Gina was back almost instantly, followed by not just Gail, but Debra and the facility’s doctor, too.
“You messed up,” Max told him.
“I know,” Ajay wept. “I know.”
Gina was tugging on his arm, pulling him toward the door. “They need to examine him.”
“I’m sorry,” Ajay told him. “I don’t want you to be mad at me, Max.”
“Too bad—I am mad at you,” Max said. “You knew your brother had a problem and you didn’t ask for help. You know what I would do if I found out my brother had a problem with drugs? I would ask for help, because even though I know a lot, I don’t know anything about helping an addict. You’re a kid. In a wheelchair. With serious medical issues. How are you supposed to help Ricky? By bribing him to come see you?”
“I think he probably feels badly enough,” the nurse named Gail said as she tried to herd him the rest of the way into the hall.
But Max wasn’t done. “That wasn’t you helping him,” he told Ajay. “That was you being selfish.”
“I know,” Ajay sobbed. “I know.”
“You want to help your brother?” Max asked the kid. “I’ll help you figure out who we need to talk to, what we need to do, although, I’ve got to warn you, some people just can’t be saved. He’s got to want to help himself—”
“Mr. Bhagat, this really isn’t helping right now.” Gail looked ready to deck him.
Max stood his ground. “After the doctor checks you out—if stupidly not taking your meds for more than three weeks hasn’t won you a trip to the hospital,” he said to Ajay, “come into the rec room. I’ll be there with Gina. Maybe Gail can join us, too. She might have some suggestions for how to help your brother. Then after we talk, we can finish our card game, because I’ve got a hand I’m not just going to throw away.”
Gina’s pulling and the nurse’s pushing finally got him into the hall, where the door closed, practically in his face.
He stood there, shaking his head, breathing hard, pissed as all hell. Three
weeks.
What was Ajay thinking?
And what was
he
thinking, to let his anger loose like that?
Gina slipped her arms around his waist, hugging him from behind, her body soft against him. “She was wrong, you know. About it not helping.”
“Yeah,” Max scoffed. “It’s always good to call a crippled kid stupid and selfish.”
“You were being honest,” Gina said. “That’s why he likes you so much, you know. You don’t BS him. You don’t talk down to him, either. You just . . . talk to him.” She hugged him harder, then let him go. “My brother’s a social worker.” She took out her cell phone as she led him back toward the rec room, searching through her list of saved phone numbers. “He’s in New York, but he might know of some programs down here in D.C. You know, for Rick.”
Which of her three older brothers was a . . . ? “Stockbroker, teacher, firefighter . . .”
Gina put the phone to her ear. “The firefighter—Rob—is also a teacher at Hofstra. Vic’s the broker, but Leo worked on Wall Street, too. He made enough money to retire at, like, twenty-eight, but got bored and went back to school and—” She turned away, speaking into her phone. “Yeah, Tammy, this is Gina. Is my brother around?” She laughed. “Yeah, thanks.” Back to Max. “You might be able to keep my brothers straight if we spent more time talking instead of—Yeah, Lee, it’s me. Hi.” She wiggled her eyebrows meaningfully at Max, a silent end to her unfinished sentence. “No, I’m still here in D.C.,” she told her brother, “Well, really it’s the burbs, in Virginia . . .”
The rec room was empty, and Max wandered to the window as Gina spoke on the phone, her laughter winding around him.
The irony was that they’d reached a place in their relationship—if you could call it that—where he was the one who didn’t want to talk. He’d gotten really good at feigning sleep.
Gina, in return, had gotten really good at steering clear of volatile subjects.
“He’s going to call back with some phone numbers,” Gina told Max as she put her phone into her shoulder bag. She sat on the window sill, facing him, her back to the view. “You know, I really wish you could be as honest with me as you are with Ajay.”
Damn. Max sighed.
“Look, I know you don’t need this now,” Gina told him quietly. “I know you’re worried about Ajay, and . . . Well, Jules told me he dropped off a couple more files—that you’re doing even more work—which is
not
what the doctor ordered, I might add, but . . . I found this woman, a thera-pist, who does some couples counseling.”
Ah, God. “Gina—”
“I spoke to her on the phone,” Gina said. “For about two hours. I told her everything. About the rape and . . . everything.”
If there was anything she could have said to shut him up, it was that. He closed his eyes against the sudden image of Gina thrown to the deck of that airliner’s cockpit, struggling to get away, crying out in panic and pain . . .
