A Man Overboard (11 page)

All of a sudden, Ivan looked uncomfortable, squirming awkwardly in his chair.

“What?” Jack demanded.

“They’re letters from a guy named Vadim to this Anna girl.”

“What do they say? Why would Stacey keep them hidden in her closet?”

“She had them
hidden
in her closet?”

“Yeah.”

“I have no idea. Maybe she’s holding them for a friend of hers.”

“I don’t know any Anna. Are there any dates?”

“2005 through 2006.”

“The year before I met Stacey.”

He looked down at the letter still in his hands and was about to say something, but apparently changed his mind. “Jack,” he said instead, “why don’t you just tell me what the hell is going on?”

So he did. Everything from the cruise to Viktoriya’s landlord.

Ivan looked incredulous. “You were just shot at outside your own house?” He was scanning the parking lot now, too.

“It’s funny, you know what my first thought was with these books?” Jack asked.

“What?”

He began laughing. “That it was some
Catcher in the Rye
thing.”

“You mean from
Conspiracy Theory
? The CIA programming Jerry to always need a copy?”

Jack nodded. “Look what you’ve done to me. You got me thinking my wife is a Russian spy programmed to buy Soviet-themed novels.”

But Ivan wasn’t laughing. After a deep breath and a moment to reevaluate the content of the letters in light of his friend’s story, he said, “The letters allude to something that the Vadim guy is involved in. Something he promises to find a way out of so that they can be together again.”

Jack’s smile faded. “Vadim and Anna.”

“They seem to be married. Now he never comes right out and says what it is he’s involved with, but it’s clear that it’s the reason they’re not together.”

“Something like…”

“Like SVR crap.”

“SVR? As in Russian foreign intelligence?”

Ivan ran a hand through his black hair, nodding. “As in the FSB’s Foreign Intelligence Service, yes.”

“The FSB being—”

“The new KGB.”

Jack looked confused. “I thought…”

“The KGB was disbanded in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1995, it was restructured into Ministry of Security, Federal Service of Counter-Intelligence, and the Federal Security Service—or FSB. But in 1998, Yeltsin appointed Putin, who of course was KGB, to head up the FSB. When Putin became president in 2000, he began siphoning power back into the Intelligence Services, the FSB drawing all kinds of other departments beneath the umbrella of its own directive, many of them just old KGB departments renamed. They said the KGB was a state within a state, but the FSB, in many ways, has become the state. Ruthless and more powerful than the KGB ever was.”

Slowly removing the lid from his cup, Jack began swirling its contents, staring into the blackness as if the key to understanding everything was resting on the bottom of the paper cup and he needed only to catch a glimpse of it in order to set everything in its proper place. When no shining sword rose from the coffee depths to choruses of revelation, however, he looked up to his Russian friend. “Is it possible that you could be overreacting?”

Ivan’s slightly rounded face brightened into a smile, but the conviction in his brown eyes did not change. “It’s possible that your story tainted my objectivity. But masked men, missing family, guns and intrigue…” He shrugged. “It’s hard not to make the leap. A guy tried to burn down your house, Jack, and he had these books with him. I think it’s safe to say you’re in the middle of something.”

“You think the guy in the photo is Vadim?”

“I don’t know. I guess.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Ivan letting Jack wrestle with the information.

“So,” Jack finally began, “the man in my house was taking those…” he indicated the pile of letters and books on the table.

“Or he was planting them.”

“No. There wasn’t any evidence to suggest that the hole in the ceiling was recent. No drywall dust—”

“Did you check your vacuum?”

Jack snorted under his breath and leaned back in his chair, lifting the cup to his lips again while setting his gaze on the rain.

Ivan leaned forward. “You have no idea what’s going on. What these letters are. Where they came from. Who they’re to. What the books mean. Why you were thrown overboard. What happened to Stacey. Why Viktoriya would take Joseph somewhere…” He trailed off, sitting back himself. “And if I can be honest, you didn’t really know who Stacey was before you married her.”

Jack squinted. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means that those letters, regardless of who they’re from and for, suggest something…
big
.”

