“I see.”
“And I know all the philosophies and psychological explanations you’re probably stifling at the moment. Think what you like. I’ve made my life what it is, and that’s how it will remain.”
“After you get Eve away from Doane.”
“You’re not listening.”
“I’m listening very carefully. So carefully I’m hearing all the undertones and nuances.” He pulled out his phone. “Should I call Weiner and tell him to speed up trying to find that Toyota? We need to locate Doane very quickly if you think he may be on the move after the memorial service.”
Zander gazed at him for a moment. “No, I’ll do it.” He started to dial his phone. “You may have become bold as brass lately, but you lack a certain ability to inspire fear. Fear is our friend at the moment.” As he waited for the phone to ring, he looked up at Stang. “And if you try to pressure me again, I’ll broadcast to the four corners of the earth how much I value you. How I’d have a horrible time replacing you. I might even say I consider you as close as a brother.” He smiled gently. “You’d be dead within two days.
“Weiner.” He was speaking into the phone. “Zander. I hear you got my message, and you’ve started tracking. A Toyota 4-Runner? Where else was it seen? I need the results right away. I’ll feed you as much additional information as I can, but pull every string on the Internet and that network that you’ve set up. Now give me every location that you have on hand…”
CHAPTER
4
Lake Cottage
Atlanta, Georgia
SHE SHOULD BE ABLE TO TALK to Joe soon, Catherine thought.
It was getting dark, and the guests were gradually saying their good-byes to Joe and drifting away. The last photographer had snapped a few mood shots of the darkening lake and taken off.
However, Venable was still here and socializing with various guests, which was completely out of character for him. If she didn’t know him better, she’d think he was avoiding her. But Venable was never averse to facing anyone. He was probably just marshaling his thoughts and his arguments and would—
Her cell phone rang, and she glanced at the ID.
John Gallo.
Oh, shit.
She started talking as soon as she accessed. “I didn’t know, Gallo. I would have told you about Eve, but I only found out this morning, when I got to Miami. I did call, but I got your voice mail. It’s not my fault if you don’t answer your phone. It seemed all I was getting was people who didn’t want to talk to me. It was driving me—”
“Calm down,” Gallo said curtly. “I didn’t need you to tell me about Eve. I saw the story online three days ago. I was trying to get hold of you, but Venable blocked me at every turn.”
“I know.” She paused. “I thought you’d want to be here. If you knew three days ago, why didn’t you come to the service?”
“At first, I was trying to be diplomatic and kind to Quinn and Jane MacGuire. I was Eve’s past, and she had my child, Bonnie, when she was only a teenager. But Quinn was her present and future. I had no part in building that life, and I had no right to intrude.”
“At first? What followed?”
“I talked to Joe Quinn. We had an interesting discussion.”
“He told you.”
“He thought I was qualified to be helpful, and he didn’t mind using me or anyone else if it meant saving Eve. He’s desperate.”
Qualified? Yes, John Gallo was qualified in any enterprise that had to do with violence and mayhem. He had been a prisoner of war in a North Korean concentration camp, then had become an Army Special Forces agent whose specialty was infiltration and assassination. He was smart, experienced, and completely lethal. He had also had a few mental problems, fits of rage, due to torture while he was incarcerated in that hellhole of a prison. Catherine had met him when she had suspected he might have killed Eve’s daughter, Bonnie, during one of those fits of rage. Their relationship from that moment had been as turbulent and volatile as a perfect storm that neither of them could fight.
No, that wasn’t true. She was drawn sexually to Gallo, but there had definitely been a struggle to resist that magnetism. She had made her life what she wanted it to be. She was a CIA agent who was expert in her job. After she had found and rescued her son, Luke, he was tentatively coming to accept her. She did not need Gallo to disturb her and cause ripples in her life.
“You don’t agree Quinn’s desperate?” Gallo asked, when she didn’t answer. “Those were the vibes I got, but you’re on the scene.”
“Oh, he’s desperate.” She tried to concentrate on the problem at hand. Gallo always managed to distract her. “He loves her. They’ve been through a lot together.” She paused. “How are you feeling, Gallo?”
“Do you expect me to say I love her, too?” Gallo asked. He was silent a moment. “I do, you know. She was a big part of my life when we were young. We didn’t know about love then. It was all about sex. But years later, when I came back, we had our memory of Bonnie and the realization that she would have wanted us to have some kind of bond. Neither one of us could walk away from that bond. Although God knows we wanted to be free from each other and go about our lives.” He was silent again. “That bond still exists, will always exist, because of Bonnie. There are all kinds of love out there. She’s my friend and the mother of my child. I will never be her lover in the conventional sense, that’s Joe Quinn, but I’ll be there for her if she needs me. Is that honest enough for you?”
“You don’t have to answer to me, Gallo.”
“Yes, I do. In spite of the fact that you’re pushing me away.”
“Why? I have nothing to do with your relationship with Eve.”
“You know why. Though you’re having trouble admitting it.” He suddenly chuckled. “I’m in a fever to have sex with you. It’s all I can think about. Well, almost. And I won’t allow you to put any barriers between us because everything isn’t clear to you about my relationship with our mutual friend, Eve.”