“I like her,” Gina admitted. “Most therapists piss me off, but she’s . . . I think she really cares. So. I made an appointment to go see her on Wednesday.” She smiled ruefully as Max met her gaze. He’d been urging her to get back into therapy for as long as they both could remember. “Big step, huh? Will you, you know, come with me?”
“Absolutely,” Max said. “But . . .” She wanted honesty. “Are we really a couple?” Okay, that came out sounding far more harsh than it had seemed as a mere thought running through his head. “I mean, it’s just so . . . I don’t know, isolated here, I guess. Like it’s not real.” He tried to explain. “I know it’s January, but it feels like we’re having a summer fling.”
And he couldn’t begin to figure out what was going to happen when he left here, and returned to his real life.
“Doctor says I’m gonna live.”
They both turned to see Ajay wheeling his way into the room.
“Give us a sec,” Max called to the boy, but Gina was already on her feet.
“Don’t bother, I understand what you meant,” Gina said, but it was clear that he’d hurt her.
Goddamn it.
It wasn’t the first time he’d hurt her, and it wasn’t going to be the last.
And so it began.
The beginning of the end.
C
HAPTER
N
INE
H
OTEL
E
LBE
H
OF
, H
AMBURG
, G
ERMANY
J
UNE
21, 2005
P
RESENT
D
AY
Max had to put his cell phone down because his hands were shaking.
Molly Anderson.
That was the name of Gina’s traveling companion, confirmed by yet another phone call from Jules Cassidy. The aid worker hadn’t changed much since Max had met her a few years back. She still wore her long, curly, reddish-brown hair San Francisco earthmother style. Her smile was still as warm and sincere.
As he’d looked through the photos stored in that digital camera, Max knew why Gina was missing, why her passport had turned up in another woman’s possession. He knew what this was about.
It had to do with a man named Grady Morant, aka David Jones, and probably a dozen other aliases as well.
Had to be.
Grady Morant was a dangerous man—an expatriated American and former Army NCO who was wanted by the U.S. for a long list of crimes, including desertion and drug trafficking.
For a short time, Morant had fancied himself in love with Molly Anderson. But that had ended when he’d sold her out for a suitcase filled with cash.
Max sat on one of the hotel room’s beds.
And blamed himself.
If Gina was dead, it was because of him.
Christ.
He picked up the camera and toggled through the pictures again, unable to keep from looking at them. Gina with Molly and a group of women, some smiling, some stern-faced. Gina, her hair cut short, laughing as she held the hands of two Kenyan children. Molly, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, dancing against the backdrop of a tent’s interior. A man, with graying hair and glasses that reflected the camera’s flash, sitting properly—back straight, tea cup in his hands. Gina behind his chair, laughing into the camera, her arms wrapped affectionately around his neck. Another shot of the same man, all alone this time, in a pose that looked as if it were meant to be a passport photo.
Max didn’t need to see the nametag sewn into the back of his undershirt to know that this was the ever-so-fascinating Leslie Pollard.
They’d gotten his description from the priest who ran the AAI camp. Along with the breaking news that Pollard had disappeared right after Molly and Gina left for Germany.
Yes, that’s right. Pollard had pulled a complete
adios
two days before that bomb went off outside the Hamburg cafe and killed a young woman who had Gina’s passport in her possession.
As a rule, Max didn’t believe in coincidences. Pollard had to be involved in this . . . whatever this was. Abduction. Kidnapping.
Please God, not homicide.
According to U.S. Intel—Jules had the information available even before Max asked for it—there was no record of a Leslie Pollard flying out of any airport in Kenya to any destination in Europe. Nor had a man by that name flown into any airport in Germany. Max had his team widening their search, checking passenger lists for trains and steamships. But he already knew what they’d find.
Nothing.
He stared again at the picture in Gina’s camera, trying to turn the Englishman’s face into that of Grady Morant, but he couldn’t do it. He’d only seen Morant once—and it was after the man had received a rather savage beating.
Max now opened his phone, dialed the D.C. office and told Peggy Ryan to find a photo from Morant’s service in the army and e-mail it to him.
As he shut off the camera’s power, he realized that the sun was setting. It had slipped behind the building across the street, which cast a long shadow. Without the light from the camera, the hotel room was dark and . . .
Over on the desk, the telephone’s red message light was on—a feeble flicker in the dimness.
Max stood up.
How the hell had he missed seeing that?
Was he completely losing it? Except, he’d made a point to look at the phone when he first came in. He remembered noting quite specifically that the message light was not on.
