The Tin Man Read online

  With a sigh, she returned her focus to the dark road. Why did she always seem to fall for guys who were emotionally unavailable? Was it fear of commitment? Fear of abandonment? Or simply a subconscious attraction to men like her father? She had enough self-awareness to understand that she kept her feelings compartmentalized, but not enough to know what to do about it. Her mother used to tell her that if she continued to keep all her emotions bottled up, they’d eventually take her over like slow-growing cancer cells.

  Scenes from her mother’s last days crashed in uninvited, impaling her heart. How frail she’d looked, wasting away, struggling to breathe, in that hospital bed with all those scary tubes in her arms. How deeply Thea regretted, then and now, every cross word she’d ever said to her mother.

  As she drew the curtain on the past, her gaze fell upon the box of Marlboro Lights—the same brand that had murdered her mother—Buchanan had tossed on the dashboard. Bitterness struck her heart like a poisonous snake, sinking in its fangs. As the venom spread through her bloodstream, she snatched up the cigarettes and flung them out the window.

  * * * *

  “Do what you will, but you’ll get nothing out of me.” Buchanan was back in Baghdad, back on the floor, hooded and bound. Hands yanked him up roughly. Bam. Yanked him up. Bam. Yanked him up. Bam.

  “You can beat me to death,” he bellowed through a mouth full of blood. “I still won’t talk.”

  Back on the stool.

  “Why were you on the Apache?” the Iraqi demanded.

  Bam.

  He didn’t get up. He couldn’t. He was in too much pain.

  “Buchanan?” It was a woman’s voice.

  A hand clasped his upper arm and started shaking.

  “Jesus, Buchanan. Snap out of it. You’re scaring me.”

  The woman again. Who was she? He started to come back.

  “Kelsey?”

  “Try Thea.”

  Who the hell was Thea? And why did she sound so perturbed? He tore off the blindfold, blinking as he looked around. It was dark. He was in a car in the middle of nowhere. He shot a glance at the woman behind the wheel. She was pretty. More than pretty, actually. And then, everything came flooding back.

  “Are you okay?” Her brow creased with concern.

  “I’m fine.” Dear God. What had she witnessed?

  “You were yelling at someone that you wouldn’t talk,” she said. “Even if they killed you. Was it the gunman from earlier?”

  “No.”

  “Who then?”

  “No one who matters anymore.” He wished she would drop it.

  “Was it the blindfold?”

  “Sorry?”

  “The blindfold,” she repeated. “Did it trigger something? Some old trauma?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He cleared his throat. Avoiding her gaze, he crossed his arms over his chest. The nightmare clung. He desperately craved a cigarette.

  “Some nights, I volunteer for the Suicide Prevention Hotline,” she went on. “And we get quite a few veterans suffering with PTSD.”

  “I’m not a veteran.” He looked vacantly out the window. “And who said anything about PTSD? Or suicide, for that matter?”

  She shrugged. “I’m just saying: There’s a high correlation between surviving a trauma and suicide. Especially veterans who were wounded in combat. Often, they’ll have disturbing thoughts—or intense guilt about something they were forced to do, feelings that can defeat them if they don’t get help.”

  “Like I said: I’m not a veteran.”

  “Yeah, well.” She sounded dubious. “There are other kinds of trauma.”

  He made a dismissive grunting noise in the back of his throat, hoping she’d take the hint. He didn’t want to talk about it. Well, he did, sort of, but couldn’t seem to. Meanwhile, the flashbacks and the emptiness were getting worse.

  “Tell me something, would you? How’d you get that limp?”

  He grunted again, even though he wanted to tell her. He could feel himself shutting down, feel himself spinning, like he was back on board that chopper.

  “I’m just saying,” she persisted, “that it might help to talk about it.”

  He shot her a harsh glare as he said in a low, firm voice, “There’s nothing to talk about. Now, can you please just drop it?”

  Shrugging, she turned her attention back to the road. “Who’s Kelsey?”

  Grief squeezed his heart as images from that morning came flooding back. Kelsey standing over him. The smell of shampoo. The glimpse of lace. Her bonny red hair flowing across the keyboard. The halo of blood.

  “My copy editor.” He gulped. “One of the recently deceased.”

  “I’m sorry,” she offered with a fleeting look. “Were you close?”

  “Close enough.” Scenes from the Christmas party played like a slideshow. He was so hard for her that night—so stupid, drunk, and hard.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? It might help.”

  “Why don’t we concentrate on the business at hand,” he offered, desperate to steer the conversation away from himself and Kelsey. “Tell me about your grandfather. What do you suppose he knows about the killings?”

  She took a minute to consider the question. Good. She’d switched rails. Mission accomplished.

  “I only know that he’s working on a new edition of his book—the one you quoted in your article this morning.”

  Media Cartel warned of the threats to democracy posed when too few conglomerates controlled too many sources of information. Twenty years ago, when the book was first published, six such corporations owned the lion’s share of the mass media in America. Aslan’s warnings, sadly, were mostly ignored. Hence, the number of controlling conglomerates had since dropped to three: Golden Age Media, Inc., Titan News Corp, and The Babylon Group.

