Enigma

by Catherine Coulter

Ruth punched in Ollie’s number, whispered, “Back up now, Ollie! It’s an ambush! I’m in the public garage across from the restaurant. I don’t know Bowler’s status. Hurry!”

  She held perfectly still, straining to hear any movement, breathing, anything at all, but it was silent now. She shouted into the darkness, “FBI! Mr. Bowler, keep hidden! Don’t make a sound! Agents are barricading the garage entrance and exits!”

  Silence.

  How far out were the nearest agents and police? Ruth panned the darkness with her Glock waiting for her eyes to adjust to the pitch black, breathing as lightly as she could. She sensed no movement in the still air. She hoped the older couple was alive, hadn’t paid with their lives for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was nothing she could do for them right now.

  Ruth made a decision, shouted, “Mr. Bowler, you realize now the person you were supposed to meet at the restaurant set you up. Come toward my voice. You need to tell me who hired you, and the assassin will have no more reason to kill you.”

  A bullet struck a car fender right behind her. So the assassin wasn’t gone. He’d fired toward the sound of her voice. She dropped to her knees and crawled behind a van beside her. Another bullet rang out, this one not as close, then a third bullet struck the wall two cars away, sending concrete shards flying.

  A man’s voice called out, “Hey, bitch cop, I don’t hear any backup. Hey, you leave now and I’ll let you live.”

  Ruth aimed her Glock toward his voice and pulled off three fast rounds, then two more, lower down, to each side. She heard three pings off cars and glass shattering. And the fifth shot? Could she have hit him? There was no sound of a gun dropping to the concrete floor, no moan. She didn’t move.

  Where were the agents? The police? She had to keep the assassin pinned down, keep him from finding Bowler. Then she heard a beautiful sound, faint at first, sirens coming closer. Ollie had called the Alexandria police. She heard their cars screeching up to the garage, knew they were blocking the entrance. She heard shouts.

  Then, to her horror, lights flooded the garage.

  Ruth yelled, “Get those lights off!”

  She heard footsteps, a shout, then a single shot.

  The lights went out again, and a score of flashlights came on to light the garage. But Ruth knew it was too late.

  They found the older couple, thankfully not dead, but both unconscious, struck on their heads. She felt the pulse in their throats, slow and steady.

  An Alexandria police officer yelled, “I found one. He’s dead.”

  She’d failed, the assassin had killed Bowler. Ruth ran past the couple to where the police officer knelt. She looked down at a slight young man sprawled on his back behind a black Toyota, a bullet through his heart, a .357 Magnum on the concrete floor beside his right hand.

  Ruth’s heart jumped into her throat. It had to be the assassin, which meant Bowler not only had a gun, he’d been close enough to the assassin when the lights came on to kill him.

  She yelled, “Mr. Bowler! The assassin is dead, you’re safe. You can come out now!”

  Duce Bowler wasn’t in the garage.

  16

  HOME OF BEAU BRECKENRIDGE MADDOX, FOUNDER OF GEN-CORE TECHNOLOGIES

  BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

  LATE MONDAY AFTERNOON

  Lister Maddox stood listening at the door of his father’s bedroom, his hand raised to knock. He heard Hannah’s sweet, patient voice cajoling his father to take his new medicine, promising him it tasted like peppermint, and didn’t he love peppermint? It was indeed new to him, a medication Lister had formulated personally to supplement his father’s infusions. His prayer, now his litany: Please let this one work.

  He slowly turned the knob and stepped into the King’s Bedchamber, an exact replica of the King’s Bedchamber in Restoration House in Kent, England. The high white sculpted-plaster ceiling was set off by a black-and-white japanned cornice celebrating Charles II’s visit in 1684, and the walls below it were hung with gold silk damask. An antique ornate lacquer cabinet stood beside a mullioned window and a small harpsichord, its raised lid and gracefully curved sides painted with classical scenes. His father’s four-poster bed dominated the large room, with rare Polish needlework draped over its top and hanging over the sides, its medieval scenes all shades of blue. The four carved bedposts were covered in black silk damask, the counterpane strawberry silk bordered with gold. The walls were covered with copies of the original portraits in the King’s Bedchamber, of men and women dressed in seventeenth-century lace.

