Authors: Alan Jacobson
“Are you being honest with me now?”
“Totally.”
“Are you telling me everything?”
“Not even close.”
Another breeze. Vail tightened her arms across her chest. “Go on.”
“I can’t tell you any more than I already have.”
“After all we’ve been through?” She studied his face, but it revealed nothing. “I’m a federal agent, Hector. I took the same oaths you did.”
“All due respect, Karen, you can’t equate the job you do with the job I do. They’re not only in different ballparks, they’re in different sports.”
“Trust is trust. You either trust me or you don’t. And apparently you don’t.”
“You’re taking this personally. It’s not. It’s the way I have to operate.”
She looked off into the darkness, then into DeSantos’s eyes, to get a good read. A moment later, she got back into the car.
“Are we okay?”
Vail buckled her seatbelt. “For now. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.”
23
W
hen they arrived back in London, Vail showered in her hotel room while DeSantos ordered dinner for them in the restaurant. The staff was cleaning up and preparing to close, but he convinced them to serve their meal in the bar, which was open till 2:00
AM
, another hour from now.
Vail arrived fifteen minutes later, explaining that she would’ve liked to stay in the shower another thirty minutes, then fall into bed. But she knew she needed to eat.
When she sat down on the barstool, the exhaustion showed in her drooping shoulders. “I look like shit.”
“You look great to me.”
“Normally, you’re a good liar.”
“And now?”
“Not so much. I’ve got abrasions all over my face and I think that episode with the Arabs took ten years off my life.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. Extreme stress only shaves off a few days.”
She looked at him.
“Sorry.” The waitress set the two plates in front of them.
“Burgers. Really? After what you put me through today?”
“You were expecting candlelight and caviar?”
“A girl can dream.”
“At this time of night, we’re lucky to get this. They were closing up. I had to grovel on hands and knees for these burgers.”
“I can’t imagine you groveling.”
“Fine. I asked nicely. The hostess was hot and I promised to repay the favor.”
“I’m losing my appetite.”
DeSantos gathered up the burger. “Not me.”
“Hector, we have to deal with the elephant in the room.”
DeSantos stopped chewing, then twisted his torso, taking in the entire bar. “I don’t see an elephant, Karen.”
“I’m entitled to some answers.”
He looked around again. No one was there, and the bartender was in the back restocking glasses.
“What do you want to know?” He held up an index finger. “Be reasonable.”
“Let’s start with Stonehenge.”
“I’m not a historian or anything, but from what I understand, it’s really old and there are these big rocks arranged in—”
“Hector. Don’t start with me. I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’ve had a shitty day.”
He set his burger on the plate. “Fine. It was staged. You were right.”
“Staged, yeah. Any profiler worth her salt would’ve seen that. But there was a real woman who was sliced and diced.”
“A prostitute found dead the night before from an overdose. Her body was…appropriated. No one was actually killed.”
“Why the charade?’
DeSantos spread his hands. “For you. C’mon, don’t tell me you didn’t figure this out.”
“I did figure it out. That’s apparently what got me in hot water.”
“Not exactly. But it didn’t help. What caused the problem is that you’re too freaking good. You were supposed to be occupied by the sick serial killer who left his victim at Stonehenge. But you saw right through it. A lot faster than they thought you would.”
“They?”
“They.” He shrugged, as if to say, “Sorry, honey, that’s all you’re getting.”
“Back up and start from the beginning. I may put this all together, but it’ll be so much easier if you just tell me. Show me some mercy. I deserve it.”
The bartender returned with two large racks of glasses, the loud clinks when he set them on the counter punctuating his return.
DeSantos looked at his food, then lifted the two plates. “Take my beer. We’re going to your room. We can’t talk about this here.”
THEY SAT AT THE DESK, chomping on their burgers as DeSantos mulled the best way of reading her into the mission.
“You’ve stalled long enough.”
“This isn’t easy.”
“If you’re expecting sympathy, you’re going to be waiting at least a year.”
“Fair enough.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “So they stole the identities of the MI5 and MI6 agents. I told you that. It presented a huge problem because Rudenko was here in the UK—and so were the chemical weapons.”
“So they brought you in. For what? To get close to Paxton?”
“First to verify that he was Rudenko. They only had suspicions that Paxton was Rudenko. Strong suspicions—MI5 believes he’s their man. But Six disagrees. CIA couldn’t reach a consensus. So we used you to get me close to Paxton.”
