Mad Powers (Tapped In) (10 page)

The bus pulled to the curb. This was my stop.

* * *

Middle-aged and wearing a floral blouse with hues of light pink and blue, the woman sitting at the reception counter was reading. I peeked into her mind:

As his passion grew—so had hers. She was instantly lost in his musky scent, his raw masculinity. Strong, rough hands enveloped her small hips and pulled her in close. She resisted,
feigned objection, but they both knew she wanted him to continue, to dominate her …

I cleared my throat, startling her. She folded and creased the top corner of the page and placed the paperback book down on the desk in front of her. She smiled and raised her eyebrows. Cheeks flushed and breathy, she said, “Hi, I’m Connie. How can I direct you?” in a friendly, albeit businesslike manner.

“I’m actually not sure. I was recently a patient here. Released yesterday.”

The woman nodded.

“While I was here I had made friends with another patient. I’d like to visit him, check in on him.”

“That’s nice; I’m sure he’ll appreciate the gesture.” She brought her eyes over to a computer monitor off to her right, her fingers poised over a keyboard. “What’s his name? I’ll give you his room number.”

“Well, that’s the thing. I can’t remember … But I can describe him. Would that help?”

Connie pursed her lips and continued to look at the monitor. “No, not really. Sorry, physical descriptions aren’t listed,” she said with a shrug and looked back up at me.

“He had an injured hand. Bald head?”

She was still shaking her head, then abruptly stopped. I knew what she was going to say before she said it.

“Wait. I know exactly who you’re talking about. Snakebite victim. Snakebites, multiple, actually.” Her fingers were tapping at her keyboard, her lips pursed again. “Yeah, I remember, he bolted in the middle of the night. He’d given the hospital a phony name. Skipped out on paying his not-insignificant bill.”

I presented an astonished expression and looked speechless. “He seemed, I don’t know, like a good guy. I guess you never know … you know, who someone really is?”

“I guess not,” she replied.

“I’ll let you get back to your book. Thanks anyway.”

As I turned to leave, something in my pocket vibrated. The pager Whittier had given me so he could stay in touch. I retrieved the small device, and saw the illuminated phone number. I turned back to Connie. “I need to find a phone for a local call.”

“Right over there in reception; pick it up and I’ll patch you to a local line,” she said and smiled.

“Thanks.” I sat down on a brown leatherette couch and when the phone rang, I snatched up the receiver. I mouthed a ‘thank you’ to Connie and dialed the phone number on the pager.

On the third ring, Whittier answered. “Rob?”

“Yeah. You paged me?”

“Yes, I did. I wanted to let you know your results came back quicker than I’d expected. I have your identity.”

“Excellent. So who am I?”

“Your full name’s Robert Michael Chandler. But listen, I’m in a meeting right now. There’s quite a bit to go over here. You have an interesting past, Rob. Nothing to worry about, but I want to go through all this in person—if that’s all right?”

I tried to read Whittier’s thoughts through the phone. Nothing.

“Are you close? Where exactly are you right now?”

“I’m on the other side of town, taking care of some business. How about I come by in the morning? I can be there first thing—how’s that sound?”

“Uhh, actually today’s better. Tomorrow’s pretty packed. Will be in and out all day. Why don’t you finish up your business and come on over when you can, later this afternoon? I can stay late if necessary.”

I heard nervousness in his voice. Sure, he was trying to sound nonchalant, but there was an almost desperate undertone. Pleading. Something was askew.

“Well, I certainly am excited to discover more about my identity. How about I see where I’m at in an hour and ring you back?”

“Sure. I’ll be here,” he replied.

I replaced the receiver onto its cradle and continued to look at the phone. There was something wrong … Whittier was putting up a cool act. Feigned indifference. One thing was for certain: there was no way I was going to stroll into the Kingman Police Station without having more information first.

* * *

Pippa and Giles had arrived at the Kingman Police Station fifteen minutes earlier. They’d been rushed into the small, cramped conference room where they’d been introduced to the light-eyed black detective. They traded information, neither providing full disclosure. Now, looking at the center of the metal table, Pippa realized she’d been holding her breath. As she heard Rob’s familiar voice amplified on the speakerphone, memories flooded back into her consciousness. She wanted to call out to him.
Why, Rob? Why no contact for all these months? Tell me—had it all been some kind of ruse?
But she said nothing, maintaining an expression of indifference.

