Twisted Genius

by Patricia Rice

  On another monitor, he watched her return with two of her sisters and wondered what it would feel like to be a normal family who got together over dinner.

  He’d never known that kind of life. Why start now?

  But watching Ana laugh at her kid sister as if she hadn’t a care in the world had him wondering if it might be possible for her to have that kind of normalcy someday—if he got out of her life.

  His computer pinged a match, and he returned to studying his monitors. He paused the street scene outside the of the garage—a limo driver leaning on the outside of his car, smoking, presumably waiting for his employer. Graham zoomed in on the driver’s face and matched it against the one the software had found from Ana’s list.

  Anatole Bernard? The limo guy looked seventy. The assassin’s image from Interpol was old and grainy, hidden in shadow, with only the hard edges of nose and jaw to judge by. The date of the photo was unknown.

  Graham ran the limo footage back and forth but there was no better shot. The driver climbed out—back to the camera—lit a cigarette, waited, and after a few minutes, checked his phone. It simply looked as if he’d parked to wait for a summons from his employer. The camera caught the brief glimpse of his face just before he dropped his cigarette, climbed back in the limo, and drove off—with no evidence of the use of a detonation device.

  The garage blew a minute later. Definitely a timer and the reason Nick and Guy were still alive.

  Graham zoomed up the good image. The hand holding the cigarette was missing a finger and appeared knotted with arthritis. The driver was tall but hunched as if his back hurt. His face was lined with wrinkles from years of smoking.

  Carefully copying the one shot of the driver’s face, Graham transferred it to another program and turned back the hands of time. A beak of a nose emerged, thicker eyebrows, a single line on either side of a softer mouth—he ran the image through facial recognition again, using his own old file photos as his database.

  This time, when the computer binged, Graham swore viciously and hit the intercom for Mallard.

  Mallard was setting dinner on the table when the candelabra bellowed his name.

  Unused to talking tableware, Juliana eyed the silver skeptically. I’d persuaded her to come home with us and eat a decent meal, but I kept stupidly forgetting our ghost in the attic.

  I knew better than to tell Mallard to ignore the despot. He treated Graham as if he were still the president’s right hand man, but I was tired of being ignored. I was part of the team now. They couldn’t keep snubbing me.

  Ordering my sisters to stay put, I put down my starched linen napkin and marched up the stairs in Mallard’s wake. Since my siblings didn’t have my anger issues and were hungry after their outing, they happily obeyed. Mallard’s bouillabaisse was delicious.

  Mallard tried to discourage me, but I was itching for action and Graham usually provided, one way or another. I didn’t have kickboxing or lovemaking in mind this time. I marched into his office prepared to take him down. “Just because you don’t eat like normal humans doesn’t mean you’re entitled to—”

  I shut up when I saw the monitors.

  Mallard used a Gaelic word I was pretty certain he didn’t normally use.

  I sat down, cross-legged, on the floor and just stared at Graham’s damning windows on the world.

  One screen showed two faces—one lined and weary, the other younger and meaner but obviously identical, like father and son. Judging by the hair styles and clothes though, I’d guess the younger photo was taken decades ago. The more recent one—I found on the next screen, in an image of a limo driver outside the parking garage that had almost taken Nick’s life.

  But those weren’t the images that had Mallard cursing and me sitting down.

  Below them were familiar images of my father, along with photos I recognized of my grandfather, Sean and Graham’s fathers—all taken with the hard-eyed, cigarette smoking thug who might be the limo driver.

  “Tony Byrne,” Mallard finally said in disbelief. “He was supposed to have died in Dublin gaol after he helped import those boatloads of Libyan weapons in the 80s.”

  “He now goes by Anatole Barnard and has a French passport. He knew we were gunning for him.” Graham spoke in a flat dead voice I didn’t like.

  “Are you saying he’s the one who killed our fathers?” I couldn’t believe I was looking at my distant past, alive, right here in the present. History is supposed to stay dead.

