Chapter Seven
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"We got to tell Mike."
Jesse surveyed the clutter in the loft. Newspapers. Fast food boxes and wrappers. Crushed donut bags. Empty and half empty paper coffee cups. Soda cans. The loft overflowed with trash. Fi's table and chairs sat crookedly at awkward angles, and next to Mike's favorite green chair, a pair of wet socks and a dirty t-shirt left on the floor emitted a disgusting odor. He didn't live here, but he felt violated on Mike and Fi's behalf.
"We got to do more than just change locks and alarm the place," Sam said with disgust.
They had already discovered not a single rifle, shotgun, handgun or phone that had been hidden remained. The F.B.I. had confiscated them, with the knowledge that there would be no way Westen would lodge a complaint.
"We can't tell Fi." When Jesse and Sam spoke the same thought at the same moment, they surprised each other.
"Ever." That word arrived in unison as well.
Sam shook his head and flipped open his phone and dialed.
"Ah, Maddie, we got a situation at the loft and need some advice. No, Mikey's not here. Oh, he is? OK, but the situation is this . . . seems our FBI friends have been camping out while Fi and Mike are gone, and it looks like they, ah, even, ah, slept in their bed. Yeah. I don't want . . . yeah. Yeah. I know you're right. Okay. Yeah, I'll do that. All right. See you soon."
Jesse turned away. "This creeps me out. What'd Maddie's say?"
"There's some laundry place near here Fi likes, so she said to strip the bed and she's coming over to get the bedding and she'll make sure it's OK before Fi gets back."
"Fi is getting back, isn't she?" Jesse had to say it.
Sam just looked at him.
Jesse reached into the small work bag for the tools he needed. "OK, so you clean the fridge and do the kitchen and bed stuff, and I'll start on the doors."
Sam located the box under the sink and started filling it with food left in the fridge and all the stuff on the counter. By the time he was done cleaning the mess, doing the dishes and taking the trash out, Jesse had installed a specialized alarm on the door to the deck and the main door to the loft. He handed Sam a small remote on a keychain. "Don't lose that."
"Because . . . ?"
"State of the art wireless remote with some nifty features. You don't need an external keypad, just a remote. Tamper with the lock, it lets you think you got away with it for 30 seconds, then you get blasted. 180 decibels of pain. What do you think? Hard rock or screeching alarm?"
"Screeching. Scare the crap out of them."
"Yeah."
The main loft door Jesse closed swung open sharply to reveal Maddie on the other side. Apparently Sam's call lit her burner on simmering anger, and it'd reached full boil. "I ought to give those morons a piece of my mind."
She clicked a lighter, lit a cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke. She surveyed the pile of trash bags in center of the kitchen floor and motioned to the ones by the bed. "Is that everything?"
"Ah, Maddie," Sam began, "you know, Mikey doesn't like when you smoke in here."
"No," he doesn't, " Michael said as he stood in the doorway to survey the loft. "What's going on, guys? Mom, what are you doing here?" He looked travel-worn and tired, and put a coat, jacket and small bag on the bench by the door.
Jesse, Sam and Maddie just stared at him, and Maddie bit the inside of her lower lip. No one said a word of welcome.
"Ah, guys?" Michael asked again, wary at the lack of response. "What's going on?"
"Yeah, hey, Mike, good to see you but I'm just leaving." Sam said, as he looked the opposite direction and nodded to Maddie. "I'll get that stuff and help you out." He turned back and shoved the remote in Jesse's hand. "There you go."
"Me? You're leaving this up to me?" he said, incredulously.
Maddie grabbed a trash bag, turned and kissed Michael's cheek on her way out the door. "Welcome back, honey." Sam had already left.
Michael looked at Jesse. "What's going on?"
Jesse looked down at the remote and handed it to Michael. "This is the remote to your new alarm system. I'm not done with it yet. Don't lose that thing."
"I don't recall asking you to install an alarm."
"Sam and I made that executive decision after we found out it's your buds from the FBI who've been hanging out here since you and Fi left. They've been here for weeks, Mike. They trashed the place, took all your spare guns and phones and, ah, apparently, slept in your bed. This was just a way to keep them out until you got back."
Michael walked over to the kitchen, removed a drawer, knelt and reached up and behind it. He pulled out a Ruger .45 and reached in again and retrieved a phone. "They didn't get everything." He pulled out another drawer and looked behind it. "No, they didn't."
He tucked the gun at the small of his back and studied the pile of trash bags and glanced at the bed that had been stripped. A image of the loft as he'd first seen it flashed an unsettling sense of déjà vu.
"What happened to the bed?"
Jesse told him.
Michael grimaced. "I never thought I'd say this, but it might be . . . a good thing Fi's in prison right now."
"That's what we thought."
