CHAPTER 27

Hardin called the number Fouche had given, asked for Lafitpour, listened to some hold music for a few minutes, then a voice came on the phone, started giving him instructions – no introduction, nothing.

“There is a self-serve Italian restaurant called Pompeii in Oak Brook Terrace. It is on Route 56 near Highland, in front of the Home Depot.” Deep voice, smooth voice, some hard-to-place rich guy accent. A voice Hardin bet people usually listened to. “Be there at 2pm.Sit near the windows. Have a sample with you.”

“How am I going to know you?” said Hardin.

“I’ll know you, Mr Hardin. You’re famous. That’s part of your problem, as I understand it.”

So Hardin was sitting near the windows, trying to decide whether the pizza was any good, but he’d lost his frame of reference. He hadn’t had good pizza in fifteen years.

Hardin was also getting his mind right, same ritual he’d gone through dating back to his days in the Corps, clearing his mental baffles, getting all his thinking done before the shit hit the fan so he wouldn’t have to do any thinking when it did. Eliminate the uncertainties, because that’s when fear crept in. Fear, when you got down to it, was an idea, a thought, a shadow cast by the memory of pain and the promise of mortality. Nobody wasn’t afraid, but you had to be clear on what you were afraid of and why. Then you did the math. Was the risk worth the reward? Had you done what you could on your end to control the downside? Was the current course of action your best bet? If you could answer yes, then your mind wouldn’t wander off at a bad time, you could keep your head in the game.

The stakes were pretty clear – $10 million or better against his life. Couldn’t think of anything he’d overlooked on the risk control side, and like it or not, the course of action had been set the second he jumped the couriers back in Liberia. Things had gone south some, but there was no way to turn back the clock and, truthfully, he wouldn’t if he could. He’d put his life on the line dozens of times – for a Marine paycheck, for a Legion paycheck, for a network paycheck. At least this time he was hanging his ass out for a decent number.

A large man walked in, looked around the room and then stepped aside. A medium-sized man walked directly to Hardin’s table. Tan suit, natural shoulder, very Brooks Brothers but a couple dozen notches up the couture food chain. Starched white shirt, maroon tie. His graying hair was combed straight back and gelled in place. He sat.

“You have your sample?” the man asked.

“Nice to meet you, too,” said Hardin.

The man smiled briefly, but not like he meant it. “The sample,” he repeated.

Hardin pulled the small canvas bag from his pants pocket, the same one he’d given Stein. Lafitpour held it out a little to his side and shook it, still some dirt on it, then held it up at shoulder level. The larger man came, took the bag, and left the restaurant.

Hardin had another bite of the pizza. The man sat across from him, hands folded on the table, looking him directly in the eyes. He didn’t seem to blink much.

“I can’t decide,” Hardin said. “The pizza any good here? Been a while since I had any.”

The man smiled again, said nothing. His phone rang. The man held it to his head, listened for a moment, ended the call, put the phone away. He pulled a business card from his pocket, and slid it across the table to Hardin.

“Your sample checks out. Be at this address the day after tomorrow at 8pm.Have your account information and the rest of the material with you. You can bring the pistol you are wearing on your left side under the jacket if it makes you feel any better.”

“Thanks,” said Hardin. “It does. I will. Do I get my sample back?”

The man smiled again, got up, and left.

“I guess not,” Hardin said to the empty chair.

CHAPTER28

Hardin drove back to the Motel 6, walked into his room, and saw a woman sitting in the desk chair, the chair turned toward the door. Late thirties maybe, medium height, lean, dark hair cut short, gray slacks, white blouse, blue blazer, black S&W.40. Not pointed at him, not exactly. It took a second.

“Hello, Juanita,” Hardin said.

She smiled. “Hello, Mike. Or should I say Nick? I like Nick, actually. Suits you. Mike always seemed a little pedestrian for you. And I’m Jeanette, by the way.” She picked a leather badge case from her blazer pocket and tossed it to him. Hardin flipped it open.

“Agent Wilson. Nice to meet you.”

“We’ll see, Nick. We’ll see.”

Hardin stood, Wilson sat, some kind of charge building between them.

“I guess the time was never right,” she said. He didn’t have to think about what that meant. “I’ll be here when the time is right” – those were her last words to him, all those years ago.

Hardin didn’t know what to say. “After Esteban, I just, I don’t know. I didn’t feel like I had the right.”

She nodded. “I wish… I guess I wish a lot of things.”

They looked at each other for a long time. She was leaner than she had been, harder. The long black hair he’d loved was cut back to a few practical inches. Hardin tried to see what he used to in her eyes, but there was nothing to read.

“I was thinking about looking you up,” Hardin said finally.

“If you had looked for Juanita Sandoval, I would have been a little hard to find.”

Hardin closed the badge case and flipped it back to her. “I guess,” he said. “DEA, huh? Is Hernandez in this already?”

She nodded. “Your prints turned up at a crime scene and word got around. That and you were on Oprah. You stick a pen in some guy’s neck yesterday?”

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“On who’s asking. If it’s Agent Wilson, then I guess I need a lawyer.”

She set the badge and the gun down on the desk next to the chair. “It’s just me.”

“OK, yeah. The guy was fixing to shoot me at the time, though.”

“Well, you got a lot of people looking for you.”

“I was hoping I might be kind of hard to find, too.”

Wilson gave a little snort. “Took me about six hours. Of course, I had an idea of where to start looking. But how long before someone else is showing the kid down at the desk your picture? And you’d better hope that someone is just a cop, not one of Hernandez’s people. And not one of Corsco’s people.”

“Guess I’ll just have to keep moving,” Hardin said.

“How long do you need?”

“A day, maybe two.”

Her face went still for a moment, her mouth half-open like she had something to say but had to weigh the words first.

“So my place. No one will be looking for you there.”

The statement hung between them a long moment. Hardin shook his head.

“There’s no way I’m putting you in the middle of this. I can make it through tomorrow. If you want to do me a favor, then just walk away. If you can’t do that, then take me in. I’ll go. There’s no way I’m hurting you. Not again.”

A hard smile from Wilson, her hand moving from the armrest of the chair to the desk next to the S&W. “Hurting me? You’re assuming you could.”

She sat, he stood, each of them looking at the other, neither of them knowing what to say next.

“I used to think what it would be like,” he said, “seeing you again. This isn’t what I expected.”

“You were thinking a husband, a couple of kids?”

“Something like that.”

“Tried the husband thing,” she said. “Didn’t work out.”

“Why not?”

She locked her eyes on his, held his gaze. “Because I kissed this guy goodbye at an airport a long time ago. The goodbye part didn’t take.” She stopped for a moment, their eyes still locked. “I’ve thought about seeing you again, too,” she continued. “I’ve thought about that a lot. I’ve thought about how every good moment in my life falls on the other side of the day you got on that plane. And I lived with that because there was no way not to.” She stopped again, then said, “This isn’t just your decision.”