  “Do you think he might have stumbled onto something in the course of his research?”

  “Maybe,” she replied. “But he’s said nothing about it to me.”

  “And when was the last time you spoke with him?”

  “A week ago.” She shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe a little longer.”

  “Right, well. I’ll wager whatever he knows has something to do with Milo Osbourne.”

  She paused to think before turning to him. “You don’t remember anything about the gunman? Anything the least bit helpful?”

  “I remember he had an accent.” Meeting her gaze, he felt an unnerving, inexplicable spark. Swallowing, he looked away.

  Thea squinted. “What kind of accent?”

  “Arabic, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Her brow furrowed. “Do you think they might be terrorists?”

  “I considered that,” he said. “But couldn’t come up with a motive. If anything, I’ve been a defender of the Muslim community.”

  “Yes,” she said, “I know.”

  Something struck him then. “Is your grandfather by any chance Muslim?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe something. Maybe nothing.”

  She turned on him with a scornful expression. “Why does everybody automatically assume that all Muslims are terrorists?”

  “I assume nothing of the sort,” he retorted with a scowl. “I’m simply trying to put the fractured pieces together. The gunman was Arabic. An anonymous source tells me to find your grandfather, who happens to be Islamic. I hardly think my speculation that those two things might somehow be connected qualifies me as a xenophobe.”

  He looked around for his cigarettes as he waited for her to respond. He was certain he’d tossed them on the dash, but didn’t see them anywhere. With growing suspicion, he gave her a sharp look. “Where are my Marlboros?”

  He thought he saw her grip tighten on the wheel.

  “I did it for your own good.”

  “Jesus wept, woman. What have you done?”


  “You’re committing slow suicide,” she said, staring straight ahead. “Someday you’ll thank me.”

  He crossed his arms, clenched his jaw, and looked out the side window as he grumbled, “Don’t bloody bet on it.”

  * * * *

  Behind a desk piled high with file folders, papers, and fat law books, the man calling himself Lapdog was using his smart phone to track the whereabouts of Alex Buchanan’s Land Rover. The spiffy spyware app enabled him to not only track a cell phone via a GPS locator, but also to read text messages, monitor incoming and outgoing calls, retrieve and erase voice-mails, and eavesdrop on real-time conversations—all in stealth mode so the target would never know.

  Lapdog had downloaded the app in less than ten seconds from an online vendor. Sure, he could have accessed the same technology through the DOJ’s network, but he wanted to fly under the radar on this one. The walls had eyes and ears, after all, so it paid to be careful.

  Within seconds, he’d pinpointed the Land Rover’s location. He knew Buchanan was traveling with Thea Hamilton because he’d listened in on their earlier conversation. He was pleased Buchanan had taken the bait. As Lapdog suspected, Thea knew where her grandfather could be found.

  At the moment, according to Google Earth, the journalists were in Pennsylvania, heading west toward Amish country. That made sense. Aslan, being extremely clever, had holed up somewhere he couldn’t be found by electronic means. Lapdog smiled, thinking of the movie Witness in which Harrison Ford played a good cop who hid among the Amish after being framed by some of his crooked colleagues. It was a great film, one of his all-time favorites. Too bad there weren’t more honest cops in the world like John Book.

  Or more ballsy reporters like Buchanan and Thea.

  Lapdog would like to believe he was one of the good guys, too, but he wasn’t so sure anymore. He’d gotten into law not for the money, but because he believed in justice. After graduating from the School of Law at UGA (go Dawgs!), he joined a big firm specializing in corporate mergers. Though the work was lucrative, he spent long, tedious hours chained to his desk, up to his eyeballs in contracts, office politics, and client bullshit. Meanwhile, he and his wife had started a family, but he was always working—a constant source of conflict. After she threw him out, he grew increasingly disenchanted with his professional ambitions.

  The job had cost him dearly. Worse yet, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was selling out his dream. And for what? The promise of a partnership and a corner office someday? One night while working late, he called up the Department of Justice website and clicked on the tab marked “Careers.” As the page loaded, he scanned the text:

  Voted one of the “Best Places to Work in the Federal Government,” the Department of Justice leads the nation in ensuring the protection of all Americans while preserving their constitutional freedoms. As a Justice employee, you will be a member of a team where you can achieve your career goals and apply your skills and talents to our important mission.

  It sounded like just the thing, so he applied to be an assistant attorney in the Antitrust Division. When the offer came through, after a laborious and protracted screening process, he quit the firm and moved to D.C.

  Life in the DOJ, unfortunately, didn’t quite live up to the website hyperbole. The climate was oppressively conservative. Constitutional protections and civil liberties—like the right to privacy and Habeas Corpus—were being ignored or stripped away while spy satellites and warrant-less wiretapping were being encouraged and defended.

  The cruel irony of his predicament ate away at him like cancer: he was hired to defend the constitutional rights of the American people by a government agency bent on trampling them.

