The Dark Hour (17 page)

He grabbed his laptop and backpack, then Maddie’s hand. It wasn’t until they reached the stairwell that he realized he’d left his phone and the card for the FBI agent on the table. He glanced back, decided it wasn’t worth the risk, then hurried Maddie down the back stairs on the opposite side of the building, hoping like hell the two men would not split up to cover both exits.

Chapter 26

December 10

FBI Headquarters

Washington, D.C.

C
arillo had just typed in his password unlocking his computer when his cell rang.

It was Doc Schermer. “Any chance you’re looking for a Maddie?”

Carillo stopped on hearing the name. “Maddie Boucher? She called?”

“Not exactly. One of the secretaries said some guy called the main office line, asking if you were working in D.C. She knew you were out there on some hush-hush thing, so she transferred him to my line.”

“He leave a name?”

“Never got a chance to talk to him. It sounded like something happened, because he called out her name. And then he said, ‘They’re coming. We have to go.’ The line stayed open for quite some time.”

“You hear anything else?”

“After about a minute of nothing, I hung up. Unfortunately the number comes back to a prepaid phone. I checked, because the guy definitely sounded scared.”

“With good reason.”

“Any idea who it was?”

“If I had to guess, my missing link. Izzy. I better find out what’s going on.” He disconnected, called MPDC, identifying himself and asking for Records. Amber Jacobsen answered. “Any chance you can run a moniker check for me?”

“Sure. What’s the name?”

“I-Z-Z-Y. That’s what it sounds like. Not sure if that’s how it’s spelled.

“That it?”

“That’s all I got. Wait. He’s into computers. Maybe hacking.”

“Hacking? I’ll see what I can dig up.”

“Thanks. I’ll be in the field.”

He left his number, disconnected. She called back a few minutes later. “I found a possibility,” she said. “If it’s the same Izzy, he was arrested as a juvenile for ripping off some computer cables about five years ago. His real name is Alvin Isenhart.”

She gave him the address, and he drove straight there. No one answered his knock. The front door was locked, and he walked around the unit, finding a gate to a patio door, which was also locked. No broken windows, but some interesting tracks in the snow behind the apartment, right below a bedroom window. He inquired with a neighbor, found out that Izzy worked at an electronics superstore a few miles up the road; he drove there, checking with the manager.

“Izzy?” the manager said, when Carillo gave him a spiel about running a background check. “Not really sure what happened to him. Left here suddenly the other day. Looked like he was gonna hurl, and asked to go home. One of the clerks up front thought maybe he was having relationship problems, because someone tried to deliver flowers here to him.”

“Flowers? When was this?”

“A few minutes after he went home sick. It was right after the senator got shot. On every TV in the place, so it wasn’t like you could’ve missed it.”

“You don’t by chance happen to have the kid’s cell phone number, do you?”

“Got it right here.” He pulled a Rolodex from his desk, flipped through until he found the numbers. Carillo jotted both his cell and home number in his notebook.

“I appreciate your time,” Carillo said, giving him his card. Calling his office, he put out a BOLO on both Izzy and Maddie and made sure it was forwarded to all the surrounding agencies.

In the car, Carillo checked with Doc, found out the cell number was the same.

Not that it did him any good, since no one was answering it. He didn’t leave a voice mail, and thought about the coincidence of the kid taking off right after the senator’s murder. Add to that the call that Doc overheard, and it meant one thing.

They needed to find this kid before someone else did.

Chapter 27

December 10

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

G
riffin had been extremely quiet since their initial return from the museum, and Sydney assumed his thoughts were consumed by the sketch of the woman Petra had described. Amazing he could even function after seeing it, she thought, as they walked the few blocks of residential streets toward the museum. He hadn’t dared park any closer, even if he could have done so. This at least gave them the advantage of looking as if they belonged in the neighborhood, dressed as they were in jeans and casual coats, Griffin again sporting his tortoiseshell-framed glasses.

