Collision(12)

Pilgrim nodded. “I must have moved just enough as he fired and it saved me. I felt the shot pass by my head. I hit the floor and the sniper thought he’d taken me.” Pilgrim stepped past Teach into the den in the rental house, which stood on a quiet bend of Lake Travis, near Austin. Teach and her assistant Barker had already started tearing down the scant equipment in the safe house: erasing the laptop’s drive, looping cables. They always packed lightly so they could vanish quickly. She told Barker to finish loading up the cars.

Pilgrim sat at the table, rubbed the back of his head as though the bullet had left a trail in his hair. “I should have just kidnapped Adam, forced him to tell us how he found us, who he worked for.” He shook his head. “I don’t like losing, Teach.”

“We couldn’t tip our hand early that we were watching him. You made the only approach possible.”

“Whoever he works for didn’t want him talking.”

“You should have brought him back here.” This from Barker, stepping back inside the house to pick up a box containing eavesdropping equipment. Pilgrim wondered if the kid had wiped the milk off his lip. He couldn’t be more than twenty-three or so, bespectacled and thin. He had more opinions than experience.

Pilgrim ignored him. “Adam thought I was a terrorist. God only knows what he told Homeland.”

“I’ll derail that with a few phone calls.” Teach’s face was normally florid, a little plump, but now her skin was pale and her mouth a thin slash of worry. She was in her fifties, slightly built, bookish, with a polished Southern accent. “This sniper—”

Pilgrim said, “I recognized his face. Nicky Lynch. Rumor was he killed two CIA officers three years ago in Istanbul.”

“I remember,” Teach said. She stood next to him, inspected his head as a mother might a scrape. He shrugged her off. “Hon, give me info on his car.”

Pilgrim described the car, gave her the license number. “I’m sure it was a rental, paid for under a false name. Or stolen for the job.”

“Barker, track the plate when we get out of here.” She nodded at Barker, still standing in the corner. “Let’s get the bags in the car, hon. We’re heading back to New York.”

Barker nodded. He paused at the door. “I’m glad you’re okay, Pilgrim.”

“Thanks.”

Teach waited for Barker to step outside and closed the door behind him. “You nearly get shot and you don’t call me immediately?”

“I’m having a really unpleasant idea. Only you and me and Barker knew about the operation. And foreign gunmen don’t just show up in a place like Austin. Someone had advance word of our operation.”

“Barker’s clean.” Teach went to the window as if to regard Barker afresh as he loaded the car. “Did Reynolds give you any information before he died as to how he found us?”

“No.” He went into the bedroom he’d used, started packing a few essentials into his bag.

Teach rubbed her temples. “Whoever Adam Reynolds was working for has obliterated his tracks. Barker’s found nothing unusual in Reynolds’s life: no unexplained money, no accounts, no suspicious e-mails or phone calls, nothing. Which scares me. We’re talking very smart, very dangerous people.”

“Clearly. They killed their own boy genius for talking to me.”

“It narrows the suspects.” She shrugged. “Terrorist organizations. Organized crime. Drug cartels. Foreign intelligence services.” She offered a wan smile. “No shortage of people who hate us, hon.”

Pilgrim went to the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face. A ghostly heat tingled in his hair, left over from the bullet, as though its close path had singed his scalp. Just imagination, he told himself, and he stuck his fingers under the cool jet of water. He didn’t want Teach to see his hands shake. It was strange to think how close he had come to his brains painting the walls and the desk and the surprised face of Adam Reynolds. The poor dumb brainiac.

Pilgrim dried his face. “Reynolds. All he wanted to do was good.”

“Exposing us is not in the national interest,” she said. “It’s necessary for our work that we remain unknown.”

Pilgrim shook his head. “I’m tired of what’s necessary. Necessary sucks. I want to do what’s decent.”

She put her hands on his shoulders. “Pilgrim, you do. Every day. You’re tired and rattled. You’ll feel better when we’re back home. We’ll regroup, plan our next move.”

“Screw the next move. Suppose there’s evidence in his office about the Cellar. Something I didn’t find. What do we do? Hide? Take up new names and new lives, again?”