Riptide

22

The black government car moved smoothly onto the Beltway. It was still too early for rush-hour traffic to gnarl things to the screaming point. It didn’t help, though, that the temperature was hovering at about ninety degrees. Inside the big car it was thankfully very cool. Their driver had said nothing at all since picking them up at The Eagle Has Landed. There was still no sign of the media. So far so good, Thomas had said. There would be a media release soon now.

Adam was humming as he flipped off his cell phone. “Thomas, the photo you asked Gaylan Woodhouse to dig out for you is coming over right away. He’s sorry that he couldn’t immediately put his finger on it.”

Thomas turned from studying his daughter’s profile to look at Adam. “I’m glad they finally located it. I was afraid I would have to use an artist and re-create him.”

Adam said to Becca, “It’s a photo of Krimakov from over twenty years ago. We’ll age it and both can go to the media to plaster everywhere.”

“Sir,” Becca said, “are you really a CIA director?”

“That’s not my title. I just used it because it would be familiar to the New York detectives. Actually, I run an adjunct agency that’s connected to the CIA. We do many of the same things we did during the Cold War. I’m based here now, though, and don’t travel much abroad anymore to the hot spots.”

“This photo of Krimakov,” Becca said after nodding to her father, “I want to see it, study it. Maybe I’ll see something that could help. Did he speak English, sir?”

If Thomas noticed that she hadn’t called him Father or Dad, he didn’t let on. He had, after all, been a dead memory that had suddenly come alive and was now in her face. He’d also brought terror into her life. He also hadn’t been around when her mother was dying, when her mother died. She’d been alone to handle all of it. The pain was sharp and so bitter he thought he’d choke on it. Soon he would tell her how he and her mother had e-mailed each other every day for years. Instead, he managed to say, “Yes, he did. He was quite fluent, educated in England. He even attended Oxford. Quite the bon vivant in his younger days.” He paused a moment, then added, “How he despised us, the self-indulgent children of the West. That’s what he called us. I always enjoyed locking horns with him, outwitting him, at least until that last time when he brought his wife with him to Belarus. The fool was using her as cover-picnics, hikes, pretending it was a vacation, when all the time he planned to kill the West German industrialist Reinhold Kemper.”

“Krimakov,” she said, as if saying his name aloud would help her remember more clearly, picture him standing in the shadows, “he had a very light sort of English accent, more so on some words than on others. He was fluent in English. I don’t think he sounded particularly old, but I just can’t be certain. Krimakov is your age?”

“A bit older, perhaps five years.”

“I wish I could say for certain that he was that old but I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

Thomas sighed. “I’ve always thought it unfair that nothing’s easy in this life. He’s had years to plan this, years to think through every move, every countermove. He knows me, probably now he knows me better than I knew him back then. When he finally found you-my child-then he was in business.”

“I wonder where he is,” Becca said. “Do you truly believe he’s still in New York?”

“Oh yes,” Adam said, no doubt at all in his voice. “He’s in New York, planning how he’s going to get to you in the hospital. He’s licking his chops, absolutely certain that you’ll be there with her, Thomas. He’s got to believe that he’s trapped you now. He’s flushed you out and now he’s got his best chance to kill both of you.”

“It was an excellent idea, Adam,” Thomas said, “to let everyone in the media believe that Becca is still at NYU Hospital, recovering from internal injuries and under close guard. I pray he disguises himself and tries to get in.”

“I have no doubt he’ll want to. I just hope he doesn’t smell a trap. He’s smart, Thomas, you know that. He might have figured we’d do exactly what we have, in fact, done.”

“I’m worried about the people at the hospital who are playing us,” Becca said. “He’s-” She paused a moment, trying to find the right words. “He’s not normal. There’s something very scary about him.”