Whittier tapped the disconnect button on the speakerphone.

Giles was the first to speak. “So that’s it. Chandler will show up in a few hours and we’ll take custody. Be out of your hair.”

Before Whittier could answer, Barns entered the small conference room and handed Whittier several pieces of paper. He scanned them and placed them facedown on the table. Barns pulled out a chair and sat next to his partner.

“Sorry, that’s not going to happen,” Wittier said, matter-of-factly. “As of right now, Chandler has become our number one suspect in the death of Jill Wrigley—the nurse from Kingman Regional Med.”

“That’s ridiculous! I know Chandler. He’d never do anything like that!” Pippa blurted out her objection, with stronger indignation than she’d intended.

Whittier crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair. He stared back at Pippa for several beats before speaking. “From what I’ve read about Chandler—hell, from what you’ve told me yourselves—he’s a trained killer. Possibly even a rogue agent? And add to that, he’s been in a horrendous car accident where he’s sustained head trauma—has amnesia. Hell … he may think he’s on some kind of mission. Who knows what’s going on inside his head?”

“Chandler’s not a murderer—”

“Hold on, just hear me out,” Whittier said, casually lifting a palm in her direction. “Detective Barns conducted some interviews at the hospital. Apparently Chandler and the nurse had become close. She was observed by an orderly giving Rob both clothes and money. They exchanged a kiss.”

Pippa’s heart sank. Realization was sinking in. Had she been played? Been made a fool of?

Giles’ voice brought her back to the present. “You know as well as I do that our government warrant trumps any local jurisdiction, Detective Whittier. Let’s just get our hands on him and worry later about who’ll be bringing him to justice.”

Chapter 16

The midday Arizona sun was bright and relentless as I exited the medical center’s front lobby. I’d interrupted the receptionist one more time, pulling her away from a particularly steamy passage midway into her romance novel. She’d told me the closest Internet Café where I could get online was several blocks up. I needed to pass under the U.S. 93 interchange and a mini-mall would be on my left. The café would be next door to the Kingman Co. Steak House.

I headed east along the sidewalk that paralleled Stockton Hill Road. Now, equipped with my full name, I’d be able to run a search. How many Robert Michael Chandlers could there possibly be? I’d also be able to query social media sites, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Feeling hopeful, I stepped beneath the freeway overpass.
Ah
—
shade at last
. I looked up and listened to the
swoosh swoosh swoosh
of cars and trucks speeding along one hundred feet over my head. A blue Nissan Murano SUV, traveling in my same direction, passed me, slowed, and made a U-turn. It pulled to the curb across the street, some twenty feet away. Thinking it was someone lost, perhaps someone needing directions, I watched as the driver opened his door and stepped out of the vehicle. Two things converged into my thoughts simultaneously. One, I was looking into the muzzle of a Glock 19, currently the most popular handgun sold in the United States. How I knew that, I had no idea. The second thing to intrude into my thoughts was the smiling face behind the Glock 19. The bald-headed man. The same man who had tortured and later killed a pretty young nurse named Jill. In the time it took me to access his mind, make sense of all its firing synapses, and process the subsequent imagery that was spewing forth, I knew I no longer needed to visit the Internet Café.

In a flash, in a mind-bending rush that could best be compared to falling off a cliff, wind buffeting my face, my eyes watering as adrenalin elevates my pounding heart rate into the stratosphere, the pieces come together. And then, as I plummet faster and faster toward my inevitable fate, and the ever-approaching solid ground below, I remember. I remember the man who’s standing before me. I remember everything. I hesitated and watched a line of blurry shadows, moving in rhythm to the sounds of the highway above; countless indecipherable black shapes, dancing across the concrete. As if a shroud had been lifted, sight granted to a blind man, I welcomed home the lost memories of my lifetime.

“You look like shit, Harland,” I said.

“Thank you. Get in the car. You’re driving.” He raised the Glock to underscore his demand. “Slowly. No quick movements.”

