Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (174 page)

“What kind of help are you talking about?” Charles asked. It had to be something big and dangerous. Because William must be desperate to come to his office, knowing how he felt about William’s way of doing business.

“The Old Crab won’t help me, but there are other officers in the army, more sympathetic. Thing is, I can’t have you mucking around when I’m trying to make things right.”

“Does this mean you’re planning an attack on the Blackwing contractors? Aren’t you the one who helped the Chinese get their concessions in the first place? You gave them preferential information to bid for leases.”

“I’ve got to go,” William said, “but I want you to remember what I’ve done in Okisbo. I reward those who help me, and I never forget those who stood in my way. Think about it.”

________

Markov lay on his belly, staring through the scope on the sniper rifle as his two men broke down the hotel room door and burst inside with leveled shotguns. Two shots, one after another.

Almost at once, he heard car doors open behind him, shouts in Spanish. That would be the two Mexican police officers that Carlos Aguilar had sent to keep an eye on him while he made the arrest. Except this was no arrest, it was an extra-legal execution.

But Markov couldn’t take his eye from that sight, not while the possibility still existed—slim as it may be—that Ian Westhelle would burst free from that room, armed. It would be up to Markov to take him down.

And so he ignored the Mexican police as they came behind him, shouting at him to step away from the rifle.

Markov’s men emerged from the hotel room. They looked his way and shook their heads. Behind him, the Mexican police kept shouting. Lights blinked on in the other occupied hotel rooms.

“
Cálmense
,” he told the police officers.
Calm down.
“Nothing happened. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Markov made his way across the parking lot with the riled up police officers trailing.

“Room’s empty,” one of his men said. The third came around from the far side of the building where he’d been watching the back window.

“What do you mean, empty? Then what were you shooting at?”

“We’ll show you.” He reached around and flicked on the light and the entire group made its way inside.

Even with the light on, Markov gave a start. There were pillows propped against the bed frame in such a way that at first glance it looked like someone sitting there. Ian and Julia had ‘taken the hanger rod from the closet and propped it against the bed frame so that it looked like the pillow man was leveling a shotgun at the door.

No wonder the agents had started firing at once. The shots had shredded the center pillows and scattered feathers across the bed.

“He did it on purpose,” Markov said. “Made it look like someone was in here.”

“Why would he do that?” one of his men asked.

Markov eyed the contraption. It was a clever ruse. “Because he wanted you to shoot. Maybe the police would come, maybe we’d get tangled up with the locals and by the time we extricated ourselves, they’d be that much further ahead.”

He glanced back at the Mexican police. Ian Westhelle had done well on that score. The officers calmed down now that they saw there was no body in the hotel room to clean up and explain to their superiors, but Markov would still have to explain to Aguilar why his men had burst in shooting. He’d promised they would fire only in self-defense.

He walked around the room, careful not to touch anything. There were two beds, the first with the pillow man and the second closer to the bathroom. Both beds had been slept in.

Markov thought about that for a minute. The scene challenged his assumptions.

Most importantly, if Ian Westhelle had suffered a psychotic break it didn’t show. He was sane enough that Julia had followed him 2,000 miles, across national borders, of her own free choice. And he was sane enough to change cars, pass the border in disguise, and pull off this trap to slow pursuit.

But what about the crazed man in the jail cell in Namibia? And the official story about how Ian had killed Kendall. Was that all a lie?

As for Julia, she obviously hadn’t come along for a thrilling romantic fling, as he’d been thinking since Utah. She was an attractive woman, nicely built and with a cute face. If she’d thrown herself at Ian, surely they’d be sharing a bed by now.

Combined, these details added to an uncomfortable conclusion. Julia and Ian really did intend to go back to Namibia. And why? To find out the truth, of course.

So what was Markov doing trying to stop them?

________

It was almost noon before Markov escaped the mess in Querétaro. It took another six hours of frantic calls and Mexican security personnel pouring over airport surveillance footage to discover that Ian and Julia had flown out of Mexico City that morning—just an hour or two after Markov’s men burst into their vacated hotel room. Destination: Cuba.

Almost twenty-four more hours passed before he followed their trail first to Frankfurt, Germany and then to Cape Town, South Africa.

Markov pinged a pair of field agents in Namibia to bring them live, three more in South Africa. By the time his quarry had a rental car and disappeared into South Africa, Markov was already on a company jet in Mexico City, taxiing across the tarmac.

Meanwhile, Sarah Redd emailed, texted, and phoned again and again. They were mostly demands for results and/or updates. He was too exhausted to deal with her at the moment or do anything but find a way to get to sleep. He refused offers of drinks, coffee, and food from the CIA flight crew and settled into his bed. It was dark now, but he flew east, and all too soon the plane and the rotating Earth would conspire to jerk him back into daylight.

Minutes later the vast, glittering expanse of Mexico City spread below him. The plane angled sharply as it left the city behind, and made a direct course for Namibia. There were benefits of having his own jet to command. With any luck, he’d arrive before Ian and Julia.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Julia waited until the plane was only an hour from Cape Town on the twelve hour flight from Frankfurt before she detached the satellite phone from the seat in front of her. She hesitated with her credit card.

