Riptide

Gaylan nodded, picked up a pen from Thomas’s desk, and began rhythmically tapping it against his knee. “Yes, I know. But for now, your whereabouts stay unknown. I’ll tell the president that everything will be resolved in a couple more days. Think it’s possible?”

“Sure, why not?” And he thought, How the hell am I supposed to make that come about?

“All right. We continue the silence. What about that incident with Krimakov in Riptide?”

Thomas said, “Evidently, the media doesn’t know about her visit there yet. And Tyler McBride-you know, the man whose son Krimakov kidnapped in Riptide-he isn’t saying anything to anyone about Becca. I think he’s in love with her and that’s why he won’t explode sky-high with all this. Becca, however, as much as she cares for his little boy, isn’t headed his way.” He paused a moment, looking down at the onyx pen set that Allison had given him some five Christmases before. “It’s Adam,” he said, smiling briefly as he looked at his old friend. “Isn’t that nice?”

Gaylan Woodhouse grunted. “I’m too old,” he said, then sighed again. “Krimakov won’t find you, Thomas. Don’t worry. I’ll deal with the president. Let’s say forty-eight hours, then we’ll reassess. Okay?”

“Again, Gaylan, maybe Krimakov needs to find me. Forget the president’s political agenda. Just maybe Krimakov’s reign of terror will continue until he knows where I am. Maybe we should let him know, somehow.”

“We’ll all think about that, but not just yet. Forty-eight hours. Jesus, next the guy might try to shoot off the mayor’s wig.” Gaylan Woodhouse rose, dropped the pen back on top of the desk, shook Thomas’s hand, and stepped back through the door, where the shadows were thicker. Three dark-suited men fell in beside and behind him as he left Thomas’s house.

Thomas stared after him. Shadows surrounded him. Thomas understood shadows very well. He’d lived in the shadows himself for so long he could see them even as they gathered around him, and wondered if after a while anyone would actually see him or just the shadows.

Forget shadows, Thomas thought. Now wasn’t the time to wax philosophical. He thought about the meeting. Gaylan was a good friend. He’d hold out against the president about losing the limelight for as long as he could. Forty-eight hours-that was the deal. It wasn’t a lot of time and yet it was an eternity. Only Krimakov knew which.

The next evening, Sherlock and Savich arrived with thick folders of papers, MAX, and Sean, who reared up on Savich’s shoulder, staring about sleepily at everyone, a graham cracker clutched in his hand.

Sherlock looked at everyone in the living room. She didn’t look happy as she said, “I’m really sorry here, guys, but our handwriting experts turned up something we didn’t expect.”

“What have you got, Sherlock?” Adam asked, rising slowly, his eyes never leaving her face.

“We were hoping to learn whether or not Krimakov’s mental state had deteriorated, at least determine where he was sitting presently on the sanity scale, in order to give us a better chance of dealing with him, predicting what he might do, that sort of thing. That’s off now. We have no idea, you see, because the two new samples of handwriting Becca gave me aren’t Krimakov’s.”

Thomas looked like someone had slapped him. He said slowly, “No, that’s not possible. Admittedly I just looked at the ones from Riptide briefly, but they looked the same to me. You’re sure about this, Sherlock? Absolutely?”

“Oh, yes, completely sure. We’re dealing with a very different person here, and this person’s mind isn’t like yours or mine.”

“You mean he’s not sane,” Thomas said.

“It’s difficult to say with absolute certainty, but it’s possible he’s so far over the edge he’s holding on by his fingernails. We could throw around labels-psychopath comes readily to mind-but that’s just a start. The only thing we’re completely certain about-he’s obsessed with you, Thomas. He wants to prove to you that you’re nowhere near his league, that he’s a god and you’re dirt. He sees himself as an avenger, the man who will balance the scales of justice, the man who will be your executioner.

“It’s been his goal for a very long time; it could at this point even be his only reason for living. He’s rather like a missile that’s been programmed for one thing and one thing only. He won’t stop, ever, until either he’s killed you or you’ve killed him.”

“So it was never Krimakov,” Adam said slowly. “He really was killed in that auto accident in Crete.”

“Probably so. Now, not all of this is from our experts’ analysis. Profiling had a hand in it, as well.” Sherlock turned back to Thomas. “Like you said, the two different sets of handwriting look close to a layman’s eye, which probably means that this guy knew Krimakov, or at least he’d seen his handwriting a goodly number of times. A friend, a former or present colleague, someone like that.”

“We’re sorry, guys,” Savich said. “I know that Krimakov’s former associates have been checked backwards and forwards, but I guess we’re going to have to try to do more. I’ve already got MAX doing more sniffing around Krimakov’s neighbors, business associates, friends in Crete and on mainland Greece, as well. We already know that he had a couple of side businesses in Athens. We’ll see where that leads.”

“No, all that has already been checked,” Thomas said.

Savich just shook his head. “We’ll have to do more, try anything.”

Sherlock said, “We’ve also inputted everything we know into the PAP to see what comes out. Remember, the computer can analyze more alternatives more quickly than we can. We’ll see.”

Thomas said, “All right. What exactly did the profilers have to say, Sherlock?”

“Back to a label. He is psychotic. He has absolutely no remorse, no empathy for any of the people he’s killed. None of them mean anything to him. They were detritus to be swept out of his way.”

“I wonder why he didn’t kill Sam,” Becca said.

“We don’t know,” Savich said. “That’s a good question.”

“It just doesn’t seem possible,” Adam said. “Just not possible. Why would a colleague or some bloody friend-no matter how close to Krimakov-go on this rampage? Even if he is a psychopath, always has been a psychopath, why wait more than twenty years after the fact? Why take over Krimakov’s mission as his own?”

No one had an answer to that.

Adam said, “Now we’ve got to find out who would follow up on Krimakov’s vendetta once Krimakov himself was dead. What’s his motivation, for God’s sake?”

“We don’t know,” Sherlock said, and she began rubbing Sean’s back with her palm. He was cooing against his father’s shoulder, the graham cracker very wet but still clutched tightly in his hand.

“There are graham cracker crumbs all over the house,” Savich said absently.

Becca didn’t say anything. There were few things she’d ever been absolutely sure were true in her life. This was one of them. It simply had to be Krimakov. No matter how infallible the handwriting experts usually were, they were wrong on this one.

But what if they weren’t wrong? A psychopath obsessed with finding and killing her father? He’d called himself her boyfriend. He’d blown up that poor old bag lady in front of the Metropolitan Museum. He’d dug up Linda Cartwright and bashed in her face. No empathy, no remorse, people were detritus, nothing more. God, it was unthinkable.

She looked over at Adam. He was looking toward Savich, but she didn’t think he really saw him. Adam was really looking inward, ah, but his eyes-they were cold and hard and she wouldn’t want to have to tangle with him. She heard her father in the other room, speaking to Gaylan Woodhouse on the phone.

Sherlock and Savich left a few minutes later, leaving Adam and Becca in the living room, looking at each other. He said, his hands jiggling change in his pockets, “I’ve got stuff to do at my house. I want you to stay here with Thomas, under wraps. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back tomorrow.”