“Don’t be worried about the agents,” Adam said. “They’re professionals to their toes. They’re trained, and their collective experience probably exceeds the age of the world. They know what they’re doing. They’ll be ready for him to make a move. Another smart thing done-the FBI has installed security cameras to record everyone who goes in and out of that room. They’ve scheduled doctors and nurses to go in there at given hours. Our guys will stay alert. Our undercover agent who’s playing you, Becca, Ms. Marlane, won’t take any chances if he does show up. She’s got a 9mm Sig Sauer under her pillow.”

Thomas said, “Then there’ll be that black government car pulling up and a guy who looks remarkably like me getting out and going into the hospital.”

Adam said, “Yep. Twice a day. I hope Krimakov does try to get in. Wouldn’t that be something if it all ended there, in the hospital, in New York? That would be a hell of a thing.”

Becca said, “He managed to down Chuck with no one the wiser. So far he hasn’t failed at anything he’s tried.”

“She’s right, Adam,” Thomas said. “Like I said, Vasili is smart; he improvises well. If there aren’t any leaks, it’s possible he’ll sniff out the trap. But even if he’s fooled into thinking she’s there, perhaps believing that I’m there with her, under guard, for just twenty-four hours, it’ll give us time to try to come up with some sort of strategy.”

Adam nodded and said, “If he doesn’t go down in New York, then he’ll go down here.” He sighed. “Strategy is all well and good, Thomas, but I can’t think of anything at the moment that isn’t already being done.”

Thomas said, “I keep wondering if the agents playing our parts should be told that it’s a former KGB agent who might come there. Maybe it would make them sharper.”

“No, knowing that a killer is coming is all they need,” Adam said. “Besides, they’ll know who they’re dealing with quick enough. I believe that Krimakov will make a move real soon now. Maybe he’ll even make a mistake.” Adam looked at Becca, whose hands were fisted in her lap. She was too pale and he didn’t like it, but there was nothing he could do about it.

She said, more to herself than to either of them, “If they don’t get him, then how do you come up with a strategy to catch a shadow?”

Thirty minutes later, their driver pulled up in front of a white two-story colonial house, set back from the street on a gently sloping grass-covered yard, right in the middle of Bricker Road in the heart of Chevy Chase. It looked like many of its neighbors in this upper-middle-class neighborhood, lots of surrounding land, lots of oak and elm trees, and beautifully landscaped lawns.

“Your house, sir. No one followed us.”

“Thank you, Mr. Simms. You took excellent evasive action.”

“Yes, sir.”

Thomas turned to Becca, who was staring out the car window. He took her hand. “I’ve lived here for many years. Adam probably told you no one knows about this house. It’s a closely guarded secret to protect me. Given Krimakov’s actions, he hasn’t discovered this house. Don’t worry. We’ll be safe here.” Thomas looked over at the oak tree just to the side of the house. He and Allison had planted it sixteen years before. It was now twenty feet taller than the house, its branches full and laden with green leaves.

“It’s lovely,” Becca said. “I hope it does all end in New York. I don’t ever want him to find out where you live. I don’t want him to hurt this house.”

“No, I would prefer that he didn’t, either,” Thomas said. He gently took her hand to help her out of the car.

“Mom and I always lived in an apartment or condo,” she said, walking beside her father up the redbrick steps to the wide front porch. “She never wanted a house. I know there was enough money, but she’d always just shake her head.”

“When your mother and I were able to meet, she usually came here. This was her house, Becca. You’ll see her touch everywhere, and I’m sure you’ll recognize it as hers.”

His voice was low, so filled with pain, with regret, that Adam turned away to focus on the rosebushes that were blooming wildly beside the brick stairs up to the front porch. He saw two agents in a car half a block down the street. He wondered if Thomas would tell his daughter that this house might look like just a home-sweet-home, but the security in and around the place was state-of-the-art.

