The Carbon Trail (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Neil Scrabo fixed his cufflinks and stared at his reflection. He was aging well, even if he did say so himself. He’d age even better with fifty billion in the bank. He slipped on his jacket and tutted, thinking about Devon Cantrell. He’d made a pathetic spy; Mitchell had caught him within the week. He’d deal with Cantrell once he returned from leave. Scrabo shrugged pragmatically. It was his own fault - he should have used a professional. This time he would. He walked down the hall and pressed the intercom.

“Tom. Join me in the study.”

A moment later the fit shape of Tom Evans filled the study’s doorway. He stood legs apart, hands crossed in front of him, like the ex-army ranger that he was. Scrabo stared at Evans coolly, assessing him before he spoke.

“How are you on surveillance?”

Evans considered his boss carefully, wondering what he was up to. If it was linked with the North Koreans then he didn’t want any part of it. Scrabo paid him well, but not that well, and he was more patriotic than Scrabo knew. If Neil Scrabo was selling the Koreans information, he’d take steps to stop it that he wouldn’t like. Evans thought for a moment then decided that it was best to keep close to the action. It would make it easier to keep an eye on Scrabo’s game.

“OK.”

Scrabo nodded, satisfied by the monosyllabic answer. He didn’t need Evans to think, just to do what he was told. Scrabo took a seat behind the desk and scribbled a note, then stared at his bodyguard.

“I want you to follow a Dr Jeff Mitchell. He’s working on something and I want to know what it is, and who he speaks to.”

“Where can I find him?”

Scrabo handed him the note. It held details of Mitchell’s work and home. Evans read for a moment then slipped it into his pocket.

“Report back on everything he does. But if you see him making a move to leave the country, kill him.”

Evans thought for a moment and then nodded, turning on his heel to leave. Scrabo’s voice halted him.

“And Tom.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t want any loose ends, so make sure that you kill his family as well.”

***

The Lexus deposited Mitchell outside Scrabo Tower and he waved at Emmie, watching as the car pulled off. He walked towards the building’s rotating doors like he did every day, but instead of walking through them he waited and as soon as Karen’s blonde hair was no longer visible in the traffic he hailed a cab to Prospect Heights. Forty minutes later he was standing at Greg Chapman’s mail-box, rifling through the circulars and bills that were all Chapman ever seemed to receive. Then he took the three flights to the apartment and let himself in.

Mitchell stood in the wooden-floored hall searching for some sign that Chapman had been back between his visits. But there was nothing. The rooms held the same lonely pall that they’d held five days before. He entered the living room and looked around. The air was stale and still, as if no-one had been there for years.

Mitchell lifted the picture of Chapman’s parents, wiping some dust off the glass. Chapman looked happy in it. Normal somehow. Mitchell wondered why he thought that he might not be, but that was the power of the unknown. What we didn’t know or understand, we had to find a story for. He corrected himself. He
did
know Greg Chapman. He knew his taste in music and his parents’ smiles. They felt familiar, as if he actually knew the people too. More familiar than Ilya had felt.

Mitchell turned, searching for something but not knowing what, then his eyes lit on a bureau that he’d missed before. In an instant he knew exactly what it held. He pulled open the third drawer down with a certainty that came out of nowhere. A lock-box lay inside. It held a handgun and I.D., he was certain of it. They had to be spares; no agent would ever go unequipped.

Mitchell found a kitchen knife to pry it open and two minutes later the box’s contents were spread out in front of him. A gun and I.D.: he’d been exactly right. Mitchell lifted the large revolver and examined it. It was huge, bigger than he’d noticed the NYPD carrying and theirs weren’t petite. He checked the cylinder. It was full. Whatever Greg Chapman had done for the government he hadn’t sat behind a desk. The I.D. card confirmed it. Greg Chapman stared unsmiling into the camera, the seal of the United States stamped across his face. Mitchell turned the card over in his hand, searching for clues, but there was nothing. No acronym to say which agency Chapman belonged to. That could only mean one thing. Whatever the unit was it was too secret to give its name. Covert ops.

