Enigma

by Catherine Coulter

  Ruth whispered, “What if Dillon’s wrong? What if Bowler never came here?”

  Ollie smiled and pointed down at the freshly crushed grass. “Someone was here, got to be Bowler. He wasn’t taking any chances, probably parked his car some distance beyond the edge of the trees. If he’s not here now, he’ll be coming back.”

  They walked around to the front of the cabin, pressed themselves against either side of the door. Ollie reached out his arm, knocked. “Mr. Bowler, FBI!”

  They heard nothing, then a sort of mumbling. Ollie kicked the door and it crashed inward. They burst in, Ollie high, Ruth low, and saw Bowler tied to a chair facing them, a sock stuffed in his mouth, making guttural noises. He looked terrified.

  A man’s deep voice, thick with a slow Southern accent, said calmly from the small kitchen, “Either of you special agents move and you’re both dead. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if I have to. Do not turn; keep your eyes on Mr. Bowler. Now, slowly drop your Glocks.”

  Ruth and Ollie dropped their Glocks, both guns hitting the wood floor like cannon shots.

  “Excellent,” the man said, stepping out now from behind the kitchen partition. “Both of you get facedown on the floor, hands behind your heads.”

  Bowler managed to spit out the sock. “He’s going to kill all of us! You have to do something!”

  “Shut up, Bowler. Down, both of you. Now!”

  Ruth lay on her stomach, watched Ollie start to go down on his knees. He stumbled on a table leg, grabbed his leg, and yelped. Ruth twisted onto her side to face the man, jerked her Kahr P380 from her ankle holster and fired. He flinched but fired back, missing Ruth, the bullet thudding into a sofa back. She rolled behind a ratty old recliner and the man kept firing, at Ollie now, and one bullet hit him squarely in the chest as he dove behind the sofa. Ruth’s heart flipped when he went sprawling backward to the floor.

  Ruth fired again, but he’d ducked behind the bar dividing the kitchen from the living room. She stilled, waited until he finally reared up and fired two more rounds. More bullets hit the recliner. Ruth came up on her knees, fired two more shots, and struck him center mass before he could get off another round. The man stared at her a moment, silent, and fell heavily to his knees, then tipped over onto his side, his gun flying out of his hand to the linoleum floor. Ruth ran over to kick the gun out of his reach, then rushed to Ollie’s side. He lay on his back, taking light shallow breaths, holding his chest. He cocked an eye open. “Give me a minute, Ruth. I’m okay, but you know a bullet at this range packs quite a punch. Thank you, Kevlar.”

  Ruth said a silent prayer of thanks he hadn’t shot Ollie in the head.

  Bowler called out, “You killed him?”

  Ruth patted Ollie’s arm, got up, and walked to the kitchen to kneel beside the man. She pressed her fingers against the pulse in his neck. There wasn’t one. His chest was soaked with blood, now dripping into a pool around him. His eyes were open, staring up at her in mute surprise. Soon his eyes would begin to dull. She felt the shock of violent death, forced herself to breathe deeply, until her heart began to slow. She checked the man’s pants pocket, pulled out his wallet. No ID, only three one-hundred-dollar bills.

  “Yes, he’s dead,” she said over her shoulder. “He was a professional, like the man who tried to kill you Monday.” She stood, locked her shaking legs, took out her cell phone, punched video and said, “Unidentified white male, midforties, brown and brown, medium height, medium weight, seriously receding hairline. He has a cell phone, a burner, no incoming or outgoing numbers show on it, probably to be used only once, when the job was done.” She panned the entire area, identified Bowler and Ollie, and satisfied, punched in Dillon’s number. When he answered, she told him the situation, sent him the video she’d just made. She knew the Washington Field Office was closest and they’d be there within the hour.

  Savich was silent, then: “I’ve got your video. I’ll get this man through facial recognition. He’ll be in the system.” He paused. “Ruth, you and Ollie did well. Now squeeze all the juice out of Bowler you can before the crime scene people arrive.”