Max flipped on the desk light—and even that low wattage bulb generated enough glare to make the message light appear to be unlit.
Sonuvabitch.
He picked up the phone, pushing the buttons that would play the message.
It was probably only a greeting from hotel housekeeping, making sure Gina and Molly were comfortable and—
“You have one new message,” the automated voicemail computer told him in a crisp female voice. It spoke perfect English, with a pleasant German accent. “First message, dated 19 June. 6:57
A
.
M
.”
“Shit, where are you?” Now the voice was male, and ragged with stress. “You’ve got to get out of Hamburg.” The connection was terrible and the line crackled. It was hard to tell if the voice was British or American. Max had to strain just to discern the words. “Get out of the hotel right now—don’t pack, leave your things. Just go. Jesus, to the American Embassy if you have to. Go and stay there, don’t leave for anything, do you hear me? You’re in danger—”
There was a crackle of static, then silence.
“End of message,” the computer told him. “To delete this message, press seven. To replay this message press two. To save this message—”
Max hit two. One
new
message, the computer had said. Which meant that Gina and Molly had never received it. Still, as he listened to the message again, he opened his cell phone, dialing Jules Cassidy.
“Where are you?” Max asked when Jules picked up.
“Just leaving the blast site,” the younger agent reported. “Traffic sucks. It was definitely an accident, by the way—the bombing. What’s up, boss? What do you need me to do?”
“I need you here,” Max told him. “Now. I need a digital copy of a message left on Gina’s hotel voicemail from an unidentified male.” As the message played yet again, he held his phone so Jules could hear it.
“You think it’s Pollard?” Jules asked.
“I don’t know,” Max told him grimly, making sure he saved the voice mail before hanging up the hotel phone. “Look, I’m going to need your laptop ASAP to download a photo from Gina’s camera.”
He could then send the electronic file to his own lab, his own team, back in D.C. It would be faster then sending the entire camera to the FBI’s facility here in Hamburg. Besides, Frisk’s team had enough on their plate.
“The driver says we’re still forty minutes away,” Jules reported, “and that’s best case scenario—if the traffic lets up. What’s in the photo?”
“Not what,” Max told him. “Who. Leslie Pollard. Gina’s got a snapshot that’s got to be him. Meanwhile, Peggy’s locating a photo of Grady Morant. I’m going to have the analysts run a computer comparison of the two men’s faces.”
“Okay,” Jules said. “Whoa. Grady
Morant.
The same Grady Morant you asked me to do low-pro on . . . when was that? It was after the von Hopf kidnapping case, right?”
A few years back, Max had included Jules in the team he’d used to help track down a kidnapped VIP—the son of a retired CIA agent. The VIP had been snatched by one of the many groups of rebels, drug smugglers, terrorists, and thieves who set up camp on a remote island in Indonesia.
It was the same remote island where Molly Anderson had been working at the time as a Peace Corps–type volunteer.
The VIP had been returned to his family alive, but before the dust had settled, Molly Anderson had gotten herself into the thick of the danger, due to her relationship with—ding, ding, ding, correct for two points—Grady Morant.
After they’d returned to D.C., Max had given Jules an assignment. An extremely low-profile off-the-record gathering of information. “Find out what you can about a former Army Special Forces NCO named Grady Morant, but keep it under the radar.” At Jules’s puzzled look Max had added, “I don’t want to get a what-the-fuck call from either the Pentagon or the CIA, is that clear?”
“He was the alleged deserter, right?” Jules said now. “And you’re . . . thinking Morant is Pollard?”
“I’m thinking we need to eliminate that possibility,” Max told Jules. “Which we can do by comparing the two photos.”
Morant had to be involved in this.
God
damn
it.
Back when Gina had signed up with AIDS Awareness International, Max had been alarmed that she’d volunteered to go to Kenya to work with this very same Molly Anderson. A mutual friend—Navy SEAL Chief Ken Karmody, damn him to hell—had introduced the two women, and they’d instantly hit it off via e-mail.
But after a thorough investigation, Max had been convinced that Molly had severed all ties with Morant. She’d moved to Africa while, until just recently, Morant was still regularly spotted in his beat-up little airplane in the skies over Indonesia. Molly had had no further contact with the man—at least none that Max had known about.
And didn’t
that
sting. Max made a point to know everything, to stay in control, to ward off disaster, avert tragedy.