“Used me?”
“Yeah. Kind of literally, I’m afraid.” As DeSantos took a swig of beer, he must have noticed Vail’s expression because he swallowed quickly. “This is not the time for you to get angry, Karen. Because if you do, we’re never gonna get anywhere. Can we stipulate to the fact that you’re going to be upset, that you’d like to throw something through a window—”
“Or someone.”
“Right. Or someone.”
“Fine. Let’s stipulate to that.”
DeSantos nodded. “So we’re not going to get caught up in who did what to whom, and how you’re gonna get revenge.”
“I didn’t say that. But go on—don’t let me stop you.”
DeSantos took another drink. “First, this was not my idea. I want to get that on the table to begin with.”
“Got it. Stipulations and disclaimers are disposed of. The witness will proceed.”
He continued: “The Shakespeare manuscript is a fake. The whole thing with Amelia Bassano Lanier is true, and that guy—what’s his name, Hudson?—he’s done all the research, he’s legit. But the manuscript that was found, that’s bogus. A forger working for MI6 put it together. They felt that having concrete proof would blow everyone out of the water.”
“Speaking of blowing things up, the bombing at Turner’s—”
“Staged, all to deflect attention.”
“They blew apart a room, destroyed artwork, and brought me to London all to create a diversion?”
DeSantos grinned. “Exactly. Now you’re getting it.”
“
You’re
gonna get it in a minute. I really
was
used.”
“Like I said, I’m just the messenger. And you know the saying. You’re not supposed to blame the messenger.”
“No. You’re supposed to kill him.”
“I don’t think that’s how the saying goes.”
“Move on.”
“Right. So the plan was to have this groundbreaking manuscript ‘discovered,’ get the public whipped into a frenzy over the stripping of a British icon, and then bam!—a bomb tries to destroy it, giving the story new life and stirring things up again.”
“And they bring me in, why?”
DeSantos squinted, as if it was plainly obvious. “Because you’re high profile, and with you on the case, it lends a global reach to it. And because you’re a shit disturber. They knew you’d work the case aggressively, turning over rocks and—”
“Bringing even more attention to it.”
“Right again. And thanks to all the attention from movies and TV shows, you profilers are like rock stars.”
“Go on.”
“More importantly, you being on the case would give me an excuse to be there. We know each other, we’re friends, and I get close to Gavin Paxton, first to assess, and then to…find out where he’s got the chemical weapons. Rudenko doesn’t freak and disappear into the wind. We get the ricin and stuff, no one knows anything about anything—except for a bombing intended to destroy a controversial Shakespearean manuscript—and there’s no panic. And there’s no terrorist attack.”
“So that Embankment Underground station bombing was unrelated. Opportunistic.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So who set the bomb that blew up Turner’s gallery?”
DeSantos reached for his beer—but Vail grabbed his wrist.
“Look, I’m risking a lot telling you what I’m telling you. You wanted trust? I’m trusting you with everything here—my career, potentially my life. Don’t make me sorry.”
Vail released her grip on his arm. “So am I supposed to assume that whoever did the bombing and cooked up this plot is also the one who had me kidnapped?”
“Put two and two together. You were getting too close, zeroing in on Paxton. They didn’t believe you’d make a connection between the bombing and Paxton, because there wasn’t any. But what they didn’t figure on is your sixth sense in sniffing out offenders. You zeroed in the guy, but for the wrong reasons.”
“So they had to stop me.”
“They warned me to rein you in or they’d take matters in their own hands. I tried to warn you off, at lunch. I told you to stay away from Paxton.”
“Don’t you know that telling me ‘no,’ or not to do something, is like waving a red flag in my face?”
“What am I supposed to do, tell you, ‘Go for it’?”
“At that point, there’s nothing you can do. Best not to bring me into a case like this to begin with, I guess. Actually, I have no problem with working a case like this—as long as you read me into it fully, not use me like a dirty rag.”
“I told them that. But I don’t get paid the big bucks to make those decisions.”
Vail leaned back. “Big bucks. Knox was in on this?”
DeSantos flung both hands up. “Whoa. I didn’t say that.”
“Son of a bitch.” She thought a moment, then said, “Am I right?”
“Kinda sorta. Not really.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I can’t tell you one way or the other. But this isn’t as simple as you think it is.”
“I don’t think it’s simple at all.”
