Cam said, “You’re saying Sergei’s father was sanctioned?”
Savich nodded. “Big-time. More than one hundred million dollars of his personal investments are frozen, and the Transvolga Group lost much more—they were put virtually out of business. That includes a great deal of money belonging to very powerful Russian officials.”
Ruth said, “So we’ve sanctioned the bankers who invest a lot of the communist big wigs’ money and put a big dent in Putin’s pocketbook.”
Savich nodded. “I’ve got to think some powerful Russians are very angry at the Petrovs for not protecting them. And now Sergei Petrov is in the country because his father can’t be. The question is what he’s up to.”
Jack called out, “Here’s something on Elena Orlov. Her father is a mid-level manager at—guess where—the Transvolga Group in Moscow. She’s an only child, educated in Switzerland, where she became proficient in four languages, then returned to Russia. She entered the Military Educational and Scientific Center, but dropped out after a year. She’s been on Sergei Petrov’s staff for ten years, listed as his bodyguard. According to her file, she’s also his lover.”
Ollie looked at her photo, said under his breath, “She’s very beautiful, puts a new twist on the concept of bodyguard.”
Ruth punched him. “Ollie, pay attention. The man you spoke to on the burner phone with the thick Russian accent, I wonder if he could be one of Petrov’s muscle. There could be more of them.”
Jack said, “And I’ll bet we find some of his flunkies with him at the Arcturus address on the Potomac.”
Ruth gave herself a head slap. “I just realized. That name Detective Ben Raven found in Mia Prevost’s address book—Cortina Alvarez, a woman who doesn’t really exist. That’s it, isn’t it? Cortina and Elena are the same woman. Now she may be dead along with the pilot in that helicopter crash today. But how does it all fit together?”
Shirley, the CAU secretary, stuck her head in the conference room. “Dillon, Mr. Saxon Hainny is here to see you.”
Savich rose, picked up the photo of Petrov that Ollie had printed out. “I’ll be back as soon as Saxon tells us it’s Petrov for sure.”
Savich quietly closed his office door. Saxon was sitting in front of his desk, his hands clasped between his legs, staring down at his scruffy sneakers. He still looked beaten down, folded in on himself.
“Thank you for coming, Saxon.” Savich handed him the black-and-white copy of Petrov’s passport photo. “Is this the man you saw standing behind Mia Prevost the night she was murdered?”
Saxon seemed to stop breathing. He stared at the photo and back at Savich. “Yes, those are his eyes, I remember them, staring at me and talking to her, to Mia. It was like I was nothing at all. And his hair, see how it looks like a sharp spear on his forehead? Yes, that’s him.”
“You’re absolutely certain?”
“Yes, Agent Savich. It’s him.” There was life in his face, at least for the moment, the deadly pallor gone, his eyes no longer deadened with pain. “How did you find him?”
“You gave us an excellent description of him, Saxon. We found him on an inbound flight to Washington from Moscow. If you’d never remembered seeing him, it would have been very difficult.” He laid his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Now that you’ve confirmed his identity, we can bring him in.”
“What’s his name?”
“Sergei Petrov. He and his father are personal investment bankers to Putin and some other Russian plutocrats.”
Saxon looked blank. “He’s a banker? But why would a banker want to set me up for Mia’s murder?” Saxon began to laugh. “He hired Mia to get close to my father, didn’t he?”
Savich said nothing, only watched him. Saxon’s face leached of color again. “It was never me, was it? Mia was supposed to get close to my father, maybe hack his computer?”
“Yes.”
“But wait, didn’t Petrov know my dad would never tell anyone anything that could hurt President Gilbert or the United States? He never talked about anything remotely sensitive to either me or my mother. It was always ‘off the table.’ As for hacking his computer, I know my dad keeps everything important at the White House, and his personal laptop has some pretty high-tech safeguards I installed myself. I didn’t even build in a trapdoor for myself. No one could get into that computer.”
Saxon licked his dry lips, said slowly, so much pain in his voice Savich winced, “My missing shirt and T-shirt.” He raised his eyes to Savich’s face. “They were covered with Mia’s blood, weren’t they? And he took them.”
