It had always given Nero a bit of a thrill to service the dead drops on Money’s behalf. Usually, he retrieved and delivered sealed envelopes. Paper. He had no idea what was written on the paper, or who was on the other end of the clandestine transactions. He never wanted to know.
Until now.
The plan wasn’t without risk. If Money had indeed been captured, there was every possibility that he had given Homeland the locations and codes for all of the dead drops he and Nero had used over the years. In fact, there was a remarkably strong chance that was the case, Nero surmised.
But it had been a few days since Nero’s escape from the wrecked prison van. While Homeland had nearly unlimited resources, Nero was counting on the normal human tendency toward reduced effort over time, particularly toward a fruitless task. He was betting that if Homeland had indeed watched the dead drop locations for a few days, they would likely have lost interest.
Of course, it was entirely possible they had not. It was entirely possible there was a small army of Special Agent America-like people, sitting in confiscated cars with binoculars and infrared night vision devices, keeping watch over a dozen dead drop locations. Maybe even more. Maybe Money had other couriers, each with their own dead drop locations. Maybe dozens of them. Even so, a surveillance agent for every dead drop was not beyond the realm of the possible. So there was risk involved.
But he couldn’t do nothing. He was going out of his mind.
He ran through the details one last time as he watched the sun set over the horizon.
Then it was time to go. Time to get his life back.
Nero connected the old motorcycle’s ignition wires. He flipped the kick starter out, placed his heel on top, drove his foot down, and gave the motorcycle a little throttle as it sputtered to life. It ran like a charm. A huge blessing. Well worth the trouble to find and fix it.
He rounded the corner out of the long aisle of storage units. He turned west, toward the highway, stunned again by the beauty of the sunset. There was nothing like a Denver twilight. He saw wild, unfathomable mountains in deep indigo, cutting a jagged silhouette into the blazing reds and yellows of the sky. There was an invigorating bite in the air. It was impossible not to feel good about being alive, no matter the circumstances.
The sunset brought momentary calm to his butterfly-filled stomach. He worked hard to keep his mind clear and alert, but he felt worry cloud his thinking. A chill passed through him, a certain knowledge that he was on borrowed time.
Perhaps that was true. Perhaps it was impossible for one man to hide indefinitely in the modern world from the Establishment, from the Machine, from Big Brother.
But Nero didn’t have to hide forever. He only needed to remain free long enough to gather the evidence he needed to clear his name.
Which was another worry. A fool’s errand, maybe. Suppose he found something of use, something that might help convince people of his innocence. Then what? Would Special Agent America listen? Would he care?
Or maybe Special Agent America had a quota, a certain number of people he had to capture and detain, to prove he was doing a good job, to prove he was keeping the country safe, to prove he was winning the war on terror, whatever that meant.
There was another nagging worry, one Nero had thought about previously. How the hell was he going to prove his non-knowledge and non-involvement? Especially when it looked so clearly like he was involved. He was, after all, Money’s deliveryman. His pleas of deliberate ignorance didn’t sound terribly compelling, even to him.
So he had no idea what to expect.
And he had no idea what he was looking for. He just had the vague sense that it all began and ended with Money. Money had to be the key. Because outside of Money, Nero’s life was squeaky clean.
Nero merged onto the highway. He headed south, spectacular sunset off his right shoulder, traffic still heavy but moving. He planned to start in the south end of town and work his way north, visiting every dead drop location in the city, one by one.
He didn’t expect to find a smoking gun. But it was the only thing he knew to do, the only starting point that didn’t seem like a certain trip back to the slammer, the only course of action with any prayer of yielding results.
He took the exit for I-225, dodged slower traffic in the right lane, exited at Parker Road, just past a gargantuan man-made dam, and looped back around to the south.
The Emerald Isle Tavern appeared after a mile or two on his right. His first stop. Nero had no idea how many years the place had been in business. Over thirty, at least. Maybe forty or fifty. He had no idea if it was under the original management, either. He just knew that the place hadn’t changed much over the years. Decent food, a great view, and all the alcohol you could drink. A winning, timeless combination.
Nero parked his motorcycle, disengaged the ignition wires, set the kickstand, and went inside. Despite his growing hunger, he didn’t stop to order anything. He didn’t want to be recognized.
He walked through the restaurant. It looked and smelled familiar. He had been there many times before. It had a mom-and-pop feel to it, not like one of those big chains. Nero liked that. Real character, not manufactured pseudo-culture.
He found his way to the restroom. The door was equipped with a sliding lock. Nero clicked it into place, sealing himself off from the rest of the restaurant and bar. He climbed atop the counter, taking care not to slip on the wet, slick countertop. He placed his hands on the mirror to steady himself as he stood upright, his head just a few inches below the ceiling tile.
He splayed his fingers and pressed upward on the ceiling tile, lifting it out of its seating. He moved it off to the side, creating just enough room to snake his arm up into the space. He bent his elbow and wrist, feeling the top of the adjacent tiles.
Nothing.
