Mesmerized

by Gayle Lynds

  She shivered and moved to a credenza. She opened drawers, but all were empty. Just as she was tapping the base, looking for a false bottom, she had an uneasy feeling. The hairs on the back of her neck seemed to stand on end. She looked back over her shoulder at the brightly lit office. And froze.

  "Who are you?" Her pulse raced. "What do you want?"

  The figure moved toward her with the slow, stalking gait of a panther. He was dressed in black, skin-tight turtleneck and pants. A black ski mask covered his face, showing only icy blue eyes. He wore black athletic shoes and socks. A holstered pistol and other equipment were attached to a black web belt at his waist.

  He said nothing, and she knew immediately it was ridiculous of her to have made an attempt. His unblinking eyes seemed to be trying to hold her with his gaze—hypnotize her as predatory animals sometimes did when they closed in for the kill.

  Sweat gathered on her face and in her armpits. Why was his pistol still holstered? A wave of anger hit her. She was tired of the bullshit. Tired of being a target. Tired of being afraid. Tired of trying to understand the incomprehensible.

  "Obviously you're not here for ice cream." She jumped up. "If it's me you want, I'll make it easy."

  Without speaking, he continued to close in. Her tension growing, she kept her hips and upper body straight, her knees slightly bent. He was her height, of medium build, and moved with the kind of smooth precision that announced intense physical training. She had no idea what he planned, and she was not going to wait to find out. She hesitated just long enough for him to get in range. Then she took two quick steps forward, raised her right leg to chest height, and drove the ball of her foot into his chest in a mae-keage front snap kick.

  He fell back, surprise in his cold eyes. But she was even more surprised. She was tall and strong, and from experience she knew the power of her kicks could knock an opponent flat. But he was still very much on his feet. Immediately she spun and crashed her foot back at him again, aiming for his chin this time.

  She never connected. He parried and slammed a fist into her ribs. As her bones vibrated with the sudden pain, she had her answer: He was a master. His punches, kicks, and strikes rained on her so rapidly that her attempts to stop him were as ineffective as a mosquito's wings against a screen door. In less than a minute, she was flat on her back, gasping for air. She could not move. Pain pulsed everywhere.

  Still he did not pull his gun. He dragged her to a chair and propped her up on it. She swallowed, trying to force oxygen into her aching lungs so she could go on fighting. He took nylon cord from a waist pouch and swiftly tied her to the chair. He worked methodically, not a sound escaping his lips. As she struggled to breathe, she watched, desperate for some way to stop him.

  He seemed to have thought of everything. He was not identifiable by sight, sound, or odor, and she was completely helpless. But as he knotted the last cord, she noticed the black glove on his right hand had slipped. There was a bulge under the long sleeve of his knit top that looked as if it were a watch. But in the gap between the glove and the sleeve was a little white scar on the top of his wrist. She tried not to stare.

  He dropped a cloth over her eyes and roughly tied it behind her head. He gave it an extra twist as if in warning, and then she heard the sounds of a search begin. She listened as he quietly took apart Berianov's office. He must have spent an hour on what she considered an essentially empty room. But for what? And why had he not harmed her? Was he some kind of psychotic killer who liked to play with his victims first? A sadist who planned to torture her before he killed her?

  Repressing her fear, she listened until she heard him pad out. Left in empty silence, she waited, straining to hear anything that would tell her where he was and what he was doing. Frantically she went to work to free herself from the tight bonds. As she struggled, she began to hear distant noises. He was searching elsewhere. Pain shot through her limbs, but still she worked as he took apart the living room, the dining room, all the rooms. She dreaded the moment when she would hear him stop. What would he do to her when he found whatever he was looking for?

  She had to escape. She battled fatigue and desperation. Her fingers pulled at the strong nylon cords, but it was as if she were slogging through Jell-O. She grew more sluggish. She was weary, exhausted. Time passed. Still, she made herself work on.

  PART TWO

  19

  In the high-powered Lincoln Continental, Jeffrey Hammond dozed as the hours ticked past midnight and on toward morning. Outside the windows, the scenery segued from forested mountain crests to wide, fertile valleys and at last to Virginia's sweeping Tidal Plain.

