9:01:22. Sam eased the heavy door open, slipped inside, and closed the door behind him. When the latch bolt clicked shut, he reached into his pocket to bring the small flashlight out.
That’s when Sam sensed he wasn’t alone. He tensed. That’s when he felt the air around him shift—the same palpable change in pressure just before lightning strikes—and he caught the whiff of something vaguely familiar—a spicy, floral odor he’d smelled somewhere before.
Instinctively, he stepped backward and ducked.
Too late. “Unggh.” The blow caught him on the very ridge of his clavicle and drove him onto his knees. Sam rolled away from the smell. But obviously in the wrong direction. Because his assailant connected with a second shot. Sam’s arms went up reactively, but the son of a bitch caught him right on the point of his left elbow, sending a huge spasm of pain ricocheting all the way through his body.
And in that split second Sam realized that he’d been set up one more time. Just the way he’d been set up with Pavel Baranov, Irina Howard, and Alexei Semonov.
His mind working at warp speed, the last few weeks flashed before his eyes. They were here to murder him. Get him out of the way for good. It was Rand Arthur’s killers—Red Jacket and Oakland Raider. They’d been waiting for him all along. Oh, Christ, that made Virginia Vacario part of the conspiracy. Or maybe she was Moscow Center’s mole—recruited in Germany, infiltrated onto Rand Arthur’s staff. Maybe Red Jacket and Oakland Raider worked for her, not Rand. That was it: she’d allowed him to see her cipher combination. She knew he’d figure it out—and break in to see what was in the goddamn safe. And so they’d been waiting for him. It was another bloody ambush.
No—this time it would be different. They were really going to kill him tonight. They had to—couldn’t screw it up again.
But he was so close to the end of the maze. So damn close. Far too close to die now.
9:01:24. The latex glove on Sam’s right hand got caught up in the material of his jacket pocket and he ripped the cloth pulling it out. Just in time to take a third shot, which caught him in the kidneys.
“Unh!” But he lunged forward, the pain offset by rage, tackled his assailant around the legs, and took him down onto the rug. The pistol came out of the holster on Sam’s hip and skittered across the floor, out of reach.
Oh, goddamn, let there not be a second attacker. Let them not have night vision. Sam thought about going back for the gun. But he’d committed himself, and so he charged ahead.
Sam was a sizable man—six feet one, two hundred pounds, and a grappler by nature. From his throat came the primeval growl he’d learned at Parris Island. “Aurrghh!”
Like an attacking croc he wrapped his attacker up and took the son of a bitch into a death roll, right hand smacking hard upside the head, then grabbing a fistful of hair to yank his head back. Sam’s left hand chopped at his attacker’s face then went for the throat, his big hand squeezing the life out of the cocksucker’s windpipe, crushing his larynx.
The pure, white-hot fury of his counterattack stunned his opponent. Teeth bared, Sam went in for the kill.
Which is when his rampaging animal brain finally identified the spicy, floral-tinged odor of Chanel No. 5. He rolled away, horrified. “Ginny?”
Breathing hard, Sam found his flashlight and switched it on.
She was in a fetal position. Next to her lay the NYPD nightstick. He flung it across the office, rolled her onto her back, and examined her in the narrow beam of light. Her lip was cut. A trickle of blood oozed down her chin. Her cheek was bruised. He crawled as far as her shoulders and cradled her head. “Ginny, Ginny, Ginny.” He found his handkerchief and used it to wipe the blood. “Oh, my God. Hold on.”
He scrambled to his feet, the flashlight probing until he found the light switch. The sudden brightness of the fluorescents made him cover his eyes for an instant.
He returned to where she lay on the carpet. “I’m so sorry—”
She shrank away from him, panic in here eyes. “Stay away from me—” And then, she saw past the latex gloves and the prosthetics and the mustache. “Sam? Sam Waterman?”
“It’s me.” Sam bent down and daubed at her face. “Is there a fridge? Is there any ice?”
