Hunter dh-1 Read online

  “Let’s get some fresh air.”

  They wound up in the central courtyard, right outside the main cafeteria. No sooner had he left the building than he pulled out a pack of Luckies and lit up. He coughed with his first drag.

  “I thought you wanted some fresh air.”

  He made a face at her. She kept pace as he strolled without speaking. Just as his medium gray suit matched the sky, his chilly expression seem to reflect the fall temperature.

  They wandered over to the Kryptos sculpture. The iconic piece stood in the northwest corner of the courtyard. Twelve feet high, made of copper, petrified wood, and granite, James Sanborn’s famous art work looked like an S-shaped scroll, lying on edge. Its blue-green copper surface was perforated, top to bottom, with dozens of rows of alphabetical text, which contained four encrypted messages. Since its installation in 1990, only three of the messages had been cracked by top code experts; the fourth remained unsolved.

  Garrett took a seat on a red stone bench, facing the cryptic wall. He patted the bench and she sat beside him. At their feet, and driven by a hidden pump, water swirled in a bowl-shaped pool. For a while, he smoked and gazed absently at the puzzle looming before him.

  “We need to rethink this thing,” he said finally.

  “I know. We’ve spent six months, and we’re still going around in circles.”

  “There’s a solution to this. But I think one or more of our basic assumptions has to be wrong.”

  “What are we assuming?”

  “All kinds of things. First, motive: that somebody wanted to silence Muller before he talked. That would imply the Russians. But how would they find out where he was taken? That implies opportunity: another mole at Langley, probably high-ranking, who could direct Muller’s assassin to the safe house. But we assume the shooter is also almost certainly American, not Russian, because of the Barrett rifle and the hotel signature. Which implies that the shooter is probably somebody from inside the Agency-either SAD or the Office of Security-because those are the only people with the training and willingness to follow extreme orders issued by a CIA boss. Which also implies that he has to be an active-duty person. And that he could be an ex-Marine sniper, also because of that hotel signature.”

  “Well, I did what you asked,” she said. “I went through the personnel records of SAD with a fine-toothed comb. Even if one of them had some reason to act on his own, only a handful of those guys were in this area at the time of the shooting. None with Marine sniper backgrounds. Then I discreetly checked out everybody in the Office of Security, too. Some knew about the site, of course, even though they didn’t know what it was for. But Grant, the bottom line is, none of that matters. All the SAD and OS staff have air-tight alibis for that morning.”

  He nodded. “While you tackled it from the bottom, trying to find the shooter, I approached it from the top, trying to find the mole. And I’m dead-ending, too. To sign off on something as extreme as a hit-let alone a hit on U.S. soil, which is illegal as hell-you’d need a presidential finding. That White House order would be sent directly to the people down the hall from me, then go through me for implementation. Nobody beneath me could initiate or pull off a full-black op like that on his own, because nobody below him would follow orders that drastic without double-checking right back up the chain of command. There are just too many procedural sign-offs along the way.”

  “So if a mole set the hit in motion, it doesn’t look like the shooter could be somebody in active U.S. service.”

  “Which would seem to lead us back to a Russian hitter, tipped off by the mole. Except for one other thing: It doesn’t seem as if there is a mole.” He stared into the swirling waters at his feet. “Annie, I’ve checked more ways than I could begin to tell you. The list of possible candidates isn’t long, and it was easy to rule out most of them. For the few left on the list, I set some tempting traps, ones that any mole working for the Russkies wouldn’t be able to resist stepping into. Info that he would’ve transmitted right away to Moscow, and that they would’ve reacted to, pronto, in ways I could track. I started laying those snares at the start of our investigation, half a year ago.”

  “And nothing?”

  “Nothing.” He rose and stepped over to a white granite block near the base of the sculpture. “We can eliminate anybody in the FBI, too, because they didn’t know about the safe house until after the hit. Not even your weenie pal, Groat. So, I’m virtually sure there’s no mole.” He tapped the rock with the sole of his shoe. “And if there’s no mole to tip off Moscow, then we can rule out a Russian hit. Just as we can rule out an American in active service, acting on his own.”