“It’ll be dark in about three hours,” Adam said, looking up from his watch. “Let’s make our phone calls, talk to the guys in New York, get the status on everything, make sure they stay alert. I have this gut feeling that Krimakov is going to try to get into NYU Hospital soon. Now we can tell them exactly who they’re up against. As you said, Thomas, there are always leaks. Detective Gordon, for example. I can see her telling everyone in sight. If he doesn’t act in the next twenty-four hours, then he won’t, because he’ll know it’s a trap.”

Adam looked down at Becca, who was staring intently at the house. He knew she was trying to visualize her mother there, perhaps standing next to her father, smiling at him, laughing. Only she wasn’t there, had never been a part of the two of them. He said, “Get rid of that ridiculous hair dye, will you, Becca?”

Thomas turned at his words. “That’s right. Your hair is very blond, just like your mother’s.”

“Mom’s was more blond than mine,” she said. “But all right, Adam, but I’ll have to go to the store. Who wants to go with me?”

“Me and about three other guys,” Adam said. The look on her face had changed, lightened, and he was pleased.

At seven o’clock that evening, Savich and Sherlock, Tommy the Pipe, and Hatch arrived at Thomas’s house for pizza and strategy, pizza first. Adam doubted there would be much helpful strategy, but it was good to have everyone together. Who knew what ideas might pop out after hot, cheese-dripping pizza?

Savich was carrying a baby draped over his right shoulder. The kid was wearing only diapers and a little white T-shirt. Adam looked at Savich, checked out the baby’s feet, and said, “You’re this little guy’s father?”

“Don’t act so surprised, Adam.” He lightly rubbed his hand over his son’s back. “Hey, Sean, you still awake enough to punch this guy in his pretty face?”

The baby sucked his fingers furiously and poked out his butt, making Savich grin.

“He’s nearly down for the count,” Sherlock said, lightly touching the baby’s head, covered with his father’s black hair. “He sucks his fingers when he doesn’t want to be disturbed and he knows you’re talking about him.”

“What do you think, Adam? Six-ounce free weights for my boy?”

Adam stared at the big man holding his kid who was madly sucking his fingers, then threw his head back and laughed. “This is not good. Jesus, I can nearly see him lifting three envelopes in each hand.” And he laughed and laughed. “Maybe he can even handle a stamp on each envelope.”

There were ten pizzas spread around Thomas Matlock’s living room an hour later. Hatch was hovering over the large pepperoni pizza, his shaved head glittering beneath a halogen floor lamp, talking even as he stuffed a big bite into his mouth. “Yipes, this sucker’s really hot. Oh boy, delicious. But hot, real hot.”

“I hope you burned your tongue,” Adam said as he pulled the hot cheese free of a slice of pizza from another box that was closer to him than to anyone else, and reverently lifted it up. “Serves you right for being a pig. God, I love artichokes and olives.”

“Nah, my tongue isn’t burned. It’s just a bit of a sting,” Hatch said, and pulled up another piece. After he took another big bite, he said, “Now, just to make sure everyone’s on the same page. All federal agencies are up to date on Krimakov. The New York Bureau guys are going over the car the guy dumped you out of, Becca, with every high-tech scan, every piece of sophisticated equipment they have. Haven’t found anything yet. I was really hoping they would find something, but this guy Krimakov is careful, real anal, one of the techs said. He didn’t leave anything helpful. Rollo and Dave, who just left Riptide yesterday, sent the FBI all the fingerprints we got in Linda Cartwright’s house, all the fibers we bagged. No word yet. The woman he killed in Ithaca, and stole her car-they’ve combed the hills for witnesses but came up empty. All that boils down to nada, nothing, zippo.” And then he cursed in some language Becca didn’t recognize. She lifted her eyebrow at him. Hatch said, flushing a bit, “That was just a bit of Latvian. A nice set of words, full-bodied and pungent, covers a lot of the hind end of a horse and what one could do with it.”