“You think Stacey is—”

“Not who you think she is,” he stated bluntly. “Or maybe was.”

Jack was so shocked by the statement that he couldn’t respond.

“You don’t know what she used to be involved in, who her old friends were. We’ve talked about this before, Jack. When it comes to Stacey’s past, you know next to nothing.”

“What are you saying?”

“That for now you concentrate on finding Joseph. If these letters belong to Stacey, then she has them for a reason. Maybe she’s involved somehow, at least in that she’s aware of what’s going on. Maybe whatever Vadim was involved in has run its course, and now he’s cleaning up.”

“You mean…”

“I don’t know what I mean. Just…find your son.”

But before Jack could think of another response, his phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and accepted the call, irritated at the untimely interruption. He knew that Ivan wasn’t telling him everything, that his Russian friend had a theory he wasn’t sharing. “Hello?” And then his eyes swung down, dropping away from his friend. His face turned ashen, and his mouth opened with a silent gasp. “What?” He listened to the voice on the other end and then, “I’ll be right there.”

Concern flooded Ivan’s face. “What is it?”

“My house is on fire.”

17

For two miles, Jack could only stare at the pillar of smoke rising above the earth—a dark beacon signaling a disaster that he was powerless to quell. He beeped his horn, swerved around slow traffic, and pushed the Hyundai harder than it had ever been pushed before. But in the end, parked alongside the curb a few houses down, rescue vehicles littering the street with flashing lights shining through the rain and groups of people standing around under umbrellas, he could only watch his house—
their
house—fall apart beneath an ominous, bright-orange flame. The firemen were sending streams of arching water into the dancing blaze, but even with the falling rain, it was a lost cause.

He watched, unable to truly believe what he was seeing. Joseph’s room. His and Stacey’s things. The photo albums. Their
life
.

A knock on the glass startled him, snapping him out of the fire’s pitiless trance.

“Jack?”

His cop friend was peering down through the window. At first, Jack thought he was some murky apparition sent to usher him into the next world, his form ghostly and veiled beneath the downpour. When Jack finally acknowledged him by lowering the window, he muttered, “Hey, Don.”

Donny leaned closer, the falling water splashing off his rain jacket and spraying the car’s interior. “Jack, your neighbor’s telling people that you were shooting at someone…” There was worry in his voice, though his eyes were too busy blinking away waterfalls to get a read on those telling windows. “What the hell is going on?” He was whispering, his eyes darting through the gathered audience as if at any moment someone might discover his friend’s presence and lead a charge toward the car.

“Wanna take a ride?”

“You know I can’t. Tell me what’s going on. First Stacey’s missing, and then you’re shooting at people and your house is on fire…”

Jack stared straight ahead, not really wanting to rehash the entire string of disjointed events again. So instead, he asked, “Is Agent Johnson here?”

Donny frowned. “Yeah, he’s over there.” He pointed into the flashing chaos. “Listen, Jack, I don’t know what you’re—”

“Do me a favor, Don?” Jack cut him off. He reached into the backpack and took out the picture he’d found in
Seventeen Moments of Spring
. “See if you can find out who this guy is. I think his name is Vadim. He’s Russian.”

Donny stared at him a second. “You’re not going to tell me?”

“Later. I promise.”

His high school friend took the picture and slid it into the dry safety of a zippered pocket. “Why don’t you give it to Johnson?”

After a moment of consideration, Jack shrugged. “Do you trust him?”

Snickering, Donny asked, “You mean do I think he’s into illegal wiretaps, hunting down income tax protestors, and labeling anyone capable of independent thought a terrorist?”

Jack shot him an impatiently bored look.

“Yeah, I trust him.”

“Okay. But still,” he motioned toward the pocket the picture had disappeared into. “Can you find out for me?”

He sighed. “I’ll see what I can do, Jack. You better tell me what the hell is going on though. And soon.”

“I’ll call you once this is all cleared up.”

