Labyrinth

by Catherine Coulter

  They watched the man and woman carry out two boxes each and lift them into a large white van, the Bexholt logo on the side.

  Savich whispered, “Let’s get these two out of the way, then we’ll deal with the others inside.”

  Cricket squeaked when she felt Sherlock’s gun pointed at her temple. Sherlock whispered in her ear. “Don’t move. Do as I say and you won’t get hurt.”

  “Wh-who are you?”

  “I’m FBI. Who are you?”

  Cricket shook her head. “I could tell you, but I know I shouldn’t.”

  “I guess that makes sense from your point of view, but not much,” Sherlock said. “Walk with me and don’t make another sound or I will have to hurt you.” She looked over to see Ruth perp-walking the man toward the back of the house. They flex-cuffed their wrists and set them down behind a maple tree. Savich said to them, “Tell me now, what are your names?”

  Craig gave Cricket a look, then, “I’m Dr. Craig Cook. She’s Cricket Washburn.”

  “You both work at Bexholt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does anyone have a gun inside?”

  Cricket whispered, “Claire Farriger does, she always has a gun. Are you arresting us? Craig and I haven’t done anything, well, hardly anything.”

  Ruth said, “Yes, you’re under arrest.” And she read them their rights. “Now, if you try to warn them, like yelling, you’ll be charged additionally with obstruction and have gags stuffed in your mouths.”

  Craig said, “No, please, we won’t say anything.”

  She stood over them a moment, shaking her head. “I guess it’s because you two are so young it pains me to see what bad decisions you’ve made. We’re all going to stay right here until more of our people arrive. Very soon now.”

  Sherlock crept back to look through the window again. Nikki Bexholt and Claire Farriger weren’t working any longer, they were arguing.

  Jasmine Palumbo suddenly shouted, “Look, on the security camera! They’re here!”

  “No choice, we’re going in.” Savich was fast. He backed up and sent his foot into the front door. It was unlocked and the door flew inward. They rushed through the entrance hall, their Glocks at the ready. “FBI! None of you move! Farriger, drop your gun. Now. Bexholt, Palumbo, down on the floor, hands behind your heads.”

  Farriger grabbed Jasmine, hauled her up against her, one arm tight around her neck, her other hand holding her weapon pointed at Jasmine’s cheek. Farriger’s face was set, her expression hard, her eyes filled with determination. “Not you two again. How?”

  Sherlock said, her voice infinitely calm, “You don’t want to die, Ms. Farriger. Put down your weapon and release Ms. Palumbo. There doesn’t have to be any violence. You have no backup. Lance Armstrong is now in custody. Cook and Washburn are bound outside. Oh yes, Justice told Alan Besserman everything you did to him. He’s safe as well. To round it all off, Agent Lucy McKnight is fine. It really is all over, Ms. Farriger. Let Palumbo go.”

  Farriger tightened her grip around Jasmine’s neck. “It will be proved Cummings is a liar. Now, Jasmine and I are leaving together. Any move on your part, and she’s dead. I know you’re well trained, but so am I. I will kill her. Do you understand me?”

  Savich said, “Even if you manage to get away, there is no place for you to hide. Your best move is to try to make a deal with the federal prosecutors. You haven’t killed anyone, have you?”

  Nikki said, “All of us believe she killed Ellie or had her killed by that lover of hers, Lance Armstrong.”

  “Shut up, Nikki! Now, I know you’re never supposed to give up your weapons, but if you don’t, I will shoot Jasmine dead right now, in front of you. Glocks on the ground. Get down on your bellies, hands on your heads. Do it, now!”

  Savich and Sherlock knelt down, placed their Glocks on the hardwood floor, then went down on their bellies, hands laced behind their heads.

  Jasmine was white as a sheet. She knew Farriger would shoot her as soon as she got her into her car, maybe sooner. She had nothing to lose. She kicked down with her boot, got Farriger hard in the shin, grabbed her arm with both hands, and jerked with all her strength. Farriger shouted, “Stop it or I’ll shoot you right now!”

  But Jasmine wasn’t about to stop.

  Time slowed. Savich went for his Glock as he saw Farriger’s finger tighten on the trigger, saw Jasmine trying to free herself, panting, her face turning red as Farriger’s arm tightened around her neck. He wouldn’t be in time. Then, to his surprise, Nikki Bexholt whirled about, grabbed a laptop from a table, and brought it down as hard as she could on Farriger’s head. Jasmine jerked away from her just as the gun fired. Jasmine went down. And so did Farriger.

  Savich moved to Farriger, peeled one of her eyelids back. She twisted, tried to grab her gun from the floor, but Nikki was faster. She bashed her on the head again with the laptop.

  Jasmine Palumbo moaned, slapped her hand to the side of her head. Nikki was at her side in an instant. “Jasmine! Oh no, Jasmine!”

