Last Chance to Die

by Noah Boyd

  “And I’m only about fifteen minutes away,” she said.

  Vail said, “If we round up any of these people, aren’t you afraid it’ll point the Russians in Calculus’s direction? If they’re not already onto him.”

  “We do have an obligation to try to protect him as best we can, but we have a greater duty to protect this country. Actually, we have discussed our options for keeping this quiet as long as possible. Through legal and bureaucratic foot-dragging, we figure the whole thing could be kept quiet for about ten days. So if you do bring someone in, that ten-day clock will start ticking. After that, I’m afraid Calculus’s anonymity could become tenuous.”

  Kate said, “Ten days isn’t much time to get from A to Z. Especially since we’re not sure where A is or how many letters there are in the alphabet.”

  “No, it’s not. And to compound the problem, we don’t know if we’ll get any more information from Calculus. Steve, you have no idea how much I appreciate this. Between keeping everything secret and the idea of a bunch of traitors running around Washington, it was an impossible challenge. But now we have you. I’m sorry about handcuffing you with reporting daily, but this is a completely different situation from Los Angeles. If you have any problems, you’ve got my number.”

  “ ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here!’ ”

  The director smiled. “Dante, right?”

  “Rather than who wrote it, it’s more important to know where it was posted.”

  “Which is?”

  “It was the inscription at the gate to hell.”

  3

  After Kate had walked the director out, she came back upstairs. “Thank you for doing this. And for protecting my reputation with the director.”

  “Oh, how I wish your reputation actually needed protection.”

  “Me, too, Vail.”

  He stared at her for a few seconds and then went back to the window, again staring at the old embassy across the street.

  She said, “What exactly did the director show you downstairs that changed your mind?”

  “A large sum of money.”

  “Vail.”

  “Okay, he played ‘America the Beautiful.’ ” She scowled at him. “Metaphorically. He knew that if he got me out of that room, and away from all that management, my decision would be less knee-jerk. For being the big boss, he gets a pretty good read on people.”

  Kate studied Vail’s face for a few seconds, looking for deception. “I wish I could get a good read on you.”

  “That’s the other reason we have trouble getting along. You think I always have a secret agenda.”

  “Where would anyone get an idea like that?”

  “See, that’s why I think there’s hope for us. If our relationship didn’t have a healthy foundation, you would’ve taken a cheap shot right there.”

  Kate smiled and shook her head. “Where do you want to start?”

  “It’s been thirty-six hours since either of us slept. I’m going to get a few hours’ sleep. I suggest you do the same.”

  “I need to change, too. I’ll take the car back to my place. I’ll bring up your suitcase when I come back.”

  “I’m starving. Let’s see how we’re set for food first.”

  As he started for the kitchen, she said, “This time I need to be on the inside of the investigation, Steve.”

  “Okay, but just remember it comes with a lot of liability.”

  “Have I ever denied you when you wanted to commit a felony?”

  “I said you’re in, Deputy Assistant Director Bannon.”

  “Then explain your question about the classified documents Calculus gave up. What was that about? And don’t give me that ‘curious’ stuff. I’ve seen that look before.”

  “Well, isn’t this getting off to a familiar start?” Vail said, laughing for a moment. “Sometimes in the spy business, your opponents will run a game on you. They’ll salt the mines with borderline information to convince you that they’re on your side. It’s just something to be wary of. And if they’re good, they can wind up getting more information from you than you get from them.”

  She stared at him for a few seconds. “That sounds like a reasonable explanation, but it always does—and then suddenly I’m being shot at.”

  “There are worse things than being shot at.”

  “Like . . . ?”

  “Living a life where you’re never shot at.” He went into the kitchen and yelled out to her. “These are spies. They don’t shoot at people. But I’d be careful what I ate.” The refrigerator was stocked with food, including a carton of eggs. He took them out and checked the date. “These eggs are fresh. How about I make some breakfast?”

  “I assume that you have no desire to poison me.”

  “Sure, we’ll say that.”

  “Do you want me to do that?” she asked.

  “I’m just going to scramble some eggs. Why don’t you have a look through those files they left us.”

  Ten minutes later he walked out with two plates loaded with eggs and toast balanced on top. She looked at the plate he set in front of her. “Make enough?”

  “With you I never know when I’m going to get to eat again.” He picked up his fork. “Anything in the files?”

  She took a bite of toast and pulled a photograph from the back of the file. “Here’s that shot of Calculus’s message.”

  She watched him carefully as he laid it on the table next to his plate and studied it while he continued to eat.

  To Moscow unexpectedly. Find CDP now!

  Finally she said, “Do you think CDP is our ‘little fish’?”

  Vail continued to eat, staring at the message. “It has to be. He uses only three words to notify us of his possible impending death: ‘To Moscow unexpectedly.’ Someone that economical wouldn’t waste the last three words on something meaningless. He used exactly the same number of words to indicate that they’re as important as the first three.”

  “Why would he care whether we found the spies if he knew he was going to be taken back there and tortured, and probably worse?”

