3 Great Thrillers

by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric

  Then he banged open the door to the last stall in the row and said, “Good morning, sir.”

  Edward Carson, the president-elect, who had been reading the Washington Post, stood up, folded the paper under one arm, and said, “No need to call me sir yet, Dennis.”

  “Never too early to get started, sir.”

  The two men emerged from the stall. “Imagine what the Drudge Report would say about this,” Carson grunted. “We’re all alone?”

  “Like Adam before Eve.”

  Carson frowned. “What news of Alli? Lyn is beside herself.”

  Paull knew it wasn’t presidential for Carson to add that he was also beside himself. Presidents never lost their cool, no matter how dire the straits. “I believe we’re closer to finding her today than we were yesterday.”

  “Knock off the media-speak,” Carson said testily. “This is my daughter we’re talking about.”

  “Yessir.” Paull rubbed his chin. “The ball is in your man’s court. I’ve given McClure every ounce of freedom I possibly can without showing my hand to the POTUS.”

  Carson’s frown deepened. “But is that going to be enough, Dennis?”

  “I’d be lying if I said I knew for sure, sir. But you and McClure go back quite a ways, from what you tell me, and you’ve said he’s the best man for the job.”

  “And I stand by that,” the president-elect said stiffly.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” Paull went on, “my agent agrees with you.”

  “The only thing that’s going to make me feel better is the safe return of my daughter.”

  There was a sudden noise outside, and both men went completely still. Paull held up a finger, crossed to the door, pulled it open quickly. One of the cleaning personnel was turning a corner. When he was out of sight, Paull ducked back into the men’s room, shook his head in the negative.

  “I had to deliver Yukin into the POTUS’s hands,” Paull said. “I had the evidence against Mikilin, and I gave it to the POTUS before he left for Moscow. I attended a celebration of sorts following the POTUS’s return. He’s got the Russian president in his back pocket now, so does he demand exports from RussOil, as I suggested? Does he forge a pact to create a joint strategic uranium reserve, as I also suggested? No, of course not. Instead, he’s spent the ammunition I gave him obtaining Yukin’s promise to back the POTUS when he makes his final national-policy address to the nation. In it, he’s going to charge that the government has direct evidence that Beijing is funding E-Two, and that the First American Secular Revivalists are, in fact, a front for E-Two. And where d’you think that bogus evidence will come from? Moscow, of course. And no one will be able to say it’s false.” Paull crossed to the door once again, put his ear to it. Satisfied, he returned to where Carson waited for him. “The POTUS is going to declare war on the missionary secularists of any and every stripe.”

  “I want to help you, Dennis, but until Alli is returned to me safe and sound, my hands are tied. As long as there’s a suspicion that either E-Two or the FASR is behind her abduction, I can’t make a stand against the president.”

  “I understand your overriding concern here, sir, but we’ve had a complication.”

  Carson’s blue eyes bored into the secretary’s. “What kind of a complication?”

  “The men I sent to keep McClure safe were compromised.”

  He’d caught the president-elect’s full attention.

  “Compromised in what way?”

  “The POTUS’s people gave them orders to terminate.”

  A deathly silence overtook them. “Jack’s safe?”

  “Yessir, he is.”

  “I don’t want another incident like that,” Carson said. “Am I being clear?”

  Paull stiffened. He knew a rebuke when he heard one, and this one was well deserved. “Absolutely, sir.” Somewhere along the line, his careful security net had been breached. He had to find out where with all possible haste.

  Carson stepped away, regarded his pale, lined face in the mirror, then turned around. “Dennis, if the POTUS got on to your men, then he knows. Jack’s not the only one in terrible danger. We are, too.”

  “Yessir.” Paull nodded. “That’s the goddamned truth of it.”

  33

  It had been a long time since Jack woke up with a splitting headache. He clambered out of bed with the unusual care of a mountain climber with vertigo. Crawling into the shower, he turned on the cold water full-blast so that no one would hear him screaming.

