London Bridges

Chapter 95

For the next three and a half hours, Cahill continued to slur his words badly and to act like a man who had half a dozen drinks or more in him, and was ready for more.

"I know what you guys are doing," Uncle Joe said, and shook a finger at the three of us in the room with him.

"We know what you're doing, too," said the CIA guy, Ladove. "And what you've done."

"Haven't done anything. I

"Joe, where is the Wolf?" I asked him. "What country? Give us something."

"Don't know," Cahill said, then laughed as if something he'd said was fu

"But you've met him?" I said.

"Never seen him. Not once, not even in the begi

"How long have you been working with him?" I asked Cahill.

He looked for an answer on the ceiling. "Working for him, you mean?"

"Yes. How long?"

"Long time. Sold out early in the game. Jesus, long time ago." Cahill started to laugh again. "Lot of us did-CIA, FBI, DEA. So he claims. I believe him."

I said, "He gave you orders to have Thomas Weir killed. You already told us that." Which he hadn't.

"Okay," he said. "If I did, I did. Whatever the hell you say."

"Why did he want Thomas Weir killed?" I continued. "Why Weir? What happened between them?"

"Doesn't work that way. You just get your job. You never see the whole plan. But there was something between him and Weir-bad blood.

"Anyway, he sure as hell never contacted me. Always my partner. Always Hancock. He's the one who got the Wolf out of Russia. Corky, the Germans, the Brits. I told you that, right?" Cahill said, then winked at us. "This stuff is good. Truth serum. Drink the grape juice, boys." He looked over at O'Co

Chapter 96

Had we gotten the truth out of Joe Cahill? Was there anything to his drug-induced ramblings?

Corky Hancock? The Germans, the Brits? Thomas Weir?

Somebody had to know something about the Wolf. Where he was. Who he was. What he might be up to next.

So I was on the road again, tracking down the Wolf. Joe Cahill's partner had moved out to the central Idaho Rockies after he had taken early retirement. He lived on the outskirts of Hailey in the Wood River Valley, about a dozen miles south of Sun Valley. Not a bad life for a former spook.

As we drove from the airport to Hailey we passed through what the Bureau driver described as "high desert." Hancock, like Joe Cahill, was a hunter and fisherman, it seemed. Silver Creek Preserve, a world-famous catch-and-release fishing area, was nearby.

"We're not going to bust in on Hancock. We'll keep him under surveillance. Try to see what he's up to. He's off in the mountains, hunting, right now. We'll run by his place. Let you have a look," said the local senior agent, a young Turk named Ned Rust. "Hancock is an expert shot with a rifle, by the way. Thought I'd mention that."

We drove up into the hills, where several of the larger houses seemed to be on five-to-ten-acre lots. Some homes had well-manicured lawns, which looked u

"There have been avalanches in the area recently," Rust said as we drove. He was just chock full of information. "Might see some wild horses. Or Bruce Willis. Demi and Ashton and the kids. Anyway, there's Hancock's house up ahead. Exterior's river rock. Popular around here. Lot of house for a retired agent with no family."

"He's probably got some money to spend on himself," I said.

The house was large all right, and handsome, with spectacular views in three directions. There was a detached barn that was bigger than my house, and a couple of horses grazing nearby. No Corky Hancock, though; he was off hunting.

Well, so was I.

Nothing much happened in Hailey for the next few days. I was briefed by the senior agent in charge, a man named William Koch. The CIA had also sent a heavy from Washington, Bridget Rooney. Hancock returned from his hunting outing, and we watched his every move. Static surveillance was set up by an operations group that had been flown in from Quantico. There was a mobile team whenever Hancock left the house. We were taking him very seriously. After all, the Wolf was out there somewhere, with close to two billion dollars. In wi

But maybe we finally had a way to track him: the CIA agent who brought him out of Russia. And maybe it was all co

The mistake in Paris.

Chapter 97

It just wasn't going to happen overnight. Or the next night. Or the one after that.

On Friday I got permission to take a trip out to Seattle to visit my boy. I called Christine, who said that it would be fine and that Alex would be happy to see me-and so would she. I'd noticed the edge was gone from Christine's voice when we talked these days; sometimes I could even remember how it had been between us. I wasn't sure that was a good thing, though.

I arrived at her house in the late morning and was struck again by what a warm and charming place it was. The house and the yard were very Christine: cozy and light, with the familiar white picket fence and matching handrails hugging the stone steps leading to the front door; rosemary, thyme, and mint filled the herb garden. Everything just so.

Christine answered the bell herself, with Alex in her arms. As much as I tried not to, I couldn't help thinking about the way things might have been if I hadn't been a homicide cop and my life as a detective hadn't violently derailed the two of us.

I was surprised that she was home, and she must have recognized the look in my eyes.

"I won't bite you, Alex, I promise. I brought Alex back from preschool to be with you," she said. Then she handed over the Boy, and he was all I wanted to think about right then.

"Hello, Dada," he said, and laughed shyly, which is his way at first. I smiled back. A woman I know in the D.C. area calls me "a saint," and she doesn't mean it as a compliment. I'm not, not even close, but I have learned to make the best of things. My guess is that she hasn't.

"You're such a big boy," I said, expressing my surprise, and I suppose, my pride and delight in my son. "How old are you now? Six? Eight? Twelve years old?" I asked.

"I'm two, almost three," he said, and laughed at my joke. He always gets me, at least he seems to.

"He's been talking about seeing you all morning, Alex. He kept saying, 'Today's Daddy day,'" Christine said. "You two have fun together." Then she did something that surprised me: she leaned in and kissed my cheek. That kind of threw me. I may be cautious, even a little paranoid, but I'm not immune. First Kayla Coles-and now Christine. Maybe I looked as though I needed a little TLC. That was probably it.

Well, Alex and I did have some good times together. I acted as if Seattle were our hometown, and I went with it. First we rode over to the Fremont area, where I had visited a retired detective friend a few years back. Fremont was full of older buildings, lots of vintage clothing and furniture shops, character, if such a worthy trait can actually be traced to architecture and style. A lot of people seem to think it can, but I'm not so sure.