“Why?” Bessolo asked, deciding to be more difficult.
“You’ll see why,” Roarke said, forcing a smile. “Pretty please.”
Bessolo stormed past Roarke while Roarke remained in the doorway between the two rooms. The two FBI men talked to each other. Two minutes later, Bessolo was back with printouts.
“Here you go, Sherlock.”
“Thank you,” Roarke said, not giving into the comment.
Roarke read the header of the first e-mail. “Okay,” he simply said. He put it behind the next sheet and continued to scan the remaining pages, one after another. It took all of 15 seconds.
He handed them back to Bessolo with an interesting upturned grin.
“So you’re a fucking speed reader. I’m impressed.”
“No. I saw what I was looking for.”
“Pray tell, what was that?”
“Look at the header.”
“Which one?”
“Take your pick.”
Bessolo held up the first page. It didn’t look any different than the last time he’d read it.
“And the next one.” Bessolo complied.
“And the rest.”
The FBI agent read them all. If there was anything specific he was supposed to catch he failed to recognize it.
“Okay. I give up. What magical thing have I missed?”
“Nothing on the pages. It all looks like she sent them out in the middle of the night.”
Bessolo checked the time stamps on the header. 3:11 A.M., 2:24 A.M., 4:56 A.M.
“Yeah, so?”
“So, what time is it now?”
Bessolo was becoming more irritated, but he looked at his watch. “It’s two-fucking-twenty in the middle of the fucking afternoon.”
“P.M.?” Roarke asked.
“P-fucking-M,” Bessolo shot back.
Roarke leaned around Bessolo and pointed to the computer in the living room. “Really? Are you sure?”
Chapter 18
Staritsa, Russia
Aleksandr Dubroff nursed his bottle of vodka for over an hour.
At this time of night, alone, as he had been for 24 years, he worked on another hobby. When he was 83, he bought himself a computer. Two years later, he was proficient at surfing—as the Americans called it—the Net. If only the phone lines were more reliable in his dacha. Better yet, he wondered, when will Russia step into the 21st century and be wired with high-speed lines like the West, Japan, South Korea, and even the smallest European villages?
“This will come,” government spokesmen often said. Propaganda, he said to himself. Time had really not changed Russia.
So, almost every night, his service was interrupted. Dubroff learned to quickly save files and pour through them, waiting for the intermittent service to return. He was amazed at what he found. Decades-old Soviet secrets now there for everyone to see in Times New Roman English text. There were complete accounts of Russian space disasters, exact figures on the industrial and agricultural failures of the Soviet Union, hundreds of websites devoted to the most degrading pornography, and more sites that outed him as a KGB agent.
He checked accounts that detailed means that he used to extract information from informants, enemies of the State, and traitors to the Party. He was amazed what people uncovered. As Dubroff read on, he remembered each interrogation, each face, each admission. Throughout his service he had been proud of his accomplishments, but now, reading the stories, he appeared to be a psychotic torturer: a war criminal. How could this be? These were not the appalling, inhumane acts chronicled in these pages. It was my duty to get information. That was all. But that was not all. Dubroff knew it.
Every night he searched for new references. Fortunately, no reporters had searched hard enough to actually find him. That would be difficult. His telephone was unlisted. He never received a phone or electrical bill. They were paid for life through his pension. The little mail that he got came to a postal box, and his pension checks were issued by first initial only, then last name. Dubroff hadn’t talked to anyone in government for years. I’m one of the walking dead. A remnant of the old guard. Probably lost to them all.
Dubroff was quite right to assume he was lost to humans. But he was not lost to the system. He was not lost to SORM.
Washington, D.C.
“Let’s take a walk,” Roarke said, after Bessolo returned from his second visit to Meyerson’s computer.
The FBI field supervisor didn’t object, but he was confused: confused enough to want to learn what Roarke was thinking. The two men went downstairs and out the front door without talking.