  “So, by process of elimination, what does that leave us? We’re left looking for a skilled sniper; somebody who’s not Russian; somebody who’s also not on active duty in the U.S. military or in the Agency-”

  “-but who still somehow could find out about a top-secret CIA safe house.”

  “Grant, the number of people like that would have to be vanishingly small.”

  “I know,” he said. He tapped at the boulder harder, with his heel, while staring up at the monument to cryptology. “Damn it, I should be able to figure this out. I somehow feel the answer’s staring me right in the face. But I’m missing something.” He glanced at his watch. “Oh hell. I’ve got a meeting in the Corner Office. Look, we both have other responsibilities, but let’s stay on this. At least it’s a relief to know we probably don’t have another mole.”

  “But it’s no relief to know we still have an assassin.”

  Claibourne Correctional Facility Claibourne, Virginia

  Thursday, September 11, 2:59 p.m.

  Adrian Wulfe didn’t like Ed Cronin’s face.

  They sized each other up across a small round plastic table in an interview room. Both the table and the molded plastic chairs in which they sat were bolted to the floor, and Wulfe’s left hand was cuffed to the arm of the chair. He knew the guards who brought him here were posted right outside the door.

  Usually, these sorts of things didn’t matter. He could almost always rattle somebody just by staring at them. He learned the trick when he was a kid on the streets: Don’t blink. You look at somebody, but you don’t blink, and after a minute or so it scares the crap out of them. He did it now.

  But Cronin continued to look serene and unflappable. The guy’s light-blue eyes remained locked on his own, cool and steady. And he didn’t do any of those nervous things with his hands or feet or lips.

  Not likely to shake a guy like this, put the fear into those eyes. Not a good idea, anyway. Not if you want to get out. Time to play nice.

  “I’ll be happy to help you if I can, Detective Cronin,” he said in reply to the cop’s previous question. “Of course, given my present circumstances”-he smiled and swept his free hand to indicate his surroundings-“I doubt that I could know much that might be useful to you.”

  The cop didn’t respond to the smile. Just stared at him a minute before speaking.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. I checked the phone records here a few minutes ago and learned you’ve had several recent calls from the late Mr. Valenti. So I’m figuring that maybe before he got himself whacked, he might have told you if somebody threatened him. Or Bracey.” He paused. “Or you.”

  Wulfe made show of looking off into space, frowning, trying to think back. “No…not really. Jay-Jay didn’t mention anything of the sort. No threats, no problems. He seemed happy, for once. He was looking for work, you know. He told me that he was trying to stay out of trouble and steer clear of anyone who might draw him back into it. So frankly, I was surprised to hear that he had been killed.”

  “Surprised? Even after Bracey’s murder?”

  Careful.

  “Surprised and shocked. I felt right away that their deaths couldn’t be a coincidence.”

  “That’s why I wonder if anybody has threatened you lately, Wulfe.”

  He shook his head. “No one from outside, and no one in her
e.”

  He thought the cop would buy the lie. In fact, from the minute he’d heard about Valenti, he remembered that Hunter guy and what he said. But Hunter was just a paper-pusher, not street muscle. Even if he had the balls to try something, Valenti would’ve had the guy for breakfast.

  Still, for a few seconds, he toyed with the idea of telling the cop about the threat, anyway. Get the prick investigated, maybe kicked off the newspaper. Payback for dissing him in print, and then to his face.

  But no. Much better to take care of it personally. And much more fun. Once he was out, he’d look up the guy. Show him what happens to anyone who crosses Adrian Wulfe.

  He made a mental note to add him to the list. Right along with those two bitches.

  “Funny, though. You look like you’re thinking of someone.”

  It startled him. He liked to think of himself as inscrutable. “Oh. No…not at all. I was just remembering Jay-Jay. It’s depressing. Sure, like me, he had his share of problems. But he was sincerely trying to change.”

