Текст книги "What Lies Behind"
Автор книги: J. T. Ellison
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 25 страниц)
Chapter 6
McLean, Virginia
ROBIN WAS STILL. She hadn’t moved since the wee hours, since the phone call and coffee and news and seething spiral of black oppressive knowledge had shut her down.
Riley sat next to her, not touching, whistling something under his breath. Rachmaninoff, she thought, or wait, no, it was one of the songs from the movie soundtrack of Braveheart.
Maybe she’d been asleep, drifted off, maybe she’d been sunk into meditation. She realized she was hearing him, the soft sibilance of his lips, so close, but never farther away, and shook herself slightly. The sun had come up. The sky to her west was hazy, the color of weak tea. The rustlings of the night creatures was long past. It would rain today.
Real. It was real. Amanda was dead.
A searing pain filled her chest. Red, she was red, everywhere. It rushed over her body, biting, stinging. She reached out to touch it, surprised when her finger touched skin, and the red absorbed into her, disappeared.
Not now, Robbie. You can’t go down that hole again.
Riley had told her everything when he arrived, about the boy who’d killed her sister, that she’d been taken to the D.C. morgue, that there would be an autopsy. That the boy who killed her had tried to kill himself, too, but was still alive.
Her legs were asleep. She’d stacked them beneath her before she’d gone into her empty place, the place she went to cope with anything overwhelming or hurtful, or when the synesthesia got to be too much. The empty place had gotten her through Afghani jails and snakebites and gunshots and torture. Had gotten her through her father’s death. It was a wellspring of nothingness, a virtual blank spot in her psyche filled with nothing but soft, calming white noise. She entered it when the pain was too great, and emerged when her subconscious recognized she could deal with things again.
It was a valuable tool. One she hadn’t thought she’d need ever again.
Swallowing, she realized the cup of coffee was still in her hand. The dregs were cold but she was parched. She let the chewy thickness linger in her mouth, realized she would never again drink the brew without thinking of her sister, a gash in her neck, dead in Georgetown.
Red, red, red.
Stop.
She shut her eyes briefly, and the moment passed. It had taken her years to learn how to control her curse, her gift, her otherness. Now it came to her gently, when she allowed it, pastels and soft things, but fear or horror killed her ability to control it. And she needed to be in control right now.
Amanda was supposed to die very, very old, or in the field somewhere, a hero’s death, not at the wrong end of a knife less than five miles from her sister’s loving arms.
Why hadn’t she said she was coming to the States? Why hadn’t she called? Robin would have protected her, done anything for her. Even if there was animosity between them, they were all that was left.
Amanda had called. A month prior. And you were too far up your own miserable ass to help. This is your fault.
There would be no tears, but her throat thickened, and she swallowed hard, again and again, until she realized the bile was rising; there was nothing she could do to stop it.
She jumped up and vomited over the railing.
Riley jumped up, too, one hand on her back, the other entangled in her long blond hair, pulling it back. He made shushing noises as if she were a child who’d had a bad dream. And she let him comfort her, using the only language either of them knew anymore—the dirty grayness of grief that helped with the shock of losing someone you love too soon.
When her stomach had finally settled, she sat back on the chair and met his eyes. They were pretty eyes. An odd shade of blue, dark and deep as the ocean, they were his best feature. The rest had been handsome, once, before. Before a knife to the forehead and ten years on the ground in too many countries to count wore even that out of him, and left him weary, battle torn and hungry for things she could barely give him. He was like a piece of granite, carved from the earth, silent and deadly.
“You’re back,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but the interrogatory was evident. She’d scared him, collapsing in on herself like that, only to emerge choking and flailing over the rail.
“Yes. Do they know why?” she asked, surprised at how rusty she sounded, like a pipe left years in the rain.
He shook his head. “It’s too early. If the boy wakes up, the police will certainly question him. But he’s barely hanging on.”