  “No, Nikki, keep back.” Sherlock pulled Jasmine’s hand away, studied the wound. “You were lucky, Ms. Palumbo, it’s only a flesh wound.” She stilled, then turned to blink up at Savich.

  74

  * * *

  GEORGETOWN

  SAVICH HOUSE

  VERY EARLY SATURDAY MORNING

  Savich locked the front door, set the alarm. He turned to see Sherlock yawn, then she gave him a huge grin. She’d been mostly silent on the way home, as if deep in thought. She hadn’t said anything when he’d stopped briefly at the National Mall and they’d watched the sun rise.

  He touched his fingers to her chin. “You’ve been so quiet. And your eyes—I can see it now, you’re starting to remember, aren’t you?”

  Sherlock raised her face. “Yes, but not everything. The most important thing is I remember me, who I am—I remember both of us holding Sean. I’d hoped it would all come back by the time we got home, and I was worrying it like Astro with a bone, but no, not yet. But, Dillon, you’re not a stranger anymore, you’re you. And I miss Sean.”

  He gathered her in, held her close. He felt such relief, felt so grateful, he swallowed, said against her cheek, “You remember all about me? Us?”

  “Yes, you’re front and center.”

  “How? Did something happen to trigger your memory?”

  “It was something so simple, so small, that set it off. When I looked at Jasmine Palumbo’s head to see how badly she was hurt, I told her it was only a flesh wound. In that instant, I saw Porter Forge. You remember Porter.”

  “Oh yes, I remember Porter.”

  “During a training exercise in Hogan’s Alley at Quantico, he was assigned to be one of the bank robbers and it ended up he tried to escape and I had to shoot him. When it was all over, I looked down at his face and head covered with too much fake blood and I told him it was only a flesh wound. I saw everyone laughing. It happened at the academy, over six years ago, Dillon. Can you imagine? The image from so long ago, and what I said, and suddenly there you were, with me. And Ruth.”

  She shook her head, laughed, threw herself against him, and held on tight. “I looked over at you then and the world began to right itself. This was my life again.”

  She leaned back, still holding on. “There are these strange gaps in time, but I know, deep down, the blanks will fill in.”

  “Yes,” Savich said. “Yes.”

  She touched her fingers to his face. “It was scary, Dillon, really scary, but now, being here with you again, it’s so very fine.”

  He pressed his forehead to hers. “I fully intend to email Porter Forge and thank him, maybe ask when his birthday is, send him a present.”

  They stood in the entry hall holding each other. She whispered against his neck, “I want to bring Sean home, watch him eat his Cheerios with a sliced banana on top. Now, about his wanting a three-speed bike for his birthday next week—”

  EPILOGUE

  * * *


  HOOVER BUILDING

  MONDAY, TWO DAYS LATER

  Executive Assistant Director James Maitland began reading the report Goldy, his gatekeeper assistant, handed him. Goldy had read the report first and now she listened to her boss’s usual grunting, a couple of greats occasionally interrupting his humming silence.

  Maitland read:

  Lance Armstrong, former field operative and Claire Farriger’s lover and longtime assistant and collaborator, is in custody, charged with assault and detention of Special Agent Lucy McKnight. It’s unclear whether he can be indicted for the murder of Eleanor Corbitt unless compelling evidence can be found. The CIA is scrambling, as you can imagine, and Director Lindsey is demanding a full investigation into any and all of Farriger’s activities that might have exposed or compromised CIA operations in her theater of activity. He is not a happy man, an understatement. Lindsey has temporarily assigned Alan Besserman, Justice Cummings’s boss, to Claire Farriger’s position at the CIA. Perhaps we can benefit from cooperation from him in the future if he remains in this position. Farriger was released from the hospital this morning and taken into federal custody.

  Maitland made a mental note to follow up on Armstrong. There had to be a case against him in Eleanor Corbitt’s murder he could convince the district attorney to make. He continued reading:

  Nikki Bexholt and her cohorts, Jasmine Palumbo, June (aka Cricket) Washburn, and Dr. Craig Cook, creator of the “smart wall”—all Bexholt employees recruited by Ms. Bexholt—are in custody. Garrick Bexholt and the Bexholt Group have so far been spared the collapse of the company stock that very possibly will follow public disclosure. Mrs. Bexholt is the only one in the family championing Nikki Bexholt, her daughter.

  Exactly how Claire Farriger and Nikki Bexholt came to work together remains unclear, as both refuse to answer any questions and deny all charges. We do know they met in their official capacities on several occasions (a project the Bexholt Group did for the CIA) and were also identified as taking the same weekly aikido classes at the Maru Dojo in Dupont Circle. It appears Farriger’s role was to make use of her European and Russian contacts to sell the smart wall. Needless to say, the meeting room for the upcoming negotiations between the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank has been double-checked to ensure nothing remains of Dr. Cook’s smart wall. One of Farriger’s contacts was probably the source of the chatter Justice Cummings came across a little over two weeks ago.