  Ruth saw Ollie rubbing his chest, nearly back together. She started untying Mr. Bowler. He was breathing hard, still terrified. She crossed her arms, looked down at him, said in a disgusted voice, “You had to know the man who hired you wouldn’t stop after the miss Monday, and he didn’t. You’re a great big loose end, Mr. Bowler. You do realize that now, don’t you? He found you quickly, as we did, which tells you what a crappy plan it was to hide out here.” Ruth leaned over, right in his face. “Do you finally understand, you moron? He wants you dead. Because of what you know, what you might tell us about him. Are you ready to come into the light—that’s us—or do you want to repeat this scenario until you’re dead? The boss man you’re trying to cover for seems to have an unlimited supply of killers to send at you.”

  Bowler moaned, shook his head back and forth. “But I don’t know anything.”

  “If we hadn’t come, our friend over there in the kitchen would have shoved your dead body into a landfill, or better yet, concretized your shoes with you in them and dumped you in the middle of Lake Ginger.”

  49

  Bowler raised his head to face them. “He wanted to know what I told the FBI when you agents came to my office. I should never have called the emergency number they left me, never told them anything about it. Yes, all right, I did broker a deal between Manta Ray and, well, certain people, but I did nothing more. I’m a lawyer, my livelihood depends on keeping confidence with my clients, keeping my mouth shut. I wouldn’t have ever said anything to the authorities. How could they not know that?” Bowler swallowed. “Would you please untie my ankles, Agent Noble?”

  She leaned down, untied him. “Don’t move.”

  She turned. “Ollie?”

  Ollie had hauled himself up to sit on the sofa. He was still rubbing his chest.

  “You’ve probably got a cracked rib, so go slow and easy.”

  “I’m okay.” He forced himself to stand. He looked at the dead man lying on the kitchen linoleum, then over at Bowler, who was rubbing feeling back into his hands and feet. “How long was that man here before we arrived, Mr. Bowler?”

  Bowler stared at him. “I still can’t believe you’re alive. I saw him shoot you in the heart. You fell on your back, and I thought you were dead.”

  “The wonder of Kevlar. How long, Mr. Bowler?”

  Bowler glanced over at the dead man, then quickly looked back at Ruth. “I was eating some cereal when he snuck in on me about a half hour ago, tied me up. Then he sat down, drank my last two beers, and told me he’d kill me slowly and then go after Magda and Renée if I didn’t tell him exactly what I’d told the FBI. He never stopped smiling when he told me what he would do to them.”

  Ollie looked him over. “He had half an hour, but you don’t look like you’ve been harmed. Why are you still alive?”

  Bowler gave an ugly laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. “I’m a lawyer, Agent Hamish. I can talk, and so I did. I told him the truth, at great length. I told him I didn’t know who his boss was, I didn’t know much of anything at all. My role was the middleman, so what could I have told the FBI that his own people hadn’t told me? He kept asking me what I knew about the man who’d hired me, about what Manta Ray had told me. I knew he was going to kill me in the end, like that man in the garage Monday, and I knew there was nothing more I could do for my wife and daughter. And then I heard you shout, Agent Noble. He stuffed that sock in my mouth and told me to keep quiet.”

  Bowler began crying, tears running down his cheeks. “I thought I was going to die for sure. I still can’t feel my feet.”

  “Get up, Mr. Bowler,” Ruth said. “Stomp your feet and walk. If you try to run, I will hurt you, do you understand me?”

  “Yes, yes, I understand.” He hiccupped. “Thank you, really, you saved my life.” He began to stomp his feet as he hiccupped.

  Ruth said, “We have the same
questions, Mr. Bowler. Who hired you to meet with Manta Ray in prison and broker his escape?”

  “Listen, you’ve got to believe me, he never told me his name and I never saw him. I spoke to him only one time on the phone, at the beginning when he first called with the offer.”

  Ollie said, “Obviously he knows you don’t have his name. But he must believe there’s something you know about him that would help us to identify him. Yes, I can see from your face that you do know something. What is it?”

  “All right, but I don’t know if it’ll be helpful. Bowler drew a deep breath. “I’m almost certain he’s Russian. I’ve had Russian clients before and I know the accent. I’d say he was educated in England, sounded like an upper-class Brit, but still he had this slight Russian accent.” Bowler shrugged. “But there have to be lots of men around who sound like him. My hearing his voice and recognizing he was Russian, that’s no reason to kill me.”