There was laughter, lots of it, and it felt so good that Becca just looked around at all the people she hadn’t even known existed until very recently. People who were friends now. People who would probably remain friends for the rest of her life. She looked over at the baby lying in his carryall, sound asleep, a light-blue blanket tucked over him. He was the image of his father.

She looked at Thomas Matlock, who was also looking at the baby and smiling. Her father, who hadn’t eaten much pizza because, she knew, he was so worried. About her.

My father.

It still felt so very strange. He was real, he was her father, and her brain recognized and accepted it, but it was still too new to accept all the way to the deepest part of her that had no memories, no knowledge of him, nothing tangible, just a couple of photos taken when he and her mother were young, some when they were even younger than she was now, and stories her mother had told her, many, many stories. The stories were secondhand memories, she realized now. Her mother had given them to her, again and again, hoping that she would remember them and, through them, love the father she’d believed was dead.

Her father, alive, always alive, and her mother hadn’t told her. Just stories, stupid stories. Her mother had memories, scores of them, and she had stories. But she kept quiet to protect me, Becca thought, but the sense of betrayal, the fury of it, roiled deep inside her. They could have told her when she was eighteen or when she was twenty-one. How about when she was twenty-five? Wasn’t that adult enough for them? She was an adult, a real live independent adult, for God’s sake, and yet they’d never said a thing, and now it was too late. Her mother was dead. Her mother had died without telling her a thing. She could have told her before she fell into that coma. She would never see them together now. She wanted to kill both of them.

She remembered many of those times when her mother had left her for maybe three, four days at a time. Three or four times a year she’d stayed with one of her mother’s very good friends and her three children. She’d enjoyed those visits so much she’d never really ever wondered where her mother went, just accepting that it was some sort of business trip or an obligation to a friend, or whatever.

She sighed. She still wanted to kill both of them. She wished they were both here so she could hug them and never let them go.

Savich said, “I’ve got the latest on Krimakov. A CIA operative told me about this computer system in Athens that’s pretty top-secret and that maybe MAX could get into. Well, MAX did invite himself to visit the computer system in Athens that keeps data on the whereabouts and business pursuits of all noncitizens residing in Greece. It is top-secret because it also has lists of all Greek agents who are acting clandestinely throughout the world.

“Now, as you can imagine, this includes a lot of rather shady characters that they try to keep tabs on. Remember, there was nothing left in Moscow because the KGB purged everything on Krimakov. But they didn’t have anything to do with the Greek records. This is what they had on Krimakov. Now, recognize that we’ve already learned most of this, that it was pretty common knowledge. However, in this context, it leads to very interesting conclusions.” Savich pulled three pages from his jacket pocket and read: “Vasili Krimakov has lived in Agios Nikolaos for eighteen years. He married a Cretan woman in 1983. She died in a swimming accident in 1996. She had two children by a former marriage. Her children are dead. The oldest boy, sixteen, was mountain-climbing when he fell off a cliff. A girl, fifteen, ran into a tree on her motorcycle. They had one child, a boy, eight years old. He was badly burned in some sort of trash fire and is currently in a special burn rehabilitation facility near Lucerne, Switzerland. He’s still not out of the woods, but at least he’s alive.” Savich looked up at all of them in turn. “We’ve had reports on some of this, but not all of it presented together. Also, they had drawn conclusions, and that’s what was really interesting. I know there was more, probably about their plans to act against Krimakov, but I couldn’t find any more. What do you think?”

“You mean you have those programs encoded so well you couldn’t get in?” Thomas asked.

“No. I mean that someone who knew what he was doing expunged the records. Only the information I just told you was left, nothing more. The wipe was done recently, just a little over six months ago.”

“How the hell do you know that?” Adam said. “I thought it would be like fingerprints. They’d be there but there was no clue when they were made.”

“Nope. I don’t know how the Greeks got ahold of it, but this system, the Sentech Y-2002, is first-rate, state-of-the-art. What it does is hard-register and bullet-code every deletion made on any data entered and tagged in preselected programs. It’s known as the ‘catcher,’ and it’s favored by high-tech industries because it pinpoints when something unexpected and unwelcome is done to relevant data, and who did it and when.”