“All right. But go talk to Johnson now before local snatches you up.” Then, before turning to leave, he asked, “Hey, you’re not in trouble are you? I mean—”

“With the law?” He shook his head, watching as a section of his house collapsed into a violent pile of sparks. “Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“Don, I’ll call you later.” He put the window up, blocking the splashing rain from further soaking his car. When he joined Detective Rickards in the rain, he slapped him reassuringly on the back. “I don’t know what’s going on, Don. But I think it’s big. And somehow Stacey was—
is
—in the middle of it.” He turned away from him in pursuit of the FBI man. “I’ll call you later. Find out who that guy is.”

Jack found Johnson standing alone, leaning against a fire truck and observing the inferno that was converting all of his possessions to ash, lifting them to the air like a sacrifice offered to some wicked, celestial god. It seemed to Jack that the agent was searching the pluming clouds for clues.

“Agent Johnson,” Jack said.

Without turning toward him, Johnson quietly asked, “Would you like to explain why your house is on fire? And what you thought I should see in your garage?”

“I shot an intruder last night,” he said.

Johnson’s gaze swept away from the bonfire and rested, suspiciously, on Jack’s face. “Excuse me?”

Trusting Donny’s friendship with the federal agent, Jack told him everything. The incident in the garage, the backpack, Viktoriya’s house, the drive-by…

Johnson shook his head. “You should’ve reported it. It doesn’t look good, you killing a guy in your house and not calling it in. No matter how you spin it.”

“I know. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“We could’ve found out who the guy was.” He nodded toward the house. “Now we have nothing.” He put his hands on his hips and exhaled. “Let me have the letters and books.”

Jack handed over the backpack.

After taking it, Johnson said, “I talked to the cruise line this morning. They’re checking on the tapes. I also checked all your internet accounts. Someone was on MapQuest getting driving directions north.”

“Yeah, I saw that.”

They both stood silent for a moment. “Jack,” Johnson started, “I don’t know who’s going to be getting involved with this or what they’ll uncover. There are witnesses that saw you shooting at a passing vehicle, your house is on fire, your wife is missing, your son and mother-in-law are missing…” He turned and looked him in the eye. “People are going to have some questions for you. If they find a corpse in there with bullet holes in it, those questions are going to be coming sooner rather than later. I won’t be able to help you the way that I am once that happens. Official channels will have to be opened and protocol followed. Everything will slow down, and you’ll be the first suspect to be investigated.”

“If they’re burning the house to cover something up, then they wouldn’t take the van and leave the body.”

Johnson nodded. “Do you even have a license to carry that pistol?”

“Of course.”

“If you want to find your family, then you have to be smart about this. Either that or you can spend your time phoning lawyers. Do you have anywhere you can stay? Family?”

“No family.”

“Talk to Donny, then. You’ll be safer with him anyway, and he can keep you out of trouble.” He started walking away, the backpack hanging from his grasp. “I’ll call you as soon as I have something.”

“Hey,” Jack called after him.

Johnson turned.

“Why are you doing this? Helping me, I mean?”

“Let’s just say I owe Donny a couple favors.” And then he pointed a finger at him. “But that only goes so far, Mr. Green. If you want my help, you have to observe the boundaries. If you start going Rambo, then I’ll have to step away and let the bureau take over.”

Jack nodded his understanding and watched him walk away. He let the rainwater drip off his face as he turned his attention back to the house he and Stacey had bought four years ago, right before Joseph was born. Thirsty flames were dancing through the broken windows, licking cool droplets out of the sky, smoke continuing to rise like that pagan offering, his family the sacrifice required for appeasement. But why?

Anger began to boil in Jack’s veins, the heat of the fire chasing away all other feeling. Someone had thrown him overboard. Someone had taken his wife. Someone had shot at him. Someone just burnt down his house…

One way or another, regardless of Johnson’s warning, someone was surely going to pay.

The orange-red fire that was reflecting off his hypnotized eyes reached down and ignited something inside of him that he’d only recently felt while beating the man’s face in with the butt of his gun.

Rage.

18

Jack opened the door to the doctor’s office and stepped in, quickly observing the waiting room as he strode purposefully to the reception counter. Only one elderly woman with her face stuck in a magazine was present in the small room, a talk show sounding softly from a TV hanging on the wall.