  Ten minutes later, when Nina called, he had crawled out of the muck of the sea and had grown a spinal cord. He figured by the time she showed up, he had a chance of being halfway human.

  Still, he insisted on driving them over to the All Around Town bakery. The day was cool but sunny, which made a welcome change of pace. But according to AccuWeather, there was another front coming in that wasn’t afraid of dumping three inches of rain or something worse on them.

  He was in no mood to talk, but soon enough he noticed Nina repeatedly glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

  Finally, she ventured an opinion on his physical state. “You look like crap.”

  “That’s what a week without sleep will do to you.” He eyed her speculatively. She was dressed in a gray flannel suit over a cream-colored cashmere sweater. “On the other hand, you look as fresh as a plate of sushi.”

  “And just as cool.” Nina laughed. “I’ll bet good money you were thinking that.”

  “Actually,” Jack said, “I was thinking about what we’ll do if Joachim Tolkan hasn’t shown up from his sad trip to Miami Beach. Or, even worse, if the story he fed Oscar was a lie.”

  “Since when did you become a glass-half-empty guy?”

  “Since last night,” Jack said, more to himself than to her.

  “What happened?”

  “My ex happened,” Jack said bitterly.

  “I’m sorry, Jack.” Nina put a hand briefly over his. “I once tried to get back with an old boyfriend. All that did was make me realize why we broke up in the first place.”

  Wanting to get off the subject of exes, Jack said, “I grew up around here. A lot of memories, good and bad. Mysteries, too.”

  “What kind of mysteries?”

  “A double murder up at McMillan Reservoir, for one.”

  “It went unsolved?”

  Jack nodded. “Not only that, I remember there was no info at all on who was killed.”

  “That is odd,” Nina acknowledged.

  Jack turned a corner. “Then there was Ian Brady.”

  “Who was he?”

  “No one knew who he was or where he came from. But he had a huge amount of juice—too much, I’d say, for a local drug dealer. He was supplying heroin, God alone knows what else. Other suppliers were caught or killed, but not Brady. No one could lay a finger on him.”

  There was a sporty cabernet-colored Mercedes coupe parked in front of the All Around Town bakery, and Jack took this as a good sign. The bell rang as they walked in, and there was Oscar behind the counter.

  “Boss just got here,” he said as soon as he saw them enter. “Wait right there.” He disappeared into the back. A moment later, he returned with a man whose only genetic connection with his father was his olive-gray complexion. He was tall and slim, dapper as his dad, though.

  His expression was quizzical, curious, free from his father’s dark guile. “Oscar said you wanted to see me.”

  “That’s right.”

  Nina produced her Homeland Security ID. Jack made the introductions, gave their condolences for his loss.

  Joachim Tolkan held out his hand.

  Jack hadn’t expected this. He didn’t want to shake Joachim Tolkan’s hand, the son of a murderer, but he saw no way out. The moment he took Joachim’s hand, he felt an electric shock travel up his arm. It was as if he’d made contact with Cyril Tolkan from beyond the grave.

  “Are you all right, Mr. McClure? You went white there for a moment.”

&n
bsp; “I’m fine,” Jack lied.

  “We just need a couple of moments of your time, Mr. Tolkan,” Nina said in her best neutral voice.

  “No problem.” Joachim Tolkan lifted an arm. “Why don’t we continue this discussion in my office? That way we can all sit down and relax.” He turned to Oscar. “How about some coffee for our guests?”

  As Nina passed Oscar, he handed her a chocolate-chip cookie, along with a wink.

  Tolkan led them back through the oven room, hotter than Hades despite the exhaust fans and air-conditioning. To the right was a door through which he took them.

  Jack found himself in a surprisingly large, pleasantly furnished office, complete with an upholstered sofa, coffee table, a pair of lamps. A full bathroom was to the right and beside it a short hallway that led to what appeared to be a bedroom.

  “I stay here to all hours,” Joachim Tolkan said, noticing Jack’s scrutiny. He shrugged. “Anyway, no point in going back to the house these days. It’s become the soon-to-be ex’s territory.”

