“No!” Tobi said. “They obviously know we’re here and can follow us anywhere, right? I’m not leaving Pantelaymin alone. Can’t you protect us there?”
“Who—?”
Troy half smiled. “Her cat.”
“Doctor—”
“No. I won’t sacrifice her, so I’d have to go back there to get her, and then you would have to secure my house first, anyway.”
Troy looked at Tarman and nodded. “She’s right. I hope your partner wasn’t in the Jeep when it ….”
“No, he had left the engine running and was coming back in to get you guys. So, the device must have been on some sort of a timer linked to the ignition. If someone had been watching to detonate, he would have known you weren’t in it yet, so he would’ve waited. We’re searching the area but have not found anyone yet.”
It was hours before they got home. They waited at the precinct for the police and the FBI to search the grounds, her house, question the guard at the gatehouse, and check Tobi’s car in the driveway. Finally, the bomb squad declared the area safe and they were driven home, with a patrol car to remain stationed outside at all times.
Chapter 63
“What do you mean we missed, Kazi? How does that happen?” Mannfort shouted.
“I’m sorry, Mannya, I didn’t want to be anywhere around when we blew the truck. We were lucky they parked it in the back of the station, where I could rig it up in the dark without us being seen, but we couldn’t stick around! I figured they’d just get in the Jeep and drive away, make fools of the FBI and the American police. I just wanted us to be long gone, so I added the time delay to the ignition trigger. It’s very simple, just a couple of wires. Now, every cop in the county is searching for us.” He hung his head.
“Did anyone die?”
“I don’t think so, Mannya. I’m sorry.”
“No, it is good. The American police are quite vengeful when they lose one of their own. It gets personal for them. What are you looking at?”
Kazimir was frowning. “I must have missed this text. It’s from the Utah senator. He says we need him and that we should talk. He thinks he can help us. And I just checked, no money was paid to the account.” He looked up at Mannfort. “He has never given us problems before.”
“He is one of our oldest customers, nyet? How much does he pay?” Mannfort asked.
“Ten grand, every four months. He’s not one of our richer clients.”
“Well, text him back. Ask him what we could possibly need him for and why he thinks talking should delay his payment. He knows the rules, pay first, talk maybe later. What do we have on him?”
Kazi pulled up his file on his phone. “Standard sleaze. Multiple affairs over last fifteen years. Gave his wife syphilis. He’s been treated for chlamydia and gonorrhea five or six times. Nothing recent, but he still likes the ladies. Has two women on the side right now.”
“How do you know that, Kazi? I thought we only see his medical records?”
“Mannya, you need to develop your imagination. Once we own him, we get his information. We track his cell phone and see who he calls, what he buys, and where it is delivered. We are an insurance policy, we insure ourselves well. Once you are a client of the Project, always you are a client of the Project. How do you think you get your big quarterly payouts?”
“Okay,” Mannfort said. “We will deal with him later. First, we have to deal with the lady doctor, the hippie, and the toad. We must get rid of them quick and get out of here. It is getting too complicated.”
Chapter 64
Tobi slept most of the next day and woke with her shoulder burning and stiff. Great, I can add this to the rest of my arthritic wonders, she thought. But that wasn’t really fair. It was a miracle that she had even survived last night; complaining about a bruised shoulder was unreasonable.
She went downstairs and found Agent Jacquart having afternoon coffee with Troy in the kitchen. They both got up when she walked in the room.
Troy walked over to her side and led her to a chair. “I’ll make you some tea.”
“What did I miss?”
“We’ve been following the money, it always talks,” Jacquart said. “There was a large payment made to the B. Healthy medical director, Steven Chagall.”
“I knew it!” Tobi said. “He got all squirrelly on me, like, a week ago.”
“That’s about when the payment was made. He was very cooperative, even relieved that we were involved. Seems he was threatened and paid to keep quiet. He did ask about you.”
“Sure he did,” Tobi growled.
“His son was in a terrible car accident,” Jacquart said.
