Steal the Lightning: A Field Ops Novel (Field Ops #3)(55)

“That’s our guy.”

I blew the picture up. I couldn’t judge his age. Anywhere from twenty-five to forty, I thought then. Hair long, down to his collar. Shades. As if he’d planned to be a rock star sometime in his youth, and never quite got over it. That likely put him nearer forty, I decided. He wore a lightweight suit in white or pale gray, the sleeves rolled up. Very retro. A canvas bag over his shoulder dragged the jacket out of shape. The bag was open, and when I pulled him closer, frame by frame, till he was right beneath the camera, I could see inside. Cables, and the top of a flask.

The guy had Field Ops kit.

It was a weird sensation, looking at him, knowing what he’d done.

“Fuck.” I sat back, held the laptop in my hands.

Angel pressed against me, staring at the screen.

“He’s kind of ordinary-looking, don’t you think?”

“That’s what Stella said.” Silverman picked up his camera, filmed us both.

“Johnny Appleseed,” I said.

“Now what?”

“Now—” I’d hardly thought. It was a face, an ordinary face, just like she’d said. It could be anyone. The sense of revelation dwindled. I ran the scene through, backwards and forwards. I didn’t have a plan. “Send it to my lords and masters, hope they find out who he is. Before he kills somebody else.”

“Or lets them kill themselves.”

“Same thing.”

It made me pause, though. I knew the Registry. I knew the way they worked. They’d try to keep it all in-house, all hush-hush, as long as they could; and when that didn’t work, only then, they’d reach out for help. The Registry had long, long fingers, but it didn’t like to share. Not till it had to. They’d hire a tracer, maybe get the cops involved, even the Bureau, and then someone would start ploughing through the databases, and in a few weeks, or a month— It took them twenty minutes.

They hadn’t used the cops. They hadn’t used the FBI.

They’d used their own employment records. And somebody who’d said, “I know that face . . .”

We’d got him, and I hadn’t even finished off my drink.

McAvoy.

Preston McAvoy.

Not Mark or Mike—but maybe Mac. He’d given her his real name, and she’d just heard it wrong. There was a photo, his hair cut short and neatly combed. Collar, tie. No shades. But the jawline was the same, the nose was just the same. I checked and double checked. A half hour more, and I had scans of thirty-something pages from his file, including psych assessments, managers’ reports, a stream of correspondence. He was forty-five. Princeton grad. Married once, a long time back, now divorced. Joined the Registry age twenty-five. Worked R&D, east coast, then . . . then I saw it: GH9. The Indiana facility. The place that Silverman once told me he knew all about.

Except he didn’t, bar the few small nuggets I’d allowed him.

It was starting to make sense then, but no sense I liked.

I’d promised Angel a night out.

That wasn’t going to happen.

By evening, I was looking through his bank account. Long fingers, like I say. Activity was rare, sporadic, and the money would be topped up within days of each withdrawal, though only by the same sums he’d paid out. The real cash would be elsewhere—several places, if he’d any sense. As I saw it, this account was kept for one reason: because some things are much easier to buy under your own name.

Plane tickets, for instance.

One-way, Boston to Vegas, stopover in Philly.

Three days back.

So neat, so simple, and it would have wrapped the whole thing up just wonderfully well, except for one small snag.

I saw it on the first page of his file, and read the details in a brief addendum to his résumé, which came on page 3, following the contact information. It even had a big, blue stamp across it, just to make it all official.

Preston McAvoy was dead.





Chapter 47

Night Music




I garaged the SUV, put a chit in with the Registry for somebody to pick it up. We stripped down the equipment, reduced it all to luggage-size—cables, flasks, control box—and filed the necessary forms to take it on the plane with us. The Registry booked tickets, flight, and hotel. We had a drink with Silverman to say goodbye, though he was all enthusiasm; told us that he’d raise the cash and join us in a day or two. I told him not to bother: we’d be done by then. And I was hoping that we would, as well.

Around the third beer, I went back to work. The file came with a page of contacts, most likely long-since obsolete. But I still had to be sure.

“Let’s have this,” said Silverman, and picked his camera up. I tried to look like Bogart while I keyed the numbers in. I tugged my earlobe, the way he does in The Big Sleep, put my head down, tough, unsmiling, serious.

The landline “could not be completed as dialed.”

The mobile got a Spanish woman who spoke no English, so I apologized in French (since I don’t speak Spanish) and hung up.

The next of kin was long gone.

The work phone got an out-of-office for a man named Kolowoski.

I looked into the camera lens. “Of all the bars in all the world . . .”

Angel laughed at me.

That left e-mail. She helped me with the message there, made it nice and neutral. I told him I was Copeland from the Registry, I’d like to get in touch with him. I made it sound like we were old pals.