Father Night (36 page)

Caro remained silent as a sphinx.

“You met him at a political function.”

“A party,” Caro said. “Grigori told me who he was, and I went after him.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Caro echoed, laughing. “Power. Limitless power.”

Jack took out his mobile and called Paull.

“Dennis, anything from that police artist sketch you got from me?”

“Hundreds have it,” Paull’s voice said in his ear, “but without a name or any identifying—”

“I told you that he’s got gray eyes,” Jack said. “And that he’s lame. He needs a walking stick to get around—”

“Even so.”

“There’s a good chance he’s Russian.”

“Ah,” Paull said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“I think you should come over here with Leopard’s computer.”

“Will do,” Paull said, and broke the connection.

“You know Leopard?” Caro said. And then, responding to Jack’s expression, “All the major hacker geeks know one another. It’s like a secret club, a black ops.”

“We had him working on a project for us.”

“Had?”

“He got too close to something vital. He was poisoned.”

Caro considered this for a moment. “Is Waxman involved in his murder?”

“I wish I knew.”

“I’d like to take a look at what he was working on.”

“Done,” Jack said.

“About Waxman—”

“He abducted Alli to get to me, and he was willing to kill her to accomplish that.”

“What did he want from you?”

Jack shook his head, judging she was not yet ready to hear about her own crucial part. Besides, he needed more information from her, untainted by more revelations. “However, I have a hunch it has something to do with twins.”

“Twins?” Caro appeared dazed, as if she were caught trying to process too much information at the same time.

He nodded. “Do you know either Chris or Alan Fraine?”

Caro’s brow furrowed. “I’ve heard of Chris Fraine. International Perimeter, right? Never met him. Alan’s his twin?”

“Was,” Jack said. “Chris shot him to death several hours ago.”

“Christ. Why?”

“A compulsion, he said. We’re still trying to determine what that means.” Jack steepled his fingers. “To continue the subject of twins. Grigori Batchuk. He has a brother, Caroline, this much I know. His name is Radomil. I need to know whether he and Grigori are twins. The Russian records are unreliable, often doctored or stolen, even when we can get to them, which isn’t often.”

“Please, Caro,” Alli said.

Caro looked from Alli to Jack. “Radomil and Grigori are twins.”

*   *   *

P
ERRY
R
YLANCE,
Fraine’s right-hand man, sat down for dinner at a bustling Roman trattoria in the Prati. Radomil watched him as he ordered. From the calls Radomil had made, he discovered the following useful information: Rylance was booked on the 10:35
P.M.
flight to Paris; he had engaged a car service to pick him up at 8:30
P.M.
outside the trattoria and transport him to Fiumicino Airport. After making several more calls, Radomil had picked his way through swelling knots of tourists and a smattering of Romans, and sat down in the trattoria, where he ordered a glass of red Piedmontese wine and a pizza.

A swarm of tiny Japanese tourists, Nikon cameras clicking like cicadas in a field, passed by in lockstep, grimly marching from monument to ruin until it was time to return to their luxury, air-conditioned bus. Many of them wore white cotton gloves. Some had medical masks over their noses and mouths.

Rylance ate quickly, oblivious to everything around him. He might as well be in a McDonald’s in D.C., Radomil observed with disgust. The car arrived on time. Seeing it pull up, Rylance threw down some euros, rose, and got in. The driver put the car in gear, nosing out into traffic, heading for the airport via the Appian Way.

Radomil’s car slid to the curb just as he was paying his bill. He climbed in, and the car took off, following closely behind Rylance’s vehicle. Originally constructed in 312
B.C.
, the Appia Antica stretched all the way to the port of Brindisi, from which the ancient Roman Empire conducted lucrative trade with its far-flung colonies in the East. The initial stretch of bordering land five or ten miles outside Rome quickly became a popular burial site for wealthy Roman families after burial inside the walls of Rome itself was banned in the fifth century
B.C.
Later, Christians burrowed their way through the soft tufa stone, secretly burying their dead in miles of catacombs beneath the venerable highway.

When the car carrying Rylance stopped in front of the chained entrance to the catacombs, Radomil’s car pulled in behind, and Radomil, armed with a 9mm Beretta, approached the leading car, wrenched open the rear door, and stuck his head and the Beretta inside. The driver, twisted around in the front seat, held his passenger at gunpoint.

