What Lies Behind (25 page)

“Meanwhile, I followed the money. I believe I have identified at least eighty percent of the people involved, from the terrorist organization in Africa to the company manufacturing the bug. I infiltrated their systems and stole the material I hope contains the answers to stopping the spread of the disease. It’s time to turn this information over to State and let them sort it out. I’ve included a list in this package. You’ll see some familiar names. Jason Kruger, for one, who works for Gina, which is why she’s in so much danger. I believe he is the ‘British’ man they talk about
—
you can look at his official travel to prove where he’s been, and though he grew up in South Africa, he has a British accent, probably from early schooling there.”

Amanda shook her head.

“Greed, sister. Greed drives terrorism, and the people who are trying to do good are being overwhelmed by the ones trying to make a buck on the backs and lives of the people. It sickens me, and I’m sorry I couldn’t be the one to end their attack.

“Please, Robin, act quickly. I have a lot of evidence, but not a lot of answers. It’s time for me to let Gina shut down the funneled funds from Denon’s company. With any luck, they will be able to discover who, exactly, is behind all of this. They’re going to need James’s cooperation, and I promise you, he will cooperate. He’d never want anything like this to happen. He’s a good man, and I care for him deeply. If you get a chance, please tell him so. And while you’re at it, will you tell him my real name? He only knows me as Juliet Bouchard, and it’s important that he understand why I deceived him. I wanted to tell him myself, when all this was over, but I don’t think I’m going to get a chance.”

A small sob leaked from Denon’s mouth. The screen went black, and everyone froze, then began speaking at once.

“Hold on a minute, there’s more,” Daniels shouted.

A few seconds later, Amanda came back onto the screen. She was in a different place, a hotel room, from the looks of it, and it was full daylight out. She looked disheveled and scared.

“Robin, I screwed up. I’m pretty sure Kruger discovered what I’ve been up to, and has warned his people I’m coming to the States. Kruger opened a dialogue with me out of the blue, asking for my help on a case they were working in Sierra Leone. He began emailing me, asking for information, said they had word there was a terrorist attack in motion. I know he works for Gina, but this has been close hold—she hasn’t told anyone what I’m doing.

“I played along, but I’ve found a money trail that leads directly to his accounts. Right after that, my house was tossed, my passports stolen, my phones were tapped. I knew I was being followed, despite my precautions, so I cleared out of France immediately, but it’s probably too late. I’m in London right now, and will be taking a flight tonight to New York with James. We leave in a few hours, and I pray I make the flight. I’ll have the samples with me. I have to get them to Cattafi. That’s the only thing that can save us now.

“My enemies are in the shadows. I’ve taken precautions to make sure the information I have is making it to the people who need it. I’ve mailed this to my house in D.C., and to you. Gina will also receive this, and I’m bringing in more information on my person, in the way you told me about a couple of years ago.

“I know you can pick up where I left off. But, Robin, I have to warn you, I think everyone who knows about this is in great danger. Something I saw before the trail disappeared scared the hell out of me. I believe the bad medications have been sold to the highest bidder. The terrorist organizations in Africa have been in the market for anything and everything they can use to attack the United States, and this is the perfect weapon. If they’ve already gotten their hands on the medicine, it may be too late for us to stop their infiltration into our health system. It’s as easy as infecting several of their people and putting them on a plane to the US. We won’t even see it coming.

“I’ve already warned Gina of the possibility we’re going to be attacked, and that her life is in danger. She needs eyes on Kruger immediately. He will lead us to the rest of the people involved.

“Please, for the sake of all the people we serve, catch the person behind this, and do it now. I’ve failed our country, our people, James, Gina and you. Worse, I’ve failed myself. I should have come forward with this information sooner, but I had no idea how far things had progressed.”

Amanda was openly crying now. Through the tears, she put her fingers to her lips, then blew a kiss toward the screen.

“I love you, sis. I have faith in you. I’ll see you again someday.”

And the video ended.

TUESDAY: EVENING

Death is a delightful hiding place for weary men.

