White Mountain (22 page)

“Isabella…don’t.”

She tossed the blanket into the trunk and then turned.
 
The wind was sharper now, blowing harder and lifting her hair like a long black veil.

“Don’t what?
 
Fell stupid?
 
It’s too late for that.
 
Now please, get in the car before we get snowed in up here.”

Without waiting to see if he would follow, she got into the car and slammed the door.

Startled, Jack glanced nervously at the sky and then headed for the car.

“Are you going to let me explain?”

She looked at him once, then looked away.

“There’s nothing to explain,” she said.
 
“You came for local color, didn’t you?
 
Obviously you’ve already gotten all you need.
 
Do you want me to drive?”

Cursing beneath his breath, Jack started the car and turned around, retracing the route they’d taken.
 
They rode in complete silence as the day continued to darken, stopping only once to refuel and use the bathrooms.
 
By the time they arrive at Abbott House, it was night and the hotel was lit against the darkness like a beacon for the lost.

“We’re home,” Jack said, as he parked and killed the engine.

“No,” Isabella said.
 
“
I’m
home you’re just passing through.”

She got out of the car, took the basket and blanket from the trunk, and strode into the hotel, leaving Jack to find his way alone.

He stood beside the car, judging how much anger she had left by the length of her stride, then decided his best bet was to wait until morning.
 
Maybe then he would have figured out a way to explain why they hadn’t made love.
 
Then again, maybe not.
 
To do that would mean blowing his cover, and that made no sense.
 
He’d come to look for answers to a murder and instead had fallen in love with the shadow of a ghost.
 
What was even worse was the fact that the murderer was probably living among the, and he had no way of knowing who he might be.
 
One thing was certain: he needed to talk to the director.

As he started toward his room, he remembered he had yet to study the packet of photos he’d received earlier.
 
Had that been only this morning?
 
It seemed like a lifetime ago.

The desk clerk was a man, someone Jack had never seen before, and he nodded at Jack as he strode up the stairs to his room.
 
The scent of food from the dining room wafted through the air, but he had no appetite.
 
He was still locked into the image of Isabella’s face.
 
She’d turned off as certainly as if he’d flipped a switch.
 
All he could do was hope that when this mess was over, he might still have a chance to work things out.
 
Then he r3emided himself that when this was over, his face might possibly be the last thing she would ever want to see.
 
If he discredited her beloved Uncle Frank, or any of her other “family,” he was as good as gone.

He unlocked his door and then entered his room.
 
The bed had been made, and there was a bouquet of fresh flowers on a table by the window.
 
He tossed his jacket on a chair and headed into the bathroom to wash up.
 
When he came out a few minutes later, he was barefoot and bare-chested, wearing nothing but a pair of aging gray sweatpants with a tine FBI logo near his ankle.

He picked up the FedEx packet he’d received early that morning and dumped the contents onto the bed.
 
There were only three shots.
 
One, a studio photo of a thirty-something Vaclav Waller, similar to what might be attached to a resume.
 
The second was a dark, grainy image accompanying a story clipped from a Russian newspaper.
 
A translation of the text had been attached to the story.
 
Jack scanned it quickly, noting that the bulk of the story was about the strides the man was making in researching DNA.
 
The last picture was a copy of a real photo.
 
He turned it over and read the brief notation on the back.
 
It had been taken by an AP reporter in July 1970.
 
In the photo, seven men, all of whom were doctors, were getting on a chartered plane that was bound for a medical symposium in the Bahamas.
 
There was also a woman, whose face jack could not see, and two pilots standing on either side of the stairs as the doctors were boarding.

Jack turned the picture back over, looking carefully at each of their faces.
 
Three of them were bearded; one was wearing sunglasses; one’s face was only in silhouette; and the other two were waving at the camera.
 
The one in sunglasses was noted as Vaclav Waller.
 
He studied the face only briefly.
 
It was the others who interested him most.
 
Waller was finally dead.
 
That was a given.
 
But what about the others?
 
Did they really go down with the plane, or was the whole thing an elaborate ruse?
 
And if so, then why?
 
He could understand the ramifications of Waller’s deception.
 
If he had wanted to defect and feared repercussions from his country, he might have considered faking his own death to eliminate that risk.
 
But the other doctors were not from communist-rule countries.
 
He turned the photo over again, reding off the name.
 
Dr. John and Mary Rhodes, U.S.A.
 
Dr. Vaclav Waller, Soviet Republic.
 
Dr. Anton Spicer, Great Britain.
 
Dr. Henry Jamison, U.S.A.
 
Dr. Conrad Garner, Belgium.
 
Dr. Somner Craner, Belgium, and Dr. Orman Rhinehold, France.
 
Only Waller might have had a possible yearning to defect.
 
The others would have had no reason to go along with such a scheme.

He reached for his cell phone and put in a call to Quantico.
 
He had a buddy in research who might be able to help.
 
The phone rang seven times before Jack remembered the time.
 
On the verge of hanging up, he was startled when he heard Steven Randolph’s voice.

“Hello?”

“Steve, it’s Jack Dolan.”

“It’s also almost eight o’clock at night.
 