“What is this?” Rylance said. “If it’s a robbery, you should know I’m carrying approximately thirty euros, that’s it.”

“Get out,” Radomil said, gesturing with the barrel of his handgun.

After a moment’s hesitation, Rylance slid across the seat. As he placed one foot on the ground, his left arm lashed up. Radomil, anticipating him, avoided the blow even as he slammed the muzzle of the Beretta into the side of Rylance’s head. As Rylance reeled back, Radomil stepped aside to allow his driver to reach in and haul Rylance out. A slash at his hairline was drooling blood.

“Whatever it is you want,” he said, “I won’t give it to you.”

“You don’t have a choice.” Radomil signaled with his head, and the driver stuffed a wad of filthy cloth into Rylance’s mouth, then he tied his hands behind his back. “You simply made the wrong deal with the wrong person.”

He shoved Rylance, stumbling, up to the old iron gates and stood with him while Radomil’s driver, a large flat package under one arm, opened the padlock. Once Radomil had discovered which car service Rylance had hired, it had been child’s play to substitute one of his men for the company’s driver. No questions had been asked. The original driver was at this moment enjoying an expensive dinner alongside a stunning twentysomething, whom he soon would bed, all at Radomil’s expense. Money well spent.

The gates swung open and Radomil pushed Rylance up the rough, dusty driveway and into a small entry building on their left. The two drivers activated powerful flashlights and they all descended into the catacombs, past horizontal burial niches once filled with the bodies of two or three family members. Here and there could be seen the ghostly outline of Christian art that had once adorned the open crypts where centuries before family members came weekly to picnic and feel closer to their departed loved ones. The atmosphere was thick with history and the dead left like detritus in the wake of the ages’ inexorable march onward.

Radomil stopped them when they came to a rough-hewn stairway down to the lower levels. From a chain across the entrance hung a red no-admittance warning sign. Years ago, tours were allowed into the lower levels. But that was before one of the guides got lost down in the depths and never returned.

Turning Rylance around so he faced the stairs down, Radomil took the 9mm Glock his driver handed him and shot Rylance point-blank in the back of his head. Radomil’s driver unfolded the package he had been carrying to reveal a body bag. He and the second driver manhandled the corpse into the bag, sealed it completely, then pitched it down the stairs into the lower catacombs.

The entire operation had taken less than ten minutes.

*   *   *

A
N HOUR
later, Radomil rode up in the Hotel Borghese elevator and knocked on Annika’s door. He heard a rustling from behind the door as she peered through the peephole at him. He grinned at her, and, a moment later, she opened the door.

She was wearing a plush terry-cloth robe with the hotel’s logo like a medieval coat of arms on the left breast. Her wet hair was turbaned in a towel, her feet were bare.

She stood squarely in the doorway, one hand on the partly open door. “This is something of a surprise.”

“I’d like to speak with you. May I come in?”

For a long moment her eyes studied him, and he had the uncomfortable feeling that she was evaluating his motives. Abruptly, she nodded and stepped aside. The room was spacious, ornate, high-ceilinged. The heavy drapes were drawn, revealing the black foliage of the Borghese gardens through the thick panes of glass.

He crossed the thick carpet to the windows. “It must be beautiful in daylight.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“In the morning you will.” He turned back into the room, smiling, only to discover her holding a small, pearl-handled .22 aimed at him. “What is this, Annika?”

“You tell me.”

He spread his hands. “I just wanted to give back the severance money you gave me.”

“Don’t bother. It’s yours.”

He slowly and deliberately moved the thumb and forefinger of his left hand into his breast pocket, lifted out the envelope she had given him, and dropped it on the floor between them. “I didn’t even open it.”

Using the toe of his shoe, he slid the envelope across the carpet toward her. “I want my old job back.”

“Sorry, it’s been taken.”

“Yeah, but no, it hasn’t. I have a hunch Mr. Rylance isn’t going to show up for work tomorrow.”

She lifted the .22 to aim at his head. “What did you do?”

Radomil shook his head.

“What the fuck did you do, Radomil?”