  Again Vail was lost in thought. She took a mouthful of eggs and watched him as he ate absentmindedly. Finally he said, “This is good. Very, very good.”

  “The eggs?”

  “Your question about him caring. It could be the key to unlocking this. He shouldn’t care. Yet he sent us the first mole’s initials. Why?”

  “Maybe he figured since he was being sent back to Moscow, he’d give us the first name hoping we’d send the money to the Chicago bank and it would get to his family or whoever.”

  “That’s a possibility. Here’s another one: What if he planned for this contingency? He knew that if the Russians get it out of him about the list and recover what he’s hidden for us, they’ll have all they need to convict him of treason and execute him. But if he can get us to whatever evidence he left for us, before the Russians can recover it, they won’t be able to prove a thing. Maybe he’s in Moscow right now enduring torture to give us whatever head start he can.”

  “It’s urgent, I get it. But first we have to find this CPD. How do we do that? Like Kalix said, there’s got to be a lot of people with those initials.”

  “Another good question. Unfortunately, one that is going to require a little sleep to answer. I hate to waste the time sleeping, but it’ll be a good investment.” Vail picked up his plate and asked her, “Are you done?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Can you be back here in four hours?”

  “Seeing how the alternative is to let you go wandering off with a new set of credentials and a gun, and then having to answer to the director, I guess I’ll have to.”

  Almost to the minute, four hours after leaving him, Kate pulled up in front of the old Bureau observation post. It was midafternoon, but the temperature was still near freezing. She took his suitcase out of the trunk and carried it upstairs. He was in the room where the meeting with the director had taken place. He had shaved an
d showered and was reading one of the files that had been provided.

  “It didn’t take you long to get back at it. Anything in there?” she asked.

  “There is one interesting thing. The cell phone they gave Calculus, it tracked him twenty-four hours a day. We have detailed coordinate charts telling us where he went and when.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Not yet, but I’m already getting the feeling I’m missing something.” He stood up and went over to a computer that was on. “Take a look at this. You’ve probably seen it before.”

  She peered over his shoulder. “Sure, that’s a spy satellite we have access to. How’d you know about it?”

  “I kept reading in the file about transverse tracking. When I turned on the computer, I saw the icon on the desktop.” She sat down in a chair next to him. “I looked through those cell-phone GPS logs. I think they’re important.”

  “Important how?”

  “Take a look at his message again.” He handed her the file. “How do the last three words differ from the first three?”

  To Moscow unexpectedly. Find CDP now!

  “The exclamation point?”

  “And . . . ?”

  She looked for a few seconds and then shook her head in frustration. “I don’t know, what?”

  “Look at my hand,” he said, holding it with the fingers spread as wide as possible. “Now look at the message again.”

  She did and then said, “It looks like there’s an extra space between the ‘CPD’ and the word ‘now.’ ” She thought about it a little longer. “I still don’t get it.”

  “I made some coffee. Would you mind getting me a cup?” His voice was more instructional than demanding.

  Her face shortened into a knot of confusion. “Oooo-kay.” She went into the kitchen and started pouring coffee into a mug. “Black?” she called out to him. Before he could answer, she yelled, “The last sentence contains a message within a message!” Forgetting the coffee, she hurried back into the room. “If he didn’t mean anything by it, the exclamation point would been after ‘To Moscow unexpectedly,’ to emphasize the danger he was in. But using it with ‘now’ and isolating it with an extra space indicates that there are two messages within those last three words: Find CDP and an instruction to do it now, at that exact moment.” She grinned, realizing that Vail had sent her to get coffee so she would stop staring at the forest and be able to isolate one of the trees.

  “And what are we in possession of that can quantify ‘now’?” he asked.

  This time Kate let her mind go blank before trying to figure out the answer. “The exact time he sent the message.”

  Vail said, “And since we have his exact longitude and latitude when he sent it, he might have been giving us a clue to who CDP is.”

  “But he would have to know that the phone we gave him was capable of tracking his movements.”

  “First of all, he’s an engineer, an engineer in the spy business—don’t you think he would assume that? Why would we give him just an ordinary satellite phone? Plus, the phone was turned on. He’d have to know we could track him then.” Vail handed her the file; it was opened to the GPS charts. He turned back to the computer and the satellite imaging. “The call was made on December twenty-ninth at 4:18 P.M. Give me the coordinates listed for that time.”

  As she read them, Vail maneuvered the mouse over a map of the United States until the digits in the small display windows were the same as those she had given him. He locked them in and then used the on-screen control to zoom down to the location, which could be seen with incredible detail, close enough to capture the address from an adjoining map on the screen. “It’s some sort of business. There are dozens of cars in that front parking lot alone.”

  “Here, let me,” Kate said.

  Vail got up, and Kate sat down at the computer. She went to a different search engine and typed in the address. A corporate profile popped up on the screen. “Alliant Industries in Calverton, Virginia.” She clicked on another icon and was shifted into Bureau indices and searched the name. “There it is, Alliant Industries. They’re in our files because we’ve done quite a few background investigations on their employees for security clearances. Evidently they have some defense contracts.”