  Lister remembered his first visit to Restoration House when he was a child, his father holding his hand as he led him from one magnificent room to the next, weaving tales about Charles II and Queen Christina of Sweden, and stories of the endless violence that had erupted near and within its walls, violence that had seeped into the very walls, leaving ghosts tied to this house—could Lister feel the stain of them? Lister hadn’t ever felt any ghost stain or seen a ghost in Restoration House, but his father said he had once, and he reveled in the telling of it. There’d been many visits, blurred together now, but he did remember it was in this house his father had given his small son antique Murano glass worry beads on his eighth birthday to keep his small hands occupied, worry beads very much like those held in his hand now.

  Hardly anyone could tell the difference between the original King’s Bedchamber and his father’s re-creation, one of two rooms he’d built faithful to the original in England. The Willows, as his father had named his jewel, resembled Restoration House on the outside, too, with its three stories of dark red brick and the beautifully maintained English gardens surrounding the house. His father had elected to set the Willows in Anne Arundel County on the Patapsco River, only a fifteen-minute drive from the company he’d founded, Gen-Core Technologies, in the Carroll-Camden Industrial Area. The Willows was the crown of the whole wealthy enclave, standing in the middle of a large lush private park, the gardens surrounded by ancient thick oak and maple trees, with a high stone wall surrounding the property to keep the curious away. The back of the Willows fronted the river, and a rich, thick lawn sloped down to the water’s edge. As a child, Lister had dangled his feet in the water off the wooden dock while his flamboyant father entertained him, his mother, and their friends with his dives off the high platform at the back of his yacht, powerful dives, his form perfect. At least his mother had had the chance to live in this amazing house for a couple of years before she’d died, a skeleton in a morphine haze.

  Lister shuddered now, remembering her claw of a hand dropping away from his when she breathed her last breath. He’d wondered over the years why his father hadn’t been at his wife’s deathbed, but he’d never had the courage to ask.

  The Willows was large, well over ten thousand square feet, and his father would never know Enigma 3 was already in a room in the south wing. He’d decided against taking the baby back to the Annex, the bleak building near Gen-Core he normally used for his research. It was too dangerous to use now that Enigma 2 had escaped and Quince had failed in his assignment today. He’d threaded his worry beads endlessly between his fingers until Burley and Quince finally delivered Enigma 3 to Ella Peters, the pediatric nurse who would be his constant attendant twenty-four hours a day, even sleep in the same room with him. Ella owed his father her life, and she knew that he, his father’s son, was working to help him, and was owed her loyalty in turn. It wasn’t until much later his father told him how he’d stopped Ella’s abusive husband from killing her. A pity, his father had added, Ella’s husband was killed driving drunk a week later. Yes, it would all work out, everything would be back on track soon. Quince would remedy his failure.

  Lister stepped forward into the King’s Bedchamber, his low boots loud on the naked oak planks, his father having refused to cover the floor because there was no carpet in the original.

  His father was no longer the powerful figure who’d ruled Gen-Core Technologies brilliantly and with ruthless efficiency for more
than thirty years. The once renowned genetic scientist was now sitting in a wheelchair, facing Lister as he walked toward him, no expression on his face. Hannah Fox, once his lover for more years than Lister could remember, was now his nurse. She never left his side, hovered over him, always touching him, kissing him, speaking to him as if he understood what she was saying. As she watched Lister approach, she held up the empty syringe, a smile on her still-striking face. “How long will it be before we know?” She left the words this time unspoken.

  Lister picked up his father’s hand, remembered how strong it had been, how that hand had clasped his as a child, making him feel safe. He whispered, “Maybe by tonight.”

  Lister always spoke in a whisper around his father, but Hannah didn’t. She said in a normal voice, “That soon?”

  “It’s a new formulation, so I’m not sure, but if it acts, it should act quickly.”

