An Affair of Deceit (21 page)

“What are they doing there? And do they still have the missiles?”

“They’re probably in Detroit for the slammin’ club scene, and no, they don’t have the Stingers. They left them sitting in an abandoned airfield in Spain.”

Riley sighed and sank into one of the leather recliners that faced Greene’s. Greene would do a full debrief before they landed, but Riley couldn’t wait that long for details. Everyone else on their squad was asleep in the back of the jet, so they kept their voices down. “Thank God for that.”

“Not so fast. Now that there are no missiles, we’re on our own again. The FBI, NSA, SOCA, even the nut jobs at the State
Department. Everyone walked. Once again, nobody cares about finding Peter Mason but me.”

“That’s impossible.” Riley stuck both hands in his hair. “The FBI must care that Kral is in the US.”

“Nope. Remember, he’s a hot potato, and so far, nobody’s been willing to turn off the music to see where he ends up.”

“I think that’s musical chairs.”

“Whatever. My point is without any immediate evidence of an intent to do harm—and without the weaponry required to do it—no one on our side is willing to stick their neck out on Kral. And since no other nation has done so much as issue an Interpol notice on the dude, the US is under no obligation to apprehend.”

“Give me a break. He kidnapped a CIA officer.”

“Allegedly.”

“Damn it, Greene. The evidence doesn’t point to a collaboration.”

“It doesn’t point away from it.”

“And I presume a man’s innocence, especially when he’s devoted his life to serving his country.”

Greene’s teeth were bared. “Everyone’s guilty of something. Don’t you forget that.”

Riley bit back another curse. Greene’s pessimistic world-view really got in the way of rational conversation sometimes. He focused on the immediate problem—finding Abigail’s father. “Langley must still want Mason found. He’s our guy—we can’t leave him swinging in the wind with a man we know, at least internally, to be a seriously disturbed individual.”

“Of course they want Mason found.” Greene finally smiled. “And we’re on point.”

So they were right back where they’d started. Greene was alone in his obsession to bring Peter Mason to his knees. Riley questioned whether he ought to tell Greene what he’d learned from Teta Beta, but there wasn’t much room for doubt: his first duty was to his commander. He couldn’t withhold a thing.

Riley took a deep breath. “We unearthed a few key details about Mason’s life before he joined the CIA.”

“Oh?”

Riley looked toward the rear of the plane where Abigail sat stock-still in her upright chair. She wasn’t sleeping, but she wasn’t talking to anyone, either. Surrounded by people, but alone, as usual. She was far enough away that she wouldn’t be able to overhear their conversation.

“Abigail’s father is Lukas Kral’s cousin. His real name is Petr Kral.”

Greene hooted with laughter.

Riley looked back, but Abigail hadn’t moved a muscle. He winced as Greene continued to laugh.

“I knew it!” Greene stage-whispered. “I always knew the bastard was sitting on a deep, dark secret. And now it’s out.”

“That’s not the half of it,” Riley continued quietly. “They went to the same KGB-run orphanage, but his family doesn’t know what happened to him after he went in. The first thing in our file for him is his application to join the CIA.”

“With an assumed name,” Greene pointed out. “So he’s a double agent.”

“No. No KGB agent has ever successfully gained access to any of our national security agencies.”

“That we know of,” Greene interjected, pointing his finger at Riley’s chest. “This could be the first. And we could be the ones to break it wide open.”

Riley just didn’t buy it. “Peter Mason’s good, but he’s not that good. His origins aren’t as shrouded in mystery as they’d need to be. I mean, we figured it out in just a couple of days. I doubt that his real identity is a secret, at least not from whoever signed off on his application. I think he was let in by someone who knew exactly who he was. Maybe they wanted to use him against the KGB.”

Greene rolled his eyes.

“Look, we heard this from an old lady in Kral’s town, but it rings true to me. She gave us a picture of Petr Kral, and the resemblance to Mason is unmistakable. How about you get someone in research to confirm her story? And someone to dig up what happened to Petr between being sent to the KGB orphanage and joining the CIA?”

