now she didn’t want to be alone.
Her father looked stubbornly out the window. Whoever was after his
daughter would have to kill him in order to get to her. Ghosts and
bogeymen beware: Papa was back.
The white van trailing them was a good half mile behind and yet had no
trouble mirroring the Cadillac’s movements. One of the eight men in the
van was not in particularly high spirits. “First you let Archer send an
e-mail and then you let his wife get away. I can’t believe this shit.”
Richard Lucas shook his head and angrily eyed Kenneth Scales, who sat
beside him. His mouth and forearm were heavily bandaged and his nose,
although reset by his own hands, was crimson-red and swollen.
Scales looked over at Lucas. “Believe it.” The low voice coming through
the damaged mouth carried with it enough pure menace to make even the
tough-as-nails Lucas blink and quickly change tack.
Triton’s internal security chief hunched forward in his seat. “All
right, no good talking about what’s past,” he said hurriedly.
“Jeff Fisher, the computer guy from Tyler, Stone, had a copy of the
contents of the disk on his hard drive. The file directory on Fisher’s
computer shows that it was accessed at the same time he was in the bar.
He must’ve gotten another copy that way. Smart little sonofabitch.
We had a few words with the waitress from the bar last night. She gave
Fisher a certified-mail envelope addressed to Bill Patterson, Bell
Harbor, Maine, Sidney Archer’s father. It’s on its way here, that’s for
sure, and above all else, we’ve got to get it. Understood?”
The six other grim-faced men in the van nodded. Each sported a tattoo
of a star with an arrow through it on the back of his hand, the insignia
of a veteran mercenary group to which they all belonged–a group that
had been formed from the vast dregs of the defunct Cold War. As a
former CIA operative, Lucas had found it easy to rekindle the old ties
with the allure of U.S. dollars. “We’ll let Patterson pick up the
package, wait for them to get to an isolated area and then we hit them,
hard and fast.” He looked around. “A million-dollar bonus per man when
we get it.” The men’s eyes gleamed. Then Lucas looked over at the
seventh man. “Do you understand, Scales?”
Kenneth Scales didn’t look at him. He pulled out his knife and pointed
the tip toward the front of the van and spoke slowly through his wounded
mouth. “You can get the disk. I’ll take care of the lady.
And I’ll throw in her old man for no extra charge.”
“First the package, then you can do whatever the hell you want,” Lucas
said angrily. Scales didn’t answer him. His eyes stared straight
ahead. Lucas started to speak again and then thought better of it. He
sat back and put one hand nervously through his thinning hair.
During the twenty minutes it took to drive to Alexandria, Jackson tried
Fisher’s number three times from the car phone, but there was no answer.
“So you think this guy was helping Sidney with the password?”
Jackson watched the Potomac River meandering by as they scooted down the
GW Parkway.
Sawyer glanced over at him. “According to the surveillance log, Sidney
Archer came here the night of the murders at Tyler, Stone. I checked
with them. Fisher is Tyler, Stone’s resident computer geek.”
“Yeah, but it looks like the gent’s not at home.”
“Lotta things in one’s home that may help us out, Ray.”
“I don’t recall that we have a search warrant, Lee.”
Sawyer turned off Washington Street and shot through the heart of Old
Town Alexandria. “Details, Ray, you always get hung up on the details.”
Jackson snorted and fell silent.
They pulled to a stop in front of Fisher’s townhouse, got out and
quickly headed up the steps. A young woman, her dark hair blowing in
the whirling snow, called to them as she got out of her car.
“He’s not home.”
Sawyer looked back at her. “You wouldn’t happen to know where he is,
would you?” He walked down the steps and over to the woman, who was