The Patrick Bowers Files - 05 - The Queen (30 page)

Then I googled Kayla Tatum's name and found 3,780,000 hits. Only one of the women near the top of the list lived in Wisconsin. I started with her, and after locating her cell number I put a call through to her. When she didn't answer I left a message for her to call me immediately.

Taking Alexei's warning to heart, I bypassed telling my team here what was going on but contacted HQ and asked a desk jockey buddy of mine named Barry Callaway to pursue any relevant leads concerning women named Kayla Tatum. “I can't tell you any more than that, I'm sorry. Trust me on this one.”

“Got it.”

Alexei had already proven that he was good at flying under our GPS radar, but it wouldn't hurt to check. “Go ahead and track the GPS on their cell phones and, where possible, their cars,” I said. “See if any of the women are in this part of the Midwest.”

“I'll let you know what I find out.”

We hung up and I forwarded the email with the attached photos, as well as both the access code and phone number that Alexei had given me, to Angela Knight, then gave her a quick call and asked her to see if she could trace the location from which the email had been sent and what she could dig up on Eco-Tech.

She surprised me by telling me she was familiar with them. “They're on one of our watch lists. Small-scale hackers, but they're flagrant. They like to be in the spotlight.”

“I need your team to see what connections they might have with Alexei Chekov.” I decided for the moment not to mention that we'd spoken on the phone. “Also, have Alyssa send me whatever we have on him as soon as possible. Any cases in which he's suspected of involvement with a crime or a terrorist act. And also any links to someone using the code name Valkyrie.”

Environmentalists protested the ELF base.

Now Eco-Tech is in the area.

After the call, I went online and after a couple of searches found just the site I was looking for—one that would help me follow up on the unswerving Ski-Doo tracks to the water. I posted my offer and then went back to the transcript of my conversation with Alexei and scrutinized it for clues as to his whereabouts that I might have missed earlier.

Alexei had confessed to killing the truck driver, Bobby Clarke. Normally, local law enforcement would notify surviving family members, but false confessions aren't uncommon and it might have been a gambit, so, for the time being I made sure Tait put it off until the body was found.

It struck me that this whole thing just didn't jibe.

While I did believe Alexei had a woman with him, if he was going to kill her, why all the talk about not killing women and children?

I couldn't shake the thought that I was being played.

Still, whatever his motives—revenge, clearing his name, protecting the innocent, or all of the above—it didn't really matter. I had an opportunity here to catch him, to save a woman's life, and, potentially, to find the people who'd killed Lizzie and Ardis Pickron.

But of course there was also the matter of the call and the email themselves. Somehow Alexei had found out both my confidential email address and Lien-hua's personal cell number, and had apparently known that I was with her and that our meeting was just finishing when he called. He even knew I had my laptop with me.

I wondered if he'd somehow planted a bug in the motel. If so, he would've had to enter the building.

I called the front desk and found out they didn't use security cameras. “No real reason to,” the guy at the front counter said. “People up here, we trust each other.” I gave a quick description of Alexei to him; he didn't remember seeing anyone who fit that description.

Maybe Alexei . . .

Unless—

He would need a place to keep a victim.

Oh.

I hurried to Natasha and Lien-hua's room. When Natasha opened the door, I found Jake and Lien-hua with her, bent over their computers. “We need to search this motel.” I was speaking just loud enough to be heard. “It's possible Alexei Chekov might be here in the building.”

When Kayla refused to quit squirming and trying to cry out beneath her gag, Alexei was forced to sedate her. He used a mild dose of Propotol so she would fully recover within a couple hours. Then, once she was unconscious, he removed the gag so that it wouldn't restrict her breathing.

Finally, he surfed to an online map of the area and considered the best place to meet with Agent Bowers.

Cassandra received confirmation from Allighiero that he'd finished cleaning the sub and the USB device was in place.

Good.

She told Becker to gather the team. “We'll meet downstairs in the old billiards room. I want to have a few words with them before we take down the landlines.”

He left, and she flipped open her laptop to review her notes.

Terry Manoji calculated the time in Bahrain and realized that if the sub had not set sail yet, it would within the hour.

He waited for the nurse to exit his room, then rolled into the bathroom, pulled out the cell phone, went online, accessed JWICS, and through the Trojan horses he'd placed there while still in the employ of the NSA, began to transfer the data that his algorithm would be needing later in the day, once Cassandra and her team had entered the base.

Valkyrie thought about the ELF station, the payment, the deadline.

Everything would tear apart at the seams if anyone found out about the involvement of Abdul Razzaq Muhammad.

Especially if that person were Alexei Chekov.

Or Special Agent Patrick Bowers.

Today it was vitally important for Valkyrie to remain undeterred.

Focused.

Careful.

Tonight everything would come together. Alexei would be out of the picture and the money would be transferred to the account that only two people in the world had access to.

Tessa stared at the ceiling, then glanced at the clock beside her bed.

Already after 11:00. The last time she'd checked, it was just before 6:00 a.m., so somehow she'd slept for over five hours, amazing, since she hadn't even had any pills at all last night.

She rubbed her eyes and heard Sean in the kitchen. Smelled sausage frying.

What is the deal up here? Do they eat anything other than meat?

She threw on some clothes and carefully avoided the living room and the dead deer and fish on her way to the kitchen to grab some fruit and toast.

“Morning,” Sean said as she stepped into the room.

“Morning.”

He slid the frying pan from the stove and dumped a stack of sausages onto a plate. “Made you some breakfast—well, brunch.”

Oh man.

“Um, I was just gonna grab some toast or maybe a banana.”

“I make a mean plate of venison sausage.”

Tell him, or he's gonna keep trying to feed you meat.

“Actually, the thing is, I don't really eat meat or anything.”

He hesitated. “You don't eat meat?”

“No. Or eat eggs or cheese. Or drink milk. I'm a vegan.”

“A vegan.”

“Yeah, don't worry about it. I'll grab something on my own.”

“No.” He seemed to be repressing his true feelings about her admission. “I'll get you something.” He opened the fridge. “I think we've got some apples in here. And maybe . . .” He paused. “Looks like some leftover spaghetti. I can take out the meatballs.”

Oh, yuck.

The meat sauce'll still be—

Tessa felt bad that Sean had cooked brunch for her and she had to pass on it—even though it was something she'd never have been able to stomach. “Sure, okay.” She was forcing herself to say it. “That'll be good.”

As she waited for him to scavenge her some other food, she turned toward the window and stared at the wind ravaging the nearby woodshed and the field bordering the house.

It didn't take Natasha, Jake, Lien-hua, and I long to search all the rooms of the Moonbeam Motel, but we found nothing suspicious. No sign of Alexei or Kayla Tatum or any other women in distress.

When we reconvened outside the front doors, Lien-hua said, somewhat irritated, “Pat, you still haven't told us why you thought Chekov might be here. Does it have to do with the call you got at the end of the meeting?”