Mesmerized

by Gayle Lynds

  Stephanie Smith cocked her head as if waiting for Beth to say something.

  But Beth turned away to stare unseeing out her window. Hard logic was the foundation of her life. This woman was trying to use a spurious kind of reasoning to confuse her. There was no way the good, strong heart that had saved her could be tormenting her now. Inwardly she paused. She evaluated the situation. The truth was. . . it did not matter either way. A heart was neutral. Just an organ. There was no moral or intellectual base from which it operated.

  Dr. Smith said quietly, "We like to tell ourselves we've come a long way from such ignorant days. But in truth, have we? If we refuse to ask questions because we think we already know the answers, what do we accomplish? What do we learn?"

  Beth said nothing. She knew what she had to do. There were crackpots in every field, and some could be convincing. This woman was a crackpot. Crazy as a loon. She checked her watch. "Or another way to look at it is, why ask questions when the answers are already proved? To pursue what's known is simply a waste of time, effort, and funding that could—and should—be put where it's critically needed. A lot of lives would be saved if you and your colleagues would devote all your time and research money to better use, like convincing people to sign organ-donor cards."

  Dr. Smith gave a knowing smile and closed her portfolio. "I see." She picked up her purse, opened it, and removed a business card. "No reason to take any more of your time." She laid the white card on the bedside table. "If you'd like to learn more about cellular memory . . . about all the exciting new scientific discoveries being made that support its existence . . . if you ever have any questions at all . . . please call."

  "Thank you," Beth said politely. "Good-bye."

  The woman stood and left the room without another word.

  A half-hour later, Beth's care-giver arrived to take her home. Excited, she had already packed her bags. As she stood, she noticed the business card on the table. She had a ten-second debate with herself, then shrugged. She grabbed the card and slid it into her purse. Then she went home to settle into the long, rigorous routine of rehabilitation.

  3

  The May sun was a fireball, its rays glinting off windshields and freshly washed cars as weekday traffic roared around Washington's Beltway. It was nearly two o'clock, and people were rushing back to jobs after late lunches or off to private schools to pick up children. Or maybe, Jeffrey Hammond reflected as he sped along in his Mustang, they were, like him, going nowhere.

  Every day he seemed to grow more weary of his life, and he was uncertain why. Today his nerves felt raw, on edge. In a few hours, he would meet a man to whom he had not spoken in nine years. It might be a mistake, this meeting. Yet he was the one who had asked for it: Mikhail Ogust had been dead more than a month, and he'd had no luck developing another source as useful as Ogust. He was counting on getting some help out of this meeting.

  As he wove his Mustang among the lanes of traffic, he watched for a too-curious look or for a vehicle to pull out and follow. He gave every appearance of being one of the crowd, but in truth he understood things, had seen and done things, that others could never imagine. Here in Washington, he knew all too intimately, anything could happen. Anything was possible. He shook his head worriedly.

  In between watching for surveillance, he read the signposts he was speeding past—Alexandria, Arlington, Langley, Bethesda, Silver Spring. Just a few years ago, they were backwaters on the palette of Greater Washington, but now each was recognized around the world in its own right. Since the fall of communism, this had become the land of global opportunity—untouchable wealth, immense power, and secrets that could topple governments, all on a scale so grand it had never before been seen. No wonder citizens from every state flocked here. No wonder so many foreigners immigrated—legally and illegally—that the INS had no hope of keeping track of all of them. Which was another reason Jeff Hammond was worried.

  For an hour longer, he continued to drive, his senses alert. He'd had a feeling all day that he was under surveillance again, which was why he had taken the Beltway. Then his gaze swept to the right, and he noticed a white Ford Escort two lanes away that was about to exit at Oxon Hill. It was not the car itself that attracted his attention. It was the driver, who had grown either tired or cocky and was looking curiously across the traffic at him. No mistake about it. The idiot.

