Unacceptable Risk (28 page)

In Death there are no troubled waters nor is there any need of hope for the calm.

—Tilok proverb

A matter-of-fact beep kept precise time with the tempo of Anna's heartbeat, underscoring her fragile state, her head was swathed in bandages. It had taken eighteen hours of surgery to remove the bullet fragment. Dr. Prince, whose straight back and firm jaw and head of gray hair were a fine match for his surname, spoke reassuringly in the manner of a decent trial lawyer or politician. But it was as a neurosurgeon that he held a place in the top tier of Sam Wintripp's universe. When Dr. Prince said that her recovery was hopeful, his soft, rising tones were themselves instruments of hope for those seeking the man-made version. When he said there could be no accurate prognosis, you knew that he was telling the unvarnished truth. With that, his pastoral role ended as rapidly as it had begun.

Dr. Prince didn't think the bullet had destroyed anything vital, so a full recovery was possible. There was some explanation about the holistic nature of brains and the compensating circuitry that boiled down to: She might be fine or she might have one of a seemingly endless number of disabilities. Or she might die from a hemorrhage. Watch and wait meant just that.

She had been unconscious for three days. People all around him told Sam that it was best to assume she could hear him and he should talk to her. It was best to say reassuring things and to dwell on pleasant topics. If it felt like talking to a sleeping person he should take heart: comas were little understood, and not the equivalent of sleep.

They had shaved her head and he knew she wasn't going to like that, assuming she could ever like anything again. Nurses came and went, and at the moment one was adjusting the pillows that were part of bedsore prevention.

Sam drank hospital rot-gut coffee from the nurses' station. Tasted like camp coffee made in a can without a filter.

Anna's mother, Carol, came back in the room after finding some lunch and it was still obvious from the way she opened the door, the way she carried herself through it, the way she had the flowers carried for her, the way she cast her eyes, and the way she knew how to fill up a room with a five-foot eight-inch frame, she was in charge.

"I want to talk with you."

For the second time since he met her, she spoke to him other than with regard to simple logistics.

"Anna told me about you," she said right out. "Mystery man, no name, no identity, a creature of some netherworld that she didn't understand, but she was foolish enough to be excited about it. Surely, it wasn't you that made her feel that way."

Sam smiled a weary smile. "I was so relieved when I saw how much you loved her, how you wanted to protect her from the likes of me. And there was some truth in what you were feeling. My life has been dangerous for Anna."

Carol looked at him hard and then she softened.

"I want her so much to make it... and I blamed you."

"I know."

The woman turned away in her grief.

"I believe she's going to make it," Sam said. "Call me if anything changes."

"I will. I promise."

"I'll be checking in. You call if you need anything. It is right that I should leave and attend to things that would be important to Anna."

"I believe you."

Sam relied on a mother's love and the skill of the highly professional nursing staff to bolster his confidence. He left the hospital for the local FBI office. He still wondered about everything and it was a terrible indecision that dogged his every move. He tried calling Ernie Dunkin, his primary contact with the FBI, but got no answer. He didn't want to take whoever else might be on call. At times Ernie pretended not to like the hassles of dealing with a renegade government contractor, but essentially he liked Sam and cooperated as best he could. Ernie had gotten credit for some major arrests through tips and evidence provided by Sam, and no doubt those merit citations shaped Ernie's thinking.

Within several hours of the shooting Sam's team of local private investigators, all ex-cops, some New York city, some Feds, had begun their own preliminary investigation. It might be tough to prove that Gaudet was behind the shooting, but they did demonstrate to Sam's satisfaction that it was a setup and Gaudet was the man with the motivation.

Sam passed his Robert Chase picture ID to the woman in the glass booth. Chase was well known to the FBI. Under that ID he was listed as a top informant and always received a welcome reception from any agent with a computer. Without a special access code a field agent could not access any of Sam's aliases or the name on his birth certificate. Sam had seven aliases, but only three were deep aliases complete with a Social Security number. Possession of three Social Security numbers was the only illegal facet of Sam's aliases, but it was administratively approved for two of them through a slightly unusual use of the witness protection program. As to the third, Sam simply told the government to concentrate on the intelligence they received through his offices. To date that had cured their bureaucratitis.

Sam gave up his gun and his permit to carry it at the front desk.

He was ushered into the office of Special Agent Bud Cross.

The man had a pinched, narrow face, was balding, sported a bushy mustache, and wore wire-framed glasses. The blue eyes looked at him with something less than warmth.

They shook hands.

"I will be honest with you, Mr. Chase, or whatever your name really is. I don't care for special people. I like regular ones. However, the bosses in DC say extend every courtesy and so you shall have every courtesy of this office. I just want you to know where I stand. Cops should be cops and everybody else should be a civilian—that's my personal bias and not the official view of the FBI."

"I think it's the view of most conscientious field agents, and I respect it," Sam said. "I'm really here as a civilian."

"We've gone over the shooting thoroughly. DC is all over my ass because it was Anna Wade and not some chambermaid. And we can't find a thing to substantiate your theory. Two guys with a history get in a street fight and start shooting. They have some drugs in them. Not a lot, but enough."

"Very convenient. Two guys just start shooting at each other for no reason. They shoot way wide, missing each other, then go to an alley and kill each other simultaneously. Think about it."

"These nuts do that stuff all the time. They're paranoid once they get a grudge going."

"They fight, sure. But two guys don't often simultaneously shoot each other. More likely, that was staged," Sam said.

"Yeah, well, we've leaned on several gang members and everyone says these two hated each other."

