The Bancroft Strategy (24 page)

Andrea Bancroft tried to doze during the two-hour flight from Kennedy to the Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina, but her mind raced throughout. It was evening before Walter Sachs was able to give her a gigabyte CD-ROM with decrypted files. At her home computer, Andrea had peered into them until her eyes burned. She found a few staff memos, dozens of Excel spreadsheets, files relating to “asset life-cycle management” in an Oracle format. Andrea had no difficulty opening any of them. Parsing them, properly, however, took time and attention.

The real puzzle was to be found among the financial transactions recorded: Hundreds of millions of dollars had been funneled to a nameless facility in Research Triangle Park, and—to go by the clearance codes—the transfers had been authorized directly by Dr. Paul Bancroft. Indeed, buried beneath a dozen legal shelters, it was, effectively, the biggest budget item for the entire foundation. Yet, as she quickly ascertained, the facility appeared on no maps. One Terrapin Drive was the address she found in the foundation's records, and she suspected it would indeed be found in the seven-thousand-acre expanse of pine forest known as Research Triangle Park. But it was not to be found on any map.

Research Triangle Park itself was something of an anomaly. Its motto was “Where the minds of the world meet.” But it was not clear whom it belonged to. The United States Postal Service regarded it as a town or municipality, and though Durham claimed some authority over it, it was not itself part of any neighboring township. It included some of the largest supercomputing facilities in the world,
some leading pharmaceutical research campuses, various think tanks as well. But it was, technically, neither public nor private, but a kind of nonprofit entity in its own right. It was created more than forty years ago by an obscure plutocrat—a Russian émigré who had supposedly made a fortune in textiles, and who had acquired the vast parcel of land. Carved into the forest were large campuses for high-tech companies and policy institutes, but officially most of it remained undeveloped, virgin forest.

Was the truth, in fact, more complicated? If only she could speak to Paul Bancroft—but nobody at the foundation could tell her when he would return, and she could wait no longer. The dreams and nightmares increasingly focused on the mystery surrounding the facility at Research Triangle Park. A foundation within the foundation? If so, did Paul Bancroft know about it? Had her mother learned about it? Too many questions, too much uncertainty.

Once again it seemed that ashed-over embers had been fanned and reignited. Something drew her toward them.
Like a moth to a flame?

Doing nothing was maddening. Maybe it was insanity to go to Research Triangle Park herself, yet sitting on the sidelines was turning into another form of insanity. Maybe the plain banal facts would put to rest her feverish imaginings once and for all; it was altogether possible that there was a boring explanation that she had overlooked. Yet she would find no reassurance in dwelling on the anomalies she had discovered. Inaction would not bring calm.

One Terrapin Drive.

It was her mood, but once she landed everything struck her as ominous, even the giant sign with “RDU” in huge blue letters. The airport, scarcely distinguishable in its sterile modernism from hundreds around the country, was a terrazzo jungle.

She was, if she were honest with herself, suffering from a bad case of nerves. Almost every face she saw seemed suspicious. She actually found herself peering into a baby stroller to make sure it wasn't just
a prop used by someone doing surveillance. The baby gurgled at her, and she felt immediately ashamed.
Get a grip, Andrea.

She had packed light, stowed her one piece of luggage in the overhead compartment. Now she wheeled it ahead of her as she pushed toward the ground-transportation exit. A gaggle of men with hand-lettered signs loitered by the glass, enjoying the air conditioning. Andrea had arranged to be picked up by a driver, but didn't see anyone with a sign for her. She was about to give up and head for the taxi stand when she saw a latecomer holding up a piece of paper lettered A. B
ANCROFT
. So the man was a few minutes late. She waved at the driver, willing away her trivial sense of annoyance. The driver—a ruggedly handsome man, she noticed, with gray eyes—nodded and took her case, leading her to his dark-blue Buick. In his mid-forties, he was bulky, but light on his feet. No, not bulky, exactly; Andrea corrected her first impression. He was just heavily muscled, perhaps a fitness buff. His forehead was reddened, as if he had recently been out in the sun.

