Stone Cold

by David Baldacci

  “Absolutely, buddy, no worries.”

  “You can talk to me, you know, about anything.”

  Finn smiled. “I thought that was my line.”

  “I’m serious, Pop. I know sometimes it’s hard to talk to Mom about stuff. Sometimes you need another guy to kick stuff around.”

  Finn reached out and shook his son’s hand. “I appreciate that, Dave. More than you’ll ever know.” I wish I could tell you everything, son, but I can’t. I will never be able to. I’m sorry. He thought this even as his immensely strong fingers tightened around his son’s. He didn’t want to let go.

  “Have a good one, Pop.” David closed the door and followed Susie and Patrick inside.

  Finn slowly drove off, passing the cars of other parents, who, he was reasonably certain, would never knowingly trade their lives for his.

  He looked in the rearview mirror as David disappeared into the school building.

  If I fail, son, just remember me for the father I was, not the man I had to become.

  Down the hall from Finn’s mother’s room a man named Herb Daschle yawned and stretched as he sat in front of a bed where another man lay unconscious. Daschle had been here since midnight and his shift did not end for another four hours. He nodded to an attendant as she came in to check the patient. It was at that instant that the man in the bed started moaning and a few words rolled from his mouth. Daschle jumped up, grabbed the attendant by the arm and pushed her out the door, slamming it shut behind her. He bent down to the man’s face and listened intently. When he fell silent, Daschle whipped out a telephone and made a call, repeating exactly what he had said. Then he went to the door and called out. The attendant came back in, looking a little flustered. But this had happened before.

  “Sorry about that,” Daschle said politely as he resumed his seat.

  “You people are going to give me a heart attack,” the woman said under her breath. She didn’t dare say it out loud. No, she didn’t dare. Not with people like that.

  CHAPTER 55

  “I’M GRATEFUL that Gregori was so helpful,” Carter Gray said to the CIA director.

  The men were sitting in the study in the bunker. Gray was actually growing quite fond of his current billet. There was something to be said for living underground. The weather was never a problem, no traffic jams, and he rarely enjoyed anyone’s company as much as his own.

  The former Soviet ambassador to the U.S. during the final years of the Cold War, Gregori Tupikov, was no longer serving the Russian people; he was doing quite well serving himself. He was now a fat and happy capitalist and a recent export from his homeland. He had joined an investment group that had taken over the formerly state-controlled coal industry and then sold it to another group of fellow Russians. Gregori had been wise enough to flee the country before the government hammer came down on the country’s newly minted rich. He lived most of the year in Switzerland but owned apartments in Paris and New York, his millions carefully managed by Goldman Sachs.

  Gray finished reading over the file report obtained from the meeting with Tupikov. “So Lesya and Rayfield Solomon were married in Volgograd; then the newlyweds managed to get out of the Soviet Union.”

  The director nodded. “According to what Gregori remembered and found out from old colleagues, they apparently made their way first to Poland, then to France and from there to Greenland. Was Lesya Jewish, by the way?”

  “I don’t know. Solomon was, although he wasn’t a practicing Jew. The spy business oftentimes put a cramp in one’s religious obligations.”

  “I make it to the Presbyterian church every Sunday,” the director said.

  “Congratulations. If Gregori knew that much back then, why didn’t he do something about it?” Gray answered his own question. “He assumed she was still working for the Soviets.”

  “Well, wasn’t she?” the director said in a puzzled tone.

  “Of course,” Gray said casually. “And after Greenland?”

  “Unfortunately, there the trail turns cold. And it might well remain cold. It was a long time ago, after all.”

  “It can’t remain cold,” Gray snapped.

  “Where exactly was Solomon found dead? That part of the file is missing too.”

  Gray looked up from the documents he was studying, pretending to recall the details. They were actually seared into his mind. “Brazil. Sa˜o Paulo.”

  “What was he doing in Sa˜o Paulo?”

  “Not sure. He wasn’t working for us then, of course. Lesya had turned him.”

  “And he died there?”

  Gray nodded. “We were alerted by our contacts in South America. We did an investigation. But it was clear he’d killed himself.”

  The director looked at Gray and Gray looked at the director.

  “Of course,” the director said. “And Lesya was left on her own?”