  Cronin threw his head back and laughed at him. “Yeah, sure. Just like you.”

  His wrist jerked taut against the handcuff. He was suddenly glad of the restraint. It had prevented him from hurling himself across the table and snapping the bastard’s neck.

  Instead, he forced himself to smile. “I know it’s hard for you to believe me, Sergeant Cronin, but I-”

  “No, Wulfe,” Cronin interrupted, rising to leave. “It’s impossible for me to believe you.”

  SIXTEEN

  Falls Church, Virginia

  Friday, September 12, 7:35 p.m.

  He parked the Forester in the driveway of the elegant two-story brick Tudor. Ivy crept up the wall, over leaded casement windows and soaring eaves. Tasteful placements of ferns, oaks, and rhododendrons graced the front yard. The style spoke of history, culture, and permanence. He smiled; it was the type of home he’d loved since childhood.

  A moment after he rang the bell, she opened the door.

  He knew he would be delighted. He was not prepared to be dazzled.

  The crystal chandelier in the foyer outlined her in soft golden backlighting, while the lantern over the entrance cast a warm glow over her face. The light caught strands of her dark brown hair, bringing out the reddish hints. She wore a V-neck, halter-top cocktail dress, short and russet-colored, with matching heels.

  “Hello?” she prompted, eyes sparkling.

  He realized he’d stood staring at her for at least five seconds.

  “Sorry. You’ve rendered me speechless.”

  An impish smile. “And here I was hoping for scintillating conversation.”

  “I’ll do better. Promise. But you do look stunning.”

  Her smile broadened as she looked him up and down. “You dress up pretty nicely yourself, mister.”

  She turned to fetch a gray cashmere coat from a wall hook. As she reached up, her hemline rode even higher, making his heart skip. Though she was not especially tall, her lean legs looked impossibly long, like a model’s.

  “Here, let me help you.” He stepped into the foyer and took the coat from her. She turned around. Except for the strap around her neck, her dress was backless to the waist; from there it flowed snugly over the swell of her hips and halfway down her thighs. Heart now racing, he opened the coat for her. Taut little muscles moved beneath the skin of her back as she slid her bare arms into the sleeves. He caught a whiff of a light fragrance.

  She turned and looked up at him. Smiled again. “Shall we go?”

  He could only nod.

  *

  She had told him she liked Italian, so he’d made reservations at La Rosa Ristorante, an intimate place just two miles away. During the small talk on the drive over, he had to make an effort not to glance down at her half-bare thighs.

  Now, seated opposite her in the black leather booth, he could study her openly in the candlelight. It was the first time he’d seen her wear makeup. But she had applied it lightly, deftly, only to highlight the wide, cat-like tilt of her eyes, the high-arching brows, the height of her cheekbones, the fullness of her lips. Her naked arms and shoulders were feminine yet toned; she was clearly athletic. Her jewelry-a necklace and bracelet, with matching earrings-consisted of semi-precious stones, alternating black and dusty gray; the latter matched the color of her eyes.

  After the steward took their wine order-he was pleased that she, too, preferred full-bodied reds-he noticed that those eyes seemed to be avoiding his.

  “You seem a bit preoccupied. Is anything the matter?”

  She looked at him. “Okay. I did have something on my mind.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “You’re a very good writer, Dylan. You must have had a successful career. Well, a woman dating a strange man can’t be too careful these days. I tried to check you out online. But I can’t find out a thing about you that goes back more than two years.”

  Here it comes.

  He grinned. “Oh, that. You’re not the first person who has tried to dig into the dark, sordid past of Dylan Lee Hunter. In fact, the Inquirer editor said the same thing not long ago. And there’s a reason you don’t find anything. Until the past couple of years, I wrote and published everything under pseudonyms.”

  She frowned. “Why would you do that?”

