Killer Instinct (Instinct #2)(37)

“Peace on earth and a brand-new Ferrari. What do you think I want? I need your help.”

“You’re still as charming as ever, Reinhart,” he said.

“Yeah, and you still owe me,” I shot back.

Pritchard mumbled something about my being the male offspring of a female dog. He then turned and walked back into his townhouse, leaving the door open for us. It wasn’t the warmest invite, but the result was the same. We were heading inside. Though not before I quickly whispered in Elizabeth’s ear.

“Brace yourself,” I said.

“For what?” she whispered back.

I didn’t have to answer. With only one foot inside Pritchard’s door she saw what I was talking about.





CHAPTER 50


IMAGINE IF Mike Tyson, Norman Schwarzkopf, and T. E. Lawrence from Lawrence of Arabia had all been interior designers. Now imagine Pritchard having hired all three at the same time.

We walked in. Every inch of his floor was covered with sand. Actual sand. Like from an actual desert.

As for interior walls, there weren’t any. There was no second or third floor either. The townhouse had been hollowed out and fitted with an angled glass ceiling for a roof. You could see the night sky.

To the left of us were a standing punching bag and a full-size boxing ring. Behind the ring was a large military tent from Operation Desert Storm. It was the exact same tent Pritchard slept in as a land component commander.

That of course leads to the question How do I know that?

Meanwhile, Elizabeth was looking at me with her own question. What the hell did we just walk into?

The short answer was Pritchard’s happy place.

After the liberation of Kuwait, Pritchard returned to the States as a warrior without a war. He cashed in as a bodyguard for a Saudi prince attending Columbia Law School. Thus, he was able to afford a Manhattan townhouse. He then joined the CIA with a fast-tracked application courtesy of a four-star general. It was a brief stint, followed by what’s been a long tenure with the FBI and the JTTF.

But at no time was Pritchard more “alive,” as he put it, than when he was on a battlefield. So instead of returning to a Middle Eastern desert, the terminal bachelor decided to install one in his Upper East Side townhouse.

Had it been anyone else, the word crazy would’ve come to mind. For Pritchard, it somehow made sense.

“All right, Reinhart,” he said, folding his thick arms as he turned around to face us. “What do you want?”

“I need your file on the mayor,” I said.

He laughed. “What file?”

“The one you compiled after Elizabeth was assigned to your unit.” I glanced at my watch. “When you’re done pretending it doesn’t exist, let me know.”

So much for his fake laugh. It was as if Pritchard had suddenly remembered my PhD from Yale wasn’t in the field of classical banjo or underwater basket weaving. I was inside his head. I knew how he operated. There’s a fine line between paranoid and protecting your ass, and Evan Pritchard walked it every day like a Flying Wallenda.

“Okay, let’s pretend for a second—hypothetically, of course—that this imaginary file on the mayor somehow exists,” he said. “What specifically would you want to know?”

“Deacon has a guy feeding him intel,” I said. “I imagine it’s not happening at City Hall, and wherever it is happening it’s probably one-on-one. He’s Middle Eastern. That’s all we know.”

Apparently, that’s all we needed to know. “Give me a minute,” said Pritchard.

He walked off, disappearing into his commander tent.

Elizabeth turned to me. “How long ago was he in the CIA?”

“The less you know about that, the better,” I said.

“Why does he owe you? At least tell me that.”

“Okay, but you’ll need to wait until after.”

“After what?”

“Eighteen more years,” I said. “That’s when it gets declassified.”

That earned me an epic slow burn that would’ve probably lasted for days were it not for Pritchard returning. He had a black-and-white photo in his hand, courtesy of a super-long lens.

“Is this him?” he asked, holding it up.

“Yes!” said Elizabeth. “Who is he?”

“He’s former Mossad,” said Pritchard. “Goes by the name Eli these days.”

“Where can we find him?” I asked.

“Good question,” said Pritchard.

Huh? “You were able to find out his name and that he was former Mossad, but—”

“But exactly,” said Pritchard. “No known address or phone number. The agent I had tailing the mayor saw him only one time. He was entering Deacon’s limo early in the morning. When he got out, it was as if he’d turned into a ghost. After two blocks my agent lost him.”

“So we know who he is. We just don’t know where he is,” said Elizabeth. “We can work with that.”

Pritchard shook his head. “You’re not working with anything, Needham.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“You know exactly what that means,” he said.





CHAPTER 51


ONE SECOND, they were talking. The next, they were screaming at each other.