DeSantos sighed. “Karen. This is a black op. Total deniability. I get caught, I’m not working for the CIA or the Department of Defense—I’m not working for the US government. And I sure as hell ain’t working for the British government.”
“Why was I kidnapped?”
“They thought the Stonehenge murder would slow you down enough for me to complete my mission. It didn’t. You were on your way to question Paxton, and they freaked. The dungeon op was probably thrown together at the last minute. The idea, I’m sure, was to scare the shit out of you. So much so that you’d be on the next plane out of Heathrow back to DC, to kiss your son and hug your boyfriend.”
“Do you see me on the next plane?”
“I didn’t say that was my plan, I said it was theirs. I know that Karen Vail doesn’t run from things. But the British don’t really listen to me. I tell them shit, they say, ‘Thank-you very much. Very helpful.’ But in fact, they’re really saying, ‘Get out of our way, you stupid asshole.’”
Vail sat there, fighting anger, trying to sort it out. “So now what?”
“Now you know why it’s imperative that you leave Paxton alone. Hands off—completely.”
“I can’t see any reason for me to stay in England.”
“Wrong,” DeSantos said. “If you leave now, Rudenko may sense that something’s up. That’s why they didn’t want to have the Legat pull you out. They were afraid it’d spook him. But they were out of options, so they fed the Legat some bullshit story without exposing my op. Apparently, that didn’t work, either.”
“Montero did text me,” she said. “He wanted me to report to him immediately. I thought it was because I was ignoring his phone calls.”
“They finally realized that you’re like a pit bull locked onto a piece of meat. You can’t make him let go.”
“Thanks for comparing me to a dog. A male dog, at that.” She shook her head. “So now what?”
“You have to ‘carry on,’ as they say in the UK.”
“No.”
“No? Karen, consider what’s at stake. Put your ego aside and look at the objectives of this mission.”
“I feel used.” She touched a bruise on her face. “And I definitely feel abused.”
“They hurt your feelings, I get it. But this is bigger than you. It’s bigger than me. Tens of thousands of lives are at stake. Shit, maybe hundreds of thousands. I don’t know the number, but it’s a lot. Does it really matter? Those people, innocent people, are counting on us to do our jobs to keep them safe.”
Vail sighed deeply. “Of course I’ll stay. You knew that. You knew I couldn’t say no.”
“And you’ll stay away from Paxton.”
“How about this: since you’re already using me, why not use me to the fullest? I can get stuff from him.”
DeSantos hesitated. “You’re an awesome profiler. But undercover work—no, check that—
dangerous
undercover work…I don’t know.”
“Hang on a second. How is it that you’ve known so much about my investigation?” Vail rose from her chair. “Damnit, you have someone on the inside. Hector, look at me.” He made eye contact. “Clive Reid.”
“Working with you is very difficult for me, Karen.”
“You run me in circles and you say that
I’m
difficult to work with?”
“I find it hard to say no to you. I find it even harder to lie to you. Regarding Inspector Reid, let’s just say that I can’t confirm or deny.”
That’s confirmation enough for me.
“So I have an answer to my own question of what we should do now.”
“I’m not sure I want to hear it.”
“We should have a look around Paxton’s flat.”
DeSantos chuckled. “Thanks, but it’s too risky. He could have watchers, if not surveillance cameras inside his apartment. We did what we could to poke around, but it wasn’t anything exciting—or effective. We even went into his neighbor’s and drilled through the wall and used fiber optics to get a look inside, but because it’s an old building with plaster walls, we were limited in what we could do. Looked like he had a couple of cameras, but it was impossible to be sure.”
“So we pose as gas company inspectors—or whatever they have here. And we cut his power in case he has cameras.”
DeSantos tilted his head and considered her idea. “Could work.”
“Do you have people who can do that?”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Anyone we need to worry about?”
“He’s got a place in Soho, central London. Lives alone, no dogs.”
“We should have Reid confirm that Paxton’s at the gallery so he doesn’t walk in on us. Or you could go to the gallery and talk Paxton up about that Fregosi painting some more.”
DeSantos’s face broadened with a wide grain. “That was good, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t think you knew anything about art history.”
“I didn’t. I studied for like three days to be able to pull that off.”
“You sold it well. So what about my plan?”
DeSantos drained his beer, then set the empty on the desk. “Still risky, but I don’t have anything better. You and I will go in. Reid will keep Paxton busy.” He stopped, then said, “I just confirmed Reid’s my guy, didn’t I?”
She grinned. “Already figured it out.”