Father Night (38 page)

Caro, seeing the expressions on both their faces, found the hint of a smile creeping into her lips. Then she turned back to the computer.

“I’ve found something,” she said. “It may be nothing, but…” She pressed a key on the laptop and a photo appeared on the large monitor. “A man similar in build and face shape passed through immigration at Dulles forty minutes ago. You can see that his nose is different than in the photo, and his eyes are dark, not gray.”

“Then it’s not him.” Alli moved closer to the monitor. “And yet—”

“Yes,” Caro said. “There’s something familiar about him.”

Jack used the laptop keyboard to merge the sketch with the photo.

“I can’t tell for sure,” Alli said to Jack. “Can you?”

Jack dispensed with the sketch, concentrated on the photo, bringing it in for a close-up. “There we go.” He pointed. “See this hairline shadow here? He’s used a false nose.” He moved closer still on the eyes. “And there’s a tiny corona of light along the left side of his irises.”

“Yep. Colored contacts.”

“What’s the name he’s traveling under?” Jack asked.

Caro squinted at the screen. “Werner von Verschuer.”

Jack heard a bell tolling in the back of his mind. Why? Did that name mean something to him? He couldn’t bring it into the light of his conscious mind.

“And you’re right,” Caro continued. “This legend has him as a German national.”

Paull opened his cell. “I’m calling airport security. We got him.”

“Don’t bother.” Caro swiveled the laptop back to face her. “His flight’s already left.”

“Destination?” Jack said.

“Rome.”

“What’s he going to do there?”

Caro shook her head. “I’ve no idea.”

“Damnit!” Paull opened his phone. “Let’s pick General Tarasov up, at least.” He began to bark orders into his mobile.

The idea of flights caused something to click in Jack’s mind. “Caro, you said the Acacia team was flown out of the Horn of Africa by local transport. Do you have a company name?”

“Just a moment.” Caro screened through page after page. Yeah. Mirage AirTransport.”

“See if you can find out who owns Mirage.”

Caro nodded.

Paull had just completed his call when his mobile buzzed. He listened for a moment, then looked at Jack. “We’re needed elsewhere.”

Out in the hushed corridor, Paull said, “Carson’s about to go into surgery. He’s down the hall. We should take a look-see.”

As they went, Paull opened his mobile. “I’ll alert the authorities at Fiumicino. As soon as the plane lands, Ax or whoever the hell he is now will be picked up and extradited back here.”

“Hold on,” Jack said as they reached the doorway to Carson’s prep room. “I think we should do nothing but follow him.”

“Are you kidding?”

Jack tapped the side of his head. “I think Ax is going to meet his partners. We find him, we find them. I’ll use your plane, and we’ll track him through your contacts at Fiumicino and the FAA. Whatever planes he takes, the pilots will have to file flight plans. As long as we don’t lose Ax, we’ll be fine.”

Paull nodded. “All right.” He was getting used to following Jack’s intuition, though he was never quite comfortable with it. “My plane is fueled and ready to go. You can leave now.”

They were about to enter the room when they saw Alli striding down the hall toward them.

Her face was flushed. “I know you’re going after Ax, Jack.”

“And, of course, you want to go,” Paull said.

“Is that right?” Jack said.

“No, I’m needed here to protect Caroline. The Syrian isn’t going to let her go quietly.”

Paull gestured. “This place is crawling with Secret Service agents.”

At that moment, she moved so that, inadvertently, she had a line of sight into the room. “Is that my uncle?”

“He’s had a heart attack,” Paull said. “He’s about to have emergency bypass surgery.”

The two men followed Alli into the room where Henry Holt Carson lay. A pair of surgical nurses were monitoring his vitals while the anesthesiologist administered a Valium drip. Carson’s skin was ashen and slack.

Paull bent over, peering down at him. “Too late to wish him good luck.”

Alli approached the bed with some hesitation. “He looks old.”

“He is old,” Paull said.

“No, I mean
really
old, as if his body has collapsed in on itself.” Alli stepped closer. “It’s weird to see him like this, drained of all his energy and power. It’s like a dream I’ve had about him.”

Jack, standing behind her, put his hands on her shoulders. “Wish fulfillment.”

Alli nodded. “You could say that.”

