The Old Man(31)

Caldwell thought about trying to go back around the house to get behind him, but the young man had taken a position with his back to the garage, facing the stairs to the kitchen door. Caldwell took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and stepped away from the corner of the house aiming the pistol with its silencer at the man’s head. “Hello again,” he said.

The young man spun his head to look. “Hey!” he said. It was simply an expression of shock, with no other meaning.

Caldwell could see him lean away from the garage, shifting his weight forward, bending his knees a little as he began to raise his hands. The young man was preparing to make a move. He ducked and lunged toward Caldwell, trying to take him down in a quick tackle.

He was fast and powerful, but Caldwell had been prepared. He sidestepped and batted the young man’s arm down with his free hand, so he could keep the pistol aimed at the man’s upper body. When the young man’s momentum brought him up against the house, Caldwell was still with him, the silenced pistol still between them.

Caldwell said, “Put your gun down and step away from it.”

“I don’t have a gun.”

“Then when I search your body I’ll find nothing?”

“Okay, okay,” the young man said. He took a pistol out of a shoulder holster and set it down, then stepped back with his hands up. “What happened upstairs?”

“They weren’t good enough for this,” Caldwell said. “Now I’m going to ask you a few questions. You’ll live as long as you answer and don’t move. Who were they?”

“They’re foreign. I was told to bring them to where you lived and then get them away when they were done.”

“You work for the government?”

“Yes.”

“Show me an ID.”

“I don’t carry one.”

“Why?”

“You know,” the young man said. “I bet you didn’t either.”

“You’re working for military intelligence. What do they want from me after all this time?”

“I think they’re trying to do a favor for somebody. Whoever sent those guys.”

“How did they know I was Daniel Chase and living in Vermont after all these years?”

“The intelligence guys told me it was time and technology. Even old records got computerized after you disappeared. Now it’s easy to find out that the serial numbers of the money you took had turned up over ten or so years, most of them in New England. They found your old service pictures and used a new algorithm to age your face, and then searched public surveillance recordings in New England with face recognition programs for a year or so. A bunch of guys who looked like you got spotted, but agents eliminated all of them but you.”

“Why were the two killers upstairs carrying passports?”

“I was supposed to get them to the airport and put them on a plane tonight, right away.”

“A plane to where?” Caldwell said.

“They’re from Libya.”

“If I leave you alive, will you give the intelligence people a message?”

“Right now that sounds like a good deal.”

“All I was trying to do from the start was take back the money and return it to the government. My bosses cut my communication, and then set me up to get arrested. The offer is still open. I give them the full amount I delivered to Libya and brought back. They tell whoever sent these guys that they killed me. Nobody ever sees me again. Got it?”

The young man hesitated. “What happened to the two guys upstairs? Are they dead?”

“Of course.”

“That means your count is up to five.”

Caldwell shrugged. “I didn’t go after them. They came after me.”

“Look,” said the young man. “When you could have shot me or thrown me to your dogs as a chew toy you gave me eating money and let me go. I’ll say what you want. But if they don’t buy your deal, don’t be surprised.”

“I won’t be. Humor me.”

“Suit yourself. But can you at least make me look right?”

Caldwell moved instantly and struck him across the forehead with the pistol. He fell to the ground, unconscious. Caldwell opened the garage, backed in, and came back with a roll of duct tape. He wrapped the man’s wrists and ankles, dragged his unconscious body a few feet from the garage, and propped him against a tree. He used a length of baling wire he found in the garage to tie him to the tree. He could see that he’d hit Harriman in the right spot, just at the hairline. It was the hardest part of the skull, but the wound bled freely down his face to his shirt.

Caldwell ran back up to the apartment. He calmed the dogs and let them out of his room, put on the topcoat that held the cash and identification kit, and went to Zoe’s room.

She was sitting dazed on the bed. Beside her was a leather overnight bag with a shoulder strap. He said, “Ready?”

“I’m sorry. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“No?”

“Those two men are dead,” she said. “You shot two men to death.”

“They came here to murder me, and they would have murdered you too.”

“Why? Why did they come here? Just because you’re rich? There are thousands of rich people in Chicago.”