The FBI Thrillers Collection: Vol 11-15

by Catherine Coulter

  “I’m happy to tell you that two days ago, Homeland Security arrested her and most if not all of her associates, a lovely present to our country that Dr. MacLean helped make possible. She has admitted to seducing your son, to manipulating him to get information for her terrorist group.”

  “Yes, we heard of the arrests, naturally,” Estelle said, dismissal in her voice, “but I paid no particular attention because that has nothing at all to do with us or France. This woman—it does not matter what lies she tells.”

  Estelle rose to stand beside her husband. “None of this had anything to do with Jean David—nothing, do you hear me? He was an innocent boy, and whatever happened, it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t. Don’t you understand? Our son is dead.”

  Savich realized he’d thought Pierre Barbeau a strong suspect in the attempts on MacLean’s life, but not now, not after meeting him, watching him, listening to him. This man looked shattered, he looked ready to bury himself in his misery.

  MacLean was right. If anyone in this family was trying to off him, it was Estelle Barbeau. Her grief was as great and as consuming as her husband’s, but there was violence and promise in her eyes. She said, her voice calmer now, more conciliatory, “This is very painful for us, Agent Savich. I do not know why you wish to dredge it up. My husband told you we had nothing to do with any attempts on Dr. MacLean’s life. So what is your point? What do you want? Our son is dead, he is beyond your silly American laws.”

  “Silly?” Sherlock couldn’t help herself, she lost it. “I wonder how silly you would consider our laws if a terrorist group blew up the Eiffel Tower.”

  Estelle flipped her hand. “But such a thing would not happen. We live in peace with our Muslim countrymen.”

  Now that was a claim that wouldn’t bear scrutiny.

  Savich took a breath and said, “Mrs. Barbeau, if you would please give us your whereabouts on these two dates.” He looked down at his notebook to confirm the dates when Estelle rode right over him. “Our son is beyond any pain you would inflict upon him for his youthful lapse in judgment. He was a boy, only a boy, an idealist, and a woman trapped him. An old story, to be sure, a tried-and-true one that will happen again and again. Jean David is dead. Let him and his name rest in peace. I hope Dr. MacLean dies. He should die, but neither of us is responsible for any attempts on his worthless life. How many times must we tell you that?”

  Savich said, “The most recent attempt put him in the hospital.”

  Pierre looked bewildered, Savich thought, no mistaking it. “You honestly believe that Estelle or I would try to kill Tim—Dr. MacLean? That is nonsense, absolute nonsense. Yes, we blame him for Jean David’s death, but to actually try three times to kill him? That is absurd. Your FBI is absurd.”

  Sherlock said, “On the contrary, it makes a great deal of sense, sir. There is your belief that he is responsible and there is revenge. And what would happen if Dr. MacLean decided to go public with your son’s activities?

  “If this became known, would you still be received at embassy functions here in Washington? In New York? What about your job here?

  “Indeed, sir, I can’t imagine you could have happily continued your career with the French National Police. Tell me, sir, did you imagine what it would be like to return to France to face your family and friends, all of them knowing what your son did? Could you imagine bearing that? Could you imagine your wife bearing that?”

  It was too much, and Sherlock wanted to kick herself. If they were innocent, she had caused needless pain for these grieving parents.

  Estelle waved a fist at them, the diamonds glittering madly off a huge ring on her right hand. “You listen to me. What our son did or did not do, none of it is important any longer. Jean David is dead, do you hear me? He is dead! All his thoughts, his deeds, his beliefs dead, drowned in a tragic accident—your damned Coast Guard couldn’t even find him! And none of it would have happened if Dr. MacLean had kept quiet, as a doctor is supposed to do.

  “Let me tell you, doctors in France are discreet, they do not preach. They do not make threats or issue ultimatums! But here? Obviously nothing is sacred here. The ethics of your American doctors, well, they have none, their behavior is inexcusable.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Someone found out that Timothy had spoken to his friend Arthur Dolan, and Dolan conveniently died. A coincidence? Savich didn’t believe in coincidence. But how could the Barbeaus have found out about it?

