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Frank wasn’t sure when Cooper would catch up with him - always when, never if - but he sure as hell didn’t think it would be in the Seychelles, in a two-week respite between a job for Ivan (which always paid well, even if there was a higher-than-average chance that a trebuchet would be involved) and the trip he promised Sarah to Buenos Aires back when this all started two years ago. Marvin is camped out in Bolivia somewhere, and he is bound to pop up if Frank gets anywhere near South America. Frank is looking forward to that even more than his time laying out on this white sand beach.
“Excuse me, sir,” a steward says next to him in a low, honeyed tone. “Your drink.” Sarah lifts her head from her garish purple beach towel long enough to give him a curious look. Frank never ordered a damn drink. The steward’s nametag says ‘Rene’, and his hands are manicured but work-worn. His jacket is standard hotel issue. His shoes are local. His eyes project an air of not giving a flying fuck if Frank wants this drink or not. Frank nods at him, once, and Rene places the drink carefully on the tiny table between their lounge chairs, on top of a crisp white napkin, before walking away.
Frank wasn’t sure when Cooper would catch up with him, but he sure as hell didn’t think it would be here, and he absolutely would have laid odds on the guy using some sort of convoluted code to communicate with him, not a crisp white napkin folded over once, with the line “Henry would like to see Buenos Aires” written in small, careful letters.
*
“What do you mean ‘a change of plans’?” Victoria asks when they arrive on her doorstep two days later.
“It’s Henry!” Sarah says sunnily, because she never really got the hang of the secret, stoic part of espionage. “We’re breaking him out!”
“Oh really?” Victoria says with a raised eyebrow, but she agrees to keep Sarah occupied in the garden while Frank borrows her car to head into town. “You dent my Jag, you pay for it, dear,” she says as she hands him the keys. “Ditto if you blow it up.”
“It’s just a meeting,” Frank says, and she glares at him. He waits three beats before saying “Fine, yes, I promise your car will be okay.”
“Of course you do.” She pats him on the arm and Frank marvels at how tiny his balls are around her.
*
Cooper looks good, Frank thinks, watching him cross the food court at the mall across from the Pentagon. He’s in a crisp navy suit and Frank’s only able to tag two concealed weapons; he’s practiced enough to hide his third even from Frank. His hair is a little shaggy in the back, which means he’s been working too hard to care about appearances. He’s made it to the big time, and Frank is surprised to find he’s glad.
The food court is full of high school kids and military families yelling and pushing and talking on cell phones. It’s a zoo. He’d hated the thing when they’d built it back in the eighties, but he has to admit it’s convenient for clandestine meetings. Cooper doesn’t seem to agree, taking the seat next to him with a grunt and a sidelong glare.
“You know how many of my people have lunch here?” he growls and Frank grins, leaning back on the bench and crossing a leg over his knee.
“Nice shoes,” Frank says, because he knows Cooper will read that as ‘well done on the corner office and the fancy suits and the eleven backroom deals I heard about this year alone’.
“Your shirt is hideous,” Cooper replies, which means ‘thanks, and I found you three jobs ago but figured I owed you one’. Frank is impressed.
“I was on vacation, you know.”
“You’re always on vacation,” Cooper snaps.
“I’m never on vacation,” Frank replies.
“Yeah, and you like it that way.”
“Eh,” Frank shrugs, and they both fake a glance away to hide matching smirks. “How’s married life?” Frank asks, and he can feel Cooper stiffen in his seat. It’s a power play but it’s not - Frank knows that Cooper knows that Frank hasn’t been poking his nose into Cooper’s business, that Frank has no idea how Michelle and the kids are, where they are, what they had for breakfast. But he could know, quick and easy and only getting his hands a little dirty, and Cooper knows that too.
“Sarah’s sister-in-law is expecting in March,” Cooper replies evenly. “She should send a card.”
“She will,” Frank says, because this is what they do, this stupid back-and-forth about who knows what and who can hurt who more. The killer part of it is, Frank is pretty sure he and Cooper are on the same damn side. Frank clears his throat. “So, Henry.”