  As Tolkan settled himself behind his desk, Oscar arrived with a tray filled with mugs and a carafe of coffee. Oscar slid it onto the low table in front of the sofa and left, closing the door behind him.

  “Help yourselves.” When neither Jack nor Nina made a move to the tray, Tolkan said, “I’m curious. What does the Department of Homeland Security want with me?”

  “Were you a member of FASR?” Jack said.

  “So far as I know that’s not a crime.”

  “You dropped out three and a half months ago,” Nina said.

  “Again, not a crime.” Tolkan laced his fingers together. “Where, may I ask, is this going?”

  Jack walked slowly around the room, studying everything. “E-Two.”

  Tolkan blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You can,” Jack said, turning to him, “but it won’t do any good.”

  Tolkan spread his hands. “What’s an E-Two?”

  “Doesn’t read the paper, apparently.” Nina, perched on the arm of the sofa, took a tiny bite of her chocolate-chip cookie. “My, this is good.”

  “Listen.” Jack advanced toward the desk. “We’re not in the mood for lies.”

  Tolkan shook his head. “Lies about what?”

  Was it Jack’s imagination, or was Joachim Tolkan becoming more and more like his late father, Cyril? He found the thought intolerable. He was just about to lunge at Tolkan when, entirely without warning, Nina skimmed her cookie right at Tolkan’s head. The edge struck him just over the left eye, the impromptu missile shattering on impact.

  Tolkan’s hand flew to his face. “What the hell—!” Jack reached over, grabbed Tolkan by his lapels, dragged him up off his comfortable chair so that he was half-hanging over his desk. Cookie crumbs and bits of chocolate were strewn across his Hermès tie.

  “You haven’t been listening to us, Joachim.” Jack’s face was flushed; there was a murderous look in his eye. “We don’t have time for your fun and games.” Jack hurled him back into the chair. “Tell us about your involvement in E-Two.”

  Now it was Tolkan’s face that was white. He looked visibly shaken. “I was sworn to secrecy.”

  “Your allegiance is admirable,” Nina said with a chill Jack could feel, “but misplaced.”

  “Spill it, Joachim!” Jack thundered.

  Tolkan expelled a little squeak. “All right, but there really isn’t much to tell.” With a trembling hand, he pushed his hair off his forehead. “I heard about E-Two through someone I worked with at FASR. I quit when he did because he said FASR was too slow and poky, too conservative to get anywhere. He said if I was really serious about change, there was another group we could join, one that would get things done. Sounded good to me, so I said okay. Then I come to find out that E-Two’s methods are violent.”

  “That didn’t attract you?” Jack said.

  “What? No.”

  “But your father was a violent man.”

  Joachim regarded Jack with the proper amount of fear. “What does my father have to do with it?”

  Jack said, “The rotten apple doesn’t fall far from the poisoned tree.”

  Tolkan shook his head. “You’ve got it wrong.”

  Nina crossed her arms. “So enlighten us.”

  Tolkan nodded. “The truth is once I was old enough to understand how my father could afford all the luxuries I enjoyed as a kid, I stayed as far away from him as I could. It sickened me the way he’d take us all to church on Sunday, how he’d kneel, say his prayers to Jesus, quote from the Bible, and then go out and do … the things he did. I wanted no part of him, his contacts, his blood money. I worked my way through college, got an MBA from Georgetown.”

  Nina came down off the sofa arm. “So how come you wound up here?”

  “I worked for Goldman Sachs for a year and hated every minute of it. When I quit, I decided I wanted to be my own boss. The bakery was still going, more or less. I saw an opportunity. I stepped in, invested in advertising, in a community-outreach program. Gradually I built up the business to the point where I needed to expand.”

  “And look at you now,” Nina said.

  Jack put his fists on the desk. “So you expect us to believe that you never joined E-Two.”

  “I didn’t,” Tolkan said, shying away. “I swear it.”

  “What happened?” Nina asked.

  “I felt ashamed of myself. I went back to FASR, but they wouldn’t have me. Chris said I could no longer be trusted.”

