Deadly Seduction

by Cate Noble

  After confirming he was alone, he called Tommy back.

  “Sorry, sir,” Tommy began. “But I just received word that Dr. Winchette was found dead at the San Diego hospital.”

  Tommy knew to get straight to the point, with little preamble, but still the bluntness of this news was shocking.

  “What?” Abe said. “How?”

  “My source at the San Diego Police Department said it appears his neck was broken in a scuffle. They were treating the case as a homicide until the Feds stepped in and took over, citing national security.”

  “A homicide? Who do they think killed him?”

  “The patient he was treating, Max Duncan. Apparently Duncan has disappeared now as well.”

  “Damn!” Obviously, Duncan hadn’t been sedated enough no matter what Winchette had said.

  “There’s more,” Tommy went on. “Winchette’s assistant, Dr. Houston, is missing. Presumed kidnapped.”

  “Oh, that’s just fucking great.” A damsel in distress would whip the CIA into overdrive. And this particular damsel could have the Agency asking questions about Winchette that Abe didn’t want asked. If any of this got traced back to Caldwell Pharmaceuticals—

  “Sir?”

  “I’m here,” Abe snapped. “Have my driver waiting out front. I’ll meet you at the office in thirty minutes.”

  Disconnecting, Abe hurried back to his table. Jesus, he needed a cigarette.

  Salvador took one look at him and scowled. “Everything okay? It’s not bad news about your grandfather, is it?”

  Abe shook his head. “I just got a call. My wife’s niece has been in an auto accident down in Hartford. It’s serious.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Salvador pushed unsteadily to his feet. “Look, you need to go. This other will wait.”

  “I’ll call as soon as we return.”

  Salvador crossed himself. “I’ve got two nieces who are like daughters. Keep me posted.”

  As soon as Abe got in his car, he lit up and drew deeply on a cigarette. The hit of nicotine was calming and helped him to think. This wasn’t the first time he’d been in a tight spot. Hell, compared to some others, this was minor.

  His first concern was damage control. He needed to distance himself from Winchette. His second, and equally important, concern was recovering all the data Winchette had.

  A grim-faced Tommy waited at Abe’s office.

  “What do you have?” Abe asked.

  “Not much. The CIA is working hard to keep this one contained. They figure they’ll have a better shot at a temporary insanity plea if they find Max Duncan before Dr. Houston is harmed.”

  “Do they have any leads?”

  “No. Which is making them dig a little deeper for clues. Inquiries are being made about Dr. Houston’s late father and his connection to Stanley Winchette.”

  “I was afraid of that.” Abe steepled his fingers.

  Damn it, he’d warned Winchette against keeping Erin Houston too close, but Winchette had insisted he could control the situation. So, how well had Winchette covered his tracks? “It’s time to cut our losses. Is Allen in San Diego yet?”

  Allen handled Abe’s personal security and had been sent to help Stanley Winchette locate John Doe.

  “Yes. He’s waiting for instructions.”

  Standing, Abe paced to the small bar in the corner of his office. “Max Duncan should have a tracking beacon as well. Tell Allen to start nosing around, see if he gets any hits on the missing men.”

  “Should I fly out? With Winchette dead, Allen will need assistance capturing them.”

  “I don’t want them captured. I want them eliminated. And it needs to look like an accident. Allen’s good at that stuff. I want you to concentrate on purging Winchette’s records. Start at his home. He wouldn’t have kept anything at the hospital.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Send everything you find to our Zurich office. It might prove useful when we locate Dr. Rufin.”

  “Any news on Rufin’s whereabouts?” Tommy asked.

  “Not yet. But I’ll rattle my contact’s cage right now.”

  Chapter 16

  Jakarta, Indonesia

  September 22

  “One last thing.” As was his custom after pocketing his payoff, this snitch—who freaking believed in value-added service—offered a free tidbit. “People are asking about Harry Gambrel again. Lots of cash, U.S., being flashed.”

  The man seated across from the snitch was careful not to react. Was this a trap?

  It didn’t feel like one.

