Riptide

18

Hatch, a short, built like a young bull, sporting a large mustache, pulled off a tweed Sherlock Holmes hat to show his shaved head. For some reason she couldn’t quite fathom, Becca thought he was so impishly cute she wanted to hug him. She thought from the cocky grin on Sherlock’s face that she wanted to hug him right along with her.

This guy was potent. He had more charm than a person deserved, she was thinking a few minutes later when Adam held out his hand and said to him, “Give me the pack of cigarettes in your right pocket, Hatch, now, or you’re fired.”

“Yeah, sure, boss.” Hatch obligingly handed Adam a nearly full pack of Marlboros. “Just one, boss, no more, and I didn’t inhale much. All I had, just one. I don’t want to smoke anywhere near sweet Becca. I wouldn’t want to ever take a chance of hurting her lovely lungs. Now, tell me what to do to catch this creep so Becca can go back to writing speeches and smiling a lot.” Then he turned those dark-brown twinkling eyes on her and said, “Hi.”

Becca grinned and pumped his hand. “Hi, Hatch. Listen, I’m ready. The next time he calls-I’m ready. We’re going to set a trap for him. I’m going to be the bait.”

“Hmmm. I don’t think the boss likes that. His jaw is all knotted up.”

Adam unknotted his jaw. “No, I don’t like it. It’s crazy. I don’t want her to take this kind of risk. Ah, shit, I can tell by the look on your face, Becca, that you’re going to do it regardless of what I think.”

“Look, Adam,” Savich said, “if I could think of another way, I’d dive on it, but there are enough of us to keep her protected. Now, Hatch, according to Adam, you have a pretty awesome reputation to maintain. Tell us what you’ve found out.”

Hatch took a slim black book out of his jacket pocket, licked his fingers, and ruffled some pages. “Most of this is from Thomas’s guys, who’ve been working their butts off trying to verify Krimakov’s death. Thomas got everyone working on it right away. Now, the CIA has actually spoken to the cop who was the one who poked around his body. Apollo-no shit, that’s his name-said Krimakov went over a cliff on the eastern end of Crete, near Agios Nikolaos, died instantly, one would suppose from the injuries. It could have been murder, he allowed, but nobody checked into it all that much for the simple fact that no one really cares. Nothing obvious about it, so they closed the case until our agents flew in and spread out and wanted to see and examine everything.”

“So he’s really dead,” Becca said.

Hatch looked up and gave them a big grin. “Nope, not necessarily. Here’s the kicker. Krimakov’s body was cremated. You see, for the longest time, our people were stonewalled by the locals, who wouldn’t allow them to view the body. It was only after the Greek government got involved that they let it out of the bag that they’d cremated him right away. Why? I don’t know, but there was a payoff, somewhere.”

No one said a word for a very long time.

“Cremated?” Adam repeated, disbelieving.

“Yes, burned to ashes, poured in an urn. Thing’s still sitting on a shelf in the morgue.”

Sherlock said, “So there is no definitive proof because there’s no body to examine.”

“Right,” Hatch said. “Now, while we all chew on that, let’s go back a bit. Krimakov moved to Crete in the early eighties. Just showed up and stayed. He was into bad things, but not bad enough so anyone would dig and find out exactly who and what he’d been in Russia. Actually, the impression is they never tried really hard to do any nailing. He probably paid everyone off.”

“Damn,” Adam said. “Okay. Now we’ve got to search his house, top to bottom and under the basement. If he ever was involved in this, there will be something there.”

“Our agents have gone over his house, didn’t find anything. No clues, no leads, no references at all to Becca. We heard that he had an apartment somewhere, but we don’t know where it is. That might take a little time. There aren’t any official records.”

Savich said, “If he had an apartment, I’ll find it.”

“Just you?” Adam said, an eyebrow raised.

“Didn’t Thomas tell you I was good?”

Adam snorted, watching Savich plug in MAX.

Hatch said, “More will be coming about his personal activities. But as yet, there isn’t anything out of Russia. It seems that way back when, all Krimakov’s records were purged. There’s little left. Nothing of interest. The KGB probably ordered it done, then helped him go to ground, in Crete. Again, though, they’ll continue searching and probing and questioning all their counterparts in Moscow.”

“Krimakov isn’t dead,” Adam said. And he believed it like he’d never believed anything in his life.

Having said that, Adam sat back and closed his eyes. He was getting a headache.