“Wait a minute,” Jules said now, breaking the silence that was becoming more and more grim by the second. “Didn’t we get some kind of intra-agency report—a “case closed” doc that had Morant’s name on it as reported dead? I showed that to you, didn’t I, sir? It was about, what? Four or five months ago?”
“Yeah,” Max said. And he’d actually been foolish enough to feel a twinge of remorse at the news. “I need that information checked. I want to know if anyone saw the body, if dental records were matched.”
“I’m on it,” Jules said.
Max suspected the answer he’d find was a resounding no. And that Morant was still very much alive.
Jules was trying to keep up. “So you think . . . Morant faked his death in order to come after Molly Anderson because . . . he can’t live without her?”
Cassidy was a hopeless romantic. “I think he heard about the reward Molly got for helping to rescue what’s-his-name von Hopf,” Max said grimly.
“Alex,” Jules supplied the man’s name. As if it mattered.
“I think Morant went to Kenya, to claim his share.” And if Molly objected, Morant would disappear her and take it all. Gina would have been just an innocent bystander, but it also fit Morant’s profile for him to turn a profit by selling her passport to the highest bidder.
Christ.
Max should never have let Gina anywhere near Molly Anderson—a concept that worked well in theory. But in reality, Max knew he hadn’t had the power to let or not let Gina do anything.
He could have, though. He could have said, “Stay, because I love you, because my crappy life will be even crappier without you.” Maybe then she would’ve hung around.
For a while, anyway.
“I just don’t buy it,” Jules said. “It doesn’t fit with Morant’s record back when he was in the service. He was exemplary—”
“He was also exemplary,” Max pointed out, “when he taught security teams how to guard shipments of heroin for Nang-Klao Chai.”
“He didn’t give them any information that wasn’t readily available over the Internet,” Jules countered. “And most of his time with Chai was spent as a medic.” He could, no doubt, make a case for Satan.
His fall from heaven was not his fault . . .
“Remember, Chai got him out of prison. Do you know what kind of torture went on, daily, in that place?”
“The kind that would twist a man, permanently?” Max answered, his voice tight.
“Hey,” Jules said. “Sweetie, I know what you’re thinking, but come on. It’s unlikely this is some kind of revenge. And even if it is, it’s certainly not against you. You all but let the guy go.”
Yes. Yes, Max had.
He’d let.
The fucker.
Go.
He’d had Morant in custody—and he’d let him go in a moment of softhearted insanity.
Because the bastard had pulled a Han Solo, because he’d ended up sacrificing both himself and that suitcase of cash, and ultimately saved a crapload of lives—including that kidnapped VIP. Morant had been beaten to a pulp for his trouble, too, hovering in a haze of pain, ready to be shipped back to Chai for more torture, until a team of SEALs had gone in after him and pulled him out.
So Max had made it easy for Morant to escape from the hospital.
True, he didn’t make it too easy. The son of a bitch had had to walk out on a broken leg.
But he’d walked. And he’d vanished.
And now Gina was missing, and probably dead.
Jules, perceptive little bastard, correctly read Max’s silence. He sighed. “You cannot blame yourself for this.”
“Call Frisk,” Max ordered tightly. “See if any of his agents are near this hotel. They’re going to need to take a look at this room anyway—just have them bump it up in priority. Make sure they bring the equipment they’ll need to copy this voicemail. And call the American Embassy. Verify that Gina and Molly aren’t sitting in some safe room somewhere.”
As he said the words, his gut twisted. Goddamn it, there was nothing he wouldn’t give for that to be so.
But Jules dashed his hopes. “They’re not,” he said. “I’m sorry, sir, I already thought of that and—shit on a
stick
! We’re stopping. Aw, crap, it’s a total parking lot—someone’s actually getting out of their car up ahead. Sir, let me call the hotel. They must have a business center, or I don’t know, a laptop you can rent or borrow to download that photo.”
Of course. Thank God one of them was thinking clearly. “I’ll call the front desk,” Max said. “Just . . . get here as soon as you can.”
K
ENYA
, A
FRICA
F
EBRUARY
25, 2005
F
OUR
M
ONTHS
A
GO
Molly was ready to scream.
According to the rules of AAI, they needed a flipping chaperone. In order to respect the various customs of the indigenous people, an unmarried man and woman could not go on a four-day journey to the north.
Heck, they couldn’t take a ten-minute trip to the grocery store—were there a grocery store to go to.
She and Jones, aka Leslie Pollard, needed a third person to go with them as they delivered little Lucy northward.