  Enough to sign your death warrant. Russian—Ruth couldn’t wait to tell Dillon.

  She said, “Tell us about the first phone call. What did the man say to you? Be as exact as you can, Mr. Bowler.”

  “He told me about Manta Ray—Liam Hennessey’s his real name—that he was going to be tried for robbing a bank and for murder. I’d heard about the case already. He told me Manta Ray had something that belonged to him, something important and he wanted it back. Manta Ray would know what it was, and he would give Manta Ray two million dollars and arrange to set him free if Manta Ray agreed to return it to him. But it had to be done quickly, so I had to tell Manta Ray to accept a plea bargain right away, which he did. I assumed it was something Manta Ray had robbed from the bank, but neither of them told me what it was. I realized the deal went through when they broke Manta Ray out on his way to federal prison a couple of days ago. That’s pretty much all I know.” Bowler’s eyes went again to the dead man. “I told him what I told you, but he kept smiling and telling me in that slow Southern drawl of his to say something he didn’t know or he was going to have to hurt me. I knew he was getting ready to kill me. I could tell by his eyes. I’ve never talked so much in my life.”

  Ollie said, “How did you communicate with this man—okay, let’s call him the Russian—after that first phone call?”

  “It was simple, really. Both of us had passwords to a single account. He’d write an email, save it as a draft and I would log in, read the email in the drafts folder and then delete it. I’d write a response, save it to drafts.”

  “Give me the password,” Ollie said.

  “There is no way to retrieve it,” Bowler said. “You know there’s no way.”

  Ruth said, “What is the password?”

  “Mac and cheese,” Bowler said.

  Ruth shook her head at him. “Why didn’t you simply tell us all this Monday at your office, Mr. Bowler? We could have saved all the drama and you could have prevented two attempts to kill you.” And us, you putz.

  She saw Bowler couldn’t take his eyes off the dead man in the kitchen and the blood, black and viscous around him. He shuddered, shook his head. “I knew you couldn’t prove anything, and I had to hang tough. I never thought— Well, I was wrong.”

  Ruth wanted to kick him. “You’ve defended some very bad people over the years, you know how they think. The Russian, you’re telling me you never even gave it a thought?”

  Ollie started laughing. “It was all about money, Ruth. How much did he pay you, Mr. Bowler?”

  He gave them an earnest-lawyer look. Ruth almost smiled.

  “Yes, there was the money, I won’t deny that, but as I told you, I’ve had several Russian clients, and this man, this Russian, he knew a great deal about some of the, ah, services I’d performed for them. I could take the money he offered or he could make those services known and ruin the firm with what he knew.”

  Bowler ran his tongue over his cracked lips. “I got the first half of the money right away. I was to receive the second half after he’d gotten Manta Ray free. It was a lot of money—five hundred thousand dollars—and all I had to do was be the go-between.

  “But everything happened so fast. You were at my office and I knew you didn’t believe me, but where would you find any proof?”

  Ollie said, “Mr. Bowler, of course we were on your doorstep right away. You were the only one who visited Manta Ray in prison in Richmond. It was obvious after Manta Ray escaped we’d come calling.”

  He shrugged. “Yes, but again, you couldn’t prove I’d had anything to do with Manta Ray’s escape. Listen, I only wanted to get the other half of the money he owed me and put it all behind me, so I wrote the Russian a draft email using our system, but there was no reply. I called the number he gave me for emergencies. I didn’t speak to him, but the man I talked to said he worked for the boss, and he agreed to bring the money to the Bilbo Baggins restaurant in Alexandria.”

  Ruth said, her eyebrow raised, “And naturally you believed him? He’d walk in with a bag of money? A cashier’s check?”

  Bowler stuck out his chin. “The whole deal, it was straightforward, part of our agreement. Why shouldn’t I believe him? I waited for him, but he didn’t come. I didn’t know you were following me, Agent Noble.”

  “That’s good to know. Did you call the number again? Ask what was happening?”

