End Game (7 page)

“Glad to hear it,” Coffin said, patting the man on the arm.

Dr. Vasilis Lampros, the prison's medical director, was waiting at Coffin's office door when he came into the clinic. He was a stern, rough-looking old man who'd worked in Greek prisons all his medical career. He looked more like a rock cutter in a marble quarry than a doctor, and he trusted no one.

“Good afternoon, Doctor,” Coffin said pleasantly. He'd been expecting bad news for the past several days, but he wasn't going to let his mood show here and now. The old bastard would jump on it and suspect the worst—whatever that might be in his mind.

“Your examination with Ms. Pappas will not be necessary,” Lampros said.

“Is she being transferred?”

“She hung herself last night. Told everyone at dinner you tried to rape her at your most recent session.”

Coffin laughed. “That's ridiculous, and you know it. The woman was delusional, lived in a fantasy world her entire adult life. It's a fact that in the three months I treated her, she was completely unable to distinguish truth from lies.”

“It's a common condition here, as you well know.”

Something in the tone of the man's voice was bothersome. “Is there a problem, Doctor?”

“You're a prisoner.”

“Indeed I am. And you're understaffed. Perhaps I could underwrite the salaries of a couple of nurses. They would help lighten your load.”

“Go back to your cell, Cooke,” Lampros said. “You're no longer needed here.”

“As you wish,” Coffin said. He shrugged indifferently and turned to walk away.

“No one at Harvard has heard of you. There are no records.”

Coffin turned back. “That's not surprising. May we go into your office so I can explain?”

“Nothing I want to hear.”

“But I think you will want to hear this,” Coffin said, smiling.

No one else was in the clinic evaluation room at the moment. Coffin took the doctor's arm, and they went into the office and closed the door.

“You're a fraud,” Lampros said.

“Of course I am,” Coffin said. He shoved the doctor back against the desk and clamped his fingers around the older man's neck with enough pressure to the carotid artery to cut off blood flow to the man's brain but not enough to cause a bruise.

Lampros tried to pull away, but Coffin was much stronger and trained in hand-to-hand combat. In a surprisingly short time, Lampros went unconscious and slumped to the floor.

Coffin followed him down, keeping pressure on the man's neck until the heartbeat became thready and finally stopped.

He threw open the door. “Someone get me the crash cart!” he shouted. He went back to the doctor's body, ripped open Lampros's shirt, and pulled up his T-shirt. “Let's go, let's go!” he shouted, and started CPR.

One of the nurses came in with the defibrillator at the same time Coffin felt a very slight pulse, and he stopped the chest compressions until the machine came to full power.

One of the orderlies came in as Coffin applied the paddles to the doctor's chest. “Clear!” he shouted. But nothing happened. The machine was broken and had been for some months.

He listened at the doctor's chest and then felt the artery in the man's neck. But the pulse had stopped. He sat back on his heels and shook his head. “It's no use. Dr. Lampros is dead.”

One of the nurses said something Coffin didn't catch.

He looked up.

“Dr. Lampros turned down a request for a new defibrillator,” the other nurse said. “He didn't think the prisoners were worth it.”

Coffin got up. “Perhaps it's best if I went back to my cell. But call the warden and let him know you tried to save his life, but his heart gave out.”

“Yes, sir,” the one nurse said.

Coffin walked out, though what he wanted was to kick everyone out of the office and look at the good doctor's computer to erase whatever e-mails he'd received from Harvard. But he'd already come to the conclusion several days ago, especially since learning about the deaths of Wager and Fabry, that he would have to go very deep and very soon.

The wolves were gathering, and it was time to remove the scent from the pack.

Back in his cell, he powered up his tablet and launched a search program he'd designed with the CIA's clandestine services as a major target. It was the program that had picked up the two deaths. This time a starred story keyed on the CIA retirees' newsletter. A reunion of the Alpha Seven operators from Iraq was announced. But there were only five others, including him, plus one now.

He sat back in his chair. A call to arms, since two of their own had been murdered? A call to safety? Or a dragnet for the suspected killer?

Shutting down, he stuffed the tablet into his shoulder bag and phoned his substitute.

“I need you again for this evening.”

“I can be there by eight,” the American expat he'd paid more than one hundred thousand euros over the past several months promised.

“I need you now. How soon can you be here?”

“As it turns out, I'm in Piraeus. I can get to you in fifteen minutes. Another overnight?”

“Might be several days.”

“That place is a shit hole. It'll cost extra.”

“Twenty-five thousand.”

“Thirty?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Coffin said, and he hung up. In addition to what he'd paid the warden, he'd also paid more than one hundred thousand euros to the prison's administrator of the guard force, depositing the money into a personal bank account Coffin had arranged.

He changed into a pair of khaki slacks, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, loafers, a baseball cap, and sunglasses, and, shouldering his small bag, looked around his cell for the last time.

This place had been a safe house for him. The last place anyone would think to look for him. But as was almost always the case, good things came to an end. He was on the run now until he figured out who was coming after him and how serious the threat was.

If the last piece of the
Kryptos
puzzle—the one sculpture still unknown—had been solved, he would have to fight back if for no other reason than to save his life.

 

ELEVEN

A slightly built man in khaki slacks and white shirt was getting into a cab in front of the prison's main gate, another similarly built man getting out, when McGarvey, riding shotgun, and Pete, sitting in the backseat, arrived in Detective Moshonas's battered old Volvo station wagon.

They were met at the gate by a man introducing himself as Hristos Apostoulos, who was a representative of Nikos Hondros, the chief of prison security, who apologized that neither his boss nor Warden Kostas could have met them in person.

“We've had something of a tragic afternoon,” Apostoulos said. “Our chief medical officer had a heart attack in his office less than an hour ago, and his wife and sons are here already. Tragic.”

