World Without End (34 page)

"They need a decryption code in order to operate it. Otherwise, the suit is useless."

"And they're keeping Conway alive because they think he knows the code," Gunther said.

"Yes. Raymond believed that John Riley knew it. Stephen accidentally called him from inside the lab. And it gets better. They're pinning the death of a man named Jonathan King on us."

"Who's that?"

"The chemist of some sticky foam. Apparently, he's the one who originated the name Angel Eyes."

"So Bouchard's been stealing items for a while now."

"Yes. Where are you?"

"I'm sitting on a bench, looking directly at the front entrance of the Copley Fairmont."

"And how is Mr. Cole?"

"Still under. He won't be coming up for a while. I planted the bugs and transmitters but I didn't find anything useful to get us closer to the suit."

"And the rest of Mr. Cole's brood?"

"The guy shadowing Conway and the surveillance team they had covering him have all been taken down. When Cole wakes up and finds out what happened to his men, he'll talk to Bouchard. It won't take them long to figure out we're involved. We're not living in the shadows anymore."

"I have a witness who not only saw Raymond kill Mr, Riley but claims to have evidence to back it up. She's at the Aquarium, waiting for Stephen. I want to bring them both in."

"You think Bouchard will hand over the suit for the woman?"

"Raymond's soul operates on currency. If we have the woman and evidence and threaten him with exposure, Raymond will hand over the suit." Faust would not put the woman in danger. She would be brought into the fold, safe from harm. But I will use her to bring you trembling to your knees, Raymond, he said to himself.

Gunther said, "A van just pulled up in front of the hotel."

"The Russians?"

"CIA. One of them I recognize from Austin. Five new players, they're moving inside the hotel."

"Probably on their way to see Mr. Cole. Any sign of Misha?"

"No. It's weird. It's like he's disappeared."

"Misha isn't one to hide, and he's predictably impatient. I'm sure he's restless by now. My guess is that he's sick of playing by Raymond's rules. Move your team to the Aquarium and call me so we can coordinate our efforts. We cannot leave any room for failure. If Raymond's men get Ms. Kaufmann first, her fate will be sealed."

"Understood."

"Be careful, Gunther. The vultures are circling," Faust said and hung up. He put his phone away and walked out of the memorial toward Curley Park, his arms by his sides and stretched wide to allow his gloved hands a final run across glass.

Outside of the towers, Faust removed his sunglasses from his inside jacket pocket and walked toward the young man still engrossed in his conversation. A few feet behind him, a black limousine had pulled up against the curb.

Faust held the sunglasses in one hand and let them dangle by his side.

Mounted on the belly of his forearm and hidden underneath the coat was a unit with a retractable blade. He scratched his forearm and with the press of a button the blade sprang from the unit. His gloved hand, the one holding the sunglasses, hid the blade from view. Smiling, Faust approached the man.

"Richie, hold on," the man said, and then pulled the phone away from his ear, his attention locked on the advancing Faust.

"What's the problem now?"

To the casual observer, Faust looked like he was about to walk past the man. Faust lifted his hand to put his sunglasses on, moving his wrist up to give the blade room to cut. In a swift, practiced motion the blade sliced the man's throat so quickly that he didn't realize what had just happened.

Three steps and Faust reached out and opened the door to the limo. He climbed inside the car and shut the door, and through the tinted window watched the gentleman on his knees, gasping, his pale, trembling hands clutching at the gash in his throat, desperately trying to stop the bloody tide.

The inside of the New England Aquarium was deceptively small. In the center was a mammoth circular glass fish tank with a concrete ramp that spiraled all the way to the top. The glass was segregated into sections, allowing different, boxed-in views of the tank. Arranged outside the tank were several rock formations in water that held dozens of Little Blue Penguins. An Aquarium employee dressed in a wet suit stood in water that glowed aquamarine from the underwater lights. He fed the penguins from a bucket of fish. A group of kids leaned spellbound against the handrail, as the man talked over his headset microphone about the feeding habits of penguins.

