“Can anyone corroborate that?”
Boris raised his hand. So did Nikolai.
Boris said, “And the hotel maid who was sent to clean up. And Dr. Winters.”
“Mr. Kasimov has not left this suite in six days,” Nikolai said.
“What’s got you so sick?” Mahoney said.
“My doctor says flu and food poisoning at the same time,” Kasimov said. “Worst illness I’ve ever had.”
“Did you consider Senator Walker an enemy?” Bree asked.
He coughed a laugh, said, “Certainly not a friend.”
“But you had nothing to do with her death?”
He blinked slowly, then turned his lazy attention on each of us in turn. “I had nothing to do with her death,” he said, and he smiled weakly. “Doesn’t mean I wasn’t happy about it, just that I had zero involvement.”
“Just a coincidence you being in town?” Mahoney said.
“As a matter of fact, yes. I came to visit my embassy, and I got sick. End of story. And now, please, I’ll ask you to leave. I’m feeling the need to sleep. Good night.”
Nikolai turned the wheelchair away from us. Boris gestured toward the door.
We said nothing in the hallway, but I noted the positions of the security cameras before we took the elevator back down to the lobby, again in silence. Only in the crowded lobby near the sound of the piano playing and the hubbub of the bar did we speak.
“He looked like hell,” Mahoney said.
“I agree,” Bree said. “He’s been through something rotten.”
Mahoney gestured ahead toward the lounge. I looked and saw Dr. Winters sitting at the bar drinking a martini and chatting up a very attractive woman whom unfortunately I knew fairly well.
I said, “I have a conflict here. The woman talking to Winters is an active patient of mine. You’re going to have to flush her out of there before I join you.”
“I’m going home,” Bree said. “I’m too wiped out to be much good. Let me know how it goes.”
I gave her a kiss and watched her go. Mahoney walked over and showed his credentials to Dr. Winters and Nina Davis. The Justice Department attorney was dressed for the hunt, her ash-blond hair swept back to reveal her high cheekbones, and her body stuffed into a strapless black cocktail dress that looked like a thousand bucks.
Davis peered at Ned’s badge, listened to him say something, and looked disappointed. She picked up her clutch and slid off the barstool. She moved confidently to the coat check, retrieved a coat, and then spotted me.
“Sorry about that, Nina,” I said, walking up to her. “I’m here with Special Agent Mahoney. My other life. We just needed to talk to the doctor alone.”
Davis watched me a moment, trying to see if I was judging her, then said, “What’s he done?”
“You know him?”
“Sure,” she said. “Chad Winters. He’s an... old acquaintance.”
“Trustworthy?”
She hesitated. “I’d ask the medical board. See you tomorrow afternoon?”
I nodded.
When I reached Mahoney and Winters, the doctor was acting the defensive professional. “There is still such a thing as doctor-patient confidentiality,” he complained.
“We’re not asking about Kasimov’s medical history,” Ned said. “Just trying to corroborate his statements. He says he was sick early Tuesday morning and that you were there.”
“That’s true,” Dr. Winters said. “He was projectile vomiting. High fever. I had to give him a shot of trimethobenzamide so he could keep food down.”
“He said a combination of the flu and food poisoning?” I said.
The doctor nodded. “Simultaneous viral and bacterial infections. He’s over the bacterial thing, but that’s a nasty strain of flu he’s fighting. It’s been a killer across Africa and Asia and can go on for a full two weeks.”
Mahoney and I looked at each other. The Russian’s alibi sounded bombproof. He wasn’t the killer. But he still could have been involved.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Mahoney said. “We appreciate it, and we’re sorry to interrupt your talk with the lovely lady.”
“No worries,” Dr. Winters said, and he laughed. “That lovely lady’s got a dark side, and it’s probably better for me to keep clear of her, if you know what I mean.”
Chapter 33
West Texas
At the first hint of dawn on February 3, Dana Potter looked over at Mary. His wife was staring through the windshield of their pickup truck as he drove along a red clay range road that cut through more of that scrubby, broken West Texas country.
The horses shifted in the trailer behind them, causing the truck to sway.
Mary swore under her breath.
“You okay?” Potter asked.
“Just processing,” Mary said, but she didn’t look at him.
“It’s the only answer.”
“I get it, and I’m here, aren’t I?” she said, and she paused to brood. “I just can’t help thinking what we’re risking, eh? We might never see...”
“It’s a job, just like every other job we’ve ever done,” Potter said.
“No, Dana, it’s not.”
“You have to think that way or we should have turned it down.”
There was a silence before she responded with raw emotion, “I love my boy.”
Potter choked up. “And we’re going to get him the help he needs, and then some, give Jesse the life he deserves.”
Mary teared up. “I’m so frightened for him.”
“We do this, he’s got a real chance. You saw the reports.”
“I keep wanting to believe, but...”
“We can do this,” Potter said. “We’re professionals, eh?”
She wiped at her tears and smiled, but it was weak. “Keep reminding me of that over the next two days.”
“Course I will. Just keep thinking: It’s a game. A game we always win. I mean, when it’s come right down to it, have we ever been close to losing?”
Mary smiled more broadly then and shook her head. “Not once.”
“There you go. We’ll just play our game, and things will go fine.”
She sighed and squeezed his hand. “How much farther?”
“Twenty minutes?”
“Peter should have put us closer,” she said.
“Better to be far away,” he said, glancing at a Garmin Montana GPS unit mounted on the dash. “Keeps things simpler.”
The GPS was loaded with a topographical map and an overlay that identified property ownerships. Texas was largely privately held, but there were slivers of federal land in the wilder sections of the state.
When it was almost full daylight, Potter spotted a two-track leading to a heavy steel gate with a sign from the Bureau of Land Management saying the road was closed. He stopped, said, “I cut the lock. Close it behind us.”
Mary did, and they quickly pushed on up the track and down the other side of a rise where they could not be seen from the country road. He parked, turned the truck off.
It was cold, just above freezing, when they climbed out, both wearing dull tan camouflage that matched the vegetation. They got the horses from the trailer. After shouldering heavy day packs, they climbed into the saddles and set off up a game trail that climbed the flank of a low mesa covered in scrub oak and creosote that grabbed and tore at them.
The temperature rose with the sun. The horses began to sweat. Two miles in they dropped off the mesa into a dry wash, an empty streambed that crawled off through a maze of brush and low trees. Two more miles on, they climbed a rocky out-cropping and stayed high and trending southwest for another mile.
One hour and nine minutes after they had started out, they dropped into an arroyo. They left the horses in shade. Potter got out a handsaw and cut boughs of thin green leaves from a paloverde tree and set them in a pile on the bank when they left the sandy riverbed.