CHAPTER 20
It was only a few days after Melody’s conversation with Sing that Constantine emerged from a jet-way into a familiar airport terminal and thought to himself, “It’s good to be home.” The line of people waiting to board their flights, the many seated near the gate or looking for kiosks at which to charge their phones and other devices, the familiarity of language even in its various accents, all served to take a great weight from his shoulders.
Exfiltration from a country under hostile occupation had been stressful on a level that would have turned most of these people around him into gibbering wrecks. Who among them could fathom the experience of being truly hunted? Of stalking for days across a wild countryside on foot, hungry, cold, knowing that any human contact could put the hounds on one’s trail? Of negotiating for the cash purchase of an old car with an old man who could end one’s world with a phone call? Of ditching that car in an abandoned barn in the dead of night? Of spying on a potential border crossing point for days, gauging security on both sides, knowing both nations’ military and police forces had reputations for violence, to say nothing of the occupying army from which one was trying to escape? Indeed, even after crossing, of continuing to make one’s way persona non grata through that other foreign nation in hopes of reaching an allied embassy unmolested?
Not until this moment, until he stepped from the plane and emerged into a domestic airport, did he truly feel that the chase had ended, and that he was safe.
As he walked toward the exit, Constantine scratched his chin and thought about when he might manage a shave. He also needed to speak with Sing, but he had no phone. Patience, he counseled himself. Almost home.
It took a few hours, but at last he reached his cage, his locker, in the CAD headquarters facility on the Agency’s sprawling campus. There he shed his foreign garb, showered, shaved, dressed in his own clothes for the first time in many weeks, and, finally, gathered up his personal effects, including his cell phone.
Messages awaited him. Oh, so many messages. A long string of them were from his wife. He would address those later. Of more immediate importance to him were the missed calls from Sing, and a single voicemail from the same dated only a day prior. He selected the voicemail and listened.
“Rob, it’s Roy. Look, there’s a problem. I need to talk to you when you get back. Privately.”
Constantine pursed his lips. That did not sound good. What had Sing found? Some new thread in his analysis? He checked the time and dialed Sing’s office number.
“You have reached the Department of the Interior main switchboard. If you know your party’s extension, you may dial it at any time—”
Constantine disconnected, adding a furrowed brow to his pursed lips. (It was not the DoI cover that gave him pause, but that the number had failed to connect directly to Sing’s desk phone, or at least to Sing’s office voicemail system, as it had in the past.) He double-checked the number, but it was correct. The entry in his phone’s contact list had not magically changed itself while he was gone. He called Sing’s personal cell, and this time his call went directly to voicemail without ringing. “You have reached the voicemail of—” “Roy Sing.” “Please leave your message after the tone. If you would—”
“What the fuck?” he asked aloud as the message system rambled on about call-back numbers and such. When it finally beeped, he said, “Roy, it’s Rob. I’m back in town. Give me a ring.”
He collected his overnight bag and keys and went to find his vehicle. It was where he had left it, and it started up without a hitch. As he approached the parking lot exit, he considered where he should go. First, he decided, to Sing’s office. At least he could find out what was going on with the man.
Constantine drove across the campus, parked again, and headed into the main building, noting anew the intimidating grandeur of its foyer. Into the labyrinthine and uniform corridors he delved, seeking out the office to which Sing had moved as his project had taken wing. Constantine found the office, but it was not Sing’s. There was no evidence there of Sing’s name or effects.
His lip twitched. He went to the department out of which Sing had worked in the past. It was largely a ghost town due to the late hour, but he sought out Sing’s old cubicle and found it occupied. By a stranger. “’Scuse me,” he said to the man. “You know where I can find Roy Sing?”
The analyst shook his head. “Sorry, no. I just moved to this department. I know who you’re talking about, but I think he got transferred out. Dunno where.”
Constantine grunted and proceeded without another word to the supervisor’s office, but the supervisor was already gone for the day. Constantine rolled his head, working the kinks out of his neck.
This was getting ridiculous.
