Chapter 6 #2
“It might have been,” he said cautiously. “But did it occur to you that it might also be either Lynch himself or the scum who was responsible for his disappearance? I was suspicious myself when I was questioning Mackeller after Lynch no-showed me.”
“Both did occur to me. So I decided we should meet there and I could retrace your steps and perhaps discuss what you were doing with Lynch there at the airport.”
“I don’t have to discuss confidential information about the case with you. That wasn’t part of my instructions.”
“I’d bet that was because you aren’t privy to any pertinent details about it anyway. Griffin stressed to me that it’s top secret. Isn’t that true?”
Cambry was silent for a long moment. “What if it was? It’s not as if I wanted to be included. It would have just been a courtesy to a fellow agent.”
And that had evidently stung, Kendra thought. “I can see how it might have annoyed you. But wouldn’t it give you a sense of satisfaction if you could uncover all that top-secret nonsense and then rub their noses in it?”
Another silence. “Perhaps.”
“Then it might be to your advantage to help me with a little more enthusiasm?”
“Maybe.” He added quickly, “Not that I’ve been spinning my wheels since Lynch disappeared. I’ve been doing my job and exploring the hills near the airport. I’ve even spent several hours hunting through those Highlands that Lynch was so damn interested in.”
“Highlands?” she repeated. “I hadn’t heard anything about the Highlands.”
“Then you know even less than I thought,” Cambry said harshly. “And you’re probably wasting my time.”
“I won’t waste one minute of your time. Because now you’ll have someone with fresh eyes and boundless enthusiasm to go over everything we know or don’t know again with you,” Kendra said. “So I’ll see you in a couple of hours?”
“I’ll be there,” Cambry said. “Meet me at the parking lot of the bar. I’ll be driving my black Aston Martin.
” He paused. “It’s not as if you had to convince me that Lynch might have a chance of surviving in the Highlands.
Either way I’m a winner. He was the one who bailed on me when I was trying to get his ass out of there.
If he turns up dead, it just means he had very bad judgment.
If he managed to survive, then I’ll be the hero who persevered and saved the golden boy. Isn’t that right?”
Kendra shivered and tried not to let the callous brutality of his words bother her. All she needed from this man was help finding Lynch and keeping him alive. “I guess in your eyes that would make perfect sense. I’m having a little trouble accepting it.”
He chuckled. “I could see how you would. I’ve heard about you and Lynch. Too bad. You shouldn’t have picked such a loser . . .”
Kendra heard the click of the phone as he hung up.
Bastard! She wanted to throw her phone across the room.
Get control. She had to work with Cambry. It was just lucky that she also had a long drive to get to that meeting place and she’d be able to cool down a little.
She took a deep breath and left her room and ran down to the courtyard where Jessie was waiting.
Jessie looked up from making the adjustments on the Triumph Tiger motorcycle that had been delivered earlier that morning. She took one glance at Kendra’s face and shook her head. “That bad? I was hoping Cambry would turn out to be a mellow type, like your friend Metcalf.”
“No resemblance,” Kendra said. “But he agreed to fill me in on his part of the disappearance, and that’s what I wanted.
” She got into the driver’s seat of the Range Rover.
“I’m on my way to that airport I told you about to meet Cambry.
You still want to take that motorcycle and do your own reconnoitering around the airport and surrounding area before the meeting? ”
She nodded. “More than ever, now that I know what a charmer Cambry is. I want to get the lay of the land and talk to a few of the pilots. Maybe they can tell me something about Cambry or anyone else hanging around at the time that Lynch disappeared.”
“I don’t blame you,” Kendra said as she started the car.
“You might find out more than I do. But Cambry just mentioned how interested Lynch was in the Highlands near there. You might zero in on anything you can find out about that. I intend to follow up with Cambry as soon as I get the chance. But I don’t want you around him any more than you want to be there.
It’s bad enough I have to deal with him.
You shouldn’t have to do anything but keep an eye on us from a distance in case I need something.
I just hope we find out something that makes it worth the trip for both of us.
” As she backed out of the hotel parking lot, she added over her shoulder, “And that I can keep myself from attacking him before the day is over!”
