and took a step back. “I’ve also been noticing you since you met my neighbor’s dog.”
Morgan grimaced. “Any idea who it is? The watchers, not the dog.”
“Who knows?” Collins shrugged, heading back to sit on the edge of his big wooden bed. “NSA, DoD, FBI? Go ahead. Put together any three letters, and there’s a possibility that’s them.” He emitted a hollow laugh.
Morgan took a look around. The place was messy, with clothes, books, and papers piled on the nightstands, the dresser, and the floor. “You becoming a hoarder in your old age?”
“That’s General Hoarder to you, plebe,” Collins retorted wearily. “What do you want, Dan? Pretty certain it’s not whether I wear boxers or briefs to bed.”
“No,” Morgan said. “Is there any chance we might be able to sit down somewhere?”
“What, the mattress isn’t good enough for you?” Collins didn’t expect an answer. Instead, he seemed to have a little conversation inside his own mind and grunted, “All right. Come on.”
Collins grabbed a frayed tartan robe and led Morgan down to the living room without turning on a single light. They sat on dusty couches opposite each other, a fireplace with a marble mantelpiece and brass pokers between them. Collins still held his .357 in his hand.
“Take a wild guess what I’m here about,” Morgan said.
“Those goddamn Tomahawks. They’re gonna be the death of me. Are you wearing a wire?”
“Ear comm.”
“Turn it off,” said Collins. Without hesitation, Morgan popped the tiny transceiver from his ear and clicked it off, setting it on the coffee table between them. He could just imagine Bloch’s face. He was certain it would give a lemon a run for its pucker.
“All right,” Collins said. “What do you know?”
“I know the missiles are gone, on your watch, using your access codes.”
“So they say.”
“You’re telling me that’s not the way it went down?”
“It’s a sham,” Collins said. “A frame. I don’t know how. I don’t know who has my access codes or how they got ’em. But they sure have got me by the short hairs.”
Morgan had gotten a few lines on his face and gray hairs in the intervening years. But Collins had gotten old. He looked withered.
“Do you think this has to do with the investigation or Iraq?”
“Not or,” Collins contended. “And. It has everything to do with it, although maybe not in the way you imagine. They’re both part of a campaign against me. But I have information, a way to clear my name.”
“Why don’t you bring it to the investigation committee?”
“Because it’ll take investigating, and I can’t trust them to do it. As you probably know, there’s a lot of ugly politics in the armed forces. You heard of General Sheldon Margolis?”
“The name is familiar, but I don’t know anything about him.”
“You’ll know soon enough. He has big ideas. Major player, lots of friends in high places. He’s angling to make a presidential run. But I have dirt on him, which means he needs to get me out of the way. And the bastard might do it, too, if I don’t get some goddamn help.” His flint-hard eyes locked onto Morgan’s. “You gonna be some goddamn help, Morgan?”
“I don’t know what I could do for you.”
“Please,” Collins scoffed. “Yeah, I know we haven’t seen each other in years, and I have no call to demand anything of you. But while they’re putting the screws on me, the people who are really behind this are out there. And whatever they mean to do with those missiles, it’s bad.”
“How do I know you’re not the one who means to do something bad with those missiles?” Morgan asked pointedly.
Collins looked at the operative as if he had lost his mind. He leaned back on the sofa and spread his arms. “Because I’m right goddamn here in front of you, man, with some big-time badass special-ops wonk doing a dance with my next-door neighbor’s Doberman before breaking and entering into my goddamn house, that’s how!”
Morgan couldn’t argue the point. And to be truthful, he didn’t want to. “Can’t you go to the Department of Defense? You must know people.”
“Yeah, and Margolis knows those people too,” Collins said. “He’s isolated me from my allies.” Collins frowned. “They might be in on it; they might not be in on it with him. But they wouldn’t have to be. His word would be enough. Even if the truth got out, by the time things are sorted, it’ll be too late...for me and whoever those missiles are launched at.”
Morgan formed his hand into a fist. “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to be some help. Tell me what I can do.”
“You can’t trust the government. You can’t trust your people. You can’t trust anyone. Except...”
“Except who?”
“There is one person. Navy Commander Alicia Schmitt. An old friend, the only one I trust. A good, patriotic American who’d never put herself ahead of her country. I’d put my life in her hands any day. She knows what’s going on. She’ll be able to tell you what to do.”
“Morgan.” It was Shepard, through the comm. That surprised him. Until then Morgan was unaware that the comm link could be restarted from HQ. Shepard’s voice was tinny and distant, like his conscience, but the message was important. “The police are coming. Time to go.”
“What is it?” Collins asked, his older ears unable to pick up the reedy words.
“It’s my people. They say the cops are coming.”
“I was expecting this. Morgan, find Alicia. She’ll know what to do. If she doesn’t believe you, ask her about Virginia. Tell her I told you to say that.”
“I will,” Morgan promised, standing. “Trust me. I’ll make this right. I’ll find the missiles and clear your name. And we’ll put Margolis in prison where he belongs.”
Collins stood opposite him. “Well,” he said, “put him someplace he belongs—that’s for sure.”
Police lights flashed against the curtains, lighting the dark rooms of the house. Morgan was going to have to go out the back, through the neighbor’s house, and get past the dog.
“Jim,” he said, “you wouldn’t happen to have a steak I could borrow, would you?”
Chapter Eight
The night was still pitch black when Morgan turned his Shelby Cobra into the property that housed the Zeta Division’s new headquarters. It was in an old warehouse a couple of miles south of Boston. The property was registered under a front corporation, and it was always packed with boxes that were changed from time to time, although Morgan
