The Search (9 page)

"Do you have any pets?"

He shook his head. "I'm on the move too much. I had a parrot once, but I gave him away. He was abusive and my ego couldn't take it. Now, your Monty would never be abusive."

"Don't count on it."

"Well, not verbally. He might lift his leg on something he shouldn't."

She nodded. "He always makes his displeasure known."

"But you're obviously soul mates. How long have you had him?"

"Four years. He was a year old when I saw him at the ATF training school." She smiled reminiscently. "He'd just flunked out of guide dog school and ATF picked him up."

"He flunked out?"

"Not because he wasn't smart enough," she said defensively. "He would just get distracted and that could have been a danger."

"Attention deficit disorder?"

"It's his nose. He was only a puppy and his sense of smell is probably the keenest ATF has ever run across. When he's constantly bombarded with scents, it's natural that he'd become distracted."

He held up his hands. "I didn't mean to insult your dog. I have too much respect for dogs. I've seen them work during combat conditions and I'd rather have one of them as a buddy than anyone on two legs."

"Sorry. I overreacted. Roll over, Monty." She started clipping his belly. "You have an accent. English?"

"I was born and raised in Liverpool."

"Logan says you met years ago in Japan."

He nodded. "When we were both young and green. Well, younger and greener. I was hard as nails and Logan was no pussycat even before Chen Li died."

"Chen Li?"

"His wife. She died of leukemia a few years after I met Logan. Not an easy death and not an easy time for him either. He was crazy about her."

Personal problems. Yes, that would be classified as personal problems. She wished she hadn't asked the question that had led to this revelation. So he'd had a tragedy in his life. Life was full of hard knocks. She would not feel sorry for him, dammit. "I'm sure he was able to handle it."

"Oh, yes, he handled it." Galen finished washing the last plate. "It turned him a little nuts for a while and then the scars formed and he was okay. We batted around the Pacific for about a year before he went back to Tokyo."

"That's when you introduced him to grubs?"

He smiled. "No, that was later. After the first edge had dulled. He would have broken my neck if I'd tried that the first year after Chen Li died." He looked at Monty appraisingly. "He looks like a big yellow bear without all that hair."

"At least he's cooler." She sat back on her heels and began to pick up the shorn hair on the ground. "I wonder where Logan is. He's been gone longer than I thought."

"He might have walked over to the ruins after he left Castleton." He frowned. "Nasty. They must have been like sitting ducks for Rudzak."

She shivered. "Why would he go there?"

"Maybe he didn't. But I'd bet on it. Logan feels very bad about what happened here. Perhaps he's trying to make some sense of it."

"I can't see Logan being that sensitive."

"But then, you don't want to see him like that, do you?" He wiped his hands on a towel. "Never mind. I'm bored with all this meaningful chatter. It offends my shallow soul. I need a bit of mindless recreation before I hit the sack. Do you play poker?"

"Why did you want to come back here?" Castleton swallowed hard as he glanced around the charred ruins. "God, it's hard for me. We're not going to find anything. I told you I'd retrieved every bit of information that wasn't destroyed. I didn't slip up, Logan."

"I believe you. I know how efficient you are." He didn't look at Castleton as he knelt and picked up a scorched wooden box. "What do you suppose was in this?"

"I don't know. Computer disks, maybe."

Logan was silent a moment. "Four dead. Carl Jenkins, Betty Krenski, Dorothy Desmond, Bob Simms. Did you know Betty Krenski was trying to adopt an HIV baby from an orphanage in South Africa?"

"Yes, but I didn't know that you did."

"She asked for my help. She said that someone had to care for those children. I tried to talk her out of it. Assuming responsibility for a baby with HIV is a heart-breaker."

"But you agreed to help her?"

"People have to make their own decisions. We can influence but we can't dictate. I told her if she still wanted to do it at the end of the year, I'd help her."

"I wish she'd gone through me. It was my job to take care of personal problems."

"Did you think I stopped being responsible for the people I sent down here when I hired you?"

"You're a busy man."

"Not that busy. This was a very special project to me. I read every one of their dossiers when you hired them, and I can quote passages from your monthly reports. I never met those people, but I felt as if I had."

"They were all good people. No one knows that better than me." Castleton paused. "I don't mean to be unsympathetic, but I have to go. I can't do anything about the people who were killed, but I can get those wounded into a hospital in the States."

"Yes, I know. You're in a hurry." He stood up. "And coming here must upset you."

"Why are we here?" Castleton repeated.

"I thought it fitting. Galen says I have no sense of ceremony or protocol, but that's not quite true. Not when it comes to this particular business."

"What business? What did you want me to do, Logan?"