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By the time Sam returned to his room, the sun had been gone for a couple of hours. When Big Mama was out of town on extended trips, he reverted to what passed as his definition of normal at the Seaside, a rent-it-by-hour-day-week-month motel that had been his main stay, on and off, for the past seven years.
He was not expecting to find someone seated on the small balcony patio overlooking the dimly lit pool area, but at the same time, it wasn't exactly a surprise.
"Commander Axe."
His guest chose an acerbic tone with the formal address he'd used much, much earlier in their careers when they worked field ops in hot spots from Southeastern Asia to the Middle East, before the western European assignments where he came in contact with a young operator he'd recruited, Michael Westen.
Sam glanced around the corner, verifying he was alone, before he took the chair on the opposite side of the table. He tipped his bottle toward Raines. "I'd offer you one, but I brought this with."
When Raines didn't speak, Sam spoke quietly. "I figured you'd show up sooner or later."
"I had to after I read that fairy tale you told Pearce."
"Oh, hell, Raines, what else was I going to do? Fi wanted to stop Mike from sinking deeper with Anson and she wanted my help. It was like watching a disaster you're helpless to stop. You know what I did? I made one damned phone call to Harris, that's all. That was all. I'm feeling like Mike, you know? Try to do the right thing and still get burned for it. I can't spin time backwards. If I could . . . " Sam sighed deeply, "I would."
Raines acquiesced. "The blow back from that phone call has had me swimming upstream for two months, Axe. Damn you," he said without anger. "We nearly didn't get her away from them, because they're using you against us. You're their leverage now. The spy's best friend helps turn his girlfriend over to the FBI? You're they're go-to guy. You couldn't think of anything else to do? Anything? She's a 93-pound woman!"
"Yeah? Well, she seems . . . bigger. And she's 93-pound woman who can kill you 15 different ways with a hairpin."
Raines laughed softly. "Part of me thinks you're all in love with her which means I'm done with all of you, Westen first."
That stiffened Sam's spine. "For the record, he's not the only operative I've worked with who prioritized personal over mission. God knows, women have been the bane of my existence, and," he paused to finish his beer with a long gulp, "yours, too, if memory serves."
"You are not the only one who's mentioned that," Raines replied quietly.
"Well considering he got your wife out of Germany . . . oh, yeah, but she wasn't your wife then, was she?"
Raines just shook his head and stared at flat blue water in the motel pool. "You know how they're playing this, right?"
Sam stretched his legs out. "Yeah, not only am I a rat, I'm Beatriz's Russian conspirator, but I thought that noose around my neck was gone after . . . "
"Not quite."
"I get it. I understand. Geeze, this inter-agency rivalry crap has to stop before something worse happens. Didn't anyone learn a thing after 9-11? About cooperating? Sharing information? Anson played on that, and it allowed him to stay hidden so well you all missed him, and the only guy who said you missed him is on your list because he got involved with an asset fifteen years ago. Ever think you're barking up the wrong tree, Raines? You think Anson isn't taking advantage of that now?"
"We know he is."
After a few moments spent digesting the current state of affairs, Sam realized Raines was missing a piece of information.
"There's something else. Kind of odd for the FBI, but they've been camped out in Mike's loft since sometime after Fi turned herself in. You wouldn't believe the mess they left. Jesse and I surveilled the place, trying to figure out what they were doing there besides taking every spare gun and phone. Harris and Lane were there along with two newbies, but that's going to end. Jesse wired the loft shut today."
"What were they looking for?"
"You ought to ask them that."
Raines stood. "I'll see you in Pearce's office tomorrow. 0600. Be there, Axe."
Sam gave him a two-finger salute. "Yeah."
"This whole situation is like a Gordian knot." Raines said, shaking his head. "Nearly impossible to unravel."
"There was a simple fix for that knot. A sword," Sam drawled.
"You lost that option when you helped Fiona Glenanne to turn herself in to the FBI."
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Fiona was dressed in orange again.
The color didn't suit her coloring, and Pearce said so when she arrived shortly after Fiona had been readmitted to the CIA holding facility's solitary confinement unit.
She handed Fiona a small bag containing travel size bottles of shampoo, conditioner, hand and body lotions. There was a soft blanket, a notepad, pen and two books, Benedictus and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Something for the heart, something for amusement, Pearce explained.
Fiona looked at the items with gratitude and confusion. "I thought I wasn't allowed . . . "
"Not this time. Raines arranged for a couple of privileges, and that includes Michael being able to visit you whenever he can. He should be back in Miami soon. You'll still be under surveillance and still in solitary confinement, but these things may help. I guessed you hadn't read any Harry Potter books."
"I haven't. A boy wizard?"
Pearce smiled. "That's the theme."
Fiona had just opened the book when a guard indicated she had another visitor and she was taken again to the small room she'd been in previously to wait for Pearce.