  “Yes, but there was no answer. I wanted to get home, see what Renée thought we should do. I nearly ran to my car. I passed an older couple in the garage and then I heard the old man getting hit and moaning, and I knew I was next. I had my gun with me and I ducked behind a car when the lights went out. I heard you calling out to me, Agent Noble, and then the lights came back on and there he was, his back to me. I shot him and ran out the rear garage exit and into a motel down the street. I knew I couldn’t go home, they would be waiting, so I came here. I called Renée, told her and Magda to hunker down and make arrangements for us to leave Washington for a while.”

  Ollie said, “Where is the gun you used in the garage yesterday?”

  “No, please don’t take it. It’s all I’ve got.”

  “Where is it?”

  Bowler pointed to a telephone book that lay on top of a rough-hewn coffee table. It wasn’t a phone book, it was a hollowed-out box. Ollie called out, “A SIG Sauer P238. Where’d you get it, Mr. Bowler?”

  “At a gun show in Baltimore maybe twenty years ago.” He swiped his hand over his cheeks to wipe away the tears. “A criminal I defended didn’t like the sentence the judge handed down and he tried to kill me. I bought the little SIG then. I never leave home without it.” He looked down a moment, then said, “I don’t suppose I can talk you out of taking me back to Washington?”

  The assassin’s burner rang.

  Ollie and Ruth exchanged looks.

  Ollie picked up the cell. “Hello?”

  50

  BELEEN AIR

  MANASSAS REGIONAL AIRPORT

  WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON

  Ms. Mindy Fuller checked the schedule on the company computer in front of her, then looked up at Cam and Jack. “Agents, I haven’t heard from Ralph Henley, but that’s not unusual. He’s with a client he normally flies. He left early this morning before I came in, entered their destination today as Richmond, a scheduled return at two o’clock.” Mindy checked the schedule, frowned. “He should have been here an hour ago. He has another client scheduled at seven o’clock for an evening tour of Washington.”

  Cam said, “Show us his flight manifest, please.”

  “I don’t have it. Ralph always keeps his own book with him.” She pointed to the computer. “All I have is his schedule and destinations.”

  Jack leaned closer. “What was his schedule yesterday?”

  “He was with one of his usual clients, his destination Leesburg, Virginia, arriving back here late. It says he clocked out at ten o’clock last night.”

  “What is his client’s name, Ms. Fuller?”

  She looked nervous. “A moment, please.” She dialed an extension, waited, then asked in
a near-whisper, “The FBI agents are asking for a client’s name.”

  She listened, slowly nodded. “This is highly unusual, but Bob says to give you whatever you want. And he’s asked to speak to you. The client’s name is Alvarez, Cortina Alvarez.”

  “The address?” Cam asked.

  “The Satterleigh Condominiums, 2378 Rutherford Avenue Southwest.”

  Cam and Jack traded a look and followed Mindy behind the service counter to Bob Jensen’s small office. Jensen was one of two owners of Beleen Air, in business for thirty years. He was an older man, laugh lines around his mouth, but he wasn’t laughing now. After they showed him their creds, he told them he’d already spoken with Special Agent Lucy McKnight. “I understand we’re dealing with criminals here, and believe me, I want no part of it. Of course I’ll tell you everything I can.”

  But Mr. Jensen had never met Cortina Alvarez, had occasionally seen a woman and others climbing into the helicopter, but they never came in. Ralph collected the payment for each trip for them, always in cash. Yes, that was unusual, but everyone was free to pay in whatever manner they wished. He had no other contact names. As for Ralph Henley, he’d been on the payroll since 2008, above suspicion until now. He was conscientious, you could count on him, and it wasn’t like him to be late.

  They told him about the fake tail number and Henley’s actual destination yesterday, the Daniel Boone National Forest.

  Mr. Jensen stared at them. “You’re telling me Ralph is working for this Cortina Alvarez woman, filing false flight plans? He flew one of my helicopters to the national forest? Why? Is he transporting drugs? Drug dealers?” Jensen spurted out a string of robust curses. “I’m going to take him apart when he gets back.”

  “No need, Mr. Jensen,” Jack said. “We suspect he’s been doing worse than transporting drugs. Agent Wittier and I will deal with Mr. Henley. We’ll remain here until he lands.”