  Things were bad and getting worse. What was happening in America today made Orwell’s Big Brother look like a couple of tin cans on a piece of string. He would have thought the warnings of so many bloggers, not to mention the scandal involving News of the Globe, would have opened people’s eyes, but no dice. The public, which should have been outraged, seemed content to take it on the chin. Clearly, all the post-9/11 fear mongering had done its job. And done it well. A little too well, as far as he was concerned.

  The Patriot Act.

  Now there was an act of tyranny if ever he saw one. Had his fellow citizens learned nothing from history? Had they forgotten how the Alien and Sedition Acts nearly destroyed America in her infancy? Had they forgotten Manzanar? As Benjamin Franklin once said, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

  Ben knew of what he spoke.

  On top of everything else, corruption was pervasive inside the department. And most of it went unreported, undetected, and—thanks to internal politics and limited manpower—escaped investigation and prosecution. It was getting harder to tell the bad guys from the good ones and nearly impossible to get anything done. Most days, he felt like a rat running a maze.

  That partnership, that corner office—even those piles of paperwork and the endless client hiney-kissing—were starting to look pretty fucking good. After all, if he was going to be a corporate lapdog, why not pull down the big bucks instead of a chintzy government salary?

  He released a deep sigh as he shook his head. An image popped into his mind of the founding fathers spinning inside their tombs like spools on a loom. Right-wing fundamentalism had systematically eroded the pillars of democracy: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, separation of church and state, trial by jury. It was a clear-cut case of the tyranny of the majority and the Spiral of Silence—the theory that someone with a minority opinion would keep quiet out of fear of reprisal or isolation.

  He sucked in a breath and turned his attention back to his telephone. He needed a way to warn the journalists. After all, if a techno-impaired bureaucrat like himself could find them in under a minute, so could the guys who wanted Buchanan dead.

  Chapter 6

  Buchanan, stewing inside, stared out at the passing scenery. Not that there was much worth looking at—just a straight, flat freeway and the occasional chain motel or monolithic industrial structure. Thea needn’t have worried. Even without the blindfold, he had no bloody clue where they were.

  To fill the prickly silence, Thea had tuned to a classic rock station broadcasting from someplace called Mechanicsburg-—not that he knew where that was, either. On the radio, Bob Seger was crooning. Buchanan started softly to sing along unawares.

  “You have a nice voice,” she remarked, both startling and embarrassing him.

  He grunted in contradiction and abruptly stopped singing.

  They rode without speaking for another twenty minutes before he spotted the billboard for Starbucks. By now, his nicotine craving was so bad his skin crawled.

  “Take the next exit,” he barked at her. “And make a right.”

  “Will you at least let me buy you a cup of coffee—as a peace offering?”

  He glared at her with contempt. “Before or after you buy me another packet of ciggies?”

  She looked aghast, which further frosted him. “You can’t be serious.”

  “And yet I am,” he returned with frozen acid on his tongue.

  When they reached the Starbucks, she pulled in and parked near the entrance. Before climbing out, she grabbed the briefcase he presumed held her laptop. He checked his Glock, making sure it was secure, before climbing out himself. He slammed the door and looked around. Seeing a gas station across the parking lot, he motioned toward it.

  “You can get the ciggies over there,” he told her, then nodded toward Starbucks. “I’ll be waiting for you inside.”

  He held out his hand for the briefcase, but she just stood there looking insolent. “You’re seriously going to make me go all the way over there and buy you a fucking pack of cigarettes?”

  By now, he was fed up with her imperious attitude. “And you seriously thought I wouldn’t? And why would that be, eh? Because you’re a woman? Or perha
ps you’re just a sanctimonious ball-buster who thinks she can do as she bloody well pleases because, through some fluke of genetics, she happens to be easy on the eyes.”

  “Frankly,” she returned, eyes narrowing, “I’m astonished you noticed.”

  “Noticed what?”

  “That I’m not the second coming of Medusa.” Both her tone and her eyes were full of venom.

  “It was an observation, not a compliment.” He stood there for a moment, fixing her with a steely gaze. Christ, she really was beautiful. “You’re attractive, all right? But so fucking what? The minute you open your mouth, the packaging goes to hell.”

  She stammered wordlessly for a moment, before spitting the words “Fuck you” like they were rusty nails, after which she turned on her heel and stalked off toward the gas station, grumbling what sounded to him like colorful expletives.

  He watched her, anger simmering, fighting to regain his composure. She was a self-righteous shrew all right, but he was saddled with her for now. Did he really want to spend that time bickering like an old married couple?

  Hell, no.

  Lifting his voice, he called after her, “Do you fancy a coffee?”

  She rounded on him. “That’s mighty white of you, Scotty.”

  His jaw tensed. He loathed being referred to as that wanking engineer from Star Trek even more than he despised being called “Shrek,” but he suspected she knew that. Through clenched teeth, he asked, “Do you want one or not?”

  “Only if you’re buying.”

  He shook his head. “What’ll you have then?”

  “A grande raspberry mocha frap with extra whip.”

  “Bloody hell,” he muttered, rolling his eyes as he pivoted toward the entrance. “I hope I can remember all that.”