  When early morning light at last brightened the sky to the east, Hammond sat up, fully awake. The Bureau car was gliding down a quiet side street in northwest Washington. The atmosphere was tense. It had been a long drive, and each time they stopped for food, fuel, or a bathroom break, the agents went on high alert, determined to make certain Hammond did not pull some trick and escape. Fifteen minutes before, the lead agent, Chuck Graham, had used his cell phone to call ahead and warn they would arrive shortly, which made Hammond believe they were taking him to a safe house, since they had passed downtown, where the Hoover building was located.

  Now as they entered the neighborhood known as Adams Morgan, the luxury car was a pressure cooker of grim faces and tight jaws, while outside, the world continued serenely on, unaware anything out of the ordinary was cruising past this Friday morning. It was so early that the young executives, artists, and nonconformists here were only beginning to stir, stepping out in bathrobes to pick up newspapers in a variety of languages. Trendy and countercultural, Adams Morgan was renowned for colorful wall murals, a global atlas of restaurants, the flowing garb of distant lands, and fine old homes that had once housed the nation's elite. Mostly residential, its busy diversity was an ideal place in which to hide an FBI safe house.

  As he watched it all, Hammond remembered being like the agents in the car, so concentrated on the assignment that he missed the real world happening out there under the trees and behind the shuttered windows. Strange to lose touch with that, since protecting it was ostensibly the whole point of the job.

  The Lincoln rolled past picturesque brick townhouses built sometime in the early twentieth century. In front of the third one, a woman in a wild tiger-striped wrap, her hair piled high in a bun, tucked a newspaper under her arm. She sipped from a large coffee mug and turned back toward the house. Oddly attractive, easy in her eccentricity, she sang to herself as she ran up the steps and in through the door.

  "Which place is it?" Hammond calculated Graham's fifteen-minute warning had expired, and by the way the driver was craning his neck, this had to be the block. Hammond knew the driver would not park on the street. Too exposed. He would have a more secure method to get the prisoner indoors.

  Chuck Graham cracked a thin smile. He indicated the woman who had disappeared into the three-story townhouse. "Hers. She's the caretaker." Despite the long night, his trousers still had their knife-edge, his white shirt was unwrinkled, and the lines on his face had deepened only slightly with weariness.

  Hammond nodded. In this bohemian area, she fit right in, and no one would suspect she was an FBI officer. He had never seen her or the safe house, but that was no surprise. By now, a lot of who and what he had known had changed. In counterespionage and antiterrorism, habit and routine could be fatal.

  As he had suspected, the driver took the Lincoln around the corner and down a treeless alley that ran behind the townhouses. Their rear porches extended out toward the alley, which was framed on both sides by tall fences and occasional trash cans, waiting to be picked up. It was impossible to see into the yards, affording privacy to everyone, which made the safe house's particular need of it less conspicuous. Graham slid from his suit jacket what looked like a silver case for business cards. Inside was a small stack of the white cards, but when Graham pressed a piece of decorative filigree beneath, a garage door began to rise ahead
.

  The driver swung the Lincoln past two trash cans and into the garage's dark opening, pausing the car as the door closed behind. Abruptly the tension relaxed. Thoma and one of the men in the front seat loosened their ties. The female agent let out a long sigh. They had brought their quarry in safely. They appeared to expect no more trouble from him, which meant the house and grounds were loaded with every conceivable security measure, and probably a few exclusive to the Bureau. This time, he might be trapped.

  Agent Thoma climbed out of the car, his 10mm Smith & Wesson in hand. He motioned it toward Hammond. "Out."

  Hammond got out. As Graham strode ahead through the dank old garage, the other agents fell in behind Hammond, pistols raised. They followed Graham into an ultramodern passageway whose left wall was of dusky, reflecting glass. Through the glass, the backyard of spring tulips, irises, and a flowering pear tree was clearly visible, as well as the tall wood fence that walled the alley. But anyone in the yard or anyone foolish enough to trespass by climbing over the fence would find seeing through the opaque glass impossible, making the walk from the garage to the house a safe journey. Hammond did not like the look of any of it.

