Authors: Dee Henderson
The fact that Gabriel didn’t reject the idea told her a lot. He was senior enough in the CIA hierarchy that if there were suspicions of a spy being quietly checked, Gabe would know it.
He nodded. “We put the word out we’re looking for a disgruntled ex-employee, and we may just get the small observations from coworkers needed to discover a spy. The key would be not to let the apparent lack of resources eliminate a candidate.”
Darcy swiveled her chair back and forth, thinking through the pieces they had. “What about Sergey’s involvement?”
“What you originally speculated. Mikail was the sniper who killed his family. Sergey hunted him down and paid him back.”
“You know, it does fit, which is almost scary.”
“I’ll take this idea upstairs.” Gabriel caught the tennis ball. “Sam’s here. Go home.”
“I don’t need to be babysat.”
“Yes you do. Besides, I think he views it more as an excuse to hang out with you.”
MAY 25
Saturday, 7:40 p.m.
McLean, Virginia
Darcy settled on the couch at her apartment, letting Sam have the floor. She fished loose french fries from the bottom of the sack. “How’s the shake?”
“Still very thick and frozen.” He held it back so she could taste.
“That’s definitely mint.”
“It’s good.” Sam added turrets to the LEGO castle.
The place she thought of as her temporary home still had remnants reflecting her cover story lying about. She didn’t need the cover now and didn’t envision picking it up again. The desire to be an agent in the field was gone. She was more convinced than ever that when this war was over, she’d go back to being a landowner in North Dakota and not miss this work. “Did Tom get off okay?”
Sam glanced at his watch. “He’s probably back with Jill by now.”
“I still can’t believe you called him.”
“He’s my partner; on things like this we call each other.”
“Sergey wasn’t after me this time. He wouldn’t have left a message for Gabriel if he were.”
“I’ll believe that when we find him. Ready to watch movies?” He moved aside his cheeseburger and selected the first video he’d made.
“Sure. I’m so glad you did this.” She snuggled down against the pillows she’d piled up. She wasn’t sure how good of company she’d be tonight, but just the fact he had gone to so much trouble on her behalf mattered more than she could put into words.
“You need the break. You don’t smile as much as you used to.”
She looked at Sam, trying to read the depth of that statement. She hoped it was only an observation and not a comment opening a deep conversation. Sometimes the guy was too perceptive. “There hasn’t been a lot to smile about lately.”
“You can’t grieve for three thousand people.”
“Sure I can.”
“It doesn’t help. You’re letting yourself get depressed, Dar.”
She knew he understood what it was like to get caught in the weight of a crisis that never let up. If she made a mistake, people died. “I’m just tired. There’s a difference.”
Sam studied her face. “SEALs learn early to sleep when war is going on around them, to trust their buddies. You’ve got a good team helping you out. Walk away from it when you leave the office. You can’t carry this war as your own personal fight.”
“I don’t mean to. It just feels like stuff is piling on, you know?”
He reached back and rubbed her arm lightly. “I know, and I’m worried about you. In 2 Timothy it says that there will be times of stress. Not a thing is going on here that caught God by surprise. You’ve just got to learn to let it go.”
Stress was like the five-letter word around the office lately. She tugged her Bible off the end table and searched to find verse he referred to. “It’s in chapter 3: ‘In the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.’” She closed the Bible. “It sounds like today.”
“It is today. Step back and get your perspective. If God wants you to be the one to figure this out and stop Luther, you will. If not you, maybe He has someone else in mind. He’s sovereign, Dar. There’s a lot in the Bible about trusting Him in times of trouble. There’s nothing that says, ‘If Darcy doesn’t accomplish
X
all is lost. I can’t sustain the world without her.’”
She had to smile, for Sam had pegged her. “You made your point.”
“I want the Darcy back whose smile reaches her eyes.”
She found relief just in the kindness of his words. He cared, and he was watching her closer than she realized. She envied him the easy ability to apply what he knew about God, his steadfast faith. Too much of her days lately were spent carrying burdens she needed to be reminded to put down. “How about one who falls asleep watching a videotape of home?”
“You can sleep right there. It looks comfortable, and I’ll lock the door on my way out and turn the security on.”