“How does this hard register and bullet code work?” Becca said.

Savich said, “What the system does is swoop in and retrieve all data that the person is trying to delete before it can be deleted. It’s funneled through a trapdoor into a disappearing ‘secret room.’ That means, then, that the data isn’t really lost. However, the person who did this was able to do what we call a ‘spot burn’ on the information he deleted, and so, unfortunately, it’s really gone. In other words, there was no opportunity to funnel the deleted data to safety.

“Now, the person who supposedly wiped out the bulk of Krimakov’s entries was a middle-level person who would have had no reason to delete anything of this nature, much less even access it. So either someone got to him and paid him to do it or someone stole his password and made him the sacrificial goat in case someone discovered what he had done.”

“How long will it take you to find out this person’s name, Savich?” Thomas asked.

“Well, MAX already did that. The guy was a thirty-four-year-old computer programmer who was in an accident four months ago. He’s dead. Chances are very good that he was set up as the goat. Chances are also good that he knew the person who stole his password. I wouldn’t be surprised if the guy talked about what he did to someone who took it to Krimakov, who then acted.”

“And just what kind of accident befell this one?” Thomas asked.

“The guy lived in Athens, but he’d gone to Crete on vacation, which is where Krimakov lived. You know the Minoan ruins of Knossos some five miles out of Iráklion? It was reported that he somehow lost his footing and fell headfirst over a low wall into a storage chamber some twelve feet below where he was standing. He broke his neck when his head struck one of the big pots that held olive oil way back when.”

“Well, damn,” Adam said. “I don’t suppose Krimakov’s former bosses in Moscow have any information at all on this?”

“Not that MAX can discover,” Savich said. “If they have any more, and that’s quite possible, they’re holding it for a trade, since they know we want everything they’ve got on Krimakov. You know what I think? They’ve got nothing else useful. There hasn’t been a peep out of them in the way of exploratory questions.”

“You found out quite a lot, Savich,” Thomas said. “All those accidents. Doesn’t seem possible, does it? Or very likely.”

“Oh, no,” Savich said. “Not possible at all. That was the conclusion their agents drew. Krimakov murdered all of them. Hey, wait a minute, when you knew him, there weren’t any computers.”

“There wasn’t much beyond great big suckers, like the IBM mainframes,” Thomas said.

Sherlock said, “I wouldn’t even want to try to figure out the odds of all those people in one family dying in accidents. They are astronomical, though.”

“Krimakov killed all those people,” Becca said, then shook her head. “He must have, but how could he kill his own wife, his two stepchildren? Good grief, he burned his own little boy? No, that would truly make him a monster. What is going on here?”

“He didn’t kill his own child,” Adam said.

“No, he didn’t,” Sherlock said. “But the kid won’t ever lead any kind of normal life if he survives all the skin grafts and the infections. Was his getting burned an accident?”

Thomas said, “Listen, all of this makes sense, but it’s still supposition.”

Savich said, “I’ve put Krimakov’s aged photo into the Facial Recognition Algorithm program that’s in place now at the Bureau. It matches photos or even drawings to con-victed felons. It compares, for example, the length of the nose, its shape, the exact distance between facial bones, the length of the eyes. You get the drift. It’ll spit out if there’s anyone resembling him who’s committed crimes either in Europe or in the United States. The database isn’t all that complete yet, but it can’t hurt.”

“He was a spy,” Sherlock said. “Maybe he was a con-victed felon, too. It’s just possible he’s done bad stuff other places and got nabbed. If that’s so, then there’ll be a match and just maybe there’ll be more information available on Krimakov.”

