“And the condoms,” she added.
“And the condoms. It’s almost like he never really lived here. Or like the place has been scrubbed. Like they wanted to cover his tracks.”
“Which begs the question. Who are ‘they’? Who’s he working for?”
Dawtry gave a shrug. He rifled through the remaining dresser drawers, frowning and muttering, then combed through the closet, his frustration visibly increasing. “There’s got to be something more.”
“Like what?”
He shook his head, surveying the room glumly. Then he returned to the bed. First, he peered underneath, using his phone as a flashlight. Then, one by one, he lifted the corners of the mattress. “Eureka,” he said. “Like this.” Reaching in with his free hand, he took hold of a thin, rectangular object, the size and shape of a large, thin book, and slid it out from beneath the foot of the mattress.
It was not a book; it was a large color photograph in a thin wooden frame, a diagonal crack angling across the glass. Dawtry took it to the window for more light and a better look, and O’Malley followed. The photo, wavy and washed out, showed an earnest dark-haired toddler, two or three years old, in the arms of a grinning dark-haired man.
“That’s Iñigo,” O’Malley said.
“Which one?”
“The man.”
“You sure about that?”
“Unless he’s got a twin brother,” she said.
“Or unless he’s a chip off the old block,” said Dawtry “Look again. This picture’s old—see how faded the color is?” He was studying it with such intensity that O’Malley wouldn’t have been surprised to see it burst into flames. She looked over his shoulder, trying to see it through the FBI agent’s eyes. The man, who looked to be around thirty, was wearing a khaki jumpsuit that contrasted almost comically with the white cowboy hat on his head. Behind the man and boy was a helicopter—a hulking, menacing shape in tan-and-brown camouflage.
“I guess you’re right,” she said. “That’s gotta be his dad. But he looks exactly the age Iñigo was.”
Dawtry had shifted his attention to the helicopter. “I think that’s a Hind.”
“A what?”
“A Hind. An Mi-24, I think it is.”
“But what is it?”
“A military attack helicopter.”
He turned his gaze from the photo to her face; she saw excitement in his eyes. “Iñigo told you Americans killed his father?”
“Yes. When Iñigo was three.”
“Did he say where?”
“No. But you recognize the helicopter. Doesn’t that tell you where it was?”
“Not really. The Hind is used all over the world. Middle East, Africa, Central Europe, South America—dozens of countries.”
“So how do we narrow it down?”
“We keep looking.”
“Where?”
He shrugged again. He continued staring at the photo, then—slowly and gingerly, as if the object might crumble or explode in his hands—he turned it over. “Here.” The back was sealed, the cardboard taped to the wooden frame with brown packing tape. Dawtry tried to break the seal with a thumbnail, but the nail was too short and not sharp enough. He looked at O’Malley. “How are your fingernails?”
“Lousy.” She held out a hand. “Down to the quick, all of ’em. I’m no good at being girlie.”
“There are worse flaws.” He reached behind him, opened the nightstand drawer again, rooted around, and took out a paper clip. He unbent it partway, then ran the tip of the wire around the tape, pressing it into the groove between the frame and the cardboard. When he had sliced all the way around, he used the makeshift tool to burrow beneath one corner of the cardboard, then gently pried. The cardboard stuck briefly but then let go, and Dawtry pulled it free, exposing the back of the photo itself. He stared, then said softly, almost reverentially, “Jesus H. Christ.” He turned the photo so O’Malley could see it: an inscription on the back, hand lettered in ornate, exotic script. The only familiar-looking string of characters was a year, 1984.
O’Malley’s brow furrowed. “What is that? Greek? It’s Greek to me, anyhow.”
“Close,” he said. “Adapted from Greek, centuries ago. It’s Cyrillic. I think our boy Iñigo is a Russki.”
“Russian?” Again O’Malley made a sound like a puff of air from an aerosol can: ppfftt. “No way. He went to university in Barcelona. He got his PhD in astrophysics at Oxford.”
