Part 4 (1/2)

Bridgeman sat forward. ”The Carnivore turned up in the Library of Gold operation and delivered intel to you-even though only members of your team had access to it. How did the Carnivore get the intel? The answer has to be from one of your people. My people now. There was no other source. We've got a G.o.dd.a.m.ned mole in here somewhere. Does this have you p.i.s.sing your pants, Tucker? It does me.”

Tucker was silent. Scott Bridgeman was just thirty years old, and yet he was running one of Langley's top clandestine units. Langley no longer had the wide array of experienced top management choices of years past.

Tucker responded patiently: ”On the other hand, the situation could be innocent. There were people along the line who knew-people in the military, for instance. What's important is the intel was decisive in bringing the operation home. The Carnivore was a volunteer and unpaid, and his reward was to get shot up rather badly. Still, once I was back here, I opened an investigation into whether one of our people was collaborating with him. The investigation got sidetracked when some of our hotspots flared up. Of course I've told Gloria to reactivate the probe.”

Bridgeman glared. ”We need fast answers.”

”Gloria knows that.” Tucker considered whether to disclose the latest wrinkle, about Judd Ryder's imposter. Not even Gloria knew about it.

Beneath his blond crewcut, Bridgeman was studying him. His eyes narrowed. ”Why didn't you take this job when it was offered to you, Tucker? You're a legend. You could be the one sitting here.”

”Being a.s.sistant director keeps me in the office more than I like,” Tucker said honestly. ”With your job, I might as well chain myself to my desk.” Fieldwork kept him sane. He liked the changes of scenery, meeting new people, the chance to test himself up front and personal against intelligent and dangerous enemies.

”How am I supposed to manage you, Tucker? You don't tell me what you're doing until you've already done it. I just got a call from Matt Kelley.” Kelley was the director of the Clandestine Service. ”He told me you'd been at the ME's and ordered them to keep the investigation into Judd Ryder's double a secret. Matt asked me whether I knew my a.r.s.e from my ear.”

That was Matt through and through, Tucker thought, his face expressionless.

”You used the excuse of national security, for chrissakes,” Bridgeman went on. ”You had absolutely no authority to do that. Besides, you know d.a.m.n well Judd Ryder isn't clean-he got into some serious trouble in Iraq.”

”But he saved us more than once in the Library of Gold mission,” Tucker reminded him.

Scott's lips thinned. ”He did blood work for army intelligence in Pakistan and Iraq. There's no way anyone can ever completely trust an a.s.sa.s.sin, not even one of our own. They have nightmares, flashbacks. They get jumpy and react crazily. They're unpredictable and get used to killing. You were lucky he was stable enough to be useful when you took him on as a contract employee.”

”I've known Judd all his life. He's as stable as you or me.”

Bridgeman shook his head. ”There's bad family history there, too. His father turned out to be an international criminal.”

”I doubt Judd knew anything about what his father was doing. Judd inherited ten million dollars from him, but instead of retiring to the Riviera or blowing it all on gambling or drugs, he started a foundation to build schools in disadvantaged places. He put the whole inheritance into it. And it's a working foundation, not one of those tax dodges. He personally manages the projects. He hammers nails and paints walls. He just got back from Baghdad, where he's started an elementary school in one of the poorest neighborhoods.”

”Good for him. Send him back to Baghdad. I don't want him hurting Catapult.” Bridgeman leaned forward, his jaw jutting. ”You were protecting Ryder with the medical examiner, even though you knew I'd never approve. The murder of the double is a police case. I want you to call the ME, apologize, and tell him you were out of line.”

”The ME's a s...o...b..at. He'll instantly go public about Ryder.”

”Probably, but at least he won't drag Langley into it.”

Tucker swallowed back his anger. ”You're right-I should've reported what I was doing, but there was little time, and it doesn't mean I'm wrong. At least one international a.s.sa.s.sin-the Padre-is operating on U.S. soil.”

”You know d.a.m.n well it's the FBI's job to investigate inside our borders.”

”We don't always share our intel with the Bureau, and vice versa. And when we do, there's often a time lag.”

”The Padre is off the table. He hasn't done anything wrong here.”

”That we know of,” Tucker countered. ”Worse, we don't know what he's got in mind, other than tracking down the Carnivore.”

”He's given us valuable information.” Bridgeman's tone was steely. ”You have no real evidence he's out to wipe the Carnivore. And even if he is, the Carnivore could be thousands of miles away. Do you really want to waste our people's time on something as flimsy as this? Until you can bring me something that walks, talks, and bleeds, don't tell me one of your guesses is real.”

Tucker looked down at his hands, folded neatly in his lap. He often sat that way when under attack. Some people crossed their arms, an unconscious gesture of self-protection, s.h.i.+elding their most vulnerable organ, the heart. Others put their hands to their throats or fiddled with their hair. Long ago Tucker had decided to appear relaxed, so he let his hands curl comfortably in his lap, which forced his shoulders to loosen. The discipline of it distracted his mind from the a.s.sault and allowed him to focus.

Tucker spoke calmly. ”You called me a legend. You said I could be the one sitting in your chair. If either of those is true, then perhaps I'm worth listening to on this issue. I'm going to approach it another way.... To be a good spy, you have to be smart, hardworking, and talented. To be a great spy, you've got to have one more quality-instinct. 'Gut,' if you will. I figure you have good gut.” He had seen no evidence Bridgeman had any gut at all, but his goal was to put Bridgeman in a more receptive mood.

Bridgeman gave a slow nod. ”Go on.”

