True Honor (26 page)

“Report in,” Gabe said, as he had done regularly since before she entered the area considered her box. One after the other agents reported in that they had seen no sign of Sergey.

Darcy signed her name on the credit card receipt and accepted the sack. “Thanks.”

She picked up her bags. She paused by the table of coins on the west side of the booth, admiring the gold maple leaf coins, and then walked toward the department store.

“Darcy, stay in your box.”

“I see him,” she murmured.

Two men heading toward her immediately found reasons to slow, pause, and window-shop so they could see what she did, then head back the way they had come.

Her heartbeat quickened as she contemplated what she was about to do. Where was Sam? She needed to know his location if she was going to pull this off. A man rose from the bench to her left and she realized somewhat startled that it was Sam. He’d changed clothes and was in a suit and tie talking with a woman. At first glance she had placed him as a businessman on his lunch break. Okay. She picked up her pace ever so slightly and angled to her right to skirt between two teenagers and a woman pushing a double stroller.

* * *

“Where’s she going?”

Sam heard the intensity of Gabriel’s words and felt the same concern as Darcy left her assigned security box and crossed the hallway into the department store. The agents were arrayed around the coin and stamp booth. By entering the store she was cutting down to a quarter the number of agents around her.

“Darcy, stop. Don’t follow him.”

Sam caught a look at the side of Darcy’s face as she entered the department store and turned toward the women’s dress department. The determination in her face meant she wouldn’t be stopping. She was heading somewhere intentionally. What had she seen? Sam hadn’t seen anyone he thought fit the basic profile of Sergey.

“Talk to me, Darcy,” Gabriel demanded. “Did anyone see what she saw or what she was passed?”

Darcy paused to allow a mom stepping off the store escalators with a toddler to pass by.

“Stop her. She just dumped the glasses and the watch,” Gabe demanded.

Sam was still thirty yards behind her, and the only two agents closer were on the wrong side of the traffic flow. Darcy disappeared from his sight as she turned into the congested area near the cosmetic counter leading into the women’s clothing department.

He never saw her again.

* * *

“This better be worth the official reprimand I’m going to get, Sergey.” Darcy set her tray down on the food court table.

“You haven’t left the mall,” he pointed out reasonably, sampling one of her nachos. Today he was a three-hundred-pound short man in a custom-made suit with a bold blue tie. Sitting on the table beside him was a salesman’s display case of fine writing pens. “You have to admit, the cheese makes the nachos. We don’t have as good a cheese sauce in Russia.”

His tray showed he’d already had two cheeseburgers and a plate of cheese fries. “I have to keep up appearances, you know,” he said, eyeing the tacos she bought. “The man you had in the bird’s-eye seat, watching the stamp and coin booth from here at the food court? He’s good. It took me almost an hour to realize he was also one of yours.”

“A friend of a friend.”

“Yes, I saw the others pick up your tail when you unexpectedly left. Sit down, my dear. Resting against that walker has to be tiring.”

She lowered herself to the seat, moving with the speed of a seventy-year-old. She’d dumped the glasses and watch in another woman’s shopping bag. Her tennis shoes with their tracking tags had been abandoned in the women’s dressing room along with the flag pin. The key Sergey had slipped her worked perfectly to the storage room door behind the rack of dresses being returned to the showroom floor. The walker was waiting for her beside a baby stroller as Sergey helped her to go either young or old. Darcy’s own shopping at the mall gave her the change of clothes. The Chief of Disguise at the Agency had given her the critical last item. The female FBI agent sent in to search the changing rooms had been too late to catch the metamorphosis.

Darcy had walked right by the agents canvassing the department store to find her. It was embarrassing to realize she could fool Sam as well. She had honestly thought he would recognize at least her eyes, but he’d not only stepped aside to give her the right of way in the aisle, he’d held the elevator door for her and asked if she was going up or down.

Darcy looked at Sergey and took a sip of her diet soda. “You’re as good as you used to be, but you are begging to be caught.” He had slipped the directions and the key into her pocket as she paused by the display of hand painted plates.

“Eat. If you want to take me in when we’re done with lunch, I promise to go with you quietly. But you and I need to talk.”