“In English please,” Moshonas said. “We're here to interview one of your prisoners.”

“Yes, Livermore Cooke, a British citizen. We've set up a room where lawyers usually meet their clients.”

They headed on foot through the gate and then across to the main administration building, where they were searched, and Moshonas had to give up his weapon. McGarvey and Pete had left theirs at the hotel.

“It's doubly difficult for us,” the aide said on the way down a long corridor.

“How's that?” Moshonas asked.

“With Dr. Lampros gone, it leaves us very shorthanded. Except for Dr. Cooke, who's been a real help, we'd have to send our serious cases up to Athens.”

“I didn't know he was a medical doctor,” McGarvey said.

The aide gave him a sharp look. “A psychiatrist, but he's had medical training. A great man. We'll miss him when he's served his time.”

“Because of his medical help?”

“Yes, and he's a generous man.”

The prison was noisy, someone was shouting in one of the cellblocks, and the place stank badly of human waste and of diesel fumes. But they encountered no one. Except for the noise and odors, the prison could have been deserted.

Moshonas asked about it.

“We're in temporary lockdown.”

“Because of your doctor?”

“No, one of our inmates hung herself last night, but there may be some evidence that she was murdered.” They came to the interview room, and the aide gave them a hard look. “This is a placed filled with very bad people. And until now, Dr. Cooke's presence has had an almost calming effect. Don't ask me how, but the past five months have been easy for us.”

He opened the door for them. The room was small and contained only a table and two chairs.

“Unless you need my presence, I have other duties to attend to. I'll have Dr. Cooke sent over.”

“Dr. Cooke and a guard?” Moshonas asked.

The aide smiled slightly. “He has respect here. There's no need for him to walk through the prison with protection.”

Moshonas started to say something, but McGarvey interrupted.

“That's good to know. Thanks.”

The aide turned to leave.

“Who was with your medical director when he had his heart attack?”

“Dr. Cooke. In fact, he performed CPR, but it was too late.”

“They were friends?”

“Of course. As I said, Dr. Cooke is very well respected.”

“What was that all about?” Pete asked when the aide was gone.

“We're going to find out when Coffin, or whoever is here serving time for him, walks through the door,” McGarvey told them. He'd had a feeling when Moshonas explained about Coffin's sentencing that the man would never have let himself be sent to a place like this unless he needed to disappear for some reason. Nor could a man of Coffin's training be kept under lock and key.

“You think he has escaped?” Moshonas asked.

“I have a feeling he comes and goes anywhere he pleases, including out the front door.”

“Then why hasn't he just disappeared?”

“I don't think he's needed to do it until just now.”

“He killed the medical director,” Pete said.

“I think it's a good bet,” McGarvey said. “Probably because they found out he wasn't a psychiatrist.”

“Who is this guy?” Moshonas asked.

“He was a deep-cover spy for the CIA. Part of a team in Iraq several years ago. Seven operators, two of whom were murdered recently. I have a feeling he knew it was going to happen, and maybe even who would do it, so he committed a crime and got himself sent here, where he figured he'd be safe for at least a year.”

“But his story started to unravel,” Pete said.

“If his real identity got out, this place wouldn't be safe for him. It'd be like shooting fish in a barrel.”

“You think he's gone?” Moshonas asked. “Then what are we doing here?”

“I want to see who comes through that door.”

“The security officer to admit that Cooke has somehow escaped?”

“Maybe not,” McGarvey said.

“You're not making sense.”

“I think Cooke walked out the door from time to time to test the waters, or maybe just to have a nice dinner and a couple of drinks somewhere. I don't know if I could stay here very long without a break.”

“He would have been reported missing.”

“Not if he hired a substitute.”

“Mother of God,” Moshonas said. “The guards would have to be in on it.”

“Apostoulos said Cooke was generous.”

A slender man dressed in gray scrubs came to the door. “You wanted to speak to me?”

“Dr. Cooke?” McGarvey asked.

The substitute nodded. “Yes?”

“Come in and sit down. I'd like to ask you a couple of things.”

The substitute did as he was told, but Pete took the chair across from him.

She smiled. “Are you being treated well here?”

“As well as can be expected in a place like this.”

“How did he first contact you?” she asked.

“I don't understand.”

“I think you do. Your name is not Cooke, but then neither is it the real name of the man who paid you to stand in for him from time to time. But none of that is of any real interest to me. I merely want to know how he first contracted you? How much he paid? What were the arrangements? And how was it that the guards allowed this to go on?”

The substitute said nothing.

“Detective, since this guy is a stand-in, could he be charged as an accessory to the murder of the medical director here?”

“Yes,” Moshonas said.

She smiled again. “In that case, you would come here for real, and most likely for a very long time.”

“Wait a minute,” the substitute blurted. “I don't know anything about a murder. You can't pin something like that on me.”

“The man who hired you probably killed the medical director this afternoon, and is gone, leaving you holding the bag. He won't be coming back. And now we need your help to find him. It's the only fair deal you're going to get today.”

“Shit.”

“Help us find him, and you'll walk out of here a free man. And even get to keep the money he's already paid you.”

“I have something to say about that,” Moshonas said.

“No,” McGarvey told him. “Trust me: if we can get to Coffin, you'll have your murderer.”

“You're an American?” the substitute asked.

“We're CIA, and so was the man who hired you,” Pete said. “Help us, and we'll help you.”

The substitute had no way out, and it was obvious he knew it.

Pete took a notebook and pen out of her purse and laid them on the table. “Dates and places you met. Money he's already paid you, and the bank and account number it was paid into, unless it was cash.”

“In an account he set up for me.”

“We're not interested in the money—only the account number. We have someone who can trace it back to him.”