“He’s turning 90 this year, and he’d like to get the hell out of the basement.”
“Ah. And some people aren’t keen on seeing him leave.”
“It’s unsurprising. Saying Henry might know too much is like saying the sun might be too hot to stand on,” Cooper shrugs.
“He’s worked there sixty years - you people could at least get him a nice watch and let him go to the beach.”
“He’s worked there sixty-three years, and we’re getting him you,” Cooper says. Frank laughs. “I called in a favor from Ladman,” Cooper tells him. “Seems he owed Henry from back in the day.”
“Back in the day,” Frank grumbles, because he remembers Ladman, his wandering hands and his girl trouble. Ladman wasn’t a day older than Joe. Or, than Joe would have been.
Cooper is doing that thing with his face that would be laughing, if Cooper ever laughed. Frank makes a mental note to owe him for that later. “Anyway, I got him the paperwork, I just can’t have anyone do the legwork, and I figured since you were on your way there already...”
Frank shoots him a pointed look. “You know if your guys are still watching me, they’ll have eyes on Henry.”
“Yeah, that’s why my team has a tip that you’re in Morocco this month, tracking a shipment to Zaire.”
“Ah,” Frank says again, and really, he hopes that in the grand scheme of things, he and Cooper are on the same side.
“Nice to see you again, Frank,” he says and when Cooper stands up Frank slides an unmarked manila folder under his thigh.
“Liar,” Frank says, and Cooper is gone.
*
Henry Brown lives the saddest life Frank has ever seen. He leaves for work at exactly 7:35 every morning, shuffling to the corner to pick up the first of two buses to the Pentagon. He lost his driver’s license three years ago when he backed into a hydrant. He eats way too much granola. He loves John Wayne films and Nora Roberts novels and peaches. The only people who ever call him are his doctors and his niece, who is pushing 75 herself and heading toward senile.
Frank could get Henry out of the country with little to no fanfare and absolutely no bloodshed.
But really. Henry deserves better than that.
*
“Excuse me, sir,” an older lady says as she bumps into Henry at the crosswalk. It’s enough of a distraction that Frank can plant the tracker in his pocket as he passes by.
Sarah meets them at the corner in a non-descript Honda she probably stole from a nearby craft store parking lot. Boosting cars has turned into Sarah’s strong suit, though after Manila, they never let her drive.
Frank gets in as she climbs gracelessly into the passenger seat. Marvin gets in the back, yanking his wig off with a huff. “I told you, I don’t want to be the girl anymore.”
*
They have to time it just right, when Henry is fifteen feet from the curb, but still in full view of the Pentagon guardhouse. Frank always wishes for Joe in these situations, because Frank is always a little too cautious, and Sarah and Marvin are, well. Sarah and Marvin. Victoria’s voice crackles in his earpiece. “Any day now, Francis,” she says, a smile in her voice, and Frank tugs his mask further down his face and guns it on to the sidewalk.
Marvin tries to get Henry in the car by force, but Henry knees him in the balls hard enough that Frank winces in sympathy. “Fuck, fuck,” Marvin hisses, and Sarah yells “Henry, we’re kidnapping you, come on!”
Frank’s glad the cameras on the guardhouse won’t be able to make out the gleeful smile on Henry’s face.
*
The letter is delivered to the Pentagon via one of Ivan’s old Cuban contacts. “We demand US$50million for the return of the Records Keeper,” it says. It includes a picture of Henry looking battered and old, holding that day’s paper. “We will contact you with further instructions.”
“Idiots,” Agent Ramone mutters. “Don’t they know he’s worth way the hell more than that?”
Agent Feldstein clears her throat and looks at her boss behind his desk. “Sir, we think we have a lead on where they’re keeping him from analyzing the photo and the paper.”
“We can’t have him compromised. Take care of it, by any means necessary,” Cooper says. “The only objective is to make sure the Keeper doesn’t talk.” They nod, heading off to assemble a team. Cooper picks up a Hallmark card from his desk. “To the World’s Best Nephew” it says on the front, with a picture of a tiger eating a cake.