  Hammond slowed and moved over a lane so he could see better. Instantly the driver made a second mistake: He averted his head. He was wearing an Akubra hat at a rakish angle to the left, blocking part of his profile but not so much that Hammond did not recognize him. He had passed the same driver miles back, somewhere near Silver Spring. He had a trained memory, so he was certain of it. Which meant the driver, who was now speeding his car off onto the exit ramp, had been tailing him until he had been replaced in a planned pattern of surveillance.

  Hammond was right, but it was no consolation. He slowed his Mustang more. Watching ahead and behind, he moved the car right once again and entered the outside traffic lane. As trees and signs blurred past, he noted a blue sedan a quarter-mile behind also move right across two lanes to drive in the same lane as he. Then a pickup between him and the blue sedan accelerated and pulled into the right lane directly behind him. Meanwhile, a third car, a yellow Mazda, also moved right.

  He smiled grimly as he studied the driver of the pickup, which had fallen back. He memorized the man's long face and dark eyebrows. Then at the last moment and without slowing again, Hammond turned sharply right and sped the Mustang off onto the exit ramp.

  Braking, he checked his rearview mirror as both the pickup and the blue sedan followed. Counting the Ford Escort, it appeared whoever had decided he was important enough to tail had also decided on the traditional three-car surveillance team. It showed an unsettling amount of organization.

  He decelerated again as he approached the cross street, where the traffic light was green. He could drive straight through the intersection and try to lose the tails somewhere on the backstreets of Oxon Hill, but he did not know the area. Concerned, he eyed the traffic light ahead and, in his rearview mirror, the two tailing vehicles.

  There was little time before the light became red. He had to decide. He frowned, thinking rapidly. What he had in mind depended on his ability to time each movement carefully. It was a risk, but if it worked. . .

  He felt a burst of adrenaline as the light turned from yellow to red, and he floored the accelerator, screeching into the intersection. Behind him, tires screamed on the pavement as a car that had jumped the light swerved to avoid hitting him. Sweat formed on his forehead as he pushed the Mustang forward. He checked his rearview mirror: The surveilling pickup and the blue sedan had at first accelerated but now slammed on their brakes, laying streaks of smoking rubber on the offramp as they skidded to stops to avoid the wall of vehicles released by the green light.

  As the traffic roared past his Mustang's rear bumper, Hammond turned safely left onto the street. He smiled grimly, entertained by the pounding of his heart. Some things never changed, including his physiology. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that his two followers were trapped on the off ramp until the light changed again, which was as it should be.

  Over the last week, he had shaken what had appeared to be a few isolated tails, but yesterday the surveillance had become certain and less easily lost. In one way, it was good news: Affirmation he was getting close, which excited him. But it also meant peril. He had managed to keep his work dark for years, but it appeared the principals had somehow been alerted.

  Today of all days he must not be followed. He had to keep this meeting secret.

  Frowning, he returned to the speeding Beltway, this time heading north. Alert for backup surveillance, he continued forty more miles until he exited again, now heading for the little town of Olney where Route 108 became a quiet, tree-bordered country lane. As the road dipped sharply between two hills, he pulled off into a wooded sink he had used before, killed his engine, and
rolled down his window. A wind out of the west rustled through a stand of oak and maple trees. Somewhere in the distance a cow bell chimed, an eerie sound across the empty hills. The air smelled of mold from the creek that trickled through this low spot of land. He studied the sky and the road. When no helicopters appeared and only a tractor lumbered past, he began to believe he had finally lost his tails.

  This meticulous sort of dry cleaning was ingrained in his nature, one of the reasons he had been able to lead a double life for the past ten years. Still, just in case, he stayed where he was, out of sight, another five minutes: Experienced followers knew how to estimate patience, too.

  Satisfied at last, he returned to the road, made a quick U-turn, and headed south, again toward Washington. Traffic had thinned. As he continued to watch for surveillance, he exited once more and entered the parking lot of the Aspen Hills Shopping Center, where he stopped the car at the far end so he could watch the activity around the Giant Foods supermarket without attracting a lot of attention. That was where the mall's security focused, fearlessly making certain the under-aged bought no beer.