“Maybe, maybe not. From what you said, he was basically a telescope technician, right? Somebody who was here to help the real astronomers—people like you. Last time I checked, Stephen Hawking wasn’t doing tech support.”
O’Malley groaned. “His name is Iñigo. Not Boris, not Ivan, not Dmitri. Iñigo. Iñigo Rodriguez, for chrissakes. Spanish name, Spanish guy.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he says—he said—he was a Spaniard.”
“Yeah, and I say I’m a genius. Doesn’t make it true. He also said he was a mild-mannered, friendly guy, right? Until he said he had to kill you, for mucking up his plot to slaughter masses.”
She frowned. “Okay, maybe you’ve got a point.”
“Yeah, and maybe the Pope’s Catholic.” He tapped the inscription. “I don’t read much Russian, but this word here—the one that looks like ‘Mockba’? I can read that one loud and clear. That’s Cyrillic for ‘Moscow,’ Megan.”
“You sure?”
“Sure as shooting. So you tell me, what’s a nice Spanish boy doing in Moscow in 1984, sitting on the shoulder of a Soviet gunship pilot? A pilot who, oh, by the way, just happens to be his papa?” He laid the picture on the desk and used his phone to take a picture of the inscription. Then he flipped it over, image side up, and took a picture of the photo itself. Next, he began keying in a message.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m writing my boss and copying a few of my fans at the CIA.”
“What are you telling them?”
“That the guy who tried to kill you might be a Russian agent with a Spanish cover. I’m saying his father was a Soviet pilot shot down in Afghanistan, sometime around 1985.”
“Huh? Where’d you get all that?”
“From this.” He nodded at the inscription. “You said he blamed the US for his dad’s death. You said he was three when his dad died. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the dad died not long after this picture was taken. And the place where Soviet helicopters were falling out of the sky in the 1980s was Afghanistan, thanks to the CIA, which was smuggling bazillions of Stinger missiles—surface-to-air missiles—to rebel warlords. The mujahideen. And teaching them how to use them.”
“Oh my God,” said O’Malley. “I saw that movie about the CIA in Afghanistan—what was it called? Not Zero Dark Thirty. The earlier one—about the congressman who funded that CIA operation?”
“Charlie Wilson’s War. Good movie; bad foreign policy, in hindsight. We taught the Afghan rebels to fight with modern weapons. With our weapons. Seemed like a good idea at the time. But now . . .”
“Now we’re the ones they’re killing,” she finished.
Dawtry tapped the tip of his nose—bingo—and did a final flurry of typing. Then he hit “Send.” After the message transmitted, he took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “This is bad, Megan. So bad. Way worse than bad.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this isn’t just al-Qaeda. This could be al-Qaeda plus Russia. Russia, home of Vladimir Putin, a modern-day Stalin. Putin rose through the ranks of the KGB. He’s a cold-blooded thug with global ambitions.” She stared at him. “If Russia pulls this off—devastates our entire Eastern Seaboard—it cripples us for years, maybe forever.”
“Jesus, Chip. You really think they’d do this?”
“The brilliant part is they’re hiding behind al-Qaeda. Iñigo said so himself—the world would blame radical Islamists—right?”
“My God,” she whispered.
“That’s sick,” she said. “But it makes a diabolical kind of sense. How the hell do we—”
Dawtry interrupted her with a raised hand. Outside, tires were screeching to a halt. “Shit,” he muttered, “we’ve got company.”
“Shit,” she echoed, “we’re trapped.”
Dawtry spun, inspecting the bedroom, then pointed toward the bathroom. “There’s a window in there. It opens onto the roof. Go!”
The window was a slider, high and narrow, but big enough, just barely. Dawtry tugged it open, popped the screen, and then interlaced his fingers to make his hands into a step for O’Malley. He boosted her up, practically tossing her through the opening, and as soon as she wriggled through, he breasted up, half vaulting out the opening and onto the roof. Then he slid the glass shut, wedged a small piece of gravel from the roof into the frame to jam the mechanism, and propped the screen back into position.