”My gut is screaming there's something very big going on here, and the Padre's hunt for the Carnivore is the tip of the d.a.m.n iceberg. To begin with, they're t.i.tans in the underworld of a.s.sa.s.sins. They don't waste their time with turf wars. There's no money in it, and somebody's sure to die. When you work at that rarified a level, it could be you. So what's happened that's so big that it's provoked the Padre to go after the Carnivore?”

Bridgeman was silent.

”Next question, who killed Judd's double?” Tucker continued. ”And who was the intended victim-the double or Judd? On the same day all of this happens, the Padre asks my help to find the Carnivore fast. The logical answer is the Carnivore killed the double believing it was Judd, because he was worried Judd could tell the Padre how to get to him. The Carnivore is obsessed with security. It's one of the reasons he's been untouchable for so many decades. He's used more pseudonyms than a brush has bristles. How about his real name? No way. His nationality? Please. This is the way I see it: The Carnivore knows the Padre is after him. He needs to eliminate any possibility the Padre can find him. The Carnivore's last job was with Judd, Eva Blake, and me. Judd claims the Carnivore didn't tell him anything about where he lived. He didn't tell me either. So that leaves Eva Blake. Judd is on his way to see her now. The Carnivore spent time with her. He could've told her, and if he did, then he's got to be worried she told Judd and maybe me.”

”Are you thinking he'll come after you?” Bridgeman asked curiously.

Tucker shrugged. ”What matters is something big is going on between the Padre and the Carnivore. Judd has already been dragged into it. Let's let him dig around and maybe save us some aggravation.”

Bridgeman looked away. Tucker had made an important point, but Bridgeman seemed to be having a hard time agreeing.

”Matt Kelley can get the ME to back down,” Tucker went on. ”If you don't want to ask Matt to do it, I will.” He had just pulled out his trump card and laid it firmly on the desk. Matt Kelley was not only the director of the Clandestine Service, he had also been Tucker's protege some twenty years before. There was no way Bridgeman could let Tucker go over his head to Matt.

Bridgeman spoke as if he had just had a brilliant idea. ”This is potentially too serious a situation to let the ME grandstand about it. How long does Ryder need?”

”A week.”

”A week?” Bridgeman sat back and rubbed a hand over his face. ”Christ. I'll talk to the ME and see if I can get it for you. But your boy, Ryder, better d.a.m.n well move fast. His first day is closing out.”

13.

Montgomery County, Maryland Houses and offices pa.s.sed in a blur as Judd Ryder raced his pickup north on Route 650. Constantly checking the tracker Eva had left him, he drove at 80 miles per hour and watched for the state police. After fifteen miles the landscape grew rolling and rural, the four-lane highway narrowed to two lanes, and he still had not caught up with her. He gripped the steering wheel so hard his knuckles ached.

Finally the green dot on the tracker showed her vehicle had turned off the interstate. At a white-steepled church Ryder did, too, following east on a county road. That was when the moving dot on the tracker froze. As it remained motionless, he stared, riveted-her vehicle had stopped.

Relieved, he sped his pickup into a forest and then down across a stone bridge. Timbered hills rose around him, and he saw an entry not much wider than a residential driveway. Next to it was a small sign: The Esti Hunt Club Private-No Trespa.s.sing Accelerating past, he parked off the road, slung on his pack, and walked back, the tracker in hand. Taking out his Beretta, he plodded into the forest. Winter sunlight shone down through the trees in silver shafts. From behind a large oak he a.s.sessed the hunt club's entry. Tall steel gate. Attached intercom. Closed-circuit security cameras high in trees on both sides.

His tracker showed the dot was moving fractionally. Eva must be walking around. Switching configurations, he called up a map of the region, but when he zeroed in, the geography grew hazy. He could make out only two rectangular buildings and what appeared to be smaller buildings, a blurred drive, and gray formless ma.s.ses that were probably trees. He cursed silently. This area north of Was.h.i.+ngton was part of the nation's security zone, and the U.S. government forbade detailed public satellite views.

He slogged uphill, pus.h.i.+ng through branches. His boots grew heavy with snow. At last he found a deer trail. Following it, he pa.s.sed a deer blind. At the crest, he dropped to his heels and surveyed the hunt club below-two large lodges and several small cabins with steep s.h.i.+ngled roofs. Two men dressed in padded hunting jackets and armed with Uzis stood outside a white Ford Explorer parked where the drive formed a wide oval in front of the lodges and cabins. One man was smoking; the other talked on a cell phone. They held their Uzis with confidence. There were no other cars, and all of the windows in the buildings Ryder could see were dark.

s.h.i.+fting his gaze, Ryder spotted Eva stumbling off a lodge porch. She was hatless, her long red hair ablaze in the afternoon sunlight. An armed guard followed, shoving her. Ryder's jaw tightened. She fell to her knees and let out a cry. The guard grabbed her arm and yanked her up. Pus.h.i.+ng her ahead, he hustled her into a small cabin and locked the door. Within seconds she was standing at the window, hands pressed against the gla.s.s, peering out. Her features were tight with fear.

It was unlike Eva to give an inch, yet she acted beaten. What had they done to her? Ryder's grip tightened on his Beretta. The hum of a powerful engine sounded from the drive, and in seconds a s.h.i.+ny black Cadillac limousine appeared. The windows were darkened, its occupants unseeable. As soon as it stopped, the driver's door opened and out stepped a man in a padded hunting jacket like those the three other men wore. He, too, carried an Uzi. He scanned the surrounding slopes.

Ryder crouched lower, studying the Ford Explorer, the Cadillac limo, the men with Uzis, and Eva in the window. He rose quietly to his feet. Using spruces and pines for cover, he started down the long hill.