Father Night (5 page)

“What the hell is that?” Jack said.

“Don’t be alarmed,” Dyadya Gourdjiev said. He put the pill between his lips and knocked it back with a swallow of water.

Annika reached under the bed to the plastic compact.

“Ten seconds,” Dr. Zurov said to his patient. His face looked lined, concentrated, intent.

Dyadya Gourdjiev’s eyes rolled up in his head. When he stopped breathing Jack lunged toward him, but Dr. Zurov held him back.

“It’s all right,” Annika whispered at his side.

A moment later, the steady beeping of the electronic monitors was replaced by a constant shrill sound as all of the old man’s vital signs flatlined. A nurse rushed in, took one look at the monitors, and called for a crash cart. Outside in the corridor, they could hear a doctor being urgently paged.

“What happened?” the nurse said as she put a stethoscope over Gourdjiev’s heart.

“He had a seizure,” Dr. Zurov said. “One minute he was talking, the next he had stopped breathing.”

“He’s still not breathing,” the nurse said as the crash cart was wheeled in.

“I’ve already pronounced him dead.”

The doctor on call rushed in. He asked the same question, to which Dr. Zurov gave the same answer.

“If he’s gone, he’s gone. He did not want to be resuscitated, he was quite clear on that score.” Dr. Zurov produced a signed DNR document, which he handed to the doctor. “Signed and sealed.”

Katya, coming into the room, said, “Please leave and let the family grieve in peace.”

The doctor, looking bewildered, studied the document, then handed it back with a curt nod. “As you wish.” Turning on his heel, he and the nurse left.

Annika was stretched over her grandfather, weeping openly. Katya went to her side and held her around her waist while she stroked her hair.

Dr. Zurov switched off all the monitors. Annika reached beneath the bed and detached the compact, whose electronics had jammed the monitors’ signals, and pocketed it.

“He’s in the deepest meditative state,” Dr. Zurov said. “The drug will last forty minutes.”

Katya was already on her cell phone, speaking softly. “The car from the funeral home will be here in ten minutes,” she said after she broke the connection.

Jack, astonished at the level of advance planning, said, “I can’t see what you need me for.”

Annika, who had just placed a kiss in the center of her grandfather’s forehead, looked up at him. “You’ve got the plane standing by at Sheremetyevo, and it’s got diplomatic immunity. Once he’s inside and we’re airborne, he’s as safe as if he were in a bank vault.”

*   *   *

J
UST AFTER
noon, Alli was summoned to the commander’s office. The order was something she had been both expecting and fearing. Bryce Fellows was standing by the window, his hands clasped behind his back. Fellows maintained a stiff military demeanor even during the most informal of Fearington’s functions, which, admittedly, were few and far between. His stern countenance was the facade of a man who was both thoughtful and fair-minded.

“I’ve seen this Web site, Ms. Carson,” he said as soon as she entered his office. “It’s an abomination, and it has been taken down.”

“Thank you, sir.” Alli’s heart was beating fast.

“That’s the good news.” Fellows turned from his contemplation of the view outside his office. “The bad news is we have no idea who engineered this attack on you. That being the case, the site, or one very much like it, could pop up on another server at any time.”

Alli felt another shiver of dread run through her. She knew Morgan Herr was dead; what was chilling her bones?

“I have no choice but to consider this a direct attack on your person.”

“Which is where I come in.”

Alli turned to see a familiar face.

“I’ve been assigned to you,” Dick Bridges said.

Bridges had been the head of her father’s presidential Secret Service detail. He had been so shaken by his charge’s violent death in Moscow that he had disappeared. She had assumed he had retired. Now here he was, as big and robust as ever.

“It’s good to see you, Dick,” she said.

“You’ve grown into a fine young woman.” He gave her a grim smile. “Sorry this reunion comes under these circumstances.”

She shook her head as she turned back to Fellows. “I appreciate your concern, sir, but I’m not going to allow Agent Bridges to follow me around campus. I’m finished being a dog on a leash.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, Ms. Carson. Next month, you will graduate Fearington with top honors—in fact, the highest recommendations of any candidate I can recall. I’m not going to allow anyone to harm you.”

