Viking Bay (20 page)

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Mercer wondered what Callahan wanted. She hadn't seen him since he'd returned from Switzerland. He was on the phone when she entered his office, and all she heard him say was “That sounds good, honey. I'll see you at seven.”

She wondered who he was talking to. She hoped
honey
wasn't a future Mrs. Callahan, which would make her Mrs. Callahan Number 5. The last thing Callahan needed was one more ex-wife.

“You look terrible, Thomas,” Mercer said. “You really should go home and get some sleep.”

“Aw, I'm all right. I took a little nap on the couch. Anyway, I wanted to see how the Liberia thing was going. I hope it's going okay, because I need to be able to give the president's guy a little good news after what I told him yesterday.”

“What do you mean?” Mercer asked.

“Yesterday I had to tell him that fifty million U.S. dollars is now sitting in a dead man's bank account and we're not going to be able to get the money back—and that was the
best
news I had for him. I told him that with Sahid Khan dead there's going to be a political dogfight in Ghazni Province to replace Khan, that we have no idea who his replacement might be, and our best chance to acquire the mining rights was blown up with the bomb that killed the Khans. He also wasn't happy to hear that our best hope for placing an enlightened female in a ruling position in Afghanistan is gone.”

“Do you have any idea who planted the bomb yet?” Mercer asked.

“No. I mean, I'm pretty sure the old man whose throat was cut
planted the bomb, but I don't know who he was working for. The bomb could also have been planted by one of Cannon and Sterling's people.”

“One of Sterling's people?” Mercer said.

“Yeah. You know that guy who tried to rape Hamilton? I found out his name was Eric Nelson, and when I ran a background check on him, I found out he worked for Cannon and Sterling.”

“You're kidding! Why would someone who worked for them try to kill Hamilton or be involved in the bombing?”

“Maybe because Nelson had a quarter of a million in a bank account that came from a mosque in Pakistan, a mosque that funds the Taliban.”

“I'm totally confused, Thomas. Are you saying one of Sterling's people was working for the Taliban?”

“I don't know, but it looks that way. Sterling told me the guy quit right after he came back from Afghanistan. So what all this could mean is that somebody over in Afghanistan found out about the meeting, found out that Sterling was providing security, and paid Nelson to plant or detonate the bomb.”

“I don't know,” Mercer said, sounding skeptical. “I can't imagine someone in the Taliban being able to turn one of Sterling's people. How would they even contact the guy? And even if what you're saying is correct, why kill Hamilton?”

Callahan made an unattractive snorting sound. “Because Hamilton—and I'm thinking about firing her ass for this—went to her old boss at the DEA and had her start looking at everybody's bank accounts, including mine and yours. Hamilton figured that if somebody killed the Khans they did it for money, and she was checking out everybody's finances, including Cannon and Sterling and all the people who worked for them. Somehow, whoever set this up found out she was poking around and sent Nelson to take care of her.”

“Could Sterling or Cannon be personally involved?” Mercer asked.

“I suppose,” Callahan said, “but they were looking at a contract that
was going to make their company a ton of money. Why would they want to screw that up by killing the Khans?”

Callahan rubbed his face, as if he was trying to scrub away the fatigue. “So right now I don't have a fucking clue who's behind this, and I'm so tired I can't think straight. All I know is the only evidence I have is pointing to one of Sterling's mercenaries and it looks like he was working for somebody connected to a mosque in Pakistan.”

“I don't know what to say, Thomas. I need to go think about all this. But why did you go to Switzerland?”

“To talk to Ernst Glardon. I wanted to see if he could have engineered this whole thing, and I wanted to look him in the eye while I was talking to him. I concluded he's clean and he really didn't have a motive for killing the Khans. Just like with Sterling, his company would have benefited from the mining operation. The other thing I did over there was try to verify that the fifty million really made it into Khan's account, but I couldn't get the bank to give me the time of day, even after somebody at the White House leaned on them. But the money
has
to be in the account. Eli told me he sent it and Hamilton verified that he did, so where else could it be?

“Anyway,” Callahan said, “the reason I wanted to see you was Liberia. Like I said, I'd like to give the president's guy some good news for a change.”

The Liberia operation, which Mercer was handling mostly on her own, was relatively simple compared to the lithium op. The current president of Liberia, who happened to be female, had been elected by the narrowest of margins, but she was doing a good job of pulling together all the squabbling tribes. The woman also appeared to be incorruptible—and an incorruptible African politician was a truly rare bird.

The problem was the woman's vice president, a man named Joseph Nyenabo. Nyenabo, who was more corrupt than past mayors of Chicago, was doing everything he could to undermine his president and
was constantly bad-mouthing her in the press. As bad as that was, the American ambassador to Liberia had learned that Nyenabo had been in a number of backroom meetings with a couple of colonels and was now contemplating his own little coup. The president's guy—or so Callahan had said—suggested it would be good if the Liberian vice president no longer occupied the office.

