"She'll be waiting for you," said Boas. "Go easy on her. She did what she thought was right."
"What she thought was right. That's the problem. She's a loose cannon."
"Perhaps what you need... a loose cannon."
"I've tried that route before with her boyfriend."
"Ahhh, Swisher... yes... too bad."
"She's only here to avenge him."
"And she blames you?"
"Lot of that going around."
"You can't take so much on yourself, Donna."
She looked back out at the ocean, seeing whitecaps and swells in the distance beyond. Life was getting too large and overpowering, like the ocean, she thought. But she said, "You know anyone else who's going to take it on? Even Washington has learned there's no one else, that I know more about Ovierto than anyone."
"You knew about Rosenthaler."
"Yes, a friend of my father's, and a man who knew Ovierto before Ovierto went mad."
"Are you saying he is getting closer to you?"
"If my father were alive, I'd guess him to be Ovierto's next victim."
"But since he is dead? What is the O's next move?"
"I don't know. He'll find another way to humiliate me. Although I can't think of much that is more humiliating than drilling Rosenthaler six times."
"He fired first. It was pitch in there. You did what anyone would do."
"Exactly... exactly on schedule, as we dance on Ovierto's bloody puppet strings. The evil bastard. What's his next move? Since he believes Hogarth dead... who will it now take to sate his appetite?"
CHAPTER NINETEEN
When Robyn Muro returned to the Hilton head-quarters of the FBI, she made out a report and saw that it was filed via the computers, stating that Dr. Hogarth and her child had died in the fiery car and that she had barely escaped with her own life. In the mean-time, Dr. Hogarth and the girl were on their way to friends in Vermont. The computer cover story, Robyn guessed, would work, because like Thorpe, Ovierto had begun to trust computers more than he did people. Of course an FBI forensics team was out at the site of the charred car by now, and so Robyn had to convince Thorpe of the strength of her plan.
To judge by the field reports coming in, somehow Ovierto was gleaning information. He had somehow tapped into the system; add hacking to his list of crimes. He could not ever be underestimated.
Everyone at HQ was as frightened as cats, waiting for Donna Thorpe to return. She had come to a similar conclusion about Ovierto's infiltration of the computer system they were using since she'd ordered no reports in or out until her return from wherever it was she had gone.
Now Thorpe and Boas burst in, Thorpe coming straight for Robyn, her anger unguarded. "You had no right to endanger Hogarth in the manner you did! What do you think we're running here, a summer camp? So you can showcase your skill with a car and a gun? This is a team effort, Muro, and you'd better learn that from this moment on!"
"Just hold on a goddamned minute!"
"No, you hold on! Inside, in the private room, now!"
Boas made an apologetic frown behind Thorpe. Robyn followed her into her private chambers.
"All right, where's Hogarth?"
"She and the child are safe."
"Don't hold out on me, Muro. Where are they?"
"En route to Vermont."
"How?"
"Greyhound bus to L.A. They'll fly from there."
Thorpe seemed to soften. "You did well pulling her out of harm's way at the winery."
"What the hell happened out there?"
"Place was set to blow. Don't know how..."
"Think I do.”
“Oh?"
"Seems there was some friction between the husband and wife. Anyway, if Ovierto got to him—"
"But he saw Hogarth outside when he detonated the house."
"He likes his fun and games strung out. You know that better than anyone."
"So he does. He left us with a few more presents out at the docks."
"Huh?"
She explained to Robyn what had occurred at the old ship, and how she had mistaken Rosenthaler for Ovierto. "Human calling card," she said, finishing. "Now, speaking of calling cards, where's Oliguerri's notes?"
"Only if we work together, Thorpe."
"What the hell do you call what we're doing?"
"As equals."
"Equals?"
"I don't come under your FBI dictates."
"Shhhhhit, you Chicago cops... all alike, male or female..."
"That's right."
"All right... we work together on an even footing until we catch this creep."
"I have your word on that?"
"Done."
"See, I know your father was behind Pythagoras from the beginning, and that it's just possible that Dr. Maurice Ovierto knows that, too, and—"
"How did you come by that ridiculous—"
"Senator Thorpe had great ambitions... like his daughter."
"You don't know what you're talking about. My father's career involved improving the National Debt, housing for every American, feeding the poverty- stricken. He had nothing to do with Pythagoras."
"Hogarth confided in me. The truth now."
Thorpe's mouth fell open. "Hogarth told you this... this nonsense?"
Robyn saw that she was in a mild state of shock, that she hadn't known that her father was involved from the beginning.
"Rosenthaler..."
"What about Rosenthaler?" asked Robyn, probing.
"He's the man I killed on the ship. Ovierto set him up to be gunned down by me."
"Donna, it's been personal with Ovierto from the be-ginning."
"Why... how did I miss it?"
"Too close to the trees? What difference does it make. Now we know, now perhaps we can do some-thing differently."
"As a child, I recall having met Dr. Rosenthaler. I was... had to be seventeen. He and my father had long, serious talks."
"Rosenthaler was kidnapped by Ovierto, I understand, and driven into his own madness?"
