Father Night (35 page)

“Close enough. But that’s not what I meant.”

“You mean Reggie Herr.”

Jack nodded.

She closed her eyes for a moment. “Seeing him freaked me out.”

“I can imagine.”

“No, you can’t,” she said, not unkindly. “I didn’t lose my head, I didn’t fall back into the trap Morgan had set for me. I used everything I had learned to move past my fear, and when I got to the other side, it wasn’t, you know, so bad.” She stirred restlessly. “How’s my shoulder?”

“Hairline fracture of the left clavicle. You’ll be okay.”

“Good.” She moved, swinging her legs out. “Then I can get the hell out of here.”

“The doctor ordered bed rest.”

“Yeah, right.”

Jack was scarcely surprised. He took her hand. “Lie back, honey. At least until I debrief you.”

“I don’t want—”

“And then you can see Vera.”

Alli’s eyes lit up. “You found her.”

He nodded. “Now, come on, do as you’re told, if only for the next fifteen or twenty minutes, and tell me everything you can about Waxman and Reggie Herr.”

*   *   *

“D
OCUMENTS,
” C
HRIS
Fraine said. “Your stock-in-trade.”

Waxman, exhausted as he was, kept himself on an even keel. “What kind of documents?”

“The kind you and your gang conjure up for my people every day of the week.”

“I hate when you use that term.”

“But you and your people
are
a gang.” Fraine looked behind him at Reggie Herr, who was pissing into an evergreen bush. “This one is for me, personally.”

Waxman watched the road he had taken from Carson’s lodge. He heard the sirens before he saw the ambulance, rising over the ridge, responding to the 911 call he had made just before Fraine had phoned to request an immediate emergency meeting. “Which means you’re in trouble.”

Fraine looked out across the Virginia countryside. “I killed Alan.”

“What?” Waxman looked alarmed. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Looking around, Fraine said, “You know something, Werner, it seems to me that none of this was supposed to happen.” He regarded the older man. “How did we get here?”

“What on earth made you decide to kill Alan?”

“It wasn’t a decision at all,” Fraine nearly shouted. “It was an imperative, a blind—I don’t know what—instinct.”

“A
fratricidal
instinct?” Waxman shook his head. “I don’t believe you. There must be another explanation. How badly did Alan provoke you?”

“You just don’t get it.” Fraine’s hands clenched and unclenched, as if he were being kept from burning off excess adrenaline. “It’s just one failure after another for you, isn’t it?”

Fraine’s words sent a bar of steel through Waxman’s backbone. “Statements like that only reveal the depth of your ignorance,” he said icily.

Fraine rounded on him. “I know enough. You put me and Alan through enough, a fucking meat grinder.” Realizing that Herr had come up behind him, he kept the animosity out of his voice. “Alan’s death felt like some culmination, as if the act of pulling the trigger was a result of the cresting fever inside me. Now that fever is gone, there’s nothing left, just a void.”

It seemed like a child speaking, and Waxman said softly, “Keep it together, Chris. Something had gone wrong with the training. I don’t know what yet, but you’re not the first to turn on his twin. It doesn’t matter now; I’ll fix it. I’ll fix you. Soon you’ll be as good as new. Better than new. In the meantime, I’ll manufacture the docs. The important thing to remember is that as soon as you’re well again, as soon as you are relocated, you will resume control of International Perimeter.” He engaged Fraine’s eyes. “The important thing to remember is that nothing has changed.”

“You’re wrong, Werner. Everything’s changed.”

Waxman squeezed his shoulder. “Give me three hours. I’ll have Reggie deliver the documents to you personally. In the meantime, make your travel arrangements.”

“Who am I to be?”

“Who would you like to be?”

“Alan.” Fraine licked his lips. “But since that’s impossible, you prick…”

Waxman tapped a forefinger against his lips. “Let’s see. You look like a Ted Callahan today.”

Fraine nodded, almost distractedly.

Waxman, concerned, said, “Who are you?”

“Ted Callahan.”

“Right.” He patted Fraine reassuringly on the arm. “Drive to the safe house and book your flights. Whatever your destination, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.” He smiled. “Before nightfall, you’ll be thirty thousand feet in the air, safe from all harm.”