  He said, “You are right that Dr. MacLean spoke to several people about your son. Are either of you interested in knowing why Dr. MacLean betrayed your confidence?” Savich studied their faces as he spoke. Estelle’s face was frozen in rage; Pierre looked like he didn’t care, only wanted the earth to open up beneath his feet so he could slip away.

  Estelle said, “We are not interested in any paltry excuses. The man is an abomination. We want you to leave now. We have nothing more to say.” She jumped to her feet. Her husband, however, remained seated, rolling the Diet Coke can between his hands.

  Savich said, “The last attempt on Dr. MacLean’s life was a bomb placed on board a plane. He survived, barely.”

  Estelle shrugged. “What is this? A bomb? We know nothing of any bomb. We do not care what happens to him.” She picked up a framed photo from a side table and waved it in front of their faces. “This is our son. This is Jean David. An elegant, brilliant boy, good, so very good. Look at him! He will never grow older, he will never have a wife and children.”

  He was indeed a handsome man, Sherlock thought, studying the photo. Dark hair, deeply tanned, his smile beguiling and utterly charming, his father’s dark eyes shining out of his face. Such a waste, she thought, such a waste.

  Savich decided not to tell them about MacLean’s disease. He knew it wouldn’t matter. It would mean less than nothing to them. He said, knowing it was a very risky roll of the dice, “Mr. Barbeau, I have read your statement to the authorities about the day your son drowned after saving you. After some dithering, it was determined to be a tragic accident. However”—he paused for effect—“however, I know that is not the truth. Please tell me what really happened that day.”

  Pierre grew very still, and Savich thought, Bingo! He’d known to his gut that something else was going on here. He waited, silent, patient.

  When Estelle would have spoken, Pierre raised his hand to quiet her, shrugged, and said, “Why does it matter now? I say it no longer matters at all, nothing matters now that he is dead. Why not? I will tell you all of it.”

  Estelle stared at her husband. “What are you planning? No. Pierre?”

  “I’m sorry, Estelle, but I knew it would come out eventually. And now, I’m tired, very tired, you see.” He held up his hand to his wife once again and repeated, “It does not matter, Estelle. Agent Savich, Jean David did not die an accidental death.”

  Savich said, his heart racing at a fine clip, “Tell us what happened, sir.”

  Pierre raised his head, his face leached of color, but surprisingly, his voice was strong and steady. “My son came to me, told me what he’d done, asked me to help him. He knew, you see, knew his superiors would figure out soon enough he was the one responsible. I could not believe it. He gave me the details, convinced me. I told him I had to think about it.

  “Two days after he asked me for help, I told him I’d spoken to Timothy, and I told him what he advised us to do, then I told Jean David of his threats. My son looked at me for a very long time, silent, and it broke my heart. He told me that he, just as I, must think about it. He left me. I feared he would try to escape but he did not. I am not lying to you. He did not.

  “Two days later, on Friday, he asked me if I would like to go fishing, even though the weather was getting worse.

  “And so we fished for striped bass in the Potomac, something we’d done many times, a ritual, a special time for us, to be together. But that day we really weren’t fishing, we were silent for the most part, both of us in misery. I was afraid, Timothy’s ultim
atum rang in my mind. I finally broke the silence, told him I didn’t know what to do. I loved him, but what he had done—I had to tell him I couldn’t imagine his getting fooled so completely by that woman. And once again, I shook my head and told him I did not know what to do.

  “Jean David leaned over and kissed me. He sat back, his fishing pole in his hand, and said he’d thought about it and decided he was going to kill himself, it was the only way, and that was why he’d wanted to come out in this storm. He told me he couldn’t live with what he’d done, you see, and there were tears in his eyes when he spoke. The woman, he agreed, had made a fool of him, that was true enough, she’d led him to commit inexcusable crimes, to break sacred laws. He was a traitor, an unwitting one, but it was his own fault for being so gullible. He and only he was responsible.”

  Pierre’s heavy breathing was the only sound in the large living room. Estelle said nothing, merely stared at this man who was her husband, this man radiating pain. There was no pity in her eyes, there was condemnation. Why? Because he’d told them the truth, and left them both naked.