  First and foremost the snitch was a mercenary. If he had any inkling that he was in the presence of the man formerly known as Harry Gambrel, they wouldn’t be having this conversation. The snitch would be off someplace, happily counting lots of cash, U.S.

  Harry shrugged. “Seeing as we’ve both heard that name tossed around before, I’m curious who they’re really looking for.” Wait for it.

  Squinting, the snitch scratched his forehead. “An associate of Gambrel’s perhaps?” His eyes widened. “Yeah, the old bait and switch. Like the time they claimed to be looking for Dax Harlton. His ex–old lady popped her nose out of a hole, hoping to make some fast cash, and whammo! They nailed her. You know the real kicker? Dax was dead.”

  Stupid fuck. Harry stood and prepared to leave. “You might be on to something.”

  Both men reached for the tab simultaneously. Another custom: the snitch liked to act as if he intended to pick it up. Harry watched the snitch’s gaze drift from his own bare wrist to Harry’s gold Rolex Submariner.

  “I’ve got it covered,” Harry sneered. “No worries.”

  After taking more extreme measures than usual to assure he wasn’t being followed, Harry grabbed a cab and headed downtown, confident that his disguise remained effective. Multiple plastic surgeries, new dental veneers, hair dye, and colored contacts assured he looked nothing like the two-year-old photographs the CIA was likely circulating. Hell, he looked damn good now.

  The news that the Agency had again ramped up their search for him was old. Ever since Dante Johnson had miraculously escaped Viktor Zadovsky’s custody, the interest in Johnson’s fellow missing operatives had heated up. Max Duncan’s reemergence, however, had sent it off the charts.

  Jesus, if Zadovsky was still alive, Harry would rip him to shreds with his bare hands. Granted, the fact the two men had been partners in crime—partners in ripping off others—should have been a clue that Zadovsky might not be trustworthy. Unfortunately, Zadovsky had played to Harry’s one weakness: He’d thrown money in the air and Harry had chased the whirling bills like a cheap whore.

  As Harry had recently discovered, the lying, cheating bastard had been screwing him from the get-go. Zadovsky had diverted virtually all of their joint funds while showing Harry falsified bank records.

  “You can’t take it with you” didn’t apply to other people’s money.

  And if being personally swindled wasn’t bad enough, Zadovsky’s suicide had left Harry holding the bag on several other deals.

  Luckily, most of the clients who’d made advance payments for one of Zadovsky’s nasty biohazard recipes quickly wrote off the loss at word of his death to avoid guilt by association.

  The one huge exception was Minh Tran, who had fronted Harry a large deposit and expected another shipment of SugarCane, a potent opium byproduct that had taken the recreational drug world by storm. Produced in small quantities, demand far exceeded supply. ’Cane was known for its trademark superior high that lasted for hours. No crash and burn. Its utopian, performance-enhancing qualities made it a pleasant-seeming addiction.

  Then there had been the promise of JumpJuice, a new chemically altered amphetamine that Zadovsky touted as the next perfect drug. A single drop under the tongue lasted for hours.

  Minh Tran had already paid handsomely for the exclusive right to distribute SugarCane and was drooling over similar rights for JumpJuice. The ’Cane had proved wildly profitable for all o
f them these last two years.

  Then Zadovsky committed suicide. Bastard.

  In the flash of a coward’s bullet, Harry was bankrupt. Adding insult to injury, it had taken nearly two weeks for word of Zadovsky’s death to reach Harry, who’d been in hiding at Abe Caldwell’s insistence after Dante Johnson resurfaced.

  By the time Harry got back to Indonesia, Zadovsky’s lab and personal residence in Jakarta had been wiped clean. He suspected the Indonesian government had most of the lab records even though publicly the government repudiated Zadovsky, claimed he was in the country on a forged passport. Plausible deniability. The Indonesians didn’t want anyone to know about their secret deals with Zadovsky either.

  “Pull over. You can let me out here.”

  The cab stopped near a busy open-air market and Harry climbed out. He pretended to wander, then took a convoluted route back to his hotel.

