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you can give me the name of the bastard who set Stix up?
 Sorry, Sam, but he s mine. She smiled and slid even further
down in the chair,  Mine.
 How could they do this to me?
 Honey, it s not like it s in writing. And the order is so veiled in
bureaucratic bullshit that a White House attorney would have
been proud to have written it.
 But you know who set Stix up?
272 DAVE MEAD
 Oh yeah, I know. And he knows that I know. She sighed,  I
imagine that I ll be getting the call to fly back to Washington to
give a report on the progress of the investigation.
 But weren t you sent out here by the Director?
 Uh huh. But I bent the rules, when I bypassed the chain of
command. He can send someone on a fact-finding mission, but
they don t report directly to him. They are to go up the ladder, so
something like this doesn t happen.
 What do you mean?
 I mean that when a special agent in charge sets up a job, the
Director is never to know what he actually had to do to get the
job done. That way if it blows up, then the Senate calls the
Director in and he can say anything needed to cover up, without
actually lying. She looked from one to the other,  Because he
never knows what really happens.
 Don t the Senators know this?
 Of course they do. It s all part of the game. They storm and
yell, threaten and pose for the cameras, their constituents think
they give a shit, the Director goes to lunch with the President, and
the Senators get free press.
 So what are you going to do? Sam asked her.
 I m going to demand that you keep Stix safe until I get back.
 Won t they reassign you? Stix asked.
 Not this time, Honey.
Stix took her second I-don t-want-any doughnut and asked
Jane,  Where s Kingston?
Jane slowly sat up and looked at her.  I m waiting for you to
tell me. According to the news media you are some kind of
psychic phenomenon.
 Come on, Jane. I don t--
 Honey, I been watching you for quite awhile. Sam and I
agree that you have a special talent. She looked to Sam for
support, he nodded, smiling, so she went on,  Just like finding the
barmaid. You found her, not me. Not Sam, who knew her and
had been out there a couple times before you were there.
STIX 273
 Please guys, quit teasing me.
 We aren t, Sam said,  You think a little differently than most
investigators.
 Yeah. Like,  Golly I wonder if I can find a bathroom that I can
use, and then be able to get up and out of. Things like that.
That s what I think about.
 Stix. Jane said softly.
 What!
 Where do you think Kingston is?
 I don t think he s left the area. And I don t think he s going to
leave until he tries to kill me.
 And?
Stix chose her words carefully when she answered,  I honestly
believe that I will have to kill him or he will kill me. I don t think
that anyone but me will be able to protect me from him.
 That s all we wanted to know, Sam said.
 Now it s your turn. What do you think he did?
 I don t have a feeling that he s here. Jane lit another
cigarette and took a long hard drag,  Usually I kinda feel it when
I m close to a . . . a target. I don t feel that now.
 You were going to say  hit weren t you? Stix asked.
 No, I was going to say,  homicidal maniac, but I didn t want
to scare you.
 Oh.
 Your turn, Jane said to Sam.
 It seems to me that if he d been planning to leave the
country, he d have kept on going when he left Lou Ann s place.
So it stands to reason that he stayed in the area when we flushed
him off the mountain back of Yamhill. He mulled over what he
wanted to add, decided that he might as well say it, and said,
 There isn t much of any place for him to go, if he went south,
that would keep him close to Stix, who must be his target. He
swallowed, looking at the floor, unable to look at Stix, because he
274 DAVE MEAD
couldn t bear to see the fear in her eyes,  So I think he came back
this way. Probably drove right into town while it was snowing.
 You think he s in Hillsboro? Jane asked.
 I don t think your men found all of the safe houses he and his
group had.
 You re probably right, since we haven t found any of them,
Jane said and shrugged,  The CIA trains their people to always
have at least two places to lay low, if need be.
 What does the FBI train you to do? Stix asked.
 Always stay at a place that has twenty-four-hour room
service. Otherwise you re just camping.
 Somehow I tend to believe you, Sam said.
 So you both think he s here, too? Stix asked.
Sam answered for both of them when he nodded his head
 yes.
 Can you get your men to do a house-to-house search in
Hillsboro? Stix asked Jane.
 No. You see I m here at the request of the Director himself. I
was allowed to push the situation as long as I was getting results,
and thereby instant gratification for the Director. Now that
Kingston has disappeared, the case goes back to special-agent-in-
charge Rubinsky.
 Do you have any influence with him?
Jane smiled at Stix, and said,  If he could arrange for me to kill
Kingston while being killed along with you by Kingston, it would
be a very good day for him.
 You re kidding!
 No, Honey, I m not. She smiled again, and for the first time
Stix realized how frail her friend was. She felt that she could
almost see through her.  I ve stepped on the toes of one of the
department s up-and-comers. And I m an on-the-way-outer.
Most of the agents think that I m affirmative action fluff. 
 Are you? Sam asked.
STIX 275
 I was when I was hired. She said it like she d just realized it.
 Yeah, definitely I was. But I learned to be a damn good agent.
 So what s different now? Sam wanted to know.
 I was senior agent in charge when Leslie and I came out here
to interview Stix several months ago, and she was murdered by
Kingston and his gang.
 So the word is that you fucked up? Sam asked.
 Yes. She looked at Stix.  And maybe they are right. Maybe
there was something else I could have done that would have kept
her from getting killed.
 I doubt it. Stix said.  I ve relived that night a hundred times,
and I don t know what else you could have done.
 I could have been the one to go make the phone call.
 Yes, but then all three of us would be dead. Stix reached
over and took Jane s hand in hers,  Leslie wasn t as good as you
are, that s why you were in charge, and I don t think that there
was even a few seconds to waste between us staying alive and
getting killed. She squeezed Jane s hand for emphasis, it was ice
cold, and went on,  I owe you my life. I don t know if I ever
really told you that before.
 Several times. Jane pulled her hand away, and turned to
Sam,  The Kid here is sometimes a little too sentimental for this
business.
 Yeah. But maybe that s why she gets results.
 What results? Stix asked.  Everyone keeps telling me how
great I am, but I don t know what it is I ve done.
Before either one of them could answer her, the phone rang.
Sam answered it and walked away from the two women saying,
 Yes,  Uh huh, then  I don t know but I ll find out. The rest of
the stimulating, one-sided conversation was lost to the women, as [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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