After a moment’s thought, he departed, collecting his phone from atop the lock box at the exit from the secure area. As he walked out, he flipped through his contacts until he found Sing’s and opened it. Long ago, he had recorded Sing’s address, though he had never taken Sing up on any invitation to visit.
Sing’s commute was as terrible as one might expect in this area. Now, during the latter half of the afternoon rush, it took Constantine almost an hour to reach his neighborhood. The neighborhood itself was unremarkable, being exactly the sort of cookie-cutter place that a mid-level government employee could be expected to live. The only thing that made Sing’s house any different from the houses on either side of it was the For Sale sign in its front yard. A lock box hung on the door handle.
For the better part of ten minutes, Constantine sat in his vehicle, staring at the house in the late afternoon sunlight. There were no lights burning inside. Finally, just to be certain, he went to the door and rang the bell. As he did, he noted a little security camera embedded in the doorbell panel. It was not covert; rather, it was one of those off-the-shelf wireless camera doorbells that had recently hit the market. Constantine examined the lockbox, but it seemed to be of the standard sort used by a realtor.
His ring and knocks brought no answer. The dire set of Constantine’s mouth became a frown. Walking back to his car, he dialed the realtor’s number as given on the sign.
“Baker Realty; this is Carla Baker.”
“Yes, ma’am. My name is John Little. I was driving around—you know, scouting. I’m in the market. Anyway, I’m looking at a house with your number on the sign. I’d like to get a look at it, if that’s possible.”
“Absolutely. Which address are you looking at?”
“Twenty-four thirteen, uh… Birch Grove? Something like that.”
“I know the one. Does tomorrow work for you?”
“I’m afraid not. I’ve got to head home tomorrow morning. Any chance I can see it tonight?”
“Yes, absolutely. It’ll take me about thirty minutes. You’re there now?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“All right, tell you what. Let me get your details, and I’ll just give you the code to the lock box. You can take a look around while I drive over. Tell me your name again?”
“John Little. Spelled like it sounds.”
“And this is a good number to reach you on? Two two one oh?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Nothing he could do about that.
“Great. The combo is… hold on… six one two one five. Let yourself in. I’m getting ready to go now. See you in thirty?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Great! See you then.”
Constantine let the call end. He was already opening the lock box. The key within admitted him to the house, and he entered and turned on the lights.
It was clean. Not just clean, but freshly painted, judging by the smell. It was also unfurnished. Only the major appliances remained. Constantine moved through the house slowly, looking it over.
What would a spook look for in a situation like this? Clues? Clues to what? What had even happened? Had Sing gone on the run? No, this was too deliberate, too complete. This was a cover. He had been moved out, and his departure had been covered up, no doubt by the Agency. Moved out to where, though? Grim notions came to Constantine’s mind from the spy thrillers and action movies he had seen over the years. That was not possible, was it? That was not a thing that really happened.
Was it?
The carpets were new, too.
If something bad had happened here, something violent, their clean-up job would surely be impeccable. He would find no evidence.
Constantine walked the whole of the house, and indeed it was immaculate. When the realtor arrived, he was waiting for her in the main room.
“I guess you’ve already been over the place. What do you think?” she said, after they exchanged greetings and a hand-shake.
“I like it,” said Constantine. “It’s clean. Looks like fresh carpet, too.”
“Yep. Fresh carpet, fresh paint. The appliances come with; they all work.”
“And the previous owner? What was his reason for moving?” As soon as he said it, Constantine realized he should have said something more generic, like “they.” No spy was Chief Warrant Officer Robert Constantine, despite some basic education in site exploitation and counterespionage. Just an old shooter. She did not seem to notice, though.
“Not sure. I think maybe a work thing. I’ve actually been working with his attorney. Certainly nothing to do with the house, though, or the neighborhood. As you can see, it’s a safe, clean community, well managed. You have kids?”
“Yeah, one.”
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“Good schools, too. This was actually one of the neighborhoods I was considering when I moved here.”
Had he been a trained spy, thought Constantine, he might have been able to tell if she was telling the truth or if that was just a part of her sale’s pitch, something she said about every property she showed. However, that she had only interacted with a lawyer he firmly believed. That rang true to him.
