but not together. No, just be quiet and listen. We’re all going to
trickle in. He’ll never know there’s anyone else but me in Riptide.
I’ll come directly to your house, we’ll speak, he’ll see me, then I’ll
go to Jacob Marley’s house. He’ll come for me there. You know it.
I know it.” She drew a deep breath. “He has no reason to kill Sam.
He’ll have me, so he can keep his word and release him.”
“The others will be hiding in Jacob Marley’s house?”
“No, but they’ll be close by. It will work,Tyler.”
She was aware that all of them were staring at her, but she just
shook her head at them. It was the only way to go, and all of them
knew it. There’d been no reason to flail about and discuss any number
of options into the ground. She had to go and she knew no
one would let her go alone. Fine. They had a chance now. “Oh yes,
Tyler, I need you to give me Krimakov’s note. Sherlock wants it.
Now, just go about your business. Don’t say a word to anyone.
We’ll be there in under four hours.”
Slowly, she lowered the phone into its cradle. She looked up.
“Sam’s not going to die.”
“No,” Adam said, walking to her, “no, he won’t.” Then he just
couldn’t stand it. He pulled her against him and held her there, his
hand tight across her back, his other hand fisted in her hair. He felt
her heart beating against his chest, hard, fast strokes. He brought
her closer. He looked up to see Thomas staring at him, and slowly,
he loosened his fingers in her hair, smoothing it down, but he
didn’t want to let her go.
Thomas said, “Agent Hawley and Agent Cobb, this kidnapping
will stay amongst us. It doesn’t go to anyone else in the FBI. All
right?”
“No problem,” said Tellie Hawley. “Hell, we’re in this thing to
the end. That bastard butchered four of my people. I want him as
much as you do. If Savich and Sherlock aren’t saying anything to
the higher-ups, why should we?”
“Let’s get rolling,” Sherlock said once Thomas had given her
several papers with Krimakov’s handwriting. “We’ll meet at Reagan
in an hour?”
“No,” Thomas said. “We’ll go over to Andrews Air Force Base.
I’ll have a plane ready for us.”
They were nearly out the door when Thomas’s private phone
rang. He looked undecided, then said, “Hold on. It’s got to be important
if it’s on that phone.”
Slowly, because she didn’t really want to, Becca forced herself to
pull away from Adam. “I’m all right,” she said.
“I’m not,” he said, and smiled at her. “We’ll get through this.”
They all followed Thomas back to his study, watched him pick
up the phone on the edge of the mahogany desk.
“Yes? . . . Hello, Gaylan.”
It was Gaylan Woodhouse, the CIA director. They all watched
Thomas’s face stiffen, then slowly turn pale and set. “Oh no,” he
said, his voice bleak. “You’re absolutely certain of all this?”
They watched him lower the phone and stare over at them. He
looked shaken, dazed. “This is just too much,” he said. “Just too
much.”
“What the hell is it?” Adam was at Thomas’s side in but a moment.
Thomas shook his head, his eyes dazed. There was a fine tremor
in his hands. “You’re not going to believe this. CIA Agent Elizabeth
Pirounakis was blown up when she went into Vasili Kri
makov’s apartment in Iraklion. Krimakov must have worked there,
left notes there, evidence of his plans.
“The whole building blew up. It’s now rubble. Agent Pirounakis
is dead, the two other Greek agents with her dead as well. Gaylan
isn’t certain yet, but given the time of the explosion, thankfully
very few people were in the apartment building.”
“He did this before he left Crete,” Agent Hawley said. “It’s not
something he’s just done.”
Adam said, “At least now there has to be an inquiry about the
guy they buried. Surely now they can’t hang on to the fiction that
the man in the car accident was Vasili Krimakov?”
Thomas looked at Adam. “It doesn’t much matter now. There’s