“You’re good for me, Sam.”
“Of course I am, honey.” He leaned back and kissed her. Passion skimmed beneath the surface, and she wanted to wrap it around them both and follow where it would go. This was so much better than the stress going on in life, but she put on the brakes and eased back so the memory didn’t end tinged with frustration for both of them.
She loved this man. She blinked back tears as the kiss ended. “Nice,” she whispered, watching his eyes already soften as he smiled at her. “Do you feel like you’re getting pulled under right now? I do.”
Sam stroked her cheek. “I think we’ve got something between us that feels more like a powerful current than a playful wave,” he agreed. “You are so beautiful.”
She grinned. “I like hearing those words.”
His thumb rubbed her bottom lip. “And you’re nervous. One of these days I’m going to stop your habit of nibbling your lip with a kiss.”
“That wouldn’t help my nerves much. They feel like live wires right now.”
Sam laughed. “A fact that pleases me more than a bit. Tone back the gorgeous smile just a notch so I can turn around and get this tape in.”
She tugged over a throw pillow and hugged it to her face. “You’ve got a minute.”
He took advantage of the moment and tickled her. She doubled up on the couch, nearly rolling off it with the laughter.
“That’s better. No more serious face.”
She swatted him with the pillow. “Go put in the tape.”
He moved back and took his time getting the tape in and the channel set. “It’s in. You ready?”
“Hit the Play button and we’ll find out.”
The video began to play showing the grounds of her house, her sister walking ahead of Sam giving the commentary. Darcy fought against the tears. “Oh, she looks wonderful.” The times hadn’t changed Amy. She still walked with a comfortable command in her steps, that big white Stetson her husband had given her perched on her head.
Sam settled on the floor by the couch and reassuringly rubbed her arm. “I really liked her, Dar. She reminds me of you.”
The fence still needed to be painted, and the inside of the house was just as she had left it. The house was waiting for her to come back and resume work. It was home.
Darcy reached her hand forward and let it rest in Sam’s as the tape played. “Sorry I don’t have any popcorn or anything.”
“You’re looking at a man quite content with where he sits.”
From her house, Sam had traveled to town with Amy, the roads and the fields and the sheer beauty of the place captured on tape was much as she had remembered.
Her eyes closed as the walk down Main Street played and Sam stepped into the diner filled with her friends. As hard as she fought sleep, it was taking over. She tightened her grip on Sam’s hand, not wanting to lose contact in sleep. She wanted North Dakota back, but with Sam still in her life. Having that would take some figuring out. She drifted to sleep keeping her grip on his hand.
Her beeper going off woke her. She was alone, the apartment was dark, and an afghan covered her. Darcy groggily fumbled with the beeper. Sam had left; she wished sleep had held off and given her another hour with him. She called the number back. “Yes, Gabriel.”
“NSA came through. I’m reading two decrypted messages.”
MAY 25
Saturday, 11:50 p.m.
Central Intelligence Agency
Darcy stuck her coffee mug into the cutout map ring on the shelf beside Gabriel’s couch and held up her hand as he started talking. She wasn’t done with breakfast yet, but she wasn’t going to start work at midnight on a Saturday night without at least a bagel to soften the blow. She’d put enough cream cheese on this one that it was hard to hold. And Sam wondered why she was tired. She wondered if Luther got this tired on the other end of this fight. He had to know one mistake would bury him. Gabe handed her sugar packets for the coffee.
“Okay, tell me about the open code first.”
“The partial note shows two digits turn into one letter, with that and a list of books found at each location it was easy to solve.” Gabe handed her a book. “Take the first two-digit number. Start on page one of the book, count that many letters, and circle it. Take the next two-digit number, turn to page two in the book, and count the letters. The letters circled become words. It looks like they were using whichever book was at the top of the best-seller’s list.”
“What did the two notes say?”
He handed her a folder. “Luther doesn’t believe in being verbose. He was sending the IRA sniper against a British intelligence officer. The Russian sniper had been given a list of nine names with Ellen’s at the top. Sam was good in his read of this.”
Darcy looked back at Gabe, judging his mood. “Jerry’s still out there.”