"That's why they were pointed out by the leader to create the charade. Gaudet made a logical selection."

"The gang members we talked to say this isn't the first time these two have shot at each other."

"Look. Those two kids were being used. I know it was the work of the man I've described to you."

"Perhaps, but they are both dead. Preliminary ballistics tests confirm the bullets that hit you and Anna Wade didn't come from the two thugs' guns. But they got away from the scene. One of them might have had a second gun and that gun may not have been fired into the surrounding buildings. Or there might have been a third shooter involved in the melee. Of course both those options are unlikely. Ballistics supports your sniper theory, but we have nothing more at this point. Nobody saw anything except two guys shooting on the street."

Sam didn't say anything, hoping for more, for something else.

"Look, I'm sympathetic. We're doing a lot of forensic work on the bodies. Maybe we'll find someone who knew about a setup. Maybe they talked to somebody. Right now we have nothing but your instincts and a mysterious ballistics test."

"Whatever you can do, I appreciate it."

"You're not going to take the law into your own hands?" Cross was concerned.

"I'm going to do my job, nothing more and nothing less." But despite his words, there was a deadly single-minded determination in Sam and nothing anyone could say or do would change that.

When he hit the street, he called the nurses' station and spoke with Lydia, the nurse he had befriended. Anna's condition hadn't changed, but her color looked good and they were still full of hope, Lydia said. He would call back in a few hours.

"I'm sorry, Sam," Grogg began the phone conversation. It was the way everyone from the office started. It was hard to go on working and act normally while Anna lay in a coma. Sam wasn't quite sure how to deal with it, right down to the condolences. He couldn't stop thinking of her, seeing her lying there, so still.

"I appreciate your thoughts, Grogg. I'm sure Anna does too. I wish I could put the world on hold and be with Anna, but since I can't, I just keep chugging as best I can. So, tell me, have you turned anything up?"

"Yeah, something important."

Sam could hear the excitement in his voice.

"What is it?"

"Just a minute."

Sam then heard Jill pick up on a second line.

"Sam, we got an e-mail message from someone in the French government, probably their Senate, purporting to relay a message from Benoit Moreau. It says 'I can help you disinfect Cordyceps and deliver Chaperone.' "

"Did you say yes?" Sam said, absolutely amazed.

"We couldn't get hold of you, so we winged it and said 'Absolutely yes.' "

"Good answer. How the heck did she send the message?"

"E-mail. It was sent to firechiefatbluehades.com."

Sam's mind tumbled as to how such a thing could be possible.

"Guess she put one over on us, Sam."

"I gave that to Anna Wade, the CIA, a few other people. Wait a minute. The CIA. Figgy might know that e-mail. He could have told his clients, the French. Benoit Moreau is one of the best information gatherers in the world and she probably talked it out of some French agent right after she screwed him. That's Benoit Moreau."

"And why would someone in the French Senate want to relay a message from a convicted criminal? It could be a setup or a feint by Gaudet to mislead."

"True. But I don't see the harm in saying yes. Good job. Let me know when you get a response."

"There's more. We couldn't get hold of you at all, so we wrote a second response."

"What did you say."

" 'How can we help?' "

"Good answer."

"You won't believe what she or rather her friends answered."

"I am all ears."

" 'Monitor uaeromtioneb.net//exchange. Meet you in New York.' Signed 'Caterpillar.' Then we got no more."

"It wasn't easy monitoring that site," Grogg chimed in. "You have to have a password. Rollin's password quit working the day he died."

"But that wouldn't stop you, would it?"

"Hell no."

"So what did you do?"

"I downloaded Figgy's computer."

"You what?"

"I downloaded his computer awhile back and just recently pulled it up on Big Brain and hit gold."

"That's inexcusable. Actually, it's outrageous. What did you get?"

"His correspondence isn't saved and he has special software that scrambles it beyond recognition no matter what you do. But I got protocols for getting onto certain limited segments of the SDECE server. I was able to do the best hacking of my life and log on to the computer of Jean-Baptiste Sourriaux, a commandant apparently assigned directly for at least some purposes to Admiral Larive, the big tuna. For some reason Jean-Baptiste had the password we needed."

"Grogg, you are good. What's Baptiste up to?"

"Aside from the password, his correspondence and so on, it's all scrambled."

"Okay. Well. Use the password if it's still good. Write an e-mail. Let's take a complete flier. Pretend to be Figgy. Write: 'Please confirm independently the instructions for the meeting.' Can you make it appear that Big Brain is Figgy's laptop working through the SDECE server?"

"Good enough so only two or three computer geeks out of a thousand would catch the forgery."

"Give it a try. See what we get back."

"Hey, Sam," Jill said. "Why a meeting? What meeting?"

"No idea, but it's worth a try, isn't it? I presume Figgy meets with Baptiste at times, don't you?"

"Sure. Why do you think Benoit Moreau signed her note Caterpillar?"

"Maybe because she fancies she'll be turning into a butter-fly."

Michael, Grady, Professor Lyman, and the entourage made their way across the campus. The journals were stored in a clearinghouse structure, where various artifacts from antiquity were examined, cataloged, and held until their final resting place had been determined. Some artifacts were actually reburied once thoroughly studied. The building was located at the edge of the campus and was outfitted with heavy wire screens over the windows. It was a long brick building of three stories, simple but attractive with well-maintained white trim and matching shutters. It had no doubt been constructed for some other purpose, perhaps classrooms. It was mostly the province of physical anthropologists, paleontologists, and that sort, although the evolutionary biologists had a corner.