“She called me. At 3:23 this morning. She didn’t say a word.”
Riley frowned. “Not possible. She was already gone.”
Robin picked up her cell phone. Showed him the incoming call.
“Someone has her phone,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. It was probably one of the cops, checking her contacts for someone to notify.”
“And when they found your name, and you answered, they decided not to tell you?”
“Maybe I’m not listed as her next of kin.”
He touched her arm. “Robin. You are. You know you are.”
“It was a murder-suicide, you said.”
“There was a note. You’re sure you’ve never heard of Thomas Cattafi?”
She shook her head. “I haven’t. And a note, that’s not enough to go on. It doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone else with them. Someone that killed her, and tried to kill him.”
“What was she working on again?”
At that, Robin sucked in her breath and looked away. “You know I don’t know. We hadn’t been in touch for a while. She called me a month back, said she’d gotten into some trouble, wanted me to come bail her out. I was up to my ass in alligators with the failed meet in Kirkuk. There was no stopping to help her. So I said no. Told her she needed to learn how to deal with these things herself. That’s the last time we talked.” Hazy green clouds surrounded her head. The letters N and O rotated slowly, turning white in the mist.
“Jesus. I’m sorry.”
She sniffed once, hard, then snapped to, waving her hands to dissipate the cloud. It went away dutifully, and when she opened her eyes again, she saw nothing but the backyard she loved, with the feeders and flowers grown out of control, the water, roaring past. Her very own jungle. Control.
“Riley, we need to investigate. Get Alicia to run the call logs into my phone. I don’t care what sort of excuse she needs to make, who she needs to promise what, just find out where my sister’s phone was when she...when it was used to call me.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. We’ll need clearance—”
“Riley Dixon, when is the last time you asked for clearance to run a phone call?”
His jaw flexed, the muscle in his cheek jumping. She’d hit a nerve. Good. But she softened her voice the tiniest bit.
“I don’t know what Amanda was up to. But I will find out what happened to her. Are you going to help me or not?”
“I’ll help you, Robbie. But I can’t promise you’re going to like where this leads. What if she’s involved in something bad? What if you find out there’s some sort of attack coming, and she’s a part of it?”
She nodded, and stood, arms tight around her waist.
“Riley, she’s not. She’d never be involved in anything to hurt us.”
“Have you seen today’s bulletin? On the threat to the nation’s natural aquifers? What if someone hit our water supply here in D.C.? Just strolled right up to the plant on Roosevelt and popped something in the water.”
“Wouldn’t happen, Riley. There are fail-safes to make sure nothing biological can get through.”
“You don’t know that. Read the bulletin. It’s scary stuff. There are too many threats to count. Amanda could have stumbled across the wrong person and they tried to recruit her into doing their dirty work.”
“Then I absolutely need to find out what she was involved in.”
He ran a hand through his brown hair, the bicep flexing. Hard. He’d always been so hard, all sinew and bone and flesh, muscles tightly coiled, a big cat, ready to pounce or leap away at a moment’s notice.
“I’m going to have to call in a favor or two.”
“Thank you, Riley.”
He gave her a brief hug, cold lips pressed to her forehead, and left, stalking out through the living room, his heels banging on the hardwood. That man could walk silently across a field of broken glass; she knew he meant it to make a point. He was doing this against his will.
Well, so was she.
Riley would work things from his end, seeking out who had called using Mandy’s phone. There was one phone call she needed to make. If there was anyone who might know what Mandy was involved in, Atlantic would be the one.
She put in word that she needed to talk to him, then sat back and waited.
And waited. And waited.
Chapter 7
Georgetown
CANCER? SAM FELT the quick flash of alarm, tried to keep herself in check. “Are you okay? Are you sick?”
Fletcher shook his head. “Oh, no, this isn’t about me. Emma said Cattafi was involved in cancer research. He’s doing some sort of specialized microbiology internship that has been making waves. Cellular differentiation or something like that. Stem cells, cancer vaccines, all sort of really cutting-edge stuff.”