“Well, yeah, we have something else. I was the one who did all the legwork on this.” Hatch licked his fingers again and flipped over a couple more pages. “The Albany cops just found a witness not two hours ago who identified the car that ran down Dick McCallum. It’s a BMW, black, license number-at least the first three numbers-three-eight-five. A New York plate. I don’t have anything on that yet.”

“I’ll have it run through,” Savich said. “It’ll be quicker, more complete. I don’t want to know how you got that information so quickly.”

“I’ll just say that she loves my mustache,” Hatch said. “Please do call the Bureau, Agent Savich. I didn’t have the chance to check back with Thomas and have him do it. Oh yeah, a guy was driving. No clue if it was an old guy or a young guy or in between, really dark windows, like windows on a limo. Fairly unusual for a regular commercial car, and that’s probably why he stole that particular car.”

Savich was on his cell phone in the next ten seconds, nodded and hung up in three more minutes. “Done. We’ll have a list of possibles in about five minutes.”

Tommy the Pipe knocked lightly on the front door and came in. “We got a guy buying Exxon supreme at a gas station just eight miles west of Riptide. The attendant, a young boy about eighteen, said when the guy paid for his gas, he saw dirt and blood on the cuff of his shirt. He wouldn’t have thought a thing about it except Rollo was canvassing all the gas stations, asking questions about strangers. It’s him.”

“Oh, yeah,” Adam said and jumped to his feet. “Please say it, Tommy. Please tell us that this kid remembers what the guy looks like, that he remembers the kind of car he was driving.”

“The guy had on a green hunting hat with flaps, something like mine but with no style. He also wore very dark glasses. He doesn’t know if the guy was young or old, sorry, Adam. Hell, anyone over twenty-five would be old to that kid. But he does remember clearly that the guy spoke well, a real educated voice, all smooth and deep. The car-he thought it was a BMW, dark blue or black. Sorry, no idea about the plate. But you know what? The windows were dark-tinted. How about that?”

“Surely he wouldn’t have driven the same car up here that he used to kill Dick McCallum in Albany,” Sherlock said.

“Why not?” Savich said. “If it isn’t dented, if there isn’t blood all over it, then why not?”

Savich’s cell phone rang. He stood and walked over to the doorway. They heard him talking, saw him nodding as he listened. He hung up and said, “No go. He stole the license plates. No surprise there. He’d have been an idiot to leave on the original plates. However, those heavily tinted windows, I have everyone checking on New York cars stolen within the past two weeks with those sorts of windows.”

Savich’s cell phone rang again in eight minutes. He listened and wrote rapidly. When he hung up the phone, he said, “This is something. Like Hatch said, few commercial cars-domestic or foreign-are built with dark-tinted windows. Three have been stolen. The people are all over the state, two men and one woman.”

Becca said with no hesitation, “It’s the woman. He stole her car.”

“Possible,” Sherlock said. “Let’s find out right now.”

She called information for Ithaca, New York, and got the phone number for Mrs. Irene Bailey, 112 Huntley Avenue. The phone rang once, twice, three times, then, “Hello?”

“Mrs. Bailey? Mrs. Irene Bailey?”

Silence.

“Are you there? Mrs. Bailey?”

“That’s my mother,” a woman said. “I’m sorry, but it took me by surprise.”

“May I please speak to your mother?”

“You don’t know? No, I guess not. My mother was killed two weeks ago.”

Sherlock didn’t drop the phone, but she felt a great roiling pain through her stomach, up to her throat, and she swallowed convulsively. “Can you give me any details, please?”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Gladys Martin with the Social Security Administration in Washington.”

“I know my husband called Social Security. What do you want?”

“We’re required to fill out papers, ma’am. Are you her daughter?”

“Yes, I am. What kind of papers?”

“Statistics, nothing more. Is there someone else I can speak to about this? I don’t want to upset you.”

There was a moment of silence, then, “No, it’s all right. Ask the questions. We don’t want the government to go away mad.”

“Thank you, ma’am. You said your mother was killed? Was this an auto accident?”

“No, someone hit her on the head when she was going out to her car at the shopping mall. He stole her car.”

“Oh, dear, I’m so very sorry. Please tell me that the man who did this has been caught?”

The woman’s voice hardened up immediately. “No, he wasn’t. The cops put out a description of her car, but no one has reported back with anything as yet. They think he painted the car a different color and changed the license plates. He’s gone. Even the New York City cops don’t know where he is. She was an old woman, too, so who cares?” The bitterness in the daughter’s voice was bone-deep, her pain, disbelief, anger still raw.

