Father Night (16 page)

“Nothing. She’s meeting a contact, that’s all.”

“A contact?” Bridges turned fully, confronting her. “What the fuck does that mean? Is she a spy now?”

Vera hesitated only a moment. “We got a lead on the guy who—” She stared out the window, unsure now where this was leading or what she should do. “He’s military.”

“Christ.”

“McNair,” Lenny breathed.

“Once she’s inside, she’s beyond our help.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Vera said. She had done some crazy things in her day, but putting someone she liked in jeopardy wasn’t one of them. “You’re freaking me out.”

“How well does Alli know this contact?” Bridges said.

Vera put her head in her hands. “Shit, fuck, shit, fuck.”

“Boss,” Lenny said, “I got nothing.”

Bridges caught Vera’s eye. “For God’s sake, if you have something, now’s the time.”

“I don’t want anything to happen to her.” Vera hauled out her cell and showed it to him. “We agreed she’d leave her GPS on.”

Bridges’s forefinger stabbed at the screen. “She’s on the far side of the memorial, Lenny. Get us near as you can, stat!”

*   *   *

S
HE DIDN’T
know his name—she didn’t have to. He was Morgan Herr resurrected. Alli, thrust into her recurring nightmare, felt paralyzed with fear and loathing. She felt again the straps of the chair into which Morgan Herr had imprisoned her, heard again his singsong voice worming its way into her subconscious, altering her perception of her parents, of herself, relived the stinging humiliation to which he had subjected her. She felt her essence shriveling, as she was diminished by his physical and psychological abuse.

Then, like a shout in her ear, reality snapped back into focus and she was in present time, confronting the terror that had stalked her for months on end following her incarceration. She recoiled, but not fast enough. Reaching out, Herr caught her by the front of her sweater.

He laughed. “I scared you good with that Web site I cooked up.”

She twisted away, and the sweater yarn ripped and came away in his fist.

“I know you. I know all about you.” He glared at her as she darted to her left, and started to stalk her. “I’ve burrowed inside your head.”

Swinging her body around, she struck out with her extended leg. The impact traveled all the way up to her head, making her teeth clack together painfully. His side was like a block of concrete.

“I’m never going to leave until the moment you die.”

Herr grabbed her ankle and twisted, trying to fracture the bones, but Alli was prepared, leaving her feet and twisting her entire body in the same direction. He pushed her away in an attempt to make her land awkwardly, but her muscle memory was excellent, and all of Sensei’s lessons now came into play.

Her shock at seeing Herr had kept her brain from working as it should in a dangerous situation. Now she began to search for her adversary’s weakness. Instead of retreating, she stood her ground, even if it meant absorbing punishing blows. He was quick and brutal, but he was set in his habits. He had perfected specific strikes and defenses, which she catalogued as their hand-to-hand engagement went on. The problem was the blows she was absorbing were rapidly draining her of strength. Here, her small frame worked against her. Against a foe as powerful as Herr, her stamina was evaporating at a breathtaking pace.

But she thought she had enough of a read on him now, and she retreated, drawing him on, then stepped inside his defenses. Slamming her palms against his ears, she was gratified to see him stagger, and she kicked him as hard as she could in the groin. He groaned, one hand swiped at her, and, ducking under it, she stamped on the inside of his right knee.

Even as he went down, he lunged at her, catching one wrist so hard he almost dislocated her shoulder. The breath hot in her throat, she slammed the heel of her hand between his eyes, and he let her go.

She turned and ran.

*   *   *

“I
N HERE,
” Kurin said.

“Really?” Katya looked skeptically at the space in the hollowed-out love seat.

“Really.” Kurin helped her in, then turned to Gourdjiev. “Remember what I told you. As soon as you’re settled, stay completely silent and still. This is essential.”

The old man nodded and, with Kurin’s assistance, gamely stepped into the hollow, slowly disappearing.

The train’s brakes were panting like an asthmatic after a run. The train was almost at a full stop.

“I won’t forget this service,” Gourdjiev said.

“I pray not.”

