Agent X (33 page)

“You’re going to a hospital,” Kate said.

Vail gave her a look that said there wasn’t even going to be a discussion about it. He got out of the warm car, shivering slightly, and went back to Barkus’s trunk. The heavy canvas bag containing the body had been opened up, revealing that the victim’s head had been wrapped in some sort of plastic material. Vail felt a corner of it between his fingers. He smiled in appreciation. “It’s bitchathane. Roofing material. They put it at the edge of roofs, six feet or so up, to prevent ice-dam leaks. You can put nails through it and it seals right up. When you get it off the master sergeant here, you’ll probably find gunshot wounds to the head. They wrapped it around him and then shot him. That way there was no blood, skull, or brains leaking out at the scene. Pretty ingenious.”

Kate said, “Do you think this is their dumping ground?”

“Thanks to Lucas Bumperlock here, they knew we were on them, so I don’t know if they were about to lead us to proof of past misdeeds or not. They’ve been very careful about getting rid of evidence. Sometimes even before it becomes evidence, like Longmeadow here.”

“It’s still worth searching the lake. You never know,” Kate said.

“I suppose so, but even if there are bodies here, it’ll only take us back to these two. Maybe we’ve gotten as even with them as we’re going to get.”

Kate said, “Luke said it looked like Zogas was supervising the whole thing back at Longmeadow’s apartment.”

“We’d have to get his phone records and find out who he actually called. Maybe something could be made out of it.”

“It’s certainly not airtight,” she said. “And with all the moles gone, there’s no corroboration, so is that it?”

“Let me thaw my brain out and see if there isn’t something else we can do.”

“I still think you should get checked out at the hospital.”

Vail leaned in close and whispered, “I just need something warm and exciting to get my heart rate up.”

“I think I could arrange that.” She smiled back seductively. “NASCAR is running in Florida this weekend.”

34

The next morning Kate picked up an order of steak and eggs from a nearby restaurant and let herself into the former observation post on Sixteenth Street. The night before, she had driven Vail back there and couldn’t help noticing that his skin was gray from a lack of circulation, and every once in a while, out of the corner of her eye, she would notice his hands shaking. Again he refused medical treatment when she dropped him off. She offered to stay the night in case he needed anything, and when he didn’t use the opportunity to suggest the ultimate act of warming, she knew that the cold had taken more out of him than he was admitting. At that point she thought about insisting they go to the hospital but caught herself at the last moment, remembering who she was dealing with. So this morning, instead of going to the office, she thought she should check in on him.

She found him still sleeping and went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. After pouring herself a cup, she went back into the workroom. Methodically, she scanned the walls to see if Vail had added anything. It didn’t appear so.

She pulled over the desk chair and sat down to look at the graffiti-like displays that documented what they had done. As she sipped her coffee, she realized for the first time that the maze of documents, maps, and handwritten notes seemed to be almost an art form. Most of the writing was Vail’s, and, like him, it was enigmatic yet somehow aesthetic. With all its charted paths and irregular branches, it was more of a two-dimensional sculpture than the record of an investigation. She took another swallow of coffee.

“Hi.”

She spun around. Vail was in a T-shirt and pants. His color had returned. “I brought you”—she looked at her watch—“brunch. In the kitchen. It should still be warm.”

“What is it?”

“Something very Chicago. Pure, slow death to go.”

She got up and followed him into the kitchen. He got a fork and opened the Styrofoam container. “Steak and eggs. Whatever you’re feeling guilty about, I accept your apology.”

“Please, no more thank-yous. You’re making me blush,” she said. “And on the way here, I got a call from the director of the FBI.”

“How is he?”

“Unhappy. He wanted to know why we haven’t been keeping him or anyone else up on the investigative minutiae, like dead double agents and the shooting of suspects.”

“You didn’t mention my name, did you?”

“Believe it or not, of the million or so names that have worn a Bureau badge, yours was the only one that came up. He said he wanted to see you as soon as you had time.”

Vail laughed. “I’ve been fired twice—or is it three times?—from this job, but this will be the first time by the director.”