It was just after noon, and the Aquarium was scattered with mothers pushing infants in carriers or holding the hands of toddlers who kept pointing with wide-eyed fascination at the exotic, colorful fish gliding through the dusty-colored water and dodging their way in and out of the spaces between rock and coral formations.

Last night, before going to the hotel, Conway had stopped by Booker's condo in Beacon Hill to see the kids. He scanned the photographs hung on the various walls and asked if Renee Kaufmann was in any of them.

Booker had pointed to a woman with straight, long-blond hair and a magnetic Julia Roberts kind of smile.

Conway didn't see her on the first floor, so he moved past a surly Boston cop who was watching a group of teenagers inside the gift shop.

Conway walked up the ramp, the panels glowing with color pictures and facts about the various fish inside the tank, the air dark and warm and packed with the close, humid smell of salt and dead seaweed. When the ramp ended at a stairwell with a sign that said Caribbean Coral Reef, he walked up the last set of steps. At the top, he saw a mother holding a boy of about five in her arms, so he could look down into the tank. An enormous turtle broke against the surface and submerged in a cone of bubbles. Against the far wall was a blue neon strip molded into several waves or shark fins, Conway couldn't tell which.

"Mommy, where are the sharks?" the boy asked, excited.

"They're swimming with the other fishes, see?" The woman held the boy slightly over the tank.

"The man will be upstairs in twenty minutes and he'll tell you all about them. Then maybe we can watch the diver feed them."

"Stephen?" a woman whispered.

Conway turned around. Renee Kaufmann stood on the steps that led up to an employee's-only area. With her arms wrapped around her body as if chilled, she walked over to him. She was petite, about five-five, and thin, one of those girls who probably had a naturally high metabolism and never had to diet. She wore a long tan-colored winter coat and blue knit hat that covered her ears and hair.

"I recognized you from John's pictures." Renee licked her cracked lips, her throat working as she swallowed. The skin beneath her round blue eyes was puffed and bruised from lack of sleep. She leaned in closer, and Conway could smell an unwashed odor rise up from her clothes.

"Did you come here alone?" she whispered.

"I did. No one followed me. How did you get in here?"

"A friend who works here. You didn't tell anyone about me, did you? I mean, I know Booker has a background in this sort of thing, but I figured I don't know what I figured. Maybe I should have called him first. I don't know."

"Relax. It's okay."

Renee crimped her lips. She took a deep breath and then said, "Did you go to the funeral?"

"Yes. Yes, I did. Booker handled everything."

"He always does." She looked exhausted and angry and terrified all at once.

"I wanted to call Book he's the best one to handle this sort of thing, he's in the business and he knows people, he helped John when he got busted on that DWI, but after what I saw, what they did to John…"

Renee's voice broke, her eyes growing wet as she covered her mouth with her gloved hand to stifle her cries.

"I didn't want to put Book in danger. He has a wife and kids, and if something happened to them I couldn't live with that. But you're involved. They're after you."

"Let's go over here and talk." Conway touched her arm and ushered her over to the corner, away from the mother who was watching them.

"Who's after me?"

Renee looked over her shoulder, her eyes scanning the area for the enemies who could at any moment now descend on her, and then looked back at him.

"One of them was called Owen," she said.

"Owen what?"

"Just Owen. I was in Amsterdam on business, at a conference, and John wanted to test out this video conferencing software he just bought. He thought it would be a good way to keep in touch." Renee dabbed at her eyes.

"I was in my hotel room, on my laptop, talking to him when the doorbell rang. John went to answer it and when he came back, the video went fuzzy. I couldn't see or hear anything."

"Tell me what you saw."

"After John…" The words came out in a sputter, wet, clogged by her grief.

"After he collapsed, the man reached down and picked something up off the floor. After that I could see and hear everything."

A jamming unit.

"They wanted to talk to John about some phone call you made to him from inside some lab," Renee said.

"Is that true?"

Conway nodded and felt the sadness and guilt he had experienced at the grave site earlier this morning return, blossoming again inside his heart.