“Really? His son is, like, fifteen.”
“Yes, well, his son was on a bicycle, and was run down by an SUV.”
“Oh.” Tobi’s stomach did a flip-flop.
“We also traced the bank deposits Ismar Rufini has been receiving. They were rerouted several times, but they originated in the Ukraine. That same source has been making much larger deposits to a Swiss bank, and the name Tzenkov has come up several times, along with Boris Gozinski, which we think is the same person. Gozinski left a half print in the hotel in Port Douglas and rented the Maserati that found its way to the bottom of Finch Bay. And with the help of Interpol, Mannfort Tzenkov lit up on facial recognition flying out of Cairns last month after the two murders.
“We haven’t yet traced the knife, apparently it’s something that can be purchased online. The payment made to Dr. Chagall came from an account that was also used to purchase two airline tickets to JFK this week. One went through Paris and one came direct from Kiev. Interpol has not been able to pull facial recognition yet.”
“They’re here, in New York?” Tobi asked, her skin turning pale.
“Don’t worry, we’re watching you and this development like hawks. No one will get through who doesn’t belong.”
“My neighbors must hate me. Have I put everyone here in danger?”
“We won’t let anything happen to them.” The agent spoke softly, and Tobi felt like she actually cared. “Your brother was very lucky, you know. It sounds like he figured it all out. Almost no one survived acquiring that knowledge ten or twenty years ago.”
Tobi bit her tongue and kept silent. She hadn’t been lucky; Reuben had been dead to her. But for Reuben … he’d had nineteen years to live his life, dive the reef, take beautiful pictures, and make friends. That had been an incredible gift.
“Why did Interpol stop looking for Tzenkov?” Tobi asked.
“They didn’t close the case, but the trail dried up, and they started following bigger fish,” Jacquart said. “Tzenkov’s success was facilitated by starting on the ground floor of new technology and looking like he was part of the furniture. A lot of effort is now going into ferreting out potential infiltration of quantum computers for the same reasons. That would be disastrous.”
“I thought that was all still speculative,” Troy said. “Are quantum computer drives up and running, then?”
“Not quite, but it’s fertile ground for high-tech start-up thieves.”
Jacquart left, and Troy started dinner. He had bought fresh salmon and made his own mango salsa to put over it, and he added fresh zucchini and brown rice. There was a bottle of pinot grigio on the table.
“Where did the fresh fish come from, and the wine?” Tobi asked.
“I went out for a bit with Agent Logan. Agent Jacquart stayed here with you.”
Tobi picked up her fork and then put it down again without taking a bite. She looked at Troy. “Did … did you and Reuben email much? Did you see him a lot? Was he with anyone, was he happy?”
Troy put his utensils aside too, and put his hands gently on her shoulders. “He never stopped talking about you, and he felt terrible that this secret broke us up. And no, he never linked up with anyone that I knew of. I think
his closest friend was Marco, and I know he never told Marco any of this. Reuben just taught diving, rented and sold equipment, and took phenomenal pictures. I had everything shipped back here. Right now, the FBI is tearing apart his computer, but it all belongs to you, as soon as this is over.”
“Why didn’t he try to do something about it? That doesn’t sound like Reuben, to just run away and hide. Maybe for six months or a year, but then—how could he live with himself, knowing all this and doing nothing?”
“It tore him up, and it got worse as the years went by. But he was sure if they knew he was alive, they would assume he’d been talking to you about everything and would either silence you or use you as ransom to get to him—or both. It was a blessing that he was presumed dead, it was the safest scenario for you and Ben. So, he started sending emails to the AMA, but he felt like that was also dangerous, and he wouldn’t let me get involved in it, either. No one answered him, but he said he felt the Russians watching him. I think he used a different email account than the one we used, maybe several.”
“I’d like to see your emails. I mean, if it’s okay with you. Just a little piece of my brother ….”
Troy put his arms around her and buried his face in her hair. “Of course,” he whispered. “I certainly owe you that.”
