Riptide

“You’re cynical.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve known that for ten years, haven’t you?” Adam took a drink of the high-test coffee and felt a jolt all the way to his feet. “Everyone is after her now, particularly the Feebs. She’s gone to ground. They’ve pulled out all the stops, but no sign of her yet. Smart girl. To fool everyone isn’t easy. She’s your daughter, all right. Cu

Thomas Matlock opened a desk drawer and pulled out a 5x7 color photo set in a simple silver frame. “There are only three people alive who know she’s my daughter, and you’re one of them. Now, her mother got this to me just eight months ago. Her name’s Becca, as you know, short for Rebecca-that was my mother’s name. She’s about five feet eight inches tall, and she’s on the lean side, not more than one hundred twenty pounds. You can see that she’s in good shape. She’s athletic, a whiz at te

“You’ve got to find her, Adam. I don’t know if Krimakov will co

“But you know he’s on top of American news, all of it. The instant he hears the name ‘Matlock,’ he’ll go en pointe. She’s in deep trouble. She doesn’t even realize how deep, that the cops and the FBI are the least of her worries.”

“Don’t worry, Thomas. I’ll find her and I’ll protect her, from both the stalker and Krimakov, if either of them shows up.”

“That’s just it.” Thomas sighed. “This stalker bothers me. What are the odds that a stalker would go after Becca? Too great, I think. What I’m thinking is that just maybe Krimakov already found her, just maybe he’s the stalker.”

“Jesus, Thomas,” Adam said. “I guess it’s possible, but unlikely, I think. If he’s the stalker, then that means he found her even before your wife died.”

“Yes, it scares me to my toes.”

“But there’s no proof at all that it’s Krimakov. Now, first things first. I’ve got to get the locals and the Feds off her trail once and for all.”

“You’ve already begun to track her, then?”

“Sure. The minute I heard her name, I got all my people working on it. What would you expect? You’re the one who always has to look at the big picture. I don’t. Let me make a phone call right now, let Hatch know you’ve approved everything, get all my people on this.”

“And if I hadn’t called you?”

“I’d have taken care of her anyway.” Adam turned to pick up the phone. “She’s your daughter.”

Adam knew that Thomas Matlock was looking at him as he lifted the receiver of the black phone and punched in some numbers. He knew, too, that Thomas had worried and worried, tried to figure out the odds, determine the best thing to do, but Adam had simply stepped in and begun protecting his daughter from a stalker who could be, truth be told, Krimakov, although to Adam the odds were that Krimakov was long dead. But it was a lead. It was something, the only thing they had.

Thomas should have known that he didn’t have to even ask. Adam also imagined that Thomas Matlock felt a goodly amount of relief.

As he spoke quietly on the phone, he saw the jolt of pain cross Thomas Matlock’s face, and he knew it was because Thomas would never again see Allison. And more than that. Thomas Matlock hadn’t been with his wife when she died. He’d wanted to be, but Becca was there, always there, and he couldn’t take the chance. The pain and guilt of that had to be tearing him up inside.

Oh yeah, he’d try to save Thomas’s daughter.

Only one mistake in the seventies, and Thomas Matlock had lost any chance at the promising life he’d begun. He’d had to hold himself private. He’d kept his position in the intelligence community so he would know if Krimakov ever surfaced. But he’d had to remain alone.

Jacob Marley’s House

Adam slowly opened his eyes. He was in the same room with Allison and Thomas Matlock’s daughter, and she was looking at him with an odd combination of helplessness and wariness. Damn, she looked so very much like her father. He couldn’t tell her yet. No, not yet. He said on a yawn, “I’m sorry, I guess I just sort of flashed out for a while.”

“It’s late. You’re probably exhausted what with all your skulking around spying on me. I’m going to bed. There’s a guest room at the end of the hall upstairs. The bed might be awful, I don’t know. Come on and I’ll help you make it up.”

The bed was hard as a rock, which was fine with Adam. His feet didn’t hang off the end, another nice thing. He watched her trail off down the hall, pause for just a moment, and look back at him. She raised her hand. Then he watched her close the door to her bedroom.

He’d wondered about Becca Matlock for a very long time, wondered what she was like, how much she’d inherited from her father, wondered if she was happy, maybe even in love with a guy and ready to get married. He discovered he was still wondering about her as he lay on his back and stared up at the black ceiling. All he knew for sure was that someone had put her in the center of his game and was doing his best to bring her down. Kill her? He didn’t know.

Was it Vasili Krimakov? He didn’t know that either, but maybe it was time to consider anything that put even a shadow on the radar.

He woke up at about four A.M. and couldn’t go back to sleep. Finally, he booted up his laptop and wrote an e-mail:

I told her about McCallum. She really doesn’t know anything. I don’t either, yet. You know, just maybe you’re right. Just maybe Krimakov is the stalker and the one who shot the governor.

He turned off the compact and stretched out again, pillowing his head on his arms. To him, Krimakov was like the bogeyman, a monster trotted out to scare children. To Adam, the man had never had any substance, even though he’d seen classified material about him, been briefed about his kills. But hell, that was over twenty-five years ago. Nothing, not even a whiff of the man since then.

Twenty-five years since Thomas Matlock had accidentally killed his wife. So long ago and in a place that was no longer even part of the Soviet Union-Belarus, the smallest of the Slavic republics, independent since 1991.

He knew the story because once, just once, Thomas Matlock had gotten drunk-it was his a

The next morning, Thomas Matlock had simply looked at Adam and said, “Only two other people in the world know the whole of it, and one of them is my wife.” If there was more to the tale, Thomas Matlock hadn’t told him.

Adam had always wondered who the other person was who knew the whole story, but he hadn’t asked. He wondered now what Thomas Matlock was doing at this precise moment, if he, like Adam, was lying awake, wondering what the hell was going on.

Chevy Chase, Maryland

It was raining deep in the night, a slow, warm rain that would soak into the ground and be good for all the summer flowers. There was no moon to speak of to shine in through the window of the dimly lit study. Thomas Matlock was hunched over his computer, aware of the soft sounds of the rain but not really hearing it. He had just gotten an e-mail from a former double agent, now living in Istanbul, telling him that he’d just picked it up from a Greek smuggler that Vasili Krimakov had died in an auto accident near Agios Nikolaos, a small fishing village on the northeast coast of Crete.