  “Can you pull up the list of names that we’ve investigated?”

  “Hold on.” She typed some more, waited until the results came up on the screen, and then started scrolling through the alphabetical list. “Believe it or not, there are two with the first initial C and last initial P: Claudia Prinzon and Charles Pollock. Let me see if I can find middle initials.”

  She started to open the background report on the woman when Vail said, “Don’t bother. It’s Pollock.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Pollock is a North Atlantic food fish. Our little fish.”

  She shook her head and laughed. “This isn’t going to make the Counterintelligence Division very happy.”

  “Why not?”

  “How do you think they’re going to take it when I tell them that you found the first mole in less than four hours, not counting sleeping, showering, and shaving time? I know you’re not trying to make them look like idiots, but . . .”

  Vail laughed. “Maybe that’s why I keep getting fired.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Then let’s not tell them.”

  “You know that’s not possible. Now that we know who Pollock is, we’ll have to start twenty-four-hour surveillance and get up on his phones and computer ASAP. And eventually search warrants. Are you going to do all that by yourself?”

  “Okay, we’ll wait a couple of days before we tell anyone. That way it’ll look like it was a lot more difficult.”

  “Hi, I’m Kate Bannon. We met last year. Apparently you don’t remember me because you’re trying to run the same scam on me as you did then. You’re still trying to end-run everyone. And in case you’re counting, ‘everyone’ includes me.”

  “It doesn’t include you. Wherever this takes me, it takes us. It’s just that the more they get involved, the farther away the answer always seems to get. They’re like moths.”

  “Moths?”

  “They keep flying into the light simply because it’s the brightest thing in front of them, even though they’re slowly beating themselves—and any chance to solve this case—to death.”

  “Give it up, Vail. At some point even you are going to need Bureau help.”

  “As clever as Calculus has been with this, maybe he’s hidden evidence somewhere out there, and if we’re equally smart, we can find it without wasting all that time and manpower.”

  “You’re not worried about wasting Bureau resources. If anything, you like burning them. You’re just dreaming up excuses to cover up whatever you really have in mind.”

  “Come on, Kate, we’re ahead of schedule. Let’s poke around a little and see what we can find. It’s New Year’s Day. There are hangovers to nurse, there’s football to watch, resolutions to fake. Nobody wants to hear from us.”

  “Define ‘poke around,’ ” she said, with even more caution than usual.

  “It’s a holiday. We have a car, a credit card, and all of Calculus’s locations for the last two weeks he was here. Let’s take a ride and see if he left anything else to find.”

  She shook her head with mild self-contempt. “You make it sound so simple, so right, and even though I know it’s neither, I’m going to go along with it.”

  “Am I a good time or what?”

  “I’ll admit that it always seems like it’s going to be a good time, but it usually turns out to be ‘or what.’ ”

  4

  When they got to the car, Vail said, “You know your way around here a lot better than I do, so why don’t I drive?”

  While he drove, Kate made a list of everywhere Calculus had traveled on the day he sent his last message. “Okay, but you’ve got your work cut out for you. He drove over two hundred miles outside the D.C. area.”

&
nbsp; “In one day? That seems like a lot, but then maybe he wanted us to notice.”

  “Where do we start?”

  “How about at his clue, Alliant Industries in Calverton.”

  She found the address in her notes and entered it into the GPS unit on the dashboard. “Do you have any idea what we’re looking for?”

  “What we always look for, those wonderful little failed attempts to hide the truth—anomalies.”

  When he offered no further specifics, she said, “These anomalies, any idea what form they might take?”

  “Not a clue. I was just hoping that being philosophically vague would impress you into quiet contemplation.”

  “I’m a little surprised that you’re still trying to impress me.”

  Vail couldn’t tell whether the comment was meant to be sarcastic or whether she was offering some sort of truce. “Just because I can be an idiot, that doesn’t mean you’re not worth impressing. Who knows, maybe I could change.”

  “If you did, you’d probably bore me to death.”

  “Do you know why male moths fly so close to the flame of a candle?” he said mischievously, knowing she would object to any more moth references.

  “Oh, so you are trying to bore me to death.”

  “The flame gives off a vibrational frequency similar to the female moth’s pheromone. The male moth is powerfully attracted to it, even though it’s extremely dangerous.”

  “In other words, even setting yourselves on fire won’t deter you guys.”

  “I’m here, driving into who-knows-what, if that answers your question.”

  “You want me to tell you what I think? I think you’re bored right now and hoping you’ll drive into exactly ‘who-knows-what.’ ”

  For the next three hours, they traced the route the Russian engineer had taken through Virginia, stopping where he had, according to the Bureau charts. Each time, Kate would get out and take photos of everything in sight, making notes about the corresponding locations. Halfway back, they found a diner and he pulled in.

  Inside, they sat in a booth, and after the waitress had taken their orders, Kate asked, “Well, any anomalies?”