“What’s a fourth year doing in research? That’s usually postdoctoral work.”
“Kid’s a prodigy, from what I’ve heard. Juggling internships. Someone said he was in the M.D./Ph.D. program. So he’s at GW in a coma. There was a woman with him—her name was Amanda Souleyret. She didn’t make it.”
He was messing with his spoon, putting it in his cup, taking it out. The fidgeting was uncharacteristic. Clearly, something had him rattled.
“And?”
“And...” The spoon went back in the coffee cup with a clatter. “On the surface, it looks like a domestic. He stabbed her, stabbed himself. He had the knife in his hand. The spatter patterns are consistent with an attack. It’s cut-and-dried. Only thing that saved his life is his ex-girlfriend getting drunk and deciding she wanted a reconciliatory booty call and stumbling right into the scene. If she hadn’t shown up when she did... It was a near thing. EMTs managed to get a heartbeat. He’s not doing well. His family is flying in. Probably brain-dead—they may be looking at organ donation.”
Sam had a vivid flash from the night before, the EMT working frantically, giving CPR. “That’s terrible. But...?”
He looked at her finally, really looked, met her eyes and smiled. “You know me too well, don’t you?”
The food came, and they waited for the waiter to clear off before they continued the conversation. Sam ripped off a chunk of croissant, lavishly buttered it. “I know when you’re building up to something. So spit it out.”
“The ID on the woman had a red flag. This is between us, right?”
She crossed her heart, waved the flaky pastry at him. “You, me and my croissant.”
“She’s blacked out in the system.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I can’t do my job, because someone doesn’t want me to know who she really is, and what she really does.”
“Oh. That is rather odd. What do you think, she’s some sort of agent? A spy? We are in D.C., after all.”
He looked serious all of a sudden, put a hand on the back of his neck and squeezed. “That would be my guess. I don’t know what agency she’s from, whose side she’s on. What I do know is ten minutes after I got to work this morning, I was told that there’d been a meeting scheduled at State, and my presence was requested. Either I’m about to be relieved of this case, or they’re going to send me on a wild-goose chase.”
“Fun times, my friend. You always catch the coolest cases.”
“Which is why I was thinking, maybe if you have a look-see, I’ll have a better sense of what’s happening. I don’t know what a spy would be doing having a fight with a kid in med school. It’s probably just domestic, like I said, but...”
“No worries, Fletch. I’m happy to help, as always.”
Her cell phone rang. She apologized, pulled it out of her pocket. Glanced at the screen, saw the call was coming from Quantico. John Baldwin. In a way, he was her new boss.
“Fletch, forgive me, I have to answer this.”
He held up a hand. “No worries. Go ahead.”
She stood and walked outside, determined not to disturb everyone around her with the call.
“Baldwin?”
His deep voice sounded stressed. “Sam, good morning. I hope you’re doing well.”
“I am. Out of the house and everything, having breakfast with Fletcher. What’s up?”
“Ah, that’s good. I’m glad you’re already with him. Has he told you about the murder near your house last night?”
She grew wary. “He has. Plus I saw parts of it—the sirens woke me. Why?”
“The female victim, Amanda Souleyret? She was one of ours.”
“She was FBI?”
“Yes. A longtime undercover agent, working...well, what she specialized in is most likely irrelevant, considering. I was told this looks like a domestic situation.”
“That’s what Fletcher said.”
“Such a shame. No one even knew Amanda was in the US much less that she was dating someone here. I don’t know how she found the time. She works primarily overseas, as an investigator for a French company called Helix International. Have you ever heard of it?”
Now Sam really was on alert. “As it happens, I have. They’re in the same business as Xander, albeit on a much larger scale. They do everything from close protection to industrial investigations.”