  At four o'clock, as the pace of shoppers at the one-story mall seemed to reach a fevered pitch, a dusty Plymouth pulled into the empty slot next to the Mustang. The Bureau car had been described to Hammond, and when he saw FBI Special Agent Elias Kirkhart, dressed in the mandatory dark, conservative suit and pressed white shirt, sitting alone in the driver's seat, he leaned across and unlocked his passenger door.

  Eli Kirkhart had once been so thin and bony that the two of them had been called Jeff and the Beanpole. But Kirkhart had filled out now, his shoulders muscular, and his face thicker, almost square. The FBI man's simple blue tie was knotted repressively tight against his throat, and his heavy brows were arched above his aviator sunglasses as he turned to study Hammond's vintage Mustang. That bulldog face with the wide cheekbones reminded Hammond of the English yeomen from whom Kirkhart had claimed to be descended, way back in the Middle Ages.

  Hammond waited impatiently as his former partner scrutinized the area once more then opened his car door and, staying low, slid into the front passenger seat next to him.

  "You had no problems?" Hammond asked.

  "None. And you?"

  "Nothing to speak of." No way would he give the FBI agent information that might scare him off from future meetings, which an organized surveillance might.

  "Good." Kirkhart locked the door behind him and turned to the man who had once been his closest friend and colleague. He made no effort to smile, nor did he extend his hand. Swiftly he took in Jeff Hammond's familiar angular features and the sunglasses as dark and impenetrable as his own. But now Jeff also wore a small gold earring in his right ear, and his light-brown hair was far too long, fastened at the nape of the neck in a ponytail. "You've changed. You look like some hippie professor out of the sixties. The Post must be desperate for help these days."

  Hammond's eyes crinkled in a smile. He nodded. "Could be. On the other hand, seems to me you might do something about getting rid of that Brit accent, Eli. Three seconds on the phone, and I knew it was you. Can't disguise that upper-crust snobbery. Come on, you were born here. Chicago, as I recall. A good Midwest accent. Talk like it." He waited, remembering Kirkhart had once had a sense of humor.

  The FBI man gave a low chuckle. "Hello, Jeff."

  The two men shook hands, but Eli Kirkhart felt no sense of letting bygones be bygones. He kept his face friendly while he contemplated Jeff, who was tall and rangy in a herringbone sports jacket and jeans. Jeff still filled a car not only with his physique but with his personality. The difference was he now exuded something calculating and taut; he gave no evidence of being the excitable hothead Eli had known so well. There was, he decided, a secretiveness to Jeff. Something vaguely furtive that did not surprise him.

  "It's been a long time, Eli." Jeff's voice sounded odd and stilted to himself. He was out of touch with his past, and now he was sitting next to a significant part of it.

  "Far too long, actually. How are you?" Eli said.

  "I've been better."

  "Sorry to hear that. Whatever you want, it must be important, considering all the hugger-mugger in the parking lot you insisted upon."

  "That was to protect you more than me."

  "Right." Eli gave another small smile, this time of disbelief.

  Jeff ignored it. "We both know your A-rating at the Bureau would go into a nosedive if they learned you met privately with a 'disordered isolate.' "

  "Ah, you heard about that then. I'd wondered."

  "Of course, I heard." When they had forced him out, the Bureau's leadership had had to tar him with something other than 'disagreed with official policy,' and disordered isolate was the kind of psychological term that—keyboarded into his file and, therefore, soon leaked onto the Bureau grapevine—took on a kind of immortality. In his case, it was code for someone who was unreliable, not a team player, a loner—'isolate,' perhaps even a touch sociopathic—'disordered.'

  He had accepted the inevitability, and necessity, of it with disgust. The Bureau was like the mafia: You either retired with honors at an appropriate age after appropriate service, or you were dead. Physically dead in the mafia's case; usually only metaphorically in the Bureau's, although there had been rumors that there might have been some discreet slippage into murder over the past twenty years.

