Cold Snap, page 29
“Whether he wanted to or not,” Dobson agreed.
“The wife was, what? Seduced by a Russian spy? A pawn? Or was she an agent for Moscow?”
Ropero licked her lips. “The Washington Field Office suspected the latter, but when she turned up dead, murdered by one of their own, they decided it was prudent not to draw attention to the fact. They didn’t think it would reflect well on the FBI to paint the victim of a familicide as a Russian spy.”
“Are we thinking that at some point Kane rebelled about the idea of being used by Moscow? He knew if he hung around DC, the Ruskies would betray him to the DOJ. He’d go to prison for life for treason—assuming he’d given them anything.”
“He did give them information. Minor stuff from what we can tell, but enough to stall them, presumably while he made his plans to escape.”
Bile rose in Grady’s throat. “While he planned the cold-blooded murder of his wife and kids.”
“How could a man murder his own children?” Cowboy asked in disgust.
“Some people don’t give a shit about others even if they are related by blood,” Grady kept his voice level. He had no doubt his father would have killed him and his sister as easily as not. He simply hadn’t had a reason to before he’d been incarcerated.
“One thing we discovered, long after the initial investigation into the murders was over, that might shed some light on that.” Ropero looked around the room, and her gaze landed on Grady. “Kane cleaned up after himself so thoroughly the Bureau had to exhume Kane’s parents to get his DNA lineage. It was controversial at the time. When the labs finally ran the DNA samples of the dead wife and kids for reference a few years back, they discovered the kids didn’t match what we had for Kane. They weren’t his biological children.”
“And they were definitely his biological parents in the graves?” asked Grady.
Ropero nodded. “We’re as certain as we can be without a verified sample.”
Grady frowned. “Hey, give me that photo you have of our Russian tourists from the bar and compare it to that old photo of Lushko.”
Donnelly pulled out her phone and sent the image to a large iPad which they crowded around. Dobson placed the printout of Lushko’s face beside it.
“Look at the ears and shape of the nostrils. It could be the same guy,” Grady said.
“Why didn’t he pop in the system?”
“Presumably, he had some kind of facial surgery that threw off the algorithm,” Ropero said. “And also, because Sergei Lushko supposedly died around the same time Lisa Kane did.”
Grady frowned. “Eli Kane cleaning house?”
Ropero shook her head. “According to Ridley, the KGB or SVR or whoever ran Lushko in those days was pissed that an op they’d taken considerable effort to set up had failed so dramatically and risked bringing down some of their other deep-cover operations.”
“The Cold War never really ended, did it?” Nash commented dryly.
“They had people go so deep undercover they’d marry and raise families with a mark?” Grady reared back in disgust. It turned his stomach but he wondered how different that was from his lying to Brynn about his real reason for being in town. Still, that was a few days, not a lifetime. But he wasn’t sure she’d see it that way, not after they’d had sex. And not after being deceived by her ex.
“If this Russian is Lushko, but Lushko is supposed to be dead, why is he risking being found by chasing after Kane?” Nash asked.
“Maybe the Russians faked his death so he could go back undercover at some point,” Dobson said. “We know how the Kremlin can hold a grudge.”
“Or maybe this was personal…” Grady looked up. “Were the Kane boys full siblings?”
Ropero nodded and walked over to stare down at the two images.
“Could Lushko be after Eli Kane because he had feelings for Lisa Kane, feelings he wasn’t supposed to have?”
“If he was in love with Lisa and the kids were his…” Cowboy nodded. “Makes sense the guy would come out of hiding for a chance to avenge their deaths. I would. I’d burn it all down to get to him.”
“So perhaps Lushko isn’t acting on orders from Moscow,” Grady said. “Maybe he’s gone rogue.” He looked at Ropero. “It would have been easy enough for him to identify the FBI agents on the Kane case after the Australia debacle. He decides to surveil one of them.” He shot Dobson a look. “Heard about the fingerprint being found at the scene of a bank robbery in Deception Cove when you mention it at home, maybe on the phone. Maybe when plotting to bring me into this thing.”
