawal orders and picking up the money from the vault. Days later, he disappeared and was never heard from again.

And the laundry list continued. This file was an absolute treasure trove, listing Hunter’s former contacts and associates, along with his known methods. It was like an almanac of ill deeds, all with the Grey Fox at the center. I understood that he was a dragon and all, and clearly skilled at what he was doing. But it absolutely boggled the mind to think that he’d escaped justice for this long, especially after doing so much harm to so many people.

And, Jesus, the number of people. His victims stretched into the triple digits, easily. Most of the incidents were no longer than a couple paragraphs long, with just names and dates and reference numbers to other files with deeper information. Apparently, not all of them were known to be associated with the Grey Fox, so the blackmail folder served as a kind of central index for all of Hunter’s crimes.

After those three, I found my phone and the email Tabitha had sent with our flight info. Luckily, it was at the top of the list and not buried in the thousand or so emails I’d missed during my time away. I forwarded the information on to Hunter, returned to the file, and lost myself once again.

Minutes drifted quickly into hours.

Because, like it or not, I still wasn’t sure what Col. Harrington was up to. And I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to go along with it. And having a cat burglar and a conman on your side was never a bad thing.

And this file right here was the best leverage an agent could ever ask for.

The next time I came up for air, rubbing my eyes to relieve some of the strain, a solid two hours had already passed me by.

Just as I flipped to the next page, though, something tickled at the back of my mind. A sensation of being watched, or maybe listened to.

Carefully, I set the folder aside and reached over to grab my sidearm off the nightstand.