She gave him the address of her hotel, a Radisson in RTP, and the man silently and fluidly navigated the Buick through the outflows of airport traffic. For the first time, Andrea allowed herself to relax a little. Yet the thoughts that came to her were anything but serene.

How quickly a dream could curdle into a nightmare. Laura Parry Bancroft. Seeing the name neatly typed onto the registry forms had come as a shock, and the memory still had the power to transfix her with grief. Her mother's death had cast a shadow over her life. Yet how far could she trust her own feelings, her own suspicions? Perhaps she was in the sway of a maternal disaffection—a maternal delusion—out of love and loyalty and grief. Had the Bancrofts really done her any harm, or had she harmed herself because of her own frustrated anger? How well did she really understand her own mother? There were so many questions she wished she could ask her. So many questions.

Questions that her mother would never be able to answer. So
much had perished in that car crash. And Andrea ached—ached with her whole body—whenever she thought about it.

The car seemed to be driving over bumpy terrain, and Andrea opened her eyes and looked out for the first time. They were on a nearly deserted two-lane country road, and the car was gliding across the right lane to the shoulder, slowing, and—

This was wrong.

She was thrown abruptly to the side, her shoulder belt snapping and yanking at her, as the car slewed at a sharp angle and swerved off the shoulder and behind a dense roadside copse. Oh Christ…
It was a trap!

Had the driver scouted out the area ahead of time, and driven her to this hidden spot knowing that she wouldn't get wise to what was happening until it was too late?

She saw the driver's face in the rearview mirror, saw a look of fury and hatred that almost took her breath away.

“Take my money,” she pleaded.

“You
wish
,” the driver scoffed, with chilling contempt.

She felt an icicle of fear touch her neck. She realized that she had been optimistic in thinking that it was only money he was after. And he was a powerful specimen indeed. All she had at her disposal was the possibility of surprise. And the likelihood that she would be underestimated.

What was the heaviest article she had? Hair brush, cell phone, a Cross pen that her mother had given her years ago, and…what? She commanded herself to focus, reached down to her ankle with her left hand. When she looked up again, the man was climbing over the front seat toward her. For a brief moment, his arms would be occupied while he negotiated the awkward passage. She made herself look small, surrendered, harmless.

Clutching her stiletto-heeled shoe in her right hand, she suddenly lashed out, heel forward—lashing toward his face, toward his eyes, and at the same moment she let out a piercing shriek.

Almost.
With the stiletto just an inch away from his eyes, he grabbed her wrist with a steel-like hand, slamming it away while—thinking took too long—she smashed her other hand toward his nose. She remembered being told by a roommate taking martial-arts lessons that victims were frightened of hitting an assailant in the face—that they became victims by their own fear of aggression.
You gouge their eyes, you smash their nose, you do as much damage as you can
—that was the common sense that all the training came down to.
Your greatest enemy is yourself
, Alison always said.

Yeah?
Bullshit.
Her greatest enemy was the son of a bitch who was trying to kill her—and who had turned his head just in time to avert her second blow.
Whatever happens to me
, she thought, thrashing ferociously as she tried to unlock the door,
at least nobody will say I went easy.

But the man was unstoppable, powerful, able to anticipate her every move. Pinning her down beneath him, he roared a question.

“Why did you kill Tom Mitchell?”

Andrea blinked, uncomprehending, but the monster persisted with a barrage of mystifying questions. Mitchell. Navajo Blue. Gerald—or was it Jared?—Rinehart. A fusillade of names, accusations.

It made no sense.

“
How
did you kill him, dammit?” With a quick motion, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a blued-metal handgun. Then he placed it to her head. “I'd like to shoot you,” he said in a voice of immaculate hatred. “Try giving me a reason why I shouldn't.”