He turned her around to face him. “I’m glad you’ve made the decision to stay. You’re the one I trust.”

Carson was wheeled out by his retinue of hospital personnel.

“Alli,” Paull said, “these agents don’t know Caro or Henry. You do. That’s crucial now.”

Alli looked at him critically.

Paull laughed. “My days of underestimating you are gone, trust me.”

“Alli,” Jack said, “before I go, I just wanted to know … is everything okay between you and Vera?”

“Yeah, sure, why d’you ask?”

But Jack saw the sorrow in her eyes, and she knew he did. Their deep understanding of each other was revealed in that one glance. Jack knew something was wrong, but he also knew her too well to push her. She would tell him if and when she was comfortable enough.

Still, he said, “Walk with me.”

“We’ll be in constant touch.” Paull followed them out the door. “I’ll be going back to the office, the better to monitor the intel coming in.” He tilted his head toward Alli. “Another reason you need to be here as my eyes and ears.”

Neither Jack nor Alli said a word in the elevator, on the way down. As they crossed the lobby, he said, “Caroline may be jealous of your relationship with Vera.”

“Why should she care?” But Alli started to mull this idea over in her head.

“I don’t know, but she does.”

As usual, Jack was on to something important, she thought, even without having full knowledge of the situation.

“Maybe if you talk to her, you’ll find out.”

They had reached the front doors. The twilight had gathered like the shadowed strands of a spider web.

“I don’t know which I hate most,” Alli said, eyeing the street, “your leaving or my staying.”

Jack smiled, signaling Paull’s car. The driver started the engine.

“Jack…”

He turned back to her, his smile fading.

She shook her head. “Nothing. Just get Ax, or whoever he is.”

“Don’t worry.”

She stood on her tiptoes, gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I won’t let you down.”

“I know you won’t. Careful of that shoulder.”

He ducked into the car, the door slammed shut, and it nosed down the driveway. Alli, her heart aching for so many different reasons, watched until the car vanished into traffic. Then she turned and, taking a deep breath, went back inside to begin the task Jack had set for her.

*   *   *

“I
WANT
double what we originally agreed upon.”

“I can do that,” Annika said, “but you’ll have to work for it.”

Radomil grinned. “I’ve never run from work. Unlike my brother, I prefer to earn my keep.”

They were sitting at a black lacquer table in a nook of the bar to one side of the ornate hotel lobby. Lamps spread golden dollars of light across the deep-red carpet. The long polished teak bar gleamed, and glasses and bottles twinkled like stars in the night sky. Radiohead was playing softly from well-concealed speakers in the low-ceilinged room’s four corners. The windowless space felt warm and sheltered. Voices murmured like the wind in the willows.

Annika turned her vodka rocks around and around, making interlocking rings of moisture on the table. “You won’t like what I’m about to ask you to do.”

“I don’t have to like it,” he said, taking a sip of his whiskey. “I just have to do it.”

“Just so.” Annika nodded. “I want you to take me to where the Syrian is.”

Radomil reared back in his barrel chair. “You’re not serious.”

“On the contrary. I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

“But why the hell would you want that?”

“He and my grandfather are partners.”

“Then you should know where he is.”

“I trust the Syrian,” Annika said, by way of an answer. “It’s Ax I’m concerned with.”

“I don’t want any part of Werner Ax.”

“Neither do I, but we all need to play the hand we’re dealt.”

Radomil’s eyes narrowed as he cocked his head. “You’re planning something, aren’t you?”

She sipped her drink. “I want you to understand that you work for me now,” she said. “No one else.”

Radomil nodded.

“I also want you to know that if you cross me—”

“What? You’ll kill me?”

“No,” Annika said. “I’ll do much worse than that.”

The look in her eye caused Radomil’s laugh to die stillborn. He swallowed. “All right. I get it. You’re the boss now.”

“Yeah, well, I have to wonder whether that means anything to you.”

A wry smile cracked open his dour expression. “Not much, to be honest.”

“Then you have some serious learning to do.”

“They say change is extremely difficult to handle, especially for a man.”

“Are you up for the challenge?”

“I’m up for the money,” Radomil said.

“That isn’t enough.” Annika pushed a thick packet across the table, but did not take her hand off it. “Not for me, at least.”