Slowly Savich nodded. He looked down at his watch. He had to hurry.
53
WASHINGTON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL
WASHINGTON, D.C.
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON
Sherlock looked down at Kara Moody’s rendering of the man who’d drawn her blood a year before. Midfifties with longish unkempt gray hair with a comb-over topping it off. He had a sharp chin and a large nose, but still there was something familiar about him, something that nagged at her. She’d never seen him before, had she? She kept studying the man’s face, and it struck her. She called up the photo of the man they’d videoed helping to kidnap Alex Moody from the hospital and put it beside Kara’s sketch of the older man who’d drawn her blood. “Look, Kara. Compare these. Don’t these two men look very similar to you?”
Kara glanced down at the photos, shook her head. “Oh, no. Look at them, Sherlock, the man who drew my blood could be his father. I gave him the look of a mad scientist, with all that grizzled gray hair. The young one looks, well, fit, in his prime.”
“Bear with me, Kara. Study them.”
Kara studied the photo and her drawing, frowned, then slowly raised her head. “Okay, they do look a bit alike, Sherlock, despite the obvious age difference. But look, the older guy’s comb-over doesn’t hide the fact he’s going bald, and the kidnapper had thick brown hair. It is close to the same color, I guess. And look, the younger man’s jaw is more square, no jowls yet, and that’s because he’s at least twenty years younger than the guy who drew my blood. He was in his fifties if he was a day. Maybe good cosmetic surgery could shave off ten years or so, but not this much.”
All good points, but Sherlock was still bothered. “Kara, look only at the eyes, look at how similar they are. Do you think you could have drawn in the younger man’s eyes without meaning to?”
Sherlock watched Kara cock her head as she studied her work. “Okay, their eyes do have the same almond shape, the sort of upward tilt at the corners. And the distance between the eyes looks about the same. I don’t think I could have drawn the younger man’s eyes on him. Sherlock, the man I sketched is definitely the man I remember drew my blood, not the man at the hospital. You showed me his picture, but only for a moment.” She sat back. “All right, there are similarities, I grant you that. But what could that mean?”
“I don’t know, it could be they’re related. If we identify one, we may find the other.”
“Why did you have me sketch the man who drew my blood?”
“I called the genetics department at the University of Maryland. They haven’t conducted any kind of study like the one described to you. In fact, they didn’t have your name as a test subject on any study they’d ever done. The whole incident sounded strange to me, but no stranger than anything else that’s happened to you. And I wondered if that blood draw had anything to do with your pregnancy or with John Doe, or with Alex’s kidnapping.”
She squeezed Kara and rose. “You did good, Kara, keep the faith, okay?” Sherlock smiled. “I can’t wait to meet your friend, Ms. Love.”
“Bless her, she’ll be arriving tomorrow. I imagine she’ll want to see Alex’s father. I’m glad the hospital is afraid to kick me out. They’re moving a bed into his room so I can stay with him tonight. Maybe they’ll bring in a second cot for Brenda tomorrow.”
Sherlock didn’t doubt the hospital would gladly give Kara use of a limo if she asked for it. She
smiled. “Good, Brenda can tell him stories about you.” Sherlock rolled up Kara’s drawing, gave her a hug, and left her to walk back to John Doe’s room.
Her cell squawked only Curly Duck, and she had to shake her head. What had Dillon done with Moe and Larry Duck? Were they going to take turns? She nodded to Ray Hunter, the maternity-floor security guard as she answered. “Connie, what do you have?”
“Are you leaning against a wall so you don’t fall over?”
“What is it? What have you got?”
“It’s about Sylvie Vaughn. I did a background check on her. She was born Sylvie Fox, thirty-five years ago, in Baltimore. Her mother is listed as Hannah Fox. I did a background check on Sylvie’s mother and found out Hannah Fox’s address is the Willows, home of B. B. Maddox. I made some calls, found out she’s his longtime lover and for the past fifteen years, his live-in caregiver.”
Sherlock sighed. “That gives Sylvie a reason to go to the Willows, to see her mother.”
