Eyes Only

by Fern Michaels

  Dennis looked around when he felt a soft touch on his shoulder. “Well said, kid,” Harry murmured loud enough for everyone to hear.

  “Let’s move on here,” Maggie said just as she bit into a pastrami sandwich loaded with so much spicy brown mustard, it oozed out of the sandwich. “Ted and I attacked the infrastructure, what we could find of it for Angus Spyder. The guy wasn’t hatched from an egg. Nor was he flown here on a UFO.”

  While Maggie chewed her way through her sandwich, Ted picked up where she left off. “With Abner’s help, we hit cyberland running. Using the word spy, we ran through millions of possibilities. But, with Abner’s skill, we managed to center on Russia, and that’s where we think Angus Spyder was hatched. We found a family named Spyovich that had a boy child named Feodor, who would be around Angus Spyder’s age. At some point, Feodor lit out on his own, but we found some pictures a relative posted on Russia’s version of Facebook, and I can believe that that guy is as physically ugly as everyone says he is, since the picture we found of him as a kid is even uglier. Obviously, he changed his name along the way. We are still tracking him. We found nothing on the wife, but Russian women are not named Felicia. Nor are Russian men named Angus. Those are Anglo names.”

  “That’s good work,” Jack said.

  “And we have the sleepless hours to prove it,” Maggie snapped. “One thing is for certain. The guy knows how to make a buck and how to hang on to it.”

  “There is also that little business Jellicoe bragged to Charles about starting up,” Ted said. “We have to factor that into this whole mess. Then, when Snowden got lax, Jellicoe just flew the coop and went on the run. We all know about Spyder’s Internet launch called Spy Trap. It’s the world’s largest Internet security firm. I can’t prove this, but a thug like Spyder strong-arms his way in the world. He’s his own Russian mob. There is no way that Angus Spyder, or Feodor Spyovich, could come up with something as sophisticated as Spy Trap.

  “Someone like Jellicoe would have to have been the brains behind that outfit. My personal opinion is that when Jellicoe took off, he went straight to Spyder Island and offered up Spy Trap to Angus Spyder for safety reasons. It was a trade-off, his life for the Internet security firm. Which, by the way, is worth billions upon billions. It’s the only thing that makes sense, if we all truly believe Jellicoe is living on Spyder Island.”

  “I’d stake my life on the premise that that’s where Jellicoe is,” Nikki announced, venom ringing in her voice.

  The others seconded her declaration.

  Greg Albright appeared in the doorway, a newspaper clipping in his hand. His eyes were moist; his voice shaky. “These are my children?”

  “Yes, they are, Mr. Wolansky,” Myra said gently. “Please sit down. Join us for lunch.”

  His eyes on the clipping, Albright managed to croak out the words, “I’m not hungry. Just like that, she gave them away, my flesh and blood. Her flesh and blood, and she just handed them over to . . . to strangers?”

  In a voice as gentle as Myra’s, Jack said, “Yes, it would seem so. At first. But the more we learn, the more convinced we are that she did it to protect the children, you, and herself. This is all still a work in progress. Even though you don’t believe us right now, we are trying to help you.”

  Albright looked around at the group seated at the huge dining-room table. “If Gretchen’s father is as evil and ruthless as you say he is, what do you”—he waved his arm about to indicate the lot of them—“think you can do? Look at you! A bunch of women, a couple of guys with good intentions. You plan on taking him out? Is that what you’re saying? If that’s your intention, I applaud your guts.”

  The women as one stood up and glared at Albright.

  “Did you just say, ‘A bunch of women’?” Nikki said in a voice that would have frozen milk.

  “Yeah, and a couple of guys who want to play cowboys and Indians. None of you are instilling any confidence in me. Plus, I don’t want to die. I’m too young to die.”

  Abner, silent until then, rose very slowly from his seat at the table and said, “Do you know who these women are, Mr. Wolansky? They are not just a bunch of women. They’re the bunch of women who virtually everyone in this country knew as the vigilantes. We, the guys with good intentions who want to play cowboys and Indians, are their backup.” Abner eyeballed the man in front of him and waited for the dawn to break in his eyes. When it did, he almost laughed out loud.

