by Gayle Lynds
"Ty—"
"Not a word! You hear me! Are you here to murder me, too?" Crocker was enraged. He stood in the doorway in pinstriped pajamas, a Chinese silk robe, and leather slippers. "To think I . . . I—" So furious he could only sputter, the senator stopped trying, and for a long ten seconds the two men glared at each other.
His voice thick with emotion, Jeff finally shook his head. "I'm sorry, Ty. It never occurred to me you'd still think I'd killed those kids. Not after Tom Horn's murder. You had to know his murder, piled onto the first two, was too much. Too unbelievable that I'd do all three. You really think I could've killed the director, Ty? Of all people, I had expected you to see the truth." He hesitated. "Did I expect too much from you?"
Ty Crocker flinched. He finally found his voice. "You could easily have murdered them if you're a mole for the Russians."
Jeff looked around at the nighttime backyard. He could see no one, and the houses on either side of Ty's were distant. Still, he lowered his voice. "You honestly think I've been a mole all these years? You've known me my entire life. Your observations and judgment are that bad?"
Ty's voice dropped, too. "Then what? Why? Quitting the Bureau . . . those kids . . . that safe house . . . the director, for God's sakes! Tom Horn was a good man!"
"Quitting the Bureau and escaping from the safe house are the same thing—I've been working undercover ten years. That was a new safe house, dammit. You know that. I was never in it. I would've had to have help to get out."
Ty Crocker frowned and nodded. "Yes, it was new."
"As for those kids and the director . . . I told you at the safe house I'd been framed. Someone wants me out of the way badly."
"But why?"
"Because we're close to uncovering a plot to assassinate President Stevens."
As the senator cocked his head in disbelief, Beth insisted, "It's the truth. They've tried to stop me, too."
Ty Crocker looked from one to the other. He sighed. "Come in. We'll talk."
Inside, Jeff lay the belts out on the kitchen table, and he and Beth recapitulated everything as Ty Crocker made a pot of Earl Gray tea. Beth stood beside the door, watching the backyard for signs they had been followed, until at last the tea was ready. Sighing, she sat with the senator at the table with their cups. Jeff paced.
The senator sipped the hot tea, his halo of white hair smoothed back but the lines on his face deep and uncertain. He seemed weary; the shocks of the last few days had taken a toll. On his lap, his short-haired, black-and-white cat, Flubby, purred. "You say these belts have tracking devices?" Crocker nodded at the two leather belts with heavy buckles curled atop the varnished wood table. "So these Keepers you've told me about can be tracked and caught?"
"Everything we've told you is the truth, Ty." Jeff's rugged features were knit in an impatient scowl. "Everything."
Beth added, "We think Berianov wants them caught, expects they'll kill themselves, and he'll be free and clear."
Jeff resumed stalking the parquet floor in his lizard-skin cowboy boots. He was a study in motion—larger than life from his big head to his square shoulders and broad feet. He stopped at an antique cupboard and turned to face them again. His hands were dug into his windbreaker pockets.
The senator growled, "Russians. Ultra-right-wing American nationalists. Caves near Gettysburg. A fake Oval Office. Alexei Berianov. And now the mysterious mole within the Bureau who keeps cropping up whenever something happens that no one can explain. There's an expression I've heard my grandchildren use that seems to cover every word you both have uttered tonight: Give me a break!"
"Okay," Jeff said. "Let's assume what we've told you is a big lie. What would I gain? What would Beth gain? Explain to me why we've both risked our lives." He shook his head. "Ty, I'm asking for your help. I've never asked for anything from you, but now I need you to believe us. For my parents' sake. For the time my father helped you. Think of it as a way to pay off an old debt from your family to mine."
Beth looked from the senator to the intense expression on Jeff's face. There was an odd nostalgia there, too, as if the past had suddenly crashed hard into the present.
Ty Crocker gazed away. Absentmindedly he petted Flubby. "That was a long time ago. But you're right. If Henry hadn't stepped in . . ." He glanced back at Beth. "It was during the McCarthy hearings. My career was on the block. I was a young diplomat, and my first wife had been a member of the Communist party back when she was a teenager in the thirties and socialism was a good way to help people out. I could've divorced and denounced Denise to get out of the guilt-by-association that McCarthy liked to tar everyone with, but she was dying of cancer . . . and I loved her—" His voice broke. "But if I'd gone before that panel, my career would've been over."