“I understand your point of view,” Alli said. “But please try to understand mine. The moment anyone sees Agent Bridges, they’re going to know why he’s here.”

Fellows nodded. “That’s precisely the idea I mean to—”

“With all due respect, sir, everyone will know this person got to me, everyone will know I’m frightened. Especially the person who engineered the attack. That’s the wrong message to send.”

Fellows opened his mouth, no doubt to refute her, but apparently he thought better of it. He turned to Bridges. “Agent?”

“Unfortunately, Alli’s right, Commander.”

Fellows shook his head, then addressed Alli. “I’m not prepared to dismiss Agent Bridges, so unless you have an alternative, my order stands.”

“I do.” Alli came across to where Bridges stood. “Dick stays on campus, but remains in the shadows. Bring him on as part of your visiting instructor program, maybe, that should be easy enough to do.”

“He keeps watch over you, but from a distance.” Fellows tapped his forefinger against his lips. “Yes, I can see how that would work.” He nodded decisively. “It’s an excellent compromise, Ms. Carson. Well done.”

“It’s only well done if it works.” Dick Bridges crossed his arms over his chest. “Frankly, Commander, nothing about this assignment satisfies me. It’s deeply disturbing that we have not been able to track down the person responsible for the rogue site. Our failure goes against our history in this area. Everyone leaves some form of electronic fingerprint; but his IP address has led us through more than half a dozen countries without gaining a glimpse of his identity. All we get are echoes, never an end address.”

“But eventually, you’ll find him,” Alli said.

Bridges shrugged. “‘Eventually’ isn’t a word you want to hear in this area. I’ll be honest, we don’t trace him in the first forty-eight hours, it means he’s a pro. It’ll take a helluva lot of time and manpower to track him down.”

*   *   *

I
T WASN’T
taking off Jack was worried about, it was getting to the airport. Two men from the funeral home, a driver and his assistant, had arrived and had taken Dyadya Gourdjiev out of the hospital on a gurney.

Jack was especially watchful as they accompanied the men from the funeral home into the long ambulancelike van. A frigid wind swept through Moscow. There was snow on the sidewalks and there were icy patches on the roadway, to which the rumbling traffic paid not the slightest attention. Jack was looking for men in parked cars or staring into shop plate-glass windows, which they could use as a reflecting surface to keep an eye on the hospital’s entrance.

He was unhappy about being kept out of the loop. Without direct knowledge of Gourdjiev’s plan, he felt as if he were in the dark, or at least in a twilight world where he glimpsed shapes and the outlines of things without being able to interpret their meaning.

The interior of the van was cramped. The assistant from the funeral home sat next to the body. He had clamped the gurney down to keep it stationary during the drive to Sheremetyevo. Jack, Annika, Katya, and Boris, the bodyguard who had staked out the hospital lobby, sat on the narrow metal bench that ran along the other side, which was as uncomfortable as it looked.

No one said a word as the van started up and drove away from the reserved space outside the hospital’s ER. Jack, hunched to one side, peered out the window of the rear door. The funeral home attendant watched him briefly but said nothing.

Traffic in Moscow was nightmarish, moving either at a glacial pace or at heart-stopping speed, often within the space of the same block. The local taxis—
bombila
—were the most egregious offenders, circling slowly like vultures until they spotted a fare, then accelerating with spine-compressing speed toward their next destination.

There were a number of these
bombila
swerving in and out of the lanes, dodging trucks and ZiL limousines alike. Jack watched them as if he were a spectator at a bumper-car ride. Often, they missed smashing the bumpers or grilles on other vehicles around them by no more than a hairsbreadth.

“Anything?” Annika said.

He shook his head. It seemed inevitable that Gourdjiev’s enemies, whose multitude of eyes and ears had by now informed them of the old man’s death, would try to get at Annika, now that the old man’s protection had ceased to exist. His enemies would consider her an enemy.

The car reached the ring road that circled the inner city. Beyond stretched the highway to the airport. Many of the
bombila
peeled away, using the ring road to race to other parts of the city, but the intercity trucks remained. Also, a couple of ZiLs, the big cars looking like sharks among the whales. Jack concentrated on these limousines. With their smoked windows and armor plating, they made perfect vehicles from which to stage an ambush or an interception.