—Herodotus

Chapter 45

Riley’s
houseboat
Tuesday evening

REGINA GIRABALDI HAD
been in the catbird seat and out of the field for too long. Robin almost laughed at the look on her face as she marched the woman’s bodyguard toward her, the gun still nestled against his temple.

Girabaldi’s hand went to her side for a moment, in search of the cool weight of a gun holster on her hip she’d become accustomed to after years in the field, but, finding no weapon, raised both hands slightly in a defensive gesture.

“Robin. Don’t hurt him. We’re just here to talk.”

“Gina, do you really think I’d be stupid enough to shoot a Secret Service agent?”

“No. But you might shoot
me
. I’d rather we talk like civilized adults.”

Robin bared her teeth at her mentor in an approximation of a smile. “Then you’ll understand why I don’t put my weapon away. The door’s unlocked, just pull the latch.”

Girabaldi stared at the barrel of the gun for a few moments, took a deep breath, swallowed and turned around with her shoulder blades tensed as if expecting the firing to commence immediately. When Robin didn’t shoot her in the back, the proud shoulders dropped an inch, and she slid open the doors and entered. The Secret Service agent followed her, looking like a dog that had just been kicked.

Robin walked after them, pulled the sliding glass door shut behind her. She knocked the guard in the shoulder good-naturedly.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty good at sneaking up on people. I was taught by the best, remember.” She used the gun to gesture toward a chair. “Sit.”

He stiffened.

“Please,” she added, and he acquiesced, taking a seat at the table and muttering the words “I’m sorry” to Girabaldi. Regina shook her head as if to say,
Don’t worry, it was my fault
, and he looked even more unhappy.

Robin sat down, as well, leaned back in the chair. Girabaldi’s eyes were wide, but she, too, sat, running her hands along her arms as if she were cold.

“Do you want to do this in front of him?” Robin asked.

“Do we have a choice?”

Robin shrugged. “I’m not comfortable letting him loose into the wild just yet. I can tie him up and gag him, stash him in the trunk of your car, but I have nothing to hide. I’ve done nothing wrong, and I want you to tell me what in the hell is going on. So if you need him to disappear, just say the word.”

“Witnesses can be handy. He stays.” Girabaldi smiled then, and set her hands on the table. Robin was shocked by how aged they’d become. Seeing those capable hands, ones she’d emulated so many times, wrinkled and spotted and heavily veined, hit her hard. She dropped the nose of the weapon, let it dangle casually toward the floor.

“What the hell, Gina? Who killed Mandy?”

“I don’t know. And I’m being honest with you. She’d been working on a case deep undercover. I’m talking off the grid entirely. A long game, which put her in an unbelievable amount of danger.”

“Were you running her?”

“Yes.”

“So no matter who wielded the knife, you’re responsible for her death.” Her fingers caressed the gun gently, raising it slightly. Girabaldi’s chin rose to match it. “How could you let it get this far?”

“Amanda went offline two weeks ago. All she had to do was call me and I would have moved heaven and earth to save her. Instead, she got too cute by half, and someone caught on.”

“What was the job, Gina? Quit beating around the bush and tell me. I know it has something to do with James Denon, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten.”

“First, I need to ask you a question. Did Amanda say anything to you about what she was working on?”

Robin caught the anxious tone in Girabaldi’s voice, the lavender words spilling out of her mouth. It put her even more on alert.

“She sent me a note a month ago. Asked for a spot. I couldn’t break away.”
Couldn’t, because you’d just fucked up your own world and you were too busy trying to bail yourself out, and where did that get you? Sidelined. Well done, you.

She told the voices to shut the fuck up, and felt better.

“I heard about that. I’m sorry. If I were still your boss, I wouldn’t have shuffled you off. You’re too good for that.”

“Quit trying to make this all okay. It won’t be. Ever. Tell me about Amanda. Now.”

