Frozen Fire (12 page)

The first time that former intelligence operative Tom Taylor saw the footage of Dennis Cavendish’s plane exploding, the sight triggered a very typical human reaction: a sharply held breath, an instant emotional numbing, a few seconds of disbelief. Then his training and experience regained supremacy and his brain simply placed the incident at the top of a very long list of twisted, fucked-up things that twisted, fucked-up people did to other, possibly less twisted and even occasionally undeserving people.

But now, after he’d seen the footage twenty or so times, it had lost much of its impact and was just a series of images of yet another plane shattering in an otherwise peaceful sky. Aesthetically, the silent, violent images had a sort of surreality to them. They formed a harsh, arrested-motion instance of beauty, like a pyrotechnic display without the ooh-ahh dazzle. If it weren’t for the fact that he knew fifteen probably unsuspecting people had been blown apart in the seconds following the detonations, he would have enjoyed the footage more.

Tom turned to the woman standing nearby. While he had been studying the monitor, she had been looking out the window, which was flanked by the American flag on one side and her diploma from Harvard Law School on the other. Her name—for now, anyway—was Lucy Denton. She was unreasonably sexy in that scary sort of way that Tom had always appreciated. Tall, slim, blond, and icy, with a taut, agile body made bulky by all the custom-fitted body armor she wore, Lucy possessed a formidable intelligence and guts of pure steel, both of which were routinely hidden from public view.

He and Lucy had had some exposure to each other in the past, back when she was on the ground in the intelligence community. That was a long time ago, though, and time had changed almost everything about her except the look in her eye.

Back in the day, Tom used to infuriate Lucy by calling her Rosa Klebb, of
From Russia with Love
fame, or, occasionally, Scary Spyce. Neither nickname had been affectionate or appreciated, but both had been accurate.

Lucy had always been terrifying as hell when she needed to be. Despite
her obvious femininity, she had none of the self-doubt or hesitation that tripped up most women, even women involved in deeply covert intelligence operations. Lucy could focus like few other people could. Tom had never known her to avoid doing what needed to be done, to let irrelevant details get in the way. He’d watched her stare down a dead-eyed, bomb-wrapped nine-year-old who had a sweaty trigger finger and a disinclination to disarm. She’d made the kid blink, and in the space of that blink, she’d blown off his hand and popped a neat, round hole between his eyebrows. Afterward, her report coolly described the outcome as a win-win: Paradise had one more martyr in residence; the U.S. had one less asshole to worry about.

Lucy Denton was a woman to be admired. And feared.

Tom wasn’t sorry to be working with her again, though they made a bizarre team. These days, she lived on the front page, above the fold, where everything about her—her social life, her fashion sense, her word choice during Senate hearings, and occasionally her meetings with the president—was critiqued by media gasbags and political has-beens. Tom, on the other hand, had become the kind of guy people would rather not know, or even know about. He’d long preferred shadow to light, anonymity to full disclosure. Nobody knew what his real story was and he’d made sure to forget some critical truths about himself. It made his job and his life—and lying about both—easier.

As the image on the screen faded to black, Tom turned to see Lucy’s dark eyes fixed on him with an intensity that was seductive and legendary. “Well?”

“No one survived.”

“No kidding,” she said dryly. “And Cavendish?”

“He wasn’t on the plane.”

“How do we know that?”

“The usual channels, and we have a source on his maintenance crew who confirmed that Cavendish took off before dawn in one of his other planes. We aren’t sure why, but we know he got out of Miami at about four-thirty and touched down on Taino not long afterward.” He paused minutely. “We have pictures of him on his dock a few minutes after the explosion.”

Her expression didn’t change. “You’re sure neither of those was the body double he uses?”

“Yes. Dennis is a great guy, a nice boss, and a warped paranoiac, but he doesn’t let his flunkies cruise around on his planes without a good reason or go on submarine rides period,” Tom replied and received a cool, unamused
look in response. “He had his security chief, Victoria Clark, with him on the dock, so it must have been something big that made him want to go south. He doesn’t take her along that often.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to go that often,” Lucy replied. “It’s pretty stupid of her to go with him at all. Who’s watching the farm when they’re both down there?”