"What did this man look like?" he asked.

"Tall, with gray hair and blue eyes. Nice clothes."

"Was his name Raymond Bouchard?"

"They never said."

Could be Raymond, could be Angel Eyes. Conway placed his elbows against the guardrail and leaned forward so he could watch the front entrance. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the tears running down Renee's cheeks.

"What did John tell him?" Conway asked.

"Something about a friend of yours saying the words mittens and cat food."

If that was true if Angel Eyes was the one inside the condo then he already knew the decryption code. Unless those -words didn't -work.

Conway turned his head back to Renee.

"You're sure about all of this?"

"I've watched the video over and over again, those were the words John said you used."

"Wait. What do you mean you watched the video?"

"I recorded it."

"That's the evidence you were talking about?"

Renee nodded. Conway couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"It was an accident," she said.

"I didn't know how to use the software. It was defaulted to record."

"You're telling me you have the whole thing taped?"

"I packed up my laptop and luckily grabbed a flight leaving Amsterdam a hour later. A friend drove me to the airport. I had her buy me the ticket. I flew under her name."

"You have the tape on you now?"

"I burned it onto a CD. John has a safety deposit box at the Eastern Bank, on Broadway in Lynn. Last year, when my apartment got broken into, he put me on the list so I could use it. I have all my mother's jewelry stored inside there."

Renee Kaufmann had recorded everything and now it was waiting inside a safety deposit box in Lynn.

"I feel like I'm living inside a nightmare," she said, her voice quiet, racked with sobs.

"Every person who looks at me, I think they're going to grab me right there and I feel like screaming. I can't go to my apartment. That's the first place they think I'll go, and I don't want to stay with friends, I'm sure they're being watched. I've been living on the street for days, using what cash I have left to check in and out of cheap motels. I can't sleep and I'm running out of money and I don't know who to turn to."

"You don't have to run anymore. I can protect you."

"How? How are you going to protect me?"

"I have people waiting for you outside."

"Boston cops? The FBI? I won't be safe with any of them, Stephen, and neither will you."

"These people are from the CIA."

She looked at him, dumbfounded.

"You can trust them," Conway said.

Renee's puffy eyes narrowed, her mouth hanging open.

"You're with the CIA?"

"I'll explain this to you later, but right now we need to get you out of here," Conway said. He reached out and grabbed her arm.

She looked over his shoulder and her eyes grew wide. She stumbled backward and fell against the floor. Conway turned around and stood face to face with the man from Dixon's torture video, the animal who had raped Pasha Romanov as a young girl: the massive, intimidating figure of Misha Ronkil.

"Don't try and be a fucking hero," Misha said, and raised a nine-millimeter Beretta with an attached silencer and pointed it at Con-way's face.

"Keep your mouth shut and your voice down and everyone's going to come out of this golden."

Behind Misha, on the steps leading up to the tank, Conway saw two hulking figures dressed as Boston cops. Only they weren't cops; one of them came toward Misha while the other remained on the steps, telling people who wanted to come up to the tank that it was closed for the moment. The advancing cop was bloated with steroids and had a crewcut.

He grabbed Renee by the arm.

Renee screamed out for help. The cop punched her across the mouth and Renee buckled to her knees. Conway made a move and Misha was there in front of him with the gun.

He'll shoot you right here, a voice said. These guys have no boundaries. Let the cop take Renee outside where Cole and his men are waiting. He'll move people on her so just let her go and you can take care of Misha.

Which wouldn't be easy. The man was massive; his entire bulk seemed to occupy the small space, his barrel-size chest looking like it was about to burst from underneath the blue shirt.

Renee was on the floor, bleeding and dazed. The cop handcuffed her and then yanked her up and led her away. The other cop remained on the stairs, keeping people from coming up. Conway was alone with Misha now. The cool, semidark air smelled of water and a foul combination of dried sweat mixed with cologne, and another odor, one that made Conway think of sour milk and musty towels.