I slowly walked in his direction, crossing the street. He moved away from the open driver- side door—his weapon now at his side, pointed at my chest. I needed to take as much time as possible—I still had some mental catching up to do.

I ground my teeth as more memories surfaced. Yes, I had killed his Veronica in Moscow—done so without any hesitation. Harland was there to witness her death, first hand.

As he cradled her lifeless body in his arms, I did my best to get him away, but he was lost in misery—frenzied, and vowing to kill me. As approaching sirens blared, I took flight—needing to go to ground. He had been well aware of my suspicions that day: she was a double agent. He was just as adamant that I was mistaken. Abruptly, she had pulled a weapon—she knew the jig was up and she had every intention of taking me out—right then and there.

Espionage is often a tangled web of half-truths, if not outright deceit. Moles are commonplace. At any given time, the CIA has an infestation of many. The rank-and-file agent-asset is often unaware of who is, and who is not, suspected of being a double agent. But Veronica, an eight-year CIA operative, had fooled everyone. She was that good. In an almost freakish chain of events, I had discovered her true allegiance. She was actually an agent for the SVR, the CIA’s Russian counterpart. If I lived, her cover would be blown, would fall apart like a house of cards, and her corpse found floating dead in the Volga.

Mere hours before her death, Veronica had already blown Harland’s and my cover. The SVR was everywhere. Safe houses had been compromised—I had little in the way of viable options to evade capture and certain death. I had one slim hope. I had made a friend, of sorts. Ladislav Skykora, another agent, was a Slovakian national and no friend to Russia. I made it to his small flat. Reluctantly, he kept me out of sight. Since his phones were tapped and he was soon put on the watch list, communications with the Agency would have to wait. Two weeks later, Skykora informed me that I had been Agency disavowed: determined to be a rogue agent. Putting the pieces together now, it was evident that Harland did make it safely out of Russia. He’d also lied, saying I killed Veronica and that I, not she, was the traitor.

It would be many months before I could get out of Russia. There was also a heavy price exacted for my yearlong refuge there. If and when I got out of Russia, I had a job to do for Ladislav Skykora: a mission, of sorts, that would take place in Kingman, Arizona. After that, Skykora, and the people he worked for, would validate my innocence. Do what they could to clear my name with the Agency.

Harland took another step back as I approached. He gestured with his gun for me to get in behind the wheel.

I paused in front of him, looked into his eyes. “Veronica was SVR. I was doing my job. You were blinded, Harland, from seeing the truth.”

Harland’s smile remained. It was his eyes that conveyed the true hatred he was feeling. I was in his thoughts—thoughts that were reeling, spinning in circles, always returning to a singular driving hub—getting revenge. He was replaying the events of the previous night. It was Jill’s face, tears streaming down her cheeks, her lips quivering—then gasping for breath—her final—last—desperate—breath.

As I had done so easily with Russell, in our run-in at Denny’s, and with Benny, at Motel 6, I tried to transmit my own thoughts into his:
I will enjoy snapping your neck, asshole
. But my emotions, my hatred for Harland was so all encompassing I was unable to synchronize to his mind. I needed to get my raging hatred under control—but that seemed unlikely at this point. I was definitely at a disadvantage until I brought some measure of detachment into my thoughts.

I sat down in the driver’s seat and watched him move around the front of the vehicle, gun still pointed at my head. He opened the passenger-side door and climbed in.

Now, sitting close to Harland, I noticed his breath was foul. The pallor of his skin was pasty and perspiration was beaded on his brow. He looked like death warmed-over. His left hand was bandaged, with a yellow and green discharge seeping through the gauze.

Harland, seeing my interest in his hand, smiled. “Fucking snakes.”

I nodded. “What have you been doing with yourself, Harland?”

“You mean after you shot my wife in the heart? Well … I left the Agency. Went independent. Which has given me time to look for you. So I could make you suffer. Destroy your life, as you have destroyed mine. But you want to know the best part?”

“Sure, what’s the best part?”

“There are others who want you. Others, who are just as hell-bent on finding you as I am; people willing to pay me handsomely for apprehending you. Imagine my delight at the prospect of being paid to nab you.”