Agent X - Boyd Noah - Страница 23

Vail was surprised at Langston’s apparent change of heart. “Good, because right now this is a race between us and the Russians, and they have Calculus, a distinct advantage.”

“Your argument is not without merit. But if you do identify any more spies, please let me know. Preferably before you kill them.”

Vail started to climb out of the car. “If not before, you’re the first one I’ll call from the lockup.”

Langston watched him get back into his car. He said to Kalix, “What do you think about all this?”

“In the plus column, there’s one less spy to deal with. However, he is dead, so there will be no intelligence to come out of it. And politically, because of the director, you have no choice but to give Vail his head. He may well find all these spies if you don’t try to control him. But you have to protect yourself if this blows up—which, given the way he operates, it most likely will.”

“From now on, John, your number-one priority is to make sure anything that Vail does is not traceable to me. That I had no knowledge of his activities beforehand. If we can manage that, he’s got a deputy assistant director at his side, and she’ll have to take the hit.”

An unmarked police car pulled up, and two detectives got out. Vail went over to them and introduced himself, giving them a brief explanation of what had happened.

“We’re going to be at the scene for a while. Can you come in and give us a statement tomorrow morning, say, nine o’clock?” one of them asked, handing Vail a card.

“I’ll be there.”

Kate and Vail had been driving for a few minutes before she said, “You know that when Langston reports to the director that you found the first name on the list, he’s going to try to turn it around and blowtorch you.”

“The next time you feel the need to ask me why I don’t come back to the Bureau, please remember that.”

“Believe me, I won’t bring it up again,” Kate said. “What do you want to do now?”

“Smelling all this smoke, I was thinking barbecue.”

Once they got into Washington, it didn’t take long to find a neighborhood barbecue restaurant. It was an old place, with sagging wooden floors and rickety Formica tables. The embossed-tin ceiling was stained brown from decades of cooking residue. When Kate and Vail walked in, the place was filled with regulars, who cautiously sized them up at a glance as cops. The house specialties were ribs and brisket. Kate watched the waitress deliver a plate full of meat and fries to an adjoining table and ordered a salad. Vail ordered the brisket.

“What makes you so sure that there’s something else on the disc?” she said.

“I can’t imagine Calculus leaving that Ariadne clue without there being anything to it. But if Pollock was supposed to supply the next step, we may be finished. Which, if nothing else, will make Langston happy. He’ll be able to lay it all off on me, and I’m not sure he’d be wrong.”

Kate laughed sarcastically. “Come on, Vail. Contrition? It doesn’t come in your size. And surrender? You? What are you planning that you’re not telling me about? You’re going to break into Pollock’s house, aren’t you?”

“You’re forgetting that I’m just passing through. And although I enjoy being shot at as much as the next guy, one of these fools might actually hit me.”

“You were passing through Los Angeles, too.”

“I was blinded by your charms.”

The waitress brought the food and asked Vail if he needed anything else. He tilted his head playfully and said, “Would you tell my sister here that you can’t live on salad?”

The waitress laughed agreeably, handed him the check, and went back to the kitchen.

“Cute,” Kate said.

“Sorry. I went weak in the knees from having a woman smile warmly at me.”

“It didn’t look like your knees from here, bricklayer.” She ate a forkful of salad, then said, “So that’s it? You can’t think of anything else to do?”

“How about we go back and take another look at everything, including the DVD.”

She watched as Vail started working his way through the mounds of smoked meat and potatoes. He’d been right about the waitress; she had kept eye contact with him a moment longer than necessary. Kate had seen other women look at him the same way. Although he wasn’t particularly handsome, women sensed something about him that was both primal and protective. She had noticed it as far back as Detroit. The night before, in that secret room with the gunmen closing in and Vail about to set off an explosion of unknown intensity, it had never occurred to her that he wouldn’t get her out. And it hadn’t been any different tonight on that rooftop. The tough times would never be the problem between them. It was the danger, she supposed, that kept them close. But without it, even the simplest date invariably turned contentious.

9

When they walked into the observation room at the Sixteenth Street off-site, Vail dropped the DVD into the player and said, “We’ve got to be missing something.”

“Why are you so sure there’s something to miss? Maybe there are a bunch of clues hidden and Calculus didn’t have time to tie them together.”

Vail took a few seconds to consider what she’d said. “Good point. Maybe he was waiting to see if we would make the first payment before linking them up. Or maybe the relative at the Chicago bank has the key.” Vail picked up the phone.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m calling Langston and having him forward the payment for Pollock to Chicago.”

She took the phone from his hand. “I’m not sure he wants to hear from you just yet. I’ll call.”

Vail watched her as she argued with the assistant director.

“I know he’s dead, I was there, remember?”

She glanced at Vail, and he noted an unusual disdain in her eyes.

“This is why Calculus set up the alternative, in case something happened to him,” she continued. “We think there’s a possibility that the relative in Chicago may have the key to identifying more of them.” Her voice was gradually becoming insistent, its momentum unyielding. “I think we’ll get the next name if the money is sent. That’s what we were told.”

She looked at Vail again, and her mouth relaxed into a smile the way it always did when she was about to prevail.

“It’s not costing us any more than if Calculus were right here handing us the next name. . . . Then this investigation is over, Bill. We’ve got nothing else. . . .” After a few more seconds, she said, “Thank you,” and hung up.

“It’ll be wire-transferred first thing tomorrow,” she said.

Vail was smiling.

“What’s so funny?”

“How Langston never had a chance,” he said, his voice softening, no longer ridiculing. “How so few of us do.”

She tried not to blush, and then, to change the subject, she said, “So what now? You’re not going to search Pollock’s house?”

“If Pollock was in possession of the next name, there would have been no reason for Calculus to try to destroy the disc at the safe house.”

“So if there is a string tying names together, there’s only one place it can be—on the DVD,” she said.

Vail turned on the monitor and pressed the Play button.

Again they watched carefully as Pollock traded documents for money. Then the screen went to static. Wondering if Calculus had hidden something beyond the end of the video, Vail let it run for half an hour before turning it off.

Finally Kate said, “I didn’t see anything.”

“Me either,” Vail answered slowly, his voice containing that distracted hollowness that always meant that something beyond the obvious was being considered. He got up and retrieved the disc from the player. Holding it up to the light, he checked both sides, looking for anything that didn’t belong there. He sat down and rolled the disc back and forth between his fingertips. Something along the edge felt irregular, as if it had been scuffed. He went over to the desk lamp and switched it on.