“Sell it, John.”
“What the fuck-?”
“Just sell, John. Now.”
For some reason I didn’t feel elated. Instead, I felt a dull, acid wave of fear wash over my insides. Everything else I’d been through in the last few hours I could on some level dismiss as my imagination, as some sort of terrible delusion. But I had read a human being’s mind, had thereby learned inside information, and here was the concrete evidence of it.
Not just for me, but for anyone else who might be watching me. I knew there was a serious risk that the SEC would be suspicious of such a quick turnover; but I needed the cash, and I let it get the better of my good sense.
I gave him quick instructions on what to do with the proceeds, which account to place it in, and then I hung up. And called Edmund Moore in Washington.
The phone rang, and rang, and rang-there was no answering machine; Ed Moore had always considered such contraptions gauche-and when I was about to hang up, it was answered by a male voice.
“Yes?”
The voice of a young man, not Ed’s. The voice of someone in a position of authority.
“Ed Moore, please,” I said.
A pause. “Who’s calling?”
“A friend.”
“Name, please.”
“None of your business. Let me speak to Elena.”
In the background I could hear a woman’s voice, high and keening, her cries rising and falling rhythmically. “Who is it?” the woman’s voice called out.
“She’s unable to come to the phone, sir. I’m sorry.”
In the background the cries became louder, then became words: “Oh, my Lord!” and “My baby. My baby” and a loud, anguished gasping.
“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.
The man covered the phone, consulted with someone, and then came back on the line. “Mr. Moore has passed away. His wife discovered him just a few minutes ago. It was a suicide. I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.”
I was stunned, almost speechless.
Ed Moore… a suicide? My dear friend and mentor, that diminutive, feisty, and, above all, enormous-hearted old man. I was too dazed, too shocked, even to shed the tears for him I knew I would.
It couldn’t be.
A suicide? He had talked about vague threats against him; he had feared for his life. Surely it was no suicide. Yet he had seemed so disoriented, even unbalanced, when we spoke.
Edmund Moore was dead.
It was no suicide.
I called Mass. General and had Molly paged. I trusted her good sense, her sound advice, and I needed it now more than ever.
I was deeply scared. There’s a macho tendency among new clandestine-officer recruits to belittle and mock fear, as if it somehow demeans your competence, your virility. But the experienced field men know that fear can be your greatest ally. You must always listen to, and trust, your instincts.
And my instincts now told me that this sudden talent had put both Molly and me in great danger.
After a long wait the page operator got on and said, in a cigarette-husky voice, “I’m sorry, sir, there’s no answer. Would you like me to connect you to the neonatal intensive-care unit?”
“Yes, please.”
The woman who answered at the NICU had a slight Hispanic accent. “No, Mr. Ellison, I’m sorry, she’s already left.”
“Left?”
“Gone home. About ten minutes ago.”
“What?”
“She had to leave suddenly. She said it was an emergency, something about you. I assumed you knew.”
I hung up and hurried toward the elevator, my heart racing.
Rain was coming down in sheets, gusted by winds of almost gale force. The sky was gunmetal gray, streaked with yellow. People walked by in yellow slickers and khaki raincoats, their black umbrellas turned inside out by the howling wind.
By the time I mounted the steps to my town house, drenched during the short walk from the taxi to the front door, it was twilight, and all of the lights in the house seemed to be off. Strange.
I hurried into the outside foyer. Why would she have gone home? She was scheduled to spend the night in the hospital.
The first peculiar thing I noticed was that the alarm was off. Did that mean she was in the house? Molly had left after I did that morning, and she was always scrupulous-even a little obsessive-about turning the alarm on, though there was little if anything for anyone to steal.
When I unlocked the front door, I noticed the second peculiar thing: Molly’s briefcase was there, in the foyer, the briefcase she took with her wherever she went.
She must be home.
I switched on a few lights and quietly climbed the stairs to our bedroom. It was dark, and there was no Molly. I climbed another flight of stairs to the room she uses as her study, though at that point it was in a dismaying state of renovation.
Nothing.
I called out: “Mol?”
No reply.
The adrenaline began to course through my bloodstream, and I made a series of mental calculations.
If she wasn’t here, could she be on the way? And if so, who or what had caused her to come home? And why hadn’t she tried to call me?
“Molly?” I called out a little louder.
Silence.
I descended the staircase rapidly, my heart thudding, switching on lights as I moved.
No. Not in the sitting room. Not in the kitchen.
“Molly?” I said loudly.
Complete, utter silence in the house.
And then I jumped as the telephone rang.
I leapt to pick it up, and said, “Molly.”
It wasn’t Molly. The voice was male, unfamiliar.
“Mr. Ellison?” An accent, but from where?
“Yes?”
“We must talk. It is urgent.”
“What the fuck have you done with her?” I exploded. “What the-”
“Please, Mr. Ellison. Not over the telephone. Not in your house.”
I breathed in slowly, trying to slow my heartbeat. “Who is this?”
“Outside. We must meet right now. It is a matter of safety for both of you. For all of us.”
“Where the hell-” I tried to say.
“Everything will be explained,” came the voice again. “We will talk-”
“No,” I said. “Right now I want to know-”
“Listen,” the accented voice hissed through the receiver. “There is a taxi at the end of your block. Your wife is in it right now, waiting for you. You must go left, down the block-”
But I did not wait for him to finish. Throwing the handset to the floor, I whirled around and ran toward the front door.
TWENTY
The street was dark, quiet, slick with rain. A slight drizzle fell, almost a mist.
There it was, at the end of the block, a yellow cab, a few hundred yards off. Why at the end of the block? Why there? I wondered.
And as I set off, running, accelerating, I could make out, in the taxi’s backseat, the silhouette of a woman’s head, the long tangle of dark hair, unmoving.
Was it in fact Molly?
I couldn’t be sure at this distance, but it might-it had to-be. Why, I thought wildly, my legs pumping, was she there? What had happened?
But something felt wrong. Instinctually, I slowed to a fast walk, my head whipping to either side.
What was it?
Something. One too many strollers on the street at this time of night, in the rain. Walking too casually. People normally stride through rain to get out of it…