“What’s the history of the house? Any damage? Flooding?” Bullet holes?
“Nothing like that. The house is about eight years old, no problems. Did you check out the basement?”
“No.”
“Come look. It’s unfinished, but I think there’s a lot of potential for something like a den or mancave, you know?”
Constantine followed her down the stairs, and as she gave him a tour of the unimpressive subterranean space, he found himself hoping that Sing had left him some sort of message hidden here. Perhaps a folded slip of paper behind a loose brick, marked in a way that only he, Constantine, would recognize. There was nothing, though. At least, nothing Constantine could see, nothing flagged in a way that stood out to him.
Once he had made what he thought was a good show of interest tempered with an appropriate amount of deliberation, Constantine expressed his need to be on his way. She walked him out. Night had fallen, and it was quite cold. There were even a few flakes of snow in the air.
“Thanks again for coming out on short notice,” said Constantine, shaking her hand once more.
“My pleasure. So, what do you think?”
“I’ll think about it,” he said. “I have a couple of places in mind, but I’ll be in touch.”
“All right, well, you have my number. Feel free to call.”
“I will,” he said, back-pedaling toward his vehicle as politely as he knew how. “Have a good night.”
“Good night!”
He was crossing the street when she called out behind him, “Hey, you never asked what the asking price is.”
“Crap,” thought Constantine. “How much?” he called over his shoulder.
“Two twenty-two five. It’s a steal, I’m telling you.” For the area, that probably was a steal.
“Got it. I’ll keep it in mind,” he called, and then he climbed into his car. He gave her one last friendly wave as he pulled away, which she reciprocated. Once he was thoroughly out of sight, though, he cast aside his meager act. “What the fuck, Roy?” he asked aloud to his car as he drove toward his apartment. “Did you get fuckin’ iced?” Constantine let forth a long sigh. “Did you get fuckin’ iced by your own fuckin’ people? What the shit.”
His apartment was as he had left it. No sign of disturbances. As he shed his belongings, suddenly the full weight of his weariness hit him, the toll of a long and harrowing mission. All he wanted was to sleep. Whatever had happened to Sing, it would still have happened tomorrow; a night’s sleep would make no difference.
Resolved as he was to go to bed, though, he yet found himself balancing a mop handle against his door. Paranoid, perhaps. Hopefully.
The next day, he went through his files and began trying to contact some of the other folks on Sing’s the team.
Transferred.
Reassigned.
Unavailable.
Unavailable.
Unavailable.
Killed in a car crash.
“I’m sorry?” said Constantine, sitting up. Eli Patterson, one of the lead designers on the programming team, the people working on the AI part. Constantine had met him once in passing.
“Yeah, just a week ago. A complete freak accident. Apparently he fell asleep at the wheel and went right into a tree. Just like that. They said he had taken some cold medicine. I was at his funeral on Saturday. Couldn’t believe it.”
“I see. Well, I’m real sorry.”
“Yeah, man. We all are. Eli was a good man. It just blows your mind. You worked with him?”
“A little bit. Didn’t know him well. He and I were working on the same project.”
“Well, dunno what to tell you.”
“No, it’s fine,” said Constantine. “I’m just sorry about what happened.”
After he hung up, Constantine did some research. He found one news report online about the wreck, and he secured the police report as well. Case closed, it said. Single vehicle, single occupant, late at night, no seat belt, headlong into a tree.
The next day, Constantine was knocking on the widow’s door. Mrs. Patterson answered. She looked rough, and that was understandable.
“Ma’am, I’m with your husband’s work.” He showed her his Agency access badge, hoping that would be enough to lend credence to the story he was about to tell. “I want to say, we’re all very sorry about what happened.” He could see grief welling up in her as he said it. “I’m sorry I didn’t call ahead, ma’am, but I was hoping to catch you at home.”
“What do you need?”
“I know it’s painful, ma’am, but I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions, for our internal investigation.”