“I wouldn’t start working on your exit speech just yet. He doesn’t like being blindsided, but he probably figures he’s not getting his money’s worth out of you unless he is.”

“You can’t bawl me out and bring me steak. It’s very confusing. And as you know, I’ve been sick lately.”

Kate watched as Vail ate ravenously. “Then I’ll wait until you get your appetite back.” She got up and poured him a cup of coffee. “I don’t suppose you’ve had any
more
epiphanies.”

“Actually, I did receive a call from the two
A.M.
messenger.”

He had explained his “messenger” allusion to her once before. Sometimes if he went to sleep with some unresolved problem on his mind, around 2
A.M.
, probably when his body was about to shift into one of its REM cycles, it woke him up with some sort of answer, probably trying to jettison the psychological baggage of the unresolved mystery to ensure a more recuperative sleep cycle. “And what was the message?”

Vail cut off a large chunk of steak. “As you know, the messenger frequently screws with me, so see how this sounds. It starts with the two air force sergeants. One disappeared and one turned spy. Why did one disappear?”

“If we’re right about everything, it was because he didn’t want to commit treason,” she said.

“Correct. So the Lithuanians recruited someone else from the same project. They must have heard about the technology and decided they needed a piece of it to sell to the Russians, no matter how hard it was to get. Do you know where I’m going with this?”

“The missing guy in Las Vegas, Gaston. You think he disappeared because he refused the Lithuanians. And if you’re right, they may have recruited someone in his place. There could still be an active mole at—where did he work?—Matrix-Linx International?”

“Yes. And if there is, and we can figure out who it is, maybe we can use him to get to Zogas,” Vail said.

“So how do we find him?”

Vail pushed away the food container. “Unfortunately, the messenger is very lazy. He only leaves me one item at a time.”

They got up and took their coffee into the workroom. As though they expected the answer to have been visibly written in their absence, they both searched the wall in silence. Finally Vail said, “I’m going to shower. You figure it out.”

A half hour later, Vail reappeared dressed in a suit and tie. “Any luck?”

Her only response was to hand him a printout of a Bureau background investigation.

He read the subject’s name. “Raymond Ellis Radkay. Why him?”

“I checked Matrix-Linx International. Maurice Gaston had a top-secret clearance. So I figured the LCS would recruit only someone with an equal level of authorization. There were just four. One was the missing Maurice Gaston, leaving three. Another left the company before Gaston disappeared, and one was a female. Who, because of the chess club’s complete disregard for women, I would assume they would not lower themselves to recruit.”

“And that leaves Radkay,” Vail said. “Well, aren’t you the little overachiever so early in the day?”

“It makes you wonder if there aren’t more out there. Ones who were once useful but are no longer supplying information.”

“It’s possible, but we have no way of identifying them. Something occurred to me in the shower—other than you,” Vail said. “Maybe the LCS has found another use for their no-longer-productive spies. Do you remember those Disney stores that used to carry the old cartoon cels? I think it was the eighties when they started springing up.”

“Sure.”

“They were created because one of the bosses at Disney was checking out some storage space somewhere and found tens of thousands of them lying around deteriorating. Because he knew that Americans would collect anything, he instantly saw their potential. Each one was hand-drawn, a legitimate piece of original art. He opened the stores and literally turned debris into millions and millions of dollars.”

“What’s that have to do with the LCS?”

“I’m sure our little band of entrepreneurs were sitting around their chessboards trying to figure out how to protect the Russians’ favorite CIA agent from Kate Bannon when it occurred to them, ‘Hey, we’ve got all these inactive and low-production double agents just lying around collecting dust. Let’s figure out a way to turn them into money.’ ”

“So the LCS was getting paid by the Russians to frame me and getting us to pay them two hundred and fifty thousand dollars apiece for no-longer-useful spies.”

“Literally turning debris into a million dollars. At a quarter of a million dollars apiece, I think the LCS would have given up every one of their lesser moles. All they would have to do was make Ariadne’s thread a little longer. So there may not be as many as you would think,” Vail said.

