Chapter 14

"That was a lot of help," I grumbled to Susan after we were back in the car. I'd looked for the shiv in the car door when we'd got to the Federal building, but it hadn't been there any more; probably jarred loose when I'd been clipping out of that parking lot with bullets flying at me, or maybe when I busted through the exit barrier. There was, however, a neatly indented gash in the sheet metal.

"I'm sorry, Larry, I really thought they'd come through," she told me. "I mean, if I could tell them to, I still think they would. But the only one I can tell is you right now."

"Mm-hmm," I agreed. "Well, hell, count my blessings, and that's sure one of them. I love you so much, and at least I can still talk to you, even if I can't, well, do anything else. And you saved my life back there. I used to have eyes in the back of my head when I was a kid, they snuck up on me a lot, but I guess I've lost them. I never had an idea that bastard was coming at me 'til you yelled."

"I know," she said. "But Larry, before I told you to jump in the car, were you going to go after him?"

"I guess," I said vaguely. "I mean, it was my first thought. I had him hurt, that was the time to do it."

"Don't, sweetheart. Walter's awful. I know you hurt him, but even on one leg he'd have been 'way too much for you. Not just you, I'm not putting you down, anybody, just about. I think he used to be special forces in the military or something. And I think he's always got a gun with him, too, every time I saw him he did. That's why you can't let him find you."

Now that was encouraging. Well, hell, she was probably right. I'd got good enough and strong enough to fight off the bullies in high school, but somebody with that kind of background, no way. And my job was a desk job, I wasn't out of shape exactly but neither was I in training by any stretch of the imagination.

I did, however, have one above-average muscle, and it had been working in high gear—the one in my head. Brodine and his buddies hadn't been any help to me but they had said one thing that was nagging at me. Why the hell was this guy after me at all? Just knowing Susan, or having known her from their perspective, couldn't be enough; I still wouldn't be a useful witness against this Senator, or a threat to him. Halfway back to the hotel I asked her that.

There was a long silence before she finally spoke. "I suppose it's that damn flash drive," she muttered.

"What about it?"

"Shit. They think I still have it."

"What? How do they even know it exists?"

"Long story, dear. Wait'll we get back to the room, I'll tell you then."

We drove the rest of the way in silence, I guess both of us lost in thought. I know for damn sure that I was.

"OK, here's how it went," she started after we'd settled down and room service had brought me the double scotch I'd asked for. My nerves still needed a little calming.

That drive, of course, was the big prize for the Feds. They'd coached Susan into tweaking her statement a little—the official story was that he'd invited her to use his computer, making it at least arguable that the copy was legit—and they'd used information from the drive to get a search warrant for "Bobby's" office. They'd of course found nothing—he'd replaced the computer after the night he took Susan, well, Ariel then, there—but with the flash drive the replacement was itself somewhat damning.

But it meant he knew there was a copy of his info out there, and it didn't take a lot of deductive reasoning for him to figure out how that happened. His lawyers had immediately petitioned a court to have the copy turned over, but the Feds piously professed not to have it. If there was one, not that they were admitting there was, it must be in someone else's possession.

"They were lying their asses off," she told me. "They wouldn't have trusted me—well, trusted Ariel—to hold onto it for a second. They made giving it to them kind of my admission ticket to witness protection. And I gave it up happily, I thought it'd get me off the hook."

When Golden's lawyers got into the act, though, it had been more politic for the Feds to deny, well, not knowledge, but physical possession. That way they could at least keep things alive up to a criminal trial, which is what they wanted. And with Ariel, now Susan, in witness protection, the lawyers couldn't find her to demand return of the drive.

So that's where matters stood now. Golden and Quiller thought she still had the drive, she might have told me where it was, and if they could eliminate both of us the drive would sit stashed away and forgotten in some unknown place and they'd be free and clear.

"Now isn't that super-special," I complained. "The Feds won't protect me because I'm not a witness. But they want the bad guys to think I am, which is why the bad guys are after me. Nice. They make me a sitting duck and then won't help me."