“I have it on good authority that Mr. Rylance had … well, what should we call it?… a date with destiny.”

“You killed him.”

“He’s no longer available to you … or to anyone else, for that matter.”

Annika pulled out the desk chair and sat down. “Well, this changes everything.”

“Yes.” He stood silent for a moment, hands clasped in front of him, like a respectful mourner at the funeral of a distant relative. “I think now would be an opportune time to renegotiate the terms of our deal.”

T
WENTY-TWO

“I
SCREWED
the pooch with Alan Fraine,” Paull said. “He called in, said he was being followed, and asked for help. The person he spoke to got the address wrong. My men showed up at the wrong spot and Alan had to deal with things himself.”

“Which he did,” Jack said.

“Yes, but I think it put him in a more perilous position.”

The two men were in a situation room Paull had had set up on the eighth floor of Bethesda, rigged with a large-screen monitor linked to Leopard’s laptop. Caro had been moved into the room and Alli was standing beside her, while Caro plundered the hard drive.

Jack understood his friend’s remorse. “None of us could have anticipated that Alan would be shot dead, let alone by his twin brother.”

Paull nodded morosely.

“Were you able to find any trace of Werner Waxman?”

“I called in more favors than I would have liked to, all to no avail.”

“Can you trust the results?”

“From these people, yes.”

“Who the hell is he?”

“One thing I can tell you right now,” Caro piped up from behind Leopard’s laptop, “Waxman isn’t Waxman. His name is Werner Ax. At least, according to the intel Leopard gleaned, that’s his last pseudonym.”

“Jesus Christ!” Paull ran his hand through his hair. “This man’s like a fucking ghost. Looking for him is like trying to stop sand from running through an hourglass.”

He blew air out through his lips, then pulled Jack aside. “There’s something else,” he whispered. “Henry Holt Carson is currently in surgery. He had a heart attack. I had him brought here.”

“What’s the prognosis?”

“It’s too soon to tell,” Paull said.

At that moment, Caro called them over. “Leopard was looking into the background of someone named Leonard Bishop.”

“Bishop is currently Metro’s chief of detectives.”

“I got that,” Caro said without looking up. “Previously, Bishop was in an elite unit, designated Acacia, which was the operational field arm of an SBO group known only as Three-thirteen.”

“SBO?” Alli repeated.

“Shielded black ops,” Paull said in a wooden voice, “the designation given only rarely, to a black ops group so secret its existence is shielded from everyone except those directly involved.”

“Even the president?” Alli asked.

“It’s my understanding that Three-thirteen was unknown to the presidents up through Edward Carson.”

“But you’ve heard of it,” Jack pointed out.

“Only in passing, as a rumor.”

“But you’re the secretary of homeland security!”

Paull, ignoring her, nodded at Caro. “Please continue.”

“On July third, 2002, Acacia was deployed to the Horn of Africa, according to the DoD file Leopard hacked into, but it didn’t stay there long. Forty-eight hours later, it was flown by a local, nonmilitary transport to Baghdad.”

“What was Acacia doing in Iraq?” Paull said.

“Looking for WMDs,” Alli said with a smirk.

“Plenty of unaccounted-for money over there,” Jack said.

Caro’s eyes scanned the screen. “But Acacia was a kill squad.”

“It was sent to take out Saddam,” Alli offered.

“Maybe.” Paull seemed thoughtful. “Caroline, what do the Three-thirteen files say about Acacia’s mission?”

“They don’t. The files are compartmentalized. Leopard hadn’t gotten that far.”

“That must have been when he was poisoned.”

“No.” Caro shook her head. “He was poisoned later.” Her fingers flew over the keys. “He broke off his search to look for someone named Milton P. Stirwith, who, as it turns out, doesn’t exist.” She looked up. “Leopard dug up Stirwith’s false ID documents; his identity wasn’t just any legend. The quality of workmanship bears all the hallmarks of the legends created by the Norns.”

“But that’s impossible,” Alli said. “All those guys have got to be either in old age homes or dead and buried by now.”

“Yeah, that was Leopard’s thought also.” Caro worried her lower lip. “But he discovered something that really excited him. He was a World War Two fanatic, so he knew a lot about the Norns working under the aegis of the OSS.”