Last Chance to Die

by Noah Boyd

  “Probably the smartest thing you could do right now is be worried.”

  “Well, bricklayer, I’m so worried that I’m going to sleep. You probably should, too.”

  Vail picked up one of the pillows from the bed. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll stretch out on the couch and see if I can’t nod off as soon as I call John.”

  A few hours later, Kate walked into the living room, her face still full of sleep. “Tell me it’s New Year’s morning and I just had a bad dream.”

  Vail sat up on the couch. “I don’t suppose you dreamed about who would do this to you.”

  “Nothing. As far as the CIA people at Langley, I was kind of a ghost. Float in, do a little paperwork, say hello to a few people, and float out.”

  “You’ve got the Russians on you. You’re a threat to somebody. I know you supervised security work in Detroit, but that was the Middle East, right?”

  “Right.”

  “When was the last time you worked the Russians?”

  “Never. When I rotated out of Detroit, I went to OPR for a year, and then I was a unit chief in the Counterintelligence Division, but it was an administrative position, the liaison with the CIA. I had a desk at Langley, but it wasn’t like I was there sixty hours a week.”

  “Where else were you assigned?”

  “After my CIA stint, which was about a year and a half, I got tapped to go to New York as an ASAC. But just before I was to leave, the director called me in and told me he wanted me to be the deputy AD in the general criminal division. So I haven’t been in counterintelligence for almost two years. And then it had nothing to do with the Russians.”

  Vail was silent, staring back at her without seeing her. He was quiet longer than usual. “Did you handle any assets when you were there?”

  “No, I haven’t seen an informant since I was a street agent,” she said.

  Vail just shook his head.

  There was a knock at the door, and then they heard a key in the lock. Bursaw walked in, carrying a large pizza box.

  “How’s the manhunt going?” Vail asked.

  “Not a word about it at WFO and nothing on the news. I went by the off-site, and there are a couple of guys sitting on it. They look like marshals.”

  Vail said to Kate, “Then they’re on your apartment, too.”

  Bursaw opened the box and pulled off a piece of pizza. “So what’s the plan?”

  Vail pulled off a slice and handed it with a napkin to Kate. “I wish I knew.”

  A few minutes later, there was another knock at the door, which caused everyone to stop talking. Vail peered out the peephole. It was John Kalix. He came in carrying an oversize briefcase. “I think I found something,” he said.

  Kate stood up and hugged him. “Thanks for everything, John, except for maybe keeping the big galoot here alive.”

  “I’m kind of new at all this, but I’ll bear that in mind next time.”

  “What’s going on at headquarters?” Vail asked.

  “I wish you could have seen that AUSA when he came storming into my office. He was making all kinds of threats until I asked him, with as incredulous a tone as possible, why his boss would accept a lawyer’s identity over the telephone. He said the entire hoax was perpetrated by FBI agents in the FBI building and that he was going to get to the bottom of it. Needless to say, he didn’t ask for any Bureau manpower to hunt down the wily Katherine Bannon. My sources tell me he has two two-man teams of marshals looking for you, and that’s all.”

  “As long as Luke isn’t identified as part of this, we should be safe here,” Vail said. “You said you found something.”

  Kalix took a portable DVD player out of his case. “While I was sitting around trying to look nonchalant after you and Kate disappeared, I got an idea. I started thinking about the spy dust that’s part of the evidence against Kate. Since we know she’s innocent, it means that the Russians must have collected it when we used it on that SVR intelligence officer, Nikolai Gulin. And maybe it isn’t a coincidence that he’s also the one in the photo with Kate. So I ran him through everything we have. Remember I told you that he was very elusive, but that we did have photos and videos of him taken during surveillances a couple of years ago? When I reviewed everything, I found this. It was taken at the Fredricksburg Antique Mall, which is far away enough from Washington that it was a good spot for a meeting or a drop. Anyone ever been there?”

