by Gayle Lynds
“Not that I can think of,” he told her, infusing his words with sincerity.
“Interesting. I’ve already been in to Langley, getting myself up to speed in case I was correct that there’d be a committee hearing. A disturbing report was waiting on my desk. Our financial people went through Whippet’s numbers. Imagine what they discovered. . . .” She drank again, her hands steady, waiting for his response.
He decided she was fishing, hoping he would either confirm what she thought she knew or reveal something she knew nothing about.
Resting his latte on his knee, he put a frown of concern on his face. “I’m sorry, Bobbye, but I can’t think of a thing. Obviously something’s on your mind. Tell me about it. Maybe I can help.”
She stared. Then nodded to herself. “Whippet’s been skimming from most of its front companies. You took the unit under your wing, made them your special team. How could you not have known that?”
He made his eyes radiate shock. “You’re certain? Of course you are, or you wouldn’t have brought it up. Are you saying Hannah was involved? Maybe that’s why Whippet was hit—” He sank back and gazed out the window, thinking rapidly. He had known about the embezzlement from the beginning and had used it as both cudgel and candy to keep Hannah under his thumb.
“Get used to having me around, Larry,” the DCI told him as they cruised past the White House. “Today, we’re cemented at the hip. Something rancid is in the air, and you’re going to help me uncover it.”
Miami Beach, Florida
Marie Ghranditti stood at the plate-glass mirror that extended the length of her bathroom. Her eyes were blue. Not green—blue. With the snap of her wrist, she pulled the towel from her head. Slowly she smiled at herself. Her wet hair was dark brown, almost black now. She would never have the same nose or chin or cheekbones as before, but at least the dye had given her the hair color she remembered.
She turned her head, listening. Quiet terror flooded her. Martin had returned to their bedroom. Quickly she wrapped the towel around her hair and put in her contacts. She looked away from the mirror. She could not bear to see “her” green eyes. They belonged to a dead woman.
“Marie!”
His voice resounded across the painful chasm of her memory, from the small town in Belarus where he had killed the men who had come to ship her sister and her to Hong Kong or Tokyo or Taipei. Her sister, Katya, had wanted to go, even though both had heard what happened to girls there. For Katya, anything was better than the hunger and violence of Belarus in 1990. Katya had been eighteen; she—Emmi—seventeen. Since then, Martin had supported Katya, who lived in Rome with her five children and never a husband.
“I’m coming, Martin. Just a moment, please.”
He had left her morning OxyContin pill next to the sink. After her therapist had described the drug as a powerful narcotic, she had researched it at the library, then weaned herself off it, using melatonin at night to help her sleep, Immodium for the constant diarrhea, and herbal teas to calm her stomach. It had been six weeks of hell. She opened a box of Band-Aids and dropped the pill inside. She would need it later today.
She slid into her thick terry-cloth robe and cinched it. And opened the door, smiling brightly. “It’s a lovely morning, isn’t it? Will you be here today?” She knew he would not; Armand had said he was flying to Washington.
Armand exchanged a covert look with her then circled behind Martin and adjusted the shoulders of today’s suit. It was the color of mink with a thin ruby stripe that matched Martin’s silk tie. Breakfast—eggs Benedict, fresh grapefruit, and beignets—was waiting on the balcony that overlooked the pool and gave a sweeping view of the channel and Miami on the distant shore.
“Happy birthday, Marie.” Martin smiled broadly, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief. “You’ll see your gift on the table.”
“Really? Oh, how good you are to me!” She brushed her lips across his mouth and clapped her hands like a child and ran to the table, behaving exactly as he wanted.
She had gone to him undernourished and uneducated, and he had raised her like a child, tutoring her until she learned his needs. She knew intimately not only his streaks of generosity but his rages and savage fists. That each gift came with a price.
As Armand left, gaze firmly downcast, Martin beamed at her across the bedroom’s luxurious furnishings. His raven hair with the threads of white was arranged around his face. His tan—refreshed this morning in their home salon—glowed. His heavy features reflected a certainty that was sensual and disgusting.