He spread his hands. “What would you have me say?”

“That’s entirely up to you.” She tapped the packet of money. “Everything is different now. Either you understand that, or you don’t. The money is irrelevant.”

Radomil seemed to roll her words over in his mind. At length, he nodded. “You’re talking again about an act of faith.”

Annika nodded. “Start small, Radomil.” She took her hand off the packet. “Don’t look inside. Trust that I won’t cheat you.”

Radomil took possession of the packet. For a moment, his fingers twitched, as if of their own accord they wanted to open it. Then he looked up at her. “The Syrian is here in Rome.”

“What the hell is he up to?”

“Something. I don’t know.”

“I have to find out. I don’t know where he is, and it’s obvious you do. I want you to take me to him.”

“Are you serious?”

She stared at him, silent, enigmatic as a sphinx.

Radomil grunted in surrender. “I get you there, I light the way for you to see him.” He blew air out through his lips, shook his head, then glanced at his watch. “Okay. If you’re serious, we’d better get started. There isn’t much time.”

Annika’s arm froze with her vodka halfway to her lips. “Until what?”

“I told you I don’t know. But he’s been planning something—something very complex, very big, very dangerous.”

“Can you make an educated guess?”

“With the Syrian, who the fuck knows?” Radomil stood and pushed his chair aside. “Maybe light the sky on fire, maybe burn cities down, maybe World War Three.”

T
WENTY-THREE

F
OR
H
ENRY
Holt Carson, the world kept flickering like a firefly at the periphery of his vision. All else was darkness—and the pressure of colossal pain pressing down on him, as if trying to flatten him entirely.

There was a moment when he thought he saw Dennis Paull’s face, heard Paull’s voice echoing, “Get him to the eighth floor,” as if from the other end of a house with many rooms through which it was impossible for Carson to negotiate.

Darkness.

Finally, only the pain remained, making him want to scream, never stop screaming.

Then the abyss.

*   *   *

H
E AWOKE,
or rather his eyes opened, gluey, his vision blurred. He stared up at a white ceiling. He heard the suck and sigh of machines, and knew he was in a hospital. What had happened to him? The last he remembered …

“Mr. Carson. Mr. Carson, can you hear me?”

His eyes, adjusting, fell upon a face.

“My name is Dr. Delany. I’m the surgeon who operated on you. You had a myocardial infarction, Mr. Carson. In layman’s terms, a heart attack. You’ve had a double bypass, but you’re going to be fine. Do you understand?”

Carson nodded. His tongue felt swollen, glued to the roof of his mouth, and his throat was raw, as if he had been screaming for hours.

Dr. Delany smiled. “You’re in Bethesda Naval Hospital.”

His head turned and Carson sensed he was speaking to someone else in the room.

When Delany turned back, he said, “There’s someone here to see you. Think you’re up to it?”

Carson nodded. He was acutely aware of his heart beating. He felt very alone.

The doctor moved aside and Carson saw the familiar face of Dennis Paull.

“Hello, Henry.”

“I must look like hell.”

Paull smiled. “I want you to know that Alli is safe.”

Carson felt like laughing. He had lost Caroline; his relationship with Vera was based on estrangement, hatred, and the endless tiny revenges they took on each other. Death by ten thousand cuts. But Alli, worst of all, was a constant reminder of his brother, Edward. Edward, who had become president, who was so admired, so beloved, so much the favored son. But Carson was the successful one, the wealthy one, the brother with real influence. Where would Edward have been without his help? The truth was, he despised Edward, and now that Edward was gone, every time he saw Alli, he saw Edward as well.

“In fact,” Paull continued, “Alli’s here at Bethesda.”

Paull smiled. “You can see her in a while, if you like.”

“Don’t bother,” was all Carson could manage. He felt exhausted. His eyelids fluttered, despite his efforts to keep them open.

“That’s enough now,” he heard Dr. Delany say. “He needs his rest.”

Instantly he was overcome by a deep sleep, where he dreamed of climbing an enormous, mazelike tree, and falling before he could reach the top.

*   *   *

G
ENERAL
T
ARASOV
took off from a private airfield in a private Gulfstream G450, a long-range jet owned by Mirage AirTransport. That was an hour ago, just about the time Dennis Paull was ordering him taken into custody.