*   *   *

F
OLLOWING
C
HRIS
Fraine’s departure, Waxman returned to his car, snapped open the latches on a beautifully made Italian cowhide briefcase. Inside, he found everything he would need. Setting up the portable makeup mirror, he selected a latex nose from the selection in the case, then set about expertly affixing it to his face. Then he regarded himself critically in the mirror. He scrunched up his face. The nose moved naturally. He peered at it more closely and saw the pores. Just like the real thing. Finally, he took out a small plastic case, unscrewed the top, and put dark-brown-colored contact lenses in his eyes.

Satisfied, he put everything away, wiped his hands on a moist towelette, and snapped the briefcase shut. Then he took out the black notebook that Carson had been hoarding. The man wasn’t cut out to be in a group; he was an inveterate control freak.

Waxman paged through the notebook, with each succeeding blank page suspicion mounting that Carson had screwed him. Then, in the precise middle, he came upon four lines handwritten in Cyrillic. He could read Russian, of course. Quickly, he flipped through the remaining pages. All blank.

“Call the General,” he ordered Reggie. “Tell him I’m in possession of the information we need.”

Then he began to read the notebook’s single entry, translating from the Russian as he went:
Ashur has a little horse, / Her mane as bright as gold. / And everywhere Ashur went / The horse was sure to go
.

That goddamned maddeningly indecipherable rhyme again! With a scream, he threw the notebook as hard as he could against the far window of his car.

“We’re not done with Henry Holt Carson yet,” he cried.

“What about the General?” Reggie said, hand over the speaker.

Waxman glared out the window. “Tell him to make the call.”

“Are you sure?” Reggie appeared shaken. “If he makes the call, there’s no going back.”

Waxman leaned forward, his face flushed with emotion. “I don’t want to go back. Tell General Tarasov to call the Syrian.”

*   *   *

“D
O
I know you?” Caro said.

“Jack McClure, Ms. Simpson.”

Caro, sitting up in her hospital bed, knew precisely who she was speaking with, and the knowledge sent chills down her spine. If anyone had the capacity to ferret out her real identity, it was this darkly handsome man sitting serenely on a chair by her bedside.

“Can I ask you why you were almost killed by a Russian cultural attaché?”

Caro swallowed. She still felt woozy and her throat was raw. “Russian? I know him as Myles Oldham.”

“How long did you know him?”

“Oh, ages and ages. We met in—”

“Moscow?”

“London. At a political reception. We’d been lovers, off and on, since.”

“Is that why he tried to kill you? Were you cheating on him?”

Caro’s laugh turned quickly into a hacking cough, her face as red as the welt around her throat. Jack poured her a cup of cold water from a plastic jug on the wheeled table, and handed it to her. He waited patiently while she drank, and took the empty cup from her when she was finished.

Her eyelids fluttered. “I’m not used to being so thoroughly scrutinized.”

“Sorry. Part of the job.”

“Which is?”

“I work for the government.”

“A description so very specific.”

“
Specifically
for Dennis Paull, the secretary of homeland security.”

Her eyes opened wide. “What shitstorm have I fallen into?”

He smiled, an expression so predatory it almost took her breath away.

“Let’s return to the beginning. Why did the man you know as Myles Oldham try to kill you?”

“I don’t think he was trying to kill me,” Caro said in her most innocent voice. “We fought, it escalated, and I think he got carried away.” She knew the false tone had betrayed her words the moment they were out of her mouth. No help for it now, she thought, but to spread butter on the trail. She sighed deeply. “Despite our long-distance relationship, the fact is Myles was always jealous. Finally, today, it had come to the point where he wanted me exclusively. I told him that was impossible.”

“And why was that?”

“I’m not a one-man woman.”

Jack sat back for a moment, continuing his study of her. Caro tried to relax, but the truth was he made her nervous—a first in her adult life. She fervently wished she were someplace else—anywhere but under his Xray vision.

“So, to sum up, you had no knowledge that Myles Oldham was a Russian cultural attaché.”

“No.”

“A Russian spy.”

“Certainly not.” Grigori wasn’t a spy, at least, not in the sense McClure meant.

“Does the name Grigori Batchuk mean anything to you?”

“Should it?”
Damnit, I blinked. I never blink
.