This is a recording.
 
Call back during our regular office hours.”

Jack grinned.
 
“Shut up and listen for a minute, okay?”

“What the hell do you want, Dolan?”

Jack picked up the photo he’d been looking at.
 
“A favor.”

“I knew that when I heard your voice.
 
What I’m asking is…
what
favor do you want/”

“get a pen.”

For the first time since Steven Randoph had answered the phone, Jack heard him chuckle.

“Hell, Dolan, didn’t you know those grow out of my fingers?
 
I’m always ready.
 
Fire away.”

:John Rhodes, Vaclav Waller, Anton Spicer, Henry Jamison, Conrad Garner, Somner Crand and Orman Rhinehold.”

“Got ‘em.
 
Now what?” Steven asked.

“For starters, they all died in a plane crash in 1970…or at least that’s what we were led to believe.”

“What’s up with that?”

“Well, Vaclav Waller turned up murdered in Brighton Beach a few weeks ago.
 
Quite a trick for a man who was supposed to have died in a plane crash over thirty years ago.”

“What’s our interest?” Steven asked.

“Waller was a Russian doctor, and we got some info that indicates a Soviet visitor entered the country right before the old man was killed.
 
It’s a long story, but we have reason to believe that whatever the Russians are after, they didn’t get it from Waller.”

“How do you know?”

“We have it on good faith that the killer has moved to the place where the old man had been living.
 
We don’t know what he’s after or who else might be in danger.
 
And the more I know about this man, the better off I’ll be.”

“Yeah, okay, but what’s with the other names?”

“They were doctors who were also on the plane that supposedly crashed.
 
I want to know everything there is to know about what they were working on.
 
Oh yeah, and except for John Rhodes and Henry Jamison, the others are European, so look elsewhere, too.”

“Got a number where you can be reached?”

“Yeah, but why don’t you e-mail me the stuff instead?”
 
He gave Steven Randolph his e-mail address, then, a few minutes later, disconnected.

Weary in both heart and body, he tossed the pictures on a table and crawled into bed.
 
He was still thinking of Isabella when he fell asleep.

By the time Isabella got into her room and undressed to take a shower, she was shaking.
 
She reached for the soap as she stepped beneath the spray, but it slipped through her fingers and fell to the tub.

She stared down at the pink orb as it lay between her feet, watching the faint flow of melting soap slide toward the drain.
 
In that moment, she saw her life in the very same way.
 
The foundation that had been her life was sliding out from under her, just as the soap had slipped from her hands.
 
No matter how hard she tried to stay focused, things kept getting in her way.

The logical part of her said that she couldn’t really care for Jack Dolan—that she was just transferring her emotions to a living, breathing man because the other men in her life kept dying.
 
But the emotional part of her knew that if Jack Dolan were only willing, she could very easily give him her heart.
 
Unfortunately, he had not only refused her willingness to make love, but, in essence, had refused her, as well.
 
And therein lay her pain.

She tried to laugh, but it came out as a sob.
 
Weary all the way to her soul, she went to her knees, covered her face with her hands and started to cry.
 
Water pelted her head, running down her face and mingling with her tears.
 
She cried until her eyes were swollen and her head was one giant ache.
 
Finally she dragged herself to her feet and scrubbed herself raw.
 
Even after she emerged from the shower, she knew what she’d done had been symbolic, rather than resulting from a need to be clean.

As she was drying off, the phone in her living room began to ring.
 
She started to answer it, then thought of Jack and changed her mind.
 
Finally the ringing stopped.
 
She toweled her hair until it was partially dry, then wrapped herself in a thick cotton robe, stepped into her favorite house shoes and went into the tiny kitchen.

As she began to brew a pot of coffee, a gust of wind blew against the windows, rattling the panes.
 
She glanced toward the windows, shivering as she did.
 
The approaching storm they’d seen over the mountains was finally here.
 
It was too early in the year for snow in the valley, but she knew the rain would be cold, making for a dreary day tomorrow, which suited her mood just fine.

It was just before sunrise when Vasili Rostov rose.
 
He dressed hastily, then dug through his pack for his phone.
 
He glanced outside, trying to judge the time by the brightening aura on the horizon, then shrugged.
 
It didn’t matter what time it was here in Montana, he was about to call home, and he’d been gone so long that he’d lost track of the time difference.

He sat down on his bed, punched in a series of numbers, then waited for his call to be answered.
 
To his relief, it didn’t take long.
 
He spoike softly, not wanting to be overheard speaking in his native tongue.

“This is Rostov.”

“You have news?”

Rostov grunted.
 
“He is dead.”

There was a long, pregnant silence, which did not alleviate Rostov’s anxiety.

“Are you there?” he asked.

“This is not what we wanted to hear.”

Rostov sighed.
 
“It is not what I expected, either.”

“How did this happen”

Again Rostov hesitated, uncertain how to explain what had gone wrong.
 
Finally he decided on the truth.

“He killed himself as we spoke.”

“Explain!”

There was anger in his superior’s voice, but the distance between them gave him a courage of his own.

“He took one look at my face and knew.”

“He recognized you?”

“Only in the capacity in which I was sent.”