"Yes... some years ago. Ovierto thought he could get what he wanted from Rosenthaler. He got other names... names of people now all dead."
"We've got to take control of the situation now."
"We begin by taking control of Oliguerri's notes."
"Exactly."
"Give him what he wants... except we doctor them."
"Can you get us an expert on the Ibo language? It will have to look authentic."
"Yes, I can arrange it."
"Then let's get to work on it. Here's the document taken from Oliguerri's office."
She watched as Robyn pulled it from her bra and flattened it out on the table between them. "Dr. Hogarth looked it over closely. She says it is the formula, and that with it, Pythagoras can go into effect. Without it, no."
She picked it up, stared at it and seemed to take in even the aroma of the document, breathing deeply. "If this had fallen into Ovierto's hands, I shudder to think-"
"He never got near it. Bastard almost charbroiled it along with me. By the way, I put two bullets in his plane. You may want to have your people go to work on any planes getting their tails patched. A little old- fashioned police work might turn up his plane, and if we could ground the creep—"
"Good idea... and good work, Robyn. Maybe we ought to look into inducting you into the agency."
"Not a chance."
"We'll see."
Robyn changed the subject. "What do you think his next move will be?"
"He's already made it."
"The ship?'
"Prior to that, he contacted us."
"Contacted you how? Don't tell me, via computer?"
"Yes, as a matter-of-fact."
"Demanding Pythagoras or what?"
"Or there'll be more deaths."
"So, we create a package for him and then what?"
"We wait for his next communication, make the drop, and hope we can somehow track him."
"Put a ho
ning device in the package? It'd never work with him. He'd find it in a second and stick it on a dog."
"Something new we've developed. It's so thin that it's stitched into the bag and looks and feels like the cloth. We'll put a standard bug in, but the frequency will be different."
"Sounds good... good."
"Only hope he contacts us before he does anymore devastation."
"Have you any idea who he'd go after next?"
"Several possibilities. Boas and I had thought he was getting personal with Rosenthaler. I had known the man."
"I see."
"My family's in Nebraska," she said weakly, obviously worried.
"Maybe it's best to move them. But if you do so, use Western Union. It's safer."
"I'll do that."
"What about your mother?"
"Buried alongside father."
"In-laws?"
"Both gone."
"Then I'd just see to your immediate family... get them to high ground."
"Yes, thank you. My Jim, and the kids, about all I have aside from this..."
"Understood... really. What other targets?"
She had a list of some four high-powered Pythagoras project scientists who remained alive other than Hogarth.
"Are they all at safe locations?"
"They've all got guards around the clock; they've all been uprooted and are relocated."
"Dates, names, addresses are in the computer?"
"Yes, we'll have to scramble them again."
"I would if I were in your shoes."
"It'll be done."
"Anything else? Anything?"
"Any way he can hurt me? Sure, a thousand ways..."
Robyn saw a near-beaten, tired woman before her, a woman who needed a stalwart friend. Joe, despite his rancor, had a certain respect for her, and now Robyn was beginning to see why. But Ovierto had worn her down like erosion against a bald hillside. The roots of her anguish were exposed. Robyn found herself unaccountably drawn to the other woman's misery and sad-ness and she moved to hold her without reservation. Thorpe responded with unabashed sobbing. Robyn held her tighter, telling her she understood.
In a moment, Thorpe raised her hands to Robyn's face, holding her softly between her hands and kissing her on the mouth, her tongue probing deeply. Robyn held her back and looked deeply into her imploring eyes for some time, trying to determine what was happening. Robyn had enjoyed the moment's respite of warmth between them after all the enmity of the weeks since their first meeting, but she'd formerly felt this woman was the chief cause of Joe's death; could they now be sharing a moment's passion? She wasn't certain she wanted it, but now Donna Thorpe was disrobing, dropping the veneer of the business suit she wore, exposing her firm, high-peaked, full bosom to Robyn, who hadn't made love to another girl since junior high days. Robyn felt a little giddy, a little confused, and a lot dizzy as Donna said, "Robyn, I just want to lie down with you... just for a short while... please."
Robyn started to say something and catch her breath at the same time, but Donna took her in her arms and forced her tongue even further down her throat. Robyn had been without a man for a long time now, since Joe's death, and she was feeling an incredible need welling up, a need she hadn't felt for Donna Thorpe before now, and yet here it was, pressing in, impelling her on Donna's tongue, the woman's warm breasts like large hands feeling her.
"Take your clothes off, Robyn... please... please."
"Is it safe... are we... will anyone walk in?"
"No one comes in without my say-so."
Robyn tried to catch her breath as she undid the buttons of her jumpsuit. Donna began to help, tearing at the buttons with her teeth and with a laugh. It was obvious Donna needed a complete distraction, that she needed to black out the events of the past weeks, to totally forget Ovierto and his wickedness, to cover her-self with something that was not wicked but loving, and Robyn was that something.
Robyn returned her kisses now feverishly, her hands delicately playing over Donna's breasts, rising to her long hair. Donna half knelt, taking Robyn's breast in her mouth, flicking the nipple wildly with her tongue, driving Robyn into a mindless blue to red to white color behind her closed lids, making her moan.
