Nash had been through this once or twice before. He’d be taken to a secure location for debriefing before they’d let him out of his cuffs. Only this time he wouldn’t be given a new assignment.
Federal prosecutors would be present to take his statement and then he’d be moved to a safe house. Because this time he was testifying.
* * *
Safe house somewhere in the Catskill Mountains
“NASH, YOU IN OR OUT?” Irish tipped the kitchen chair back on two legs to poke his head around the corner.
“Go ahead and deal me in.” It’s not as if he had other plans. They’d been cooped up in this house close to fourteen weeks now. Only two more weeks to go until the trial. Nash eased the ache in his neck and then flipped from the Weather Channel to Thursday Night Football before setting the remote aside.
He’d been daydreaming through the forecast for the Western states again.
The snowstorm closing in on the Rockies in time for Halloween had him thinking of things other than the extended forecast. Things he shouldn’t be thinking about.
He hadn’t been this close to—or felt this far from—home in years.
He was born within a hundred-mile radius of where he stood right now and had spent several summers as a boy in the Hudson River Valley.
If he wasn’t for all intents and purposes a ghost, he could call on his mother for a visit.
As for Colorado...well, that was some sixteen hundred miles away and another lifetime ago. Yet he felt the pull. But this caretaker’s cabin in the Catskills was as much a prison as Leavenworth or Gitmo. And he wasn’t free to move about.
U.S. Marshal Reid “Irish” Thompson finished dealing as Nash and U.S. Marshal Salvatore Torri joined the freckle faced kid for a little three-handed Texas Hold’em. Thompson claimed marshals invented the game out of sheer boredom, though little was known of the actual origins of Hold’em poker, except that it first appeared in the early 1900s. The Texas Legislature laid claim before the game migrated to Las Vegas, Nevada, in the 1960s and became synonymous with the word poker.
All Nash knew was they’d played a lot of poker these past four months.
And he’d bet those marshals of old didn’t sit around playing cards in their body armor. Long johns, maybe. But not Kevlar.
His guards were cautious and he appreciated it.
“You’re not still thinking about what the federal prosecutor said this afternoon?” Irish asked once he finished passing out the chips.
Nash picked up his stack of red chips and let them fall through his fingers in a rhythmic motion. After this was all over and he’d given his testimony, he intended to let his chips fall where they may so to speak. Checking his hand against the flop, he plunked two chips off the top and then tossed them into the pot. “There’s no reason for Sari to testify.”
Sal raised his bet. “Can’t blame her for wanting to.”
Needing to was what Nash was afraid of.
Irish took his time rearranging his cards and then comparing them to what was on the table. The kid was into them for some twenty grand now. It wasn’t as if Nash planned to collect; they kept the running tab purely for bragging rights and weren’t even playing for real money, but maybe he should let Thompson win a few hands before he left.
“I think it’s messed up that her brother could get away with something like that,” Thompson said. “And if her father ordered it, then he’s just a sick bastard.”
Sal passed around the pizza box from the Torri family’s pizzeria in nearby Albany—if forty miles could be considered nearby. Nash took several slices and a cold Near Beer.
His marshals didn’t drink on duty.
And Nash didn’t drink, period.
As far as he was concerned, Sari’s father and brothers deserved worse than prison for the mental and physical abuse they’d subjected her to. But Sari’s story was so personal there’d be no hiding her identity.
That would be bad news for her. And for him.
He’d like nothing better than to testify in open court himself. But that wasn’t going to happen when transmitting a pixilated image and altered audio from another room could protect his identity.
And for one very good reason....
Suddenly Nash’s thoughts went some sixteen hundred miles away again.
He could go days, weeks, without even worrying about Ben. Knowing he’d left his son in capable hands. But then there were days—like today—when he’d realized the reality of his choices meant more than just missing out on the first seven years of his son’s life.
And it always hit him hard.
Of course, he’d known the sacrifices he was making in going after Cara’s killer and then not killing the man. He could have had his revenge a long time ago and no one would have been the wiser—and maybe he should have.
But he wanted to clear his name for Ben’s sake.
Even if Nash was no longer his last name. Or Ben’s.
Sal Torri was telling a story about his own son, and Nash forced a laugh. Swapping sea stories over Near Beer, pizza and poker with the guys was almost like being part of the Team again.
Only back then the beer had been genuine.
And so had he.
Sal did the majority of their cooking and grocery shopping. Once a week he drove into Albany for supplies and—Nash suspected—a quick visit with his large Italian family, which included a pregnant wife and a young son.
While they played cards, Sal also did most of the talking. The man’s familiar street-tough accent lulled Nash into slipping back into his own every now and again.
As far as safe houses went, this one was rather low tech.
Security cameras. Perimeter alarms.
A panic room.
Once a popular vacation spot for New Yorkers, the row of vacation homes had burned to the ground in the late ’70s. For whatever reason, the owner had been unable to rebuild and his heirs further neglected the taxes.
Eventually the government seized the property along with the only building left standing. The caretaker’s residence had been a safe house for close to thirty years without a single breach. In fact, no witness in the history of the U.S. Marshal Service had ever died while under protection—with the caveat—while following the rules of the program.
The rules were simple—but maybe harder for some than others to follow.
You could never return to the town from which you were relocated. You could never connect with known associates, or friends and family not in the program.
Never was a long time.
And this wasn’t a reflection on his babysitters, but he’d already decided against going into the Witness Protection Program once the trial was over. He wasn’t stupid, though. He knew he’d have to don another identity and then move on regardless of whether he entered the program.
But this time he wanted to be truly anonymous.
Outside government control and way beyond government contact.
Nash could make a good living in the private sector or he could retire to a quiet life. He had enough money to do whatever he wanted. Either way, he was willing to disappear so that Ben wouldn’t have to.
As far as the al-Ayman network knew, Kenneth Nash was already dead. And the identity of the undercover agent testifying against them, the man they knew as Sayyid Naveed, would remain anonymous.
Suddenly