“If they’re the same guy.”

“For fuck’s sake, Greene. You have to believe
something
.”

He smirked. “Fine. I’ll believe you. I’ll get someone on it. Where’s that picture?”

“Abigail has it.”

“Abigail has it?” Greene snorted. “Is she keeping your balls in her purse, too? Don’t tell me you’re letting this woman run your investigation.”

Riley cocked his head and flexed his fists, so very tired of hearing the same old chauvinistic bullshit from his old friend. “Not at all. I’d never let a woman do something so important,” he snapped back.

Greene frowned. “Give me a break with the sexist accusations. Look around you, man. Who do you see on this plane? Do you see hussies swinging on poles while we stuff dollars down their G-strings? Or do you see professional, respected females doing exactly the same jobs as men?”

Riley ran his tongue over his teeth and didn’t answer. That Greene would denigrate a stripper for her choice of profession to prove that he wasn’t sexist didn’t exactly help his case.

“I don’t give a damn if you’ve got tits or a dick, as long as you get the job done. Hell, have both. See if I care.” Greene leaned forward and continued softly. “But Mason’s girl isn’t in the agency. She doesn’t get the right to run this op, even if you are sleeping with her.”

Riley’s face flushed hot. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know exactly what I’m talking about. I don’t need a fancy degree to be able read you like a book. I told you not to
get involved with her. I knew you would. And look at you now: you’re dipping your cock in the son of a bitch’s gene pool. You’ve completely compromised your objectivity, and I don’t know if I can trust a word you say.”

“I’m not sleeping with her,” Riley said stubbornly, though he knew that he may as well be, for as much as she’d burrowed into his consciousness. Even now, though she was the whole length of the charter jet away from him, her presence on the plane crackled the air around him like a live wire.

“Maybe not, but she’s gotten inside your head, man. What’s her theory, huh? That her daddy is innocent? That he’s a poor, innocent pawn in Kral’s evil game?”

“Not at all. She thinks her dad and Kral have been planning retribution against the United States since they were kids in that KGB orphanage.”

“She thinks he’s in on it?”

Riley shrugged. “She doesn’t trust him, and the more she learns about his past, the less she is inclined to change her mind.”

“She doesn’t even give her own daddy the benefit of the doubt? No wonder she’s been on the CIA’s recruit list since she was in high school.”

“What?”

“Yeah—turns out Mason’s baby girl is a natural secret agent. You know the type: mind like a steel trap, quick-witted, and totally dead on the inside.”

Riley turned his head again to look at her. Her eyes stared straight ahead, and her hands were immobile in her lap. She looked too much like the automaton Greene described.

“Why hasn’t she been recruited, then?” Riley asked.

“Good guy or not, I think her daddy didn’t want her on the inside where she could ruin his plans.”

Riley’s hushed but intense tones as he talked with Greene told her that they were arguing—about her, if his quick glances in her direction were any clue. She hated being talked about without recourse to defend herself, but she could do nothing but wait. At least, that’s what she chose to do. She imagined that she could very well march over to their little tea party and demand to know what they were saying, but she had a sense that Riley was protecting her, even if he disagreed with her.

She didn’t need protection, of course. However, she felt that she owed him a measure of trust for bringing her into his investigation. And into his bed, she supposed. Their new intimacy—or, rather, her uncertainty of how to handle it—might have been the real reason she waited until Greene called her over to join their discussion.

She smoothed her black skirt over her knees as she settled into the armchair next to Riley. There was a foot or more of space between them, but the sensory memory of his chest pressed against her back as she slept came alive when she looked into his eyes. He must have remembered, too, for his irises darkened to a deep, rich green, like wet leaves in a jungle.

A movement in his shoulder made her think that he might reach for her hand.