“Victoria’s second, Micki Crenshaw. We don’t have a lot on her, but she didn’t make it into the CIA and she flunked out of the FBI after two months. She went to MIT after that, played around in England on a Rhodes Scholarship, and then sort of fell off the radar screen. She’s American, Southern, smart.”

“Why did she flunk out of the Bureau?”

“Slept with an instructor. Or two.”

Tom watched as Lucy let the shadow of a smirk cross her lips for just a second. “Very smart. What about Victoria Clark? Is she a good-guy wannabe, too?” she asked.

“No. She grew up in an orphanage in the Midwest, made it to college on scholarships. Developed a real gift for high-tech network security in the early days. Got through grad school on scholarships. MIT.”

“Is that how the two of them know each other? MIT?”

Tom crossed the room and poured himself a glass of water from the carafe on her desk.

“No. They were there at different times. Clark took her talent to Wall Street and rose very quickly to become head of security for two major banks. Then Cavendish made her an offer she didn’t refuse and she headed to the island. She hired Crenshaw a few years later. Brought her over from London.”

Lucy lifted an eyebrow. “Is that significant?”

“Well, Ms. Crenshaw is also a vegan, and ten years ago was issued a citation for participating in a protest outside of a research lab.”

“Is that code for ‘we think she’s a bad guy now’? Or are we just glad she likes animals?” Lucy asked bluntly.

“She could be. The trail goes cold after that. Until she surfaced on Taino.” Tom shrugged. “I wouldn’t discount anything.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Lucy replied dryly, then paused. “So if Cavendish wasn’t on that plane, why haven’t we heard from him directly? The secretary of state said she spoke with Taino’s ambassador here in D.C.,
who deflected all questions about whether Cavendish survived. So far no one has officially heard from the man himself. Why?”

“He was probably the key target so Ms. Clark has whisked him out of sight. I’d lay money that she’s behind the silence, waiting to see who pops out of the rat hole and takes credit for the fireworks. Victoria Clark is nobody’s fool.”

“Okay. So, in advance of the rat’s emergence, who blew up that jet? And why?” Lucy asked evenly as she unfolded her arms and walked the few steps to her chair. She seated herself gracefully.

Her lack of dithering made Tom want to smile. Even in those first few seconds of seeing the footage, when he’d reacted like a normal human being instead of the spook he was, he’d never considered that it might have been an accident. That Lucy thought the same thing was just going to make being around each other that much easier.

“GAIA,” he said flatly.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake. Don’t blow smoke up my skirt,” she snapped.

“Truly an act I’ve never considered.” He was rewarded with a disgusted frown.

“GAIA couldn’t pull off something like this. The last thing they tried to blow up was that dam in southern Turkey last summer. If you’ll recall, some local farmers got to the would-be geniuses before the police did, and what remained arrived at the forensics lab in a few quart-sized Ziploc bags.” Lucy leaned back in her chair, her elbows resting on the arms. “GAIA is full of brutal bastards, but they’re not known for their brains. They’re the three stooges of the terrorism industry.”

“They were,” he conceded.

“From what I hear, pigs still rely on four legs to get around and Hell is still a hot place, Taylor.”

“Micki Crenshaw attended Oxford the same time Garner Blaylock did. And we have footage of Garner Blaylock with the pilot of the plane a few hours before she took off.”

Lucy’s eyes widened, but only a little. She remained sitting easily in her chair, her body relaxed, her eyes locked in
LASER ON
mode. “Garner Blay-lock is in prison.”

It was an effort for Tom not to smile. “He
was
, in England. But apparently he’s been rehabilitated to the Crown’s satisfaction. He was released four months ago.”

Tom counted four heartbeats before Lucy responded.

“Where was he held?”

“Her Majesty’s Prison at Full Sutton, with all the other naughty terrorists and assorted really bad guys. I’d say he learned a lot in his five years inside.”

Her look turned more acidic, if that was possible. “Spare me the commentary. Go on.”

“The pilot was Wendy Watson. First in her class at the Air Force Academy, three tours in Afghanistan, lots of ribbons. Resigned as a lieutenant colonel. Damned good flyer but apparently as stupid as hell when it came to men. She and Blaylock had been seeing each other for about three months. She spent last night at one of the ‘secret’ apartments GAIA keeps in a pretty nasty part of Miami called Overtown.”