Nero cursed softly to himself. The dead drop was empty. There was nothing there.
Someone jostled the lock and pounded on the bathroom door.
Nero jumped. Adrenaline flooded his body. He jerked, nearly fell.
“Pinch it off, buddy!” a drunken voice yelled.
Nero breathed a sigh of relief. Just a drunk in need of relief. “Just a minute,” he said.
He moved the ceiling tile back into place, hopped down from the counter, wiped his boot prints from the countertop, washed his hands, and opened the door.
“About damn time, buddy. Were you giving birth in there?” A giant of a man, in a biker’s jacket, with neck tattoos.
Nero muttered an apology. He made his way back out the front of the pub. He was tempted to stop, to grab a bite to eat, to have a beer. But he fought the temptation. If Money had squealed to the feds about all of his dead drop locations, it wouldn’t make sense to spend any longer than necessary at the Emerald Isle.
He opened the front door, stepped out into the cool night air, looked all around him. No cops. No big, ugly Fords, the kind that only grandparents and feds drove. It was all pickup trucks and motorcycles and a few out-of-place imports in the parking lot.
Nero heard no helicopters, either. A good sign. He looked up in the sky, just to be sure.
Just a single bird circled overhead. Big, graceful, never even flapping its wings. Riding a thermal, maybe. He wondered idly if there were thermals at night. Probably. Residual heat from the asphalt, maybe. Maybe it was enough to keep a big bird with a big wingspan aloft, with no effort.
He heard a strange sound, kind of like a tiny propeller, like there was a model airplane flying around nearby. He only heard it when there was a break in the stream of traffic flowing along the road. He couldn’t place the sound. It seemed far off, spread out, coming from everywhere and nowhere, bouncing off nearby buildings. He shrugged it off.
Nero reconnected the ignition wires, kick-started the bike, waited for a hole in traffic, and turned left, northbound on Parker Road, back the way he had come. The next location was only a couple of miles away.
He drove there automatically, mind wandering, arriv
ing suddenly and without recollection of the journey. It was a playground, with big, bright, plastic playthings bolted into the sand. There was a metal bench, with wooden slats. The oldest dead-drop trick in the book, Nero figured.
He sat down at the bench, ran his right hand underneath, and moved it back and forth, searching for an envelope taped to the underside of the bench.
Nothing.
He bent over, looked beneath the bench, obvious as the nose on his face, violating every rule of tradecraft.
But Nero wasn’t a spy. He was a courier. He ran his hand deeper beneath the bench, further and further, just to be sure he hadn’t missed anything.
He had missed something.
Something very important.
“Looking for something, Mr. Chiligiris?”
Nero froze. His gut spasmed with fear. His eyes grew wide as quarters. He whipped his head toward the sound. A large man. Tall, athletic, buzzed hair, bulletproof vest, pistol drawn.
“It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Chiligiris.”
A familiar voice.
Ominous.
“Now put your hands in the air,” Special Agent America said.
38
“I think the prudent call is to treat it as though Frankel was here in town on business,” Dan said.
“Obviously,” Sam said, a little too testily. “But what does that mean for us?”
Dan shook his head. “I suppose the local hospital alert is as good a start as any.”
Sam grimaced. “We’re only going to find anything out after the fact.”
“Obviously,” Dan responded in kind. He shrugged. “We could always roll him.”
“But we watched him the whole time,” Severn said. “He didn’t do anything.”
“He didn’t appear to do anything,” Sam corrected. “But as a profession, assassination has come a long way over the years. And our man Frankel has had plenty of time on his hands to stay up-to-date with the latest techniques.”
Mark Severn nodded. “Biological weapons,” he said. “Just like Janice Everman.”
“That’s a giant logical leap,” Sam said. “Nothing more than a hunch.”
“True,” Severn said. “But you believe it, too, don’t you?”
Sam pondered a moment. “I suppose I do. Healthy people like Janice Everman don’t die of food poisoning inside of a day,” she said. “Hell, people don’t die of Ebola in a day. I don’t know what the hell Frankel used on her, assuming it was him, but it must have been in a league of its own.”
Dan nodded. “But like you said, science has come a long way. And it’s anyone’s guess who hired this guy, and how connected they might be.”
“You’re thinking of a foreign government?” Severn asked.
“It would fit. Given the Budapest angle, and the Russian gangsters in Boston.”
“Speaking of which,” Sam said. She waved the sheaf of papers that Mark Severn brought with him. “I need to dig into this network analysis. Dan, can you head up the hospital search? Also, let’s assemble all of the surveillance camera footage we have on Frankel over the last twenty-four hours. Run it all through the software, spectral detection algorithms, anything we can throw at this to shed some light on what he was doing in town.”
“Roger, boss,” Dan said. He turned to Severn. “Can you help?”
Severn nodded. “Nothing on my agenda tonight.”
“Excellent. I’ll leave this in your capable hands,” Sam said.
