Limbo Man

by Blair Bancroft

  With an agitated stop gesture, Seryozha waved her to silence. “You flatter me, Valentina. A beating I could take, but who knows what drugs were used? Odds are, I held out, knowing I had to keep the deal going until the bomb surfaced, but . . .” He shrugged.

  As much as she disliked what could only be called Sergei’s sting operation, Vee was beginning to understand his reasoning. Drawing out the nuke was worth playing with fire.

  “I’m not even sure why I was beaten,” Seryozha added. “I can only guess that Leonov was making a move to take over. A stupid move because I, and only I, held the keys to the deal—the isotope and the bomb tech. Leonov miscalculated. Or maybe not. Maybe I told him what he needed to know.”

  “So Leonov could know about Robey?” Vee asked.

  “Robey was my personal deep, dark secret, but who knows?” Seryozha shrugged. “Perhaps I told them, or perhaps Leonov had me followed on that last trip to Florida. I must presume ‘worst case,’ yes?”

  “Great,” Cade groaned. “The fate of the world lies on shoulders supporting an empty head.”

  “Tais-toi!” Vee hissed.

  Seryozha shook his head. “Ah, the delightful patter of partners. I speak French also, me,” he said. “Cajun and Parisian.”

  “You can shut up too,” Vee snapped. “Your mea culpas are getting on my nerves. So you’re saying we might have company when we visit the professor?”

  “Is possible.” Sergei’s left cheekbone twitched.

  “Or Robey’s off to the Islands, enjoying his money,” Cade suggested.

  “Or dead, Seryozha countered. “I always kept my agreements, but Leonov’s men have no honor.”

  “Honor!” Cade choked out. “You’ve got to be kidding.” Again, Vee snapped at him to shut up.

  Silence insinuated its way through the crackling tension. Seryozha reached for the bottle of Glenlivet, adding another inch to his glass. “It is odd you should question that word,” he said softly, “as it is all about honor. It is the engine that has driven me to be what I am. To be a not-so-fake arms dealer, to put myself in a position where my head tells me one thing, my heart tells me another, and my whole body cries out to distinguish right from wrong. Believe me, even a bad man may have honor.”

  Cade snorted. Vee kicked his shin. Seryozha sipped the scotch, his eyes fixed on the ice cubes as if they were crystal balls that could reveal the future. “I skate close to the edge. There is no other way to the bombs.” He raised his head, looking straight at Cade. “It is too bad you think I am sleeping with your woman, but what you think of me does not matter. My personal honor says I must find the bombs—all of them—and that I will do. With or without your help.”

  Vee cringed. She’d made a terrible mistake. She should have asked Everett for anyone but Cade.

  Cade looked at Vee, amber eyes wide, his sleek brows almost up to his hairline. “Is this guy for real?”

  “The question,” Vee told him, “is ‘What’s real?’ I’m still working on it. Instinct says yes. Stick with him, and we have the best chance of preventing the bomb from going boom.”

  Cade groaned. “Well, hell . . .”

  “I’m sure half of Homeland Security is working on this,” Vee added, “but right here, right now, Seryozha’s our best bet. He may not know where all the bones are buried, but he’s tracking fast, and with a little luck, we may beat the Big Bang to the finish line.”

  “Unfortunate choice of words,” Seryozha commented.

  “What? Oh . . . finish line,” Vee echoed. She sagged deeper onto the bed. She hadn’t felt the weight of responsibility so heavy on her shoulders even when the subway rumbled away from the gun battle on Thirty-fourth Street. She was no longer alone with a wounded warrior who didn’t know his own name, but time was growing short, and the men closest to the problem were quarreling like spoiled children. The solution to this mess was to get to the finish line first, and if in the process it was their personal finish, then so be it. She too had honor. She hadn’t joined the FBI because she thought it was the guaranteed road to a long and safe life.

  “So when and where do we tackle Robey?” Vee asked.

  Seryozha reached for the bottle of scotch, topped up all three glasses, and turned into Sergei. “Is big secret,” he confided to Cade in Tokarev’s heavy accent, “but I like better than vodka.”

  “I realize your memory’s dicey,” Vee drawled, heavy on the sarcasm, “but I believe I asked you a question.