It would be the first time that she’d used a card since she’d taken out money from the ATM in Nephi, Utah. She figured the call itself could be traced, so it wouldn’t matter at this point if she gave up her location by using the credit card.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Ian asked. He leaned in and kept his voice low enough that she had to strain to hear it over the ambient roar of the engines and the other sounds inside and out of the cabin.

She leaned in as well, so close she could smell him. Neither of them had bathed since that dumpy place in Querétaro, where Ian had insisted on leaving in the middle of the night. Said he had a bad feeling. Either his instincts had saved their lives or cost them a good night of sleep. She couldn’t decide.

Since then, they’d passed every hour either in air conditioned cars, airports, or on planes, so he didn’t smell bad, just very much like a man.

“We need Terrance’s help,” Julia said. “Assuming we get Kendall’s implant we’ll still need to get at the data. I know how. Chang liked to pawn off the little stuff so he taught me how to get the data, do routine analysis, that sort of thing. It was too mundane to waste his time on.” She rolled her eyes, “So he gave it to the brain surgeon. Anyway, I’ve got the probe, and we can buy a new laptop in Cape Town, and we’ll be all set with hardware. But we don’t have the client software installed on the laptop.”

“What do you mean client software?”

“The implant has its own software, right? Preinstalled, tells it how to go into its different modes and all that. And the probe can activate it, make it send out a bunch of data.”

“Got that part, okay.”

“So the laptop can capture all the data, but it needs the client software to know how to do that.”

“Ah, I got it. Well, we can pick up a laptop in South Africa, but it doesn’t exactly come with CIA stuff preinstalled.”

“Exactly. I’ll need to access my email account and have someone send me a bunch of zipped up files with all the software. I’ll install it and we’ll be good to go. Terrance can get the software for me.”

“Assuming we can trust him,” Ian said.

“Things have been tough lately, I admit it. But once I tell him what’s going on, he’ll help. He’s not a company man like Markov.”

“You’re sure?”

“About as sure as I am that you’re not crazy. Which is to say…mostly sure.”

He smiled. “Fair enough. You’re taking a risk on me, I can take a risk on your husband.”

She slid the card into the reader, then dialed Terrance’s cell phone. He picked up on the first ring.

“Julia?”

“It’s me, honey. Sorry I didn’t call earlier and I’m sorry I lied about going to that conference.”

“I don’t care about that, I just want to know if you’re okay. Did he take you hostage?”

“No, nothing like that. Everything is fine.”

“Okay, thank God you’re okay. Sarah said there was some kind of accident in Utah and you might have been…”

“Accident?” she said with a snort. “That was no accident. They tried to kill me.”

“We can talk about it later. Let’s just get you home. Where are you?”

“I can’t tell you,” she said. “I’m not sure you believe me and won’t tell Markov or Sarah. I told you, they tried to kill me, and they’ll do it again.”

“What are you talking about? They wouldn’t try to kill you, that’s just crazy talk.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” Julia didn’t like the snap in her voice. She took a deep breath. “Just trust me for now, okay?”

She expected him to push back, but he said, “Okay. But there’s got to be something I can do. I feel helpless sitting here, wondering what happened.”

So she told him what she needed. He listened quietly while she explained how he could email the zipped up files for the client software.

“If you’re right that they’re looking for you,” Terrance said when she’d finished, “then you might be locked out of the system. And if not, they’ll be monitoring your email.”

“I thought about that, which is why you have to email the files to my personal account.”

“You want me to send top secret files to an account hosted by a free web service? Are you out of your mind?”

“Damn it, Terrance, they’re trying to kill me!”

Ian squeezed her arm and she looked to see that the outburst had drawn the attention of people in other seats. She lowered her voice, “Do you want me to die? Because if you don’t, you’ve got to help me.”

Her husband said nothing for a long time. There was something noisy in the background, like heavy machinery running. And someone shouted for Terrance.

“Look, I’ve got to go,” he said. “But yeah, I’ll send the files. Just don’t…don’t ever tell anyone about this. I need my job, no matter what happens.”

“Thanks for the help. I really mean it.”

“Sure, be safe.” He hung up.

Ten minutes ago Terrance thought she was dead. Now he couldn’t manage an “I love you.” She held the receiver, awkwardly, noticing Ian’s gaze.

Julia replaced the phone in its cradle just as the stewardess started her announcement.
We are now beginning our initial descent into Cape Town, South Africa. At this time please turn off all personal electronic devices…

She looked out the window to see a green, hilly country stretching away from a sweep of blue ocean. The vastness of Africa stretched to the east and north. She glanced back to Ian to see him looking past her shoulder with a distant look in his eyes.

________

Terrance Nolan was sick of being poor and had decided to do something about it.

After he hung up the phone with his wife, he ducked his head to stay beneath the propeller and climbed into Malcolm Hathwell’s helicopter. It lifted into the air from its pad on an office tower in Lower Manhattan. The helicopter dipped its nose and turned north.

“The only way to travel in New York,” Malcolm said over the noise of the propeller. “You should have called when you crossed the bridge and I’d have sent it to pick you up.”