She felt a surge of feeling that was hot and sweet and bewildering. She quickly changed the subject. “You never told me why you didn’t come here for the service.”
“I decided I’d get a head start. No one expected me to go to her memorial. I flew to Vancouver instead to try to track down Zander when I heard that he was the key to trapping Doane. That’s where I am now.”
“And did you find him?”
“No, I’ve been to Zander’s place here, but it’s deserted. I even did a little housebreaking to make sure. I’m going through some of his papers to see if I can find a clue to where he might have gone.” He paused. “Zero in on Venable. If anyone knows anything about Zander, then he should.”
“I’ll do that. I’ll let you know.”
“I phoned Hu Chang in Hong Kong after I got your call and told him to tell Luke you’d been delayed.”
“I called Luke myself the minute I got into Miami. He was down in Hu Chang’s lab and was so excited he could only talk about their latest experiment. Luke trails behind Hu Chang night and day.” She could hardly blame her son. Hu Chang was fascinating, and she had found herself trailing after him herself when she was just a few years older than Luke. “He probably won’t even miss me.”
“He’ll miss you. Though I admit your friend Hu Chang is something of a spellbinder. How long are you going to leave Luke with him?”
“I’m bringing him back to Louisville to go to school in two weeks.” She sighed. “At least, that’s what I was going to do before I found out about Eve. I’ll have to leave him a little longer now.”
“I hate to admit it, but you couldn’t ask for him to be in safer hands than Hu Chang’s,” Gallo said dryly. “As long as you get a promise from him not to teach the boy how to concoct any of his poisons.”
“He wouldn’t do that. He’d know that I’d kill him.”
“Would you? I’m never sure how much leeway you’d give Hu Chang to do anything he wanted to do. Sometimes, I think he has you
hypnotized.”
“Don’t be absurd. He’s my friend.” He had been her only friend for years after they had met in Hong Kong when she was only fourteen. An unlikely friendship. She had been a street kid who had found her niche in selling information to the highest bidder, he was a master poisoner who traveled the world and sold his wares to whoever could afford them. When they had come together, they had found a closeness that had saved them both. “And he loves Luke. He wouldn’t hurt him.” But Hu Chang didn’t always have the same opinion of right and wrong as others. “He knows that it would break our friendship if he did something that I felt was wrong for Luke. He values that friendship as much as I do.”
“You sound as if you’re trying to talk yourself into something.”
“Nonsense. Hu Chang is brilliant, and Luke is learning more from him than he’d ever learn in school. These last months in Hong Kong have been wonderful for him.” She added, “But thank you for calling Hu Chang and telling him what happened. I’ll call Luke again tonight and explain.”
“You’re welcome. I was just clearing the decks for you. I knew you’d be on the hunt as soon as Quinn told you that you had a chance of saving Eve. Remember to tap Venable for any information you can squeeze out of him.” He hung up.
She pressed the disconnect and slipped the phone in her pocket. She felt a sudden rush of hope as well as excitement. John Gallo was on the move.
Time for her to move, too.
Brush aside that sleek, gray-haired guest Venable was using to run interference against her. Make the bastard talk to her.
Venable looked up warily as she strode purposely across the bank toward him.
* * *
“I WAS WORRIED ABOUT YOU.” Mark Trevor watched Jane coming down the porch steps. “Particularly since I saw Caleb practically push you up those stairs. Are you okay?”
“Fine.” She looked around the almost deserted grounds. “Better than fine now that I see everyone has gone home. I need to talk to Joe. I just needed a little stress-free rest.”
“On Caleb’s recommendation?” Trevor’s lips twisted. “It’s not like him to be a caregiver. You have to be careful of his motives.”
“I’m always careful with Caleb.”
“I know. And it makes me uneasy that you’re so aware of him.” He shrugged. “But that’s the way things stand. I should never have left you for so long. I thought it was wise to give you space, but I’m not sure now. But now I’m back, and I’m closing that space down to inches.” He reached out and took her hand. “And I’m an excellent caregiver. It’s what I want to do. I want to be there to protect you in darkness and sunlight.” He said softly, “Lately, I’ve been realizing that’s maybe what I’m meant to do. I’ve even had a couple dreams about it. Crazy, huh? All the passion and the laughter was good, but in the end it comes down to what’s really important. What role we’re meant to play in each other’s lives.”
She didn’t know what to say. This was completely unlike Trevor. He was sophisticated, sometimes dry, sometimes mischievous, never given to soul-searching. She searched his face for some hint of the Trevor she knew. No mockery. He meant what he said. She had known him since she was seventeen, but she had never seen him more sincere about anything. She laughed shakily. “Yes, pretty crazy. And I don’t want anyone to take care of me. You should know that by now, Trevor.”
“That doesn’t seem to matter any longer.” He added simply, “It’s my role. I’ll try not to let it get in our way.” He linked his fingers with hers and pulled her toward Joe. “He’s still talking to that police captain from Chicago. I’ll distract him and get him out of your way while you talk to Quinn.”