  Alone in his room, he ordered a meal from room service while his laptop powered up. The RAM-hungry security programs that ghosted his cybertrail seemed to take forever to settle in.

  Among other things, he was expecting an update from Abe Caldwell on the status of Max Duncan and the mystery man extracted with him.

  Talk about another stunning betrayal by Zadovsky!

  It was now painfully apparent that Zadovsky had been conducting dual experiments—one set in Jakarta for Abe Caldwell’s benefit and another set in the secret Thai laboratory run by Dr. Rufin.

  It didn’t take a nuclear physicist to figure out where the real research was being conducted. Did the CIA have any idea what had been lost when they blew up Rufin’s lab?

  As it was, the research data the CIA supposedly had—if indeed they’d gotten Rufin’s laptop—was the equivalent of a gold mine. A gold mine Harry should have inherited as Zadovsky’s silent partner.

  Damn it! That was twice in one year he’d been cheated out of an inheritance. Harry’s old man was probably sitting in hell, laughing his ass off.

  Ephraim Gambrel had never forgiven his only son for leaving the family farm after high school. Harry hated farming and predicted his old man would go belly up along with all the other Midwest farmers. But the stubborn old coot had held on, and just before succumbing to cancer last year, Ephraim sold the farm for millions when a rare mineral deposit was discovered.

  The real salt in the wound, however, was learning that Ephraim had left his entire estate to Harry’s ex-wife, Gena. Of course, Ephraim probably would have done that even if he’d known Harry was alive.

  It was one more score to even with the cheating bitch. Provided he lived that long. If Minh Tran caught up with him, Harry would die before ever getting a shot at settling with Gena.

  Room service arrived just as his laptop beeped, signaling an all clear. His appetite now diminished, Harry opened the soda he’d ordered and moved to his computer.

  Methodically checking e-mail accounts, he read and deleted threat after threat. Everyone wanted a piece of his alter ego, Mr. Peabody, the name he’d used to conduct business on Zadovsky’s behalf. That Harry had a new persona, Doug Harold, didn’t stop him from monitoring the old Peabody accounts.

  Switching browsers, he logged on to a different e-mail account. Abe Caldwell had sent another e-mail that didn’t amount to much more than a rant about how important it was that they locate Dr. Rufin before the competition did. Like Harry wasn’t exhausting every means already.

  Since only a select few even knew about Rufin’s liaison with Zadovsky, the only competition Harry considered real was the CIA. They had the most at stake and were better equipped than anyone else. Or at least they used to be.

  A major disadvantage of faking his own death was that he no longer had direct access within the Agency. Abe Caldwell had some inside connections of his own, but it wasn’t the same. And it made Harry nervous.

  The longer a mole remained inside, the greater the risk of discovery. The Agency’s best protection against leaks was the fact they expected them. A constant undercurrent of paranoia kept everyone on their toes. The Agency also played a pretty mean shell game. More than once their disinformation techniques had fooled their own operatives.

  As far as Harry was concerned, everything the CIA said was questionable. They might have Rufin in custody…or they might not. Same with seized hard drives and missing John Does.

  Frustrated, Harry started to log off his laptop. Then he recalled one little-used account. He hadn’t heard from Bohdana, Zadovsky’s former secretary, in a while. She always went radio silent after a fight and she’d been royally pissed the last time they’d talked.

  Harry had smuggled her out of Jakarta, where she’d been in hiding following Zadovsky’s death. Not quite ready to be rid of her, Harry had set her up in a Bangkok slum. Her loyalty came cheap enough: the promise of marriage. He trusted her as much as he could trust anyone, which meant he was always cautious.

  As Zadovsky’s secretary, Bohdana had played the dumb bimbo perfectly. If Zadovsky had been seducible, she would have slept with him had Harry told her to.

  He found one e-mail from her, dated a few hours ago. Clicking the IN box, he read the subject line: FROM YOUR LOVING NIECE.

  Suddenly alert, he leaned forward. That Bohdana had written meant all was forgiven. Like he cared. That she’d written in code meant something else.

