“There have only been three so far.”
“I believe there will be more. We must try to mitigate or eliminate the harm.” He took out a notebook and pen from his pocket. “But I have to know who those targets will be, Catherine.”
“I’m supposed to make you a list? How can I do that?”
“I’m sure that the person who killed Olena Petrov has a list.” He added, “But the circle is narrowing, and you may not have to list everyone from your past. Just your present. The names that come easily to your mind.”
Catherine shook her head. It was positively macabre, choosing who you had to worry about dying because they were part of your life. Macabre and dark and wrong. She started to write quickly. A few minutes later she handed the notebook back to Hu Chang.
He glanced at the names. “The usual names I knew you would choose. Luke, O’Neill, myself, your young friend Kelly Winters, our charming Chen Lu, Erin Sullivan, Eve Duncan. A few omitted that I would have guessed you would have included.”
“You said anyone from my present who comes easily to my mind. Those I omitted can either very well take care of themselves, or there would be no obvious connection.”
“Such as Richard Cameron?”
Cameron. Hu Chang’s mentioning his name jarred her. Probably because she tried not to think of him at all. Their only encounter had been months ago but it had traversed both Tibet and San Francisco. They had both been involved in trying to rescue journalist Erin Sullivan and been forced to work together. Cameron was the security chief of a powerful secret conglomerate whose actions were often at odds with Catherine’s job with the CIA. A situation that had made for strange bedfellows.
Strange, erotic, bedfellows that had made Catherine feel almost helpless to resist staying in that bed or following Cameron when they had parted. And that helplessness had only served to show her that she had been right to refuse to go with him.
“I haven’t seen Cameron since San Francisco, and he was never a part of my life,” she said.
“Debatable. But I agree he can take care of himself.” He closed the notebook. “And we have to hope that our list is the same as the killer who appears to be stalking you has.”
“That’s not good enough,” she said fiercely. “I won’t sit here waiting for him to pick off another person I care about. I have to find out who he is and go after him.”
“Absolutely.” He got to his feet and handed the notebook back to her. “So why don’t you make another list of all the people who hate you and have the resources and contacts to carry out a vendetta this elaborate. In the meantime, I will go and talk to Luke and Sam and tell them why we’ve been so rude as to ignore them.”
“You’re going to tell Luke about this?”
“Of course. Your instinct may be to protect him from knowing he’s a target, but that’s a mother’s instinct and has no basis in reality. He may be only twelve, but he’s led a life that has rid him of any hint of childhood. How can he protect himself if he doesn’t know that danger is out there?”
“I’ll protect him. Sam will protect him.” He was looking at her. “Okay, tell him. But he’ll only worry about me.”
“And so he should. It’s a son’s duty, and he must learn things of that nature.” The door closed behind him.
She leaned back in the chair.
Dammit, she was sad and shaken and didn’t want to have to handle this crisis that was looming over her.
And over Luke.
She looked down at the photo of Olena Petrov. You didn’t want to handle this either, did you, Olena? Such a terrible life, and we all thought it had turned around for you. It should have turned around. You shouldn’t have had someone come into your home and take your life just because you helped me when I was a little girl. It’s not right.
Jantzen. His little girl would never have him by her side again. Not right, either.
All of this scenario was wrong and ugly and looked as if it would continue if she couldn’t find a way to stop it.
So do what Hu Chang had told her to do. Look deep and find the name of the person who hated her enough to destroy everyone around her in order to hurt her before he took her life.
She flipped the notebook open.
Think.
Not as easy as the other list.
She was CIA, and she had made many enemies in her career. She had grown up on the streets of Hong Kong, and those years had not been free of conflict.
Weed through her life, which had been violent and brimful of people who might want her dead.
Give Hu Chang his list.
And then go after the vicious son of a bitch who had killed her friends.
* * *
“I think there are really only two possibilities,” she said when Hu Chang walked into the library thirty minutes later. “One is Charles Corliss, who was a gun runner in the Middle East. He also had a hand in smuggling chemical weapons out of Syria into Iran. Three years ago, I was instrumental in busting up his sweet little deal with Iran and in the process put a bullet in his kneecap that caused him permanent disability. Venable told me he’d put a price on my head.”
“And the other?”
“Tomas Santos. He was a kingpin drug dealer in Caracas and had a network of criminal organizations that extended from Venezuela to Mexico.”
“Had?”
“We managed to find enough evidence and witnesses not too terrified to testify to put him away for twenty years. He’s in a maximum-security prison in Caracas.”
“Then why is he a candidate?”
“You said to find someone who hates me. Santos hates me.”
“For putting him away?”
She shook her head. “I was one of the force who went to his penthouse to arrest him. He had a helicopter standing by on the roof to whisk him away to Iran, where he couldn’t be extradited. He tried to get to it. We stopped him.”
Hu Chang’s eyes narrowed. “But that’s not all.”
“No. I shot and killed his wife, Delores Santos.”
“An innocent bystander?”
“Innocent? Delores Santos stopped being innocent when she left the cradle. She was an active partner with her husband in all his drug trafficking and reputed to be as vicious as he was. At that penthouse shoot-out, she’d already taken down one of the local police detectives before I got off a good shot.”
“And knowing your expertise, it was a very good shot.”
“She died in Santos’s arms. He looked up at me, and I’d never seen such hatred.”
“Threats?”
She shook her head. “But I saw him twice during his trial, and there didn’t have to be threats. The hatred was still there.”
“But he’s in prison?”
“That doesn’t mean he couldn’t manipulate things from inside. He had tremendous power and money stashed away all over the world. Dorgal, his second-in-command, was almost slavishly loyal and could have arranged the kills.”
“Corliss or Santos? What’s your choice?”
She shrugged. “It could be either.”
“Gut instinct.”
“Santos. Hatred. Plus I killed someone he cared about. Evidently, Delores Santos was his alter ego or something. Maybe he thinks this is a fitting way to punish me.”
“It seems that could be a reasonable assumption.”
“There’s nothing reasonable about this. It’s all ugly and crazy.” She looked down at the notebook. “What did you tell Luke?”
“Exactly what I told you I would tell him. O’Neill is in the process of bringing in extra security from his friends among the ex-CIA elite. All will be well.”
She prayed he was right.
“Those other names on that list,” she said brusquely. “We have to protect them. Until this is over, I’d like Erin to leave Tibet and go to Chen Lu’s golden palace in Hong Kong. Chen Lu has enough of a security force to make it fairly safe. Can you arrange it?”
“But of course I can. Erin Sullivan is very stubborn, but she has a great regard for my vast intellect.” He smiled. “Is this what they called in the Old West encircling the wagon train?”
“That sounds very strange coming from you. Yes, approximately. I’ll call Eve Duncan and give her a warning. If Joe’s at the lake house, that will be security enough for her.”