“We have the beginnings of another pandemic in Africa. Worse than the terrible Ebola outbreak of 2014. We have a generalized viral hemorrhagic fever that mimics Ebola, but the time from exposure to death is less than forty-eight hours. It developed by accident, and we still aren’t one hundred percent sure how it was spread. A pseudovaccine was engineered and used. Unfortunately, the new vaccine kills half the people who contract the illness, and heals the other half. There’s no way to know which will happen. But if they aren’t treated, the mortality rate is one hundred percent. We think this outbreak is simply a testing ground. Some very undesirable people want to use the sickness as a weapon, since its efficacy in killing people is so high.”

“Great. Wonderful. So you unleashed a bug you can’t stop. That’s terrible, but this involved my sister how?”

“We didn’t unleash the bug. Amanda found proof of an attack plan in the works, and she got in bed with the money trail for us.”

Robin raised an eyebrow. She hadn’t particularly liked the methods her sister used to get to the information she needed, but that was her choice. Amanda was a grown-up. She could bed whoever she wanted, for whatever reason she wanted.

“And the money had her killed when she exposed him?”

“No. He hasn’t been exposed. We think someone in his company had her killed, and then killed everyone who was working the project along with her. We’re still trying to find out who that person might be. In the meantime, Mandy had found a couple of doctors who thought they could reengineer the vaccine. Apparently, they’d been working on it privately, and were close to having a cure.”

“So why would someone want to kill her for it? It sounds like a great thing. She may have found a way to fix a very bad situation.”

“I believe the truth of the matter is they don’t want it fixed. The people behind this are selling the illness to a terrorist organization. Amanda thought we might be attacked in the near future. She got one of her own recruits into the mix, genius kid, to see if he could help.”

“Cattafi?”

“Yes.”

“His buddy Bromley is dead. In case you hadn’t heard.”

Girabaldi collapsed then, from proud face and shoulders to the bottom of her spine. She hunched over the table, put her head in her hands. “Everyone who worked on this is dead. Someone’s trying to clean up their mess.”

“And you’re next?”

Regina nodded.

“Why didn’t you save her, Gina? Why did you let my sister die?”

“I didn’t. I would have done anything within my power to protect her, you know that. She wasn’t like you. She needed me. She’s always needed me.”

Robin felt the familiar flame of jealousy rise up in her, pushed it away. “I needed you, too,
Mom
. It would have been nice if you’d realized that.”

“Your sister—”

“Your daughter.”

Regina closed her eyes. “You’re my daughter, too. Don’t think this hurts me any less than it hurts you. I’ve already lost one of you. I can’t lose you, too. I’ve done all I could for you. But now I need your help. Please, Robin. Don’t make me beg.”

“Done all you could except be a mother when I needed one. A boss, a mentor, yes. You taught me how to kill, how to hide in the shadows, how to be the woman I am today. But you never could talk yourself into loving me. You reserved all of that for Amanda. And now you want me to be your shield. To protect you. That’s rich, Gina. Really, really rich.”

Girabaldi gritted her teeth, trying to gain control, the upper hand, as she always had. Robin watched the familiar strangeness of her mother’s face as she struggled for composure.

She’d given them up when they were so young, when Robin was only four and Amanda two. Left their father, left their life, to globe-trot for the CIA. Her dad, bless his heart, was crushed, but remarried, giving them a mother figure, a sweet lady who they both called Mom. Regina returned to her maiden name and was referred to—if she ever needed to be—as their distant aunt.

Amanda was too young. She never really knew what had happened. But Robin remembered. She remembered it all. When she was eighteen, she showed up on Regina’s doorstep, wanting answers. Regina turned her into a weapon instead, then came for Amanda when she, too, came of age.

Clouds of purple were billowing around Robin, and she fought through the darkness. Regina had made sure they were both taken care of, put to work in the family business. She took one look at an adult Amanda and nestled her sweetness into her bosom, under her arm, where she could be protected. And one look at Robin—the coldness, the emptiness, the lack of empathy and the potential for destruction—and put a long-range rifle in her hands.

Robin had seen her private CIA induction file once. It read like a clinical wasteland.
Emotionless sociopathy. Lack of empathy. Penchant for violence. Ability to compartmentalize. Comfortable with extreme isolation.
And then the ultimate stamp of approval.
Recommended for field work.