She looked up at him blankly. ‘Thought you were a burglar … you’d come to kill me.”
“Ice, Ginny,” Sam said. “Ice.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and dropped her head because she was having a hard time swallowing. He’d grabbed her throat pretty hard.
She coughed phlegm then gurgled something unintelligible and pointed toward the outer office. Sam pulled himself to his feet. He spotted the pistol, scooped it up, adjusted the paddle holster on his belt, jammed the Glock home, then headed for the door. Half a minute later he was back, with a handful of cubes wrapped in a paper towel.
She’d rolled onto her side, and was in the process of hauling herself into a sitting position when he came through the door. She gave him a quick glance, her hand pressed against the underside of her nose to staunch the blood.
If looks could indeed kill, Sam would have been a dead man.
He went to her side, knelt, and handed her the pitiful packet of ice cubes in their soggy wrapper. She pressed the cold bundle against her lip, wincing as she did. She looked daggers at him. “God, you sure know how to treat a girl.”
“I—” Sam started to say something, then thought better of it and just shut up. He helped her to her feet, put his arm around her waist, and walked her to the couch, picking up the afghan where it had fallen onto the rug and slipping it over her pantsuit legs after she’d crumpled onto the brown leather.
“Just lie there,” he said, slipping a bolster under the back of her neck. “Put the ice on your lip. Let the cold work. We’ll talk later.”
9:32:00. “O’Neill said you’d become unbalanced—obsessive. But I never thought you’d try to kill me.”
“I wasn’t. I wouldn’t. I swear. I thought you were the same people who tried to kill me last week.”
“What?”
He gave her the twopenny version, leaving out who Red Jacket and Oakland Raider actually were.
Her expression softened, but only marginally. “Breaking in here. Sam, how could you do it? It’s a crime”
“I thought—” he began.
“Thinking is the one thing you obviously haven’t been doing,” she interrupted. “Look at you—gloves, flashlight. A gun, for chrissakes, Sam. What in God’s name are you doing carrying a gun?”
“I told you—they were trying to kill me.”
“And you thought carrying a gun would help. And how the hell did you get past the metal detectors?”
“I took the Houdini course at the Farm.”
“Very funny. C’mon—how?”
Sam let the subject drop. Finally, he said, “Ginny, you don’t know what’s going on.”
“I know enough.” The left side of Vacario’s face was puffy where Sam had smacked her. When she spoke it sounded like she had a mouthful of marbles.
“Ed Howard was a plant. His whole defection was a plant.”
“I figured that out,” she said. “I knew it after I read the transcript—the whole transcript. Carefully.” She gave him a spiteful look. “I took the notes, after all. And I know how to read a debriefing. I picked up on his inconsistencies. Believe me, I briefed the senator. He finally understands he was being set up by Howard.”
Does he, now? Sam found her response interesting.
But he didn’t say so. Instead, he parried. “Does he know there really are Russian agents cryptonymed SCEPTRE and SCARAB?”
Her expression told him the answer was no. She dabbed at her cheek, then set the soggy paper towel on the rug. “Who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then why do you believe Howard wasn’t lying about SCARAB and SCEPTRE?”
“Because he was mad at his boss.”
“What?”
“It was revenge—ego. That’s why he came back. Klimov had ostracized him. Put him in an office so small there was no desk or telephone. Shut him out. Howard decided to pay him back by defecting. But Klimov caught on. He used Howard.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No, it’s not. Once Klimov realized Howard was going to redefect, he made sure Howard learned about SCEPTRE and SCARAB.”
“Who are …”
“Who are, in reality, high-level Russian agents. That was the risky part for Klimov—embedding a tiny vein of gold in the lode of black information. But Klimov also made sure Howard got his hands on files that would focus us on disposables, not the real SCEPTRE and SCARAB.”
“How do you know that, Sam?”
“Because I found Howard’s files in Moscow, Ginny.”