 

Todd Belknap glowered at his captive. She had been wild, a hellcat, had left bruises he would undoubtedly feel tomorrow. But it was purely a matter of animal spirits; there was no evidence of training. That was just one of several discordant elements. Another was that she seemed genuinely bewildered by his questions. She could have been a superb liar; nothing he had learned ruled out the possibility
that she was Genesis, or one of his confederates. But nothing gave support to that hypothesis, either.

He scrutinized her closely as he held the pistol steady. Another question surfaced obscurely in his mind, like a fish in a muddy pond. Hadn't it all been just a little too easy? She had purchased the airplane ticket under her own name, ensuring that it would appear in the FAA databases. She'd used the concierge service of her platinum charge card to arrange for a car to pick her up, again under her own name. Getting rid of the actual driver had been child's play, requiring no more than a fistful of cash and a good story about a surprise birthday. If she was indeed a professional, she had to be bizarrely confident that nobody was likely to be after her. Perhaps, then, she was merely unskilled labor—a cutaway, someone to be used on occasion, but not trained, someone whose very amateurishness would provide bona fides of her innocence. Or perhaps it was all a mistake. But then why had a call been placed from her cell phone to that of the leader of the squad in Dubai?

The woman struggled to control her breathing. She was, he noticed, an attractive woman, and quite possibly a former athlete. Someone used as bait?

There were too many questions. He needed answers.

“I have a question for you,” the woman said, returning his glare. “Who sent you? Are you with the Bancroft Foundation?”

“You're not fooling anyone,” the operative barked.

She gulped air, winded with fear. “If you're going to kill me, I think I have the right to die knowing the truth. Did you people kill my mother, too?”

What the hell was she talking about? “Your mother?”

“Laura Parry Bancroft. She died ten years ago. In a car accident, they said. I'd always believed it, too. But I'm not sure I believe it anymore.”

Belknap could not stop a look of puzzlement from spreading across his features.

“Who
are
you people?” she demanded, a sob in her voice. “What are you after?”

“What are you talking about?” Belknap asked. He was losing control of the situation.

“You know who I am, right?”

“You're Andrea Bancroft.”

“Correct. And who ordered you to kill me? It's my final goddamn request, okay? Like a last cigarette. Don't you hit men have a goddamn code of honor?” She blinked away tears. “Like in the movies, when they say, ‘Since you're about to die, I may as well tell you…' That's all I'm asking.” She smiled through her tears, but she was obviously struggling to fend off collapse.

Belknap just shook his head.

“I need to know,” she whispered. “I need to know,” she repeated. Now she was hyperventilating and she was yelling at the top of her lungs, no longer begging but demanding.
“I need to know.”

Numbly, Belknap returned the pistol to his shoulder holster. “Yesterday afternoon, a man drove down from New Hampshire and went to your house, on my instructions. He was dead before sunset.”

“On your
instructions
?” Andrea asked incredulously. “For what?”

Belknap pulled out the cell phone that belonged to the slain commando, brought up its log of received calls, and dialed the one that had arrived from the United States. Inside her handbag, another cell phone began to trill. Belknap clicked off the call. The trilling ceased. “This cell phone belonged to the leader of a death squad. I had an encounter with him in Dubai. Now, why did you call him?”

“Why would I call? But I didn't…” Andrea faltered. “I mean, yes, I might have dialed the number, but I had no idea who I was calling.” She opened her handbag and started to scavenge through it.

“Not so fast!” he roared, brandishing the pistol again.

The woman froze. “Do you see that folded sheet?”

Belknap looked into the handbag, retrieved the sheet with his left
hand, flipped it open with a snap of his wrist. A list of telephone numbers.

“Was it you who I called?”

Belknap just shook his head.

“I dialed all those numbers, in order,” the woman said insistently. “The first dozen of them, anyway. If you don't believe me, you can check out my cell phone, see the list of dialed calls, the times.”

“Why?”

“I…” Again she broke off. “It's complicated.”

Belknap bit off the words as he replied. “Then make it simple.”

“I'll try, but…” She took a deep, unsteady breath. “There's a hell of a lot I don't know yet. A hell of a lot I don't understand.”