  “One of the suspects,” Mallard corrected. “He was our explosives expert. He was supposed to choose the weapons we needed.”

  I’d known Mallard had been a general in the IRA back in the day, but to hear the stiff and proper butler speak so casually of engaging in illegal weapons and terrorism. . .

  He looked down at me apologetically. “Your father and his friends saw no alternative to the years of violence except continuing to fight. I was just filled with hate for the deaths of my family. I was older. I should have stopped them.”

  I couldn’t tear my gaze from the monitor. Our fathers weren’t laughing. They looked as weary and jaded as the older man called Tony.

  And my mother had persuaded these hardened fighters to back out of a weapons deal?

  “So this Tony Byrne murdered our fathers and went ahead with the GenDef arms deal that kept the fighting going longer?” I was trying to process my fury and sorrow and disgust into logic. It wasn’t working. There was the man who had quite possibly turned my mother into a monster and ruined my future as pampered princess.

  Not a rational reaction, I knew, but processing fury and hurt at that level wasn’t my finest moment.

  “GenDef already had the weapons money Brody raised. Brody wanted it back,” Mallard said matter-of-factly. “Everyone was appalled except your mother, and maybe Hugh and Dillon. Brody had grown pretty thick with his American friends and may have had other plans that involved them. We’ll never know.”

  I’d love to believe that they would have used the gun funds to promote peace, or at least support widows and orphans. Monsters had prevented us from ever knowing who our fathers really were. That’s what guns did—stole the future.

  “Tony and his cohorts took the weapons they needed from the GenDef deal and sold the rest to terrorists in Iran. They used the profits to continue fighting—and buying more of GenDef’s guns.” Graham ran through the security footage from the parking garage but the limo drove away without revealing more.

  “Max approved?” I asked cautiously. No one had ever told me about my grandfather. I’d only been four or five when I saw him last, and my memories were those of a bewildered child—not reality.

  “I can’t say,” Graham said curtly. “Max played a close hand. I just know at some point after that, his old Top Hat cronies started vanishing from the public eye.”

  “Blackmail,” Mallard said succinctly. “That was Max’s style. He hired me to help, then kept me on since I couldn’t go back.”

  I had always assumed Mallard had been Max’s spy and bodyguard. Looked like I wasn’t far wrong.

  “By the time I was of an age to understand what had happened to my father,” Graham continued, “Max had arranged for almost everyone who may have been involved in the arms deal to be dead or in jail, including Tony. I helped Max nail a few strays. I thought the case was laid to rest.”

  “For all intents and purposes, it is,” I pointed out. “Scion is a totally different matter.”

  “Harvey Scion was once one of my men,” Mallard said, looking older than I’d ever seen him. “He was a sharp shooter with a way of making a profit from anything. I’ve seen him sell the same gun three times, after the buyers died. But he was young then. He got out of gun fighting long before your father came along.”

  Hence, Harvey Scion had never been on Max’s or Magda’s hit list. Only men like Mallard would know about his past as a street terrorist.

  Mallard continued, “Harvey preferred selling drugs to guns and made his fortune.”<
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  “Not legally, I’m guessing,” I said. “And he obviously stayed in touch with old acquaintances.”

  We all stared at the image of Tony, ex-bomber. Could a wealthy Scion have helped him escape jail?

  “No identifying marks, no proof.” Graham played more video footage showing the black plastic cover over the limo’s license plate.

  “And Scion is dead, so we can’t interrogate him. Could Tony have killed Scion?” I knew that was too simple, but I was ready for simplicity.

  “Find Tony, and we’ll find out.” Graham glanced at our stoic butler. “Talk to your buddies?”

  Mallard nodded. He met with an old goats club down at the local Irish pub. IRA buddies? I hated to think those loud drunks had once been young, deadly terrorists.

  “We don’t know the limo is Scion’s,” I contradicted my earlier suggestion.