“That’s right. Amanda is—she was—a very talented agent, capable of handling most anything thrown her way. She’s been on an undercover op that’s stretched for over a year. Anyway, there’s a briefing scheduled at ten at the State Department. Fletcher’s already on the guest list. They wanted me there, but I’m flying out to Denver in an hour. Just between you and me, we might have another Hometown murder.”
“You’re kidding. That’s two this month alone. He’s accelerating.”
“Yes, he is. I have to get out to Denver and see what’s happening. Can you go to State in my stead? See what they have to say, take notes. Call me after, fill me in?”
“Of course,” she said coolly, but her mind was going a thousand miles an hour. Why her? Why not pull someone from the Hoover Building to go, someone on Baldwin’s direct staff? What did she have to offer this investigation? Especially if it had been bumped to this level, which felt awfully strange for a domestic case. Why would the State Department want to stick their oar into a lovers’ spat gone horribly wrong?
She kept her mouth shut, though. When she’d agreed to come on board Baldwin’s team, he’d been very clear that sometimes she’d be getting her hands dirty in all facets of his investigative life. It’s why he wanted her in particular, someone he could trust, someone who understood the way things worked, but was an outsider.
“Great,” Baldwin said. “I’ve already called in your DOB and social, just be sure you have your driver’s license on you. They’re on alert today, as you can imagine. I’ll call you when I land in Denver and you can brief me.”
“Sounds good. Talk to you then.”
She hung up, hugged her arms around her body. A kid on a skateboard zoomed past her, calling out to a friend behind him, the small transparent wheels clattering on the sidewalk, the answering shouts. Cars whizzed by, people walked the streets with smiles on their faces.
Carefree. Careless. Too young to realize how precarious life truly is, too involved in their own moment to imagine what could happen.
She went back inside. Fletcher had finished his sandwich, and her croissant, too.
“Sorry, I was starving,” he said. “I already ordered you a new one.”
“We better get it to go.”
A shadow crossed his face. “Gotta go to work?”
“Actually, we have to go to work. I just got called in on your murder. You better take me to that crime scene pronto.”
Chapter 8
Teterboro Airport
New Jersey
XANDER WHITFIELD SLOUCHED in the chair at the gate, shades firmly in place. While he looked like a sleeping tourist trying to catch an uncomfortable nap before his flight, he was on high alert.
He watched his partner, Chalk, move through the room near the principal, waiting for the nod telling him it was time to move. They had a loose box around their principal—a wealthy British industrialist named James Denon, who didn’t want it known he had a protection detail on him while he visited his interests in the States—and his people. Their job had been to blend into the crowd everywhere the team went.
So far, they’d done well. Not great—they’d had one small mishap when Chalk turned the wrong way for a moment and the principal had gotten too far ahead of them—but good. Xander wasn’t entirely thrilled with this lurking-from-afar crap, but sometimes the principal got to make the call. Once the doors to the plane closed, he and Chalk would be done and on their way, thousands of dollars richer and with a glowing recommendation to boot. Just what they needed to get their new company off the ground.
This part of the operation was the trickiest. Whipping out their weapons at an airport was a surefire way to get noticed. If a bogey were to make a move now, they would have to counter it with subtle, quick and meaningful brute force.
Xander was fine with that. It had been ages since he’d been in an honest-to-God fight. He wouldn’t mind sinking his fists into a bad guy’s face.
It wouldn’t happen today. The job had been simple, straightforward. James Denon was well-liked by his people, his company and his country. There had been no signs of trouble all week. The people who hated him were half a world away, and the trip had been on close hold, so they had no idea he was in the States.
They’d timed their arrival well. The wait was short; after only fifteen minutes, their principal’s flight was ready. This was the beauty of Teterboro, New Jersey’s private airport. The crowds were smaller, the people waiting for private flights and charters. The usual program—parking, security, long wait times at the gates—wasn’t at all the same.