“Where to?” Bessolo asked.
Roarke motioned to the left. Once clear of the building, the police tape, and anyone who might have closely observed them, Bessolo spoke up. “Okay. You better take me through this. So the clock’s wrong on the computer. I got that much. What’s the big deal? I can’t get my damned TWO to work.”
“It’s not just wrong. It’s exactly wrong. By twelve hours. A.M. for P.M.”
“So?”
“So the last e-mail was what? Four fifty-six A.M.?”
“Yeah,” the FBI agent in charge replied.
“A.M., like in the morning.”
“Right.”
“The next day she left for L.A. on Air Force One.”
“Yes,” Bessolo said, sliding his answer across three syllables.
“And presuming the clock was right, she sent it out at 4:56 A.M., why was it 2:15 A.M. when we just looked at the time?” Roarke stopped walking. Bessolo automatically did the same.
“I don’t know.”
“I do.” Roarke took a half a step forward and lowered his voice. “She never sent out an e-mail at 4:56 A.M.”
“Of course she did.”
“She didn’t send one out then, and I’ll bet you she didn’t send out any of the others, either. Someone else did. Someone else came into her apartment during the day, reset the clock on the computer to make it look like it was in the middle of the night, and then hit send.”
“You’re lull of shit, Roarke.”
Roarke moved closer. “Who knows, maybe the clock got adjusted back correctly every time except for the last. Something happened. The person got spooked. Maybe he got tipped off she was coming home early. I’d want to check that if I were you. Maybe he just fucked up.”
“And maybe you should realize we’ve uncovered a stinking spy cell.”
“Like someone wants you to think!” Roarke shot back. “Look, Roy,” he said without an ounce of gentility. “It’s a simple thing, but it makes sense. The girl was killed, not because someone was trying to rape her. There was never a rape. It wasn’t dark yet. She was killed. The path led you right to her apartment, and you found what you were supposed to find.”
For once, Bessolo didn’t lob back a quick and asinine retort.
Roarke continued. “And the story broke. I take it nobody on your team leaked it.”
Bessolo delivered his conclusive answer through an ice-cold stare.
“Another part of the plan. It’s all choreographed.”
“But she did send classified information,” Bessolo maintained.
“Did she? You tell me if anything really worthwhile got out, or whether it’s old news, or a rewrite of a Popular Science article, or a grab from a Clancy novel. Like they say, it’s not my job. Why don’t you check it?”
Bessolo couldn’t argue the point any longer. Roarke was right. Something wasn’t adding up. “Across the street,” Bessolo stated. “Let’s get some coffee.”
They waited a moment for the traffic to open up, then jaywalked to a coffee shop. As they reached the curb, Bessolo stopped again. He had a knot in the pit of his stomach. “Assuming for half a second that your cockamamie theory is partially right, why go through all of this?”
“I don’t know. I’m not the political science major, but just off the top of my head?”
“That’ll do.”
“Embarrass the hell out of the president?” Then it came to him. “No, bigger than that.”
“What?” Bessolo asked.
“Complete an unfinished job. Undermine our relations with Israel and bring the administration down.”
They walked by a bank before coming to the coffee shop. It was a small mom-and-pop establishment that somehow carved out a loyal customer base in an otherwise-Starbucks world. Bessolo and Roarke both ordered black coffees. While they waited for their drinks, Bessolo scored a metal table outside the shop, diagonally across the street from Meyerson’s apartment building. Roarke brought over the cups and took the seat facing the storefront. They spoke softly.
“So, do I take it you’re willing to consider the possibility?” Roarke asked.
“You can assume anything you want. I just work with the evidence.”
“Never beyond the evidence, Bessolo? You never wonder about things? Come on, this is Washington. There are at least two reasons for every action.”
“Hard evidence, Roarke. Rock solid,” Bessolo replied.