  “Looks that way. Anything else?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Gray glanced up to see the director smiling smugly. He recalled that as a young case agent the current CIA director had possessed the worst poker face of any man he’d ever trained, and also a vastly annoying air of superiority, most of it undeserved. Gray believed he had shamed these weaknesses out of the man. Yet as head of the CIA it was clear his insufferable qualities had risen once more.

  “Tell me.”

  “Gregori must’ve been in a good mood. As you suggested when our man met him in Paris, he fed him lobsters by the ton.”

  “And Moskovskaya vodka? That’s his favorite.”

  “By the gallon. And we scrounged up a redhead or two.”

  “And?”

  “And he said that he recalled a rumor that Lesya had to get married.”

  “Had to get married?” Gray said, looking puzzled.

  The director made a motion with his hand in front of his stomach.

  “She was pregnant?” Gray said immediately.

  “That’s evidently what Gregori believes.”

  Gray sat back. It’s the son out there murdering people. “So based on the rough timeline we’re working with, the child would be in his or her mid-thirties today?”

  The director nodded. “But I highly doubt that the kid’s last name is Solomon.”

  “But if Lesya and Solomon married in Russia while she was pregnant, and showing, where was the child born? If they left Russia immediately after the wedding the birth could have been in Poland, France, Greenland, or of course Canada.”

  “Canada? The last known stop of theirs was in Greenland. Where does Canada come in?”

  Gray studied the man who headed up the nation’s premier intelligence agency. He had started out at the CIA, then gone into politics, and there he had stayed until a president of dubious judgment had tossed his friend a political bone and made him CIA director. God help this country.

  “Why does one go westward to Greenland except on the way to Canada? Even back then there were numerous direct flights to the U.S. And it was a favorite stopping place for spies. When I was in the field I often stopped in Greenland before coming home. You could always spot someone following you in Greenland. Humanity damn well stuck out in the frozen tundra!”

  “Okay, but maybe they came to this country to have the child? That would make him a U.S. citizen. It’d be easier.”

  “I don’t think so, not for the birth. And less complicated for her to sneak into Canada and have the baby there than in the U.S. The records could always be falsified later.”

  “Even with all that, it doesn’t leave us much to go on.”

  “I disagree. From Greenland to Canada the ports of entry are limited, and were even more so back then. Montreal? Toronto? Ottawa? Perhaps Nova Scotia and Newfoundland? We can start there.”

  “Start there doing what exactly?”

  “We’ll limit it to a single twelve-month period.” Gray named the year. “And we will search the records of births in those places. Just boys for now.”

  “Why not girls too?”

  “Ju
st boys for now,” Gray repeated.

  “That’s still an enormous search. And we have that disaster readiness drill on Capitol Hill coming up that DHS demanded and left us to do the lion’s share of the work. It’s requiring an inordinate amount of our time.”

  “The birth records should be computerized now. That should simplify things greatly.”

  “Yes, but still. The resources required to—”

  Gray leaned forward and silenced the man with one of his most intimidating stares. “The consequences of not doing so are potentially catastrophic to this country.”

  CHAPTER 56

  ANNABELLE WAITED OUTSIDE until her father returned from the nearby grocery store with Caleb. Without a word of explanation she told Paddy to follow her back to her hotel in his truck. When they got there she led her father up to her room.

  Annabelle’s mind was racing. She’d been counting on Stone to help her. And now the man had simply abandoned her, literally closing the door in her face. She should never have trusted him. She should’ve learned by now that you could only count on yourself.

  “Annie?” Paddy finally said. “Talk to me, girl, what the hell’s going on?”

  She looked over at her father as though she’d forgotten he was even there. “What’s going on is we just got screwed. The help I thought we were going to get with Bagger isn’t coming.”

  “No cavalry?”

  “No cavalry.”

  “The guy named Oliver. Reuben told me a bit about him. Is he the guy who was going to help us do it?”

  “Yes, but he’s not going to anymore. He apparently has more pressing business.”

  He slapped the arm of his chair. “Now what?”

  “Now we run. Bagger will have the airports and train station watched, but he doesn’t have enough manpower to cover the roads. We’ll need to dump your truck. Then we’ll be on our way.”

  “On our way where?”

  “Does it matter? So long as it’s not here?”

  “And we just let Jerry walk away?”