  No, the Bureau could not simply kick you out. Instead, they had to discredit you, especially among your colleagues, or someone might begin to ask details about what had happened, maybe question a superior's decision, even probe into an FBI commandment or two. That, of course, would damage the monolithic discipline of the black-suited wall. Which was why, after the last of his exit interviews, his one-time friends had been too busy to have dinner or even to meet for a cup of coffee. He paused, surprised he was angry after so many years.

  Eli said evenly, "The seventh floor wouldn't have approved it without cause. You were wrong, Jeff, you know. Way wide of the mark and off base."

  Jeff said nothing, mulling over how much to believe of what Eli said. Despite spending most of his life in the United States, Eli Kirkhart had not only kept his English father's British syntax and accent, he had also retained that exaggerated civil-service sense of the infallibility of government authority—when it was applied to others, that was. At the same time, Eli had a similarly English sense of his own, and the island nation's, overall superiority, especially in matters of war and espionage, which had often annoyed his colleagues while amusing Jeff.

  "Well, maybe I was a bit wrong-headed." Jeff shrugged as if dismissing it all. "Still, I have to admit I miss some of it. You and Aida, for instance."

  For a moment as he sat there in the Mustang, he wanted to chuck it all and go have a drink with Eli. They could talk about old times, and he would find out what Eli's life was like now. Hell, Eli and Aida had been his closest friends, the three of them just weeks out of college when they had met their first day at the FBI Academy in Quantico. Competitors, sure, but also helping each other in tactics, languages, and martial arts, in which Aida had excelled. If Eli had not married Aida Devine, Jeff would have pursued her. Which might have been an excellent idea, considering how rotten his own marriage had turned out.

  Jeff scanned the parking lot again but saw no signs of trouble. "How is she, Eli?"

  "Dead, Jeff. Pancreatic cancer. She died five years ago."

  Jeff jerked around to stare at Eli. He felt as if a fist had slammed into his chest. "Dead? Eli . . . I didn't know. I'm sorry. Jesus. I'm really sorry."

  Eli's face was a mask behind his sunglasses. "Thanks." He paused. "It was fast, thank God. She'd been in a lot of pain."

  An awkward silence filled the Mustang. For Eli, his grief over losing Aida was still as raw as if she had died just yesterday. He missed her, and talking about her was torture for him. So he did what he always did: He pushed his thoughts from her and concentrated on his work. In this case, that meant Jeff.
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br />   As he studied Jeff, he remembered that inside the Bureau no one had been closer than they, and they had owed each other a great deal. But now, Jeff was not only persona non grata, he had gone to work for The Washington Post as a reporter and analyst, and, in that role, he had personally focused the influential newspaper's spotlight on mistakes and investigations the Bureau wanted kept hidden. True, the seventh floor had apparently given Jeff no choice but to resign, but did he have to become such a critic, and one with such a public pulpit? Jeff appeared to have turned his back on everything in which he had once believed.

  Eli pointedly checked his Timex, the brand of choice of the underpaid FBI. "Well, old boy, let's talk about you. What's so vital that we had to meet like this?"

  Jeff stared at Eli's broad face and reminded himself he was here to do business. "I need your help." By phoning and convincing Eli to meet and then to make it here, the location of Jeff's chosing, he had already scored two points. Long ago he had learned that people supported what they helped to create. By agreeing to both requests, Eli had already taken small psychological steps toward helping Jeff. But it might not be enough. With Eli, one never knew.

  The FBI man was instantly alert. "What sort of help?"

  "Don't get nervous. It's a small thing. My sources tell me you were part of the task force working on that secret KGB slush fund that was discovered last year, the huge one. They also said the investigation was closed in April."

  Jeff had learned that over the past nine years the FBI had uncovered hundreds of hidden bank accounts in the United States that originated in the old Kremlin of Cold War days. Altogether, they amounted to more than a billion dollars, the result of the KGB's clandestinely sending money from Moscow to be laundered through respectable banks—particularly in Switzerland—until it was untraceable. At that point, much of the money had been deposited in U.S. front accounts with names like European Natural Resources, North Sea Excavating & Mining, and International Import Institutes. The violent purpose of these fortunes had been to fund the KGB's covert operations against Americans and their government.