Good for the principal, but more difficult for Xander to fit in. They’d been lucky today; there was a group of private high schoolers being ferried to Canada, and they were creating quite a bit of distraction. Enough for Xander to find a spot along the periphery and look like one of their chaperones, exhausted already by their energy.
Behind the mirrored lenses, he watched the small crowd. Their principal began making his way toward the doors. Xander gave Chalk the nod, stood, stretched. Moved toward the double glass doors to the tarmac, gave things a look-see. All clear. He spoke quietly into his hand mike. “We’re a go. Plane’s here.”
Chalk, standing four feet away, touched the principal on the shoulder, gestured unobtrusively toward the door. Xander kept watch while the principal and his people dutifully paraded out the door, across the tarmac and into the plane.
Five minutes later, it was done. The flight attendant had closed the door, and the plane pulled away, engines purring.
“A final all clear,” Xander said, and felt the tension of the past few days leak away.
Chalk strolled toward the exit, and Xander followed, cautious to watch their backs. No reason to get made just because the operation was over.
They met up in the parking lot. They had rented two cars. They’d take them back to JFK, drop them and the job would officially be over.
“That went well,” Chalk said.
“It did. And now he’ll tell all his friends. Let’s get to JFK. I want to go home.”
Chalk’s phone rang. He answered with his usual, “Hoo-rah.” A moment later his face turned white.
Xander instinctively put his hand on his weapon at his belt, a sweet little SIG Sauer he preferred for close-up work.
“What is it? What happened?”
Chalk didn’t answer, just made a helicopter with his finger and about-faced smartly, back toward the private terminal. Xander stepped next to him. A moment later, Chalk hung up.
“That was Denon. They’re turning the plane around, some sort of mechanical problem. Looks like you and I aren’t done just yet.”
They were at the entrance now, and there was a lot of activity inside. Xander saw four airport employees running toward the back doors. The private schoolers were gathered together at the southern end of the room, pushing toward the windows, staring, one of their chaperones waving her hands to get them to stay put.
Xander ignored everyone around him but Chalk, tuned them out, lasered his focus. “What’s the issue, did he say?”
“No. He’s justifiably concerned.”
“Think it’s directed at him?”
“I don’t know, but we better be ready for anything when that plane lands.”
“If it is, they knew we were on him. They waited until we left to make a move.”
“That’s pretty fucking sophisticated. I haven’t seen a tail, or anything to indicate we were being observed.”
Xander nodded. “Me, either. Could his itinerary have leaked? He’s a good target, we both know that. The threat assessment showed plenty of people who want him dead.”
“If so, someone inside his senior staff or the folks he met with did it. No one else knows he’s here.”
They jogged through the doors, went straight to the back and out onto the tarmac. With the hullabaloo, no one thought to stop them. So much for being inconspicuous, though.
“Sam is going to skin me alive if I don’t get home tonight.”
Chalk shot him a grin. “Cheer up, lover boy. If our principal goes splat, you can get right on the next plane south.”
“If our principal goes splat, we’re done for. You take the terminal, I’ll meet the plane. Cover my six.”
He would be totally exposed, but there was no help for it. Chalk disappeared into the shadows behind him, and Xander stood with the other employees, his arms crossed, staring toward the empty tarmac. He listened hard to the charter employees. Apparently, the engine lights had flashed red, and the pilot wasn’t about to try a transatlantic flight with possible trouble. It could be a simple mechanical issue.
Xander had a feeling that wasn’t the case. Just a small frisson of something, up the back of his neck. He scanned the area. Murmured, “All clear,” into his mike.
A few moments later, the Gulfstream came into view.
Xander stepped to the side, out of earshot, and phoned James Denon, who answered sounding rather panicky. “What’s happening? They won’t tell us what’s happening.”
“We’re here, sir, we’re waiting on you. There’s nothing apparent on the ground. Are you all right?”
“I am. What in bloody hell is going on?”