She sat at the table and breathed the fresh ocean air, trying to enjoy the dozen perfect white roses in the priceless Ming dynasty vase that stood in the center. Her gaze lowered to the simple black enamel box beside her plate—Martin’s birthday gift. Again she smiled up at him, waiting until he sat.
It was a job, she told herself. Living with Martin, learning what he wanted, becoming “Marie,” marrying him, was simply a job, a better one than she could ever have found in Belarus. But now there were children to consider. For four months she had planned, hidden cash she acquired by returning the few clothes and gifts she dared, and tried to grow strong.
“The children are getting dressed,” he told her. “I described the island ranch for them—the wide beaches and the forests and the sunny climate. It’s a paradise—a real Shangri-la. I’ll take the children sailing and fishing every day. There’s a zoo with peacocks and giraffes and gazelle. There’s even a village of natives. They speak pidgin English, but they’re used to serving the ‘big house.’ I’m sure we can domesticate them. Open your gift, darling.” His jowls quivered with anticipation.
“You’re so good to us. I’m sure the children are terribly excited.”
“You’ve changed your mind?” he asked. “You want to move, too?”
“Of course, Martin. Anything to be with you. I’m your Marie, aren’t I?”
His hand covered hers, huge and perspiring. Inwardly she cringed; outwardly she smiled. He peered at her across the table, tears misting his eyes, seeing what he wanted to see. Whom he wanted to see—some long-ago woman named Marie Tice with platinum-colored hair and green eyes and a drug habit who died on her thirty-first birthday and whom he thought he had desperately loved, still desperately loved.
“This is a milestone, darling,” he announced. “You’re thirty-one now. I hope your birthday gift pleases you.”
He released her hand, and she lifted the lid. Without thinking, she gasped as she stared down at a pebbled sea of uncut diamonds, each shining from an inner light that was almost lifelike. The effect was breathtaking. But more than that, in them she saw safety for the children.
“Martin!” she exclaimed. “Such beauty. How can I ever thank you!”
She left the lid open, glancing occasionally at the shimmering jewels as they ate. Wondering how much she could realize by selling them. Surely, with what she had already, that would be enough for the children and her to vanish so completely Martin Ghranditti and his army of homicidal goons would never find them.
But when he stood up to leave, he surprised her—he picked up the enameled box. Chilled, she saw suspicion in his eyes.
A small smile of sadistic pleasure played on his lips. He closed the lid by fractions, observing her, hoping she would react. “These gorgeous gems will be waiting for you on the island, darling,” he vowed smoothly. “Think how glad you’ll be to see them again.”
When he left, the room seemed to exhale with relief. Weak with fear, she pushed herself up from the table, grasped the balcony rail, and peered across the aqua swimming pool to the estate’s gates. The children and she were Martin’s dream, and dreams for men like him could not survive in the real world. Once he moved them to his island “paradise,” he would never let them go. She was certain now.
As his long black limo vanished, she heard a quiet tap on the door. She forced herself erect and ran into the bedroom.
“Come in.”
Armand stepped inside and clo
sed the door quickly. His eyes were full of worry for her. “Today?” he asked.
“Yes, Armand,” she said firmly. “Today.”
32
Washington, D.C.
The conference room in the august Senate Building was hushed, the doors closed. Although the joint session of the intelligence committee was recorded, no press was allowed. Committee members filled the chairs around the polished mahogany table, their expressions alert. A grilling was always meaty, and they had a prominent victim this morning—the Director of Central Intelligence.
The voice of Senator Bradley Wrethford of Nevada boomed from the head of the table while his rheumy gaze fixed down its length to where DCI Bobbye Johnson sat composed at the end: “So you’re telling us that Langley knows nothing. Mr. Litchfield knows nothing. And you know nothing.” He was leaning so close to the microphone, he could kiss it. “How are we supposed to react other than with complete disbelief—or outrage that yet more scandals will erupt and bite our backsides?”