  We are only beginning to examine the listening device itself. It appears to be a material they were installing in place of conventional acoustic tiles. In essence, the material absorbs and transduces sound waves into a faint electromagnetic signal that can be amplified and analyzed using their own algorithms to bring out the signal in the electronic noise. In other words, it is an undetectable microphone that allows for old-fashioned eavesdropping. What’s new about it is that you would never know you were being bugged. The negotiations between the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank were to be the test run of their smart wall, believable proof it worked as every word spoken would be recorded.

  Knowing the outcome of those banking negotiations before their public release would have allowed Bexholt and Farriger to make a killing in the financial markets, betting with that inside knowledge on anything from interest rates to oil and commodity futures to individual government bonds. And it seems that was only one relatively small part of their plan. Once they had proof the smart wall worked, they would have sold or auctioned the technology itself to the highest bidders, to any oligarch or foreign government willing to pay for it. Bugging safe rooms at embassies, top-secret government and international meetings, financial industry and corporate boardrooms—there seems to be no end to the clients who might have paid them a fortune for their smart wall. We are very fortunate we have prevented any adversarial foreign intelligence service from purchasing it without our even knowing of its existence.

  Justice Cummings, the CIA analyst whose work led to our discovering this labyrinthine plot, has told us he’s decided to leave the CIA and enter the private workforce. I imagine his wife will be pleased, as I’m sure he can name his own salary. He is a very lucky man and he knows it.

  Turning to developments in Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith’s case in Gaffer’s Ridge, Virginia, the three living kidnapped girls, Heather Forrester, Latisha Morris, and Linzie Drumm, have been reunited with their families. Their memories are hazy from all the drugs, but fortunately they are physically unharmed. Amy Traynor, the teenager kidnapped from Radford, was evidently killed when she tried to escape.

  Rafer Bodine is in custody. He has confessed to murdering his sister when he was eleven years old, but his more easily provable crimes are the kidnappings of the four girls and the assault and kidnapping of Dr. Carson DeSilva. He denies killing Amy Traynor, but refuses to name either his father or his mother as the killer. He denies knowledge of where she is buried. The State of Virginia and the federal courts will determine his future.

  Jessalyn Bodine, his aunt, buried his sister Camilla, according to Rafer. He claims not to remember where Camilla is buried and Jessalyn Bodine denies all knowledge. Unless a body is found, there is no evidence to charge her.

  Booker Bodine remains sheriff of Gaffer’s Ridge. Someone removed evidence at Rafer Bodine’s house, but we have no proof of his involvement. Agent Hammersmith is satisfied with the outcome. Let me add he and Dr. DeSilva were able to spend time with Dr. Alek Kuchar, the Nobel Prize laureate she had come to interview. I believe Agent Hammersmith will be in New York City for the rest of his vacation time.

  There will be further developments, there always are. I will keep you apprised as they come to me.

  Special Agent Dillon Savich, CAU

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  * * *

  CATHERINE COULTER is the #1 New york Times bestselling author of eighty-five novels, including the FBI Thiller series and the Brit in the FBI international thiller series, cowritten with J. T. Ellison. Coulter lives in Sausalito, California, with her Übermensch husband and their two noble cats, Peytonand Eli. You can reach her at ReadMoi@gmail.com or visit Facebook.com/CatherineCoulterBooks. Follow her on Instagram @catherinecoulterauthor.

  FOR MORE ON THIS AUTHOR:

  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com.au/Catherine-Coulter

  SimonandSchuster.com.au

  THE FBI THRILLERS

  Paradox (2018)

  Enigma (2017)

  Insidious (2016)

  Nemesis (2015)

  Power Play (2014)

  Bombshell (2013)

  Backfire (2012)

  Split Second (2011)

  Twice Dead (2011): Riptide and Hemlock Bay

  Whiplash (2010)

  KnockOut (2009)

  TailSpin (2008)

  Double Jeopardy (2008): The Target and The Edge

  Double Take (2007)

  The Beginning (2005): The Cove and The Maze

  Point Blank (2005)

  Blowout (2004)

  Blindside (2003)

  Eleventh Hour (2002)

  Hemlock Bay (2001)

  Riptide (2000)

  The Edge (1999)

  The Target (1998)

  The Maze (1997)

  The Cove (1996)

  A BRIT IN THE FBI THRILLERS (WITH J.T. ELLISON)

  The Last Second (2019)

  The Sixth Day (2018)

  The Devil’s Triangle (2017)

  The End Game (2015)

  The Lost Key (2014)

  The Final Cut (2013)

  LABYRINTH

  First published in Australia in 2019 by

  Simon & Schuster (Australia) Pty Limited

  Suite 19A, Level 1, Building C, 450 Miller Street, Cammeray, NSW 2062

  First published in USA in 2018 by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  A CBS Company

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  Visit our website at www.simonandschuster.com.au

  © Cat
herine Coulter 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia

  Cover design: Luke Causby/Blue Cork

  Cover image: danmir12/Adobe Stock