Thirty-Three

Peyton was at her desk at 5:15 typing when a door at the back of the stationhouse opened and Stone Gibson walked out. She could see Freddy St. Pierre sitting at the table.

Stone closed the door to the interrogation room and walked to her desk.

“Peyton, thanks for doing the legwork and getting Kingston’s information. Freddy, of course, denies it. He says he set the fire at three a.m. and that he was alone and never entered the cabin.”

“Is that plausible enough to hold up in court?”

“The fire marshal says there’s no way to say exactly when the fire began, since the explosion would have accelerated it.”

“Shit,” she said.

“Exactly,” Stone said and went to the coffee maker.

Stan Jackman came out of Hewitt’s office and said, “Peyton, I have something you’ll want to know about.”

Jackman, Garrett Station’s senior statesman, pulled a chair to her desk, sat, and handed her a black-and-white photo.

“I know this guy.”

“That’s what I hear. How’s your leg?”

“It’s fine,” she said.

“CNN has already reported the explosion and McPherson’s name.”

Peyton thought about Steuben’s warning regarding discretion. She hoped Steuben didn’t think she was the leak.

“They’re calling it an assassination attempt,” Jackman said. “And they’ve got a former CIA agent, who’s now a correspondent, offering theories.”

“Just what Washington wants.”

“Hewitt asked me to look into the members of Sherry St. Pierre-Duvall’s entourage.” He looked away and shook his head. “Research is what you do when you get to be my age, I guess.”

Jackman was creeping closer to fifty-seven, the mandatory retirement age for Border Patrol agents, and he’d suffered a heart attack a few years ago. Everyone at Garrett Station knew Hewitt was assigning him more and more desk duties.

“I think Hewitt’s trying to bore me into retiring,” Jackman said.

“He knows you’re an excellent researcher. Not all of us can do that.”

“You know that’s bullshit, Peyton. You, of all people, would hate being chained to the desk as much as I do.”

It was bullshit, but she could see the frustration on his face. And, after all, he and late wife Karen had invited Tommy and her to dinner soon after Peyton’s return to the area. Peyton could still remember trying to explain to Tommy why Karen’s hair was gone. Peyton attended Karen’s funeral three months later. Even at his most trying time—nearing the end of Karen’s life—Jackman had made time to welcome her to Garrett Station. She would never forget it, so she was trying to cheer him up now.

“I know his first name is Kvido,” she said. “He works for Sherry.”

“Sort of.” Jackman took out a cigarette and put it, unlit, into his mouth.

“If I see you light that thing, I’ll shoot you, Stan. I don’t want you to have another heart attack. You’re Tommy’s surrogate grandfather.”

“I’m not going to light the thing. Helps me think. Kvido was on the CIA’s watch list years ago, but he’s been under the radar for going on twenty years. And he and Dr. Sherry St. Pierre-Duvall are both academics, so maybe he is really working for her. It’s not exactly easy to gather a lot of concrete facts right now.”

She figured as much. The intelligence agencies would be moving a hundred miles an hour following the explosion that killed McPherson—and each going in a different direction. It meant that every piece of data was part of a fluid investigation. Therefore, everyone, everywhere would be hesitant to share it.

“What I do know is that Kvido’s last name is Bezdek. He seems to have done a little of everything. Made some big, quick money in real estate in the Czech Republic and studied political science, earning a Ph.D. And before that, he was part of the Andela Group.”

She pushed her chair away from her desk and looked up at him. “I’ve heard of that group,” she said. “This just got really interesting. Simon Pink is also from the Czech Republic.”

“You’re connecting some dots,” he said. “What do you know about Andela?”

She shook her head. “Not much. Nothing intel-based.”

“So just what CNN tells you?” he said.

She grinned and nodded.

“Could be worse,” he said. “You could be getting your information from Fox News.”

“Tell me what you know,” she said.

“The Andela Group was big about twenty years ago. It was a militia formed after a girl named Andela was killed when government-issued Czech military forces opened fire at a labor-union rally.”

“The Andela group sounds liberal,” she said. “I thought it was anti-West.”

“It may have ended up that way,” he said. “A lot of times these terrorist groups get in bed with each other in exchange for money, materials, and/or support.”

“Politics makes strange bedfellows,” she said.

“I’ve heard that somewhere. Bezdek is thirty-eight. Simon Pink was sixty-one. Pink came here ten years ago. As far as we can tell, Bezdek still lives in the Czech Republic, at least on paper. He teaches some classes and owns properties.”

“And he knew Simon Pink?”

“That isn’t confirmed,” Jackman said. “Based on the Andela connection, I’m assuming they knew each other.”

“How big was Andela twenty years ago?”

“Four thousand,” he said. “I know. That’s a lot of people, but the coincidence of them both being part of that group, and then being here together, is too large. I’m assuming they met there.”

“Do we know how active either man was in Andela, or what either man did for the group?”

“No. I’m working on that.”

“I’m willing to bet they were having a reunion party last Monday night at the cabin on Fred St. Pierre’s property,” she said, “and that Simon Pink didn’t enjoy the reacquaintance. Have you told Hewitt any of this?”

“He’s with Wally Rowe. They went to the Hampton Inn with two other agents and two troopers to get Kvido Bezdek for questioning.”

She looked at the wall clock. “I’m leaving on time for the first time this week,” she said. “I’ll have my cell phone, if anyone needs me.”

“You sound like a mother who’s about to take her son some-
where.”

She grinned. “And you sound like a surrogate grandfather who gets it,” she said and patted his cheek lightly before walking out.