“How? You don’t have any background in police—” She stopped and smiled. “Never mind. What am I thinking? You never have trouble with accomplishing distraction and sleight of hand. It’s a product of your shady past. I forget occasionally what a checkered life you’ve led.”
“Right.” He smiled. “And it comes in handy to furnish you with what you need at any given time.” He gestured as she opened her lips to speak. “And you’ll take this little service from me because it could start the move toward helping Eve.” They had reached Joe and the police captain, and Trevor’s smile was suddenly brilliant, that powerful magnetism reaching out to envelop them. “Hello, Quinn, Captain Larimer, I just wanted to repeat my sincere condolences before I left.” He turned to Larimer. “I know you must deal with this kind of tragedy on a daily basis, but you have to admit that this is far beyond—”
For the next five minutes, Jane watched Trevor with bemusement. In that time, he’d smoothly moved the police captain to the buffet and was pouring him a cup of coffee while he continued to ask him questions.
“Trevor’s very good.” Joe smiled faintly as he watched the two men. “And I owe him. I tried twice to send Larimer on his way without being blatantly rude.” He turned to Jane. “Margaret said you weren’t feeling well. Should I be worried?”
“No, I was only tired.” She grimaced. “Yet everyone immediately assumes I’m on death’s door.” She changed the subject as she turned and led him away from the cottage to the edge of the lake. “But I would have come down sooner except that I was talking to Kendra. And then, after she left, I was reading the journal.”
He went still. “Journal?”
She quickly filled him in on her conversation with Kendra. “The stuff in the journal was sickening. Kevin was a monster. He was an egomaniac with a complete lack of conscience. The descriptions of what he did to those little girls were hideous.”
“Anything else?”
“It’s hard to get beyond the atrocities.” She tried to think. “There were a few references to Pakistan, but no names that might have been valuable to al-Qaeda.” She paused. “But there was a mention of his dealings with the CIA. Double dealings, according to him. A lot of money exchanging hands.”
“That’s not unusual. An embedded agent would pretend to be on the take.”
“I don’t believe he was talking about the embedded agents. He was talking about a specific CIA agent. And he was confident he’d persuaded the agent to go rogue. He was very happy about that. He said that he needed someone in a trusted position to pave the way to the project.”
“Project? What project?”
“He never spelled it out. I assumed it had something to do with Bin Laden. That’s who Venable told us was the target.”
“Maybe.” Joe frowned. “Maybe not.”
Jane’s gaze narrowed on his face. “Kendra didn’t want me to give the journal to Venable. Now you have doubts about him?”
“I don’t want to have doubts. I’ve worked with him a long time.” He nodded curtly. “Hell, yes, I have doubts. He’s not been listening to anything I’ve been telling him since this started. And I don’t like the way he gave the okay for that attack team to tear down the mountain and start shooting up that saloon.”
She could see his mind turning over, working through the facts and theories. “Anything else?”
“Venable was in the Middle East at the time. He knew what was happening in Pakistan. He was the connection to General Tarther and Kevin’s assassination. But he was also the agent who offered Kevin’s father sanctuary and provided him with a safe house and an income for five years.” He paused. “And Venable told us that it was a disk that was the blackmail that Doane was holding over everyone’s head.”
“The disk may still be out there.”
“But we have a journal mentioning CIA corruption.” His lips tightened. “No, I don’t believe we’ll turn the journal over to Venable just yet.”
“And there may be something in it that we can use. What if it’s invisible ink or something?”
“Invisible ink? I doubt if even a madman would be quite that amateurish, Jane.”
“You know what I mean. Things aren’t always what they seem.”
“No, they’re not. But we don’t have to rely on the labs at Langley. The labs at Quantico are just as
sophisticated, and I have friends at the FBI.”
“Then let’s get it to them right away.” She moistened her lips. “I feel as if we’re spinning our wheels. We’ve been relying on Venable to keep up the search for Eve. If Venable is crooked, then what—It’s been five days, Joe. Where is she?”
“I haven’t totally relied on Venable. I’ve made him give me copies of every report from his guys in the field.” Joe put his arm around her shoulders. “Could they be faked? Sure. I don’t think they were. He’s exploring every avenue that I would have ordered explored and done it with much less chance for leaks.” He added, “And Venable’s actions at that ghost town indicated he wanted Doane. Maybe too much for Eve’s safety. But if we find Doane, we find Eve.” He kissed her on the forehead. “After tonight, I’m going to go into seclusion, as would be natural in a grief-stricken man. I’ll be in touch.”
She had known this was coming. She had just hoped that they would have had something more to go on before the hunt began again. “Where are you going?”
“Vancouver. Venable is going to give me false papers and have me flown into a small airport north of the city. According to Venable, Zander’s place appears to be deserted, but I’m hoping to contact Howard Stang, his assistant. He disappeared at the same time as Zander, but he may be the weak link.” He shook his head. “Though I’m not sure how weak Stang will prove to be. He’s something of an enigma.”
“So is Zander,” Jane said. “I can’t forgive him for not saving Eve when he had the chance up in the mountains.”