here. Oh my God, Matlock–you’re the Rebecca Matlock, the
young woman who escaped the police and went into hiding?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
Andrew Bushman sat forward, his drink forgotten. “All right,
Thomas, tell me everything, even stuff that Gaylan doesn’t know. I
need to have a leg up on him somewhere.”
“Krimakov wanted to flush me out. Somehow he found out
that I have a daughter–Becca. We don’t know how he found out
about her, but it appears that he did and he came after her. That’s
why he’s been terrorizing her, that’s why he kicked her out of his
car in front of One Police Plaza in New York.”
“To get you out in the open.”
“Yes, that’s it exactly. It’s not so complicated when you cut right
to the chase. He wants to kill me and he wants to kill my daughter.
All the rest is window dressing, it’s drama, giving him the spotlight,
showing the world how brilliant he is, how he’s the one in
control here.” And Thomas thought, He can’t kill Allison because she’s
dead already, and I wasn’t there with her.
It was Adam who ended things, saying, “So that’s it, gentlemen.
We found out that Krimakov was cremated, thus leaving doubt that
it was indeed he who was killed. However, the man who kidnapped
Ms. Matlock whispered in her ear before he shot a drug
into her–”
Becca interrupted. ” ‘Say hello to your daddy.’ ”
So now there’s simply no doubt,” Thomas said. “The man cremated
wasn’t Krimakov.”
Gaylan said,”We’ve been spending hundreds of hours on this because
there was the possibility that it could be Vasili Krimakov. Now
that we know it’s him, you need to stick your oar in, Andrew. Get a those talented people of yours involved in finding this maniac.”
“I’ve got a man trying to track down an apartment we understand
Krimakov owns somewhere in Crete, in addition to his
house. When we find it, we want agents to go over it.”
Gaylan nodded. “As soon as we know, I’ve got a woman in
Athens who can fly down and check it out for us. She’s good. She’s
also got contacts among the local Greek cops. She won’t get any
problems from them.”
“It’s Dillon Savich who’s finding the apartment,” Thomas said.
Andrew Bushman raised an eyebrow. “Why am I not surprised?
Savich is one of the best. I gather you’re telling me now so that I
can cool down before I bust his balls?”
“That’s right,” Thomas said. “I knew Savich’s father, Buck. I
asked the son for help. He and Sherlock have been in the thick of
things.”
Andrew Bushman sighed and took the last sip of his martini.
“All right. Now, I’ve got lots of stuff to do, meetings to hold,
people to assign to get this off and running. What about the
NYPD?”
Thomas said, “Hell, why not tell the world? Have Hawley in
New York interface with the local cops.”
Bushman said, “Hawley is good, very good. He’s tough and he
deals well with the locals. Talk about bigfoot. He’s a Mack truck
when he needs to be. All right, gentlemen, we now tell the world.”
“Well, then–” Gaylan Woodhouse broke off as his stomach
growled. “We forgot to order lunch. I want a hamburger, lots of
red meat, something my wife, bless her heart, doesn’t allow.”
Andrew said even as he was reading the menu, “I want everything
to clear through the FBI before it goes to the media. We want
our spin on things.”
“For sure,” Becca said.
Chapter 22
The black government car moved smoothly onto the Beltway. It
was still too early for rush-hour traffic to gnarl things to the
screaming point. It didn’t help, though, that the temperature “was
hovering at about ninety degrees. Inside the big car it was thankfully
very cool. Their driver had said nothing at all since picking
them up at The Eagle Has Landed. There was still no sign of the
media. So far so good, Thomas had said. There would be a media
release soon now.
Adam was humming as he flipped off his cell phone. “Thomas,
the photo you asked Gaylan Woodhouse to dig out for you is coming