“They’re saying it was an engine problem. Chances are, that’s all this is. You just sit tight once they land. If they force you to disembark, make sure you come out last. I’ll be waiting for you at the foot of the stairs. We can follow the same protocol as before, staying out of sight, but right now, I think we should stick close.”
“I agree. Something feels off.”
“Roger that, sir. You hang tight inside as long as they’ll let you.”
Xander hung up and casually turned, scoping the building behind him. He still had his shades on, eyes roving right, then left. He couldn’t see Chalk, which was good. His adrenaline was surging, running hard through his body, so hard his hands were fighting the urge to shake. Breathe, Xander. Breathe.
The Gulfstream touched down, a small puff of white smoke rising from its tires. It headed toward the terminal, then suddenly altered course and began taxiing toward the southern hangar instead of the terminal. A radio crackled on the hip of the employee standing nearest him.
“This is Gulfstream 890. Got another warning light, we’re leaking oil. Gonna head directly into the hangar. We’ll disembark the passengers before we go in. Better find another plane, looks like we’re going to be out of commission for a while.”
There were sharp curses from the assembled crowd, but Xander ignored them.
The hangar.
A hundred yards away.
Xander had eyes on it, but he wasn’t close enough to scope it properly. He scanned the building rapidly, looking for anything out of place. There was something, near the roof, twenty degrees to the right. A shadow. As he watched, the shadow pulled back slightly, and there was a flash. A mirrored flash.
His adrenaline shot into overdrive, and he clicked on his comms unit.
“Chalk, buddy, we got a shooter on top of the hangar.”
“Roger. Can you take him?”
“I need to get closer, and higher. If I start heading his way, he’ll know I saw him. You’re gonna have to end around, let me get into position.”
“There’s a metal ladder behind me, runs up the side of the terminal building. The two buildings are about the same height. Should be the right angle.”
“This might draw some attention to our client.”
“Better attention than dead. I’ll cover Denon, you take the shooter. Out.”
Xander heard the whine of the engines. He was out of time. He broke with the employees and quick-walked to the edge of the terminal. Went up the ladder, wishing like hell he had his M4. He’d have a better chance of taking the guy out that way.
His mind was preternaturally calm, clear, crisply assessing everything. Wind speed, atmosphere, angle. The lack of a load in the SIG, the best place to take the shot. Up on the roof now, and of course there was very little to hide behind.
He’d lost eyes on his target, but he scooted to the north edge of the roof, and found him again. The assassin was low now, crouched against the concrete buttress. Relaxed, but ready, a M2010 ESR trained on the crowd below. Xander recognized a professional at work, and his heart sank.
Xander clicked his mike. “I’m in position. Son of a bitch has an M2010.”
Chalk whistled. “Can you take him out?”
Xander took off his sunglasses. Laid on his stomach, inched to the edge. The terminal’s high roof was a boon; he had a down angle on the shooter.
“Xander? Talk to me, buddy. What’s happening up there?”
“Shh. I’m concentrating.”
Chalk’s voice raised slightly. “Concentrate faster, the plane door’s opening.”
God, he would kill for a set of binoculars, or even a range finder. He made the distance between the two buildings, from the end of his muzzle to the shooter’s head, at just under a hundred yards.
Doable.
Xander shut his eyes, then opened and refocused. Modulated his breathing. Rolled onto his knees. Braced, got his grip perfect. Ignored Chalk in his ear saying, “Tick tock, buddy, time’s running out. They’re making them all disembark. I’ve counted three, that’s the staff. Denon’s going to be out next.”
He watched the shooter on the roof swivel his rifle down, finger in the trigger. It was time.
Xander braced his arms. Felt a wind gust, made a small adjustment. Swallowed, and squeezed.
The gun moved smoothly in his hands, and the shooter on the opposite roof collapsed, his rifle catapulting over the concrete buttress to the tarmac below.
“Threat eliminated.”
