She took off her jacket and tugged a red sleeveless T-shirt off her left shoulder to reveal a nasty scar like interwoven spiderwebs below her collarbone.
Edith said she’d gotten the scar three years ago when the CIA began to suspect that Varjan had been responsible for the murder of two U.S. operatives in Istanbul. Edith’s assignment had been to lure Varjan in, subdue her, and see her brought to an interrogation facility in Eastern Europe.
“I found her, and I thought I had her cornered entering an apartment building near the Bosporus,” she said. “I was armed. She was not, or at least, not with a gun.”
Varjan surprised Edith and stabbed her repeatedly with a sharp pottery shard.
“I should have known better,” Edith said, shaking her head and crossing her arms. “Varjan’s an improviser. Invents weapons of the moment. Kills without hesitation.”
She told us that INS records showed that Varjan had entered the U.S. that morning on a Eurozone passport under the name Martina Rodoni, a woman born in the former Yugoslavia who was now a resident of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her occupation was listed as “fashion consultant,” and she said she had come on business.
“Count on not finding her under that identity,” Edith said. “She’ll have shifted to another by now.”
“Then how do we figure out where she is?” I said. “And what she’s here to do?”
The CIA operative twisted her head to one side and pursed her lips a moment.
“I wish I could say I knew a habit of hers, a hotel chain she frequents or the kind of meals she likes to eat, but Varjan is a chameleon. She speaks eight languages and changes identity constantly. She knows it’s her best defense.”
“So we’ve got nothing to go on?” Mahoney said.
“Well, you could do what I did to find her.”
“And what was that?” I asked.
“Figure out who she’s here to kill and then lie in wait for her.”
I thought about that. “Does she ever target politicians?”
“Dr. Cross, Kristina Varjan will target anyone if the price is right.”
Chapter 9
Bree walked up to the closed double doors on the fifth floor of police headquarters downtown and knocked.
“Come in,” a familiar male voice called.
Bree opened the door and stepped inside the office of chief of police Bryan Michaels. The chief, a fit man with a thick shock of steel-gray hair, was on a cell phone, listening intently and nodding.
“I’m hearing you,” Michaels said in a firm tone. “Loud and clear.”
He hung up, reached over to shake her hand, and gestured her to a chair. “Where are we on Senator Walker’s death?”
“Fourth in line, sir,” Bree said, taking the chair. “FBI’s got jurisdiction, with Secret Service and Capitol Police in support.”
He didn’t seem to like that. “So we’re not even in the game?”
“I offered Ned Mahoney anything he needed from Metro PD,” Bree said. “I’ll be briefed on a daily basis.”
The chief said, “I’m getting heat on this one, Bree. From the commissioner, the mayor, and the congressmen. They’re all wondering how we’re not out front on a murder in our own backyard. I’m wondering too.”
That surprised Bree. Chief Michaels was by nature a pragmatist, and he knew the command structure in a situation like this as well as she did.
Before she could reply, he said, “Where’s Alex in all this?”
“FBI snapped him up. I don’t know exactly what he’s working on.”
“Course not,” the chief said, shaking his head. “I don’t know if this consultant thing’s going to work. It’s...”
“Sir?”
“When Alex was on board full-time, I could count on Metro PD being out front no matter the case,” Michaels said.
“He’s that kind of detective, sir,” Bree allowed.
“He is,” the chief said, and then he leaned across the desk. “But he’s unavailable. So I need you to step up, Bree. I want my chief of detectives to be hungry. Not a paper pusher. Not a caretaker. I want you to be bold, to take action, stand for something in the community. I mean, for God’s sake, a U.S. senator was assassinated in our jurisdiction and we’re not breaking ground?”
“Chief, again, and with all due respect, the FBI—”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass about the FBI or the Secret Service or the Capitol Police. This is my city, and you are its chief of detectives, Stone. Prove you still should be.”
Bree was taken aback for several moments before lifting her chin. “And how exactly do I prove that, sir?”
“You find Senator Walker’s assassin and deliver his head to Mahoney on a plate.”
Chapter 10
Hands clasped behind his back, Sean Lawlor paced through a comfortable Airbnb apartment some five blocks from where he’d seen to the end of U.S. senator Betsy Walker.
Within hours of a successful strike on such a sensitive target, most other professional killers would have tried to leave the area, if not the city, if not the country. But Lawlor wasn’t like most professionals. He was an elite practitioner, and he prided himself on thinking and acting outside the norm.
Given Senator Walker’s stature, he had no doubt that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services would be looking for people entering and leaving the country on a very short turnaround. That would have brought scrutiny he didn’t need.
So Lawlor had decided to stay in Washington for three days before going to New York, where he planned to spend a long weekend. He would return to Amsterdam through Newark the following Monday.
He went to the kitchen and checked a laptop computer open on the counter. It showed a heavily encrypted internet browser linked in real time to one of his bank accounts in Panama. Nothing yet.
What the hell is taking so long?
Then again, Lawlor had sent an encrypted copy of the thermal-imaging scope’s memory file only three hours ago. He didn’t know why that was necessary. Walker’s death was all over cable news. It should have been enough.
He felt a buzzing in his pocket. He dug out a burn phone, checked the caller ID, and allowed himself a smile.
“I’m here, Piotr,” Lawlor said in Russian.
“Sergei,” Piotr replied. “You’ve made my world happier.”
“I don’t see the results in my account.”
“Large transfers take a while these days if you want them to move anonymously. In the meantime, are you free to meet and discuss your future?”
Lawlor checked his watch. “If it’s this evening.”
“That works. George Washington Hotel rooftop bar. Eight p.m. And you’ll soon be receiving a token of appreciation for a job well done.”
Lawlor smiled, said, “Thoughtful of you.”
“Even wolves have moments of kindness.”
Lawlor hung up and went to the bathroom to shower and shave.
When he was done, he padded back through the apartment, towel around his waist, and heard a ding.
He loped over to the laptop and was more than pleased to see that 1.4 million euros had just landed in his Panamanian account.
I like that, Lawlor thought. I like that a lot.
And who knew what Piotr had in mind for him now?
Someone in the lobby buzzed his apartment.
Lawlor stiffened. Very few people knew he was in the United States, let alone in Georgetown, let alone in this apartment. Other than Piotr and the blokes he’d rented from, of course, and—
The buzzer went off again.
He shut the laptop cover, went to the front hallway, and pressed the intercom.