  “Ah, da.” At a deliberate snail’s pace, Sergei added ice to their drinks, cube by cube. Plop . . . plop . . . plop. Vee considered a swift box on the ear. Why put on his maddening act now? Was he taunting Cade? Demonstrating who was boss? Vee could almost hear a faint echo of a playground Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah as Sergei drew out the moment.

  He sat back, idly tapping his fingers on the rim of his glass. “Before we go, is better, I think, you understand the good Professor Robey.”

  Vee’s knuckles whitened around her drink. “What’s the point of bringing back the accent? Tokarev’s the bad guy, or have you forgotten?”

  “Ssh!” With mock drama Sergei raised a finger to his lips. The green eyes went wide with a warning equally as false. “Seryozha also big secret. Leonov not know about him.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Vee groaned, “stop it! This is absurd.” She jerked a thumb at Cade. “In a pinch I’d trust him over you any day, so can the act and get this show on the road.”

  “See,” Seryozha declared, looking mournful, “even you use theatrical metaphors. Perhaps this is the only way we can face this challenge. As a game.”

  “And this round’s a tie,” Cade drawled. “Can we get on with it?”

  “Sorry.” Seryozha flashed him a grin. “A little sparring makes my day. Without humor I would have been dead years ago.” He leaned across the table and held out his hand to Cade for the second time. “I am Sergei Ivanovich, whose last name must remain unknown. And Valentina is right. Sergei Tokarev is the one who got us into this mess—for reasons too complex to explain at the moment—and I am the man who must find a way to get us out. I need your help. Will you give it?”

  Cade resisted, scowling. “My boss didn’t have enough info to brief me. So all I know about this case is what Vee just told me. But every word I’ve heard out of your mouth says you’re American. Not so many generations as me, but an American. Well?” he challenged.”

  Seryozha waggled his hand in the classic gesture of maybe-yes-maybe-no. “A foot in both countries. Again, a story too long for the moment.” He pinned Cade with his laser look, green eyes to amber. “Will you help us?”

  “I’d be more likely to throttle you if you tried to leave me out.”

  “You and who else?” Seryozha returned lightly.

  Vee bit back a groan. Suddenly, for no reason she could fathom, the two of them were buddies. Men! “So tell us about Robey,” she said.

  Chapter 16

  “Where’s that map we bought?” Seryozha asked.

  With only a slight frown at his ignoring her request for information on Weldon Robey, Vee handed it over. She’d been studying the large-scale map of Orlando while they waited for Cade, and it had been a revelation. Although she was familiar with the surprising sight of lakes nestled among the skyscrapers of downtown Orlando, as well as the picturesque lakes at DisneyWorld, she hadn’t realized that the entire greater Orlando area was built around a seemingly endless series of lakes. People accustomed to the geometric layout of cities in a grid pattern would find the maze-like navigation in Orlando mind-boggling.

  Seryozha spread the map out on Vee’s bed. “Okay,” he said, “find Orlando International—not the Executive airport, but the really big one southeast of the city center.”

  Cade tossed a mocking glance at Sergei. “Aw, gee, Teach, you trying to raise the curve?”

  Vee’s lips twitched. Orlando International Airport, main port of entry for the resort capital of the world, stood out on the map like a neon beacon in a des
ert. But playing Seryozha’s game, she dutifully lowered her index finger to the long, straight runway lines of the airport known locally as OIA. Raising inquiring eyebrows, she waited.

  “Once upon a time,” he said, “that was McCoy Air Force Base, and before that—way back during World War II, it was Pinecastle Army Airfield, a bomber training base. And here”—he pointed to an area south and east of the airport—“was the Pinecastle Jeep Bombing Range. It seems they set up a winding track with remote controlled jeeps as targets for rocket grenades, as well as bigger things like trucks and tanks for the bombers. Four thousand acres with about forty you could call Ground Zero.

  “Not hard to picture what the area was like after the war,” he continued. “Bomb fragments, unexploded bombs, grenades, target debris. A big fat mess almost as dangerous as a minefield.”

  Cade crossed his arms and challenged their leader. “Nice lecture, Teach, but what the hell does it have to do with us?”