  Hannah raised her eyes upward as if she was praying. He knew she loved his father. It would take one of their deaths to separate them. Would the new formulation make a difference? Maybe, maybe it would. He wanted desperately to tell his father what he’d set into motion, what he hoped to accomplish, that there was still hope for him, but his father wouldn’t understand him, of course. But maybe soon, things would change, at least a bit. Lister walked to the wheelchair, leaned down, and kissed the cheek of the impossibly handsome man who sat there, his face wrinkle-free, not looking a day over fifty. “Hello, Father.”

  There was no response.

  “I’ve come to give you my weekly report on the status of our business.” Lister pulled a small tablet out of his briefcase and began his weekly recital. His father never looked away from his son’s face as he spoke.

  17

  EAST BRANCH ROAD

  DANIEL BOONE NATIONAL FOREST

  MONDAY, ONE HOUR BEFORE DUSK

  Cam walked behind Ranger Wayne Duke in the gathering twilight. She knew Duke was forty-five, but he looked older, his face darkly tanned and seamed from all his years outdoors. He was a no-nonsense man, built lean like a runner and tough as an old boot, always ready, she imagined, to deal with a bear or a drunken tourist. He wore a Beretta snug in a clip at his waist, his Remington 7600 slung over his shoulder next to his backpack. He seemed at home with his weapons and with the forest. When he raised his hand and turned back to speak to them, his voice was judge-calm and low, his Virginia drawl soft and smooth as butter. “We’ve got to make some assumptions if we’re going to hope to pick up their trail. We’re all agreed they’re going to be heading north, as far away from civilization as they can make it on foot.” He pointed to a small snaking trail that forked off to the right. “If they peeled off here, they’d be heading into low hills, open scrub, and sparse trees. Not a difficult hike, at least along the ridges, but they’d be exposed there, so I’m thinking they’re going to be moving closer to the drainages—the creeks—for tree cover. It’s tougher terrain, but I’d take that trade-off. There’s a trail leading down to the creek a bit farther up.

  “Chief tells me you’re an ex–army ranger, Jack, so you’re welcome to lead out if you want. Chief, you and Agent Wittier stick close to me. Once we get to the creek, we’ll want to spread out. What you want to look for is boot prints, broken branches, displaced rocks, any sign of their passing. There aren’t many hikers where we’re going, so anything fresh you see is probably them.”

  Jack said, “You take the lead, Duke. You know the lay of the land. I think you’re right they’ll be heading for overhead tree cover, to avoid line-of-sight surveillance.”

  “Let’s move out then.” As they fell into line behind him, Duke said over his shoulder, “It’s about five miles along a meandering creek up to Highway 490 and 89. They might try to make the five miles tonight, make it less likely local law enforcement patrolling roads would catch sight of them, but maybe not. If we can find their tracks near the creek before dark, we can keep after them, but even with the quarter moon tonight it’ll still be too dark to see anything. We’ll probably have to wait until first light.”

  Jack said, “At least they have no idea anyone’s behind them. That’s why we opted out of any helicopters overhead to help us spot them. With any luck, we’ll be a surprise.”

  Duke pushed a branch out of the way. “Daniel Boone is mostly a wide-open forest, a lot of pretty clear terrain, with gentle, low-country slopes that top out at about twenty degrees. Most of the deeper woods are around the creeks. We can be at the creek in about thirty minutes, if we move fast. That’s where we’ll set up camp.”

  They hiked in silence, the only human sounds they heard were their footsteps and their own breathing. Duke moved faster as the dusk deepened. At least the temperature was falling, cooling off from the heat of the day. They followed the troughs of the rolling hills into thickening woods until Duke raised his hand. “The creek is ahead, down that incline. I know we’d all like to keep going, but there’s no point in pushing on now. They have three, maybe four hours on us. This is as good a spot as any for the night. We’re open to the sky, but there won’t be any rain tonight, so we don’t have to worry about shelter. We can even use the camp stoves, but after tonight we’ll have to be more careful. We can’t risk being spotted.”

  Soon each of them had their bivvy sacks rolled out, their pads and lightweight sleeping bags inside, laid in a rough circle.

  Jack set up the two camp stoves with fuel canisters, watched the small gas flames flare to life, something that always made him feel at home. Chief announced it would be chili and rice for dinner. As long as there was ketchup, Jack was good to go. He put a small pail of water on for coffee.

