Out of Reach: A Novel (17 page)

XXII

T
HE COMMAND CENTER
was quiet, empty. Except for Cathy, who sat alone at the large conference table, reports and pictures spread out in front of her.

“Hey,” he said.

She looked up, her eyes dull and tired. “Hey yourself.”

He dropped his slim leather file folder onto a chair and sat on the edge of the table. “Where is everyone?”

“I sent them all home to get some sleep.”

“Good idea.” And he should have been the one here to do it. “You look like you could use a few hours yourself.”

“There’s an epidemic of that going around.”

“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair, feeling the weariness deep in his bones. “Anything new?”

“We’ve run the composite sketch from Erin and Al Beckwith through our database, and come up with several known sex offenders in the area who fit the general description. We’re bringing them in.”

He leaned forward. “That’s good.”

She folded her arms and took a deep breath. “None of them looks real good. So unless this pans out, we just have more dead ends.”

“Me, too.”

She leaned back in her chair, looking up at him, then reached under a stack of papers, pulled out a computer disc, and slid it toward him. “I listened to it.”

He sighed. It was a digital copy of the tape they’d made at the German Embassy. “I figured you would.” And it was an indication of just how exhausted she was that she hadn’t torn into him the minute he’d walked through the door.

“She’s CIA,” Cathy said without preamble.

Alec slid into the chair opposite hers. “I suspected as much. How do you know?”

She crossed her arms. “I have my sources.”

“And they admitted Erin works for the Agency.”

She shifted, glanced away. “No. But they didn’t deny it, either.”

Which he knew was as close to an admission as they’d get. But he didn’t know whether to be relieved or disturbed by the information. On the one hand, it meant Erin was fully aware of the dangerous situation she’d created, and she could take care of herself. On the other, there could be levels to this thing he couldn’t see.

“Alec, you’re in over your head,” Cathy said. “She’s using you. Heck, for all we know, the Agency may be using you.”

It was a real possibility. He could be playing an unwitting part in one of the Company’s wild schemes or missions. They weren’t known for sharing their information or plans. Not even with the FBI. But it didn’t feel right to Alec. “I don’t think so.” His gut told him this was about Erin’s hunt for her sister’s abductor, not the Agency.

“You’re too close to it,” Cathy said. “To her. You can’t see it, but it’s pretty obvious to everyone else.”

“Everyone else?”

She looked suddenly uncomfortable, guilty. Then she squared her shoulders and met his gaze head-on. “I’ve been talking to Schultz at headquarters.”

“Shit.” Schultz was Alec’s supervisor.

“I’m sorry,” she started, “but . . .”

“You’re sorry.” He should have seen this coming. That didn’t make it any easier to take. “You went behind my back to Schultz and you’re sorry.” They’d been a team, partners, and they’d always stood together against the desk pushers who pulled their strings.

Her temper flared; she read his thoughts as if he’d spoken them aloud. “This has nothing to do with my loyalty to you. This is about trying to find a little boy, while the best damn investigator in the whole FBI is burned out.”

“You told him I was burned out?”

She straightened in her chair, clearly reining in her anger. “I told him that in my opinion it was a possibility that you’ve been overworked. Yes.”

“Did you consider that I might be onto something?”

“Yes. Until I heard that tape, I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. But when I found out you’d gone behind my back to put a wire on a CIA officer and send her into a foreign embassy to harass a member of the German diplomatic staff . . .” She held out her hands, palms up. “What was I supposed to think?”

“Erin would have gone in whether I put that wire on her or not.”

“Then you should have walked away.”

“I couldn’t. She might have learned something.”

“But she didn’t.”

He sighed and looked away. “Other than she’s sure Neville’s involved, no.”

“What would you have done in my situation?” she asked, her voice pleading for understanding.

He didn’t reply, because they both knew the answer.

“Look, Alec, you’ve got great instincts. More than that, you’re a friend. But I had to do what I thought was best for the investigation, for Cody Sanders. I had to get things back on track before they pull the plug on us.”

He looked at her.

“You’ve been taken off the case. You’re to report to Quantico in the morning.”

This, too, he should have seen coming. He probably wouldn’t have waited this long to relieve her if the situation had been reversed. That didn’t mean he planned to play along.

“I’m not going to Quantico,” he said.

She looked surprised, but he held up a hand to stop her before she said anything else. “You say I have good instincts. Well, you’re right, and those instincts have been telling me that William Neville is up to his stiff, German neck in this thing.”

He opened his case and pulled out the files Erin had given him on the Mall. He hadn’t planned on drawing Cathy any further into this than he already had, but now he had no choice. He needed her cooperation, if not her help.