  “Holy shit! Gretchen and I used to talk about . . . you . . . I guess. She donated a huge sum of money for something or other that would help you all. I even remember her saying she wished she could hire you. Holy shit! Okayyy, I’m good with all this now. Why didn’t you say so in the beginning?”

  “You see, here’s the thing,” Yoko said sweetly. “We don’t like to brag.” Albright gulped as she flopped down on a chair and reached for a sandwich. “I doubt you have any input, but if you do, we’d like to hear it. Give us the skinny on Gretchen, anything you remember, no matter if it’s important or not. We need every scrap of information locked inside your head.”

  “Well, lady, here’s the thing,” Albright said, mimicking Yoko. “Gretchen did not talk about her family, other than to say how rich her father was. And she said that only because of her bodyguards and how she had to pay them to look the other way so we could see each other. There was only one time when I really pressed her to talk about her life growing up, her family, and what the future held for us. She got this faraway look in her eye, and she said that if I was going to persist in asking questions, then we would have to break it off. I didn’t want that, because I loved her, and I never asked anything again.

  “Gretchen wanted so badly to fit in with people, but she knew she didn’t. This might sound corny, but she always looked fearful to me. The only time she was ever . . . a free spirit, for want of a better term, was when she was dancing. She was a really good dancer.”

  “Didn’t she ever talk about her mother, the lack of siblings?” Kathryn asked.

  “She said her mother was beautiful, like a model. Said she went to Europe, to all the fashion shows, and then she laughed, telling me how her mother changed her clothes three times a day, complete with different jewelry, because she had so much. She also said no one ever saw her in all her designer duds except her father, Gretchen herself, and the servants.”

  “Did you get the feeling there was any kind of closeness, family solidarity, that kind of thing?” Kathryn asked.

  Albright rubbed at his temples as he struggled with his memories. Finally, he shook his head. “There was no love in that family, but I think, and this is just my own opinion, there was a lot of fear for both her mother and Gretchen herself.”

  “And yet Gretchen was allowed to leave the island and attend college in Florida. That does not make sense,” Annie said.

  “Yes, it does make sense. Gretchen had bodyguards around the clock, two shifts, two men each. Big guys, and they packed heat. They carried their guns in the back of their pants. I saw it myself. When I pointed it out to Gretchen, she said it was her father’s paranoia because he was so rich. He thought she might be kidnapped. Now, that’s a hoot, isn’t it? I’m the one who got kidnapped,” Albright said, bitterness ringing in his voice.

  “Even with all that, you two managed to carry on an affair right under their noses,” Isabelle said skeptically.

  “Because Gretchen cut a deal with one of the guards. She paid him a lot of money to look the other way. I don’t know about his partner. My guess would be he shared a part of his bribe with him. I do not know that for a fact. What I do know for a fact is I got to see Gretchen only when that one guy was on duty. Between times, we would each go to the library, log on to our computers, and e-mail each other back and forth for hours while we pretended to study. As far as I know, they, her guards, never caught on. Plus, they didn’t sit anywhere near either one of us, because they stood out like bumps on a log. We made it work the best we could.”

  “Did she
ever say what nationality she was? Or where all her father’s money came from?” Myra asked.

  “No, as to nationality, but I think, and this is just a guess on my part, she understood Russian. At least I think it was Russian. Actually, she spoke several languages, because I heard her from time to time cussing in a foreign language when the guards got the best of her. As to the money, I did ask, and she said her father had his fingers into everything. Actually, she didn’t refer to him as her father at all. She referred to him as SD. Finally, one day I asked her what the initials stood for, and she laughed till she cried. Sperm donor. She said all he had to do was touch something, and he made billions. She said she suspected most of it was illegal. I kind of laughed at that, but she was serious. She did say that he hit the jackpot, and those were her exact words, when he came out with his Spy Trap cyberthing.