“That makes sense.”

“What’s Matrix-Linx’s contract for?”

Kate took the report back and flipped through a couple of pages. “Ground weapon systems.”

“Our chess players would know that ground weapons systems would be attractive to the Russians. Maybe they heard about the technology and asked the LCS to go find someone to supply it. And let’s not forget that the LCS wanted someone at Matrix-Linx bad enough to travel out of state, where they’re not nearly as comfortable, and go after a guy who apparently wasn’t interested in spying.”

“In other words, when Gaston said no and was presumably killed, they knew they had to find someone else at the same company, and as soon as possible.”

“Okay, Radkay it is. But now we’ve got to prove it. Let’s start with his financials.”

Kate said, “But if, like you said, the LCS was actually paying these guys peanuts, what’s going to show up in his bank statements?”

“Assuming he is the mole, they didn’t have the same time and means to set him up with blackmail as they had with Gaston. Therefore the inducement was probably more money. At least initially. If so, maybe it’ll show in either his bank account or his lifestyle. You don’t commit treason out of the clear blue and say, ‘I’m just going to save the money for a rainy day.’ You start living for today.”

“And what if we don’t find anything?”

“One problem at a time. Can you strip the financial release forms out of Radkay’s report and ‘update’ them?”

Five minutes later Kate held up the altered informational release for Vail to see.

“An impressive forgery,” he said. “I think we’re ready to go.”

“Do you want to take your car?”

He looked at her as if the question had triggered something. He went to the wall and ran his fingers along the documents, stopping occasionally to read something in detail. “I’m an idiot.”

“What?”

“Every time we take my car, we run into the Lithuanians.”

“You think there’s a bug in your car?”

“Some sort of tracking device, yes. It would answer how they were beating us to the moles.”

“But how would they get it on the car?”

“It was probably easy. They knew we were going to trace Calculus’s movements, because that’s what they set us up to do. They could have done it any time we were out of the car. The ones they have now take seconds to attach.”

“I’ll get someone from Technical Services to sweep it.” She dialed a number and then asked for a technician. After a short conversation, she hung up. “He’s going to meet us at one of the surveillance off-sites.” Vail was still studying the wall. His eyes were narrowed in an unusual way. “What are you thinking about?”

“My father.”

“Your father?”

“Like him or not, he did teach me how to get even.”

35

The surveillance squad’s off-site had been carefully selected. The neighborhood was a mix of residential and commercial properties. The building was tucked away, down a side street. The front entrance to the building bore no sign to identify it. A driveway skirted the property, and in the back there was a parking lot containing a half-dozen cars.

The technical agent who met Kate and Vail there was a good fifty pounds overweight, but he slid under the back end of Vail’s car without difficulty. Almost immediately he pulled himself back out holding a small black box about the size of a pack of cigarettes. He handed it to Kate and spoke with a quick, professional authority. “Held in place with magnets. You can buy these anywhere. Companies use them to keep an eye on their vehicles, parents to discreetly watch their teenagers, suspicious wives to check on husbands, just about anything.”

“How is it monitored?” Kate asked.

“If you have a cell phone with a screen, you can load the software into it and you’re ready to go. If not, a laptop works even better.” He climbed under Kate’s car and spent almost ten minutes inspecting it before reemerging. “You’re clean,” he told her.

“Can you set up my phone so I can monitor it?” Vail asked.

“I don’t have the software for this brand. When Kate called, she just said it involved GPS trackers, so I brought a couple.” He opened his case and took out a rectangular box that was half the size of the one he had removed. “This was made to our specifications. No connections, no antennas. You can put it in a glove compartment or anywhere else. It’s extremely sensitive and tracks in real time. It works on a special network the government uses, so it can’t be intercepted.” The tech agent then took two cell phones out of his case. “With these you can follow the transmitter.” He turned on the phones and walked them through the device’s operation.

After he left, Kate held up the cell phone he’d given her and said, “Did you have something in mind with these?”