She glanced over at him, saw him keeping a sharp eye on their surroundings. Snow drifted down, but not enough to keep anyone indoors, and there were a number of pedestrians walking down Hobbemastraat. Lights shone from several windows of the houses they passed, a suffused golden glow illuminating tiny snowflakes that danced and twirled about the glass panes. Sydney imagined the residents sitting down to dinner with their families in rooms warmed by a fire, reminding her how much she missed her own family, even her mother’s overprotectiveness. It did, however, make her wonder about Griffin, where his family was, and she realized how very little she knew about him.

“Over there,” he said as they walked down the street, then stopped about a half block away. “That arch leads into the garden entrance to the Rijksmuseum.”

She surveyed the scene, noting it was a fairly busy intersection, what with the tram stop situated on the corner and the multitude of windows from the residences and businesses that faced the museum on the other corners. Not one conducive to a hit. “Where was he when he was killed?”

“About midway between the entrance of the museum and the arch. Someone waited for him in the garden after he exited the museum. He staggered from there toward the arch,” he said as a patrol car cruised by, its wipers moving swiftly to clear the snow from the windshield. The vehicle slowed as it neared the murder scene, then cruised on. Griffin, however, remained rooted to the spot. “We have to assume the entire area is under surveillance, which means we need a plan.”

“I like the plan where we leave.”

She nearly jumped when he linked his arm through hers. “My plan’s better,” he said, leaning over, whispering into her ear, his lips brushing her lobe. A shiver swept through her. “Lovers.”

“Your
plan
sucks,” she said, trying to pull her arm free, but he held tight. “Come up with a better one.”

He looked at her, smiled. “Payback for Italy. For every time I tried to get you on that plane home and you refused.”

A car approached, its headlights blinding her, and she smiled back at him, reaching up to caress his cheek for effect, her fingertips scraping the day’s growth of whiskers. When she saw his smile fade at her touch, she said, “Don’t forget that payback’s a bitch. Because I am so paying you back for this.”

Once the car passed, they continued on, arm in arm across the street, toward the arch that was flanked on either side by massive-trunked trees, the bare branches towering into the dark sky. A wrought-iron fence surrounded the museum property, but the gate was open and they walked through beneath the grand arch, where just beyond it on either side, a bench was placed so that one could sit and view the vast landscape, at this moment beautiful, cold, and lonely. Trim paths meandered around formal beds framed by snow-covered boxwood hedges interspersed with tall, conical topiaries. No matter where Sydney looked, everything was masked with a soft blanket of white, hiding the imperfections, the shadows, the secrets, muffling her footfall, even on the gravel.

To the right, about twenty yards beyond the archway, a statuette of a lion stood sentinel. “That’s where he fell,” Griffin said, nodding toward the sculpture.

She examined the lion bust, followed a visual path from there to where Griffin said he’d been stabbed, and she realized that the snow at the top of one of the bushes nearest the bust seemed . . . less perfect, as though it had been disturbed.

“Wait here,” Griffin told her. He walked toward the statue, then stopped, bent down, felt around, and stood, both hands filled with snow. “It’s not there,” he said, forming a snowball, then throwing it at her.

Sydney brushed the white crystals from her coat. “Taking out your frustrations?”

“Surveillance?” he said. “And look like you’re having fun.”

“You are so going to get it.” Sydney bent down, scraped up a handful of icy slush, trying her best to look happy. She lobbed her snowball, not at him, but the bush where she saw the dip in the snow. “How about over there? See the dip in the hedge, like someone hit it and knocked the snow from the top?” She gave a loud laugh, quickly formed a couple more snowballs, then ran toward him. Hit him square in the chest. Before he could move, she hit him again. “Ha!”

He shook his head, grinning as he moved back, working his way toward the bush. “There’s such a thing as overkill.”

“You wish,” she said, scraping together several more snowballs, then throwing them at him as he ducked.