  Graham halted at the townhouse's back door, where an electronic badge reader was attached to the red brick wall. He did not bother with the doorknob, which would be locked. Instead, as Hammond and the agents waited, he slipped what looked like an ordinary Virginia driver's license into the slot. The screen on the front of the electronic reader glowed to green life.

  Hammond said neutrally, "State-of-the-art?"

  Graham glanced up over his shoulder at Hammond. "Damn right. Security's so tight the president couldn't get in without advance approval."

  As if to prove the point, a voice from the electronic scanner announced, "Hello, Charles S. Graham." The advanced software made the greeting smooth and lifelike, not the usual disembodied speech. Also unlike most such machines, this one did not try to sound like some nice woman. Instead, the voice was authoritarian and male. It ordered: "Place your right hand on the screen."

  The white outline of a hand appeared on the green monitor. Hammond recognized this high-security check from his days with the Bureau. The ID card Graham had put into the scanner would be a souped-up version of a credit card with an implanted chip that could contain everything from Graham's physical description to his Social Security number, home address, blood type, clearance level, and reason for being here. God knew what else it could do now.

  As Hammond examined the brick exterior wall, the door, the window, and the molding, Graham noticed. "Keep looking, pal. You'll never be able to spot all the new gizmos we have. We've got enough funding these days that the R&D boys and girls are blissful."

  "Bomb-resistant glass." Hammond nodded toward the window next to the door. He gazed pointedly at the nickel-sized holes above the door. "Video and motion sensors."

  "Child's play." Graham laid his right hand inside the white hairlines on the green screen, and the lines shrank to fit his hand precisely.

  Although Hammond had not been in a safe house in some time, through various sources he had kept abreast of many of the improvements since his day. The scanner would make certain Graham's print verified what his ID card claimed. Since it had not returned Graham's card, he figured that if Graham did not match, the machine would permanently swallow the card and all hell would break loose. Hammond saw the telltale, slightly mismatching squares on the brick that told him automatic weapons—which would shoot an intruder, or escapee, into hamburger—were embedded behind small trap doors in the side of the townhouse. Needle-nose cameras were probably hidden somewhere near as well. Hammond shook off a feeling he was at a turkey shoot, and he was the turkey.

  "Thank you, Mr. Graham," the scanner decided. "You may remove your hand." The phony driver's license popped out, and Graham took it in one neat motion and slid it into his suit jacket. "You are cleared to enter with Mr. Hammond," the machine continued. "The other agents may return to the Hoover building."

  There was a quiet sound of whooshing air, and the big door inched open. It looked like wood, but Hammond recognized that it acted like special bank-vault steel, so heavy it needed a pneumatic lift to open and close.

  "Take off," Graham told his cohorts. "Good job all around." He stepped away from the entry and commanded, "Inside, Hammond."

  Hammond gave one last look behind and moved indoors.

  Thoma could not stand it. His voice boomed out: "Hammond, I'll be watching. You used to be just a disgrace. Now you're a murderer. You make us all look bad."

  Hammond frowned and turned. "Give it a rest. I didn't shoot them any more than you did. You don't know what you're talking about."

  Thoma's heavy face quivered with some deep rage that had percolated there as long as Hammond had known him. But at the Bureau, Thoma had found sanctuary, a place where his fury and discontent could pass as patriotism and love of country. In his own way, to his own kind, he was useful. But now that he had found Hammond again and believed him not only a troublemaker and a quitter but also a murderer, Thoma could be dangerous.

  Hammond continued to stare, reminded of how powerful belief, even mistaken belief, could be. And Thoma was not alone. The others glared angrily, too, their eyes accusatory: Hammond had not only shamed them, he was a traitor to the shield. Whatever evidence the locals at Stone Point had uncovered, it had convinced them. It gave Hammond an unsettled feeling, as if the ground had just shaken in warning.

  "Move," Graham ordered again, his gun steady on Hammond.