TWO HOURS AND FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
MACGREGOR AIRPORT
Kendra stepped out of the pub the minute she saw the black Aston Martin pulling into the bar parking lot across from the airport.
She leaned against her Range Rover as the car parked and Cambry climbed out.
He was a tall, thin man somewhere in his forties and dressed in sleek khakis; his smile was faintly sardonic as he strolled toward her.
“Kendra Michaels? How delightful to meet you.”
“I didn’t get that impression,” she said dryly. “May I see your ID?”
His smile faded as he showed her his credentials.
“You caught me off guard,” Cambry said. “You have to understand that Lynch has caused me a good deal of bother in the past few weeks by pulling these shenanigans. But after I spoke to you, I realized that I might be able to use you to make myself look even more stellar. Griffin told my superiors that your appearance at Lynch’s San Diego safe house had drawn out two of the international scumbags Lynch was hunting before he decided to go after Vlad Korkil, the top man in the organization.
” He added softly, “You’re obviously of value to them for some reason.
Maybe they think Lynch needs his soulmate to convince him to cooperate. ”
“Lynch never needs anyone but himself,” Kendra said curtly. “I thought we’d agreed on that. At least that’s what your bosses seem to think.”
“I’m willing to take a chance that Lynch might make an exception in your case.
He’s been with you for quite a while, and I’ve never heard of him straying to any other woman.
I bet you could tell me quite a bit.” His eyes suddenly narrowed on her face.
“For instance, there have been rumors that Lynch has another safe house in London, but none of my supervisors have any idea where. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? ”
“Nothing that would help you.”
“That’s not exactly an answer.” He shrugged. “I’ll see what you say once you get to know me a little better. You’re the one who thought we should trade information. I can be very helpful when I want to be.”
She wasn’t about to be the first to give out information when she hadn’t been certain if Lynch trusted anyone at either the FBI or the Justice Department these days.
She still had her doubts. Surely he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of alerting only her if he’d thought that his coworkers were above reproach.
“I look forward to having you demonstrate. You won’t mind if I wait until you do that?
Either way you’ll be ahead. Because from what you said, you really don’t know much about either Lynch or me.
Certainly not our characters or capabilities.
” She changed the subject. “Can we get down to business? You’ve already asked your first question. I’d like to ask one of my own.”
“By all means. Ask away.” He was walking toward her across the parking lot.
“I’m beginning to look forward to exploring what Lynch found so entertaining about you.
” He added softly, “You’re very attractive and talented, of course, but I don’t believe that would have been enough to have kept him interested enough to involve you in a transaction as sensitive as this seems to be. He’s basically a loner.”
“Only when he chooses.” He was too close, and she instinctively took a step back.
“And that only shows how little you do know him. He trusts me. Obviously, he doesn’t feel the same about you or you’d have had a good deal more luck tracking him down.
” She added, “I find I have more than one question for you. The airport manager told me that not only did you and Lynch occasionally share drinks at this bar, but he rented a helicopter and you took at least a couple of trips to the Highlands together. You mentioned to me that you were wondering why he was so curious about the Highlands. Is that where he wanted to go? Why?”
He chuckled. “Now you’re the one who is curious. You’ll have to trade to get the answer to that one. Not that it would do you any good. If I thought it would lead me to Lynch, I would have already headed there.”
“You want the location of his safe house?” She didn’t like the idea of giving it to him, but she could see he wasn’t going to offer anything otherwise. “I’ll give it to you.” She paused. “But only after you’ve taken me where you took Lynch that day. Where was it?”
He nodded to the north. “My guess is that he had business in bonny Scotland. He had me drop him off in the Highlands near the Isle of Skye for some kind of meeting. After we landed, I tried to persuade him to bring me along to his damn meeting, but the bastard was as secretive as usual and told me he’d make his own way back to the airport after he was through there.
Then he just vanished into the woods. But when he showed up at the airport office later that day, he told me he had something else to do and he’d meet me at the airport the next day to go back to the States. ”
“And when you went searching for him, you couldn’t find him?”