“Read this,” he said, and handed her Sam’s report and analysis.

Cathy took the papers, warily, and he waited until she’d gone through them before speaking again. “I know that’s not proof, but there are a hell of a lot of coincidences.” Neville’s ties to the world slave markets cast a new light on his ownership of the
Desert Sun.
And there was Erin’s “assistant,” Sam.

“The man who drew up that report was hospitalized this evening. He’s in a coma.”

“An accident?”

“Someone drove him into the Potomac.”

“Neville?” He could see from her expression that she, too, was beginning to recognize the puzzle pieces, still scattered, but somehow part of a whole.

“What do you think?” Now, if Alec could uncover some connection to a man who used magic tricks to lure children, he might be able to find Cody Sanders.

“Neville leaves the country in forty-eight hours with the German ambassador,” he said. “Give me that long.”

She could hardly take her eyes off the reports and spoke without looking up. “What are you going to do?”

“Neville has an estate near Middleburg. I’m going to start there.”

She looked up, alarmed.

“I’m just going to go out and take a look around,” he assured her.

“What about Schultz?”

“Tell him I’ve gone AWOL and you can’t find me.”

He could see her sharp mind weighing his suggestion.

“You go on with your investigation,” he said. “Bring in the matches to that sketch and put them on a lineup. Find out if any of them have alibis. I just need to be free to follow up on this. And I can’t do it once Quantico gets their claws in me.” He paused, letting her digest his words before playing his trump card. “As you said, this is about finding a little boy, and possibly a serial kidnapper. If I have to break a few rules to do it, so be it.”

“It could mean your career.”

“Versus Cody’s life.” He shook his head. “There’s no contest there.”

She studied him a moment longer, then sighed. “Okay, Alec. I never saw you. You have forty-eight hours.”

XXIII

I
T WAS NEAR MIDNIGHT
by the time Erin finally got to her office. Located in a commercial complex on the outskirts of D.C., it was just another featureless, boxy building among numerous others. The Agency had dozens of such places, where their people could operate discreetly outside Langley.

The sign on the door said
CANTON CONSULTING
.

A key opened the outer door to the reception area. Then, once inside, Erin had thirty seconds to enter her security code and thumbprint on the door to her inner sanctum. Otherwise, an alarm would go off somewhere within Langley, and Agency officers would be all over this place within minutes.

She was only one of several officers who used this particular site as their contact point to Langley. The reception area was the hub for five individual offices. When Erin needed something, she went through the silent, efficient woman who manned the reception desk.

Erin had no idea what to label the other woman. Secretary? Receptionist? Assistant? Watcher? Whatever title she put on herself, she must have a high security clearance to spend her days in this place of secrets.

As for the others officers, they, like Erin, kept to themselves, not even acknowledging one another’s presence. She imagined they all had their own undercover assignments, and it was safer for everyone to guard the lines of silence.

Tonight, the first thing Erin wanted was a shower. Her skin crawled with the memory of her conversation with Neville and the certainty that he’d had her followed. Because, despite the lack of proof, she knew he was behind both those trailing her and Sam’s accident. Fortunately, each office came with a fully stocked private bath. The Agency never knew when an officer would need a secure location, or when she did, how long she’d have to stay.

Stripping, Erin stepped into a shower. She’d have the clothes cleaned and sent back to Susan in the morning, with a note of thanks. Erin wished she could do more. The woman had provided Erin the means to lose Neville’s men, and it had worked beautifully.

She’d waltzed out of the club, a little bit sexy, a little bit drunk, and no one had given her a second glance. More important, no one had followed her. She’d waited, hidden in a doorway a block away, watching the entrance for any sign that she’d been recognized. Only when she was certain that no one had spotted her did she go on. Still cautious. Still aware of the shadows around her.

She turned up the hot water, scrubbing at her skin.

Sam.

No matter how many times she told herself she’d had no choice, or that he, too, was a trained CIA officer, or that a little boy’s life depended on their finding the link to Neville, she couldn’t shake the ache of knowing she’d put Sam in harm’s way. He was in a coma because she’d drawn him into this. Maybe if she’d gone through channels, if she’d approached her supervisor with what she knew—and what she didn’t—Sam would be safely ensconced in front of his Langley computer right now.

Of course, the powers that be would never have let her go forward with her suspicions. She was too close to it, they’d say as they passed the investigation to someone else. Or shuffled it away to molder in some forgotten file.

She switched off the hot water, letting the icy water pummel her.

It was time to stop second-guessing herself. If Sam recovered, she’d do whatever was necessary to clear his name in all this. For now, she had a little boy to find and a madman to bring down.