Ropero shook her head. “I haven’t been back to my apartment since I learned there was a serving FBI agent with a connection to the area.”
Grady nodded. “Good. At least they don’t directly know about my existence, even if they’ve guessed that the FBI is onto them.” He paced. He did his best thinking while in motion. “Maybe Moscow didn’t kill Lushko. Maybe they just claimed he was dead. Maybe he ran. Maybe he ran with all that juicy kompromat and has been bleeding some of the other members of the swingers’ club dry ever since. Hell, maybe Kane collected intelligence of his own, and that’s how he funded his presumed face change and new life.”
“The FBI team hunting Kane gets this red flag of a fingerprint and, because of the electronic surveillance on Ropero, that brings Lushko to town. Is Lushko the person killing locals?” Cowboy asked.
“Why bring the perfume bottle, which may or may not contain poison?” Novak went back to leaning on the bureau.
There wasn’t enough space for this many large adults in one hotel room.
“What do we know about the other Russian?” Grady asked.
“I have an analyst looking, but we’ve been stretched thin.” Ropero cupped her forehead. “We need to bring in more people.”
“Using a Novichok agent in the US would plunge Russia into deep shit,” Dobson added. “Either the Russians want to send a message to anyone who betrays them, or this Lushko character is using what he hopes is Kane’s painful death as a way of getting back at his former bosses.”
“For making the woman you love spend her life with another man and raise your kids without them ever knowing you exist,” suggested Grady.
“From the laptop you gave us,” Ropero said, clearly deep in thought, “we know that the last thing Bodurek did was print a copy of the report he’d sent to the insurance company on his boat. The report included a list of all the types of evidence collected at the scene, the surveillance footage of the incident, an inventory of what was taken, and a list of all the owners of the safe deposit boxes at Hearst Savings and Loan Bank…”
Grady slowly turned to face Ropero. “If we assume Lushko and his associate killed Milton Bodurek to get hold of that list, then that suggests they don’t have access to our files.”
“Which is good news,” Nash put in.
“Presumably they’ve been spending the past few days getting eyes on as many suspects as possible.” Grady tried to think like an old KGB henchman, but it was tricky without the bone-deep megalomania. “They’ve been narrowing down the list in much the same way we have.”
“We could start approaching the remaining suspects directly, and see how they react.” Dobson chewed his lip.
“We can’t risk it until we have enough people in place to surveil them all afterwards,” argued Ropero. “Which we don’t have unless we pull in local police.”
“In which case you may as well take out an ad.” Grady tried to hide his impatience. “Get HRT up here in force, and we’ll lock this place down so the fuckers can’t go anywhere.”
“Why’d the Russians disappear?” Donnelly asked. “Did they find Kane already, or did they figure out we were onto them?”
The idea of losing Kane to the Russians stuck in Grady’s craw.
“Perhaps they somehow knew someone had entered their room. Or it could be pure instinct,” Grady said. “Presumably Lushko’s survived on the run for almost as long as Kane has. He wouldn’t ignore that itch between his shoulder blades that told him he was being watched, even if it meant losing Kane.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that.” Cowboy shook his head. “The only thing this guy cares about at this point is making the sonofabitch who killed his family pay. Those two have either gotten to Kane already and are feeding him Novichok-laced sandwiches as we speak or they’re hunkered down somewhere, waiting.”
“That Quayle family last night?” Ropero asked the room in general. “Did the Russians kill them? Could one of those men be Eli Kane?”
Grady shrugged. Jesus, he was tired, and his brain hurt. “Quayles didn’t have a safe deposit box at the bank. More likely to bury stuff in the woods than put it in a bank. Can’t see a reason for any of them being in the bank vault.”
Dobson pressed his lips together. “I ran Caleb Quayle and his family after he was one of the people at the scene of Bodurek’s body recovery. We have DNA in CODIS from two of the dead uncles, Colin and Dick. Not a particularly pleasant family, but those two didn’t match Kane’s likely DNA profile. Caleb was too young.”