Kurin gave him an encouraging smile, then shut the panel, replaced the cushions, and settled on one of them to wait for the inevitable armed intrusion. His thoughts were with Jack and Annika, who by now must be in the elephant car with Huey, the elephants’ trainer. Despite their size, elephants were skittish. They were easily spooked by fire or loud noises, just to name a few of the many possibilities, but they knew and loved Huey, who had been with them for a decade. Kurin, who secretly spoke to God when he was alone and in despair, said a prayer that the beasts would accept the two humans because they were in Huey’s company.

*   *   *

“I
DON’T
see her,” Lenny said, slewing the car around at the end of P Street SW.

“Keep Vera here,” Bridges said, as he bolted from the sedan. The sunlight struck him a glancing blow, and he squinted into the glare. He drew his service pistol and, leaping over a low fence, headed straight for the
Titanic
Memorial.

Bridges felt the breath hot in his lungs, a constriction in his throat. He had no doubt that Alli had gone to meet someone who claimed to know the identity of the man who had posted the rogue site. Mentally, he kicked himself for not paying enough attention to her obsession with this individual. Jack wouldn’t have made that mistake. And now Bridges saw Alli as she had been back at the diner, nonchalantly asking if any progress had been made in IDing the perp, when he was certain now she knew quite well that there hadn’t. Somehow, though, she had found a lead and had come up with this elaborate plan to lull Bridges, then ditch him while Vera kept him occupied. He didn’t know whether he was more angry at her or terrified for her safety.

He saw the granite man with his arms outstretched, no one nearby, and veered to one side to give himself a view of the rear. Nothing. But now, as he picked his way closer, his heart began to pound in his chest. Directly behind the monument a couple of drops of fresh blood shimmered like jewels in the sunlight.

*   *   *

R
ODYA
S
TAS
did not like animals—any animals, but especially the large ones his scientist friend called charismatic megafauna. He smelled them as soon as he swung aboard the train.
Goddamn circuses to the seven levels of hell,
he cursed silently as he made his way through the cars. Two of his men had stayed with the engineer, scaring him so badly he nearly wet his pants.

Stas was FSB, but he took his orders from Grigori Batchuk, who called himself Myles Oldham now that he was out of the country. Grigori wanted Gourdjiev and his granddaughter Annika. So far as Stas could determine, the two of them were quite dangerous and deserved a bullet to the back of their heads. But that wasn’t what Grigori wanted; Grigori wanted them alive and well and ready for an extended period of articulated interrogation. In fact, Stas had been in charge of installing the implements of this interrogation in an abandoned warehouse Grigori had purchased for this very purpose. A bristling array of terrifying toys awaited the old man and his granddaughter. Stas was not a forgiving man. Gourdjiev had managed to make a fool of him, not once but twice. Stas found that intolerable. Frankly, at this point he didn’t give a shit what Grigori wanted, he had become fixated on what he himself wanted. The repercussions would take care of themselves. He knew Grigori only as a hazy figure, a voice over the phone. The man hadn’t been inside Russia in years. In fact, it appeared to Stas as if Grigori had abandoned the motherland entirely.

He passed from one car to another, the animal stench burning his eyes as well as his nostrils, as he headed down the line. He had to force himself not to shoot all the animals and be done with it. The only thing that stopped him was the thought that bigger game awaited him.

The old man had nearly slipped through by faking his own death. Grigori’s doctor at the hospital had been fooled, and so had Stas. Up to a point. He’d spent weeks reading up on the old man’s MO. He was as slippery as an electric eel, and just as dangerous. It was easy for Stas to test out his theory because he had infiltrated Gourdjiev’s organization, which was how he had found out about the fake ambulance. What he hadn’t counted on was the old man discovering the men Stas had turned.

Stas and his men had already methodically tossed all the residential cars. He’d leered at the female acrobats, wondering what they would be like in the midst of sexual congress. He pushed aside the midgets. Some held out their papers with trembling hands, but he batted them to the floor. He had no interest in papers. He knew who he was looking for; their faces were etched on the scrim of his mind. He was following up on an anonymous report, relayed to him by one of Grigori’s men at the Kursky station, that Gourdjiev was spotted at the rail yards—not the passenger station—an odd place for him to be hanging out unless … Stas had checked the departures from that area and had come up with the Red Square Circus.