  As they advanced into the back hall of the restored townhouse, the door closed silently behind with another soft whoosh of compressed air. Hammond surveyed the wood-paneled corridor, which was lined with wall sconces and period prints. He noted the recessed cameras and the spots where weapons were likely hidden. As Graham had promised, the electronic surveillance and protection were dense. Plus, agents were probably stationed throughout. He was trapped, a prisoner not only of the Bureau but of his conscience. He needed to escape, but he would not kill these people.

  Worried that the sign he needed to lead him to safety would not be waiting, he continued walking and observing. From its parquet floors to its Chinese side chairs, the old townhouse still had a feeling of genteel hominess. From the look of it, Hammond figured it had been specially prepared to keep safe the most important of the frightened, monied, and on the run, who had been swept into the Bureau's bosom to reveal secrets that could topple global cartels, terrorist groups, and foreigners bent on stealing American technology.

  Then from a doorway ahead, a man stepped into the hallway. Hammond stared. "Ty? What in hell are you doing here?"

  In his seventies, Senator Tyrone ("Ty") Crocker had the patrician face and bearing of WASP New England at its most wealthy and best educated. "Hello, Jeff. It has been a long time. I was just about to have a cup of Earl Grey." He had thick white hair, a high forehead, and a small sardonic smile. "My granddaughter tells me some Star Trek captain drinks Earl Grey, too. A strange connection to an entertainment phenomenon I don't understand. I suppose I never will. But at least it puts me current. I'd hoped you'd join me."

  He wore linen trousers the color of buttercream, a brown knit golfing shirt buttoned tidily at the neck, and tasseled loafers. Probably on his way for an early round of golf at the exclusive Congressional Country Club, where the initiation fee was $50,000 and he could compare chip shots with the vice president and other top political and business leaders. He was the senior senator from Connecticut.

  Hammond quickly adjusted. "Thanks. It's always good to see you, Ty." But it wasn't good. Ty Crocker's being here probably meant more bad news.

  The senator shifted his attention. "You, too, Special Agent Graham. Perhaps you'd enjoy a hot cup of tea after your long night's journey?"

  "Yes, sir. Thank you, Senator." Everything about Graham's usually controlled manner exuded pleasure. His hand on his pistol even trembled a little to be in the presence of such a towering leg
end.

  Ty Crocker had been a diplomat and now, for the past twenty years, a highly respected senator. All along he had been a vocal champion of the nation's espionage community, and for the past six years, he had headed the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee. Like Barry Goldwater before him, he was a no-nonsense conservative renowned for his integrity.

  Hammond and Graham followed the old man into a parlor adorned with pale flocked wallpaper and period furniture. Three windows faced out onto the street, but filmy curtains shielded the room from prying eyes. Hammond's assumption that agents would be stationed in the house was confirmed: One was standing with arms crossed in the corner, next to a hanging fern. The agent stared neutrally back, watching Hammond's every move.

  Senator Crocker followed Hammond's line of sight and told the man, "You can leave, son. Stand guard outside the door if it'll make you feel better. I appreciate your concern, but Jeff and I are old friends. You're not going to murder me over tea, are you, Jeff?"

  "No, sir. Especially not if it's good tea."

  The senator chuckled. "Have a seat. Wherever you think best, Mr. Graham." He paced across an oriental rug to a small writing desk that stood in front of the windows.

  Graham indicated the wing-back chair next to the brick fireplace. Hammond, on his good behavior, sat, his face expressionless, as Graham settled onto the chair between Hammond and the door, creating a hazard for Hammond if he had any ideas about making a run for it. As usual, Hammond studied the room. Inwardly he gave a brief, cold smile. He would not make his move yet. There was information he needed first. But soon . . . very soon, he would have to.

  Senator Crocker returned to the desk and pressed a button. In response, a bell tinkled somewhere in the back of the house. "Tea will be here shortly. Don't want to keep you gentlemen waiting." His hand rested flat on the desktop; his feet in the tasseled loafers were planted firmly on the carpet. His white hair shone in the diffused light from the windows behind him. He was contemplating Hammond from across the room as if he wished it were across a continent. A very large continent.