They pulled up the information for the other two victims. One guy, Hap Quayle, was mixed race. The other, Tom, was a possible for Kane in terms of age and size.
Grady didn’t remember much about Tom Quayle. “It doesn’t play for me. Why would the Quayles let Kane stay with them?”
“For money?” Nash suggested.
“Can you get Tom’s DNA from the ME?”
Dobson nodded. “Already requested in the guise of an IRS investigation. I had an agent pick it up this morning.”
“Doesn’t fit for it being the Russian who killed the Quayles thinking one of them was Eli Kane,” Cowboy argued. “Whoever killed the Quayle men didn’t kill the woman or the little girl. If it was Lushko extracting his revenge, then he’d have killed them first.”
Ropero muttered, “Unless he simply couldn’t bring himself to kill innocents. Who do you think did it, Steel?”
“Fuck,” he scrubbed his hand over his face. “The way the sheriff is determined to pin it on me and Brynn despite us both having solid alibis made me wonder if he wasn’t responsible.”
“Sheriff York?” Dobson asked.
At Grady’s nod, Dobson frowned. “There are a few large cash deposits to his father’s bank accounts we can’t trace. Could be unrelated to illegal activity, of course.”
Or not. The more Grady thought about it, the more convinced he was the former sheriff was dirty. Was Darrell also on the take or simply trying to protect his old man?
“We have a warrant to covertly access any investigation reports kept online, see what sort of case he’s building. Our consultant, Alex Parker, is still running all available images from the surveillance cameras in town. So far nothing.”
“But if it wasn’t the Russians looking for Eli Kane, then who’d want to kill the Quayles?” Nash asked. “Why?”
Grady stared around the room as his thoughts finally clicked into place. “To set me up? Get me out of the picture?”
Novak crossed his arms over his chest. “You think someone knows you’re FBI and not as suspended as we wanted them to believe?”
Grady shrugged. “I had an altercation with a guy the day before he was murdered, so the cops are bound to look at me.” He narrowed his eyes. “Something Darrell York said made me think they were knifed rather than shot to death. Bastard took my gun away again.”
Novak let out a long sigh and went over to a big black bag. He pulled out a Glock 17 and another 1911.
He passed them both to him along with ammo. “If he tries to take these off you, shoot him.”
Grady grunted. “Don’t even joke about it.”
“Who said I was joking?” Novak looked pissed. “I’m ready to shoot him myself.”
Ropero stared out of the window at the icy ocean. “I’d like a look at this latest crime scene before the storm starts laying down snow.” She looked at Dobson. “Fancy a trip out there? We can flash our badges. Doubtful whoever’s guarding the scene will keep us out.”
“Then you’ll definitely tip our hand that the FBI is in town, and Kane will be in the wind,” said Novak.
“It’s a pity we don’t have the full team here. We could have put the drones up in the air and taken a closer look from the comfort of our hotel room.” Cowboy had all the subtlety of a rutting stag but he certainly knew how to drive home a point.
Ropero blew out a deep breath. “That was the wrong call, and it’s on me. I admit it. How long would it take for them to arrive?”
Novak shook his head. “With this storm being forecast to be a doozy? Late tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, and that’s only if the pilots will fly.”
“We waiting it out in town or in Bangor?” Nash asked, examining his boots.
“Bangor,” said Ropero.
“Here,” said Novak.
She opened her mouth to argue.
“I’m not leaving members of my team cut off from what limited support they have.”
“If Kane runs—”
“Maybe we’re thinking about this all wrong. Maybe it’s time to put out an alert or media statement. Let’s force this sonofabitch to make his move,” Grady suggested.
Ropero pressed her lips together thoughtfully. “If he hasn’t already bolted, he might try to use the storm as cover.”
“And if all law enforcement in the state and across the border know to be on the lookout for him, we might get lucky. There will be a lot less people on the road.”