“Here’s what I think happened,” Jack said. “You knew Grigori Batchuk before you knew Myles Oldham. You met him at a political function, all right, but it was in Moscow, not in London.” He raised a hand. “Wait, let me finish. I believe you when you said that you and Batchuk have been off-and-on lovers, and I believe you two had a fight that escalated out of control. What I don’t believe is that a man like Batchuk—trained for years—would fly out of control and expose himself just to settle a score with you.” He smiled. “Now, Ms. Simpson, what did I get wrong?”

The way he said her name, the unnatural emphasis he put on it, caused Caro to suspect that he knew Helene Simpson was as false as Myles Oldham. What was she to do? How was she going to extricate herself from the snare McClure had set for her?

She was feverishly working on these crucial answers when he said, quite offhandedly, as if asking for street directions, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell your father that you’re back in the country.”

Caro felt her heart thud like a fallen stone within the cage of her ribs. “I don’t—”

“Caroline,” Alli said as she entered the room, “we don’t have time to play this game anymore.” She sat in a hospital wheelchair. The plainclothes agent who had guided her in turned and left as silently as he had entered.

“You told him,” Caro said.

“I trust him,” Alli said. “And so should you.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, Caro seemed to phase out, staring catlike at the shadows on the wall.

Alli turned to Jack. “Caro’s a first-class computer hacker. Something else she neglected to tell you.”

Jack leaned forward. “Caroline, we need your help.”

Caro continued to stare at the wall.

Alli rose out of the wheelchair and moved into Caro’s line of vision. “Is your life of so little value to you? Would you just throw it away?”

“I’ve been on my own for years. If I had been weak enough to think about anyone else, you wouldn’t be talking to me now. I’d be dead.” She shook her head. “Now the devil himself is after me. Because I made a rash decision. I ran. Sooner or later, he’ll find me.”

“Does your devil have a name?” Jack asked.

Caro bit her lip, silent.

“Please, Caro,” Alli said. “Let us help you.”

“I never asked anyone for help in my life.”

“Things change, for all of us,” Alli said. “We grow up, we learn we’re not alone.”

Caro shook her head.

“Vera and I were alone—alone for a very long time. But now we’re not. Now we’re best friends. We have each other, and I have Jack. Nothing will tear us apart.”

“Wait.” Caro shot her an odd look.

“What does that mean?”

“Just wait.”

Alli shook her head. “Tell me his name, Caro.”

“No.” Caro took a breath, then a deeper one. She stared at her laptop as if trying to find an answer there. At last, she let out a long-held breath. “His name is the Syrian.”

“I know him,” Jack said. “But not what he looks like.”

“I wasn’t kidding. He looks like the fucking devil—big, powerful, dark-skinned. He’s got one blue eye and one green eye.” Caro moistened her lips. “There’s a Persian legend that Aesma Daeva, which means madness, the demon of lust and anger, wrath and revenge, had one blue eye and one green eye. He is the personification of violence, a lover of conflict and war. This is the man I used to work for. I managed all his accounts, hacking into bank subsystems, moving his money through a thousand unwitting financial institutions in a dozen different countries, until it could never be traced.”

“And then?”

Caro sighed. “And then I saw the handwriting on the wall. I realized that I was nothing more than his slave. I realized I could no longer live like that. So I ran.”

“No one leaves the Syrian’s employ, so I’ve heard,” Jack said.

“I wasn’t just his employee,” Caro said, “which, I expect, is the only reason I’m still alive. He wants to extract his pound of flesh from me before he kills me himself.”

Jack watched Caro, and like a key turning in a lock, something clicked in his mind. “Is the Syrian known by any other names?”

“When we were together in bed, I called him Ashur.”

The door in Jack’s mind swung open, revealing a room burning with the children’s rhyme recited to him by Waxman:
Ashur has a little horse, / Her mane as bright as gold. / And everywhere Ashur went / The horse was sure to go.

Ashur, the Syrian. And Caroline Carson, his personal computer hacker, his lover, the horse with the golden mane. Caroline, not Annika, as Waxman believed!

His mind racing, working to fit pieces of the puzzle together, Jack edged closer. “Caroline, listen to me. I don’t know what your friend Waxman told you, but that’s not his name. We don’t know what it is, which makes him all the more dangerous.”