Moving at a low crouch, they scuttled along the roof, beyond the sight line of Iñigo’s window. At the long building’s midpoint, Dawtry nodded toward a stout drainpipe. “You okay to shinny down that?”
“Hey, I used to be a rock climber. And before that, a tomboy. I climb like a monkey. You could smear it with grease, and I’d still be fine.”
He nodded. “You go first—I want to learn from a pro. Catch me if I fall, would you?”
“Ha ha.”
“You think I’m kidding? My hand and my leg aren’t at their best. I’m not sure how much strength I’ve got.”
“God, I didn’t even think about that. Why’d you let me put my foot in your hands?”
“Seemed better than letting you get caught or shot. Now shut up and shinny.”
She was off the roof and on the ground in seconds. Like a monkey, he thought approvingly. His descent was just as fast but far less controlled: partway down, his mangled leg buckled and he half slid, half fell the rest of the way. Lunging forward, O’Malley managed to grab him around the waist and absorb part of his momentum. Even so, he grunted with pain when his feet hit the ground. They stood like that, her arms wrapped around him from behind, while he took several breaths. Then he turned, still in her arms. “That helped. Thank you.”
She kissed him briefly. “Now what? We can’t just stand here and make out.”
“Too bad.” He cast a quick glance around, at the rugged mountainside and the lengthening shadows. “Our options suck,” he said. “The terrain’s dangerous, and it’ll be dark soon. I’d rather have wheels, if possible. Let’s see if we can get to the car.”
They crept along the back wall, then around the end of the building. When they reached the front corner, Dawtry darted his head out for an instant, then yanked back. “Bad news and good,” he whispered.
“What’s the bad?”
“Our car’s blocked in.”
“What’s the good?”
“They left the keys in their truck.”
“How the hell can you tell that?”
“With my special-agent superpowers. That, and the fact that the muffler’s shot. I hear the engine running.”
“Ah. So now we steal theirs?” He nodded, and she grinned. “I like it. We leave them stranded.”
“And we trade up. Except for the muffler, that’s a pretty good truck.”
“And you think we can get in and get away before they catch us?”
“You stay here. I’ll create a diversion.”
“Did you just say ‘create a diversion’?”
He nodded. “When you hear the diversion, run like hell for the truck. But I need to drive again.”
“Can you? With your leg like that?”
“It’s only a flesh wound.”
“Where have you been all my life, Dialogue Man? Do be careful.”
She heard the diversion—the sound of shattering glass, the sound of a rock being chucked through the bathroom window—and sprinted for the truck. As she yanked open the passenger door, she heard gunshots. Don’t you dare, she thought, or prayed. Don’t you dare get shot, Chip Dawtry.
A moment later, she saw him running around the corner of the building, his gait a limping, skipping stride that would have made her laugh under less perilous circumstances. Instead, she winced at the pain on his face. Leaning across the cab, she opened the door for him, and he tumbled in. She laid a hand on his arm. “Good to see you, Hopalong. Any new wounds I need to know about?”
He yanked the truck into gear. “Nah, but we gotta scoot. He’ll be coming out the door”—a bullet slammed into the truck—“any second now.”
The truck hurtled away from the apartments and up toward the main road. As they passed the Residencia, O’Malley caught sight of a familiar figure charging through the front door and sprinting across the parking lot, his eyes tracking them as he ran. She gasped. “My God, that’s Antonio. The receptionist. He was always so nice to me. But come to think of it, he was the one who told Iñigo I was here yesterday.” She turned to watch through the rear window. “He’s getting into a car. He’s coming after us, Chip.”
They reached the main road. “Damn,” Dawtry said, looking left.
“What?”
“The gate’s closed. Looks like that nice man Antonio locked us in.” He pointed to the right. “What’s up that way?”
“The telescopes. The overlook at the rim of the caldera.”
“Is there a way out?”
“Only if we sprout wings.”