“You lied to me.”
“For chrissakes, I thought you were involved. You could have been one of Klimov’s targets.”
“You’re talking about Bonn?”
He nodded.
“Bonn was a NATO matter, Sam. It had to do with Soviet penetration of the German Foreign Ministry. I’d worked with several of the people involved on counterterrorism matters when I was at Justice. Langley asked me to take on a six-month assignment under DOJ52 cover. I had nothing to do with Klimov, or Putin, or Edward Lee Howard. That’s as much of the story as I feel obliged to tell you.” She pressed the ice to her cheek. “Back to Howard, Sam.”
“Klimov made sure Howard got access to files—which, of course, are filled with misinformation. Howard never caught on. So after he defects he tries to impress me by passing his precious information to me—never knowing he’s a cog on Klimov’s wheel. But everything was a false trail—a black penetration op designed by Klimov and probably Putin to protect the real SCARAB and SCEPTRE. Okay: Howard defects, and he passes the information to me, and then something spooks him.”
“What?”
“Don’t know.” Sam scrubbed the false mustache with the edge of his gloved index finger. “But Howard gets spooked, and he goes back to Moscow—where Klimov kills him.”
Her expression reflected how dubious she was. “So where does this all lead, Sam?”
“I just told you: to more disposables.”
“Disposables?”
“Low-grade agents. Gofers. I have my hands on one of them.”
“Who?”
“I’ll tell you later.” He examined her face. “Let me get you some more ice.”
“I’m fine, Sam. I’ll survive.”
His face darkened. “Then I’ll finish what I came here to do: look at Rand Arthur’s stuff in that safe.”
Reactively, Vacario’s arms folded atop her chest. “No way.”
“Have to, Ginny.”
“You’re making the situation worse than it already is.”
“I can live with that.”
“But I can’t. What’s in that safe is lawyer-client stuff, Sam—not to mention classified materials that you have no business poking through. I will not open the safe for you—and I’ll call the police if you try to break in on your own.”
“I’m not here to steal America’s secrets, Ginny.”
“That’s not what the chairman thinks. He’s convinced you’re a double agent, Sam. Even Michael wasn’t able to convince him otherwise.”
“Rand? He’s off his rocker.”
“Why should I believe you’re not?”
“That’s not enough.”
“It’ll have to be—for now.” He watched as she wiped her nose with his bloody handkerchief. “Look—I’m here with one objective. I don’t give a goddamn about any secrets in your safe—except Rand’s. But I want to see what Rand stored here.”
“Why?”
“Because he stored it here. In your office. Not in his hideaway—he has a big fireproof safe there. Or in the safe in that paneled library of his out in Round Hill. He gave these items to you, Ginny. That tells me he doesn’t want anyone to know about them.”
“What’s your point?”
“You’re not his lawyer.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No—you’re his chief counsel. O’Neill’s his lawyer. So, why the hell aren’t the folder and the box in a safe in O’Neill’s office?”
Ginny’s head cocked like a terrier’s. “I don’t know.”
“Well, neither do I—which is why I’m going to take a look-see.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to.” He walked to the big black steel cabinet, punched a series of numbers into the electronic lock, waited as the bolt linkages whirred, turned the handle, and opened the door. “Voilà.”
She sat on the couch, dumbfounded. “How the hell …”
“Trust me, Ginny. Please.”
He waited to see her reaction. When she didn’t reach for the telephone, Sam pulled the accordion file and the locked safe-deposit box off the top shelf, set them on Vacario’s desk, then closed the safe door and rolled the lock handle closed.
He opened the accordion file and riffled through it. “Rand’s wife’s papers—her will, other stuff. None of my business.” He closed the file and secured it with its elastic band.
“Now this …” Sam examined the slim shackle that went through the safe-deposit box’s hasp, flipped the padlock over, pulled his lock picks out, and went to work.
