Hidden Path

by Melissa F. Miller

  Clausen demanded the password, Chief Clark gave it, and Hannah unlocked the door. The chief and Thurman hurried inside and Hannah locked the door behind them.

  “Must have been a hunter,” Thurman said in answer to Clausen’s unasked question.

  Chief Clark poured herself a glass of water. “Did you make any headway on the code?”

  Clausen nodded. “Some. Hannah’s been helpful with the specialized agricultural terms.”

  Bodhi was mildly surprised; Clausen’s acknowledgment hadn’t sounded even a bit grudging. Hannah ducked her head and hid a smile.

  “Did Troy call?”

  Clausen handed him his phone. “Yes. Like last time, they couldn’t triangulate his response. There aren’t three towers close enough. And he went off the grid within minutes of us sending the response.”

  “He must be turning off the phone when he’s not using it,” Chief Clark mused.

  The NCSC agents exchanged a meaningful look.

  Then Clausen said, “They think he’s going a step farther and removing the battery and maybe the SIM card.”

  “You can track the phone when it’s turned off?” the chief asked.

  “Some agencies can,” Clausen non-answered.

  Bodhi looked down at the outline of his mobile phone in his pocket. Chief Clark arched an eyebrow.

  “Zhang told me never to carry my phone when I was going to the dead drop,” Hannah offered. “That’s why I couldn’t call right away … when the shooting happened,” she finished in a small voice.

  Bodhi narrowed his eyes. “Wait. Fyodorovych took a shot at you at the dead drop, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So he knows about it. How can you be sure he didn’t plant misinformation there?” The question was for the NCSC agents, but Hannah answered.

  “I think he may have,” she said slowly. “The reason I was going to the drop was because Zhang had left a seed for me—well, I thought he had—but it wasn’t one of ours. That had never happened before. I signaled for him to contact me, but he didn’t. He was … dead by then. I left a note in the dead drop, but it was still there when I went to check it. The seed was so odd. Do you think …?”

  “It’s right out of the Russian playbook. Dezinformatsiya—disinformation—is classic Russian tradecraft. He removed the seed San left and replaced it with a dummy to confuse you, interfere with China’s progress, and advance his own mission. He got the seed he needed. Then he killed San and got the book. The only thing left to do was to kill you,” Clausen told her not unkindly. “Housekeeping.”

  “But Bodhi found San’s journal, and Fyodorovych’s bullet missed,” Chief Clark interjected. “So now, his mission has expanded to include killing both of you and retrieving that book.”

  Bodhi’s mouth went sour. Despite the fact that he worked with corpses for a living and followed a religion that stressed the impermanence of this life, the knowledge that someone else was planning his death for him was uncomfortable. Judging by Hannah’s face, which was taut with sheer dread, she felt the same way.

  Nobody spoke.

  Then Bodhi cleared his throat. “So what exactly is the plan to get this guy?”

  “It’s a work in progress,” Thurman told him.

  “Fantastic.”

  “We should sleep,” Clausen announced. “We’ll be fresh in the morning, and maybe Troy’s people will come through overnight. There’s a team working round the clock.”

  She and Thurman said their goodnights and left the room. Bodhi looked at Chief Clark.

  “There’s no plan, is there?” he asked.

  “Plans are highly overrated. You two really should hit the hay, though. Because plan or no plan, tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”

  Chapter Forty

  Saturday morning, shortly before dawn

  Gavriil considered the pre-dawn assault to be something of a cliché. But he recognized that it was a cliché for a reason: it was effective. Sleep-addled, or even sleeping, targets, low light, the element of surprise—these were measurable advantages. So he made the necessary preparations. Then he put his plan into motion.

  Bette’s cell phone rang at five thirty-eight. She groaned. Four-odd hours of beauty rest weren’t quite enough. She reached for the phone and groaned again. Everything ached.

  “Clark.”

  “We got a call. Two officers down.”

  She sat bolt upright, instantly awake.

  “Ours?”