“Yeah, but listen to this. We had the video of the dark blue Toyota SUV that picked up the man and woman who took Alex from the hospital on Parker Street. Bolt had stayed all over that. We never did spot them on any of the cameras on I-95, so Bolt started checking businesses on the side roads that run parallel to I-95. He spotted the SUV on a security video pulling into a taqueria, where there are no cameras, and that’s where they made the transfer, because five minutes later a white delivery van with the same driver pulled back out into traffic. Bolt went right back to the I-95 video recordings, spotted the van exiting from I-85 in Anne Arundel County, not far from the Willows. What kind of coincidence could that be? We have a CSI team at the taqueria now going over the blue Toyota SUV, looking for the kidnappers’ fingerprints. We already know the car was stolen. I gotta say Bolt and the tech teams working with him were high-fiving and guzzling down their drink of choice, Mountain Dew.”
Sherlock whooshed out a breath. “Connie, tell me Bolt was able to follow the van right up to their front door.”
Connie laughed. “Afraid not, but never fear, grasshopper. We couldn’t see the license plate on the commercial van, but on a hunch I checked out all the vehicles registered as being owned by Gen-Core Technologies. They own six of that same model, all white.”
“Connie, if Dillon ever falls down on the job, will you marry me? I think it’s time we meet Mr. B. B. Maddox and his family and have a little chat. I’ll meet you at the Willows in forty minutes. We’ve got a double-pronged approach going here, Connie. Dillon is on his way to Baltimore, to the university. He’ll let us know what he discovers.”
54
OUTSIDE THE WILLOWS
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
WEDNESDAY LATE AFTERNOON
Sherlock opened the passenger door of her stalwart Volvo, and Connie Butler slid in. Their cars were parked at the south end of the stone-walled compound called the Willows. “Sylvie Vaughn’s still inside,” Connie said and looked down at her iWatch. “Over two hours now. Bolt called to say he’s headed back to Baltimore to interview Josh Vaughn at his investment firm. Then he’s going back to his list of the others at the party.” She paused a moment. “Not many people know it, but Bolt’s own baby son was kidnapped out of a hospital. That was before there were guards and cameras everywhere. He and his wife were very young, didn’t have a dime, and had to mortgage their lives to get their son back, which thankfully they did. It’s why he has a fire in his belly, why he’s in the CARD unit, and why he’ll do everything he can to get Alex Moody back.”
Sherlock nodded. “If they were young and didn’t have any money, why would kidnappers target their baby for ransom?”
“Bolt’s in-laws were very wealthy, but they’d disowned their daughter when she went against their wishes and married him, a poor boy from a working-class background. The kidnappers hadn’t realized the Bolt’s in-laws wouldn’t pay them a dime. The FBI agents working the case were shocked when the kidnappers believed them and lowered the ransom. They were never caught. But what’s important is that David Haller, Bolt’s son, is a happy sixteen-year old boy, at home with his folks.”
“I was wondering why you’re in CARD, Connie.”
Connie Butler shook her head. “The idea that anyone could steal a child, it makes me rabid. I’ll tell you my own story some other time. You ready to roll?”
Sherlock drove the Volvo to the closed gates of the Willows and pressed the intercom button, both she and Connie well aware of the cameras pointed at their faces. They held up their creds to the lens.
There was a full minute of empty silence, then a man’s voice said, “Agents Sherlock and Butler, you may park in front of the house.”
“Don’t you love such efficiency?” The gates slowly swung open, and Sherlock drove the Volvo through.
Connie said, “Those gates—I doubt a tank could bust through, that’s really high-grade steel. And these walls. Looks like they want to keep out the walking dead.”
“And other assorted riffraff.”
They drove down a wide graveled drive circling a vast well-tended lawn shaded by three huge oak trees, flower beds around each of them. The central core of the three-story dark redbrick house was flanked by two brick wings, with large formal English gardens on either side. Sherlock had read the house was built to resemble Restoration House in Kent, England, and pulled up a photo of it.
“Wowza. Connie, it does look like that old house in Kent. Do you feel like you’ve been transported to jolly old England?”