Mercer initially considered implicating Nyenabo in a crime, such as dumping a chunk of money into his bank account as evidence that he'd taken a bribe or embezzled. She ultimately rejected that idea, however. Trials in places like Liberia were always messy and drawn out, would distract the president for months, and when all was said and done, Nyenabo would still be around to cause mischief.

“I think I'll have the situation resolved this week,” Mercer said.

“That's good to hear. What's the plan?”

“I've had people watching Mr. Nyenabo, and two weeks ago we discovered that he's become infatuated with the fifteen-year-old wife of one of his bodyguards. I don't know if the girl is equally smitten with him, or if she's just afraid to spurn his advances. In any case, three times in the last two weeks, Mr. Nyenabo has given his faithful bodyguard some task to occupy him so Nyenabo could spend a couple of hours with the man's young wife. The bodyguard, by the way, is known for his volatile temper, drinks on the job, takes drugs that don't bode well for self-control, and is always armed.

“The next time Mr. Nyenabo visits his new mistress, we're going to call the bodyguard and tell him what's going on in his own bedroom. My hope is that he will burst in on his boss and his wife, and shoot his boss. I hope he doesn't shoot his wife. If Mr. Nyenabo survives the encounter I'll regroup, but if my plan works and if Mr. Nyenabo is killed, his death will be attributed to a simple act of passion and have no political overtones.”

“Good,” Callahan said. “I like it. And thanks for minding the store
while I've been so preoccupied with the Khan thing. I don't know what I'd do without you.”

—

AFTER MERCER LEFT
his office, Callahan wondered if she'd swallowed all the bullshit he'd just fed her—and he decided that he couldn't take the chance that she hadn't.

He heaved himself out of his chair and ambled slowly down the hall to the reception area, where Henry was seated—standing guard over an enterprise that was in shambles.

“I want a 24/7 net around Anna Mercer,” Callahan said. “Pull in anybody you need. Trainees, instructors, whoever is here in D.C.”

Henry raised an eyebrow in surprise, but the only thing he said was: “Yes, sir.”

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Anna Mercer returned to her office, picked up Scarlett, and holding the fluffy white cat in her arms, began to pace—although she could only take about seven strides before she had to turn. That was another thing that had always pissed her off: an office the size of a prison cell, and windowless to boot.

“What should I do, Scarlett?” she whispered to the cat.

What she wanted to do was kill Nathan Sterling.

It had been a perfect plan until Sterling fucked everything up by trying to kill Hamilton. She'd found Finley and he developed the program to steal the money. She'd subtly steered the security contract toward Sterling's company, knowing he was financially desperate, and then convinced him to help her. When Sterling reconnoitered the meeting place in Afghanistan, he acquired the materials to manufacture the bombs and one of his men constructed them. Sterling planted the bomb in the meeting room himself when Hamilton and Dolan were elsewhere in the house.

When Dolan hit the
SEND
button to transfer the fifty million to Sahid Khan's account, Finley knew because of the program he'd installed to capture the money. Finley texted Anna, she texted Sterling, and Sterling texted the man who blew up the transformer. Sterling then called Dolan to get him out of the meeting room, and Sterling detonated the bomb. When the power was disrupted, Nelson snuck into the house and dispatched the old man. And while all these events in Afghanistan were taking place, Finley hid the money they'd stolen in accounts that would never be identified.

It had been a
beautiful
plan, an absolutely perfect plan, but then that idiot Sterling . . .

Enough. She needed to make a decision; she needed to decide if she should run or not.

If Callahan really believed, as he'd said, that the money was in Sahid Khan's bank and that the Taliban had killed the Khans, there was no need to run. She'd wait at least a year, long enough to put the whole lithium operation in Callahan's rearview mirror, then tell him she'd had enough of Washington and resign. After that, she'd move to someplace sunny—most likely Southern California—start up a small business and launder the money she'd stolen through the business—then she'd just sit back and enjoy her life.

The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question—actually, the fifty-
million
-dollar question—was this: Had Callahan lied to her so that she'd think she'd gotten away with what she'd done?

“Did he lie to me, Scarlett? Did that bad man lie?” Scarlett didn't answer.

She thought back on everything Callahan had said in his office and finally decided. Callahan had lied; Callahan had overplayed his hand. And the reason she knew this was that he'd acted defeated and as if he didn't know what to do next. Callahan always had a plan, and he'd never admit to defeat.

She felt Scarlett's claws rake the back of her right hand and she let out a yelp of surprise and pain. She dropped Scarlett to the ground and the cat immediately ran and hid under her desk. It was her fault Scarlett had scratched her: She'd been squeezing the poor thing too hard as she thought about Callahan's deception. She'd almost cracked Scarlett's tiny ribs.

And now she was going to have to do what Scarlett had done: run for her life and hide.

The good news was that she'd planned for this possibility.

—

MERCER LOOKED AT
her watch. It was one p.m. She wanted to catch a train to New York that left at five. She picked up the phone, made a call, and a woman answered.

“Hello,” the woman said in heavily accented English. She'd been born in Ukraine.