  “That’s all I know. You can keep me here forever, and I won’t be able to tell you another thing. I’m not lying. I’m telling you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

  “All right then. I’m sure you’re tired from your trip across the pond. Jack, will you show Mr. Wolansky his room upstairs while we finish our preparations for our trip to Spyder Island the day after tomorrow?” Myra said.

  “Sure thing. Let’s go, Mr. Wolansky.”

  “I hate that name. Why can’t you call me Greg?”

  “Because that might put your life in danger, and we don’t want that to happen. You need to stop whining and get with the program. You’re playing with the big boys now. Shake it, Wolansky. I don’t have all day,” Jack urged his recalcitrant charge.

  Albright eyeballed Jack and offered up his middle finger. Jack laughed all the way to the second floor, where he showed the man his room.

  “Are you going to lock me in here?”

  “Why would I do a stupid thing like that? The minute this door opens, all six of those dogs downstairs will be on you like the fleas on their back. Nighty night, Mr. Wolansky.”

  Downstairs and back in the dining room, Jack just shrugged when the others looked at him with questions in their eyes. “He doesn’t know what to think or believe, but he wants to see Gretchen again, so he’ll do what we tell him to do. Right now, he’s thinking he’s been thrust into a pit full of alligators.”

  “What will be will be,” Annie said philosophically. “We have a lot to do before we leave for Spyder Island the day after tomorrow. For starters, we have made yet another change, but it all depends on whether Alexis will be able to get us airborne faster. How is it going, dear?” Annie asked.

  “We’re good, Annie. My last delivery is due this afternoon, and then the first group is good to go. It’s been a bit of a rush, but I think I have it all covered. You might all be going into a nest of vipers, but you’ll be carrying a ton of venom of your own.”

  “Ooh, I do like the way that sounds,” Myra cooed.

  Chapter 12

  The ancient branches of the three-hundred-year-old angel oak outside the Pinewood farmhouse swayed and danced in the predawn breeze. Clouds, dark to the eye, sailed lazily across the velvety night, soon to be erased by the upcoming dawn. Off in the distance, a dog barked, followed by another dog, each canine communicating in its own way to let the world know a new day was about to begin.

  Inside the farmhouse, in a darkened bedroom that was older than the angel oak at the side of the house, Myra Rutledge slept peacefully. With the sound of the barking dogs off in the distance, an early morning greeting, Lady and her pups stirred, causing Myra to stir. She opened one eye to squint at the red numerals on the bedside clock: 5:10. She groaned into the pillow. It was too early to get up. She still had an hour and a half of sleep due her. She rolled over just as her room started to grow light. Her head swiveled to the right to see if Lady had somehow turned on the lamp. Such a silly thought. Like that could really happen.

  An uneasy feeling started to crawl through her as she watched her bedroom grow lighter and lighter, until she was blinded with the brightest, the most magnificent light she’d ever seen in her life. She tried to shield her eyes from the brightness. In her entire life, she’d never seen such a light. In an instant, she knew that what she was seeing was not of this world. Panic engulfed her. Her tongue grew thick in her mouth, and she started to shake. “No, no, please. I’m not ready. I still have so much to do. Please,” she cried.

  “Oh, Mummy, no. That’s not why I’m here. It’s not your time,” her spirit daughter responded.

  “Barbara! Darling girl, is that you in the light? I can’t see you. Why are you here? You said you come to me only when I need you the most. Something’s wrong. What is it?” Myra cried, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “Annie needs you, Mummy. You have to get up and go to her.”

  Myra could barely get the words past her tongue. “Is it . . . is it Annie’s time? Oh, darling girl, please tell me that’s not why she needs me.” She was getting used to the magnificent light, which was brighter than Broadway and Las Vegas all rolled into one.

  “No, Mummy, it’s not Annie’s time, either. Go to her. Help her.”

  “I will! I will! Of course I will. Can’t you tell me why?” Myra swung her legs over the side of the bed and almost stepped on Lady, who was sleeping soundly now, unaware of the brilliant light and the conversation going on around her.

  “Hurry, Mummy.”

