“If it means going to prison, I’d rather take my chances.”
“Well, you need to get this figured out. And fast.”
Trevelle sighed. “Where are we going?”
“We need to keep moving. We don’t know who these people are—the masked guys in Miami, the people who hanged your friend in New York. We don’t know where they are or if they’ve tracked you to New York. These guys aren’t going to play games if they find you.”
Trevelle stared straight ahead as if mentally working through everything that had happened.
Reznick changed lanes and accelerated.
“Where are we going?”
“I think DC would be good.”
“DC? Why DC? Ah . . . the woman lives there. Dyer.”
Reznick nodded. “And the FBI HQ is there.”
“It’s like you’re telling me to jump from the frying pan into the goddamn fire.”
“I want you to think long and hard about talking to the FBI. You’ve got time. Will you at least consider it?”
Trevelle nodded. “Yeah, I will. I’m just shaken up. Not thinking straight.”
“In the meantime, we’ve got a four-hour journey ahead of us, almost certainly longer at this time of day. I need to know more about this file. The memo from this private security company.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Reznick sighed. “Well, I do. We need to understand what we’re dealing with. The footage you showed me inside your warehouse, that’s not some home invasion crew. Forensic gloves, masks, the methodical way they went about their business.”
Trevelle nodded, tears in his eyes.
“Think about it. The people who sent that team don’t want the contents of that file becoming public knowledge. They don’t know if you decrypted it or if you told anyone about it, but they’re willing to take out anyone who might have even seen it. They probably took your computers and phones to forensically examine them to see if you sent the file to anyone else.”
Reznick glanced again in the mirror. “Are the surveillance cameras still working in your house?”
Trevelle shook his head. “By the time I was on my way out of Miami, the feed had stopped working.”
“Right, so they’ve ripped the cameras out, deactivated them, taken it all. And I’ll guarantee, they will have ripped your place apart, right down to its bare bones. And they’ll have people working to try and find you. Teams of people.”
“Who are they?”
Reznick shrugged. “Based on the memo and what we could hear on the video? Foreign contractors, sent in by this US geosecurity specialist company. And if they’re caught, it’s nothing to do with the government.”
“I know this sort of stuff happens.”
“That’s right.”
“Jesus. Poor David.” Trevelle glanced at a road sign. “You know, I never knew if that was his real name.” He turned to Reznick. “Are you going to turn me in to the Feds in DC?”
Reznick thought long and hard before he answered. “No, I’m not.”
“But you work for the FBI?”
“I’m a consultant. But I don’t work for them. I don’t take orders from them.”
“Please don’t hand me in. I’m terrified. If I had to spend time in jail, I swear, I’d kill myself.”
“Relax, I’m not going to turn you in. But I want you to at least consider letting me approach Martha Meyerstein on your behalf.”
“How did you go from black ops to toeing the line for the Feds? They’ve spied on innocent Americans since the Hoover days, you know.”
Reznick chuckled. “Believe me, I had my doubts about them too. But there are good people there. I know them. They can save lives. They can save your life.”
Trevelle pulled out a can of Red Bull from his jacket pocket, cracked it open, and took a few gulps.
Reznick said, “Your friend David had a lot of that lying around his apartment.”
“He lived on it.”
“Listen, I’m sorry your friend is gone.”
“Friends. Plural.”
“Right. Sorry. But you need to get your head together. I can help you. But you need to help yourself.”
Trevelle closed his eyes and started breathing fast.
“Take deep breaths. Nice and slow.”
Trevelle did as he was told. His breathing slowly calmed. When he opened his eyes, he said, “We need to warn Rosalind Dyer.”
Reznick nodded. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We need to be careful how we go about this. She might be under surveillance. Close physical surveillance as well as electronic.”
“I don’t care. I have to warn her. I can’t let another person die.”
“Let’s get to DC,” Reznick said. “And we can figure things out on the way.”
Six
Martha Meyerstein was sitting behind her desk on the seventh floor of the FBI’s Hoover Building in Washington, DC, immersed in reading a domestic terrorism intelligence briefing, when her phone rang.
“Ma’am,” her assistant said, “the switchboard says a detective in New York wants to speak to you.”
“Did he give a name?”
“It’s a she. Detective Isabella Acosta, Nineteenth Precinct, NYPD.”
Meyerstein thought the name sounded familiar. “Put her through.” During the few clicks it took for the call to connect, Meyerstein remembered where she knew the detective from.
“Martha Meyerstein speaking. Isabella, right?”
“Hey, nice to speak to you again.”
Meyerstein sat forward. Acosta had been instrumental in bringing a psychotic UN diplomat involved in human trafficking to justice. The same guy who had nearly killed Reznick’s daughter on the streets of Manhattan. “Everything OK?”
“Got something for you. I thought you’d want to know.”
“What happened?”
“Jon Reznick reports to you, right?”
Meyerstein wondered where the conversation was going to go. “That’s correct.”
“I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I’m hearing from one of my friends downtown, a captain in charge of the Sixth Precinct, that they found some kid hanged in his apartment in Greenwich Village. There are signs it wasn’t a suicide, and they have two suspects. One of them, matching Reznick’s description, was seen breaking a window and entering the property.”
Meyerstein took a moment to gather her thoughts. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“I didn’t believe it either. But Reznick is involved or has gotten caught up in whatever this is. And the NYPD are going to be in touch about this real soon.”
Meyerstein leaned back in her chair. “Goddamn. What else do I need to know?”
“They have the two of them on video. They think the guy he’s with, a young black male, is ex-NSA. Trevelle Williams.”
Meyerstein scribbled down the name. Trouble with Reznick was the last thing she needed right now. “This all sounds pretty out of left field. How confident is the NYPD in the identifications?”
“Look, I know this probably isn’t the sort of thing you want to hear. And to be honest, I can’t imagine what Reznick might be up to. But it doesn’t look good for him, know what I’m saying?”