Page 54 of Nash Falls

Nash looked down at the front of the card. “SCIF?”

“That’s government-speak for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. I took the acronym as my company name. Sounded cool, I thought, for my training academy.”

“Your training academy?”

“Yeah. I got a condo in town not too far from Ty’s. But my trainin’ center’s in another state. Remote. Nobody around to bother me, or my trainees.”

The business side of Nash kicked in. “How many trainees do you typically handle at a time?”

“Depends. Somebody gets kidnapped or killed, my phone’s ringin’ off the hook. Things calm down then so do my numbers. ’Course I been windin’ things down. I’m gettin’ up there in age, semiretired.”

“So you cheer for chaos then?”

“What do you cheer for?” asked Shock.

“Stability, predictability.”

Shock rose. “Yeah, borin’ as hell. Figures.”

“Well, as you can see, boring worked outgreatfor me.”

“Guess it depends on how you definegreat,” Shock retorted.

When Nash stood, too, Shock said, “Don’t worry yourself, Walter. I can find my way outta here. It’s big but I seen way bigger. Someof my clients fly me out on their private wings to their own fucken island. They don’t have no houses, see, they gotcompounds. Or some own a whole street of big-ass places, so’s they can sleep in a different mansion every day for a whole week, for some fucked-up rich dude’s reason. And they also got people to tell ’em how great they are and other people to wipe their ass. Way I see it, those jobs are the same. They both dealin’ with shit. So long,prick.”

As Shock trudged off, Nash sat back down in his chair and stared out at his lovely backyard, but no longer really seeing it or pretty much anything else.

CHAPTER

25

MAGGIE HAD NOT COME HOME; she was probably holed up in a Starbucks redoing her pitch, Nash figured. He had tried Judith’s phone, but it had gone to voicemail. Then he recalled that she was having drinks and dinner with a girlfriend.

He’d changed into khaki shorts and a Polo shirt and tennis shoes, then made a tuna sandwich and added a bag of baked chips, and ate it standing up in the kitchen with a glass of iced tea. It felt like his college days, when breakfast, lunch, and dinner might all be rolled into one meal, depending on how much or how little he had in his wallet.

He drove off in his Range Rover, and a few minutes later pulled into a parking space at the park where he would bring Maggie as a child for soccer practice and matches. It was hopping on a fine, warm night. There were people playing tennis under the lights. He could hear the cries from the adjacent baseball field where a rollicking game was clearly going on. A number of people strolled along the paths through the trees. A nice, early-summer’s evening, and here he was waiting for a call from the FBI.

He put his AirPods in and started down a path that he knew led to the soccer field.

The phone rang at precisely nine o’clock.

“Where are you?” asked Morris.

“I’m at the park near my house. Just going for a nice walk like lots of other people.”

“Yeah, well, just keep your defenses up. Strange stuff happens all the time.”

Nash said pointedly, “Really? I had no idea.”

“Touché.”

“Have they found Lombard’s remains?” asked Nash.

“No.”

“What indiscretions?”

“Excuse me?” said Morris.