  “Memory’s a funny thing,” Seryozha said. “Nobody knows that better than I. Sometimes it simply fades with time, and sometimes it can be highly selective. We remember what we want to remember—remember only what’s convenient or comfortable. Pinecastle became McCoy, then the civilian McCoy Jetport, and finally Orlando International. And people forgot. Or say they forgot. They built houses, condominiums . . . a school. They even dug a few more lakes—all on the Pinecastle Bombing Range.”

  Vee’s breath whooshed out. “Oh. My. God.”

  “Shit.” Cade echoed her shock.

  “Dr. Weldon Robey,” Seryozha continued, “was looking for a home large enough to accommodate his wife, a son, and his growing collection of mechanical marvels. Like most lakefront homes around Orlando, the development featured big houses crammed onto small lots to get in as many waterfront homes as possible. But it was a spacious Mediterranean-style home at an affordable price, so they selected a model and eventually moved in.

  “For several years everything was fine. And then his boy was old enough for middle school. Old enough to roam about on his own.” Vee squeezed her eyes shut, anticipating the painful end of the story. “The Robeys lived so close to the school that their son was a walker. One day after class, he and a couple of other boys went roaming in the woods behind the school. Evidently, there had never been any warnings that the area could be hazardous. Certainly, as it turned out, none of the teachers had a clue about something that happened before they were born.”

  Seryozha paused, nodding as he saw his listeners had made the connection. “One of the kids lost an arm. Robey’s son lost a foot. There was a lot of finger-pointing—county, state, and federal governments, the developer. Housing values plunged. People wanted to move out, but who’d buy a house now revealed as being built on a bombing range? Their insurance companies threatened to cancel. In the end, the Army Corps of Engineers fenced off the woods. Then they brought in equipment to check both the woods and people’s property. Watching old munitions being blown up became a regular feature on the evening news.

  “Finally, after blowing up two hundred twenty bombs and rockets and carting off fourteen tons of debris, the Corps assured everyone the crisis was over and went home. But only a few months later, more stuff turned up. The last I heard, several owners of half-million-dollar homes have to evacuate their property next month, while the Corps digs up their yards.

  “Robey and his family?” Vee asked.

  “His house is in a slightly more modest area. Nice gated community, swimming pools, but shingles instead of red tile roofs. Three or four bedrooms, instead of five or six. Until the incident, everything was upper middle class perfection. Afterwards . . . Robey’s wife made him the villain. All his fault for wanting a bigger house for his toys. She took the boy and left. Robey’s still there in his big house on the edge of the lake, growing more eccentric by the day.”

  “That’s . . . horrible,” Vee said. “And explains a lot.”

  “Poor bastard,” Cade added. “No wonder he opted for the dark side.”

  “Not good enough excuse,” Sergei snapped.

  “Yeah,” Cade taunted, “and tell me you live by ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’”

  “He’s sick, Seryozha,” Vee added. “Heart and mind. You’ve got to feel sorry for him.”

  “Nyet! Robey collapsed when he most needed to be strong. His wife needed him, his son needed him, and he buried himself among his cuckoo clocks to dream of vengeance.”

  Across the width of the bed, Vee glared at him. “You can say that, with all the somersaults your mind’s been doing lately? Who’s to know how the mind works, what tricks it can play? How long were you stuck in limbo? Maybe you’re still there,” she added with slow, deliberate emphasis. “Allow Robey his bitter cocoon. Hopefully, he’ll break out—”

  “Robey will spend the rest of his life in jail. If he isn’t hanged.” Cade, as cold and unforgiving as she’d ever seen him.

  He was right, of course, but the last few days had broadened Vee’s ability to see both sides of a situation. An insidious influence, the multiple personalities entrusted to her care.

  She changed the subject. “So we’re going to venture onto a bombing range,” she said. “When?”

  “Tonight, after dark.”

  “And you need me how?” Cade asked.

  “You,” Sergei told him, “will watch our backs.”

  Cade nodded, and began to check his guns.

  Seryozha lowered the rental car’s window and punched four numbers into a keypad. Slowly, the black wrought iron gates to the development known as Amalfi Gardens swung open. Except this garden grows bombs and grenades, Vee thought, as they drove past substantial homes, now unmarketable at two-thirds their cost.