“Not at the moment, but you know how boys need their toys. We find them reassuring. If I’d had this on the enemy’s car last night, I probably wouldn’t have had to go swimming.”

Vail handed the LCS’s device back to the tech agent. “Put it back under my car.” Kate looked at him questioningly. “I’ll leave it at the off-site and we’ll drive yours. If we turn it off, they’ll know we found it.”

After dropping off Vail’s car, they drove to Radkay’s bank in northwest D.C. When they arrived, Kate went in with the altered release forms while Vail called the radio room and had them query what kind of cars Raymond Radkay drove. There was only one—a Jaguar XKR. Vail didn’t know much about luxury cars, but he had always coveted the Jaguar XKE, first manufactured in the sixties, an exquisite piece of sculpture that also happened to be an automobile. He occasionally checked on the Jaguar’s new models to see if the manufacturer had come to its senses and started building the sleek torpedo again.

According to the rest of Radkay’s FBI background investigation, he was a computer engineer with Matrix-Linx International and made sixty-eight thousand dollars a year. Give or take a few options, that was about the cost of the XKR. Vail asked the radio-room operator to determine when it was first registered. A few seconds later, he was told that the vehicle was first registered, apparently new, last June, two months after Radkay’s co-worker, Maurice Gaston, had disappeared into the Nevada sunset.

Kate came out and got in. “Since last June he’s had a couple of eight- to nine-thousand-dollar deposits in his checking account. He also started renting a safe-deposit box six months ago.”

“The LCS must have handouts telling these guys what to do with their money. He also bought a sixty-thousand-dollar car last June.”

“I guess we should get a court order for the box,” Kate said.

“Actually, with you so blatantly altering that release form, it all becomes fruit of the poisonous tree.”

“You did this on purpose so we’d have no choice but to go and confront him, didn’t you?”

“You give me too much credit. It doesn’t really matter if we get into that box. The most he’s going to have in there is unexplained cash. That hardly makes him a spy. Don’t forget that when we found incriminating evidence in a box before, Calculus had left it for us. We’ve got to get our hands on this guy and turn him.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

“I’ll let him know that all I have to do is get that GPS the Lithuanians are tracking me with to within a hundred yards of him and he’s dead. The choice is relatively simple: a little time in prison for spying or forever in the great darkness beyond. We’ll get Luke and go out to his house tonight.”

“So that’s your master plan? You’re going to threaten his life.”

“I’m a man of limited imagination.”

It was dark before the three agents got to Raymond Radkay’s home in Coral Hills, Maryland. Bursaw drove his car, and Kate and Vail rode together in hers.

Radkay’s house was at the end of a cul-de-sac in a new housing development. Although there were several others under construction, his was the only one that had been completed. Vail pulled over in front of one of the partially built residences. “The lights are on, so it looks like he’s home,” Vail said on the radio.

Bursaw asked,
“So how do you want to do this?”

“You and Kate wait in your car. I think this will go better if I talk to him alone. I don’t want him to get the feeling we have to gang up on him to get his cooperation. See if you can find a discreet place to watch from. Let me know if you see anyone coming our way.”

“This house behind me has the garage roughed in.
I’ll pull in there.”
Kate got out of Vail’s car and into Bursaw’s.

Vail pulled into Radkay’s driveway and got out, watching the windows. He walked up the stairs and rang the bell. After a few seconds, a man in his late thirties opened the door. “Can I help you?”

“Raymond Radkay?”

“Yes.”

Vail opened his credentials with a certain amount of authority, indicating that everything Radkay was about to be asked was merely a formality—the FBI already knew the answers.

“Come in.” The engineer stepped back uneasily, and Vail could see that he suspected the reason for the visit.

They went into the living room, and Vail took a seat on the couch while Radkay sat down on a recliner opposite him. “Does this have anything to do with my security clearance?”

