Long Road to Mercy (Atlee Pine, #1)(68)

“It’s an acronym. Stands for the Society for Good.”

“Sounds remarkably cheesy.”

“In reality, it’s a group of very serious people. They cover a variety of issues of global significance. They’ve got some heavyweight members in all sorts of professional disciplines from all over the world. It’s like a think tank.”

“There are already think tanks on the left and right.”

“This one isn’t politically oriented. It’s been around for about eighty years. They do a lot of TED Talks. Publish papers, give presentations, work with governments and companies all over the world. Trying to do good, as the name implies.”

“And what does this have to do with my case?”

“Ben Priest was a member of SFG.”

Pine was silent for a few moments as she absorbed this.

“Okay. You think whatever plan he had with the missing guy might have been run through the society?”

“I don’t know. But I can tell you that SFG has been involved in some whistleblower cases, government malfeasance in some developing countries, things like that.”

“But not corruption in this country?”

“Corruption is corruption, right? And from what I know of the membership they won’t shirk from what they see as their duty.”

“Where can I find them?”

“They have a building in DC on H Street.”

Pine leaned back in her seat and gripped the steering wheel. “Can you get me into the place? You’re the cloak-and-dagger guy. I’m an investigator with red, white, and blue coming out of her veins.”

“I don’t know. I’d have to think about it.”

“We don’t have time to waste.”

Russell turned and blew smoke out the open window once more.

An instant later he toppled sideways toward Pine as a foot came through the open window and collided with the side of his head.

Russell hit the steering wheel hard, bounced off, and then limply hung forward, kept in his seat solely by his lap belt.

Pine looked to her right and saw the Asian man. He was not holding an umbrella this time. His hand was reaching for the door handle.

Pine slammed the car into gear and floored it.

The Mustang shot out from the curb like a projectile.

Pine hit seventy before the next intersection, which she blew right through.

“Screw it,” she said.

She hit a U-turn at the second intersection and drove back to where she had come from. She took out something from her pocket.

As she raced down the street, she saw him.

He was walking fast down the pavement.

She slowed, as did he.

She had rolled down the window and lifted her hand.

The man braced for an attack as he looked directly at her.

Pine snapped his picture with her phone and then she pulled her gun.

I’m just going to shoot the son of a bitch.

But, in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

Pine floored it.

Five minutes later, after many turns, she slipped into a parking lot at the back of a Starbucks.

She put the car in park and looked at Russell. He had no pulse. His eyes were glassed over, unresponsive. He was dead. She felt the back of his neck.

His vertebrae were like a jigsaw puzzle that had fallen out of a box.

One kick thrown through the small opening of a car window to the head had literally shattered a very large man’s spine.

She sat there thinking for a few minutes. When she arrived at her decision, she wasn’t happy about it, but she could see no other way. At least no other way that would allow her to remain an FBI agent and stay out of prison.

Pine put the car in gear and drove off.

She now had to do something she had never thought she would.

I have to dispose of a body.





Chapter

36



ATLEE PINE WAS INCREDIBLY STRONG.

But a corpse was, understandably enough, dead weight, and not so easy to move.

She opened the passenger door of the Mustang, squatted down, clutched the late Simon Russell under the armpits, and hoisted him out of the car. Before he toppled over, she set him against the side of the car, propping him up there by wedging her thigh against his knees, pinning his long legs tight against the Mustang. With her forearm, she kept his torso upright.

Okay, this is just like any other lift.

She counted to three and let go of the body. As he toppled forward, she squatted down and caught him at the waist with her shoulder and then stood. The tall, lean man was hoisted into the air, bent in half over her broad shoulder.

She moved forward slowly.

Pine had debated with great difficulty over what she was about to do. There was nothing “normal” about an FBI agent carrying a corpse and putting it anywhere. She was breaking every crime scene protocol there was, along with more than a few laws.

And sitting in her Mustang, thinking all of this through, tormented by doubt and guilt, and conflicted in a way she never had been before, Pine had decided that this was the only path forward. If she tried to go into the Bureau with a dead body in tow, she figured she would be Blum’s age before she ever saw the light of day.

It would have been easier for her to just drop Russell’s body in the woods, but she couldn’t do that. He would be ravaged by wild animals, which would be not only disrespectful to him, but also disruptive for the forensic investigation to follow. Atlee Pine, criminal investigator, could never be a party to that.