Adrenaline by Jeff Abbott Read Free Book Online

false solicitude and I would get back on my feet. But I had no illusions. I was not Howell’s friend, or someone that he wanted to help, who might ever get his life or his job back. His words
it didn’t happen
rankled in my ear.
    They hadn’t found Lucy in these long months, or the man with the question-mark scar. So they still needed me. Howell and his superiors had found something called Novem Soles, whatever that was, and they thought putting me back out in the real world might lead them to it.
    I knew the truth: I was bait. Bait for whoever set up me and Lucy.

9

    A UGUST HOLDWINE DRAINED the last trace of whisky from the glass in front of him, centered the glass back on the napkin on the oaken bar, and studied me. “I’m not here to spy on you,” he said. “In case I need to state the obvious.”
    “I know,” I said. “Howell has people to follow me and make sure I look both ways before I cross the street. They have a van and I think they call their moms three times a day. You want another?”
    “No. I have to work tomorrow.” But he didn’t stand up to rise. August was a big guy, about six-six, old college muscle that hadn’t morphed all the way into fat but was considering the option. He had blondish hair and apple cheeks and heavy muscles under the shirt. He said, “Uh, maybe I shouldn’t say anything about work.”
    “I’m not bothered that you still have a job and I’m serving drinks,” I said. “Bartending is honorable.”
    “I think I would rather be serving drinks. Less stress.”
    “Want to trade?”
    August and I had gone through training together at the Company, me straight from Harvard, him fresh from the University of Minnesota. He was my opposite: a farm boy who’d spent most of his life in one place, on land thathad been in his family for seven generations. I couldn’t imagine such stability. He had a broad, open face, the kind decent people trusted, and a gravelly baritone voice. He worked stateside, in a satellite office in Manhattan. He’d landed me the bartending job at Ollie’s. The Company manufactured a résumé for me, as a bartender who’d worked at decent joints in Chicago and New Orleans. I hadn’t lost my bartending skills from working through college, and I liked being back with the glasses and the taps: I could be around people but the bar separated us. I was grateful. None of my other friends in the Company had bothered to call or express condolences. I was tainted. Like Howell said, conventional wisdom dictates the spouse always knows treason is under the roof. So I was beyond hope, as Howell put it, suspect, irreparably damaged goods. Except to August. But that was fine; August was the perfect friend to sit with in a bar. You could talk to him about your darkest secret and know he wouldn’t judge you, or you could be silent with him and just watch sports and never share a thought. Either was cool with August.
    I wanted to trust August. But I couldn’t. Either he was under orders to be Howell’s tool or he wasn’t, and if he knew anything he would get in trouble once I put my plan into motion.
    “So. Early morning tomorrow,” he said. “I should go.”
    “You got cows to milk?” I enjoyed teasing him about his farming past.
    He didn’t stand up from the bar.
    “Do you want another drink?” I waited.
    He looked up at me with his watery blue eyes. “What are you doing, Sam?”
    “Pouring beer, mostly.” I glanced down the bar: no other customers. It was a Monday night, always the slowest at Ollie’s. Odd, because Mondays sucked so bad that you’d think most people would want a drink to wash the beginning of the week out of their mouths.
    “You’re very quiet.”
    “I don’t have a lot to say, August.”
    “I don’t know what you were told, but not everyone at the Company believes you turned. Most of your friends are still your friends.”
    “Most? That warms the heart.”
    He shrugged. He meant well, but I guess he just didn’t know what