Without warning a searing pain in Mitchell’s head knocked him off his feet. It felt like a screw was being driven through his skull. He held his head for a minute, squeezing it hard in a vain attempt at relief and wondering if this was what the tumour would feel like until he died. As quickly as it came the pain subsided, leaving something else in its wake. With sudden clarity Mitchell knew Greg Chapman was an only child and that he’d grown up in Florida. In St Augustine, the oldest European settlement in the States.

Mitchell felt a sudden pride in the fact and then he shook himself. How the hell did he know that? And why did Florida feel so familiar to
him
? He’d been feeling it for days. He must have noticed something about Florida on his last visit to the apartment.

Mitchell clambered slowly to his feet, testing the ground, then he searched every room for clues. There was nothing, only a framed map of the east coast hanging on the bedroom wall. St Augustine was on there alright, but it sat amongst hundreds of other names. It wasn’t highlighted in any way that would have caught his eye.

There was only one explanation. He must have met Greg Chapman and they must have talked about Florida. He’d obviously forgotten the meeting; but that was a definite possibility with his brain tumour; after all, he’d forgotten his own wife! He knew that Chapman had visited Scrabo Tower; how else could his phone have got there? Mitchell wandered back to the living room and sat on the low leather couch, racking his brains for more clues, until the changing light said that it wasn’t morning anymore and he needed to leave. He had his plan. He was going to pay St Augustine a visit and find out exactly why Greg Chapman was so important to him.

***

12 p.m.

First Greg, then Brunet and now Whitman, all missing or dead. Someone badly wanted Jeff Mitchell protected. Richie corrected himself. It wasn’t Mitchell they were protecting so much as his research, and if his neurologist was right, he wouldn’t be producing much more of that.

It hadn’t taken them long to access the clinic’s records and get a second and third opinion on Mitchell’s MRI. There was no doubt about it, Jeff Mitchell was screwed. Not only did he have a Glioma,
the most malignant brain tumour you could get, but he had it in his brainstem, where one cut would turn him into a courgette. The stats were stark, only thirty-seven percent made it beyond a year.

Richie rubbed his neck in empathy. He despised the man, but you wouldn’t wish that fate on a dog. It made the choices tricky for them too. Lift Mitchell and get whatever information they could from him now, while he could still speak? Or follow Mitchell to the handover, and try to catch who he was selling it to? Mitchell might be desperate after his diagnosis. Unpredictable. Richie damn well knew that he would be.

He shrugged. Strategy was Magee’s problem not his. Richie glanced at the sedan’s dashboard, checking the time. Mitchell’s wife would be back from the store soon. Richie smiled at the thought. He liked Karen Mitchell. He knew that he shouldn’t, but he did.

Yes, she’d married a bastard, but then smart women sometimes made bad choices. Look at Pereira. Images of both women sprang into his mind. Karen Mitchell was doll-pretty, not an exotic beauty like Rosie that was true, but there was something sweet about her, in the blonde cheerleader mould. Richie had a fleeting image of her in a short skirt waving pom-poms and quickly pushed it away.

Just then the Lexus pulled up and Karen Mitchell stepped out. Richie watched her lift some groceries out of the trunk then stand there for a moment, staring into space. She looked sad, as if she was going to cry. He felt strangely protective towards her. She was innocent in all of this; they knew that from the bugs they’d put in the car. Karen had known nothing about her husband’s research until Thursday night. She just knew that she loved him and was going to lose him soon. Richie frowned to himself as he watched her open the front-door. Depending on what Mitchell did next, she and her daughter might be lost too.

***

Elza gazed out a window on the tenth floor, aimlessly shifting files in an imitation of work. It was the weekend and she was stuck in the office, but when Mitchell was at Scrabo Tower she had to be too. Ilya had wanted to stop her watching him, arguing that Mitchell was one hundred percent loyal; he would never back out so near the end, despite the Arabs’ concerns. Elza agreed about Mitchell’s loyalty, but she needed her surveillance to continue; it would give her access to his wife. A word to one of the Arab’s bodyguards, questioning Ilya’s objectivity, had produced the desired result.

A memory of the way the guard’s lip had curled when she spoke to him leapt into Elza’s mind. He’d looked at her as if she was dirt; a woman. Worse, a Russian whore. She thought that she’d got past hurt feelings years ago, but it had stung. It hadn’t deterred her though. She’d dropped the pebble of doubt in the pond and watched as its ripples reached the ear of Javadi. He instructed her to keep tailing Mitchell, despite Ilya’s objections.

