CHAPTER TWO

Larson had picked up people from private jets before: a supervisor; some WITSEC brass; a witness or two came to mind. But he’d never flown in a private jet himself, so although the cause was a man’s disappearance, and the resulting tension inside the aircraft nearly palpable, he got a kick out of it nonetheless. Leather seats the size of first class held his large frame comfortably. Wood trim, polished like the dash of a Jaguar, surrounded a wall-mounted flat-panel TV that currently displayed their flight route over ground but probably could have handled a video, had either of the agents been interested in some entertainment. There was even an air phone that none of them had permission to use. Heady stuff, despite the lack of any offer of food or drink, beyond bottled water, and the general mood of its inhabitants, both of whom bordered on morose.

Larson wished his parents had been alive to hear about this, but he’d lost them both to twentieth-century plagues: his father to smoking, his mother to drink. He’d had a sister once, but she’d gotten lost in her high school years and had run away, never to be heard from again. He’d never used his tracking skills to hunt her down, and he wondered if someday he might.

The explanation for him taking this flight had been cryptic at best-Uncle Leo had gone missing. The wherefore and how had yet to reach him. But the promise of a nearly instant return flight once there, also on the private jet, had convinced him not to challenge this assignment. Few people could summon a government jet at a moment’s notice; fewer still to transport his rank of deputy marshal. He was considered little more than a glorified bounty hunter, so why the special treatment? He’d decided to ride this one out, despite his tendency to question orders and cause headaches for his superiors, because he suspected that Scott Rotem, his immediate superior and boss, was behind the order. Neither of his companions would confirm this.

He thought once more of the woman’s laugh in the Fox, and the state of panic in him that it had caused. He laughed out loud at his flight of fancy, then covered his mouth with his hand and tried to wipe the grin off his face: Of all the unhealthy indulgences. Why her? Why now?

The agents looked at him like he was supposed to share the joke. Both of his keepers carried Justice Department credentials. The older one with the pained eyes answered to one of those names that rang familiar to Larson: Wilcox. Larson knew a couple different guys named Wilcox, one a running coach at a private college, the other a former FATF deputy said to be one of the most reliable and most entertaining stakeout partners out there. This guy was neither of them and, whereas Larson felt a little tired, Wilcox saw eleven o’clock pass still rigidly upright and wide awake in his padded seat, like he had a broomstick up his ass. He typed aggressively, as if the laptop had pissed him off in some way, or else the report he was generating was his last will and testament.

“What about Hampton and Stubblefield?” Larson asked suddenly. Hampton and Stubblefield had survived their wounds. The two had transferred with him and were members of his FATF squad. Larson depended upon them. “Have they been called?”

Wilcox pursed his lips and returned to his typing. “You find out when we get there.”

Larson stared out the window, the night’s black canvas mixing with his own reflection of deep set green eyes, lips set in a constant smirk, and skin that needed a shave. Below, city lights shimmered, small and clustered. The world looked so simple from above.

Hope’s offer, six years earlier, had been straightforward enough itself. The bus incident, the failed attempt on her life, had forced the Marshals Service to request her immediate placement into WITSEC, an unusual but not unheard-of pretrial tactic.

There had been nothing romantic or sentimental in Hope’s proposal perhaps because, like him, she feared they were being watched. There was never time for just the two of them. While Larson appeared at briefings covering the bus incident, Hope had been placed into a safe house-the Orchard House, an old farmhouse out of town-and guarded by Larson’s team, limiting Larson’s contact with her. The days ticked down toward a full “identity” wash, after which Hope Stevens would cease to exist, even for Larson.

“Come with me,” she’d said in a businesslike tone.

They were standing in the safe house’s backyard. A winter wind blew through his clothes; this was how he explained to himself the full-length shiver that swept through him at that moment.

His fantasy and the culmination of his fears. “What?”

“Request a new identity and come with me. We’ll start over together.”

She knew-they both knew-that this was nothing short of a proposal of marriage. Where she was going, it was permanent. Once into WITSEC, there was no going back, no reconnection to one’s past. It was a case of self-invoked amnesia. Suddenly it seemed to Larson that on so many levels they barely knew each other. Could he make this decision without thinking it through, without a chance to say some important good-byes?

Adding to the difficulty was his insider’s knowledge of how difficult-impossible-WITSEC could be on the protected witness. Even the most hardened criminal cracked when shut off from all contact with family members. Many ended up attending baptisms, weddings, or funerals, exposing themselves, breaking the anonymity of their protection, risking their lives for a few minutes of the familiar.

How long would Hope hold up? What if he gave up the years of his training and employment only to have the relationship self-destruct six months into the struggle to remake themselves? How well would he hold up?

He didn’t speak any of this, didn’t voice his concerns, but he clearly wore them on his face, for she grew pale, turning away from the wind and him along with it.

“Oh,” she said.

“It’s not that… It is just so out of the blue is all…”

“Is it?”

“Me joining the program? WITSEC? Yeah, it is. It’s like a doctor becoming a patient. The warden becoming a prisoner. It’s just something you don’t ever see happening to you, when you’re on this side of protection.”

“Well, I’m asking you to see it.”

“Will they even let me? I doubt it.” He had no idea how such a request would be treated. Fraternization was discouraged, sometimes punished. All deputies were instructed to avoid what most protected witnesses wanted most: safety in the form of friendship with the marshals. “It’s complicated.”

“No, not really,” she said. “It’s about as simple as it gets, Lars. You either see us together or you don’t.”

He coughed out a nervous laugh, and this hurt her. He wished he could take it back.

“There’s a lot to get done,” he said.

Her face brightened. He knew it was the right decision.

She came into his arms eagerly but tentatively, like a child asking a parent for forgiveness. “I’m not asking you to suffer with me, I’m asking you to live with me.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll suffer plenty with me in your life,” he teased, returning the hug.

“Penance I’ll gladly endure.”

“I have to make some calls, say some good-byes. Clear this through channels.” The list grew longer in his head.

“What if they refuse you?”

Only then did he fully understand the extent of her proposal, and he had to wonder if this was her original intention all along. “I can’t do that, Hope.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Sneak you out of here somehow? Run away with you without the… the firewall… of WITSEC to protect us? I’m one person. It doesn’t work like that.”

He realized immediately she underestimated WITSEC’s importance to her-to their-survival. This, in turn, caused him to reassess his own willingness to destroy Roland Larson in the coming twenty-four-to-forty-eight-hour period, all in the name of love. A love less than three months old. A love fashioned under the threat of death and in the heat of battle.