She stopped crying and sniffed. “I loved him. I can’t … I can’t believe he’s gone. Were you there, Dr. Cross? Did he suffer? What do you think happened? Was he really part of this vigilante group?”
I was feeling pinched and unsure how to respond, but then I said, “What’s your security clearance, Dolores?”
There was a strong tremor in her voice as she said, “I helped you, Dr. Cross. Now you help me. That’s how it works in this town. I need to know.”
I thought about Mahoney’s investigative strategy and the need to limit the number of people who knew the truth and weighed that against the obvious grief and pain Dolores was suffering.
“He’s not dead.”
There was a long moment before she said in a whisper, “What?”
“You heard me. Take heart. Wait it out. There are reasons for this.”
Dolores choked, and then laughed, sniffed, and laughed again, and I imagined her wiping her tears away with her sleeve.
“I’m sure,” she said. “Oh God, you don’t know how … I was up all night after I heard. I have never felt such regret, Dr. Cross. For what could have been.”
“I think you’ll get the chance to tell him that yourself before long,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said, sounding stuffy but ecstatic. “From the bottom of my heart, thank you. And if there’s anything else I can do for you, just ask.”
“There is, actually. Tell me what you know about Lester Hobbes and Charles Fender.”
CHAPTER
70
THE LINE WAS quiet for several moments before Dolores said, “Interesting pair. Can I ask where this is going?”
“Not today,” I said. “And please don’t start poking around in any files with security clearances attached to those two. Just give me what you know.”
“Fair enough,” Dolores said. “I’ll give you only what’s in my files.”
“You’ve got files on Hobbes and Fender?”
“I’ve got files on almost everyone in this business.”
“Can I ask how?”
“Only if you wish to pay me for my services.”
I smiled. “So, what, you’re like an agent for mercenaries?”
“A broker is closer to it,” Dolores said, all business now. “I’m the person you go to when you want to recruit a talented warrior, like Fender, or an assassin, like Hobbes.”
“That’s what Hobbes does?”
“Quite well. Very clean operator. Only takes out targets who deserve it.”
I wondered at Dolores’s sense of morality and justice for a moment but then pushed those concerns aside.
“Can you tell me where to find Hobbes and Fender?”
She laughed. “You want to talk to them?”
“Interrogate them is more like it.”
She laughed again. “Good luck with that.”
“You won’t help me find them?”
“I don’t know how to find them. The only time we communicate is when I have an offer for their services, and that’s done by secure e-mail. Honestly, we’ve never even met in person.”
I thought about that. “Could you make them an offer on our behalf?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “There are certain ethical standards in my line of work.”
“Your work representing mercenaries.”
“That’s right.”
“Next thing you’ll tell me is there’s an association of mercenary agents here in town.”
“There’s talk.”
“Remember how this conversation began?” I said.
After a pause, Dolores said, “I do, and I’m grateful for the peace of mind.”
“And I imagine you want to prevent further bloodshed?”
“That too.”
“Then you’ll help us find Hobbes and Fender?”
A longer silence followed before she said, “I’ll draft a proposal for you and see if they bite.”
“Make it a very lucrative offer,” I said. “Then they’ll definitely bite.”
CHAPTER
71
OUT IN THE mouth of Mobjack Bay, close to where it meets the greater Chesapeake, John Brown’s fishing boat bobbed at anchor a mile north of a fifty-acre gated and guarded compound on a point.
Cass was aboard. So were Hobbes and Fender, who were holding fishing poles, jigging for bottom fish, and studying the compound.
“If we do it right, this will be a total surprise,” Brown said, handing binoculars to Fender. “We’ll be in and out in twenty minutes, tops.”
“That’s the plan, anyway,” Hobbes said, raising and lowering his rod.
That annoyed Brown. “What does that mean?”
“It means shit happens,” Hobbes said. “And sometimes you have to ad-lib. I mean, who knows, a big goddamned storm comes up and we’re blowing off whitecaps on our way in, we might want to ad-lib and take a different approach. That’s all I’m saying.”
Brown felt on edge, and he didn’t know why. His arm throbbed less, but it was waking him up at night. And of course there had to be contingencies in place, but with a situation like this, he wanted specific actions to move like clockwork, the team going in and out like phantoms.