  “No, chief. Uh … I’m not sure whose they are, to tell you the truth. We called in a lot of favors last night, you know?”

  She did. “What did the caller say, exactly, Kelly?”

  “Let me read the transcript to you, chief. He said, quote there are two dead officers in the abandoned barn near the Durbin farm end quote. Isn’t that where you got the call of shots fired last night?”

  Bette’s stomach lurched. “I’m on my way. Call the hospital and have them send a medic out, just in case.”

  She pulled on her clothes and splashed water on her face. She crept down the stairs and scribbled a note for the others. She tiptoed out onto the porch in her socks and then put on her shoes. She looked up at the lightening sky. Venus and Spica, Virgo’s brightest star, winked down at her. She took a deep breath and whispered a prayer. Then she ran toward the garage.

  One down, Gavriil thought as he watched her car careen down the driveway in reverse and then squeal out onto the road. She passed him doing eighty before flipping on her lights.

  He returned the battery and SIM card to his cell phone and drummed his fingers on the barrel of his weapon while he waited for the device to power up. Then he tapped out a message to Kyrgyzstan, read it over, and hit send.

  He drove as fast as he dared to the market where he’d purchased the phone. He lowered the car window and pitched the device into the bushes behind the store. He did not remove the battery or the SIM card.

  He sped back to watch the police chief’s house so he’d know when the message had been intercepted by the pointy-heads at the NCSC.

  Bodhi was sitting lotus-style on the end of his bed, eyes closed, meditating. He heard Thurman’s phone vibrating but didn’t react. Then the sounds of Thurman stumbling around the room, pulling on his clothes, registered. But he put up a screen door in his mind and the distractions stayed out of his consciousness.

  He was trying to work through his feelings about Hannah. His attraction to her. And his anger at her. He sat for a long time but came to no resolution. When he opened his eyes, Thurman was gone.

  He heard water running through the pipes. Someone was showering. He’d have a cup of tea out on Chief Clark’s porch and then shower and get ready to face his day. He went downstairs and found an empty kitchen and two notes—one under the sugar bowl near the coffee maker; the other on the kitchen table.

  He sat at the breakfast bar and examined them both. The sugar bowl note was scrawled in pen in messy, feminine cursive writing. It read:

  Got a call re: a local law enforcement issue. Will be back ASAP. Remember, Asterope.

  ~~BC

  The note from the kitchen table was printed in pencil in miniscule, precise capital letters:

  Fyodorovych texted Bishkek again. He’s getting another new phone from a market in town as soon as it opens and will text from the new number. But he screwed up and left the battery in. We’ve traced him to the Go-Now Market. It doesn’t open for another hour. We going to bring him in. Chief, don’t let the civilians go outside for any reason.

  ~~Clausen

  Bodhi placed the notes side by side on the breakfast bar. Then he walked to the kitchen door and turned the deadbolt and secured the chain. He checked the front door. On his way back to the kitchen, he ran into Hannah in the hallway. She’d wrapped a thick towel around her wet hair like a turban and was dressed casually in sweatpants and a loose-fitting, long-sleeved t-shirt.

  “Good morning. I was just coming to see if the chief has a hair dryer I can borrow.”


  He looked at her pale, tired face for a beat. Then he said, “She went out.”

  “Ah, I was hoping to avoid having to ask my roommate if she has one. Have you seen her this morning?” Hannah’s voice was light.

  “She’s not here either. It’s just us.”

  “Oh.” She lowered her eyes then said, “That’s actually lucky. I want to talk to you … about things.”

  His chest squeezed. “I want to talk to you, too, Hannah. But I don’t think this is the time.”

  She blinked and looked up at him. “Why not?”

  He felt his pulse hammering in his throat. “Because we’re about to have a visitor.”

  Confusion clouded her eyes. “A visitor? Bodhi, it’s ten after six in the morning.”

  The sound of glass being smashed came from the kitchen, followed by the tinkling noise of shards hitting the hardwood floor.