Vail laughed condescendingly. “Come on, Ray. The weapons information passed along. The only question I have is how much you knew about Maurice Gaston’s murder.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Jag, the safe-deposit box, this house. We know about you and the Russians. And the Lithuanians,” Vail bluffed. “Your reaction right now—it’s obvious you realize why I’m here. I’m not going to waste my time. I’m giving you a chance to talk to me before we come back for you, and then it’ll be too late.” Radkay remained silent, and Vail could see the cold logic of an engineer taking over, analyzing his options. “If you tell us about the Lithuanians, we can make your life a whole lot simpler. There’s a big difference between passing along a little technology for a few bucks and being an accessory to murder.”

Radkay said, “Would it do any good for me to ask for a lawyer?”

“I don’t think you were involved in the murder, but do what you want. If you call a lawyer, he’s going to instruct me to leave.” Vail stood up. “And when I do, so does this offer. Then we’ll lump you in with the Lithuanians and you can defend yourself on the murder charges.”

“Okay, okay. What do you want to know?”

Vail sat back down. “First, tell me how you were recruited.”

“I was approached at my apartment one night. They offered me a hundred thousand dollars if I accepted. It was paid the next day, and I was told there would be plenty more. Two days later I gave them a dozen documents, mostly technical data and schematics. As soon as I did, they demanded to know when I could get more. I knew then that I had made the mistake of my life. They told me that they had video recordings of our exchanges, and if that wasn’t convincing enough, they asked me if I wanted to end up like Maury Gaston. I had never associated his disappearance with what I was doing. I knew right then he was dead. It scared the hell out of me. After that their demands were relentless. Believe it or not, I’m relieved. When you introduced yourself, I knew that one way or the other the nightmare was over.”

“It may not be as bad as you think. You have one very large bargaining chip at your disposal—we’re going to need your testimony.”

“Testify? Against them? I told you, they’re crazy.”

“The only other option is prison.”

Radkay stood up. “I need to think. And a drink.” The engineer went over to a hutch and opened the upper cabinet. “There is a third option you know,” he said, his voice suddenly cold, mechanical. “I could just run.” When Vail saw that there were no liquor bottles in the compartment that Radkay was reaching into, he jumped to his feet. As soon as the revolver came out, Vail dove behind the couch and drew his automatic.

Radkay turned and fired, hitting the cushion that Vail had been sitting against. He started to run toward the back door. Vail poked his head above the couch, and Radkay fired again. This time the bullet penetrated the padding and barely missed Vail. “I’ve got people in back,” he lied. “And I parked my car so you couldn’t get out.”

Radkay glanced through the window he was standing next to and saw it was true about the car. “Then I guess I’ll have to take yours.” He started toward Vail and fired another round.

Vail realized he had no other choice now. He stood straight up and fired once, hitting Radkay in the chest. The engineer went down, and Vail hurried over to him. Radkay gurgled briefly, and then his head fell to the side, his eyes still open and blank in death.

The front door flew open, and Kate and Bursaw rushed in with their guns drawn. “You okay?” Bursaw asked.

“Yes, but it looks like I just did the Lithuanians a favor.”

Kate looked at the body and let her weapon drop to her side. “He was our last chance.”

“He may be dead, but that doesn’t mean he can’t still help us.” Vail went into the kitchen and picked up Radkay’s phone on the desk, dialing Kate’s cell phone. When it began to ring, he said, “What does the caller ID say?”

“R. Radkay,” she said. “With the phone number.”

“I’ll be right back.” Vail went out to his car and brought back his briefcase. Shuffling through its contents, he found the business card Alex Zogas had given him for the Lithuanian Chess Society. He also took out the two GPS tracker phones the technical agent had given him and handed them to Kate and Bursaw.

After holding a finger to his lips, he dialed the LCS number into Radkay’s phone. “Is Alex there? This is his guy from Matrix-Linx.” Then, in a whiny voice, Vail said, “Well, tell him that the FBI was at my bank today. Tell him I’m freaking out and need him to call me right away.” Vail hung up.

“What are you doing?” Kate asked.

Vail grabbed Radkay’s body under the arms and dragged him inside the room that was farthest from the front door. “Making lemonade.”