After getting out of the shower, she pulled on a pair of black jeans and a turtleneck and headed for her locked weapons’ drawer.

As a rule, she didn’t carry a gun, and since returning to the States, she hadn’t needed one. She kept a couple here, just in case: a 9mm Beretta and a .22-caliber Ruger she’d picked up overseas for backup. She slipped the Ruger into her bag and left the Beretta on her desk for when she left the office. The night was far from over, and the next time she went out, she was going armed.

She booted up her computer and waited for the CIA logo to appear. Once it did, she accessed her secure e-mail. Sam had agreed to copy her on everything he’d uncovered, sending her electronic duplicates of the information she’d passed on to Donovan. What she hoped, however, was that Sam had also sent her the information he’d refused to share with her this afternoon.

As she’d hoped,
three
notes from Sam waited for her in her in-box. The first contained the files documenting Neville’s connections to the slave trade, along with a detailed breakdown of Neville’s worldwide holdings.

She couldn’t help but question how quickly Sam had uncovered this information. He was good, but the CIA employed lots of good analysts. Why had no one zeroed in on Neville before? Or had they? Without going through channels, she had no way of knowing.

So for now, she filed away the possibility that the CIA was onto Neville and scanned his list of holdings, her eye drawn to a highlighted section titled
U.S. Holdings.
Two pieces of property were listed: a house in Georgetown and an estate outside Middleburg, Virginia, about fifty miles west of D.C. She noticed that Sam—ever efficient—had made a note to himself in the margin to get floor and security plans for both.

Erin opened the second note and smiled. Sam had included the layout for both properties, with a message that the security systems had probably been enhanced. And without examination of the property or the name of the systems’ installer—which she was not likely to obtain since Neville probably used one of his own countrymen, who was by now no longer within U.S. borders—it would be high risk to assume she could circumvent Neville’s security.

Sam had read her mind. And, of course, she would take his concern to heart. Even if she didn’t follow his advice to back off. Taking a look at Neville’s properties was definitely near the top of her to-do list.

That left the third note, which she noticed hadn’t come from Langley but had been forwarded through Sam’s Langley address. It was from Sam, however, transmitted from some kind of mobile device. Sent at seven twenty-six. Minutes before he’d been forced off the road.

She choked back a sob and opened the note.

Erin. Look at Mid-East connections. Gotta go. He’s after me.

Erin leaned back in her chair, reading and rereading the brief message. So he’d known someone was following him. Did he also know his life was in danger? How could he not? He understood better than anyone that Neville was dangerous. Yet Sam hadn’t shied away. He’d still come out to meet her and had managed to get off a note to her with one of Neville’s henchmen breathing down his neck. A brave man. Even more so because his job shouldn’t have included the danger she’d come to accept with hers.

Mid-East connections.

In Sam’s early search, there had been no hint of this. Not that he’d shared with her. Except the information about the
Desert Sun
, which had been on its way to the Mid-East. A very loose connection, considering Neville had no recorded holdings or regular dealing with any Middle Eastern country. That must have been the piece Sam hadn’t wanted to speculate about. So what bearing did that have on Neville’s interest in the slave trade? Or did it? Was it a completely separate piece of his empire? A deeply hidden, dirty piece?

She’d heard the rumors about Americans and Europeans disappearing into the Middle East. Usually women. Also, more than rumor, she knew that after marrying into a culture so unlike their own, Western women sometimes found themselves and their children unable to leave countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia. Erin had helped one such woman flee.

But was there an active slave market in these places? One Sam had had to dig a little harder to find? One Neville had ties to? One that traded in children? And if it existed, why had she never heard any rumors about it? She’d spent two years in Cairo, plus Middle Eastern cultures were supposed to be her field of expertise.

The questions ricocheted through her thoughts. But without Sam and his computer wizardry, she could only speculate. She couldn’t retrace Sam’s steps without a great deal of time—if at all. So she’d have to do it the old-fashioned way. Which meant a little breaking and entering was in order.

First, though, she’d check on Janie and Marta.

She wanted to talk to them, just to make sure they were okay. But a phone call in the middle of the night would do more harm than good. Marta, at least, would know something was wrong and would want to hurry home. Better to wait until morning, when everyone would be a little more clearheaded, before trying to explain why they both needed to stay in Miami longer than they’d planned.

Her other call to Miami, however, couldn’t wait. She needed to have someone keep an eye on Marta and Janie, and within minutes she had made the arrangements. Her contact was more than willing to help out. After all, in their business, you never knew when you’d need a return favor.

Next, she dialed in to listen to her home messages. The first message was for Marta, from someone at Janie’s school, and Erin pushed the skip button. The second was the one she’d been hoping for.