  Savich let the silence and Pierre’s breathing hang thick in the air. He watched a dust mote sparkle in a shaft of bright sunlight.

  Pierre said finally, “I told my son I would not forsake him, that I would hire the best lawyers, maybe I could even arrange for him to leave the country, but he only shook his head, smiled at me sadly.

  “That storm, he had known it would be bad. The winds roared, the fog began to creep over us, and the rain pounded down, thick and hard, but to be honest, I didn’t even notice. The waves were whipping up around our boat, but again, it simply wasn’t important. Jean David said only, ‘I cannot, Father.’ And I knew in my heart that he was already gone from me.

  “The wind became fierce. And I became aware that our boat was rocking wildly. Jean David stood up and I knew what he was going to do. Then a speedboat struck us as he jumped overboard. I jumped in after him. The people on the speedboat tried to help us, and they did save me, but not Jean David. Someone pulled me out, and I was screaming for my son, and then the Coast Guard was there, and they searched for him for hours.

  “But he was gone, he killed himself, as he said he would. The truth is, Agent Savich, I was surprised my story was believed, it was so utterly unbelievable, silly really, but it was believed.” He sighed. “But not by you. I suspect others are questioning it, as well. Perhaps they will believe something worse, that we staged the entire thing so Jean David could escape. But he didn’t. He died, just as he’d intended.

  “But it doesn’t matter now. My son is dead. He paid for his crime. He paid with his life.”

  He looked down at the mangled Coke can in his hands, then raised his head once more. “They never found him. I wish they had found him.”

  Tears flowed down his cheeks. He didn’t move, merely continued to stare at them, beyond them, really, his eyes dead and weeping. “It happened so fast, so very fast, as if someone had speeded up time. My son jumped into that cold rough water. He was not a good swimmer. I tried to teach him how to swim when he was a boy, but he never took to it. He said the water scared him because he knew it just went on and on, deeper and deeper, that there was no bottom. He always believed that. There was no bottom, he’d say. I have thought of that many times, Agent Savich, and I see my son and he is only a vague outline because the water is so deep and it is dragging him down.

  “My son died that day. He took his own life. He is gone now, forever.

  “I did not tell the police. I could not. The storm, the winds, the speedboat in the fog, all of that is the truth. All of that helped my fiction. Everyone believes it was an accident. An accident. But I have told you the truth and now I will tell you why I believe my son killed himself. He did it to spare his mother and me and his family. He did not want to see us shamed, did not want to see us reviled and humiliated because of what he did. My boy killed himself to save my honor.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Georgetown

  Thursday evening

  Sherlock opened the front door to Rachael and Jack, Astro jumping up and down behind her, barking his head off, his tail wagging so fast it was a wild blur, Sean at his heels.

  Jack went down on his knees and stuck out his hand. “Sean, I’d know you anywhere. You look just like your father.” Sean put out his hand and Jack pumped it up and down. “I’m Jack Crowne and I work in your dad’s unit. This is Rachael Abbott. Hey, it looks like you’ve got a wild dog here.”

  “He’s Astro,” Sean said, staring up with his father’s eyes into Jack’s face. He said to Rachael, “I’m Sean. You’re pretty. I like your braid. You’re almost as pretty as Mama.”

  “A wonderful compliment indeed,” Rachael said. “Thank you, Sean.”

  Jack was scratching Astro’s head. “Hello, Mighty Dog, how you doing, big boy?”

  “Mighty Dog,” Sean said, “we never thought of that name, Papa. Mighty Dog.” He said to Jack, “We had fake grass for a while in the backyard and that’s why he’s Astro.”

  “Why don’t we make Mighty Dog Astro’s second name?” said his father.

  “Astro Mighty Dog Savich,” Sean said, and grabbed Astro around his belly and pulled him over to roll onto the floor. Jack laughed and roughhoused with the two of them, Rachael joining the chaos. Soon shouts and barks filled the house.

  It felt good.