  They sat in a row on a fallen log eating their chili and drinking their instant coffee as it slowly turned pitch black around them. Duke picked up his headlight, adjusted its stretchy band, and slipped it over his head. “That’s better. I wouldn’t want to miss any of this fine gourmet chili.”

  They laughed, slipped on their own headlights.

  Chief took a final drink of his black coffee, shuddered. “Too bad there isn’t a Starbucks around. It’s only out of politeness I call this coffee.” He shook out his camp cup. “Tell us about where we’re headed tomorrow, Duke.”

  Duke said quietly, as if he didn’t want to alarm any critters nearby hunkered down for the night, “As you know, the Daniel Boone National Forest stretches nearly to Ohio. There are hundreds of caves, dozens of lakes and mountains, waterfalls, gorges, creeks like this one, and hundreds of miles of trails. We have private property, owner-operated farms, private houses, roads, large campgrounds, open fields.

  “What’s most important is that we get thousands of bikers and campers on any given day in high summer and that plays to our advantage. We’ll stay away from those main trails since we know they’ll want to avoid people. If we find tracks, we’ll know who it is. Still, it’s too bad we don’t have anything that belongs to Manta Ray or I’d have Milo’s hound dog, Cody, out here to track them for us.”

  Cam said, “Not to worry, Duke, we have our own human hound dog. Jack’s as good as Cody, right, Jack?”

  Jack grinned at her, his headlight making his face glow like a lit-up pumpkin. “Give me the sun and a footprint and I’m good to go.”

  “Remember, folks, all this is my best guess.”

  Chief shook his empty camp cup at him. “Come on, Duke, you’ve been all over this forest for years. Your best guess is as good as gold. Where do you think they’re headed?”

  Duke took a last sip of his coffee and wiped out his camp cup. He pulled a butt-curved map out of his pocket, unfolded it, and laid it down by the light of the stoves. “I’ll call the two people with Manta Ray his keepers. Let’s say the keepers are experienced hikers, but we know Manta Ray isn’t, he’s a city boy from what you’ve told me, and that makes him the weak link. Whoever busted him out doesn’t want him breaking his neck. So I’ve ruled out these two wilderness areas, here and here—they’d have to cross a couple of gorges, both rough and danger
ous. That’s how I came up with following this creek below us, Hellard Branch, to avoid the ridge where there’s too much chance of being seen. I’m hoping we can pick up their trail somewhere between here and Highway 490.”

  They followed his finger on the map. “They’ll have to cross Winding Blade Road, then back into scrubby terrain before they reach the thicker tree cover of Denny Branch. It’s about four miles from our location.”

  Jack said, “Manta Ray’s definitely out of his element. He grew up on the streets of Belfast, came to the U.S., and made his living on the streets of New York. Let’s hope it’s a big problem for them.” He adjusted his headlight and rose.

  Cam said, “You headed out somewhere, Jack?”

  “I’m going to circle around for a while, make sure they’re nowhere near here. One thing I learned in Afghanistan was never underestimate the enemy.”

  18

  DANIEL BOONE NATIONAL FOREST

  MONDAY NIGHT

  “It’s dark as a snake pit. All I want is a freaking fire.”

  Elena’s headlight flashed in Manta Ray’s direction. “I told you, no fires. The last thing we need is for some ranger to follow his nose and pay us a visit, demand to know who we are and why we’re stupid enough to build a fire in a non-designated area. Eat your mac and cheese, Liam.”

  Manta Ray’s headlamp jiggered her way. “Then we’d stick a knife in his gullet, so who cares?” He paused, cocked his head. “Liam? Only cops call me Liam since I hit the States years ago. Why’d you call me Liam?”

  Because Manta Ray is too stupid to say out loud. I’m sparing myself. Elena took a bite of the instant mac and cheese Jacobson had picked out for their dinner. It wasn’t all that good, but on the other hand, it wasn’t supposed to be. She wanted to tell him to stop whining, but remembered Sergei telling her the night before exactly how to treat Manta Ray, as he lay next to her in the darkened bedroom, his hand running lightly over her hip.