Lucy blinked, looking at him as if she didn’t hear him correctly. “Are you serious? She stayed with him in
Overtown
? God Almighty.”

“You know it?”

“Unfortunately.” She shuddered and brushed the topic away with a flick of her hand. “Why was Blaylock staying there? Where did Watson live?”

“GAIA insists on a high return on investment. They spend their pennies on items like pilots, instead of decent safe houses. But it’s also a pretty clever security move. Anybody we’d send in to lay down equipment would be pegged instantly as being on what’s considered the wrong side of the law in that neighborhood.”

She bobbed her head once in agreement.

“Besides, Blaylock is wealthy enough, good-looking enough, and charismatic enough to get his terror babettes to do his bidding without having to flash any bling.”

Lucy narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you just say ‘babettes’? And
‘bling’
?” she asked slowly.

Fucking hell
. It had been decades since he’d been even tempted to blush. “Yes. Get over it. Watson lived in a small condo in South Beach.”

“And she left that to stay with him in Overtown?” She shook her head. “Love must be blind
and
have no standards. Was his place wired?”

“No. We wired hers a few days after they met, but she didn’t spend much time there and he never set foot in the place. He tried very hard to stay well under the radar.”

“How long was he here?”

“Fourteen weeks. We tracked him coming in.”

Lucy glanced down to check the intact polish coating her fingernails. “Why didn’t we bug his place? That step is pretty much covered in Intelligence 101, isn’t it?”

“It’s refreshing to note that you haven’t lost your sense of humor, Madam Director.” Tom folded his arms and leaned against the windowsill. “We tried a few times to wire it but couldn’t pull it off. Too conspicuous. Besides, GAIA might have trouble with underwater detonation and with finding good help, but they know their electronics. If we’d been successful in bugging it, they’d have known about it pretty quickly, and then they would have moved.” He shrugged one shoulder. “We had surveillance cameras and parabolic mikes in place but we didn’t get much. She went into the apartment with him at eleven o’clock last night and left at seven-thirty this morning. He was in the doorway when she left. They didn’t converse either time when they were outdoors.”

“Did you pick up any pillow talk?”

“No. We had mikes trained at all the windows but there was enough white noise in the background to distort any conversation.” He paused. “For what it’s worth, we didn’t expect to get much. He’s no fool.”

She pursed her lips and looked down at her hands again, then back at him. “Where is he now?”

“He left the apartment shortly after she did. In a characteristic display of his concern for his fellow man, he did a hit-and-run, knocking a little girl off her bike as he swerved to avoid running over a rat. Then he took off in another one of Cavendish’s jets. We figure Wendy set that up for him. He was out of U.S. airspace five minutes before the plane blew up. According to the flight plan, Blaylock’s trip will terminate in Algiers.”

“How’s the kid he hit?”

“Out of surgery and in the ICU. Still unconscious.”

Lucy was silent for a few seconds. “Why did we let him leave?”

“To see where he’s going and what he’s going to do next.”

“He has plans?”

Tom smiled. “So it appears.”

“Alert the UK and the French—and for what it’s worth, the Algerians—that we’d like to speak with Mr. Blaylock when he resurfaces.” She paused, frowning slightly, and then leaned forward to rest both elbows on her desk, and cradle her chin on the backs of her interlaced fingers. “There’s something that doesn’t add up here. GAIA is concerned with the
environment, and the things they do usually make a point
and
hurt people. Like trying to blow up a dam—it will reverse something humans have imposed on nature and kill a lot of innocent people in the process. So why would Blaylock go for Cavendish’s plane? I mean, I know the people on it represented a lot of major players in the business world, so news of their deaths will create tsunami-sized ripples in the financial markets, but that will be a blip. Taking out Cavendish’s underwater project would have been a more GAIA-like action.”

“The plane was an easier target. An airplane hangar is a place with a lot of moving parts, a lot of variables. There were probably at least sixty people in and out of the place in the last few days, between airport staff and private security staff, maintenance teams, and the flight and ground crews for the various planes. No doubt that among those sixty or so people, at least a few would have been willing to make some money by taking a break or just looking the other way at the right time.” Tom shrugged easily. “Of course, it could be that Blaylock doesn’t know about the underwater stuff.”