She felt herself start to melt into him, and she was too tired to fight it. A little voice in her head kept whispering to wait until this was all over, not to get hooked again simply because of circumstances. Another part of her argued that she might not even survive the next couple of weeks, so what difference did it make anyway? Life was so short, why was she fighting these feelings?
Chapter 65
Blaise Kavandor was fairly pleased with the way the discussion was going. It was their second meeting of the roundtable and Wiseman was all over the Kordec question, pulling up complaints from medical societies Kavandor didn’t even know they’d heard from, and even some from overseas. Of course, Wiseman had said, he was not able to discuss the most current developments at the present time, but there was criminal activity going on right now. You’re fried, Kavandor thought gleefully. His get out of jail free card had finally come through.
They took a vote and unanimously decided to ban Kordec Insurance from operating in the United States. Kavandor felt an immense relief. The tension leaving his back and shoulders left a buzzing in his head, like he was lightheaded. It took a minute to register, but gradually he realized the buzzing was actually in his jacket. He reached into his pocket and took out his phone, setting it surreptitiously on his thigh to read the text message. Shit, he thought. Well, too little too late, my enemies. Burn, baby, burn. He stuffed his phone back in his jacket pocket, text unanswered.
As the meeting went on, however, he started to have second thoughts. The room felt excessively warm, and he was breathing too fast, fogging up his glasses. He removed them to clean the lenses, while he looked furtively around the room, but thankfully, no one seemed to notice his discomfort. Collecting enough evidence to get Kordec convicted of a crime could take months, and meanwhile, the Russians would be asking him to intervene and get them reinstated to issue insurance policies … wouldn’t they?
Kavandor had to answer the text. They must know by now that he hadn’t paid. They didn’t have any way of finding out that he was actually chairing this subcommittee, did they? Could he just say it was out of his control, that he thought he might have been able to change the agenda but someone else took charge of it? Maybe he could turn the whole situation into brownie points for trying to warn them. But if the Russians thought they were going down, they’d do everything they could to take him down with them, that was a certainty. Why did he have to be so damn cocky in his text message!
Chapter 66
Agent Jacquart got off the phone and turned to Logan. “That disposable cell that was contacting Rufini is still active. It’s texting with someone in DC. They’re verifying the trace on it, but it looks like it belongs to the Utah senator, Blaise Kavandor.”
“You think our own government is mixed up with the Russians? Why in the world would any of our own people play ball with them to the detriment of fellow Americans?” Logan seemed to lack imagination at times.
“Usually only one of two reasons,” Jacquart answered. “Greed or to save their own skin. Maybe both. We’re sending a few agents over now to pick him up for questioning.”
“Okay, good. I just heard from Headquarters at Quantico,” Logan said. “They’ve downloaded Reuben Sokowsky’s laptop remotely. You would not believe how much incriminating evidence there is on that thing. And now that we have the original RKS program that was used to ravage the data, it’s easy to find its electronic footprint on thousands of charts in dozens of different EMR programs all over the country. Why in the world didn’t he offer that up sooner? All those people we could have saved ….”
“All those people we might have saved, if it didn’t fall into the wrong hands and Sokowsky hadn’t been murdered himself,” Jacquart said. “One of the names on that list is the former deputy director of the FBI, and Sokowsky would have seen that too. We knew the deputy retired early because of Parkinson’s, but we wondered about some of his decisions for several years prior to that. Now it looks like he knew he had dementia years before he resigned. That in itself is enough to make a person hesitate.” She shook her head sadly. “I always liked him. I have to believe he let this go unchallenged because his mind was just too far gone to think it through properly. I want to believe that, anyway.”
Chapter 67
Tobi’s doorbell rang and Agent Jacquart went to answer it. “She’s already been cleared,” the agent said over her shoulder, and opened the door to reveal Molly Baker standing on the threshold. Tobi froze.