  And then her room was dark again, so dark she had to turn on the bedside lamp. Lady hopped up then, as did her pups. They waited patiently, even though they didn’t understand this early morning change in plans, which had Myra throwing on her clothes and slipping into her shoes. Lady trotted over to the bathroom to see if there would be showering, toothbrushing, or hair combing going on. When it didn’t happen, her tail swished as she led her offspring to the door, down the hall, and out to the kitchen door, which Myra unlocked.

  “Make it quick, guys! Like, really quick.”

  The dogs took her at her word and were back inside within eight minutes.

  Myra handed out chews, checked the water bowls, and poured out kibble. Then she rummaged around for her purse and car keys. “I’ll be back soon.”

  It was chilly out, and Myra was glad she’d pulled on a fleece sweatshirt, which she’d need to remove later in the day, because the weatherman last night had predicted that the daytime temperatures would be in the seventies, saying the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin would be in full bloom with the warm day. Like she gave a hoot right now about cherry blossoms.

  Myra drove faster than she’d ever driven in her life, out through the gates, down the gravel road. She knew she took the two doglegs at ninety miles an hour. She screeched to a stop in the parking area outside the back of the house, which led to Annie’s kitchen. Her eyes registered Annie’s low-slung sports car and a second car, which she didn’t recognize, but a decal on the plate made her think it was a rental car. Annie had a guest!

  As fast as her legs could carry her, Annie’s key in hand, Myra bounded up the steps that led to a small, closed-in breezeway, which in turn led to Annie’s kitchen. Breathless with all the effort she was expending, she muttered, “I am so out of shape and wayyy too old for all of this,” as she barreled up the steps to the second floor. She burst into Annie’s bedroom, her heart thundering in her chest, to see Annie in her Mother Hubbard nightgown sitting on the edge of the bed. “Annie!”

  Annie turned, her voice fuzzy, her eyes not quite focused, and mumbled, “Myra! What are you doing here? It isn’t even light out yet.” She reached up to settle the sparkling tiara a little more firmly on her head. “Stop looking at me like that, Myra. I always sleep with my tiara. Where else can I wear the stupid thing?”

  Myra took a deep breath, then another. Then they were both jabbering at once, neither of them understanding what the other was saying. A shrill whistle came from the doorway.

  “One at a time, ladies!” said Jack Sparrow, director of the FBI. “Better yet, I’m going to go downstairs and make us all some c
offee. Please join me as soon as you can.” He turned at the door and said, “I’m not much up on ladies’ fashions, but is that thing on your head a tiara?”

  Myra threw her hands in the air. “It is a tiara. Mr. Sparrow has a point. Now that I see you are okay, I’m going to go downstairs. Make it snappy, Annie. This is way too early in the morning for such shenanigans. You know, I have that same nightgown. Charles always hated it when I wore it. What is he doing here?” she hissed.

  “Fergus never liked mine, either,” Annie snapped as she marched off to the bathroom without answering Myra’s question.

  Myra stared at the closed bathroom door, trying to decide if she was nuts, if Annie was nuts, or if Jack Sparrow had dropped out of the clouds on his way to the funny farm.

  Down in Annie’s kitchen, Myra sat down. “Looks like you know your way around the kitchen,” Myra said, indicating the coffee canister in Sparrow’s hands.

  “I do, actually. I’m a fair cook, if I do say so myself. When I got here last night, Annie made coffee. I saw where she kept the canister. Mystery solved.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do without coffee. I’m addicted,” Myra mumbled.

  “Me, too,” Sparrow said, getting light cream out of the refrigerator and the sugar bowl from the cabinet. “You’ll have to help me out here. I’m not sure where the napkins are kept.”

  Myra started to laugh and couldn’t stop. “I’m sorry, Mr. Sparrow,” she gasped. “Annie uses paper towels. She says napkins are a waste of money. She’s frugal like that.” She went off into another peal of laughter, and before she knew it, Sparrow was doubled over.

  “What’s so damn funny?” Annie barked from the doorway.

  Myra reached for the paper towels, ripped one off for Sparrow and one for herself before she doubled over herself. “I was just telling Mr. Sparrow how thrifty you are and how you think napkins are a waste of money.”