Dawtry spun the wheel to the right and gunned the throttle, laying down parallel tracks of rubber on the pavement. “This thing has some giddyup,” he said approvingly. “How far back is he?”
“Two hundred yards? Three, tops.”
He nodded grimly, his eyes scanning the road ahead. “When I say the word, open your door and jump.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When I say ‘jump,’ you jump. Like your life depends on it. Because it does.”
“What about you?”
“Do I look stupid? I’m jumping, too. Get ready.”
Ahead, the mountainside seemed to drop away into nothingness, the road changing course at a switchback, ten feet short of the edge of the abyss. Dawtry checked the mirror; for the moment, a curve and an embankment hid them from Antonio’s view. “Get ready,” he repeated, slowing the truck and opening his door slightly. O’Malley cracked hers as well. “Haul ass for the bushes. We’ll get half a second to hide. On three . . . One. Two. Three!”
O’Malley jumped and tucked into a roll, which took most of the impact out of her fall. She crouched on all fours and scuttled into the scrubby bushes beside the road. Suddenly she heard the truck’s engine rev. Dawtry had not jumped; Dawtry was still at the wheel, accelerating toward the cliff. “Chip!” she screamed. “No!”
The last thing she saw was the truck reaching the curve—fast—but instead of turning, it hurtled straight ahead. It crashed through a flimsy fence, sailed over the edge, and then dropped from sight. O’Malley clapped her hands over her mouth, frozen in horror. Five seconds later, she heard a distant crash.
Her heart hammered, and she felt a surge of primal, dizzying terror course through her body. Instinctively, she began scrambling toward the edge. Just before she darted from the brush, though, a car sped past. O’Malley shrank back. The car skidded to a stop at the break in the fence, and Antonio leaped out, a gun in his hand. As O’Malley watched, her heart and breath still racing, he ran to the edge and peered over. A plume of smoke was billowing up from below, illuminated by the slanting rays of the setting sun. Antonio stared briefly; then he took out a phone, punched a button, and began talking. He nodded, gesturing excitedly with the hand holding the gun.
As the finality of the scene set in, O’Malley’s legs buckled, and her knees and hands hit the g
round hard. She stayed there, on all fours, trying to catch her breath, then sank to the ground and sobbed.
CHAPTER 18
“Hey, it was just a truck,” came a low voice from a neighboring bush. “Next time I’ll steal us that Lamborghini. Promise.”
O’Malley bolted up and whirled around. “Chip! But . . . I saw you die.”
He spread his arms—one sleeve shredded and blood soaked, the other now dirty and torn. “I came back.”
She crawled toward him and flung her arms around him, but after a moment she drew back and slammed her fist into his chest. “You scared the crap out of me.”
“Ouch. Use your words, not your hammerlike fists. Well, here’s hoping our friend is equally convinced. If so, we might actually make it out of here.”
“When? How?”
“Soon. They’re working on it—really they are. But meanwhile, let’s find a better place to hide.”
The sky was black and the air was frigid—the temperature had dropped thirty degrees in six hours, according to Dawtry’s phone—and the wind had risen steadily. They had taken shelter in a protected niche of rock, one that retained a bit of warmth from the sun for the first few hours after sundown. Since dark, though, the rock had cooled, and instead of warming them, it gradually began to sap their heat. They huddled together—a pleasant activity, under other circumstances, but the combination of cold and danger put a damper on the romance. Dawtry briefed her on the plan but cautioned, “Remember, it’s a plan, not a guarantee. A lot of things could derail it.” Even in the darkness, he could see her face fall.
Shortly before midnight, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and checked the display. “What do you know,” he said. “Showtime. Looks like our friends might actually come through for us.”
They crept from their hiding place and picked their way across the rocky landscape at a half crouch, O’Malley pointing them toward a dark, indistinct structure. As they drew closer, a keening, moaning sound rose and grew steadily louder.
“What the hell is that?” Dawtry whispered. “It’s creeping me out.”
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