McLeary ducked his head inside the back of the prisoner transport van and sat on the metal bench seat. A pair of handcuffs secured him to a cable bolted to the floor. The judicial process would be swift and certain, a proverbial slam dunk for Kriegel and his goons consumed by their own predilection and ignominious tactics. And as the back door slammed shut to envelop him in darkness, reality began to set in. There would be no case to close, no terrorist plot to disrupt, and no chance to reconcile his relationship with his sons. He had failed on multiple levels, embracing his fate as a father who would spend the next twenty years in a federal penitentiary alone in his grief and unforgiven in the eyes of those who meant everything to him.
He rested his head against the wall, angry at himself for trusting Burns despite his instincts that drove him to question her loyalties and motives. Duped by an amateur with a pretty face, he figured Burns had learned enough about the system to work her own agenda while she kissed Kriegel’s ass on her ascension through the bureau ranks. If an enemy of the state didn’t kill her, her own ignorance and inexperience would consume her in the end.
He put his hands together and prayed; not for himself, but for the sons he’d failed to protect.
* * *
Burns attacked the StairMaster with vigor. Her legs pumping like iron pistons, she’d climbed the equivalent of ten flights of stairs without breaking a sweat, her determination reflected in the mirrored wall in front of her.
Alone in a hotel fitness room, she’d caught the end of a local news report about the public’s fear of a large-scale anthrax attack. A stretch, she thought, having firsthand knowledge of the isolated incidents she’d reviewed during the course of her investigation. Terrorist-related or not, she felt confident the problem would be resolved with or without her assistance, and now, without the help of Jim McLeary.
She increased the resistance, forcing her heart and legs to work harder, diverting her frustration and anger away from Kriegel toward a meaningful cardio workout. Whatever his motives were, Kriegel had crossed the line, at least in her mind. The way he used her for his personal gain only seasoned her wound with salt. If she could have punched him and kept her career intact at the same time, she would have; maybe kicked him in the balls for good measure. Kriegel was an arrogant, unconscionable bastard, not someone she could learn from or respect.
She eyed the digital readout on the exercise machine’s front panel, wondering if Kriegel had the room bugged too. If he got to McLeary through her, maybe he could get to her through the maintenance crew or a surveillance technician disguised as the pest control man.
We all have something to hide, but McLeary broke the law.
Right or wrong, McLeary had admitted his mistake, using the death of his wife to justify his illegal actions, actions which tarnished the image of the world’s most respected law enforcement agency.
Then why do you feel so guilty? You didn’t put temptation in his hands. You didn’t help him steal the money. He made the choice on his own.
When she reached the fifteenth floor in her virtual stairwell climb, she imagined how much strength a fire fighter would need to climb the same distance with gear on his back and a high pressure hose in tow. She closed her eyes and held the support bars with both hands, steering her thoughts in other directions as she tried to deny her feelings for the man she’d struggled to understand; an unorthodox agent who’d scorned her with his sexist, narrow-minded comments; a man who kept her up at night with a passion in his eyes. Jim McLeary was a man of many faults, but murder wasn’t one of them. The operation went bad. The death of Agent Bryant was a tragedy everyone would have to live with.
She finished her workout and stepped off the machine to catch her breath and stretch while she pondered the note conspicuously delivered to her apartment mail box several days ago.
Watch your back. There’s a double agent in your house.
A prank in poor taste or a warning she’d failed to heed? Kriegel would have her head for not disclosing the contents sooner. But withholding the information was a gamble she’d been willing to take.
The note had cost her sleepless nights and stoked her fear of someone close to her playing for the other side. And now, with McLeary in custody, part of her hoped something bad would develop while he had a solid alibi, giving her a reason to trust him again. But there were too many variables. Too many shades of bad to contend with on a difficult investigation embroiled with terrorist factions, multiple law enforcement agencies, standard bureau politics, and plain bad luck. If McLeary was the problem, Kriegel had his man dead to rites. But if Kriegel was the one who turned, she had no clear path to follow, aside from approaching Director Hoffnagle himself to convince him a decorated FBI Section Chief with a record beyond reproach might be sabotaging his own investigation. The menagerie of what ifs made her head spin.
She grabbed an orange Gatorade from her gym bag. She thought about Seth and Brian at the FBI safe house and how she would break the news about their dad.
Step up or step out, Kriegel had threatened her, his harsh retort replayed inside her conscious mind in an endless loop. She’d kept herself in the game despite her own reservations about working for a pig like Kriegel. If he’d wanted McLeary stuffed and mounted, he should have got his own hands dirty, not hers. Despite McLeary’s confession about the stolen money, he had saved her life—twice—and now the thought of his allegiance to anyone but himself, his country, or his boys made him the least likely candidate for a sinister double-agent.