  He copied her e-mail to a separate program so the original appeared unread. Then he opened the copy.

  Dear Aunty,

  I am sorry to have neglected writing these past months, but my new position keeps me very busy. I wanted to let you know that my cat returned. I had been so certain I would never see her again after she wandered off. She is pregnant so I will bring you a kitten when I come to visit.

  He deciphered the code he’d taught her, then reread the message. Dr. Rufin had sent her an e-mail asking for her help in getting out of Thailand!

  Harry stood and paced to the window. Tempering his excitement was the perpetual question: Was this legit or was it a trap?

  Who the hell knew anymore?

  One thing was certain: He was long overdue for a bit of a break. And while he never relied on luck, he did acknowledge its existence. The old adage that even a blind squirrel occasionally found a nut manifested more often than blind squirrels believed.

  Tugging out his cell phone, he punched in a number, and hit SEND.

  Chapter 17

  Southern California

  September 22

  Max drove due east, his thoughts changing like the landscape outside the car’s windows. They’d gone from the shore near the Pacific Ocean, through the desert, and were now headed into the mesas and mountains of southwest Arizona. Mesas and mountains that were familiar. Had he lived here?

  The magic eight ball that seemed to be his mind turned up the following reply: No answer. Ask again later.

  Damn it! It was bad enough that the last two years had been stolen from him, but not to know where he’d lived before that? There was no tug of home and hearth. No sense that he had left a heritage or that he belonged any one place. Maybe he’d been a rolling stone. Maybe that’s where this pull he felt to keep going came from.

  While his ultimate destination continued to evade him, the direction felt right. Heading east also got them farther from San Diego.

  Erin had remained quiet since learning about Winchette’s death. They had obviously been close. Or had they? He remembered she said her father worked with Winchette, that they’d been friends. Once. As if maybe they hadn’t been later on.

  Max didn’t share her grief or whatever she felt, but he allowed her space.

  He used the driving time to think—or not think—which became an experiment of sorts.

  Trying to recall virtually anything from his past gave him a headache. And rather than risk the pain escalating to the point of blinding him, he would purposely switch his thoughts to something different—the billboards, other cars, numbers, Erin—until the pain receded.

  Interestingly, after dropping the
effort to remember details, he was frequently rewarded with a clue about the same matter. Boom! A bit of data would surface in his mind.

  Unfortunately, the phenomenon wasn’t consistent. When he tried to do it more intentionally, he failed.

  That same lack of consistency applied to other areas, like trying to read Erin’s mind. One moment her thoughts were transparent, easy to slip between. She’d been thinking about her father and Dr. Winchette working together. The moment after that, he’d hit a brick wall.

  The same brick wall he kept hitting every time he attempted to reach Taz. Was Taz having this problem, too? Or did the problem lie within Max? Had this head injury/amnesia bullshit that was disrupting his memory also screwed up the link to Taz?

  Or was something wrong on Taz’s end? Was Taz injured? Unconscious? Dead?

  A memory of Rufin warning against interrupting Taz’s procedure came to mind. What had Rufin meant by that? Jesus, had Max inadvertently short-circuited his friend’s brain?

  Max’s headache spiraled. Immediately, he shifted his attention back to the road.

  They were traveling a dusty two-lane highway. Avoiding the more heavily patrolled interstate meant slowing down as they passed through tiny towns. Which gave Max a chance to watch for another vehicle.

  Assuming the worst case meant he had to presume the CIA had already discovered where he’d left Erin’s rental car. A quick rewind on the security tapes from the remote parking lot meant they’d also know exactly what Max had driven off in. The camper-pickup was now a liability. And they’d likely be watching other airport parking lots, too.

  Good thing there were plenty of other choices.

  He circled the block and pulled around behind an old filling station. The CLOSED sign in the front window wasn’t what caught his eye. The portable sign near the road had. CONSTRUCTION AUCTION SAT. NIGHT, it read. Arrows pointed to the adjacent fenced-in lot filled with dump trucks, backhoes, cement mixers, and an assortment of passenger vehicles that looked destined for a junkyard.