Dobson nodded. “Might be time to make that call.”
Ropero put her hands on her waist. “I’ll draft a press release and send it to HQ for verification and to request permission.”
Cowboy rolled his eyes. “I’m sure it’ll be ready in time for Christmas.”
She shot his buddy a death glare. “That’s the way it works, I’m afraid. All decisions regarding this issue and the public must be approved by the new director.”
“Give me her number in case we’re in a shootout and I need permission to return fire.”
To stop the two stubborn agents going at it further, Grady interrupted. “I should pay a visit to Caleb Quayle’s girlfriend. She didn’t turn up for work at the café today.” He checked his watch. “Maybe she knows something she isn’t saying to the cops.”
“You think she’ll talk to you?” Novak asked intently.
“Yeah,” Grady nodded. “I think she will. I went to school with her mother.”
“First let’s get photographs of your chest.” Novak insisted and tossed Cowboy his cell phone.
“Fine, I’ll sacrifice myself to seeing Grady naked,” said Cowboy.
Donnelly snatched the phone out of his hand. “He’s my partner. Come on, Steel.”
Grady swore under his breath. And pulled off his shirt. “Let’s do it here so Cowboy can see what a real man looks like.”
Donnelly pulled a face when she got a good look at him. “Jesus.”
Cowboy smirked.
“I mean, I know you’re built,” Donnelly’s gaze turned sympathetic, “but you must have twenty small burns and that bruising… Are you sure you didn’t bust a rib?”
Suddenly, all his teammates were surrounding him and examining him.
“Nothing’s broken,” he insisted. “You probably did worse crashing into that canyon wall last week.”
Donnelly grinned. “Nice deflection, Steel.” She shot Cowboy a look. “I’m not showing you my bruises.”
“Spoilsport.”
Donnelly began taking photos, while Grady stood there as self-conscious as a naked virgin in a strip joint.
“Drop your pants,” she ordered, trying to get a shot of a bruise that had bled down his hip.
He gripped the button of his trousers and stared down his teammate. “Over your dead body.”
Donnelly smirked and gave up.
Then, as soon as she backed away, he found himself being smeared with cream along with some colorful suggestions. Someone poked his ribcage, and he was about to snarl when he realized it was Novak.
His boss eyed him critically. “Tape it. Bandage it. Do not get it wet.”
“No more showers for you.” Donnelly clicked her tongue at him.
Cowboy grinned, but Grady saw the worry still there in his buddy’s gaze. “Watch your back. Someone killed five men without blinking last night. I don’t want to have to bury another teammate.”
They all sobered fast. Grady nodded. The stakes had never been higher.
50
Twenty-seven years ago
Fall
Eli drove the Volvo wagon he’d bought a few weeks ago specifically for this trip.
“Why are we going this way?” Lisa asked irritably.
She didn’t like the car. It was brown and ugly, apparently. She didn’t like the way he’d taken her Dodge Colt Turbo back to the dealer saying they couldn’t afford it right now. He’d cut off her credit card and access to the accounts. She’d already bled him dry, so maybe it was a petty move. But he wanted her isolated. He wanted her miserable.
“I told you. I have a surprise.”
Her mouth thinned. He didn’t know if he was getting harder to endure, or if she was tired of the pretense.
He’d done his best to make her leave him, even asked her for a divorce, but Lisa had told him they could fix the problems in their marriage. She was dedicated, he’d say that for her.
He wished it had never come to this. The bitch had stolen everything from him. He was taking it back.
It was almost full dark now. He’d timed it just so.
He turned off the highway on to the Wilderness Road. “I rented us a cabin for the night. Figured we’d break up the journey.”
Her fingers clenched in her lap, and she picked up her heavy purse from the footwell.
“Thought we’d check out the Gap Cave tomorrow morning before we drive south. The boys will like that.” His voice almost broke then.
Not his fault. Not his game. Not his boys.
“They’d rather be at a theme park,” Lisa sniped. “Riding rollercoasters.”