“It’s amazing, all right. Look at the gardens and that lawn, Sherlock. They must have an army of gardeners.”
“Speaking of an army,” Sherlock said, looking around, “I wonder how many security guards Dr. Maddox employs.”
“I guess we’re about to find out.”
Sherlock parked the Volvo in front of the entrance. They saw Sylvie Vaughn’s Jaguar parked outside a six-port garage some twenty feet away, set next to the north wing of the house. All the bays were closed. An old green Mercedes sedan was parked next to it.
They walked up flagstone steps to a front door that looked strong enough to withstand a battering ram. Connie said as Sherlock thwacked the lion’s head knocker, “The article I read said two of the rooms are exact replicas of their counterparts in Restoration House. It took nearly fifteen years because of all the portraits that had to be copied. B. B. Maddox doesn’t have any worries about money.”
The front door wasn’t opened by a butler or a maid, but by a slender middle-aged man wearing a slouchy cardigan and chinos. He had longish straight blond hair threaded with white, and eyes as light a blue as Sherlock’s, his covered with black-framed thick glasses. He was tall, but his shoulders were a bit slumped, as if he spent too much time hunched over at a desk or a computer. They recognized Dr. Lister Maddox, son of the founder of Gen-Core Technologies, B. B. Maddox. Oddly, he had worry beads in his hands, and was sliding them smoothly through his fingers.
“I take it you are the two FBI agents Cargill said were requesting entrance.”
“That’s right,” Sherlock said, stepped forward, gave him her patented sunny smile, and introduced herself and Connie. They handed him their creds.
He took the creds and studied them even as he continued to block the front door. He handed them back. “May I ask what this is all about, Agents?”
“That would depend on who you are, sir,” Sherlock said.
“I am Dr. Lister Maddox. I am in charge of this house.”
Connie said in a precise schoolteacher voice, “But this home belongs to Dr. B. B. Maddox, doesn’t it? Why isn’t he in charge?”
Maddox blinked, took a step back, then straightened to block the door again. “Our family’s affairs are none of your business. Why are you here? What do you want?”
Sherlock said, “Are you Dr. B. B. Maddox’s son?”
“I am.”
“We would like to speak to your father, Dr. Maddox, then to Sylvie Vaughn and her mother, Hannah Fox.”
The wor
ry beads began threading more quickly through his long thin fingers. His blue eyes behind thick lenses were cold. “That won’t be possible, ladies.”
“Agents,” Connie said. “You’re too young to be so forgetful of titles, Dr. Maddox. Perhaps your pharmaceutical subsidiary, Badecker-Ziotec, could offer their help to you to improve your short-term memory.”
His head jerked back as if she’d slapped him.
A man’s hard voice said from behind him, “Dr. Maddox, is there something you’d like me to do?”
Maddox never turned. “No, it’s all right, Cargill. The ladies—excuse me, the special agents—wish to speak to my father, and of course that isn’t possible.”
The man nodded but remained standing where he was, his arms over his chest, watchful. Sherlock saw the bulge in his jacket. He was carrying. Why would Maddox need armed security?
Connie continued in her full schoolmarm mode, “Dr. Maddox, we have only a few questions for your father. It won’t take long.”
“I told you it isn’t possible. His ill health precludes it. I would like you both to leave now. If you have questions for me, you can contact our lawyers.”
Sherlock jumped in. They needed to question him, not have him kick them out and sic his lawyers on them. “Dr. Maddox, actually it’s not necessary we speak with your father. After all, you’ve been the CEO of Gen-Core Technologies since your father stepped down fifteen years ago, and, as you say, you are the master of this exquisite home. We would be grateful, sir, if you could spend a couple of minutes with us and answer the questions we were going to ask your father.” She’d really laid it on with a trowel, but at least it gave him another option, a chance to reconsider. She watched his desire to know why they were there and what they knew overcome his annoyance, until finally, he nodded. “Very well, I have a few minutes before I have to be in a meeting. Come this way.” Lister led them through a time portal into a wealthy seventeenth-century salon.