“Yeah, I got in pretty late last night, and . . .”
Hayes trailed off, eyes dropping to the ground, suddenly unsure what to say. He kicked at the rocks that lay inside the phone booth, sent them skipping across the tarmac.
Dammit, it shouldn’t be this hard to talk to your wife.
As usual, Annabelle was there to save him.
“Last night when you didn’t call, I was a little bummed out. You know what your son said to me?”
“I can’t even imagine,” Hayes said, a grin starting at the corner of his mouth.
“He said, ‘Don’t be sad, Mommy—Daddy’s busy helping those sick people.’”
“That boy is smart as a whip—he must have got that from you,” he laughed. “He’s not giving you any trouble, is he?”
“Nope. But he misses you . . . we both do.”
“I know, baby . . .”
There was so much that he wanted to say. So much that he wanted to tell her, but the emotion that came from hearing her voice and the thought of their son expanded inside his chest like a balloon.
“I miss you guys, too. More than I’ll ever be able to tell you.”
“I know,” she said.
“Do you?”
There was a momentary pause between his question and her answer, a hiccup in the conversation caused by the signal having to be bounced from Africa to the States and back again. It was less than a second, not even long enough to take a full breath, but it was enough to send his mind back to the previous summer.
Back when they were on the verge of a divorce, even this stilted conversation wouldn’t have been possible.
“Yes, I do. You’re my husband, and I love you . . . I just wish you were home.”
“Me, too.”
“H-have you thought about it . . . about what you are going to do?”
“Sometimes it feels like that’s all I think about,” he said.
“Well, whatever you decide, we support you. Now, let me get back to sleep. Jack and I have an early morning at the zoo.”
“You guys have fun. Be safe and tell the little man I love him.”
He waited until she’d hung up, used his index finger to hang up, double-checked the hornets, and then dialed the number Shaw had given him.
This time the line connected after the first ring, but instead of a person, Hayes got a recorded message in Cantonese.
“Thank you for calling Sterling Mercantile and Trust,” it said. “If you know your account, please enter it at any time.”
He typed in his twelve-digit PIN, and a moment later, Shaw’s voice came over the line.
“Hayes, my boy, how’s the dark continent treating you?”
“It’s fucking hot, Levi.”
“You’re breaking my heart,” Shaw replied. “Any other man in your shoes would be lying in the sand drinking something with an umbrella in it, but not Adam Hayes.”
Here we go with this shit again.
“The sand is overrated.”
“Yeah, I imagine it wouldn’t be much fun lugging that cross of yours around. When are you going to stop playing Mother Teresa and come back—do what God put you on this earth to do?”
“God didn’t make me this way, you and that psycho Dr. Saddler did this to me.”
“Son, you were a killer when I recruited you; all we ever did was make you better at it.”
“Look, as much fun as I’m having listening to your bullshit, I’ve got things to do.”
“Fine, where are you going this time? The Congo, Uganda, or some other third world hellhole no one gives a shit about?”
Hayes squeezed the receiver until his knuckles popped and was about to slam the phone into the wall when he remembered the hornets.
Just take a breath, tell the old man where you’re going, and get off the phone.
“Burkina Faso,” he said.
“Where in Burkina Faso?” Shaw replied.
“Bobo-Dioulasso.”
Then there was silence.
The calls were part of the amnesty agreement he’d made a day after Levi Shaw was reaffirmed as the director of Operation Treadstone. Hayes had hoped they would get easier, but so far, it hadn’t happened.
“Adam,” Shaw said, his voice suddenly tired, “there is something I need to tell you.”
15
GEORGETOWN, WASHINGTON, D.C.
From the street, there was nothing untoward about 2908 North Street NW—nothing that separated the two-story red-brick row house from the rest of the eighteenth-century Federals that lined Georgetown’s exclusive East Village. In fact, with its freshly painted window boxes, snow-covered cornice, and the pair of wrought-iron greyhounds flanking the fire-engine-red door, the house looked downright suburban.
But it was all a lie, carefully constructed urban camouflage orchestrated by the man in the office on the second floor.
Director Levi Shaw had spent most of the night mulling over his meeting with Carpenter, finally giving up on sleep around four-fifteen and heading into the office. After putting on a pot of coffee, he’d built a fire in the old-world fireplace and waited until the shadows of the flames were dancing merrily across the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the cherrywood-paneled walls before filling his stained CIA mug to the brim.
Properly armed, he took a seat behind his massive oak desk and, while waiting for the coffee to cool, turned his attention to the blast-resistant window and the snowfall outside.
What the hell am I going to do about Hayes?
Twenty minutes later, Shaw was on his second cup and still no closer to an answer when Hayes called in.
Might as well get it over with.
“Adam, there is something I need to tell you.”
“What now, Levi?” Hayes answered, his voice ice-cold, void of any emotion.
In many ways, Shaw knew Adam Hayes better than the man knew himself, which wasn’t surprising, considering the fact that he’d not only recruited him but personally oversaw every aspect of his training.
During his tenure as director, Shaw had spent hours combing through the DoD databases searching for men with specific skill sets, certain psychological traits, and while he’d recruited hundreds of men, he’d never met anyone like Hayes.
“They want you back,” he said.
“I still have thirty days left.”
“Not anymore,” Shaw said.