  Jack said, “This friend of yours—”

  “He isn’t a friend.”

  “Colleague, whatever.” Jack pulled himself up. “Does he have a name?”

  “Ron Kray.”

  Nina checked the printout Armitage had given them. “He’s here,” she said, and read off his home address.

  “That’s a phony. Kray told me. He’s very private.”

  Jack wondered why the name seemed familiar to him. He racked his brain, but the answer remained frustratingly out of reach. “So where does Mr. Kray live?” he said.

  “He never told me and I never asked,” Tolkan answered. “But he said he works at Sibley Memorial Hospital.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” Jack said. “It’s a rehab place for the elderly. Physical and psychiatric.”

  Tolkan nodded. “Ron’s a nurse there. A psychiatric nurse.”

  The modern layer cake of Sibley Memorial occupied a wide swath of real estate on Sleepy Hollow Road outside of Falls Church. Nina suggested they call to see if Kray was on duty, but Jack disagreed.

  “First off, I don’t want to take any chance of him being tipped off we’re coming. Secondly, even if he’s not there, the HR department is bound to have a current photo of him.”

  As it turned out, Kray wasn’t on duty. In fact, the head of the psychiatric department told them he hadn’t worked there for over two years.

  They were directed to the HR department, where they obtained Kray’s last known address, which matched the one on the list Chris Armitage had given them. Kray’s photo ID, however, had been destroyed.

  Kray lived on Tyler Avenue, not more than six minutes away. Nina was silent during most of the drive. At length, she turned to Jack.

  “You must think I’m quite the neurotic.”

  Jack concentrated on his driving. This was somewhat of a new area for him, and he wanted to make sure he read every road sign.

  Nina took his silence for assent. “Yeah, you do.”

  “What do you care what I think?”

  “For one thing, we’re working together. For another, I like you. Your mind doesn’t work like anyone else’s I’ve ever met.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  She offered a nod of assent. “In a very short time, I’ve come to trust what you call your hunches.”

  “Would you call them something else?”

  She nodded. “I would, yes, if I had a word to describe them. Whatever they are, they’re far more than hunches, though.”
She put her head back. “You know, if I spend any more time with you, I’ll start to doubt everything I thought was true.”

  She put a hand over his. “We had a moment there under the old oaks where Emma escaped from school at night.” Her forefinger curled, the nail scratched lightly, erotically along his palm. “Why don’t we take it from there?”

  He braked until he could decipher a street sign. Also, to clear the air between them.

  “Listen, Nina, I’m flattered. But just so there’s no misunderstanding, I’m not into on-the-job screwing.”

  “Too many complications?”

  The image of Sharon was beside him, with her long tanned legs, hair swept across her face, that mysterious look in her eyes he loved because he never quite knew what it meant or foretold. “Among other things.”

  “What if we weren’t partners? I could arrange—”

  “It wouldn’t matter.”

  “Well, that’s candor for you.” Nina removed her hand. “Your ex still under your skin?”

  He swung onto Tyler, slowed to a crawl.

  “Okay, forget it. Privacy’s something I respect. There is, in any case, a kind of privilege in loneliness. It makes you feel alive, introduces you to yourself.”

  Jack felt annoyed. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “You just didn’t say it.” She took out a clove cigarette, lit up. “I have a question. D’you have any idea who Emma met underneath the oaks?”

  “My daughter’s life was a closed book to me. It was as well hidden as a spy’s dead drop.”

  “You never followed up on it?”

  “With who?” A nerve she had nicked flared up. “My daughter’s dead.”

  34

  Jack went up the flagstone path, knocked on the door. Immediately, a dog began to bark. He heard a scuffling inside, then the patter of feet. The door opened, revealing a middle-aged woman in a housecoat. A cigarette was dangling from her mouth.

  “Yeah?” She looked Jack square in the eye without a trace of apprehension.

  Jack cleared his throat. “I’m wondering if Ron Kray is home.” The dog continued barking inside the house. The woman squinted through the smoke trailing up from her cigarette. “Who?”