Riptide

The two directors eyed each other and managed affable smiles and civil greetings. Andrew Bushman cleared his throat. “Mr. Hawley and Mr. Cobb won’t be joining us today, but I suspect you knew they wouldn’t. I will have any information needed by them sent to New York when and if it’s appropriate. Now, I need a martini. Then we can nail this thing down.”

Becca would have killed for a glass of wine, but she was taking medications that didn’t allow it. She would even have accepted Adam’s beer. She suffered through approximately four and a half minutes of small talk. Then Gaylan Woodhouse said, “What have you got that’s definitive on Krimakov, Thomas?”

Mr. Bushman’s eyebrow shot up. “Does this have to do with the attempted assassination of the governor?”

“Indeed it does,” Gaylan said. “Thomas?”

Thomas launched into the story of a CIA agent, namely himself, who was playing cat and mouse with a Russian agent in the mid-1970s and accidentally killed that agent’s wife. And that Russian agent had promised that he would get revenge, that he would kill both Thomas and his family. As Thomas spoke, Becca thought about what her life, her mother’s life would have been like if her father hadn’t been in that godforsaken place, trying to get the best of a Russian agent named Vasili Krimakov. “Of course, Gaylan knows all of this already. The reason the FBI needs to be involved is because we are trying to prove whether or not Krimakov is still alive and thus was the one who tried to assassinate the governor of New York. Actually, now we’re very certain that it’s him.”

FBI Director Bushman was lounged back in his seat, holding the nearly empty martini glass in his hand. “But this guy is after you. Why would he shoot the governor of New York? I’m not getting something here. Oh my God, Matlock-you’re the Rebecca Matlock, the young woman who escaped the police and went into hiding?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

Andrew Bushman sat forward, his drink forgotten. “All right, Thomas, tell me everything, even stuff that Gaylan doesn’t know. I need to have a leg up on him somewhere.”

“Krimakov wanted to flush me out. Somehow he found out that I have a daughter-Becca. We don’t know how he found out about her, but it appears that he did and he came after her. That’s why he’s been terrorizing her, that’s why he kicked her out of his car in front of One Police Plaza in New York.”

“To get you out in the open.”

“Yes, that’s it exactly. It’s not so complicated when you cut right to the chase. He wants to kill me and he wants to kill my daughter. All the rest is window dressing, it’s drama, giving him the spotlight, showing the world how brilliant he is, how he’s the one in control here.” And Thomas thought, He can’t kill Allison because she’s dead already, and I wasn’t there with her.

It was Adam who ended things, saying, “So that’s it, gentlemen. We found out that Krimakov was cremated, thus leaving doubt that it was indeed he who was killed. However, the man who kidnapped Ms. Matlock whispered in her ear before he shot a drug into her-”

Becca interrupted. “‘Say hello to your daddy.’”

“So now there’s simply no doubt,” Thomas said. “The man cremated wasn’t Krimakov.”

Gaylan said, “We’ve been spending hundreds of hours on this because there was the possibility that it could be Vasili Krimakov. Now that we know it’s him, you need to stick your oar in, Andrew. Get all those talented people of yours involved in finding this maniac.”

“I’ve got a man trying to track down an apartment we understand Krimakov owns somewhere in Crete, in addition to his house. When we find it, we want agents to go over it.”

Gaylan nodded. “As soon as we know, I’ve got a woman in Athens who can fly down and check it out for us. She’s good. She’s also got contacts among the local Greek cops. She won’t get any problems from them.”

“It’s Dillon Savich who’s finding the apartment,” Thomas said.

Andrew Bushman raised an eyebrow. “Why am I not surprised? Savich is one of the best. I gather you’re telling me now so that I can cool down before I bust his balls?”

“That’s right,” Thomas said. “I knew Savich’s father, Buck. I asked the son for help. He and Sherlock have been in the thick of things.”

Andrew Bushman sighed and took the last sip of his martini. “All right. Now, I’ve got lots of stuff to do, meetings to hold, people to assign to get this off and ru

Thomas said, “Why not tell the world? Have Hawley in New York interface with the local cops.”

Bushman said, “Hawley is good, very good. He’s tough and he deals well with the locals. Talk about bigfoot. He’s a Mack truck when he needs to be. All right, gentlemen, we now tell the world.”

“Well, then-” Gaylan Woodhouse broke off as his stomach growled. “We forgot to order lunch. I want a hamburger, lots of red meat, something my wife, bless her heart, doesn’t allow.”

Andrew said even as he was reading the menu, “I want everything to clear through the FBI before it goes to the media. We want our spin on things.”

“For sure,” Becca said.

22

The black government car moved smoothly onto the Beltway. It was still too early for rush-hour traffic to gnarl things to the screaming point. It didn’t help, though, that the temperature was hovering at about ninety degrees. Inside the big car it was thankfully very cool. Their driver had said nothing at all since picking them up at The Eagle Has Landed. There was still no sign of the media. So far so good, Thomas had said. There would be a media release soon now.

Adam was humming as he flipped off his cell phone. “Thomas, the photo you asked Gaylan Woodhouse to dig out for you is coming over right away. He’s sorry that he couldn’t immediately put his finger on it.”

Thomas turned from studying his daughter’s profile to look at Adam. “I’m glad they finally located it. I was afraid I would have to use an artist and re-create him.”

Adam said to Becca, “It’s a photo of Krimakov from over twenty years ago. We’ll age it and both can go to the media to plaster everywhere.”

“Sir,” Becca said, “are you really a CIA director?”

“That’s not my title. I just used it because it would be familiar to the New York detectives. Actually, I run an adjunct agency that’s co

“This photo of Krimakov,” Becca said after nodding to her father, “I want to see it, study it. Maybe I’ll see something that could help. Did he speak English, sir?”

If Thomas noticed that she hadn’t called him Father or Dad, he didn’t let on. He had, after all, been a dead memory that had suddenly come alive and was now in her face. He’d also brought terror into her life. He also hadn’t been around when her mother was dying, when her mother died. She’d been alone to handle all of it. The pain was sharp and so bitter he thought he’d choke on it. Soon he would tell her how he and her mother had e-mailed each other every day for years. Instead, he managed to say, “Yes, he did. He was quite fluent, educated in England. He even attended Oxford. Quite the bon vivant in his younger days.” He paused a moment, then added, “How he despised us, the self-indulgent children of the West. That’s what he called us. I always enjoyed locking horns with him, outwitting him, at least until that last time when he brought his wife with him to Belarus. The fool was using her as cover-picnics, hikes, pretending it was a vacation, when all the time he pla

“Krimakov,” she said, as if saying his name aloud would help her remember more clearly, picture him standing in the shadows, “he had a very light sort of English accent, more so on some words than on others. He was fluent in English. I don’t think he sounded particularly old, but I just can’t be certain. Krimakov is your age?”