She retreated to her office, where she called Brock, to tell him goodnight, and to tell him that something had broken in the Budapest case, and that it demanded her full attention, probably until dawn.
“You’re lucky I’m not the jealous type,” Brock said. “And you’re lucky I have my bitches to keep me warm in your absence.”
Sam laughed. “Make sure you clean up the glitter when they leave.”
“Always,” Brock said. “I don’t know what you’re doing, Sam, but please be careful.”
“Always,” she lied.
Sam started with the highlighted names, email addresses, and telephone numbers that Severn had annotated on the network analysis report. The computer had identified all known connections between the house full of Russian gangsters and anyone with any remote attachment to the current happenings. The computer had identified connections originating from anything related to Janice Everman’s death, then constructed a network analysis using financial transactions, airline tickets, cell phone records, tax returns, property titles, automobile loans, anything at all that might establish a tie between the Russians and whoever had hired them.
The list of connections was staggering. There were first-order links, of course, generated when A called B, or C called D. There were also second order connections, where A called B, who then called C. The computer continued to identify affiliations all the way out to the seventh layer, which produced a nearly unfathomable list of possible connections. Far too many to sift through, and entirely too many to even contemplate investigating.
The computer’s results required a computer to understand, so the report also included a meta-analysis. Many of the higher-order network connections shared common nodes with some lower-order connections, and it was possible to cross-reference them to figure out who the major movers and shakers were in the game. Those individuals appeared toward the center of the network diagram, with the most connections leading to and from them, signifying the greatest number of people with whom they kept ties. Sam focused her efforts on the major players. They would be the ones finding business, doing deals, taking payments, ordering the goons around.
They were a very active bunch. They had their hands in a lot of different things. Undoubtedly, the vast majority of their activities were of the questionable variety. But Sam didn’t have time to sift through them all, so she quickly switched tactics.
She found the names of the three dead goons in Budapest. She analyzed their connection activity. It was sparse. Clearly, they were foot soldiers. They didn’t make decisions, they didn’t recruit new business, and they weren’t critical nodes in the network.
But that worked to Sam’s advantage. She analyzed their email and telephone activity over the preceding weeks. Not much activity. There were a few calls to and from a well-known and well-protected whorehouse. Perhaps it was one of the Russian gang’s businesses, and the goons were charged with making sure the madam paid the proper protection fee. Or maybe they liked to taste the wares on a regular basis. It wasn’t like they were handsome men. And the women that Sam and Dan had encountered in the house in Boston were even less handsome. So it was not inconceivable that if the thugs wanted to spend time in the company of beautiful women, they would have to pay for it. Sam jotted the whorehouse down as a possibility, in case nothing else panned out.
There was another set of interesting phone calls. The number corresponded with one of the phones used by Viktor Markov. Markov was one of the big shots, one of the names with a lot of lines leading to and from it on the network diagram. A boss of some sort, maybe an upper-level manager.
Sam checked the dates of the calls between Markov and the foot soldiers.
Bingo.
They corresponded to Mark Severn’s time in Hungary. And also to her own time in Budapest.
Sam’s first instinct was to pay a visit to Mr. Markov. But that was the old-school investigator in her. It was the digital age, the brave new world. There was a much more efficient way to go about things. She simply dug deeper into the network analysis report, centering her search around Markov.
A weak connection caught her eye. It caught her eye because Mark Severn had highlighted it. It was the one in pink. Sam followed the highlighter through the columns until she found the man’s name.
Jonathan France.
Janice Everman’s replacement at the Department of Justice.
The man who benefited most directly from Janice Everman’s death. At least, the one who benefited most obviously from her demise.
Sam
looked at her watch. Almost ten p.m. DC time.
Perfect time for a house call.
Sam left Dan and Mark Severn working to assemble the video footage of the assassin, and to cross-reference any suspicious, security-related injuries in the local hospitals.
Both seemed like long shots. But both needed doing. No two ways about it.
And Jonathan France needed a friendly visit. No two ways about that, either. So Sam went alone. She waved off Dan’s offer to go along, ignoring the look he gave her.
She drove her usual speed en route to Jonathan France’s house, which was to say she was a hazard to other motorists. But the DC streets weren’t crowded, which made Sam happy. She wasn’t in the mood for traffic. She had found herself in bumper-to-bumper snarls at midnight, for no apparent reason, and she was pleased to be making solid progress on this particular night.
Because it felt like something was brewing. Something was about to happen. Things felt perched on a precipice of some sort, like an avalanche biding its time.
Jonathan France lived at a tony address in Georgetown. Sam parked her car at the curb in front of his apartment building, showed her badge to the doorman, found the France residence in the registry, and took the elevator to the fourth floor.
The place was simple, elegant, high-end, tasteful.
Expensive, Sam noted. She was sure that the lawyers on the Department of Justice payroll earned more than the average government employee. But she wasn’t sure they earned nearly enough to live in a place like this. And France had told her that his wife stayed home with the kids. So either France had come into some money, or he was earning stacks of dead presidents on the side, Sam decided.
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 81