“It’s a long shot, but what the hell,” Adam said. “Good work, you guys.” Adam paused a moment, then cleared his throat. “Maybe it wasn’t such a lame idea for Thomas to bring you guys on board. Hey, you’ve even got a cute kid.”

The tension eased when they heard Sean sucking his fingers. Sherlock said as she lightly rubbed her son’s back, “Hey, Becca, I like your hair back to its natural color.”

“I don’t think it’s quite the right color,” Adam said, stroking his fingers thoughtfully over his chin. “It still looks a little fake, a bit on the brassy side.”

Becca got him in the belly with her fist, not hard, since he’d eaten at least four slices of pizza covered with olives and artichokes. Of course he was right and she just laughed now. “It will grow out. At least it’s not a muddy brown anymore.”

Thomas thought she looked beautiful, her hair, just like Allison’s, straight and shiny to her shoulders, held back from her face with two gold clips.

Becca cleared her throat and said in a short lull in the conversation, “Does anyone know how Krimakov found me?”

The chewing continued, but she could nearly feel the strength of all that IQ power, all that experience, turned to her question.

Her father took a drink of Pellegrino, then set the bottle down on the Japanese coaster at his elbow. “I can’t be certain,” he said. “But you’re more in the public view now, Becca, what with your speech writing for Governor Bledsoe. I remember several articles about you. Maybe Krimakov read the articles. Naturally he knows the name Matlock very well. He must have checked into it, found out about your mother, seen her travel plans to Washington. He’s a very smart man, very focused when he wants to be.”

“It makes sense,” Sherlock said. “I don’t have another more likely scenario.”

Sherlock was looking very serious, but one eye was on her small son. Becca remembered Adam saying something about Sherlock taking down an insane psychopath in some sort of maze. It was hard to imagine until she remembered Sherlock clipping Tyler on the jaw with no fuss at all.

“No matter how he finally managed to find out who she was,” Adam said, “he did find out and then he set up this elaborate scheme.”

“Krimakov was always so straightforward,” Thomas said, “back then. No deep, murky games for him.” Then he sighed. “People change. It’s frightening in this case. He’s taken more turns than a byzantine maze.”

Hatch, just a bit of mozzarella cheese clinging to his chin, rose and said, “I’m going to go out and see what our guys are doing. They were eating their way through three large pizzas the last time I saw them.” His pepperoni pizza box was empty, not even a cold thread of cheese left.

“If you smoke out there, Hatch, I’ll smell it on you and I’ll fire your butt. I don’t care what you’ve found out, your butt’s on the line here.”

“No, Adam, I swear I won’t smoke.” Then Hatch sighed and sat down again.

Adam, satisfied, turned to Becca. “As for you, Becca, eat. Here’s my last piece of pizza. I even left three olives on it. I didn’t want to, but I looked at your skinny little neck and restrained myself. Eat.”

She took the pizza slice and sat there holding it, even as the cheese cooled and hardened. She picked off an olive.

Savich said, smiling at everyone, perhaps preening a bit, “Oh, yeah, I’ve got something that’s not supposition. MAX found Krimakov’s apartment. It’s just a small place in Iráklion. Mr. Woodhouse knows about it. He’s sent agents in.”

Everyone stared at him a moment, gape-mouthed.

Savich laughed. He was still laughing when the phone rang minutes later. “That’s on my public line,” Thomas said as he rose. “The tape recorder will automatically kick on and it will tell me who’s calling.” He saw Becca blink and smiled. “Just habit,” he said as he picked up the phone.

He didn’t say a word, just stood there, listening. He was pale as death when he nodded and said to the person on the other end of the line, “Thank you for calling.” Becca jumped to her feet to go to him. He held up a hand and said in a very low, contained voice, “The two agents guarding Becca’s room are dead. Agent Marlane is dead. The agent posing as me is dead, shot through the head, three times. I shot Krimakov’s wife through the head,” he added unemotionally. “The security cameras are smashed. There’s pandemonium at the hospital. He got away.”