9:37:30. It was a rudimentary lock, and Sam had it open in less than a minute. He looked over at Ginny. “Before I open the box—do you have any idea what we’ll find?”
“No. The senator told me he wanted to keep some of his personal effects in a safe place—away from the house. He brought the folder last month—just before Howard showed up. I think he brought the box a couple of days after I got back from Moscow. I didn’t question him further.” She pointed at the accordion file. “And personal effects are exactly what we’ve found so far.”
Sam flipped the lid and peered inside. “These are interesting personal effects.” He tilted the box in Vacario’s direction so she could see the stacks of hundred-dollar bills bound with rubber bands. “What is this, Rand’s presidential campaign fund?”
He put the wads on her desk. There were twenty-five of them. He undid one and began counting. There were one hundred bills in all. He resecured the pile of hundreds. “A quarter-mil,” Sam said. “Not bad.” Then he tilted the box further, revealing a brown clasp envelope that sat under a black felt sack secured by a narrow band of red ribbon.
Sam took the envelope, carefully undid the clasp, and peered inside.
Vacario asked, “What’s there?”
“SSCI secrecy agreements for compartmented information.”
She frowned. “SSCI doesn’t have its own secrecy agreements. If staffers need access to a compartment, CIA takes care of the clearance.”
“Don’t tell that to a couple of people named Reese and Johnson.” Sam gently edged the sheets out of the envelope and showed her. She reached out for the top one but he quickly drew it back. “Fingerprints, Ginny.”
“Sorry, Sam.”
There were regulation orange-striped Top Secret cover sheets stapled atop two-page agreement forms. Each page was signed and initialed, and the bottom of the back page had a thumbprint below the signer’s hand-printed name.
Sam’s eyes scanned down the page until he found what he was looking for. He hadn’t been far off. “Rand’s compartment is called TALL CAVERN.”
Vacario frowned. “Come again?”
“TALL CAVERN.”
“There is no such compartment, Sam. Not at CIA, not at NSA. Nowhere.”
He hefted the agreements. “You coulda fooled me.”
Lips pursed, Vacario found her reading glasses, slipped them on, and looked over Sam’s shoulder. She shook her head. “I don’t get it. Why would this material be anything more than confidential? What we have here is nothing more than a receipt for an unspecified amount of money and an agreement to act on the personal orders of the chairman.”
“Recognize the names of the individuals who signed the forms?”
She squinted at the bottom of the page. “No.”
“They’re U.S. Capitol police officers—one of them headed the security detail after Howard showed up at Rand’s place. Rand sent them to kill me.”
Her intake of breath was audible. “Impossible.”
“Then why did Rand make sure to get their fingerprints on what you call nothing more than a receipt? Why did he create a fictitious compartment called TALL CAVERN and make two officers sign secrecy agreements?” Sam’s expression was grim. He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Believe me, Ginny, nothing’s impossible.”
Sam put the documents back in their envelope. Then he took the sack from the metal box and hefted it in his hand. He inverted the sack in the palm of his gloved hand, revealing perhaps fifty or sixty flawless diamonds in the one-and-a-half-to two-and-a-half-carat range. “I’m not up on diamonds these days, but I’d bet these would be worth a million dollars on the wholesale market—maybe more. And unlike currency, they’re untraceable.”
“Oh, my God!” Vacario’s eyes went wide.
“Hold out your hands.” Sam allowed the stones to cascade into Vacario’s palms. She stared at the diamonds, and the two signed security agreements. He said nothing, allowing the eloquence of his silence to make his case.
Ten, twenty, thirty seconds passed; the only sound was Vacario’s labored breathing. The look on her face told Sam everything he had to know. It revealed her feelings of disbelief, horror, shock—and betrayal. Ginny might have been a Player—even an Alien—but it was impossible to feign that complex a reaction. All of his instincts told him she was on the right side of this fight.
Finally she gazed up at him. “Take everything back, Sam. Put it all away. I don’t want to look anymore.”