  When everyone was seated in the living room, Astro on Rachael’s lap, licking her hands, she said, “Jack told me Sarah Elliot was your grandmother, Dillon. That painting over the fireplace, it’s magnificent.”

  “Thank you. I agree,” Savich said. “She named it The Lame Man in the Square. I have eight of her paintings, seven on display at the Corcoran. I change them out maybe three or four times a year.”

  “I’d want all of them around me all the time,” Rachael said.

  The doorbell rang again. Savich, Sean behind him, Astro leaping and barking on his heels, went to answer the door. In a moment, agents Dane Carver and Ollie Hamish walked into the living room.

  After Rachael met Dane and Ollie and Astro Mighty Dog had been petted until he collapsed on his back, legs in the air, tongue lolling, Sherlock said from the kitchen doorway, “Mr. Maitland called. He can’t make it. Let’s eat first, then we’ll sort things out.”

  “Sort what things out, Mama?” Sean asked.

  “Come wash your hands, Sean,” Savich said, and led him to the half bath.

  “I’m sorry, Sherlock, I didn’t offer to help you.” Rachael immediately jumped to her feet. “Anything I can do now?”

  “Sherlock cooked?” Ollie said, not moving.

  “Tell us you cooked, Savich,” Dane said as he walked back into the living room. “Right?”

  “Ingrates,” Sherlock said.

  Savich laughed as he wiped his son’s now clean hands. “Yes, I did. Meat lasagna for you barbarians, vegetable lasagna for me and Sean.”

  “I made the Caesar salad,” Sherlock said.

  “Give her a lettuce leaf and she can make it dance,” Savich said.

  They all learned about Sean’s first football game with three neighborhood kids, two on a side, and how he threw the best, longest touchdown pass ever, how Marty had tackled Paul, bloodying his lip, and all the other convoluted details until it was time for dessert.

  Sherlock sliced the apple pie into even pieces, every eye at the table on her knife. Between bites of ice cream and pie, Sean told them about his new computer game, Dora the Explorer . “I already know Spanish, so that’s easy.”

  “He speaks Spanish with Gabriella, his nanny,” Sherlock said. “I’m thinking Dillon and I should learn Spanish, to keep up with him.”

  There was a lot of laughter, something Rachael thought had disappeared from her life. There was no talk of business until Sherlock came back downstairs after putting Sean to bed and Savich came inside after walking Astro Mighty Dog for the night.

  “All right,” Sherlock said. “Let’s get to it.” />
  Rachael sat forward. “Dinner was such fun I forgot all the misery, but now it’s coming back.”

  “That’s not the half of it,” Jack said. “We had a big surprise waiting for us when we got back to the senator’s—to Rachael’s house.”

  “What, for heaven’s sake?”

  Rachael said, “My ex-fiancé was standing on the doorstep.”

  Jack sat back on the sofa, his arms crossed over his chest. “Rachael came to a dead stop when she saw him, and I nearly shot him because for all I knew he was there waiting to kill her. I only made an insignificant move toward him and I thought the little wuss was going to puke.”

  Rachael said, “That’s because his bookies were probably after him, and he was already on edge. You’ve got to admit, Jack, he did recover quickly.”

  “Yeah, he did, but only because he knew you were looking at him and he didn’t want you to think he was a coward. Then the jerk acted like you were still going to marry him. He even tried to kiss you.”

  “You didn’t clock him, did you, Jack?” Ollie asked.

  Jack was silent for a moment, his brows drawn together. “For a moment there, I gotta admit it was close.”

  “What is the ex-fiancé’s name?” Sherlock asked as she poured more of Savich’s excellent coffee into Rachael’s cup.

  “Jerol Springer.”

  “I’ve been wondering what kind of name that is,” Jack said. “I mean, it’s almost like that guy on TV. I tell you, Rachael, I can’t believe you ever considered marrying that idiot.”

  “Well, it never came to marriage, and not because of his name,” Rachael said, sipped the coffee and closed her eyes a moment in pleasure. She said, “You know, Dillon’s coffee’s as good as mine.”

  There was a discreet snort; no one believed her.

  Ollie said, “Why is Mr. Springer an ex? He wasn’t faithful?”