“What investigation? He fell asleep at the wheel, didn’t he?” Her agitation grew. “They said he had taken medicine—"
“Yes, ma’am, all of that is true. I’m not here about that.”
“Then what?”
“Internal departmental review, ma’am. Something like this happens, the boss wants to know if we’ve got a cultural problem. If we’re pushing people too hard, if anyone else is at risk. You can imagine the scrutiny right now. I’m really sorry to put you through this, but would you mind talking to me for just a bit about how your husband had been in the days leading up to the accident?”
She stared at him for a moment, and then she nodded. She did mind, clearly. She wanted no part of it. But she was a good person and she wanted to help. “Come in,” she said.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Can I get you anything? I have tea—”
“Just a glass of water, if that’s okay.”
The woman led him to her kitchen and retrieved a glass for him. Constantine noted children’s toys and clothing about the house as he entered. He saw framed photographs depicting Eli with his family. A fat man, bordering on obese, bearded, and happy-looking with his wife and children.
“Are your children home, ma’am? I don’t want to disturb them.”
“The baby’s down,” she said, glancing at a receiver speaker for a baby monitor sitting on the countertop. “Jeffery’s at a friend’s house.”
“Okay. Would you like to sit?” They sat at her kitchen table. “So, can you tell me about Eli? How was he doing? Had he been working long hours? Did he seem stressed out by work?”
“Yes. Yes and yes,” she said. “I mean, he always tended to work a bit long, but in the past few weeks he’s been getting home really late. And I don’t know what he was working on, but I could tell it was bothering him. Really bothering him. He never talked about it, but he seemed… like it was always on his mind, you know? He was always able to leave work at work. He always…” She trailed off, and he could see her mouth working as she struggled to keep from crying. Watching it made his heart clutch in his chest. “I’m sorry,” she said after a moment.
“No, no. Please, take your time. And we can end this at any moment. This is not an official investigation—I mean, it’s official, but it’s not for a police report, or anything. We just… you know, losing Eli hit us hard, too. We all work hard, but nobody wants this to happen ever again.”
The woman nodded. She looked up at him. “I’m sorry, tell me your name again?”
“Constantine, ma’am. Robert.”
“You worked with Eli?”
“Yes, ma’am. He and I were working on the same project.” No point in trying to lie here, he figured. If someone wanted to come after him for looking into it, let ‘em come. They’d have a challenge on their hands.
“He never mentioned you.”
“Did he mention a lot of folks from work?”
After a moment’s thought, she shook her head. “No, I guess not. The nature of the work, I guess?”
“Yes, ma’am. Plus, you know, when you spend all day with people, sometimes you just want to leave them behind when you go home at night. We all feel that way sometimes. Besides, your husband and I weren’t real close. We were on the same project. I knew him. He was a good tech. Seemed like a good man. But it wasn’t like we talked every day or anything.”
“I understand.”
“So he was working late. Especially late, recently. And you said the work had him distracted. Did you know he was sick? That he had a cold?”
“No.”
“That’s okay,” said Constantine. He was no expert on women, as attested by his own miserable marriage, but this one seemed like the kind of wife a man dreamt about as he grew older. A good wife. A good woman. What must that have been like? Some instinct told him that she would feel responsible for having failed to notice her husband coming down with an illness. “It might have been mild, or just getting started. Did he typically take something when he had a cold?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you know him to drive without his seatbelt a lot?”
“No. No, that, never. He always wore his seat belt.”
“All right. What about his work?” asked Constantine, trying to move on quickly. “You said it had him distracted, stressed out. I know you said he never talked about it, but did he ever mention anything about it at all? What aspect of it had him stressed out? Was it the work, or someone at work? Did he have problems with anybody at the office, or feel like he was being targeted or harassed in any way?”
“No… I mean, he was a nice person. He got along with people. He sometimes would complain about people, but nothing out of the ordinary. You know, just the usual frustrations of a government job. At least, that’s what I always thought.”
“Did anything change recently, when he started working long hours? Did he make any comments that surprised you?”