  “What do we do?” she whispered. Her breath came fast, shallow.

  “Take a deep breath. And then we’ll run.” He pointed to the front door.

  She nodded then inhaled deeply. She exhaled.

  He looked down. They were both barefoot. Her hair was wet. His cell phone was in his bedroom charging. She was empty handed and had no pockets, so she had no phone either. But there was nothing to be done about it.

  “Go.”

  They sprinted toward the front door.

  Gavriil waited in the conveniently positioned deer stand across the street from the policewoman’s house. One good thing about the American Midwest was all the hunters. He was ideally situated to pick off his targets when they came running through the front door.

  Which they would.

  He’d seen them conferring in the hallway after he’d lured the federal agents to the market. They’d realized they were alone in the house. Then he’d chucked the rock through the window and had raced to the tree stand.

  He figured he had another forty minutes before either the police chief or the NCSC agents came speeding back to the house from the sites of the false alarms. He supposed that was another good thing about rural Illinois—it took forever to get anywhere.

  He checked his watch. Any second now.

  The door opened and a man and a woman appeared on the porch. He raised his gun and fired.

  Chapter Forty-One

  As Bodhi burst through the door, a long ago memory popped into his mind. Leo Connelly, a federal agent he knew from home, had been escorting Bodhi out of his own house, concerned that a killer might be lying in wait. Leo’d angled his body to create a smaller target.

  It seemed like a good thing to do under the current circumstances. He turned back to tell Hannah to do it, too, but she wasn’t there.

  He looked down. She had rolled through the doorway and was crouching like a beast about to spring. The towel had come loose from her hair, which now cascaded wildly over her shoulders and face.

  Ah, right, the kung fu black belt.

  The first shot came and hit the doorframe, splintering the wood. Then the reporting boom sounded.

  Hannah reached up and yanked his arm, pulling him to the porch floor. They sheltered behind the low brick knee wall that fronted the porch.

  Brick was good, Bodhi thought. But not bullet-proof.

  “What do we do?” Hannah hissed.

  “Maybe we try to make it back inside. Coming out here was a mistake.” He’d been so sure Gavriil had been on his way through the kitchen window.

  From the field across the street, their assailant fired another shot. It hit one of the stepped brick walls that edged the stairs to the road below and lodged in the masonry.

  “No. Out here we have more options. We’d be trapped in the house. Where is he?” Her pupils were dilated but her voice was steady.

  “I think he’s in the wooded lot across the way. He’s shooting at us from under cover of the trees.”

  “There’s probably a deer blind over there. Lots of folks have tree stands on their property.”

  Bodhi talked it through. “So here’s what we know. He’s likely elevated, which gives him a greater shooting area and a better angle—but only if we’re below him. So, better to stay on the porch as long as we can—off the ground. He’s using a high-caliber rifle; the bullets are hitting the house before we hear the gunshot. And he’s a terrible shot.”

  Hannah gaped at him.

  “Forensic pathology, remember? I need to understand trajectories, distances, all that stuff. Now let’s talk about your expertise. Could you neutralize him with your bare hands?”

  “A former Russian intelligence officer? I doubt it. I’m pretty good with weapons fighting—a staff, a sword, or nunchucks. But I’ve never used any of them in a, um, street fight. Also, I don’t have a weapon—that’s a limiting factor.”

  “Here’s another limiting factor—I don’t think I can kill him if I have to. Not even to save my own, or yours. I don’t know that. But I won’t know until put to the test. And if we end up in a situation where I am put to that test … I wouldn’t want you to rely on me.” It had to be said, so he said it.

  She blanched. “It’s good to know.”

  They stopped whispering. Bodhi waited for the next shot to come.

  Nothing.

  They waited some more, crouched in the corner of the porch. The cool morning air was still and quiet. The sky was edged with pink. No cars or trucks drove along the road. No birds chattered. A typical rural morning—just add gun-toting Russian and stir, Bodhi thought.