Amanda’s file was different. It had always been different. Warmer. Nicer. Plays well with others and shares with her friends. Shares herself with her friends, it should have read. In more ways than one.

Robin didn’t know what was worse, being completely closed off and frigid, or finding love in the arms of strangers. She knew both their lives were in direct reaction to the abandonment of their mother. The anger boiled up again, threatening to overflow.

“You made us both, Gina. And now you’ve killed one of us. I don’t think I’ll let you kill me, too.” She stood and started toward the sliding glass door, to the darkness, the anonymity that was her world.

Regina spoke softly. “Robin. Please don’t leave. You need to see this.” She nodded at the Secret Service agent. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small tablet.

“This will explain everything.”

She hit Play, and Robin stopped at the door, halted her escape and nearly cracked into pieces.

Amanda.

She listened to her sister’s honey-colored words, wondering what it all meant. Why she had to die for this case. Why she hadn’t pushed for help when she got in too deep.

She wanted to prove herself, Robin. To you, to Gina. You know that. She always did
.
And she had asked. You abandoned her when she needed you the most. You are no better than your mother.

When the video was finished, she sat down, trying not to lose it. Trying to compartmentalize, as was her forte. Pushing away the horror and loss of her baby sister to a cause that would kill them all, and going into a more operational state. It was too late to save Amanda. It wasn’t yet too late to save the world.

If what Amanda said was true, about the coming attack, this was bigger than all of them and their petty family squabbles. An attack on their soil with a biological weapon delivered in a most innocuous manner would derail the world.

The now-familiar doubt crept in. It had come recently, borne on a piece of shrapnel, sanded with desert muck, into her side, and whispered to her of all her failings.

She couldn’t stop this. They were screwed. Absolutely, one hundred percent screwed.

Robin walked to the small kitchenette and fixed herself a stiff shot of bourbon. Forced all the emotions that had been swirling around her since the accident back into the black hole inside her, found her focus, her bitter cold center, the one place she felt truly herself. She shot the bourbon, then turned and leaned against the hard counter.

“Why me, Regina? You have two agencies at your beck and call.”

Girabaldi’s face creased in relief. Her daughter had acquiesced once again, and she was back on top, calling the shots.

“I don’t trust anyone but you right now, Robin. I need your protection. I need you to find out who killed Amanda, and who is after me. I’ve already had one team member involved in this killed today. I wish I could convince myself he’s the only one involved, but I can’t. Only a handful of people knew about the medicine and vaccine.”

“Who was it?”

“Jason Kruger. I would have never expected him to betray me like this. I’m not sure how deep his betrayal goes, though. And the D.C. police killed him an hour ago.”

“He was onto Amanda. Chasing her.”

“She brought the samples in, and he managed to take them from her. I have no doubt they were—at some point today—in his possession.”

“Did he kill her? Was it Kruger?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know who else it could be, but there could be any number of people working this, Robin. You know how terrorists work.” Girabaldi grew cold then, back into her role. “I want you to hunt them down and eliminate them. You heard your sister. She knew she was in danger and that I am in danger. We will all be affected if there’s an attack.”

Robin laughed, the sound harsh against the night air. “So you want to wind up your little sociopath and watch her go?”

Those hands, those old-woman hands, clutching at the wooden tabletop, leaving filmy prints on the shellacked finish. The voice had always been stronger than the flesh, and it held a familiar hint of annoyance.

“Now is not the time, Robin. When we’ve secured the tainted medicine and arrested all those involved, you and I will talk. You can berate me, you can beat me up, hell, you can kill me. But our duty lies with this country, and we must stop this attack.”

“Is this sanctioned? Or are we off book?”

“This is sanctioned. I have cleared it with your superiors. I spent the day having you reinstated. Do this, and I will make sure you’re given your old position. Or a new one, should you desire. You can have anything you want. Robin, we’re talking about an unknown terrorist attack that could come at any time. I need you. Your country needs you.”

Your country needs you.
The very words that had driven all three Souleyret women into a life of public service, into the morass of death and destruction, the carnage of their beliefs and duty laid to waste behind them.