“Was there anything distinctive about the car the man stole?”

“Yes, the windows were tinted dark because my mother had very sensitive eyes. Too much sunlight really hurt her.”

“I see. What was the color of the car?”

“White with gray interior. There was a small dent above the left rear tire.”

“I see. Did you say that there were other than just the local cops there?”

“Oh, yes. Of all things, they were from New York City. They should have caught this guy. We don’t know why the New York City police are involved. Do you? Is that really why you’re calling? You want to pump me for information?”

“No, of course not. This is simply statistical information that we need.”

“Are there any more questions, Ms. Martin? I’m sorting through my mother’s things and I have to be down at St. Paul’s charities in a half hour.”

“No, ma’am. I’m very sorry for your loss. I’ll take care of everything here.” Sherlock turned to see all eyes focused on her. “The killer painted a white car black and stole another license plate. The New York City cops were there. They know. Oh, yeah, the windows are tinted dark because Mrs. Bailey had sensitive eyes.”

“Son of a bitch,” Hatch said and groped in his pocket for his cigarettes. “How come nobody told me that the cops knew about that damned car?”

Adam just gave him a look and said, “They’ve got a real lid on that one. My guess is they’re keeping it from the Feds, don’t want to get aced out. And the victim loses. What the New York cops don’t know is that our killer is here in Maine. Shall we tell them?”

Savich said, “Not the New York cops, but I can call Tellie Hawley, the SAC of the office in New York City. He’ll see that it gets to where it needs to go.”

“Yeah,” Adam said, “why not? Anyone think of a good reason why not?”

“How specific should we be?” Becca asked. She was wringing her hands, and Adam frowned.

Savich rolled it around in his brain and said, “Let’s just tell him the guy’s been seen on the coast. How’s that? It’s the truth.”

“We’ve got to get him,” Becca said. “If we don’t, then we have to call this Thomas person who seems to know everyone and direct everything, and tell him to bring in the Marines.”

“He hasn’t called,” Becca said, and took a bite of her hot dog. “Why hasn’t hecalled?”

Adam said as he chewed a potato chip, “I think he’s going to lie low for a while. He’s not stupid. He’s going to dig in somewhere else, give you some time to chew your fingernails, make all of us jumpy as hell, then jump back into the game-his game.”

They were all eating hot dogs with relish and mustard, the team of guys outside coming in one at a time. Special Agent Rollo Dempsey said to Adam, “I knew your name but I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it. Now I do. You saved Senator Dashworth’s life last year when that crazy tried to stick a knife in his ribs.”

Adam didn’t say a word.

“Yeah, it was you. You saved Senator Dashworth’s life. Pretty impressive.”

“You shouldn’t know about that,” Adam said finally, frowning at Rollo. “You really shouldn’t.”

“Yeah, well, I’m an insider, I can’t help it if people tell me everything.”

“I never heard anything about that,” Becca said, her antennae up. “What are you talking about?”

Rollo just grinned at her and said, “Did you find out who tried to off him?”

“You don’t know about that, too?”

“Hey, I’m an insider, but the spigot was off when it came to the particulars.”

Adam shrugged. “Well, who cares now? The guy who wanted the senator dead was his son-in-law. Irving-that’s the guy’s name-had sent him threats, all the usual anonymous bullshit. The senator called me. It turned out that Irving had become a heroin addict, didn’t have any more money, and wanted the senator’s inheritance. The senator managed to keep it from the media, to protect his daughter, and so we got the guy into a sanatorium, where he belonged, where he’s still at. I guess there are only a few insiders who know anything at all about it.”

“You run some sort of a bodyguard business?” Becca said, frowning at Adam over a spoonful of baked beans. “I thought you did security consulting.”

“I like to keep my hand in a lot of different things,” Adam said.

“What I’d like to know,” Sherlock said, handing Rollo another hot dog with lots of down-home yellow mustard slathered on it, “is why you didn’t find out who it was right away. The guy was an addict? That kind of thing isn’t easy to hide.”

Adam actually flushed. He played with his fork, didn’t meet her eyes. He cleared his throat. “Well, the thing is that the son-in-law wasn’t around for those three days I was checking things out. His wife was protecting him, said he had the flu, that he was really contagious, et cetera. She swore to me and to her father that Irving wouldn’t even consider doing something like that, no, it had to be a crazy, or a left-wing conspiracy. She was so-well-damned believable.”