  “Better than him carrying us away, don’t you think? We live to fight another day.” As soon as she said the words she glanced at her father. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”

  “I don’t have another day. I either do it now, or I don’t do it at all.”

  “I told you, we don’t have the cavalry.”

  “Then I’ll think of something else.”

  “You can’t take on Jerry by yourself.”

  “I’ve got you, don’t I?”

  She looked out the window, shaking her head. “Do you know how long it took me to plan my hit on Jerry?”

  “Probably longer than I’ve got left. But I’m not walking away from this. I can’t walk away from this.”

  “Yesterday you weren’t doing anything to go after Jerry. What’s changed?”

  He rose and gripped her arm. “What’s changed is you. Now you know I was in jail when your mum got killed. I’m still a son of a bitch, but not as big of a one as you thought.”

  “What are you saying, that you’re doing this for me?”

  “No, I mean, not just you. I’m doing it for Tammy, because she didn’t deserve to die like that. And I’m doing it for me, because Bagger took the only person I ever really loved from me.”

  Annabelle pulled her arm free and looked away.

  “I didn’t mean it that way, Annabelle.”

  She pointed to the scar on her face. “Let’s just say I never had any delusions that you actually loved me.”

  Paddy reached his hand out to touch her face but she jerked back.

  “I had no right to do that,” he said. “But I was teaching you a lesson I never wanted you to forget. You blew that claim at the casino. Sure, you were young, and the young make mistakes. But I’ll wager you never made that mistake again, did you?”

  “No.”

  “I never gave a shit about any of the crews I worked with. Hell, I never bothered giving any of ’em a scar. If they made a mistake I let ’em know it, sure. But I didn’t give a damn if they screwed up down the road with somebody else and got their knees broken for the trouble.”

  “So, my scar was what, tough love?”

  “Your mum never wanted you to get into the con. But we were shorthanded that summer and it was my idea to use you. You caught on fast, faster than I did at your age. Ten years later you were better than I ever was. Moved on to the long cons while I was still doing my three-card monte on street corners. For chump change.”

  “That was your choice.”

  “No, not really. Plain fact was I wasn’t good enough to do the long. They say you’re either born to it or not. I wasn’t.”

  “Okay, where does that leave things? You can’t do the long and the long is what it’ll take to get to Jerry.”

  “I can’t do it without you, Annabelle. But if you won’t help me, I’m going to try anyway.”

  “If you do, he’ll kill you.”

  “I’m dead anyway. And I doubt even Jerry could come up with a more painful way to die than what I’ve got ahead of me.”

  “You are really complicating my life.”

  “Will you help me?”

  Annabelle didn’t answer him.

  “Look, can’t you talk to your friend again? Maybe he’ll reconsider.”

  Annabelle was about to say no, but hesitated. What she was thinking was she might go back to Stone’s cottage. If he was there she could make another pitch for help. But if he wasn’t there, which she suspected was the case, Annabelle would just take all of the “files” that Stone had compiled on her and her problems with Jerry. She didn’t want any of that just lying around for someone, cops or bad guys, to find.

  “I’ll give it another shot.”

  As she walked down to her car she realized she couldn’t just leave her father to deal with Jerry alone. Which meant they would both end up dying.

  Some choice.

  CHAPTER 57

  AFTER ANNABELLE AND PADDY HAD LEFT, Stone put Caleb in a taxi with some old clothes of his and gave the driver the address of a hotel nearby.

  “Oliver, why can’t I stay here?” Caleb said, obviously frightened.

  “That would not be smart. I’ll call you later.”

  It was only when the cab had driven away and he was finally alone that Stone started thinking about what he’d done to Annabelle.

  “I abandoned her,” he said. “After I promised to help. After I told her to stay.” Yet what could he do? And anyway, she’d probably be on a flight within a few hours, on her way to that South Pacific island. She’d be safe there.

  But what if she didn’t run? What if she stubbornly decided to go after Bagger anyway? With no support? She’d said she needed the cavalry. Could he still deliver that to her?

  The next instant the phone rang. It was Reuben. He said, “Nothing from my contacts at DIA, Oliver. They didn’t know about the cemetery thing. But Milton did find something on the Net. Here, I’ll put him on.”

  Milton’s voice came over the phone. “It wasn’t much, Oliver, but there was breaking news about a grave being dug up at Arlington. No one from the government would comment.”