  “Find Tony and we’ll know,” Graham repeated. “But whoever took out Scion had modern weapons and apparently the ability to wipe camera footage. We’re still working on that.”

  Doctoring sophisticated cameras didn’t sound like the act of a 70-year old explosives expert still using old-fashioned timers.

  “It makes no sense,” I said, climbing off the floor. “Yeah, I understand Scion hiring someone to kill Guy and Nadia to prevent their testifying about their report. But who would want Scion dead? Someone who hates incompetence?”

  Both Mallard and Graham turned to stare at me.

  “What?” I asked in bewilderment. “He failed to stop Guy. Nadia is still alive. There may be some chance she’ll recover. Maybe Scion gave the wrong advice on how to handle the report. I know they say you can’t fix stupid, but haven’t you ever wanted to kill stupid?”

  Mallard sniffed and aimed for the door, the vision of ruffled dignity. “Your dinner is going cold.”

  Graham winked and returned to calling up a new set of images on his screens. The wink tingled parts of me that didn’t need to be tingled with family waiting downstairs. Unsatisfied, I followed Mallard out.

  But later that night, after EG had gone to bed and Juliana back to school, I started making lists of people who would want Scion dead.

  There were a lot of them. A man who made his fortune in drugs and then turned around to use his wealth as a blunt instrument to manipulate politics would never earn a Mr. Rogers award.

  After the balloon caricature debacle and the failure to kill Guy and Nadia—or making the attempt in the first place—even Paul Rose might be willing to terminate his pal.

  Any patient who got hooked on his drugs—or their families—might want to kill him.

  My bet was that Scion took a lot of dirty secrets to the grave with him. The big problem here was whether any of them would affect me or mine if I dug them up.

  Chapter 12

  After I saw EG off to school Monday morning, and fielded half a dozen calls from an anxious Nick about the kids, I returned to my list making.

  I was fully cognizant that labeling Rose a killer of Scion because he’d been stupid was irrational, but I’d spent these last six months trying to nail the Teflon senator for other horrific crimes, without success. We’d turned in his minions by the dozens, but no evidence indicated Rose did anything except take their checks and advertising support. If the voting public didn’t mind a president who got elected with dirty money, who was I to care?

  I was willing to pin the rap on him out of sheer frustration, except Rose had utterly no incentive for killing his moneymaker that I could see.

  Apparently my spider in the attic had been busy while I slept. In my mailbox this morning was a heavily annotated version of the list of assassins Viktor had provided. Graham had done his best to determine where they all were these past few days.

  Keep in mind—these were international criminals wanted in half a dozen countries, and Graham knew where they were. I hoped he had used his powers of good and turned their locations over to law enforcement. How he had found them sounded too 007, so I concentrated on the part important to me—which one could have been in the US when Nadia was hit, the garage exploded, and Scion died?

  None, according to this list—except for three names that were completely untraceable in recent years. Chances were good that they were flying under the radar and had been for years. Or had died anonymously and been buried in unmarked graves.

  Graham had provided photos of the three, a variety of their passports and aliases, and last known locations. As with the list of Magda’s phone calls, he was trying to keep me at my desk and out of trouble.

  I’m an introvert by nature. I honestly preferred my basement hideaway under most circumstances. This wasn’t a normal situation. My family in was danger, and I couldn’t sit still and do nothing.

  I sent him a message recommending that he run his facial recognition program on this charming trio of assassins and match it against Rose’s security detail—just to keep him occupied.

  Then I went upstairs and dressed to talk to Scion’s household employees. Tony Byrne, aka Anatole Bernard, was in the country and at the scene of the bombing. I didn’t see any reason to hunt further.

  Since he didn’t appear to be on Scion’s payroll, the cops wouldn’t know of his existence. Old Tony might be hiding in plain sight. At the very least, I hoped to verify he was Scion’s chauffeur. Or Rose’s. I grinned evilly.