Roarke looked away, surprised he was even trying to have a conversation. That’s when he noticed the bank a few feet away. He leaned to the left to get an unobstructed view, then shifted his glance to Meyerson’s building. Then he studied the front of the bank again.
“Excuse me for a second.”
Roarke stood up and walked to the front, stopping at the outdoor ATM. From there, he looked over his shoulder one more time. Right across the street.
“Bessolo!” he called. “I need you for a second.”
“Forget it. I’ll cover the coffee.” The FBI man figured Roarke had forgotten his ATM card. Then he grasped what the Secret Service agent had already realized. Shit. The ATM camera!
The New York Times
City Room
New York, New York
Michael O’Connell retrieved a message on his voicemail from an anonymous caller. The man described himself as someone who had special information regarding a story in The Washington Post. “It is 12:20 P.M. now. I will call back every ten minutes. Pick up on the first ring. I’ll hang up by the second. If by six calls you have not answered, I will take what I have to The Washington Post.”
“Oh, shit!” he cursed aloud, catching the time. 1:12. Sources were manipulative bastards, and this one seemed to have a special agenda. One more chance, he said to himself.
At 5:20 exactly, the reporter’s phone rang. O’Connell grabbed the headset, nearly knocking his phone over.
“O’Connell. Who is this?”
“Never mind. I have some new information.”
“What kind of information?”
“The kind that you like, Mr. O’Connell. Deeply troubling. About Israel.”
Washington, D.C.
Morgan Taylor wished he had done what he originally intended after the inauguration: retire to some secluded fishing hole. But in the moments following Lodge’s death, the man next in line to be president—Henry Lamden—asked him to stay. He appealed to Taylor’s sense of duty, arguing the country needed him. With the smell of gunfire still in the Capitol, Taylor agreed. Now he questioned the whole bloody decision.
Taylor hated babysitting the Senate. He hated being number two. He hated being viewed as a functionary. And he hated being a desk jockey. Ever since flying sorties off the deck of a nuclear carrier, he was used to being in control. Always. Until now.
So when Scott Roarke said he needed to see him immediately, he welcomed the excuse to skip out on the Senate.
Roarke had already phoned Katie to say he’d be at least two hours late. He still expected he’d make it for a late dinner. When she asked why, he cryptically offered, “Allergies. My nose is itching again.”
They had worked out a variety of codes between them. This was one of the important flags. I’m onto something.
“Boss,” Roarke said, barging into the vice president’s office as if it were his own, “I need to run something important by you.”
“The floor’s yours,” Taylor said. There was no offer of coffee.
“A little Q and A, boss.”
“Go,” Taylor said. He settled into another of his favorite chairs. This one, a 19th-century captain’s chair, which had belonged to Admiral Halsey when he served aboard the USS Enterprise. Roarke did the pacing for everybody this time.
“The killing of Mrs. Lodge, the act that launched Teddy Lodge’s bid for the White House. What was that called?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“How did reporters describe it?”
The vice president was not pleased with Roarke’s dialectic approach. “Just get to it, Scott.”
Roarke noted his objection. “The press called it a bungled assassination. Everyone thought the killer was out to get Lodge. They said it was bungled.”
“And?”
“Lynn Meyerson.”
“Yes?”
“Sexually assaulted. In broad daylight. In a public park. Below a jogging path. Maybe somebody broke it up, made a noise, shouted. But guess what?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “I don’t believe it. No one’s come forward to confirm it. And you’ve heard what they’re calling it?”
Roarke had his mentor’s undivided attention. Taylor thought the word as Roarke stated it. “Bungled!”
“Where are you going with this?” Roarke told him.
That Night
“So it was a busy day,” Katie began on their nightly phone call. “Very.” He couldn’t explain how busy. “Is the weekend out?” she asked.
“No, still planning on coming up. Seemed like you need a little TLC.” He was obliquely asking about her manner earlier on the telephone.
“Listen, I’ve got to feed the cat. Can we talk later?” Katie asked hurriedly.