Jeff's tone was somber. "Dad wanted to help, Ty. He felt honored to." He looked down at Beth, where she sat wearily at the table, and explained, "Dad found out something on McCarthy through his work at the CIA. Whatever it was, it was enough to make McCarthy cancel the hearing he'd called to accuse Ty of being a pinko-Commie, as they said in those days. A month later, it was all over. McCarthy had gotten so extreme in his accusations on television that he showed he was a madman on a witch hunt. That was the end of his power."
What he did not add was that Ty's wife died that month, too. It had all happened a decade before Jeff was born, but it was a story Ty had told occasionally when the two families gathered. A story of one man's helping another when he was under a dark cloud of suspicion. Now Jeff was under a similar cloud.
Silence filled the old-fashioned kitchen. Ty heaved a sigh. "All right, Jeff. I'm sorry I doubted you. You're right, I should've been a better friend than that. Sometimes being a senator, a public watchdog, makes a man forget to be human, forget his heart. At least, until he knows the truth for certain. I'd like to find out myself whether there are tracking chips in those belts. I'd better make a phone call. If there are, and if it turns out they're part of the equipment of a gang of militant terrorists, I guess even this old senator will know the whole story is true, right?" Ty smiled, patted Flubby on the head, and set him on the floor. Flubby yawned and licked a front paw. His steps deliberate, the senator headed toward the door. "I'm going upstairs to my den. You stay here and wait where it's safe."
"Can't do it, Ty. Sorry." Jeff tapped his foot impatiently.
Beth explained, "If we're right, Berianov isn't wearing a belt. We'll have to stop him some other way."
"We're not going to tell you where we're going," Jeff added. "You're involved enough. I don't see how anyone could've followed us, but so many people have died that we have to face the possibility you could be in danger, too. The only way we're going to survive and stop Berianov is to never go anywhere they might look for us."
"Right. I'll take precautions. But you must, too. Use my car." Ty Crocker took keys from a hook near the stove and handed them to Jeff with instructions. Then he stopped in the doorway and turned, his naked legs thin and white above his slippers. "I'd better bypass the Bureau under the circumstances. Since this involves the president, it's got to go to the Secret Service anyway. After all, if the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee can't get something like this taken care of immediately, who can? As for President Stevens, he's a stubborn man. He won't stay out of the Oval Office just because a cadre of lunatics may be out to get him, but we can increase protection and maybe track down these killers before they do any harm."
Beth said, "The president may change his mind if you can confirm the existence of the tracking clips in the belts."
"True. Before I do anything else though, I've got to calm down Anna. I know she's lying upstairs fuming because I'm not getting a good night's sleep. Call me later, and I'll let you know what I've found. Be sure to turn out the lights and lock up. And be damn careful yourselves." He turned and padded down the hall, thinking fondly of his second wife. Then his mind turned anxiously to what Jeff and Beth had told him.
Concerned and out-of-sorts, Ty Crocker
sat in the funnel of light made by his desk lamp in the dark den. Books lined the walls. The cool air was touched by the faint odor of well-oiled leather furniture. He punched in the home phone number of Secret Service director Dean Jennings. After introducing himself, the senator spoke for five minutes. "That's as much of the story as I'm going to tell you," he said firmly.
"But your source—?"
"No. If the belts pan out, then I'll tell you who gave them and all the other information to me. Meanwhile, consider it an imminent threat against President Stevens. You'll want to find everyone who's wearing them."
There was a long silence. Finally Jennings said, "I'll have one of my people there in five minutes to pick up the belts. We'll analyze the buckles and go from there."
Evans Olsen lived at a good address in Foggy Bottom. Beth knew this because she had once driven him home from a party after he had drunk so much he could no longer remember where he had left his car. Now she and Jeff parked the senator's car a block away and hurried to the upscale apartment house, keeping close to the buildings and moving from shadow to shadow. They saw no one who looked suspicious and nothing threatening. Their luck was holding for now. In the lobby, Beth ran her finger along the names on the mailboxes.