Laurence Litchfield did not like “Litchfield knows nothing.” It had been a long hour in which the committee members had taken turns criticizing the CIA for the record. He knew the game. He also knew the worse Bobbye Johnson looked, the more quickly she would be forced out. His goal was to make certain that what happened today helped to solidify in everyone’s minds that he was the right man to replace her.
Congresswoman Janet Deloitte of Alabama had soft cheeks and doebrown eyes. She addressed the room in a polite Deep South drawl that did little to disguise her sharply honed survival skills: “So, y’all, our DCI hasn’t found Tice or Cunningham. She’s been keepin’ on her payroll a borderline personality—Cunningham again—against whom an arrest warrant’s been issued for killin’ an innocent young man. And she has no information about the decimatin’ assault on her secret unit. My thinkin’ is that Mr. Litchfield is right—Tice knew it was assigned to find him, so he hired killers to make a preemptive strike. That makes the Agency look worse than stupid. These events are more instances of Mrs. Johnson’s glarin’ ineptness.” She gave the DCI a hard smile.
“The evidence against Elaine Cunningham is circumstantial.” The DCI spoke calmly. “There are no eyewitnesses. As for how Jay Tice escaped, that’s the FBI’s job. Ours is to find him. And we will find him.” Her lips thinned. She did not look at Litchfield. “It’s shortsighted to focus on Tice for the wet job on Whippet. To do so creates an environment of fait accompli. We must examine without prejudice all evidence, so the culprit can be identified, located, and brought to justice.”
There was a ringing tone of idealism in her voice that Litchfield sensed touched some in the committee. That had to be stopped. “If I may speak,” he said courteously, “I have a suggestion that might solve a lot of our shortterm problems.”
Wrethford checked his watch. “Go ahead, young man. I like solving problems.”
Litchfield waited until he had everyone’s attention. “These days, all of us try to avoid doing anything to shake confidence in America’s security. So we agreed to make every effort to put Tice back behind bars before the public heard. No one could’ve predicted the developments with Cunningham and our unit.” He smiled graciously at the DCI. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “The director has been protecting me. The truth is, our people have discovered Whippet was raking off its front companies.”
An angry mutter rolled around the table. Eyes stared at Bobbye Johnson. He had expected her to look stunned, certainly angry that he had been the one to reveal this information. Still, she remained controlled, her hands folded neatly in her lap, her chin up. It made him oddly uneasy.
“In point of fact,” she corrected, “just before we arrived, I was told the thefts date back to Jay Tice’s tenure as DDO.”
“In point of another fact,” he added quickly, “Tice may have been in on it.”
Wrethford threw down his pen and fumed, “That’s a hell of a pot of fish!” He glared at Bobbye Johnson. “You should’ve told us yourself.” He smiled at Litchfield: “Keep talking. I don’t see much hope in this mess, but I’m willing to listen.”
Timing was everything, Litchfield reflected. “In less than twenty-four hours, the CIA loses primacy and the FBI takes over. That means keeping the lid on Tice’s escape will be harder, since more people will be involved. When one is faced with a public relations disaster, it’s best to get out ahead of it.” He noted the nodding heads. “That means we’ve got to go public about Tice’s escape today, before it leaks and we have to counter charges of stonewalling or misleading the public. No one wants to put him back on the world stage, but there’s an upside to it, too.”
“I doubt that, Mr. Litchfield!” objected the senior senator from Utah.
“I want to hear what he has to say,” the congresswoman from Ohio announced.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Litchfield said sincerely. “If the CIA and FBI issue a joint press release, America will see its top two intelligence agencies working shoulder to shoulder, something we’ve been trying to impress on them since 9/11. We can bring in all of law enforcement, and Tice will be the talk of thousands of coffee shops and coffee rooms and online chat rooms. The pressure will be relentless. He’ll make mistakes, and we’ll capture him sooner.” Again heads nodded. “Plus the news this week has been full of terrorist attacks. Tice’s escape will siphon off some of the heat.”