“Dr. Lister, may I come in?” Molly asked. She stepped forward tentatively. “I want you to know that all of us at B. Healthy are absolutely appalled that you have had to go through this. We want to make it up to you and we will do everything we can to assist in the investigation of Dr. Rufini. This is definitely not the way we operate.”
Tobi did not want Molly Baker in her house, but she couldn’t think of a reason to refuse, especially not with the FBI agents present. She also knew Molly was motivated by dollar signs. This was not a good kind of publicity for a medical organization, especially one that claimed people were their priority. On the heels of Tim Meloncamp, their stock must be crashing.
“Don’t worry, Molly. I don’t believe B. Healthy played an active role in this, except, of course, for supporting an incompetent lead physician like Dr. Rufini. I know he came cheap, but you do get what you pay for. He had, what? One year of clinical experience after residency before you made him lead?”
“Yes, you are right. He was a big mistake. We will be much more careful in the future.” Molly fidgeted a moment, looking for a conversation starter. Tobi didn’t think she had ever seen her at a loss for words before. She wondered how the straws were drawn, probably no one in corporate had wanted to be the one to make this in-person gesture.
“Those men guarding your house are very nice,” Molly said. “I love their Russian accents.”
Agent Jacquart’s head snapped up. “Russian—no! Those are Agents Steele and Simpson! All of you, get down right now, and get away from the windows!” Jacquart’s gun was in her hand in an instant and Tobi’s heart was pounding. Logan had his gun out too, and was backed against the front door in the next second, peering out carefully.
“Keep the doors closed and locked and stay away from the windows,” Logan said. He and Jacquart slunk outside quietly, moving along the brush line through the snow toward the car parked at the curb. Jacquart turned her head sharply to the side and spoke succinctly into her ear comm, calling for backup.
With three sets of patio doors, a good part of Tobi’s downstairs was made up of windows. Troy grabbed her, and after checking inside first, tried to push her into the hall closet,
but she vehemently shook her head. “There’s no way I’m was getting trapped in there,” she whispered.
He nodded, took his own revolver out and started to lead Tobi silently up the stairs. The large patio doors offered an easier escape, but they also offered easier visibility and entrance for the Russians, especially if they used a bullet. Molly was frozen and would not move. She looked like she might start screaming in fear, but Troy put his finger to his lips and when she would not follow them upstairs, he motioned for her to get down behind the couch.
Once upstairs, Troy took Tobi into her study where his suitcase lay on the floor. The windows led out onto the roof where it was only one story high, so it could be used as an escape route if needed, and the door locked, so both exits could be guarded. They heard shots fired outside and a car window shattered. Tobi was insanely frustrated, not knowing what was happening, but she was too afraid to go to the window. She felt far too vulnerable without a weapon of some kind, and remembered her old hiking knife at the bottom of her filing cabinet drawer.
Quietly, while on her knees, she reached into the drawer, feeling around slowly. She hadn’t taken it out in years, but her fingers finally closed over its Velcro casing, and she gently pulled it out and took the cover off. It was heavier than she remembered, and she unfolded the blade. Stainless steel, several millimeters thick at the base, and finely tapered at the tip. It was serrated on one side and came to an exquisitely sharp point. The blade itself was only three inches long, a half inch shorter than the hard plastic handle it tucked into, but it was sturdy and when she’d bought it, it had impressed her as a formidable weapon against snakes or other dangerous critters. It was intended for cutting away bramble and roots or anything else a hiker in the wilderness might need to remove or defend against, or just to cut their dinner.
There was a rustling on the other side of the door, and Tobi willed PanniKat to go hide under a bed. Should she let her in? As they both turned toward the door, the window shattered and glass went flying, and Tobi spun around to see a dark haired, middle-aged man with a gun leveled at Troy. Troy was down on the floor and blood flowed from his right thigh. He raised his revolver, looking for his mark, but the man had disappeared behind the window. A second later, there was a shot fired from below the window to somewhere outside, and Tobi heard police sirens getting closer.
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