"That's odd." She frowned. "He's not here. I know this was where I brought him that night. Let's try the manager."
The building's manager was an older man with a sleepy face who was less than pleased to be rousted from his bed. He was instantly wary when Beth asked for Evans Olsen. "Are you from his office?"
"No, just an old friend who needs to find him," Beth told him. "Has he moved?"
"We had to ask him to leave, I'm afraid. Too bad, I rather liked the boy."
Beth guessed, "His drinking?"
The man nodded and became less wary. "The owners insisted."
"I'm sorry. He can really get out of control. Do you know where he went?"
He studied her a moment, then nodded again. "It's in the Northeast. I'll see if I can find the address. Perhaps you can help him."
Olsen's new address proved to be a run-down stuccoed cottage in a derelict neighborhood. Trash stuck to curbs. The odors of marijuana and stale beer were in the air. Thrift-store toys lay out in dark yards that were more dirt than grass. After leaving Ty's Mercedes a block away, Beth and Jeff ran through the cold air to stand across the street from the unlighted cottage. They studied it.
"You didn't date this joker, too, did you?" Jeff sounded irritated.
"Didn't have to. One look at his alcohol habits told me everything I needed to know. I prefer my excess in more exciting situations than drunken stupors."
He gave a brief smile.
"Shall I ring the doorbell? Let me amend that. Shall I try the doorbell to see if it works?"
"Not yet. Wait here. I'll be right back. If anyone so much as winks, yell." He took off at a trot, his long body subtly adjusting. He grew lean and fluid, melting through the shadows. He pushed aside broken slats on a wood fence and disappeared into the cottage's side yard.
Beth continued to watch the house, but there was nothing to see—no light inside, not even the gray flickers of a TV screen reflecting on the window. She was getting cold. But more than anything, she wanted to lose this omnipresent sense of danger that haunted her. It was early Saturday now. Four days since she had phoned Meteor Express and the Russian—some still-unidentified Russian—had answered.
Full of nervous energy, she stood on one foot then the other. Finally she dashed across the dingy street and ran up the brick steps to the cottage. She listened. Nothing. She crept across the wood porch. When a floorboard creaked, she stopped for a long time. At last she reached the front door. She stretched out her hand.
Abruptly light glared inside. She stepped back, startled. Turned to run.
"Beth!" The door swung open, and Jeff stood there. "I told you to wait."
"I waited. Now I'm not waiting. I didn't agree to any time limit. In fact, I never even agreed to wait."
"Come in. You're shivering."
She hurried through the doorway. "Where's Olsen?"
Jeff dropped the shade at the window beside the door. "He was out back in his car, drunk, keys still in his hand. He was too oblivious to even stumble from his car. The way he looks and smells, he's been on a real bender. I dumped him in the kitchen."
She followed him back through a narrow hallway that ran the length of the cottage. The wallpaper was faded in squares and rectangles that told her at one time there had been photographs hanging along here. She imagined family faces, children from infancy through high school graduation. Wedding photos. She shook her head. What had happened to the world—to her world—that such a simple idea as a record of family life held such poignancy and seemed such a remote dream? Automatically she clutched her shoulder bag with its life-saving drugs.
"Watch him, will you?" Jeff said. "I'm going to close the curtains and see what kind of security there is, if any. This is going to take longer than we thought." He left, his footsteps quiet as he roamed the small one-story structure.
She stared at what once had been an attractive, dynamic man. In his late thirties, Evans Olsen had a mop of curly black hair prematurely salted with gray. He lay in a fetal position on the painted wood table of a breakfast nook. His hands were balled up in fists and shoved up under his unshaved chin. His eyes were closed tightly, the corners wrinkled, as if the act of shutting off the light would shut off the world. He wore a black trenchcoat that stank of vomit, high-top sneakers crossed at the ankles, and Dockers slacks that were mottled with grime and God knew what else.
"Evans!" She dropped to her haunches so her face was on a level with his. She shouted, "Evans, wake up!"
He did not flinch. Not even the sound of his name being bellowed was enough to shake him.