“I know. The question is who he’ll be sent against.”
She looked at the next list of names. “If we discount the one here as domestic, that leaves the British intelligence officer. What do we know about him?”
“He’s essentially your counterpart, a troubleshooter who worked most of Eastern Europe and spent the last decade tracking where people have ended up as the USSR dissolved and Russia created herself. In the past he worked cases with both Kevin Wallace and Benjamin Rice.”
A fact that tied this sniper hit all the way back to the initial hits on September 9. “An interesting lead.” They had never been able to come up with something solid behind the reason Kevin and Benjamin had specifically been targeted. “What kind of special projects did this British officer handle?”
“Some euro counterfeiting cases, investigations into the source of the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak that decimated the British beef industry, several smuggling cases where immigrants were found locked in shipping containers. He’s a good coordinator when something is hot.”
Darcy got up to look at the time line of events posted on Gabriel’s board, each written on a three-by-five card. The number of agents and military officers killed across Europe was staggering. “Luther’s playing a blocking game, Gabe. If there’s a pattern here, it’s not the people he’s striking at, it’s the roles. We’ve been making this too complicated.”
She tapped the first card. “Look at how it started. Luther knows September 11 is going to happen, he’s planning to profit from it, and he knows there’s an extensive file out there on him because of his years in Czech intelligence. He can’t do much about destroying the records, but he can encourage them to become dusty and forgotten. Ever since September 9 there have been attacks against individuals here and in Europe who had firsthand knowledge of how the Czech intelligence service functioned.”
“He’s got a list of names and he’s taking individuals out as he has the opportunity.”
“Basically. Luther is still a planner, thinking in terms of what intel he has and what intel the other side has, but now he doesn’t have rules for the game beyond his own survival. He’s hitting people who have reason to know him. All Luther did was pause for a while when we got close enough to kill Dansky.” Darcy picked up Gabe’s tennis ball. “And if his interests and someone else’s overlap, he lets them pay for the hit.”
“He’s out to limit people who could hunt him down.”
She nodded. “It doesn’t matter which person gets hit when, only that they do.” She picked up the overnight summary. “Have the FBI tracked down anything on where Sergey went?”
“They found the murder weapon in a drainage ditch two miles from here, suggesting Sergey headed north after he stopped this sniper.”
“I’m glad Sergey is not dead. Maybe it’s a case of knowing the enemy too well, but I feel like he’s as much a pawn in someone else’s game as we are.” She picked up her coffee mug. “We’ve got to find Jerry. Otherwise someone else will be dead soon.”
“The last lead was Greece.”
Darcy would be the one putting an ocean between herself and Sam. She hated the idea, but maybe it was best to test the relationship with a little distance right now. Given Sam’s job she’d have to get used to it, and her emotions were so involved it was hard to think.
“Get us a flight, Gabriel. I want to talk to the people on the ground who last saw Jerry Summit.” She would miss out on a chance to spend time with Sam over the last days of his leave, but it couldn’t be helped. She wouldn’t have another intelligence officer’s death on her conscience if there was something they could find that might stop it.
Nineteen
* * *
JUNE 12
Wednesday, 9:40 a.m.
Athens, Greece
Darcy loved Greece. She flipped pages in the guidebook at her hotel room while she waited for Gabriel to join her. She’d spent long days walking around the Acropolis and the Agora, taking pictures to show Amy. She wanted to see the Philopappos Monument even if only by taxi before she left. They had a late morning meeting with the CIA station chief at the embassy. Days spent chasing Jerry had given them all the information available. It was time to head back to the States.
Her phone rang as the coffee percolated.
The caller ID she had on the secure phone told her it was Sam’s cell phone. She knew he was in Coronado, California, at the West Coast SEAL headquarters. She answered the call with a smile. “It’s incredibly late out there.” She was about nine hours ahead of him.
“We’re just getting back from a night jump,” he replied, sounding a bit distracted. “I wanted to give you a call before you headed to work. It’s quiet in the world, Dar.” He’d been touching base with her daily. Over the last two weeks, she’d come to set her morning around his call. It was so nice to hear his voice.