"Just die." He whirled and smashed the ball of his hand upward under Castleton's nose, splintering the bones and driving them into his brain.

Chapter 4.

"Done?" Galen was standing in the middle of the path as Logan strode through the trees toward the campsite.

Logan nodded.

"What about disposal?"

"No one will find him."

He gazed at Logan curiously. "It's been a long time since you did a job like this. Did it bother you?"

"No."

"Not even a little? You've been a respectable businessman so long, I'd think you'd find it hard to revert to the old ways."

Logan's lips twisted. "I enjoyed it."

"I don't like traitors either. I told you I'd do it for you."

"I know. But it was my job. I chose him. If I'd kept a closer eye on Castleton, maybe I'd have sensed he'd turn Judas." His face darkened as he glanced over his shoulder. "All those lives . . ."

"It was probably a crime of opportunity. Castleton might have walked the straight and narrow if Rudzak hadn't tempted him."

"How tempting was it?"

"Sanchez said he was paid one million for helping them set up the attack on the facility, and he was to get another two when he lured you into the trap. How did you guess Castleton was in Rudzak's pay?"

"I didn't guess. I was just exploring every possibility. Castleton was conveniently in town when the attack occurred. I started from there. It could have been coincidence, but I couldn't take a chance on coincidence in a situation like this. I had to make sure. If he was dirty, then the lead he gave me to Sanchez would be bogus. Sanchez would be set up to give me the wrong information on how to find Rudzak, and I'd be led down the garden path straight into a trap. That's why I sent you to Sanchez."

"Because you knew how efficient I am."

"Because I couldn't have any more deaths on my hands. I thought the research center was safe here. But it wasn't safe. Rudzak found out about it."

"Stop beating yourself on the head. You didn't know Rudzak would turn up again. You thought he was in that prison in Bangkok."

"You're wrong. I always had a feeling he'd show up again."

"Then you should have had him killed in that prison. I offered to have it done." Galen glanced sideways at him. "Why didn't you?"

Logan didn't answer.

"I never could understand what went on between you and Rudzak. For a while I thought he was your best friend."

"So did I. Then he started to hate me. But he never let me see it until the end." He shrugged. "And he hates me more now. So maybe he was meant to get his shot at me."

"Fate?" Galen shook his head. "We make our own fate."

Logan agreed with that premise. He'd lived too long in the Far East not to have acquired a healthy respect for the patterns life seemed to weave. But he believed only to a degree. "Maybe. I only know I was dead certain I'd be Rudzak's prime target when I heard he'd finally managed to bribe himself out of that prison two years ago."

"Two years is a long time. I was hoping he might have forgotten you."

"Be for real. After what I did to him? I've been waiting for him. I knew he'd have to reestablish contacts before he'd go after me. But, Christ, I was hoping he wouldn't find out about the research facility."

"How long has it been operating?"

"Three years."

"Progress?"

"Early stages, but promising. Very promising. Bassett was brilliant."

"Was?"

"Freudian slip. He may still be alive. But since money isn't Rudzak's prime motivation, it could go either way."

"That was my reading. We're going in regardless?"

Logan nodded. "I won't have Rudzak killing my people or hovering over me like a dark cloud any longer. We're taking him out."

"When we find him. Just how good is Sarah and her dog?"

"Do you think I'd be taking a chance on anyone I didn't think could perform? But I want you to watch out for her, Galen. If anything happens to me, get her and Monty out."

"I'll do everything I can." He was silent a moment. "You do know if Rudzak survives, she may be on his hit list too."

"I'm not a fool. That's one of the reasons I didn't tell Castleton about her and Monty. I'll make sure from now on that she's kept out of sight of any of Rudzak's men and hope for the best."

"And if the best doesn't happen?"

"I'll worry about it then. I need her." He changed the subject. "Something's been nagging at me. Rudzak may be playing games with--" He shook his head. "I don't know. I just feel uneasy. When he called, I felt he was giving me some kind of puzzle to solve."

"The decoy camp?"

"Maybe." He thought for a moment. "You know, he sent me a scarab just before he hit the facility. Chen Li's scarab."

"You didn't tell me that."

"I wasn't sure it had any meaning. I still don't."

"How did he get ahold of it?"

"He stole the entire collection from her bedroom before he left Tokyo. The police in Bangkok looked for it but didn't find it. I thought maybe he'd sold it and stashed the money. It would have been enough to get him out of a dozen prisons."

"Evidently he didn't sell it or he would have gotten out of that prison a lot earlier. It must have meant something to him."

"It meant something to him all right. He talked to Chen Li for years about ancient Egypt, tried to brain-wash her for years. He bought her books and took her to museums. He gave her that scarab when she was only fifteen."