He had been following the progress of one of the ZiLs, which, to his mind, had been acting suspiciously. It was now directly behind, and pulling closer. When he turned briefly from his observation post to update Annika, he saw her mouth,
We’re going in the wrong direction.
He was about to say something, but her eyes cut to the attendant and she placed her forefinger across her lips.

Boris must have become aware of the wrong route. He drew his handgun.

But the attendant already had his own gun out—a Desert Eagle .357 Magnum. He shook his head, said, “Easy, now,” as Boris’s gun hand twitched. His teeth showed, sharp as needles. “You’re ours now.”

T
HREE

“I
F THEY
can’t find the dirtbag,” Vera said when Alli had told her about the scene in the commander’s office, “then they’re incompetents.”

“So what do we do?” Alli said.

They were sitting on their beds, facing each other. It was just after midnight, the time they usually spent talking privately.

“Just forget it.”

“What?” Alli felt her cheeks flush. How could she forget about December twentieth?

“The site’s down, you’ve already spoken to half the people here and they’re all on your side. You came back from Albania a hero. Everyone’s calmed down now that the commander’s addressed them. There’s nothing else to do.”

“The hell there isn’t,” Alli said hotly.

“Alli, it’s being dealt with by the authorities. Let them handle it.”

Alli jumped up. “You yourself said they’re not going to find him.”

“I did, but—”

“Then I have to find him!”

She stood up to take Alli’s arm, but Alli shook her off. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I
am
going to find him.” Her eyes were fierce.

“I know that look. Alli, no. This is crazy.”

“Don’t tell me what’s crazy!” Alli shouted.

Vera, taking the measure of her roommate’s rapidly escalating agitation, kept her voice calm and even. “Okay, what the hell is going on?”

Alli seemed to collapse, plopping down on the edge of Vera’s bed. Vera sat next to her. She had to fight not to call Jack, but he and Annika were in Moscow. Besides, she told herself sternly, she had to handle this on her own. If she went to Jack every time something bad happened she would never become her own person, she would never grow up. She didn’t want that.

“Alli,” Vera said softly, “talk to me.”

When Alli turned her head away, Vera leaned toward her. “Remember when you came back from Albania, when we admitted to each other that we couldn’t feel strong emotion toward anyone else?” She bumped her shoulder playfully into Alli’s. “Remember what you said?”

Alli took a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah, I said there’s only one thing to do—talk about it.”

“So.” Vera put her hand on Alli’s. “How about taking your own advice?”

Their talk back then had been extremely difficult. Vera had confessed that Henry Holt Carson had placed her as Alli’s roommate to discover if Alli knew the whereabouts of Caroline, his daughter from his second, failed, marriage. Alli didn’t. Caro had vanished years ago, when she was thirteen. No one had seen or heard of her since. When Alli asked why her uncle hadn’t come to her himself, Vera shrugged and said,
“He didn’t think you’d tell him the truth.”

Vera, it was clear, despised everyone. There was ice in her veins; she had forgotten how to like, never mind love, someone. Alli had opened up about her abduction, the week-long terror at the hands of Morgan Herr, from which Jack had saved her. She had also spoken of Emma McClure, Jack’s daughter, who had died four years ago in a car wreck. Alli and Emma had been more than roommates at Langley Fields College, they had been lovers. Alli had never gotten over that love. It was Alli’s most closely guarded secret, because she felt partly responsible for Emma’s death. There were only a few people who knew this, and now Vera was one.

For a long time, with these memories swirling, she said nothing, hunched over, elbows on knees, as if drawing in on herself. She knew this pose well; she assumed it whenever she felt emotionally threatened. Physical threats she could handle—she could take direct action, change the situation. But this—this made her feel helpless. And then the fear would rise like a tide, the same fear that had overwhelmed her in that awful room where Morgan Herr had kept her for a week, brainwashing her. It had taken her a long time and a lot of hard work with Jack and Annika’s help, but at last she had been certain she had left that nightmare behind. And now it seemed as if it was about to happen all over again, as if Morgan Herr hadn’t died, as if he had returned from the dead.