“Will do.” But first he put the envelope with the agreements on the desk.
Vacario’s eyes followed his actions, but she said nothing. When he’d finished she let the stones fall back into his hands. He funneled them into the sack, then dropped the sack in the safe-deposit box. He slid the cash back and replaced the envelope with the agreements, too. Then he closed the hasp, threaded the shackle, and snapped the padlock closed. But he didn’t replace the box in the safe when he locked the accordion file behind the heavy steel door.
“Does Rand have the combination to your safe?”
“Not that I know.”
“Then he won’t know we have this.” He tapped the steel box. “Ginny, you’ll have to come with me.”
She blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t want to let you out of my sight now. Things are too dicey.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not Faye Dunaway and this isn’t Three Days of the Condor.”
“Ginny …”
She pulled herself off the couch “I’m serious, Sam.”
He walked to the phone and unplugged the wire. “So am I. Four people are dead—and someone has tried to kill me twice in the last ten days. There’s a high-level Russian network in play. But the more I discover about it, the less I seem to know. I need some time.”
“You’re not making any sense.” She focused on his face. “And your mustache is coming loose.”
Sam adjusted the device and pressed it firmly onto his upper lip. “Better?”
She examined his face. “I guess.”
“Look, Ginny—”
“No, you look. I’m going to tell you to do the same thing you told me to do just about a month ago. Call the FBI, Sam. Right now. Let the Bureau handle this mess. If you don’t, I’m going to put up a hell of a fuss.”
Sam didn’t need a fuss. His misapprehensions about Vacario might be allayed, but in point of fact he trusted no one at this point in time except John Forbes. Rand Arthur was up to his eyeballs in something. Ginny might or might not be involved—might not was his instinct, but his instinct had been miserably wrong in the recent past.
Sam couldn’t afford to screw up now. So he looked at her reassuringly. “The FBI’s already been called in.” The lie came easily. “I can take you to meet the special agent working the case.”
She looked at him skeptically. “What’s his name?”
“John Forbes.”
“Plug the phone in, Sam.”
He did as she asked.
“Call the DOJ twenty-four-hour locator.”
“Do you have the number?”
In response, she pulled a government phone book out of her credenza, perused it, then wrote seven numbers on a pad.
Sam dialed the number. “I’m looking for FBI Deputy Assistant Director Forbes’s extension. John Forbes. F-O-R-B-E-S.” He handed her the receiver.
Sam watched as Ginny wrote a number down. She hung the phone up. “John Forbes is the deputy assistant director of the National Security Division.” Her tone told Sam she was impressed.
Sam nodded. “He handles special projects. He’s totally trustworthy.”
The tenseness evaporated from her expression. “I thought you were lying to me.”
“I want you to meet with Forbes and tell him what we found.”
“Now?”
“Forbes is questioning the disposable I just told you about.”
“Then I agree.” She daubed at her face with Sam’s handkerchief. “Mind if I freshen up a bit first, though? You seem to have smudged my makeup.”
“Of course not.” Sam paused. “Are you carrying a cell phone, Ginny?”
“Of course.”
“I really like you, and I don’t want to sound paranoid, but why don’t you give it to me while you freshen up.”
“I really like you, too, but that is paranoid, Sam. Who the hell would I be calling?”
He could think of a few people. Like her boss. Or her boss’s lawyer. Or the U.S. Capitol police operations center. But he didn’t say so. Instead, he looked at her, his expression grave. “Let’s play this out my way.”
She sighed and her eyes flashed angrily. But she reached down, opened her desk drawer, extracted her handbag, and rummaged in it until she came up with her cell phone, which she placed in Sam’s gloved palm. “Satisfied?”
He dropped the phone in his pocket and picked up the steel box. “Absolutely. And since I’m both paranoid and in love, I’ll walk you as far as the ladies’ loo and loiter there while you do what you do. Then we can get the heck out of here.”