He started forming his own, tossing the occasional one for effect. She kept up her assault, when suddenly he stood, called out, “Truce. I give!” And then he began to meticulously brush the snow from his pants, all the way down to the cuff. He found it, she thought, just as they heard a vehicle engine start up from across the street. They both froze momentarily, until Griffin gathered two handfuls of snow, forming it into a tight ball. And then he stalked toward her.

“You said truce,” she pointed out.

“I lied.” He tossed the snowball into the air, neatly caught it, a devilish look in his eye. “Unless you can think of a better way to get out of here?”

She shook her head, backing up, then turned, ran beneath the arch to the gate, saw the headlights as the vehicle pulled out of its space. She stopped in her tracks, turned toward Griffin just as the snowball hit her in the leg. “They’re coming.”

“They’re going to see what they want to see.” He lunged toward her, picked her up, spun with her in a circle, stopping finally when she faced the street. “Let’s make sure it’s what we want,” he said his mouth to her ear, his breath against her skin. “You have visual?”

“Yes.”

“Keep your face close to mine. I doubt they’ll recognize you, but they might know me.”

Holding Sydney tight, he backed her to the arch, until she felt the cold of the mortar seeping through her coat in sharp contrast to the warmth of him against her.

She leaned her head on his shoulder, saw the vehicle cruising toward them. Moving too slow for her comfort, she thought. It neared, and she saw the silhouette of a man’s head, the movement of him turning, watching them.

She looked up at Griffin. “Definitely interested in us.”

“Showtime.”

And he lowered his mouth to hers.

His lips were cold, but then quickly warmed. She hadn’t expected she’d notice that. But then neither had she expected that he’d kiss her as part of their cover, and she tried to relax, telling herself that this was the sort of thing spies did. Pretended to be something they weren’t. Lovers in the park, throwing snowballs, then ending their play with a kiss.

The entire episode meant nothing. The fact that he held her, one hand at her head, fingers splayed in her hair, the other hand sliding down her back, pulling her closer until she felt him tight against her. It meant nothing.

Her breath caught, not because of his mouth on hers, but because the headlights of the approaching car surrounded them in light.

Her pulse quickened, not because he held her a second or two longer than required, but because of the danger.

And when the vehicle finally passed from view, its occupants perhaps dismissing them as the lovers they pretended to be, Griffin let her go. Cold air rushed between them, and he stepped back, not looking at her, but at their surroundings, giving her the moment she needed to catch her breath, compose herself. Then he linked his arm through hers, and they continued their walk, as though this had merely been an impromptu stop on their way. They leaned in to each other, talked about the buildings, holding their hands up to catch snowflakes, saying nothing of import.

All an act.

Unfortunately her heart, still rapidly beating, didn’t know the difference, and it was quite some time before it slowed to a normal pace.

They sauntered up Hobbemastraat, then circled back around to the car. Once there, Griffin pulled the item he’d found from his pocket and held it for her to see.

“That’s definitely
not
a knife,” she said, eyeing the sealed Ziploc bag. Inside was a clear plastic tube about an inch in diameter, containing yet another smaller vial filled with a yellowish medium that she hoped was very much frozen. Knowing the things Griffin and his kind were involved with, it was bound to be deadly. Very deadly.

And then she eyed the droplets on the outside of the bag. “Please tell me that’s melted snow and that it isn’t leaking . . . ?”

Chapter 28

December 10

Washington, D.C.

M
iles Cavanaugh paced the floor in his office, waiting for the damned phone to ring. Bose should have called by now, saying the matter had been handled. What the hell was taking him so damned long? The multi-agency task force to bring in Griffin had been a fiasco. Nothing had gone right. And then there was McNiel, that damned director from ATLAS, who seemed to walk on water. Someone should have ordered him to turn over all the records on Griffin. Worse yet, Miles had heard they’d nearly caught Griffin twice, and
still
he’d managed to slip through.

How? Every allied agency had Griffin’s name on their list. His passports under every AKA he’d ever used were now worthless, his credit and bank accounts were no longer accessible. He was completely, utterly in the cold. So how the hell had he eluded their every safeguard?