Fury oozed from the DCI’s pores. She had been outmaneuvered, but she should have expected it—if not earlier, then now, and if not now, then later. Litchfield had no sympathy for losers. The best of intentions, the highest of goals, the most sacred of vows, were impossible when made by the ordinary, and Bobbye Johnson was ordinary.
The Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia
The thick mountain forest shimmered like green neon as the morning sun climbed across the continent. On one side of the pine-scented clearing, four planks lay on blocks of wood in a learning square about fifteen by fif-teen feet for an outdoor madrassa, a religious school. Ben Kuhnert passed it, escorted by three men pointing old but very lethal M-16 rifles and dressed in woodland camouflage uniforms. More joined from prefab huts hidden from overhead surveillance by the timber’s thick canopy. Tall and sinewy, they had strong features and stony stares and handled their weapons with confidence. Despite the coolness of the morning, Ben was sweating. He was unarmed.
As the phalanx marched him toward a large hut, a man in his early thirties stepped out and onto the porch. The image of a regal Afghan warlord, he wore a flat-topped pakol cap and had a neatly trimmed black beard. From his hip hung a 9mm semiautomatic pistol. He carried an AK-47 casually in his right hand and a walkie-talkie in his left. His blue eyes were narrow slits in his smooth bronze skin as he studied Ben. He was Gul Shah, the director of this secret training camp.
Ben stopped, looking up to where Shah towered on the hut’s top step, and greeted him in Pashtu. Then: “Imam Nawwi was kind enough to suggest that Gul Shah, my brother in Allah, might help me out with some information I need.”
Shah raised a black eyebrow. In English, his accent scholarly Boston, he said, “You speak better Pashtu than I do. But you’re no Pashtun.”
“My mother’s people were Bedouin. My father’s were German. I’m Muslim. Both sides.”
Gul Shah nodded. “What information are you looking for?”
Ben had come trusting not only that Mustafa would never send him into certain death, but that Shah and his men were true Pashtuns who lived by the five-thousand-year-old Pashtunwali code. Among its tenets were tolerance for all and an almost pathological respect for strangers and guests. But at the same time, Pashtuns were also notorious warriors. It was said that they were at peace only when they were at war.
“I’ve reason to believe a large consignment of contraband weapons and matériel is being transferred today somewhere near here,” Ben told him. “Its destination could be anywhere, including international. What I’d like to know is who’s buying, where it’s going, and exactly when and w
here it’ll change hands.”
An angry murmur rumbled through the throng. Gul Shah allowed the menacing growl to escalate. His intense pale eyes fixed again on Ben, considering. Ben breathed evenly, quieting his racing pulse.
At last Shah raised his AK-47 high above his head and shook it. Instantly, the noise stopped. He addressed Ben: “Did Imam Nawwi say why he thought we’d have access to that, or why we’d give it to you if we did?”
“I doubt he knew,” Ben admitted.
The warlord pursed his lips. There was something about the answer he liked. “What did he tell you about us?”
“You were born in this country or came as very young children. You’re Americans. Pashtun Americans. That’s all.” Their people were from the wild and often lawless frontier that sprawled over both sides of the towering mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Gul Shah motioned to Ben’s three escorts. “Bring him.”
While the others watched the warlord and stranger disappear into the hut, one guerrilla melted back into the forest. He wore an ash-colored turban and carried a British Bullpup assault rifle. He crouched for a time in shadows until he was sure no one had followed, then he pulled a cell phone from the folds of his shalwar and dialed.
When his boss answered, the guerrilla gave his code name: “This is Methuselah.”
“Report.” “Ben Kuhnert’s resurfaced.” He quoted Kuhnert’s question about a shipment of arms. “No one in his right mind would walk unarmed into this camp unless it was critical—or he was nuts. Kuhnert’s behaving very serious. Since you didn’t warn me, my guess is he’s not on your payroll.”
“That’s right, but the intel’s interesting. Tell me more.”
Since the response was slightly off point, Methuselah listened until he discerned the faint sounds of a keyboard’s being tapped and a running car engine.