Lomax understood, and accepted Art’s estimation with a facial shrug made uneven by his scar. “Well, how would you like some interesting news on another front?” The SAC made a stabbing motion in the air.
“Kimura?”
Lomax nodded. “Seattle PD found a body all cut up. They ran it through NCIC. Kimura came up as a possible. Prints confirmed it. Exact matches to the ones found with Vince Chappell.”
“Here? In the states?”
“Go figure,” Lomax said as he stood. “Glad it’s not yours to figure out.”
“Glad indeed,” Art confirmed.
Rothchild, as usual, had his ducks in a row, Kudrow thought, but some fairly substantial ducks they were.
“There are some problems with your plan.”
Rothchild frowned doubtfully. “Where?”
“I can’t arrange a disappearance.”
“Ah, gun shy after Mike Bell’s graceful entry into the picture.” Rothchild paused. “Or exit, I should say.”
“My people can surveil, and when the time comes they can take. But no killing.”
A pouty smile came to Rothchild’s face. “Who said you had to arrange it?”
The power behind that statement became slowly apparent to Kudrow.
Rothchild leaned far back in his chair, content, pleased with himself. “Do you think Alexander Graham Bell had any idea what he was creating?”
Did your parents? Kudrow wondered alternately. “All right.”
“Good.”
“And the banks?”
Rothchild smirked. “Their security is vapor.”
“Jefferson’s files?” Kudrow pressed.
“Do you know who designed the FBI’s computer firewalls?” Rothchild pointed straight up. “This is a two hour project, Mr. Kudrow. You say ‘go’ and this time tomorrow Special Agent Jefferson’s world will start a tumblin’ down around him.”
He had come through, as expected, and Kudrow felt almost sorry for Art Jefferson. He was an innocent, but an innocent in the way of a higher purpose. A purpose Kudrow was going to achieve, no matter what.
“Go.”
In his office, with the small hand of his German-made wall clock sweeping toward the eight, G. Nicholas Kudrow picked up the last stack of briefs he had to peruse and initial before he could take leave of the Chocolate Box for the night. He scanned the cover summary of each, some from State, some from DoD, and some from CIA. Anything and everything remotely related to the work done by Z had to be looked at and judged unworthy of further concern by Kudrow.
The State briefs, relating to communications failures in Asia, he signed off on first.
The DoD’s, one report of a relay satellite in need of repairs, was dispatched with next.
Those from Langley he began, signing off each as he read, before the third in a stack of five made him stop and take a closer look.
Kimura? She was in the country, if the Seattle Police Department and NCIC were to be believed. But why? Why would her Japanese controllers risk sending her here? They already had MAYFLY, Kudrow knew. One dead CIA agent and a handful of other mishaps was proof enough of that. So why have her come to the States?
Her own initiative, Kudrow theorized. Her fetish for, as one analyst put it, ‘fatal sex Yankees’. No. No way. Her controllers would never have allowed it. She was an asset to them, a sick asset to be sure, but a master at getting information out of the unwilling.
Kudrow leaned forward, elbows on the desk, one hand scratching his head while the other held the report close. After a moment he looked off toward a wall of plaques and photos. You have MAYFLY. What could you want that you would send her…
And in that instant, in one flash that brought Kudrow slowly back in his chair, he knew. He had the answer, not only to the question he had been asking, but to one plaguing him now for some time. “You’re here for KIWI,” he said to the empty confines of his office, then smiled and added, “And how did you know it was available?”
He continued smiling as he lifted the phone.
“Section Chief Willis.”
“This is Kudrow. I need you to redirect some surveillance resources from our young friend.”
A pause as Willis shuffled some paper. “To where?”
Kudrow told him as he gladly signed off on the last of the CIA briefs.
Chapter Eleven
Deep Water
Two taps, timid almost, sounded on Brad Folger’s door.
“Come on in.”
Leo Pedanski pushed the door inward, letting light from Folger’s secretary’s office flood into his own darkened work area. “Mr. Folger?”
A lamp at the end of a short couch came on, revealing Folger stretched out in repose, his hand coming back from the switch to a bottle of Jack Daniels on the floor. He lifted the bottle to his lips and took a short draw of the smoky brown liquid.
Leo Pedanski closed the door and took a few steps toward the assistant deputy director. “Mr. Folger, are you okay?”
Folger pulled himself into more of a sitting position against the arm of the couch and chuckled before taking another quick drink. “You ever make a mistake, Pedanski?”
“A mistake?” Pedanski said, puzzled.
“Yeah, like you do something that was wrong, and you almost get caught, and you wish to God you’d never put yourself in the situation that allowed it to happen. A mistake. You know.”
Pedanski eyed Folger carefully. An odd expression flavored his appearance, like he was afraid, but not afraid. “Sure. A mistake. I’ve made mistakes.”
Folger nodded. The bottle of Jack Daniels hung loose in his hand. A splash of the liquid dribbled out onto the carpet. “My advice, Pedanski, you fess up to them when you make them. Don’t let nobody save your ass.” The bottle came up for a long swallow this time. Folger said nothing for a moment, then pushed himself up on the couch and put the bottle aside. He sniffled and looked to Pedanski, casually, as if the normal course of events was that he should offer some drunken advice to a subordinate. “So, enough about me. What can I do for you?”
Pedanski could only manage a slack-jawed stare for a few seconds, then said, “Um, it’s, uh, Craig.”
“Dean?” Folger asked, eyes squinting in the weak light.
“Yes. Something’s up with him. I mean, we’re all screwed up by what’s going on. The schedule. KIWI. Everything. But he… I don’t know. He’s not himself. This is beating up on him worse than the rest of us, I guess.”
“Ah, well…”
“Maybe he needs a break,” Pedanski suggested.
Folger shook his head. “It’s a nice thought.”
Pedanski understood. He was asking the wrong person. The right person would have said no anyway. “Yeah. Well…” He glanced at the bottle. It was a third gone. “Well, I gotta get back downstairs and fill Vik in before I split.”
Folger looked away and nodded.
“You’re all right…right?” Pedanski checked one more time.
Brad Folger again chuckled. “I can neither confirm nor deny the truthfulness of your inquiry.”
A quizzical cock tilted Pedanski’s head. “What?”
“Nothing,” Folger said, resignation in his voice. “Just practicing.”
It was either very late or very early, depending on one’s nocturnal perspective, when Craig Dean parked his five year old Toyota pickup in a lot at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and jogged across Sixteenth Street to Rock Creek Park. He stayed north of the golf course and followed Rock Creek south, thankful for the lights of the night maintenance workers patching the remnants of winter’s wear on the greens.