  “Self-defense,” he said. He put down his glass and folded his hands on the tablecloth. “Early on in my writing career, when I was working for a paper in eastern Ohio, I wrote some things that got me into deep trouble with the Mob. They were very active in some unions over there, and I exposed it.”

  Her mouth was hanging open. “You took on the Mafia?”

  He shrugged. “A former boss of mine once said I have a nose for trouble. And I have a hard time walking away. Especially when bad guys are doing bad things to good people.”

  She stared at him. “I believe it. Okay, so what happened?”

  “One day, the FBI paid a visit to the paper and told us that a regional boss had put out a contract on me. Well, being young and cocky, I didn’t mind for myself so much. But I was worried that people I cared about might get hurt if I stuck around.

  “So, I figured I’d better vanish. I consulted a professional skip tracer, and he instructed me on how to disappear and leave no tracks. Things like how to obliterate personal information online, how to alter records of my contact information with banks and utility companies, and a lot more. After cutting my old ties, I applied for and got a legal change of name to Dylan Hunter. I moved away, but I didn’t write under that name. Instead, to hide my tracks further, I began to write under various pen names. I telecommuted from home, moved around frequently, used post office boxes and prepaid cell phones. Like this one.” He pulled out his current model and showed it to her.

  She looked astonished. “You still do all this?”

  “You have no idea just how much I upset them.” He looked straight at her. “And as I said, I don’t want anyone that I get close to, to get hurt.”

  She held his glance; his words hung in the air for a moment.

  “That explains a few things, I suppose.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as the way you look around all the time. You don’t seem to miss much.”

  “Given what I’ve just said, I certainly hope not.”

  “So you changed your name. Do you mind my asking what your name was before?”

  “Go ahead and ask.”

  “Will you tell me what your name was?”

  “No.”

  Her smile vanished. “So how am I supposed to trust some man when I don’t know who he really is?”

  Steady now…

  He took a breath, released it. Pulled out his wallet and slid it across the table to her. “Go ahead. Look. No, please-I want you to. Check all the IDs and cards. You’ll see they’re real.”

  She hesitated a bit more, then took out each item and examined it.

  “They all say ‘Dylan Lee Hunter.’”

 
“And that’s exactly who I am. That other guy you’re asking about-he’s dead and gone, Annie. As far as I’m concerned. I’ve forgotten about him. I hope the guys looking for me have, too.”

  She slid the wallet back to him. She still looked troubled. “I would hope that someday you might trust me.”

  “You mean: You would hope that someday you might trust me. ”

  She didn’t reply.

  “I guess we both have some trust issues,” he said.

  “Mine are pretty serious. I’ve been betrayed before. More than once.”

  “Me too, Annie.”

  “Somebody hurt you badly?”

  He had to smile. “You could say that.”

  “Well. What are we going to do about this, then?”

  “Maybe we can work on our trust issues together.”

  She looked at him a long time.

  Say yes.

  She unfolded her napkin, spread it on her lap. Raised her head. Smiled at him.

  “All right…Dylan Hunter.”

  *

  He enjoyed the rest of their evening immensely, and she clearly did, too. Over an incredible meal featuring gnocchi, duck, and pork ravioli, she told him that she worked as a claims investigator for an insurance company in Fairfax. He asked about it, but she said she hated her boss, was hoping to find a new position soon, and didn’t really want to talk shop tonight, anyway. He told her that was fine with him.

  He learned that she had been raised in Colorado; that her father inherited a family fortune from a California banking chain; that he met her mother out there while she was modeling and trying to break into acting.

  “So that explains where you got your looks,” he said.

  She didn’t react as he expected. “Actually, it’s best if we don’t talk about my mother. She ran off with another man when I was still in my teens. I don’t have any contact with her.”

  Trust issue.

  “I’m sorry. Do you care to tell me about your father?”

  She hesitated. “Well, that hasn’t been easy, either. He’s a very intelligent man, very idealistic. He’s into all sorts of nonprofit activities. You know, social reforms. Helping the downtrodden.”