* * *

“Where did she go?” The latest officer to enter the van and ask that question got several nasty looks in reply. The van was crowded with men. Sam stood behind Gabriel, watching the tapes he was replaying. They had to find her before Sam let his anger boil. Even knowing the danger, she’d still ducked out on them. On him.

“There was the pass. Look at that. Slick as a professional pickpocket.” Gabe stopped the video and replayed frames one by one. The man was twenty years too young to be Sergey—bald, wearing a U.S. hockey team shirt and jeans with high-tops unlaced and shoelaces trailing. It couldn’t be Sergey, but it was, and something had clearly been given to Darcy.

“Come on, Darcy, when did you read it?” Gabriel asked, hitting the Play button.

She continued window-shopping as she made her way through the mall, wandering, shopping, so she would end up at the coin and stamp booth at the agreed upon time. “Your patience is killing me, Dar,” Gabe muttered, hitting the Fast-forward button.

“Whoa.” Sam’s hand tightened on Gabe’s shoulder. “There.”

Gabe stopped the playback. Darcy’s hand came out of her pocket. The view from the camera in the frame of her glasses remained on a pair of shoes in the display window while the security camera tracking her captured her hand coming up and resting against the glass briefly, then going back into her pocket. “She used the glass. Darcy, we are going to have words. Peripheral vision. She put the message on one pane of glass and read it in the other. Exactly like that sales poster reflects into both panes.”

“So we have no idea what he told her.”

“Only that she had a good forty minutes to think about what she was going to do,” Gabe said grimly. “Whatever was in that message, it was enough to have her breaking decades of trust between us. Would someone please tell me we’ve got Darcy’s sister on the phone and that she’s fine?” The possibility that the note said
“I’ve got your sister”
was a reality Gabriel had immediately jumped to as he saw his partner breaking with the plan.

“Her office says Amy’s out somewhere chasing a stolen truck, but they swear she’s fine.”

“I want her voice telling me that.”

“We’re working on it.”

Gabe rolled back his chair and tossed his earphones on the table.

Sam recognized extreme stress when he saw it. The man was at his limit. “You know her best, Gabe. What’s she likely to do?”

Gabriel punched a button to print the image of the man who had passed Darcy the note. “Not leave the mall. Sergey wants to talk with her and not get arrested, that’s one thing. But she’s not stupid enough to be alone with him again. Even if the worst case has happened, she wouldn’t leave the mall with him.”

Gabe picked up the image. “The odds Sergey still looks like this are nil, but get it out to the guys and let’s start combing that place end to end, starting with the second floor.”

“You have to know what Darcy looks like.”

“No one sees the disguise she travels with unless she needs to use it. She’s superstitious about it. I doubt I’m even going to recognize her.” Gabe pushed himself to his feet. “I knew today was a bad idea.”

“We’ve got Amy on the phone. It’s patched in by radio.”

Gabe held out his hand for the mike. “Let me talk with her.”

* * *

Darcy lifted her drink to sip through the straw. “I’m sorry about your family, Sergey.” She could see the anger and grief in his eyes.

“The man who did it is dead.”

“And the man who ordered it?”

“We both want Luther, Darcy. I just plan to get to him first.”

She dipped her head, acknowledging his statement as fact. He’d try to get to Luther first, to kill him, no matter what the price. “Why try for me?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet? All the sniper hits? Darcy . . .”

She quirked an eyebrow to ask him to get to the point.

“You won the cold war, he lost, and Luther didn’t want to accept it. He’s killing those who were awarded the Intelligence Star for Valor for the cold war victory. Protecting himself, by eliminating those who could find him. The fact terrorists are paying him to remove investigators— He’s just putting those he hates most at the top of the list.”

She thought of the names of those who had died. There had been so many more significant events, so many awards and commendations in the files that it had never clicked. “That’s why you came after me?”

“He had my family, Darcy. And as awful as it is, I knew I could use the bounty collected for your death to give me a chance to get to Luther. I am sorry. My family was all I had left. It was necessary.”

