Riptide

He pressed his forehead to hers, holding her loosely now.

His warm breath feathered over her skin. “Oh, yeah, I was married once. It was a long time ago. Her name was Vivie. Everything was okay for a while, then it just wasn’t. She didn’t want kids and I did. But I’m not serious about anyone else. It’s just you, Becca. Just you.”

“That’s nice,” she said and yawned against his shoulder. Then she bit his neck, then kissed where she’d bitten him. “I wish you were naked.” To his immense credit, he didn’t do anything other than shake a bit. “This is very close, Becca. My fingers are actually itching they want to touch you so much. But this is your father’s house. We can’t. Hey, how would you like to go out in the backyard, maybe we could take a couple of blankets?”

“Out from under the parental roof?”

“That’s it. Oh yeah, for sure we could wave to the FBI agents that are scattered around.” He sighed deeply, kissed her ear, and sighed again. “My molecules are even horny.”

Becca sighed and rested her hand on his chest. His heart was pounding hard and fast beneath her palm. She arched up and kissed his throat, then eased back in the circle of his arms. “Not fair at all. I mean, the shirt you’re wearing is nice but I would love to kiss your chest, maybe even run my hands down over your belly.”

He shuddered, drew quickly away from her, and rose. “I’ve been feeling your breasts against me and it’s driving me nuts. Now, since we can’t be wicked the way I would like, I’ve got to get out of here. I just can’t take any more. I’d like to try but I know it wouldn’t work. Good night. I’ll see you in the morning. I might be a bit late. I’ve got to go home and do some stuff.” And he was gone. Her bedroom door closed very quietly behind him.

She sat there on her bed, hugging her knees. So suddenly her life had changed. And in all this nightmare, she’d found herself a man she hadn’t believed could even exist. His first wife, Vivie, had had peas for brains. She hoped that Vivie-silly name-lived as far away as Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was a good enough distance away.

Soon enough, of course, Krimakov intruded. She wanted to shoot him, just point a gun at his chest and fire. She wanted him gone, into oblivion, so he couldn’t ever hurt anyone again.

The next day, at precisely noon, when Governor Bledsoe of New York was walking his dog, Jabbers, in his protected garden, a sniper shooting from a distance of about five hundred feet nailed his dog right through the folds of his neck. Jabbers was rushed to the vet and it looked like he would survive, just like his master had.

Thomas turned slowly to his daughter, the two of them alone in the house. “This is over the top. It’s just too much. Damnation, he shot the dog in the neck. Unbelievable. At least the sick bastard isn’t here.”

“But why did he do it?” Becca said. “Why?”

“To laugh at us,” Thomas said. “To make this big joke. He wants us to know just how invincible he is, how he can do anything he wants to and get away with it. How he’s here and then he’s there, and we’ll never get him. Yes, he’s laughing his head off.”

28

Gaylan Woodhouse sat at an angle across from Thomas’s desk with his face in the shadows, as was his wont, and said, “I don’t want you to worry about your daughter, Thomas. Your whereabouts will not be leaked. As you know, the media is still in a frenzy over the shooting of poor Jabbers. The country is primarily amused at his audacity, titillated, glued to their TVs. Everyone wants to know about Krimakov, this man who swore to kill you twenty-some years ago. By shooting that damned dog, he’s turned up the heat. He wants the media to find you for him and then he’ll come after you.”

“No,” Thomas said slowly, shaking his head. “I don’t think that was his motive at all. You see, Gaylan, he had me in Riptide. He had to know I would never allow Becca to go up there alone. He could have easily shot me. He proved he was an excellent distance shooter when he shot the governor of New York. From that distance, he could have nailed me with little effort. But he didn’t force anything after he kidnapped Sam McBride, except to shoot Becca in the shoulder with a dart that had a piece of paper rolled around the shaft. No, Gaylan, he shot the governor’s dog because he wanted to give me the finger, show me again that it was his decision not to kill me and Becca in Riptide. He wants to show me that he doesn’t have to do anything until he decides he wants to do it. He wants to prove to me over and over that he’s superior to me, that he’s the one in control here, that he’s the one calling all the shots. It’s a cat-and-mouse game and he’s proving again and again that he’s the cat. Damnation, he is the cat. Adam’s right. During all of this, we’ve only been able to react to what he does.”

Gaylan said slowly, “One of my people pointed out that Krimakov certainly managed to get from one place to the next with no difficulty at all, suggested that maybe he has a private plane stashed somewhere. What do you think?”

Thomas said, “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Heaven knows you can’t have much faith in the commercial airlines. But you know, Gaylan, shooting that dog wasn’t on a set timetable. You can check it out, but I doubt it.”

Gaylan sighed. “We still don’t have any leads in New York. His disguise must have been something. The security tapes showed old folk, pregnant women, children-do we track all of them down to question? Still no witnesses. Damnation, four good agents dead because of that maniac.”

Thomas said, “I’ve been thinking about that. I’m coming to believe that Krimakov wants Becca and me together, to torment us together, prolong our deaths. But yet he went right to New York University Hospital, shot everyone, then ran. What if Krimakov somehow found out it was a trap? What if he still did it, in fact made a big production of it, all to tell us that he knew about our plan and it didn’t matter? Yes, he knew, and he thumbed his nose at us.”

“You’re making him sound wilier than the Devil,” Gaylan said, a brow arched. “More evil, too.”

“I would say certifiably insane,” Thomas said. “But it doesn’t make him stupid. It doesn’t really matter what the truth of his motives was, four agents are still dead. Yet it fits into all the things he’s done since then. Over the top, frightening as hell.”

“Yes,” Gaylan said. He looked toward Thomas’s bookshelves for a moment. He seemed to shake himself, then took a sip of his coffee. He carefully set the cup back into the saucer. He crossed his legs, then said, “There’s another reason I came here, Thomas. The fact is that the president isn’t going to sit still much longer. He called me over, paced in front of me for ten minutes, told me that all this mess had to come to a close, that the media are totally focused on it to the detriment of what he’s trying to accomplish. He’s got this new flat tax he’s trying to sell to the country, only the media is ignoring him in favor of this. He said he’d even tried to make a joke, but the media was still talking about Jabbers and his sore neck.”

“Tell the president that if he wants me to go public, challenge Krimakov at high noon, I’ll do it.”

“No,” Gaylan said, “you won’t. I won’t allow that. He could take you out easily-his shot at the governor was from a distance of at least four hundred feet. You yourself pointed that out to me. He’s better than good, Thomas, he’s one of the best. He maximized his chances to nail his target.” He held up his hand when Thomas would have said something. “No, let me finish. All I’m saying is that we’ve got to come up with something else. Somehow, we’ve got to make him dance to our tune.”

“A lot of very good minds are working on this, as you know, since some of those minds work for you.”