"Come to the bed," said Donna, urging her there. They fell across the spread, laughing as Robyn tried to get out of the remainder of her clothing. Donna had somehow magically become completely naked, and now she moved over Robyn like an energetic lizard, flicking her tongue everywhere, working her way down and down on Robyn, when suddenly Robyn saw Dr. Boas at the doorway. Robyn flinched at the smiling old man who just stood there watching and admiring.
"Dr. Boas!" she gasped.
Thorpe raised up on her hands and looked between her breasts at the interruption. "Damnit, doc... don't you know how to knock?"
"I did. You didn't hear? Anyway, I was worried you'd kill her. I see... I see, I was mistaken. Carry on. I'm gone."
Boas disappeared. Thorpe brought her face back around to Robyn, her long hair playing over Robyn's ticklish belly. Their eyes met and Thorpe began to laugh at the intrusion, and this made Robyn laugh and pull Donna down to her, smothering her head in her own breasts and feeling the volcanic tension of the last few days exploding out of her, the magma of her in- sides boiling up and away.
They waited to hear from Ovierto, but as they waited, they tracked, attempting to pinpoint his movements. One trail that was being followed up was Robyn's suggestion regarding places in this vicinity where the plane might be patched. Thus far, however, it had turned up nothing. Nor had searches of local air fields. Ovierto was invisible once more, blending in like a chameleon.
Robyn and Donna Thorpe didn't talk about the sex they had shared. It seemed that if they spoke about it, it would be spoiled. It was not like Robyn's relationships with men, which she always felt it necessary to talk about afterwards, usually responding to the male's need to be reassured of his performance. Such reassurance was unnecessary here, and the sex had not gotten in the way of their working together.
Boas had returned to D.C., and no one else knew. It added a new dimension to her relationship with Donna Thorpe, like a new facet on a diamond or a many-sided die.
In the last few days they had put together a bogus Pythagoras package for Dr. Maurice Ovierto. It consisted of the information needed to put together a geo-desic-shaped contraption, out of which the only laser that might come was a laser of the color spectrum.
Robyn had worried that Ovierto would see through it too quickly, but Donna assured her otherwise. In the meantime, Donna's family was relocated from Nebraska to places unknown even to her. She wanted it that way, saying, "The least I know, the least he knows... all the better."
"You're sure there's no one else close to you he might target?"
"You," she said with a light smile. "Or the men I work with."
Robyn looked closely into her eyes, feeling strongly for her, realizing their differences still remained. Yet she had changed, as had Thorpe. The other agents hadn't been blind to the change, either. "You're sure? No one?"
"It's so frustrating. I know... we know... that Ovierto is preparing some catastrophe, some punishment against me—"
"Because you are your father's child."
"—and we can't stop him."
"Let's get lunch," Robyn offered.
She smiled. "Good idea. I know just the place."
As they left, Donna left strict orders as to where to contact her if anything came up.
Over lunch Robyn got her talking about her father, Senator Bill Thorpe. She described a kind, caring man whose only interest in Pythagoras was in reducing suffering and disease in the world. Rosenthaler, too, was interested for the same reasons. Rosenthaler had been Chief Medical Advisor to two presidents and the two men knew each other intimately.
"To fully understand what happened with Ovierto, we have to gain access to your father's project files," Robyn told her.
"Don't you think I've already tried that?"
"You mean even you have been denied access?"
"Exactly. It's top level only."
"But now you hold a bargaining chip."
"Oliguerri's final work?"
"Hogarth said it was right... that it was the key to the entire project."
She shook her head. "I don't know..."
"Why not?"
"Because, damnit, I'm good at what I do, and I've never —never withheld anything from my superiors."
"Maybe it's time you did."
They sat in silence for a while, before Robyn said, "I believe that Ovierto was a member of the medical team at Los Alamos during the initial testings of Pythagoras, and I believe something happened out there... something that turned Ovierto into what he is today."
"Speculation."
"He was there, Donna."
Thorpe stared into her drink for a time. "All right. I’ll see what I can get from Washington."
"You'll do it?"
"This could end it for me... blackmailing my own government... me."
"Tell them it's the only way if you're to ever understand Ovierto, to find his weaknesses."
"Do you really think he has any weaknesses?"
"Everybody's got weaknesses."
"Even demons?"
"Even Ovierto."
She nodded. "Let's get back... put in the... the request
"You'll never get it as a request. You've got to use your trump card."
"I don't need you to tell me how to massage my own superiors, Muro."
"Hey, I'm only trying to help, all right?"
"All right. I mean, I know... I know."
She looked weary, and the edginess in her voice combined with an electric energy which was deceiving, for while her body and mind seemed charged with power, it was a power that seemed to be using up her reserves, as if she were on an alternate generator. Robyn guessed that she had spent the night thinking of her children, her husband, the home that she had let slip away from her. Robyn knew that it had been the groundswell of her emotions, and that it had turned to quicksand, and Robyn wondered if she had added to the quicksand.
As if reading her thoughts, Donna gathered herself in and reached out to Robyn, taking her hand in hers. "I never thanked you."
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