Elza scanned the open-plan office where she stood, and sighed. On week-days it was filled with women with bad hair and cheap clothes; she stuck out like a sore thumb. If she was here to observe Mitchell she could have done it a damned sight better from the office beside his on the fifteenth floor, but Ilya found it amusing to keep her in Scrabo’s admin office five floors down. Mitchell knew that he was being watched, so there was no logical reason to maintain a façade now; it was just Ilya’s revenge for her going behind his back.

Elza’s thoughts were interrupted by a spider dropping onto the file in front of her and she watched idly as it meandered across the page. She lifted a stapler and held it above the small shape, watching as the sudden shadow made it stop, as if standing still would make it invisible somehow. She held the stapler there for a moment and then placed it to one side, almost hearing the arachnid’s sigh of relief. Then, just as its walk restarted Elza slammed her hand down hard, ending its life. She gazed at the wet remains, admiring the way they smeared across the page then returned to her plans for Karen Mitchell and her brat.

***

Sunday. 8.30 a.m.

Tom Evans gave the large motorbike a baleful look. A car would have been more comfortable, but Scrabo had insisted on him using a bike, saying that he could tail Mitchell better in Manhattan on two wheels. He had a point. It was easy enough to follow someone through the main thoroughfares in a car, but when the streets got narrow or rough, four wheels didn’t cut it. Evans scrutinised the glossy machine then sat astride it. It was more comfortable than he expected, but then it was high end. A Yamaha YZFR1. Nought to sixty in under three seconds. He’d like to see Jeff Mitchell try to lose him on this.

Evans stepped off again and looked down ruefully at his suit. It was creased already, he’d have to go home and change. He glanced at the time; eight-thirty. Mitchell’s wife had dropped him at the office thirty minutes before and Scrabo had made sure the scientist would be busy until lunch. Jeff Mitchell was going nowhere until this afternoon; plenty of time to head home and swop his Armani for a pair of jeans. Evans jumped into his car and exited the basement garage, thinking as he drove.

He’d follow Jeff Mitchell and report back to Scrabo like a good little spy, just long enough to get his bonus; then he was out of there. But not before Neil Scrabo had been dealt with. He might not salute the flag anymore, but the North Koreans were a step too far, even for him. Once the money was in his account, Tom Evans planned to give Scrabo up to whoever would listen.

***

Pereira rolled over in bed, revelling in her Sunday morning lie-in. She wasn’t on duty until four o’clock; well, not unless another one of them got killed. She shivered at the thought and pulled the covers tight over her head, fending off the morning’s autumn chill. She wanted to sleep and forget all the crap of the past week, but her brain wouldn’t let her rest, so she lay with her eyes closed, thinking instead.

Joey’s warmth was still in the bed beside her and she rolled into it looking for...what? What
was
she looking for? Clarity? Absolution? A wave of guilt overcame her and she rolled away again. She had no right to take comfort from his imprint. She’d betrayed him with Richie again, after two years of promising herself that it was over. It didn’t matter that her infidelity was with the same man. In some ways that was worse. It wasn’t just sex; there were feelings involved. Yes, there were; a lot of feelings. It was emotional infidelity as well as physical this time.

Pereira hid her face in her hands, wanting to run away. Just take the car and hit the road like some Kerouac girl. Why couldn’t she? Just leave Joey, leave Richie, leave the bloody job. New York was full of other jobs and she had savings, she could survive. As soon as the question formed Pereira had the answer. If she stayed in New York Richie would follow her. Joey wouldn’t, the loss would debilitate him, but Richie would hunt for however long it took. He’d force her to look into his eyes and say that she didn’t love him, and she could never say that.

An image of Joey’s face filled her mind, his sad eyes mourning her loss. She wanted to hold him, hug him and tell him it would all be OK. Except that it wouldn’t. Suddenly Rosie Pereira’s mind was clear, clearer than it had been all week. She pulled the covers off and sat up, staring around the room. Her decision was made. She couldn’t live like this any longer, torn between two men. She had to make a choice, any choice, and she had to make it today.