“Hello, Erin.” It was Marta’s voice. “I have someone here who wants to talk to you.” Then in the background, “Go ahead, sweetie.”

“Aunt Erin.” Janie’s voice was soft and tentative. “Where are you?”

Erin’s heart clenched.

“Tell her what we did today.” Another gentle instruction from Marta in the background.

“We went to the beach. It was really hot.”

“What else?” Marta whispered.

“I found shells. And a starfish. Much better than the one we found last year. It’s got no broken edges.”

Erin smiled, remembering their hunt the year before for the perfect, intact starfish. They’d found one with only a single missing tip. She wished she’d been there when Janie found the one today.

“It was fun,” Janie said. Then her voice turned whiny, in the way of tired children. “But I want to come home. I miss you.”

Erin’s heart melted, wishing she could call and reassure Janie.

“Say good-bye,” came Marta’s soft voice.

“Bye.” It sounded more like tears than a word, and Erin fought back tears of her own.

Then Marta was back on the phone. “Janie’s tired. We had a big day. So don’t call back tonight. She’s going to bed. But if you can, call in the morning. We’ll be here until about ten. Talk to you then.”

Marta hung up, and Erin fought the temptation to listen to the message again. She
would
call them in the morning, but she’d have to tell Marta to stay in Miami for a few more days. Until this was cleared up, it wasn’t safe for them to come home. How could she explain that to a seven-year-old?

She went on to the last message on her answering machine, though she was tempted to skip it. In case Marta had called back, however, she let it run.

“Ms. Baker, this is Dr. Schaeffer at Gentle Oaks.”

Erin felt a stab of guilt. When they’d left Gentle Oaks yesterday, Claire had been under a suicide watch. Erin had been so preoccupied with her investigation, she’d forgotten to call and check on her sister. “Your sister is very agitated and asking for you. Please give me a call at your earliest convenience.”

“Damn.” Erin looked at the time stamp on the message. Three this afternoon. If she’d listened to her messages when she’d gotten back from California, she could have run out to see Claire before going to the embassy.

Hanging up, she immediately dialed the home’s number. Schaeffer would be long gone by now, but hopefully someone would be able tell her what was wrong. Within minutes, she was speaking to the resident on the graveyard shift.

“Your sister was very upset,” he said. “She kept asking for you.”

That couldn’t be right. Claire never asked for her sister. “You mean, she was asking for Marta Lopez.”

“No, she kept saying she needed to speak to Erin.” His voice was tight, as if he was annoyed at having been questioned. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

“What else was she saying?”

“Look, Ms. Baker. Claire is asleep now. If you come out here in the morning, you can talk to her yourself. Also, Dr. Schaeffer will be in, and I’m sure he can give you much more information than I can.”

“What else was she saying?” She heard the first niggling of fear in her own voice.

He must have heard it as well. “Don’t worry about it. She wasn’t making any sense.”

“Tell me.”

He sighed, obviously tired and irritated. Dealing with patients’ relatives wasn’t something he’d have to do very often on the late shift. “Something about ice cream and magic tricks. She kept saying, ‘Tell Erin the Magic Man is here.’ ”

The dam of fear broke, wrapping ice around her heart. “I’ll be right there.”

“No, I told you—”

“Listen to me, Doctor, very carefully. Don’t let anyone into her room until I get there.”

“But—”

“No one. Do you understand?”

Another sigh. “Yes.” He might not like taking her orders, but considering what she paid to keep Claire in his facility, he would at least pretend to go along.

“I’ll be there within the hour,” Erin said, searching for a way to make him take her seriously. “Oh, and Doctor—what’s your name?”

“Temple.”

“Dr. Temple, if anything happens to Claire before I get there, I’ll hold you personally responsible. And believe me, I’ll make a medical malpractice suit look like a walk in the park.”

Erin set a record getting to Gentle Oaks, making the hour drive in a little over forty-five minutes. Fortunately no flashing blue lights appeared in her rearview mirror, because they would have just had to follow her to Fredericksburg. No one was getting between her and Claire. She was through the door and heading for her sister’s room when the harried Dr. Temple stepped in her path.

“Ms. Baker, this is ridiculous. It’s past visiting hours, and I told you your sister is sleeping.”

“Get out of my way, Doctor. Or I’ll move you.”

Something in her face must have scared him because he stepped aside. Though he followed her the rest of the way, motioning to a nurse to come as well.

Inside Claire’s room, Erin went to her sister’s side, checking her pulse. She was restless but sleeping unharmed, and Erin took her first easy breath since getting off the phone with Dr. Temple.