  Kate said, “I was there once . . . I don’t know . . . a couple of years ago, visiting a girlfriend of mine who had just moved to Fredricksburg from Colorado. It’s kind of a fun place. They had some interesting stuff.”

  “Then you know people don’t go there without some interest in antiques, even if it’s casual. According to the surveillance log, Gulin never went into one shop or even looked in a window. It is, however, a place where it’s not easy to follow someone, which is probably why he chose it. As I said before, we had information that he was working an FBI agent. In this video it looks like he could be meeting with someone, but we couldn’t be sure because we lost him within minutes of this being shot. There was never any real effort to identify the second individual.”

  “Why not?” Kate asked.

  “This doesn’t leave the room.” He looked at each of them to make sure they understood. “Langston reviewed the matter, watched the video, and made the decision, almost arbitrarily, that the second individual had nothing to do with Gulin.” Kalix set the player down in front of Kate and pushed the Play button.

  Everyone crowded in behind her and watched. The secreted camera bounced as it followed the Russian. Finally the target stopped and turned around. Kalix hit Pause. “That’s Gulin,” he said. “Ever seen him before, Kate?”

  She studied the image for a moment. “Not that I remember.”

  “Now watch when he stops in front of that bench.” Kalix hit Play once more. Gulin’s back was again to the camera, and a man walked up next to him, his back also to the camera. Then the man turned around, and they could see his profile. Kalix reached over Kate’s shoulder and hit Pause. “What do you think, Kate? Do you recognize him?”

  She leaned forward. “It does look like Rellick. Maybe if I saw him move around a little more.”

  Kalix hit Play again. The individual turned his back to the camera and appeared to be discreetly talking to Gulin. Then he casually looked to his right and abruptly turned to his left. He lowered his head and said something brief. For an instant the camera jerkily panned over to the right, trying to film whatever it was that had caught his attention. “I think it is him,” she said. Both men on the screen then separated and walked off in different directions.

  Kalix hit the Stop button. “I spent an hour looking at his photo and then the at video. It’s hard to tell if you don’t know the person, but it looked like a match to me.”

  Kate replayed the video a couple more times. “I’m almost positive that’s him,” she said. “Does this mean I’ll be cleared?”

  “It would be better if we could be positive it’s him. What do you think, Steve?”

  Vail didn’t answer but instead reached over and backed up the DVD. Then he pressed the Slow Motion button. When the camera panned over to what had distracted the individual believed to be Rellick, Vail hit Pause. Kate gasped. “That’s Jennifer. And me.” The woman she had identified as the friend she’d been at the mall with was near the edge of the frame, and half of Kate was next to her. They’d been all but invisible when the video was run at normal speed. “He must have seen me, and that’s what spooked him.”

  “Then all this was to protect Rellick,” Kalix said. “He thought you could put him with his Russian handler.” He laughed. “All this to get rid of you, and you never even saw him. He must be a very good source for them to go through all this to protect him.”

  “But why now?” Kate asked. “That was a couple of years ago.”

  Vail said, “Maybe it was your momentary appointment to Counterintelligence AD. Even though you turned it down, the
y probably figured it could happen again at any time.”

  Bursaw said, “I hate to be the bearer of grim reality, but we’ve still got to prove that Kate is innocent. We can’t go to the prosecutor, because Kate is in escaped status, Steve is wanted, and if I show my face, they’ll know who the colored guy was. Even if you took this back to the Bureau and got everybody on board, John, wouldn’t surveillance and wiretaps take months or longer?”

  Vail said, “Luke’s right. You’re the only one with any mobility, John. Can you go back to your CIA contact and give him what we’ve found so far and let them run with it?”

  “I can, but they’re going to do the same surveillance and wiretaps that the Bureau would do. And don’t forget it’s their agency, so they’re not going to be in any hurry to prove that one of their own has gone over. Eventually, because there’s no hard evidence, it could get swept under the rug. In the meantime Kate is still wanted.”

  Vail said, “We have one weapon we’re ignoring—the petty jealousies between the Bureau and the CIA. When is Langston due back?”