  “He’s got to be on the move,” Hannah said. “He would have taken another shot by now.”

  Bodhi twisted his neck to meet her eyes. “I have an idea. It might work.”

  “What’s the worst case scenario if it doesn’t?”

  “Worst case is he kills us both. Most likely outcome is he kills me and you get away.”

  She leaned forward. “Wait. I have to tell you something—just in case. I let you believe that Zhang was my lover because I couldn’t bear for you to know that I was helping him spy on Supra Seed. I didn’t want you to think less of me.” She lowered her eyes.

  He didn’t know how he would have responded given the chance. Just then another bullet tore through the air. This one whizzed just overhead and cracked Chief Clark’s front window.

  “He’s getting closer. I have to do this now.”

  He kissed the top of her head. Then he crawled on his hands and knees to the corner of the wall. He stopped where the wall met the stairs. He took what he hoped was not his last deep breath. Exhaled. Then he stood and stepped into view at the top of the stairs, his hands pointed to the sky.

  He took two steps down and stood on the stairs.

  “You have a problem,” he said in a clear voice to the man who was advancing across the street with a gun pointed at his chest.

  Gavriil’s finger danced on the trigger. Then he blinked.

  “What did you say?” He stopped in the middle of the road and waited for the doctor to respond.

  “I said you have a problem. Actually, you have two.”

  Gavriil glanced down at his gun then laughed. “I think you’re the one with the problem. I’m the one with the firearm.”

  The doctor nodded, hands still in the air. “You do have a gun. And I don’t want to anger you, given that you’re armed. But, I can’t help noticing you’re not a very good shot. I mean, assuming you were trying to hit us.”

  Red anger flared in Gavriil’s belly. But it died instantly. It was objectively true. He was not the most accurate of marksmen from a distance. He never had been. And the silencer, which was a necessity, altered velocity and point of impact. Which, he believed, was why he hit the farmer and not the woman.

  “I’m not great from a distance. I do okay at close range.” He gestured with the gun for emphasis.

  “That still doesn’t solve your problems.”

  Gavriil eyed the doctor. The man was tense but resolved. There was no sign of the scientist. He assumed she was hiding on the porch. He considered
shooting out one of the doctor’s kneecaps. Just to make a point. But he decided to hear what he had to say. Then, he’d just shoot to kill. Gavriil wasn’t a monster. He was a professional.

  “Start talking.”

  “You need to kill us and get San’s encrypted journal—right? The one I took from the trunk in the monks’ basement.”

  At the reminder of the theft, Gavriil’s rage returned. He tamped it down.

  “That’s right.”

  “But you also need to decrypt it. I mean, it’s useless if it’s encrypted.”

  “Also correct.”

  “So here’s the problem. Ms. Lin is the only person who can decrypt it for you. So you need her alive.”

  Gavriil narrowed his eyes. “You’re lying. Or deluded. My employer has a stable of decryption experts. And access to freelance talent. Cracking that code doesn’t hinge on some random plant scientist.”

  “But it does. The NCSC has a stable of decryption experts, too. You know what the NCSC is, right?”

  “Yeah, we’re acquainted.”

  “The blonde agent, she’s an expert in manual decryption. And she can’t crack it. Did you know there are more than fifty thousand written characters in Chinese? And San applied two ciphers. And he used both Cantonese and Mandarin. And, this is the crucial part, he and Ms. Lin decided on the universe of characters they’d use together. Even a computer algorithm can’t break that code. Only Ms. Lin can.”

  Gavriil shook his head. “San wouldn’t be that stupid. What if she got cold feet? What if I turned her? Or she got hit by a tractor? You can’t be telling the truth.”

  The doctor shrugged. “I guess you could kill her and find out. But then your employer will probably be upset. If only two people know a code and you kill them both, the code dies with them. I mean, sure, maybe fifty years from now, some enterprising computer scientist will stumble on the solution. Assuming the population doesn’t starve before then—or agree to be annexed by the United States in exchange for some food. You could get lucky.”