“He just… I guess maybe he just seemed more… frustrated? With the government as a whole. Like, he sometimes had his complaints, but he always believed in the mission, you know? He said that a lot. The mission. But lately I guess maybe he was more… bitter about it. Like he wasn’t into the mission anymore, or—I don’t know; there was nothing obvious. It’s not like he came home and just threw his hands up or anything. He was going to do his job even if it seemed like even his bosses didn’t want him to.”
“Did he say that?”
“Something like that, yeah. He was that kind of guy. He didn’t do it for the money, Lord knows. He could have made a lot more with a private company. But he loved his work.”
“That’s the Eli I remember,” lied Constantine.
Mrs. Patterson put a hand to her mouth and nodded again while fighting back her tears.
“Ma’am, I want to thank you for talking to me about this. I can imagine how hard it is for you. I want you to know we’re here for you. Is there anything you need? Anything we can do for you right now?”
“No,” she said with a quick shake of her head. “I just… have to deal with it. We’ll be okay.”
“Well, I won’t ask any more of your time. We’ll be conducting an internal review based on this. Sometimes the work is hard, and demands long hours, but we’ll keep a better eye on each other, I can tell you that. Thank you, ma’am, for your help.”
He bade her well and made his escape. A baby. It was very feasible to Constantine, at this point, that someone might have murdered Patterson and Sing, and Patterson had a baby. Constantine fancied himself no saint, but that idea made him angry. Could it really have been friendlies, blue on blue? Could the Agency have done this to one of its own?
He completed his investigations for the day and returned to his apartment. As he walked toward the outside staircase from the parking lot, he noticed behind him another man exiting another parked vehicle. Constantine did not look back, but he could hear the man walking behind him, not too close yet keeping pace.
Constantine stopped before entering into the funnel of the stairwell and turned, facing the stranger. The man continued to approach, and as he entered the light, Constantine realized he was not a stranger. He was a member of Task Force Royal, albeit one with whom Constantine had only worked peripherally. Constantine could see another figure standing by the open door of the car in the parking lot.
“Can I help you?” he said to the man. What was his name? Joe? “What the fuck is this about, ‘Joe?’” he asked in his mind. Constantine could feel his internal engines spinning up, heating up. The little quiver of adrenaline coursed through him. He did not look to his surroundings; he had already checked them as he turned. For now, he just kept his ears open while he watched the two men he could see and considered in which direction he would move if he had to move. If they wanted to do him here, the one in the background would have moved out to one side or the other by now for a clear shot.
Joe—if that was indeed his name—stopped a respectful distance away, his hands in his coat pockets, and he and Constantine eyed one another. “Rob, right?” he said at last. “Just wanted to stop by and let you know that your assignment here is done. You can head back out to your company.”
“That a fact?”
“Yeah. I heard you did good work, though. That could be good for you if you try to screen again.”
“Little old for that,” said Constantine.
“Eh. Depends on who you’re screening for.”
“Fair enough.”
“Anyway, that’s all. There’s a flight booked for you tomorrow morning.”
“That’s a little quick.”
“You’re in the military; you know how it is. Orders are orders.”
“Are you ordering me to go home?”
“What, me? Hell, no. I’m just passing on a message.”
“I might not be able to make that flight. I’ve got some stuff I need to take care of first.”
‘Joe’ stared at him for a long, quiet moment, and then said, “Just be on that plane. Think about your career. Nothing going on here more important than that.”
“That a fact?”
‘Joe’ nodded. “That’s a fact.”
“I’ll keep it mind.”
They stared at each other for a few seconds more. Constantine resolved that he could stand here all night, if the need existed. Finally, ‘Joe’ took his hands from hits coat pockets. “Well,” he said. “That’s all. Just wanted to drop by and let you know. Have a good’n’.”
“You, too. Stay warm.”
“Yeah, it’s fuckin’ cold,” agreed ‘Joe’ as he turned and walked back to his car. He and the other man climbed into their car, backed out, and drove away.
Constantine took another look around, and then he went up the stairs to his apartment. That night, he propped the mop against his door again, and he did not feel the least bit paranoid in doing so.