  Kalix said, “He and the director should be returning tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Go tell your contact that you’re repaying him for his information and the photos. Give him everything. But tell him that the director and your boss are due back the day after tomorrow, and then you’ve got to give it to them. Tell him he’s got two days to make a move against Rellick if he doesn’t want the FBI to make the arrest.”

  “That just might work. They would do anything to prevent that embarrassment,” Kalix said. He unplugged the DVD player and put it in his case. “I’ll give you a call as soon as I talk to him.”

  Bursaw said, “I’ll walk you out, John. I want to take a quick stroll around the neighborhood and make sure our friends from the Marshals Service aren’t watching us.”

  After they left, Kate asked Vail, “How’d you see Jennifer and me on that DVD?”

  “As good-looking as she is, how do you not see her? To tell the truth, I didn’t even notice you.”

  Kate laughed. “Then how did you know it was Jennifer? You’ve never met her.”

  “Like I said, I just saw a pretty girl and wanted to see more of her.”

  “She’s a very good friend, but I’ve got to tell you, she’s very particular about who she dates. White-collar only, so reel it in, bricklayer.”

  “I’ll bet you used to say the same thing.”

  “Okay, we’ll go with ‘used to.’ ”

  24

  The phone rang. Bursaw picked it up and pushed the Speaker button. “Go ahead, John. We’re all here.”

  “My guy went for it. In two months Rellick is being posted to a foreign assignment. He wouldn’t say exactly where, but it sounded like someplace critical. They’re about to start a reinvestigation of him, including a polygraph, which is routine with any sensitive assignment. It may be another reason he’s still worried about Kate. Anyway, they’re going to ambush him with the polygraph first thing tomorrow morning, making some excuse about an upcoming shortage of polygraphers that necessitates it being done now. Once they get him strapped in, it’ll be all ahead full on the video and Gulin. That, along with the usual questions about contacts with foreign nationals, accepting money, et cetera, should blow the needles off the box.”

  “Are you going to be there?”

  “Yes. I told him I’d like to watch, just out of curiosity, but I think my pal suspects it’s because I want to make sure that they’re pushing it. Otherwise we’d have to take over.”

  “We’ll wait to hear from you.”

  Vail disconnected the line. “Let’s hope he breaks.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” Kate asked.

  “I’m turning you in for the reward.”

  “In that case you should take me to dinner tonight. You know, the condemned, a hearty meal and all.”

  Bursaw said, “There’s a couple of decent restaurants within walking distance.” They both looked at him as if they’d forgotten he was there. “No, no, I’m not inviting myself.”

  “Please come, Luke,” Vail said with mock insincerity.

  He laughed. “Just for that, I should go along. But I have a life of my own to screw up.” He got up and slipped on his topcoat. “I’ll be by first thing in the morning—unless there’s a tie on the doorknob or U.S. Marshals crime-scene tape across the jamb.”

  Dusk added to their anonymity as Kate and Vail strolled down M Street, ignoring the falling temperature. She had ahold of his arm and pulled herself closer with each sharp gust of wind. “Sure it’s not too cold to walk?” he asked.

  “After three days in a cell, it feels good.” They were early for their dinner reservation and turned into a brick courtyard that housed several small shops and art galleries to window-gaze. One of them displayed several sculptures and ceramic works. “Anything you like?” she asked idly.

  She was wearing Luke’s sister’s navy camel-hair coat. There was something about the color that made her hair and skin luminous. Her long, dark lashes contrasted her flashing blue eyes perfectly. He took a half step back to look her over. “As a matter of fact . . . there is.”

  He continued to stare at her until she bumped her hip into his in amused protest. “I was referring to the items on the other side of the glass.”

  A series of sculptures were displayed, some metal, some bronze and clay. There was even one in wax of a heavy-bodied figure lying on its side in a catatonic curl. A series of semicollapsed ceramic containers caught his attention. They leaned at different angles and, although the same general shape, were different in size. Vail appraised all of them. “These people are legitimate artists.”