She thought that she might take it if he did, so she balled her hands into fists and forced them into her lap. She stared at Greene. “Have you sorted this mess out, then?”

“Not quite yet, princess.” Greene smiled. He looked like a snarling panther. “But I was happy to hear from your friend here that you think your daddy is on the wrong side of the law. What do you think he and your Uncle Lukas are up to?”

This guy knew exactly how to get under her skin. She kept her expression smooth, refusing to rise to the bait. “I’ve told Dr. Riley all I know. Anything further is conjecture.”

“Baby, conjecture is all we’ve got right now. Nobody cares about finding your daddy but me and Riley here, so if you want
to wring his neck as much as I do, I suggest you start acting like a team player. Now, I don’t think they’re going to hang out in Detroit for very long, so we need to start narrowing it down. Tell me what you think they’re going to do.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not privy to my father’s intentions, as you well know.”

“No shit. But you aren’t half bad in the analysis department, and like me, you think your daddy’s dirty. I’m asking you to play along. What do you think they’ll do?”

“What about the missiles?” she asked. “Surely the FBI and ATF are in a tizzy now that they’re on American soil.”

“No such luck. They left the big guns in Spain. It was a distraction, a diversion.”

She exhaled a small sigh. “That’s good.”

“Agreed,” Riley said. “But we still don’t know if your father is an accomplice or a captive.”

“Look at this picture and tell me he’s a captive.” Greene waved a black-and-white photograph. “Do you see a man under duress? A man with a gun at his back? Or do you see a dude who’s on the run and looking for a little quick nourishment?”

Riley’s voice rose. “You had a picture and didn’t show me?”

“Let me see that.” Abigail tugged the photo out of Greene’s hands. She examined it in silence. It showed a man—her father—buying snacks at what looked like a convenience-store counter. It was the first recent photograph of her father she’d seen. He’d aged, betrayed by the deep lines in his forehead and the salt in his hair, but his eyes were the same as she remembered, ice-cold and accusatory.

She recognized him at once but felt that she did not know him. Her own father, the man she’d once loved so deeply that she didn’t know how to live without him, was less than a stranger to her.

She ensured that her face was stony before she looked up. “Do we have any other evidence? Do we even know for sure that Kral is with him?”

“Once we got this picture, we were able to backtrack and determine that they’d flown from that abandoned airfield in Spain to an abandoned airfield in Eastern Canada,” Greene explained. “Clever boys. From there, they drove across an unregulated section of the US border and stopped in Detroit for gas and beef jerky. We have an eyewitness account from the convenience store that tells us Kral was driving the car. A black Lincoln MKS sedan, if you’re keeping track. Our teams are still combing the airfields and store, but so far, nothing.”

“Where are they now?” Riley asked.

Greene shook his head. “I wish I knew. Once we land, our signals analysts will hit the ground running, but you know how it is. This is a low priority, and we’re back on US soil, so we won’t get a satellite or much help from anyone else. We’re on our own.”

“They landed in Canada and crossed the border near Detroit,” Riley said. “They’re headed south.”

“South,” Greene repeated, and then his face lost all humor. “You think…?”

Riley shrugged. “Where else would they be going?”

“What? What do you think?” Abigail demanded.

Riley turned to her. “We think they landed at that old airfield in Canada because it was the closest unsecured landing to DC.”

“And now they’re driving to DC? That’s ridiculous. It’ll take forever, and you’re already on their trail. They’ll never make it.”

“I appreciate your confidence in the CIA, but sadly, they’ve got a huge advantage,” Greene said. “We’re still in the air, and they’re on the ground and moving.”

“I just fail to see the significance of any of this. If they left their weapons in Europe, then what’s the risk? They can’t do much harm now.”

“You have no idea how much harm two former KGB agents can wreak,” Greene warned.

She wasn’t convinced. “Not much without a method of destruction. No missiles, no bombs, no apparent agenda. They seem to be more of a threat to one another than to us.”