“Good thing you were there to deflect the guy’s knife,” Rollo said.

“That’s the truth,” Adam said.

Rollo sat down at the kitchen table, squeezing in between Savich and Becca. Adam said on a deep sigh, “I just heard that the wife is trying to get the husband out of there. It could start all over again.”

“Well, shit,” Rollo said. “Not much justice around, is there?”

Then Chuck came in and Rollo, still half a hot dog left, saluted and went back outside.

“It won’t be long now,” Savich said. “I feel it. Things will happen.” He took a last bite of a tofu hot dog, sighed with pleasure, and hugged his wife.

Things didn’t happen until later.

They were all in the living room drinking coffee, planning, arguing, brainstorming. There was no activity outside. Everything was buttoned down tight, until at exactly ten o’clock a bullet shattered one of the front windows, glass exploded inward, carrying shreds of curtain with it.

“Down!” Savich yelled.

But it wasn’t a simple bullet that came through the window to strike the floor molding on the far side of the living room, it was a tear gas bullet. Thick gray smoke gushed out even before it struck the molding.

“Oh, damn,” Adam said. “Back into the kitchen. Now!”

Another tear gas bullet exploded through the window. They were coughing, covering their faces, running toward the back of the house.

They heard men’s shouts, sporadic gunfire, sharp and loud in the night. The front door burst open and Tommy the Pipe ran in, his face covered with his jacket. “Out, guys, quick. Through the front door, the back’s not covered well enough.”

“He shot tear gas bullets,” Adam said between choking coughs.

“He’s probably using a CAR-15, behind our perimeter. Come on out.”

They coughed their heads off, tears streaming down their faces. Savich found himself with Becca’s nose pressed into his armpit.

“We’ve got to get him,” Adam shouted, coughing, choking, his eyes streaming tears. “Just another minute to get over this and we’ll start scouring.”

It took another seven minutes before they headed out in the general direction of where the tear gas bullets must have been shot toward the front windows.

They found tire tracks, nothing else, until Adam called out, “Look here.”

Everyone gathered around Adam, who was on his haunches. He held up a shell casing that was four inches long and about an inch and a half in diameter. “Tommy the Pipe was right. He used a CAR-15-that’s a compact M16,” he added to Becca, “stands for carbine automatic rifle.”

Savich found the other shell casing and was tossing it back and forth.

“But how can tear gas come from a gun?” Becca said. “I thought they were canisters or something like that. That’s what I’ve always seen in movies and on TV.”

“That’s real old-hat now,” Adam said. “This smaller M16 is real portable, you could carry it under your trench coat. It’s got this telescoping collapsible barrel. The SEALs use this stuff. What you do is simply mount an under-barrel tubular grenade launcher and fire away with your tear gas projectiles. It’s wicked.”

Sherlock said, “He’s obviously connected and very well trained. Got all the latest goodies. And just where would he get all this stuff?”

And Adam thought: Krimakov.

No one said anything.

They got back to the house forty-five minutes later. It was late, and everyone was hyped. Adam said, as he shrugged into his jacket, rechecked his pistol, “I’m going to take one of the first watches.”

“Get me up at three o’clock,” Savich said.

“I’m outta here,” Adam said. He looked over at Becca, saw that she was white-faced and couldn’t help himself. He walked to her and pulled her tight against him. He said against her hair, “Sleep well and don’t worry. We’re going to get him.”

Becca didn’t think she’d be able to slow her heart down enough even to consider sleeping, but she did, deeply and dreamlessly, until she felt a strange jab in her left arm, just above her elbow, like a mosquito bite. She jerked awake, her heart pounding wildly, and she couldn’t breathe, just pant and jerk. She was blind, no, it was just dark, very dark, the blinds drawn because nobody wanted him to be able to see into the house. She saw a shadowy figure standing over her, gray, indistinct, and she whispered, “What is this? Is it you, Adam? What did you do-?” But he said nothing, merely leaned closer and finally, when her heart was slowing just a bit, he whispered right against her face, “I came for you, Rebecca, just like I said I would,” and he licked her cheek.

“No,” she said. “No.” Then she fell back, wondering what the silver light was shining just over her face. It seemed to arc toward her, a skinny silver flash, but then it just wasn’t important. A small flashlight, she thought as she breathed in very deeply, more deeply than usual for her, and eased into a soft warm blackness that relaxed her mind and body, and she didn’t know anything more.