  Harvey Scion’s estate was in a wealthy area of Bethesda with monster brick mansions on intensely landscaped lots. I gathered the dense foliage prevented the neighbors from looking in each other’s third story bathrooms. On my grandfather’s mansion-strewn street, we used drapery and shutters. Neither solution allowed sunlight to touch the dragon hoards.

  Yellow police tape still blocked the gates to Scion’s drive. I’d arrived by taxi, which left me to explore on foot—not always a great idea in a densely populated area. Oh well.

  We’d passed an area of restaurants and boutiques on the main road. Starbucks might be open, but coffee drinkers weren’t a talkative lot in the morning. I hoped there might be a breakfast café, but my best bet would be a sports bar. It was too early in the day for a good turn-out at a bar, though.

  So I wandered around to the street behind Scion’s place, checking for openings, stray workers, whatever I could find. At this hour on Monday morning, the street was empty. I found a nanny with a stroller on the way to the park. I stopped her and indicated the high wall around Scion’s place. “My friend Tony works there, but they have police tape all over. What happened?”

  She’d looked nervous when I first approached, but everyone loves a good gossip. She struggled with her English. “Burglars. They shot the owner. The house, it is empty now.”

  “So everyone is out of a job?” I asked in horror. “Tony’s too old to find a new one.”

  She looked sympathetic. “His housekeeper is friend with ours. Maybe she know.” She pointed at a more accessible house across the street. “Her name is Ursula. Tell her Marie said to ask.”

  “Thanks!” I trotted off, taking the drive to the delivery door in hopes of not disturbing anyone but the servants.

  A woman with erect carriage and graying hair pulled tight in a bun answered my knock. Dress her in silk and pearls and she could be any society matron, but she wore Wal-Mart cotton and an apron and held a dust cloth.

  “Ursula?” I asked. At her withering glare, I continued, “Marie said you might know if Mr. Scion’s employees were let go. I’m concerned for a friend of mine, Tony? He’s too old to be looking for a job.”

  The woman’s glare disappeared. “It’s a tragedy. I don’t know what this world is coming to. The lawyers gave them all notice that they’ll only receive one week’s pay and a reference. With the economy as it is. . . I am sorry for your friend.”

  I wasn’t sure if the tragedy was the loss of jobs or Scion’s death but rather suspected the former. Neither verified Tony’s existence—or the location of anyone who might know him. Dang.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know how
to reach Mr. Scion’s housekeeper? I always know people looking for housekeepers. But limo drivers— there’s not much call for them.” I added just the right note of pathos.

  “I have her cell number. Just a minute.” Not in the least security conscious, she left the door open. In these days, with the division between rich and poor reaching French revolution explosive, that was a mistake.

  She came back with a piece of paper and a number. “I hope you can help her. She’s a real nice lady, even if she doesn’t speak much English.”

  “I thank you.” I returned the favor by gifting her with a touch of paranoia. “Look, I work for security people. They advise keeping a locked door between you and strangers, even if they look harmless. After what happened across the street, you can never be too cautious. I’d hate to see a nice lady hurt.”

  Her eyebrows shot up, and she suddenly looked nervous. My good deed done, I waved good-bye and jogged off.

  I only got voice mail on the housekeeper’s number. After her harrowing few days of police interrogation, I could understand that. I left a message and headed down the street to check for a bar or café.

  I’d already run through publicly available lists of Scion employees and found no Tony, Byrne, Anatole, or Bernard. I’d have assumed I was wrong about the connection between the limo and Scion, except I knew way too much about how wealthy households operated. With his alias, Tony probably didn’t have a social security number and might even be an illegal. He could easily be taking cash under the table from Scion, or be working for room and board, neither of which would show up on tax records, unless Scion was honest. The financial records Zander had been sending me had already established that wasn’t likely.

  I trudged along a busy street until I found a high-end bar with huge TVs and wine cases, but it had just opened. It didn’t look like the kind of place an old Irish terrorist might frequent, but Bethesda isn’t a place that caters to Tony’s sort. Yet, I surmised he lived nearby if he drove for Scion.