  “I don’t get it. Why do you think this stuff is good and yours isn’t? I know I’ve only seen two of your sculptures, but they were at least as good as these.”

  He waved his hand across the window respectfully. “This isn’t about technical ability. There’s an instinct involved in creating something like this, an instinct that even they don’t understand. They are real artists because they have to let loose on the world what they create. The belief in themselves to say, ‘This is my art, and if you don’t like it, I don’t really care. Here it is anyway. I’d almost rather that you didn’t buy it. It’s what separates me from people like you.’ ”

  “ ‘People like you’? You actually mean you.”

  “That’s right, people like me, because I can’t put it out there for anyone to judge.”

  “Because they might not like it?”

  “Everything I do is carefully orchestrated so people aren’t allowed to examine me. That’s why I sneaked out of that bank robbery, and that’s why no one except you has ever seen my sculptures.”

  “So what you’re really saying is that it’s not just your art, but you’re not willing to put any part of your life out there to examine.”

  “That’s my choice, yes.”

  “Why would you sculpt if you didn’t want anyone to see it?”

  “It’s something I want to be good at.”

  “And how will you decide when you’re good enough?”

  “I guess I’ll know.”

  Kate stared back through the window, carefully measuring what she was about to say. “Now I know why you like being a bricklayer.”

  “This should be good.”

  “All brick walls look the same. As long as they’re level and straight, they look like every other wall in the world. No creativity, no individuality, and—apparently most important—no judgment.”

  Vail stared at the objects in the window for a while longer, ignoring the icy wind. Kate stood huddled against him. The expression on his face told her she’d stirred something that had been deeply buried. She waited for one of their arguments to begin.

  “On my fourteenth birthday, my father announced to me that he was going to start teaching me to lay brick. I had worked the summers and weekends for years as his laborer, probably since I was ten or eleven. Naturally I was excited to finally
learn. I’d watched him for years, envious of his skill. Something a boy does no matter what kind of father he has. That day we were building a chimney, and he let me lay the last three feet of it. When I was done, I thought it looked pretty good, at least for a first try. He sent me down to start cleaning up. Fifteen minutes later he came down without saying a word. The next day I was surprised when we went back to the same job. He put up the ladder and told me to go up on the roof. When I got there, the entire top of the chimney I’d built had been torn down, the bricks scattered all around it. He told me that I’d done a lousy job and that this was the only way I’d learn. He then had me go down and mix the mortar, bring it up, and watch him rebuild it.”

  “That’s awful. But at least you learned how to do it, right?”

  Vail laughed with a tinge of anger, not at her but at what he was about to recall. “This wasn’t some apprenticeship hazing or poor parenting technique, this was him getting even.”

  “Even for what?”

  “Who knows? For having to raise me by himself. I don’t know. It seemed as if his whole life was about getting even with everyone. That’s who he was.”

  “That happened a long time ago.”

  Vail laughed again, and this time it had an edge to it that told her she was being naïve. “If that had happened once, it would probably be the kind of story you’d laugh at during a Thanksgiving meal, but every time I finished something after that, he would send me to clean up while he stayed behind. I never knew until the next morning whether he’d torn it down or not. Sometimes I wouldn’t sleep, wondering if I had pleased my father, which is very important to a fourteen-year-old, especially if there was no one else around. He did it the rest of the summer. If we stopped somewhere for lunch and he started drinking whiskey, I didn’t have to wonder—tearing it down would be automatic.”

  Kate understood now why Vail’s approach to work was so intense, why it crowded out everything else. She thought about when she’d recruited him on that Chicago rooftop to help with the Pentad case six months earlier. After she made her appeal, he worked almost in a rage. She thought it was because of what she’d said, but now she wondered if it wasn’t because she was invading his privacy, at a time when he held at bay the demons his father had left behind. A feat that became impossible when someone else might be able to detect the tiniest flaw. It had to be why he never stopped working on a case, even after it was solved. “Have you ever thought about confronting him and showing him what you’ve accomplished?”