dimly lit study. Thomas Matlock was hunched over his computer,
aware of the soft sounds of the rain but not really hearing it. He had
just gotten an e-mail from a former double agent, now living in Istanbul,
telling him that he’d just picked it up from a Greek smuggler
that Vasili Krimakov had died in an auto accident near Agios Nikolaos,
a small fishing village on the northeast coast of Crete.
Krimakov had lived all this time in Crete? Since Thomas had
found out about his daughter’s stalker, after the man had murdered
that old bag lady, he’d put everyone on finding Krimakov. Scour
the damned world for him,Thomas had said. He’s got to be somewhere.
Hell, he’s probably right here.
Now after all this time, all these bloody years, he’d finally found
aim? Only he was dead. It was hard to accept. His implacable en
emy, finally dead. Gone, only it was too late, because Allison was
dead, too. Far too late.
Was it really an accident?
Thomas knew that Krimakov had to have enemies. He’d had
years to make them, just as Thomas had. He’d gotten messages from
Krimakov back in the early years, telling him he would never forget,
never. Telling him he would find his damned wife and daughter
–yes, he knew all about them and he would find them, no
matter how well Thomas had hidden them. And then it would be
judgment day.
Thomas had been terrified. And he’d done something unconscionable.
He escorted a very pretty young woman, one of the assistants
in his office, to an Italian embassy function, then to a
Smithsonian exhibit. The third time he was with her, he was simply
walking her to her car from the office because the skies had suddenly
opened up and rain was pouring down and he had a big umbrella.
A man had jumped out of an alley and shot her between the
eyes, not more than six feet away. Thomas hadn’t caught him. He
knew it was Krimakov even before he’d received that letter written
in Vasili’s stark, elegant hand: “Your mistress is dead. Enjoy yourself.
When I discover your wife and child, they will be next.”
That had been seventeen years before.
Thomas had considered seeing Allison that weekend. He had
canceled, and she’d known why, of course. He sat back in his chair,
pillowing his head on his arms. He read the e-mail from Adam. Consider Krimakov.
But Krimakov was finally dead. The irony of it didn’t escape
him. Krimakov was gone, out of his life, forever. It was all over. He
could have finally been with Allison. But it was too late, just too
late. But now someone was terrorizing Becca. He just didn’t un
derstand what was going on. He wished he could learn about Dick
McCallum, but as of yet, no one had seen anything out of the ordinary.
No big deposits, no new accounts, no big expenditures on
his credit cards, no strangers reported near him, nothing suspicious
or unexpected in his apartment. Simply nothing.
Thomas remembered telling Adam how there were only two
other people–besides Adam–who knew the real story. His wife
and Buck Savich, both dead now. Buck had died of a heart attack
some six years before. But there was Buck’s son, and he was very
much alive, and Thomas realized now that he needed him, needed
him very much.
The man knew all about monsters. He knew how to find them.
Georgetown
Washington, D. C.
Dillon Savich, head of the Criminal Apprehension Unit of the
FBI, booted up his laptop MAX and saw there was an e-mail from
someone he didn’t know. He shifted his six-month-old son, Sean,
to his other shoulder and punched up the message.
Sean burped. “Good one,” Savich said, and rubbed his son’s back
in slow circles. He heard him begin to suck his fingers, felt his small
body relax into his shoulder. He read:
Your father was an excellent friend and a fine man. I trusted him
implicitly. He believed you would change the course of criminal investigations.
He was very proud of you. I desperately need your help.
Thomas Matlock.
Sean reared back suddenly and patted his father’s whiskered