  “He’s still with us,” Seryozha said as Vee turned to look for the headlights of Cade’s car, confirming that he’d made it through the gate. Odd that Seryozha’s memory was so clear about something like gate codes, even though he had no memory of his last visit to Weldon Robey.

  Presumed visit. In a rare sex-induced moment of weakness in Atlantic City, Seryozha had admitted he wasn’t absolutely certain his last trip to Florida had been to meet with Weldon Robey. Undoubtedly, Tokarev had deals pending all over the world. He might have flown on to the Bahamas or the Caribbean. Robey was only his best guess.

  Nor was anything about Robey certain. He might be quietly at home enjoying his toys. Or flown off to some exotic foreign spot where he could enjoy the profits of his treason. Or Sergei had talked, and Robey was lying dead among his treasures . . . with a horde of well-armed men waiting to ambush them.

  Or maybe Robey was a loose end tidied up by Boris Leonov and his associates.

  Time to face the truth, Vee thought, as that old sinking feeling grabbed her. There were too many ifs in this scenario. She was following the lead of a man who was still trying to break out of Limbo. A man with gaps in his brain. Seryozha could be savior of the world or mad as a hatter.

  Dear God, she was losing it! Vee made a face into the darkness outside the car window. Trapped on a nightmare carousel, she longed to take a flying leap off the monstrous beast she was riding. Longed for solid ground beneath her feet. No more on-again-off-again memory switches. No more good-guy-bad-guy qualms about her mysterious companion. No more nagging doubts about his playing her for a fool.

  Pay attention, stupid! You’re approaching the man who provided—is about to provide?—one half of Armageddon. The trigger for blowing up Chicago, Boston, Dallas, or San Francisco. Go with your instincts. Stick with Seryozha.

  Into the Valley of Death rode three idiots chasing a nightmare.

  Concentrate! Vee’s lurking nightmare clarified into an upscale subdivision in subtle earth tones. No pink or coral houses here. In fact, everything appeared to be unrelentingly, conservatively normal. Artistically winding street. Lantern street lights illuminating well-trimmed green lawns and flower beds, perfectly weeded and mulched.. The blank façade of two-car garages next to the warm windowed glow
of families tucked up for a night of television, internet surfing, games, reading, pet projects, or making love. Families who shouldn’t have to worry about the possibility of bombs in the backyard.

  Seryozha turned into the driveway of a home of beige stucco, with a pool cage and a glimpse of shining water barely visible behind the house. Reality, Vee reminded herself, was Weldon Robey and a far more lethal bomb than the one that injured his child and destroyed his family.

  Cade parked half a block away and began his job as lookout.

  Vee had tried not to stereotype the good professor, but her surprise when Dr. Weldon Robey answered the door made her realize she’d been expecting someone like Albert Einstein or maybe the wizened wizard behind the curtain in the land of Oz. Instead, the traitorous doctor was a forty-something, with a face that would have been handsome if he didn’t look so haggard. Although average height and build, his shoulders slumped, his chin drooped. His overly long, straight, mouse brown hair haloed an ascetic face, with some strands hanging low enough to flirt with the dark rings under his eyes. Vee thought she caught a momentary flash of sharp intelligence in his dark eyes, but they quickly dulled to sullen and confused. His voice, when he spoke, was almost plaintive. “Tokarev? What’s happened? Why are you here?”

  “May we come in?” Sergei asked, surprisingly gently. “I will explain.”

  Wordlessly, Robey stepped back, pulling the door wide, allowing them into the foyer. The first thing that struck Vee was the noise—the tick-tock, click-click, whirr-purr of more clocks than she’d ever seen in one place. Sergei interrupted her awed perusal of the display to introduce her to Robey.

  The sight of a new face seemed to make the professor forget his immediate concern about their visit. His whole demeanor brightened as he shook hands. “Would you like to see my collection?” he asked, with the sudden innocent eagerness of a child.

  Vee glanced at Sergei, who returned a nod of approval. “Of course, I’d love to,” she said. And was immediately plunged into a world of time keeping where the designs of the clock cases were as intricate and beautiful as the mechanical marvels of the mechanisms inside. The foyer was just an appetizer. Room after room ticked and whirred around her as she was caught up in an atmosphere almost as scary as it was fascinating. The rhythmic cacophony reminded her all too closely of a time bomb, counting down.