He gagged as he entered the car with the big cats, lions and tigers and leopards stalking back and forth in their cages. The largest of the male lions must have scented him. He lifted his head, his yellow eyes heavy on Stas. His jaws yawned open and he roared. Teeth like nightmares. Stas got the hell out of there.

The next car brought him to the elephants—a pair of them, their disgusting trunks swaying back and forth. Their trainer was with them, one hand on the flank of both animals, to keep them calm, Stas conjectured. Stas came near them, but they turned their colossal heads and stamped their feet, pale tusks scything through the fetid air, and Stas wanted no more to do with them.

The next two cars were filled with familiar circus paraphernalia: tents, thick ropes coiled like adders, sledgehammers, boxes of wooden pegs, on and on. He soon grew bored and continued to the last car.

The ringmaster was sitting on a poufy love seat when Stas entered. To Stas’s cruel eye he looked like a pouf himself, but who could say?

“Name,” Stas said, though he already knew it.

“Pavel Kurin.” The ringmaster rose slowly, almost reluctantly. “At your service.”

Stas began to walk around the interior, in precisely the same way the big cats had stalked their cages. “What have we here, Pavel?”

“I beg your pardon, I didn’t catch your name.”

“I didn’t throw it.” He flashed his FSB credentials.

“We’re just a circus.” Kurin spread his hands. “I don’t know what you want with us.”

Stas glared hard at him. “No one’s just
anything,
Pavel.”

“We’re simple people.” The ringmaster gave him a helpless look. “I don’t—”

“None of us are
simply
who we are,” Stas explained. “There is nothing
simple
about the human condition, Pavel. There are layers, then layers beneath those layers, but do I really have to belabor this point to a man like you?”

“A man like me?”

Stas continued to circle. “A man who made his break with society a long time ago, a man who harbors freaks, simpletons, children in adult bodies.” He glanced around at the walls of photos. “I mean, look at this. You’re a fucking freak yourself.”

Kurin stood straight, putting steel in his backbone. “I provide a valuable service.”

Stas paused, his feet spread at shoulder height. “Indeed you do, Pavel, which brings us to my visit today.” As they talked, Stas had been examining every piece of furniture in the car. Now he gestured. “Please step away.”

“I beg your—”

“Step away from the love seat, Pavel.”

As Pavel did as he was ordered, Stas approached the love seat and produced a long-barreled .357 Magnum. He kicked off the cushions and aimed the Magnum at the wooden plank.

Kurin trembled. “What are you doing? That’s a family heirloom. I beg you, don’t do anything to—”

Stas squeezed off six shots in succession. The car stank of cordite and aftershock.

“Just to make sure you’re not providing
other
valuable services,” Stas said. “Services entirely
unrelated
to your little traveling freak show.” He reloaded the Magnum and fired another six shots through the wood at point-blank range.

*   *   *

A
LLI FELT
Herr on her tail as she fled, panting, around a corner. It was at that moment that she sensed a blur of motion from one side. Risking a glance, she saw Dick Bridges tackle Herr. The two of them crashed to the sidewalk, rolling over and over. She stopped and turned. The fall had knocked Bridges’s gun out of his hand.

She was about to run to pick it up when she heard her name being called. Waxman was standing beneath a tree. Next to him was a Lincoln Town Car with the passenger’s door open.

He gestured with his walking stick, pointing it at her. Something struck her leg and she tried to lift it out of the way. She felt strange and cold.

“Come now, Alli. You’re in danger here!”

She pointed at Bridges. “But I know—”

“Yes, I know Dick Bridges. I’ll take care of it. Quickly, now! Get in!”

“I can’t.” She tried to run, but seemed stuck to the ground. “That man was impersonating you. He—”

“Yes, Alli,” Waxman said, approaching her. “I know all about it.”

She whirled. “What? You?”

She took a stumbling step and fell. Pain seared her knees from the sharp-edged gravel underfoot. She put her hands under her. Looking up, she saw that Waxman’s smile seemed as big and wide as the Cheshire Cat’s. She shook her head, trying to clear it.

“That won’t work,” came a voice from above her head. “Nothing will.”

Determined, she crawled toward the gun, but already the world was beginning to spin around her. Still, she kept on, drawing closer and closer to Bridges’s gun shining on the pavement.