She looked around and realized the omnipotent cameras were getting to her, even if she fully expected they would be there.
Perhaps it had been when Pearce opened the door on her and Michael's too brief moment in her office, or the few moments they had together in Raines' conference room where Michael used his back and arms to shield their privacy from those listening and watching them. She hoped it would be Michael who would walk through the door, but when he did all she could think of was the invasiveness of the cameras watching them. It left her utterly frustrated even as he pulled her up into his arms, pulling her so close she nearly couldn't breathe.
"I hate knowing someone watches us," she whispered against his throat even as she realized he was doing it again, shielding them, positioning his body so their conversation, their exchanges, the sweet kisses, would be shielded, too. "You must have passed Pearce on your way in."
"I did, and that's why I can't stay long," his voice was barely above a whisper. "But I had to see you."
She smoothed her hand across his whiskery cheek and realized he was wearing the same clothing he had on the last time she saw him. "What are they doing to you? Are you being punished?"
He dropped his head so that his forehead touched hers. "I answer questions, lots of questions, Fi. I'm being excluded, and I'm following orders because I don't want to do anything to hurt you. Nothing is going to matter if you end up here for the rest of your life."
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Raines depressed the speaker button on the desktop phone that allowed Westen, Axe and Pearce to be privy to his phone call from his FBI counterpart.
"So why didn't the operative you claim as one of yours make you aware of the situation until after his girlfriend, a known IRA bomb specialist, turned herself in?"
"I already explained that is part of the security breach we're trying to fix, part of the same thing we thought we had cleared up last year. I'm telling you, you need to be looking at who at your agency has been in contact with him. There was no way he should have been able to locate Westen outside a secure, private D.C. facility. The only way that happened was to come from someone inside the FBI."
"Maybe you should be looking at Axe."
"CIA asset, not involved."
"Get your house in order, Raines, before you come looking at us."
"Take this seriously. Please."
"I'll think about it after Glenanne has a trial date."
The loud, audible click was indication the call ended.
Pearce looked around the room. Westen and Axe were looking at the floor and Raines was flipping a pen between his fingers like a mini baton.
"He knows he has a leak," she said.
Raines smiled. "Yes, he does. I hope that gives us some breathing room now. He looked over at Axe and Westen. You two good to go?"
Michael nodded. "Yeah."
"Okay, people, same time same place tomorrow. Good luck."
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Harris stepped out of the shower at the fitness center and reached for the towel he'd left on bench to find Sam Axe holding it.
"I thought you were my friend, Harris. I ask you a question, you give me an answer, and then you call in a damned SWAT team for a itty bitty woman carrying a big purse. Now that wasn't nice."
Harris stepped and reached for the towel but Sam extended his arm behind himself and took a step back.
"It was bad enough when you decided I needed investigating because we helped out a friend who was trying keep the FSB off her back, but this . . . well, that, that was almost as unfriendly as camping out in Westen's loft. Eating their food, leaving your crap all over the place, sleeping in their bed. Stealing guns, phones."
"Axe, give me the towel," Harris said.
Sam took another step back. "Now who does that? Since when does the FBI do surveillance from inside a private home? What were you looking for?"
"Axe," Harris warned.
Sam took another step back.
"Seems like you were looking for something."
"Axe, the towel," Harris growled.
"Aw, getting chilly? Why were you there?"
Harris took a swing for the towel but Sam backed up even farther.
"Got all the time in world here, Harris."
"Not why, we were looking for a who."
"So who?"
"Anson Fullerton. He was there at some point; we found prints, trackers, listening devices. And another guy, weird status, though . . . Sizemore?"
"Yeah?"
"Did you see him?"
"No," Harris huffed. "Axe, hand over my towel."
"Sure," Sam muttered. "And thanks for sharing." With that he threw the towel in a wall mount urinal and hit flush.
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Michael met Agent Lane as he walked out of the wide ER sliding doors.
He turned and walked next to him before grabbing his arm and twisting it up and back and shoving Lane into a shadowed alcove next to the well lit entrance. A moment later he released his hold.
"So how are they doing?" Michael asked.
"What the hell did you put in there? They'll be lucky if they don't lose their hearing."
"It's my place. I can put anything in there I want."
"This is serious, Westen," Lane complained. "Those men are suffering serious nerve damage."
"Well, it is serious," Michael agreed. "What were you doing there?"
"I don't have to tell you."
Michael reached, grabbed Lane's thumb, locked it with his thumb and held his elbow, exerting crippling pressure.
"Yeah, you do."
"Fullerton," Lane said, on the exhale of a painful breath. "We were looking for Fullerton."
"Really," Michael said, dropping his hands from the hold he'd had on Lane before he was tempted to do real damage. "And here I thought you guys didn't care."