Krimakov went over a cliff on the eastern end of Crete, near Agios
Nikolaos, died instantly, one would suppose from the injuries. It
could have been murder, he allowed, but nobody checked into it all
that much for the simple fact that no one really cares. Nothing obvious
about it, so they closed the case until our agents flew in and
spread out and wanted to see and examine everything.”
“So he’s really dead,” Becca said.
Hatch looked up and gave them a big grin. “Nope, not necessarily.
Here’s the kicker. Krimakov’s body was cremated. You see,
for the longest time, our people were stonewalled by the locals,
who wouldn’t allow them to view the body. It was only after the
Greek government got involved that they let it out of the bag that
they’d cremated him right away. Why? I don’t know, but there was
a payoff, somewhere.”
No one said a word for a very long time.
“Cremated?”Adam repeated, disbelieving.
“Yes, burned to ashes, poured in an urn. Thing’s still sitting on a
shelf in the morgue.”
Sherlock said, “So there is no definitive proof because there’s no
body to examine.”
“Right,” Hatch said. “Now, while we all chew on that, let’s go
back a bit. Krimakov moved to Crete in the early eighties. Just
showed up and stayed. He was into bad things, but not bad enough
so anyone would dig and find out exactly who and what he’d been
in Russia. Actually, the impression is they never tried really hard to
do any nailing. He probably paid everyone off.”
“Damn,” Adam said. “Okay. Now we’ve got to search his house,
top to bottom and under the basement. If he ever was involved in
this, there will be something there.”
“Our agents have gone over his house, didn’t find anything. No
clues, no leads, no references at all to Becca. We heard that he had
an apartment somewhere, but we don’t know where it is. That
might take a little time. There aren’t any official records.”
Savich said, “If he had an apartment, I’ll find it.”
“Just you?” Adam said, an eyebrow raised.
“Didn’t Thomas tell you I was good?”
Adam snorted, watching Savich plug in MAX.
Hatch said, “More will be coming about his personal activities.
But as yet, there isn’t anything out of Russia. It seems that way back
when, all Krimakov’s records were purged. There’s little left. Nothing
of interest. The KGB probably ordered it done, then helped
him go to ground, in Crete. Again, though, they’ll continue searching
and probing and questioning all their counterparts in
Moscow.”
“Krimakov isn’t dead,” Adam said. And he believed it like he’d
never believed anything in his life.
Having said that, Adam sat back and closed his eyes. He was getting
a headache.
“Well, yeah, we have something else. I was the one who did all
the legwork on this.” Hatch licked his fingers again and flipped
over a couple more pages. “The Albany cops just found a witness
not two hours ago who identified the car that ran down Dick Me-
Callum. It’s a BMW, black, license number–at least the first three
numbers–three-eight-five. A New York plate. I don’t have anything
on that yet.”
“I’ll have it run through,” Savich said. “It’ll be quicker, more
complete. I don’t want to know how you got that information so
quickly.”
“I’ll just say that she loves my mustache,” Hatch said. “Please do
call the Bureau, Agent Savich. I didn’t have the chance to check
back with Thomas and have him do it. Oh yeah, a guy was driving. No clue if it was an old guy or a young guy or in between,
really dark windows, like windows on a limo. Fairly unusual for a
regular commercial car, and that’s probably why he stole that particular
car.”
Savich was on his cell phone in the next ten seconds, nodded
and hung up in three more minutes. “Done. We’ll have a list of
possibles in about five minutes.”
Tommy the Pipe knocked lightly on the front door and came in.
“We got a guy buying Exxon supreme at a gas station just eight
miles west of Riptide. The attendant, a young boy about eighteen,