Inside, it says “Sorry about the extra paperwork.”
Cooper is grateful his new office doesn’t have a wall made of glass so he can get away with putting his head on his desk and sighing loudly.
*
Henry is the worst fake captive ever.
“You should hit me again!” he tells Frank, eyes wide and serious. He’s been hatching plans on how they can elaborate upon Frank’s already elaborate plan for the last seven hours. It doesn’t help that he has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of every ridiculous Agency plan of the last half century.
“First, we already took the picture. Second, I didn’t even hit you the first time,” Frank snaps.
“But there should be blood evidence here for when they come check this place out! That’s how they figured out the Khrushchev thing was faked!” They’re packing up the warehouse and waiting for Cooper’s team to find them. It shouldn’t take long. But for a guy who spent the last sixty-three years in a locked basement, Henry is surprisingly impatient.
“I can hit him,” Marvin mutters under his breath, still smarting from the ball shot earlier. Sarah smacks him in the arm.
“No one is hitting anyone,” she says without a hint of irony. “Everyone is going to get in the car and eat their sandwiches and wait for the car chase!”
Frank kisses the side of her head. “You got me chicken salad, right?”
*
“It was three,” Marvin yells at him over the din of gunfire coming from the towncar hot on their heels.
“It was four, and watch the fucking road!” Frank yells back. Sarah locks and loads his Glock and hands it off the second his .45 runs out.
“Watch out, the catch is extra catchy today!” she chirps.
He loves her so much it’s stupid.
“If it was four I will eat my own OH GOD DAMN IT,” Marvin curses as a fourth towncar comes up an exit ramp and shoots off their side mirror. Their car veers off the road and down a sharp embankment. Victoria and Ivan are at the bottom of the hill with a tiny grey motorboat, some camouflage jackets, and a shit-ton of plastic explosives.
“It is about time!” Ivan intones, waving them forward. It’s sixty degrees out but he’s still in a fur hat that, paired with the camo jacket, makes it look like a racoon died on top of a fat log. Marvin parks the car on top of the explosives and they all jump in the low-lying boat as the towncar comes into view over the hill. Ivan hits the detonator and their car disappears in a wall of smoke. Frank guns the boat around a bend in the stream and Sarah pouts, complaining that this time they promised her she could blow things up. Victoria puts down her just-in-case AK-47 and smiles warmly at Henry.
“Hello, Henry. Congratulations! You’re dead!”
*
“‘Boswell Hornswaggle’? Seriously?” Sarah flips through the stack of passports and bank paperwork that Cooper set up to turn Henry into another person. They’re flying First Class to Buenos Aires because Ivan knows a guy who knows a guy who owes a favor to someone named Irchinko. Marvin is in a cargo plane half a day ahead of them, partly because he doesn’t trust commercial airlines, and partly because Ivan is a dick.
Henry grins at Sarah. He already looks ten years younger which... isn’t really saying much. But Frank knows how that feels. “I can deal with Boswell,” he says. “Ladman owed me, but I guess he’s still mad about that whole fake dead hooker thing.”
Frank doesn’t want to know. He really doesn’t. Sarah leans over Frank’s seat and makes big eyes at Henry. “No,” Frank says. They both pout.
“Glass of champagne, Mr. Hornswaggle?” the stewardess asks and Henry lets out a happy sigh.
“I’d love one,” he replies.
“Traveling to Argentina alone?” she asks him, looking at the empty seat beside him. Henry smiles at her.
“Oh, no. This is my son Jed,” he says, gesturing to Frank across the aisle. “And that’s his daughter Penelope.”
“How lovely!” she says, her smile faltering when she sees where Frank’s hand is, high on Sarah’s thigh. Frank puts both his hands in his lap and Sarah giggles. The stewardess turns, flustered, and heads to the galley.
“I guess that means no mile-high club for you this ‘round, sonny,” Henry says with a glint in his eye.
“I hate you so much, Henry,” Frank grits out and Henry raises his glass.
“It’s Boz, now. But you can call me Dad.”