“This is Anna Mercer. Where are you?”

“Tysons Corner.”

“Good. That means you can be at my house in less than an hour. I want you there before two. Do you understand?”

“I'm meeting a client in fifteen minutes.”

“I told you when I retained you that you might have to drop whatever you were doing. And I'm sure I'm paying you a lot more than your client. So call him, tell him to put his dick back in his pants, and that you're not going to make it.”

The woman didn't respond.

“If you don't do what I want, I'm going to find someone else and you're going to be out five grand,” Mercer said.

“All right. I'll be there by two.”

“
Before
two,” Mercer said. “The key is on the back deck, under the red flowerpot. The code to the security alarm is S-C-A-R-L-E-T-T. Write that down. And once you're inside my house, just take a seat, and don't touch anything and don't drink anything. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

—

MERCER WAITED AN HOUR,
wondering what that bastard, Callahan, was doing.

At two, she left her office carrying Scarlett and stopped at Henry's desk in the reception area.

“Henry, can you tell Callahan that Scarlett and I have to go see my
sister? She's gone off her meds again. I'll call later and let you know how soon I can be back.”

“Ah, jeez,” Henry said, sounding genuinely concerned for her. “Family. What can you do?”

Mercer's sister was a schizophrenic who lived in Wilmington, North Carolina. Mercer had always been terrified she might inherit the disease. Half a dozen times during all the years she'd worked for Callahan, her sister had stopped taking her meds, gone berserk, and ended up in jail or a psych ward. Since Mercer's mother was dead and her father had abandoned the family years before, Mercer usually dealt with her sibling's situation by calling an aunt who lived in Raleigh and forcing her aunt to go deal with the crazy bitch. Fortunately, however, there had been times when she'd gone to Wilmington herself to take care of the psycho.

As Mercer drove to her place in Arlington, she tried to see if anyone was following her. She couldn't see anyone, but she was sure—if Callahan suspected her—that someone was tailing her. She entered her house and saw the Ukrainian sitting on the couch. The woman was wearing four-inch stiletto heels, and the hem of her skirt was about six inches above her knees. She had on so much makeup that she reminded Mercer of Liz Taylor playing Cleopatra.

“Go scrub all that shit off your face,” Mercer said. “Just put on some lipstick.”

Five minutes later, when the woman returned from the bathroom, Mercer handed her an envelope containing five thousand dollars and the keys to her Mercedes.

—

AFTER THE UKRAINIAN
drove off, Mercer walked about her house, touching various pieces of furniture: the dining room table, a love seat in the living room, a vase she'd bought at an estate sale that was worth ten times more than she'd paid for it.

She loved her home—and she was saying good-bye to it.

She bought the place for four hundred and fifty thousand ten years ago. It wasn't that big, only three bedrooms and two bathrooms, but property was expensive in Arlington—and she bought it before the bottom fell out of the real estate market. Then she spent ten years making it perfect: remodeling the kitchen, installing tile and gorgeous hardwood floors, selecting each painting and piece of furniture only after considerable thought. For a decade she went to estate sales and visited furniture showrooms and antiques stores, and consulted with interior designers who she discovered were no better than she was when it came to decorating. She knew she was never going to see her lovely home again, and she started crying. She just couldn't help it.

Five minutes later, she dried her tears, walked into her bedroom, and pulled her disappearing-forever suitcase out of the closet. Inside the suitcase—actually, a roll-on bag that could be stored in the overhead compartment of an airplane—were a couple of changes of clothes and a passport.

The passport was made out to a British citizen named Amy Murdock, and the picture in the passport matched Mercer's simple Amy Murdock disguise: a blond wig to cover her short dark hair, a couple of molded chunks of rubber to make her face look fatter, a bridge that fit over her teeth to give her an unattractive overbite—everyone knew how bad British dentistry was—and glasses with hideous red frames.

The passport and accompanying credit cards were, of course, flawless. One of the benefits of being in the businesses she'd been in most of her life was that she knew people who could make the documents she needed.

The final item in her disappearing-forever suitcase was the Heckler & Koch P30. It was the same weapon she'd taken with her the day she met Sterling at Devil's Backbone in Virginia.

She tossed some clothes onto her bed and a few things on the floor
near the closet, making it appear as if she'd packed in a hurry, then she dropped a cell phone onto the floor and kicked it under the bed.

She found Scarlett sitting in a sunbeam on a window ledge in her living room and picked her up. She'd had a cat since she was eleven, and Scarlett was the fourth one she'd owned. All her cats had been named Scarlett. As she walked toward the bathroom, she said, “Oh, Scarlett, I promise you that one day Nathan Sterling will pay for what he did.”

She called a cab and tried not to cry as she waited for it, but as she was closing her front door she looked at a painting hanging in her foyer. She'd found it in a tiny shop in Middleburg, and it showed an old man wearing a red beret, sitting on a chair, and he seemed to be contemplating the life he'd led, a life that was almost over. She'd always loved that painting—and she started crying again as she walked down the sidewalk to meet the cab.