She sighed. "Evans, you're disgusting. Come on. We've got to sober you up."
Still no response. She took off her windbreaker and grabbed his hand. It was sticky. This was not going to be one of her all-time favorite jobs. She stripped off one of his trenchcoat sleeves, peeled the coat off his back, then rolled him enough to pull off the other sleeve. She held her breath, trying not to smell the wretched stink, and carried the trenchcoat out to the back porch where she dropped it. Once more inside, she locked the door and turned.
Jeff had set Evans upright on the bench in the breakfast nook, his head propped up in the corner. Evans's mouth hung open. He was snoring.
Beth said, "He's so out of it that I'm worried if we try to pour coffee down him, he'll choke. It could start him to vomiting, and if he aspirates vomit, we could be in real trouble. He could die."
Jeff frowned. "You're saying we'd better let him sleep it off."
"I don't think we have a choice. He's even peed himself. In a few hours, he'll start to come out of it. Then we can try the coffee routine. It's not like we have to wait for him to get a good eight hours." She sighed. "What's the security like?"
He shrugged unhappily. "Nonexistent. The doors and windows have locks, but that's all. Anyone who really wants in is going to find no challenge."
They stared across the scarred kitchen tiles. With most of Washington and points east, west, north, and south looking for them, they were stuck with a drunk who could not talk, in a house that was not secure. Stuck . . . with each other.
Jeff shook his head. "You're right. We'll just have to wait it out. God, how long could he have been like this? I mean, the Secret Service finds out how far down he's sunk, they'll bounce him out of the White House in ten seconds."
"I've never seen him this bad. He's got to be in some kind of deep trouble. That's what a drunk does, he hides from trouble." Beth glanced around the shabby kitchen. "We'd better search the place. There's got to be some reason Berianov was calling him. We just have to figure out what the reason was."
"Yeah, and they haven't killed him, even though he's probably easy to find. Considering Berianov's track record, that's significant. It must mean they still nee
d him for some reason."
Beth helped Jeff carry Olsen into the bathroom. Jeff stayed to strip him and put him in the shower, while Beth did a quick survey of the cottage—two bedrooms, one bath, living room, small dining room, and kitchen. Everything smelled of dust, cheap liquor, and cigarette butts. There was a full basement with an ancient Maytag washer that looked as if it had not been used in years. She searched past an old workbench with a few dusty tools, and on into a corner where discarded tires and hubcaps had been tossed. The detritus of years lay in haphazard piles everywhere. Nothing current.
She returned upstairs to the living room, where a desk stood in the corner. The top was littered with candy packages, bills, junk mail, and catalogues. She sat to open and read—illegal, but at this point she had committed so many crimes she had given up worrying.
She discovered Olsen had moved here a few months before from Foggy Bottom and was renting. The bill included a note warning his security deposit was subject to forfeit if the owners found he had not taken care of their property. She shook her head, doubting it could have been in significantly better shape when he rented it. There were old bills from creditors demanding payment instantly, and credit-card notices saying he was over his borrowing limit. Automatic deposit records told her Evans Olsen was still employed by the White House, and bank records showed his money rushed out much quicker than it flowed in. He was on the way down, and descending at a fast clip.
Jeffs voice sounded behind her. "He's clean and tucked into bed. Never so much as opened his eyes. It was like taking a corpse into that shower."
She turned to summarize how bad Olsen's financial situation was. But as she talked, her words slowed and faltered. She found herself breathing harder and harder. "What could Berianov want from him?"
"Whatever it is, we'll find out." Jeff was standing in the doorway, dressing.
His skin glowed from the shower, golden and tempting. He had arrived in briefs, a tiny strip of underwear that hid none of his assets. He leaned over to step into his jeans. The muscles across his shoulders kneaded and pulsed as he pulled up the denim pants, buttoned the fly, and stopped at the waist. There was a red crease across the top of one shoulder where a bullet had seared a path. The pants hung from his flat belly and narrow hips as if they had been tailored. Tiny tufts of golden-brown hair showed beneath his naval. He reached for his shirt, which was hanging on the doorknob. Light glowed in his eyes, something dangerous and alluring. He had changed. Whatever questions he'd had about her had somehow been resolved.