“Sure,” Roarke said, aware of an undercurrent of tension. “Love you.”
“Love you more.”
Katie had no cat.
Seven minutes later, Roarke’s phone rang again.
“Hon,” Katie said over the noise of traffic.
Roarke heard the cars. “What’s wrong?”
“Well, probably nothing, but….”
“Where are you?”
“A phone booth at Cambridge and Charles.”
Roarke closed his eyes and pictured the spot. It was just outside of a drugstore, near the Longfellow Bridge.
“You called from a phone booth before, too. What’s the matter?”
“Scott, would I know if my phone was being tapped?”
“Tapped!” He suddenly bolted upright from his chair.
“Does it have a different sound?” she wondered.
“When did you notice?”
“Two days ago.”
Roarke mentally reran their conversations together. Two days ago? What the fuck did we talk about? Two days ago?
“Maybe I’m imagining things…”
He raised his hand to stop her, even though she couldn’t see him. “Hold it!” He quickly organized his thoughts. “Tomorrow, you’re going to get a flower delivery. The people will fuss all over you, and it’ll take a little time. You’ll invite them into your office. Casually close the door. They’re going to check the phones. They can do it very quickly. They’ll do the same at your home, so don’t alarm your apartment.”
Katie became more nervous. This was real. “I don’t know,” she said nervously.
“Everything will be fine. I promise. And you can keep the flowers. They’ll be from me.”
Roarke’s father used to joke that his boy was like a salmon—always forcing himself through the surging current. That current took on many forms.
As a kid, Roarke stood up to the gangs in his neighborhood. Having a black belt in Tae Kwon Do from Master Jun Chong worked in his favor.
Years later, his Special Forces training made him lethal. Anyone who didn’t get out of his way never got
a second chance.
Now, Roarke’s instincts were taking him upstream again, into more troubled waters.
Roarke called his friend Shannon Davis, who quickly and easily arranged for an FBI team, disguised as florists, to go in and sweep Katie’s office. When they finished there, they’d do the same thing at her apartment.
Assuming that she was right and her phone was tapped, Roarke had three immediate concerns: Who? Why? And what did they expect to find?
Chapter 19
Maluku, Indonesia
Friday, 22 June
Nutmeg and cloves. The exotic spices could have been the Holy Grail, considering what nations went through to locate their source.
Indian, Javan, and Arab traders introduced the spices to Medieval Europe. They were valued for more than merely the flavors they added to food. The cloves, called cegkeh in Indonesian, are the pungent-scented, pale-green flower buds of the syzigium aromaticum tree. Picked and left to dry to a dark brown, their chemical properties preserve meat. Therein lay its real value. As a result, in an age long before refrigeration, every major seafaring nation of Europe sought to locate the natural growing grounds and control the market.
The quest sent Columbus in search of the fabled Spice Islands. But, of course, he ended up in the New World. The Portuguese, credited as the first actual Europeans to set foot on the South Pacific islands, couldn’t hold onto their spoils. Other sailors, under the flag of Spain, moved in. They introduced Christianity and terror. In 1861, Holland took control, establishing the United East Indies Company. The Dutch mercilessly ruled the islands, killing the indigenous people, leveling plantations where natives rebelled, and enslaving those they kept alive. The Dutch subsequently drove out foreign rivals, thus delivering huge profits home in their monopolistic, dictatorial exploitation of the Spice Islands.
The Dutch strongly believed they had made a lasting conquest. However, years of warfare, starvation, and depopulation accompanied the autocratic Dutch rule. Their dominion continued until they presided over most of what eventually became the Republic of Indonesia. But it was the marketplace that unseated Holland’s ruthless monopoly of the Spice Islands, not a coup. Gradually, smugglers managed to ship the islands’ seeds overseas. In time, the world no longer needed to rely on Banda, Ternate, Ambon, and Maluku for the answer to food preservation. They could grow the spices closer to home.
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