Forced to choose between Amy and a Russian agent, she wouldn’t have thought twice if there was no other way to deal with the situation. “Why didn’t he just send a sniper after me?”

“Logistics. September 11 was a moved-up date, and I was someone he knew could get into the U.S., could get you to meet me.” Sergey waited until she nodded. “Luther knows I’m after him, and he hired Jerry to kill me before I kill him.”

Darcy set down her drink. “We assumed Jerry was coming after one of us.”

“No. Vladimir went to get Jerry for one reason. Luther is a scared little rat hiding behind the two men he hired—” Sergey smiled darkly—“or so my Russian friends who turned down the money offered to kill me said.”

“At least Jerry’s going after you takes one thing from my worry list. I was afraid he would target one of our people. You’re good enough it would be a fair fight. You said you had something for us—you were right. This was very helpful, Sergey.” And more than made up for the past.

“Oh, that one was free. We both want Luther. Agreed?”

“Yes.”

He took a manila folder from his fancy writing pen case. “Find this boat. I departed Miami on it with Vladimir and spent two days aboard. I’m confident Luther owns the boat.” Sergey tapped the folder. “I was bored; I took many pictures.” He slid it over to her. “I would like to know what you find.”

“That’s fair.”

“My friend at the embassy will pass me a sealed note. Assuming, of course, I walk out of this meeting still a free man.”

She didn’t know yet what she thought was best. This man was on a mission to find Luther. If he accomplished his goal, he would remove a problem for them. A problem big enough that it was worth letting him walk. “Do you have any idea where all Luther’s money went?”

Sergey laughed. “Still typically Western in your priorities, chasing the money. Shall we continue with your schoolwork, Darcy? Another free lesson in tradecraft?” He nudged the tray of food she had bought for lunch. “How do you hide a lot of money if you wish not to leave it in a bank to be confiscated?”

Sergey let her think about it, and she felt like a blind fool. “You buy something very expensive.”

“Very good.” He inclined his head. “He bought an island. Or an island and a tourist charter firm, or a hotel on a private island. My sources were not clear on the particulars.” He leaned against the table. “That is the best lead I have on Luther. I just do not have the resources to prove it.”

“Which is why you asked for this meeting.”

“A boat—” he waved his hand at the folder—“I can find a boat. Eventually. An island, buried under so many layers its purchase is hidden, that takes someone with sophisticated resources. That takes the U.S. or the Brits.”

“So we trade information, a boat and a lead, for a location and his new cover name.”

“Correct.”

“Who’s to say we won’t act on what we find, long before we bother to tell you about it?”

“Honor. And the fact Gabriel still owes me a favor for tipping him off that his cover in the Ukraine was blown.”

Darcy picked up the folder. She wanted Luther, and the information was worth the price. “We have a deal. For what a retired agent’s word is worth.”

* * *

Sam stopped by the fountain in the center of the mall. The sick feeling in his stomach grew worse with each passing minute. She was gone. Had she been snatched, kidnapped, killed?
You just had to walk away, Darcy. You just had to do it.
When he found her he was going to slowly murder her. A relationship with a spy wasn’t worth this. He looked at Gabriel coming back from a walk of the opposite concourse. “I sent Wolf to check receipts at the stores she visited and confirm what Darcy bought. We’re assuming she’s changed clothes.”

“A given.”

“If she’s still in the mall, where is she? We’ve looked everywhere.”

“Right here.”

The soft words came from his right.

Sam spun on his heel, searching the faces of those walking by. Darcy was nowhere in sight. On the nearest bench was a mom feeding her son Cheerios and shaking a bottle of juice, an elderly lady flipping through a packet of photos from the camera shop, and a teenager trying to get his girlfriend to pay attention to a music track.

He was going crazy hearing her voice; that was all there was to it. It was the third time he was sure he’d heard or seen her. He had about scared some schoolteacher to death when he stopped her near the mall exit, mistaking her for Darcy from behind.

“We go back to the van and check the security tapes for those entering the mall, we find Sergey, then we try to backtrack through the tapes to the car he was driving when he arrived,” Gabriel suggested.

“It’s worth trying. We’ve got to find a lead somewhere on him.”