Agent X, стр. 66
“Not all of them. We have Longmeadow, who evidently they think we’ve missed so they’re leaving him be.”
“Then why don’t we go get him and see if he’ll come clean? If he is being blackmailed, he’d probably be glad to get them off his back.”
“Two things. First, we have no evidence other than that brief recorded conversation, and I’m not sure we could prove it’s his voice or that there’s any real spying involved. Second, every time we’ve gone anywhere near one of these people, they wound up dead. The LCS has some early-warning system in place. Until we can figure out what it is and how to get around it, I think we should let him be. With Rellick dead, they probably think we’re satisfied that everything has been put to rest. A couple of days isn’t going to make any difference. This is another advantage to our not telling anyone else; we don’t have to worry about it leaking out while we wait.”
“And in the meantime . . . ?”
“The routine stuff. We’ll try to find out if they recruited someone else from Matrix-Linx after Gaston disappeared, like they did with the air force. We’ve got the advantage now. They don’t know we’re coming.”
“You don’t think our little trip to their clubhouse will force them to tie up loose ends like Longmeadow?”
“With Rellick dead, I’m hoping not. They’ve killed all the evidence, remember? But if they do get nervous, they’ll have no option but to play defense, and that might mean eliminating all loose ends.”
Kate asked, “Aren’t we loose ends?”
“These people aren’t fools. The easiest way to prevent Rellick from being exposed would have been to kill you. . . .”
Again Vail’s thoughts were drifting in another direction. This time she couldn’t wait. “What?”
“Your suicide attempt.”
“My what? You knew about that?”
Absentmindedly, Vail said, “The director told me about it. That’s how he got me to change my mind downstairs that day.”
“You believed I would try to commit suicide?”
“Over you dumping me, yeah, that makes sense. He told me that your reputation was being questioned. I know how small-minded these people can be. He thought that if you and I could resolve the Calculus list, the rumors would be put to rest.”
“And you never told me? Why? And why would you go through all this if you didn’t believe it? You were almost killed—more than once.”
He grabbed her roughly by her arm and pulled her against him. His lips were almost touching hers. His breathing quickened. “Aren’t you ever going to get this?”
32
Unsure where it would take them—and not sure she cared—Kate touched her lips lightly to Vail’s.
Suddenly the door downstairs opened. She drew her head back and, with her voice unintentionally throaty, said, “That’s Luke.”
“Luke who?”
She put her head on his chest. “I wish I could remember.”
She started to move away, and Vail pulled her hand to his mouth, nipping the skin at the back of it. “What idiot gave him a key?”
As soon as Bursaw walked in, he sensed he’d interrupted something. “I . . . uh, forgot something in the car,” he offered diplomatically. “I’ll be right back.”
“That’s all right, Luke. We were just finishing an argument,” Kate said playfully.
Bursaw noticed the new handwriting on the wall and went over to it. “Is there one answer to all five questions?”
“We think the LCS is doing contract recruitment of sources for the Russians. Using blackmail when they can.”
Bursaw reread the questions and Vail’s terse, cryptic answers. After a minute he said, “Impressive. Logically, it does answer all the questions.”
Vail turned to Kate. “We must be right. Philosophers take a death oath to never agree with any definitive conclusion.”
Bursaw said, “I guess the challenge is proving it?”
“That’s what we were trying to figure out.”
“Do you think Sundra was approached?” Bursaw asked.
“Hard to say, but my guess would be that they found out she was making inquiries about Longmeadow. Somewhere it leaked out. Maybe, like us, she picked up on all the calls to car washes and started making inquires into Zogas’s businesses and he got wind of it. We may never know now. If they approached her, maybe she was offered money to shut her up. It wouldn’t have been hard for them to find out how much debt she was in. If they offered her something and she refused, their only option left would be to make her disappear, along with her computer files.”
Bursaw turned around, and the anger he was trying to suppress was obvious. “So she was just doing her job.”
“Her problem was that she was doing more than her job. Don’t worry, Luke, we’re going to settle this, I promise. But right now we all need to be cool.”
Bursaw took a few seconds and then nodded. “I’m okay.” He opened his briefcase and removed a stack of papers. “I had those plates run and got only a couple of hits.” He smiled more calmly now. “But I had an idea. The few plates that came back to them all listed the club’s address, so I had this gal I know at DMV security run an offline search for all vehicles registered at that address for the last three years.” He handed Vail a sheet of paper. “Everyone from Alex Zogas on down. Eight altogether.”
Vail scanned the list. There was Algis Barkus, who’d had the cuts around his eyes at the club, and one other that Vail found very interesting. “Jonas Sakis.” Vail turned the list so Kate could see it. “The guy who tried to kill me in Chicago.”
She said, “Then two of them are probably the guys you and John shot in Annandale.”
“Which would mean we’re down to five.”
“So what do we do now? Sit on the club?” Bursaw asked. “We don’t have a home address for any of them.”
“They’ll be looking for us there. No, I was thinking that my car needed washing.” Bursaw looked at him questioningly. “Zogas owns car washes. His machines have money in them. You don’t think a good businessman would leave them full overnight, do you?”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Let me change into some surveillance clothes,” Vail said. “Kate, you want to come along?”
“Surveillance? You mean me watching you sleep? As enjoyable as that would be, it’ll be slightly less boring if I get back to the office and put another dent in that paperwork. You’ll call me if you get anything?”
“Only if there’s going to be shooting involved.”
Alex Zogas had been brooding since the FBI left, and he hadn’t said a dozen words. The other four men knew not to say anything when he was like that. At the moment he was playing chess against Algis Barkus, and Barkus could tell by his distracted play that Zogas was planning something. Although he’d told the agents that all the men of the Lithuanian Chess Society were chess masters, only Zogas was, and right now Barkus was playing him even. It was part of Zogas’s planning process. There was something about the discipline of the game that he used to unravel and reassemble the most complicated problems. Finally he shifted in his seat, redirecting his concentration to the board, and almost immediately made a brazen move, straightening up and smiling confidently. Whatever the problem was, it had been solved, and Zogas was now less than a handful of moves from checkmate.
It was Zogas’s fourth move that caused Barkus to tip his king over in surrender. Zogas got up and went to the office. The men could hear him typing on the computer. A couple minutes later, he came back and gave Barkus a slip of paper with an address on it. “Nine o’clock. Meet me there.” Zogas nodded at a second man playing chess, Bernard Mindera, to go with him. Short and powerfully built, Mindera seemed pleased to be chosen and started picking up his chess pieces from the board.
It was after 8 P.M., and the temperature had fallen well below freezing. Vail and Bursaw sat parked at a discreet distance from one of Alex Zogas’s Sunshine car washes. “Man, I can’t believe that in the dead of winter so many people stand out in the cold to wash their cars,” Bursaw said.