Kathleen Creighton - Never Trust A Lady

The DECCA coordinator was waiting for them in the doorway to his office. He ushered them across the hall into a carpeted meeting room furnished with a large polished table and a dozen or so comfortable chairs. On the other side of the room, windows looked down on the old Ford’s Theater, but Hawk wasn’t interested in the view. One of the four chairs drawn up to the table was already occupied by a young man wearing a mediumgray suit and starched white shirt, and a maroon tie with silver stripes. His eyes were black as bullet holes, and he had the nose and bearing of an Arab prince.

“Our field agent on the case,” the DECCA coordinator said, beginning the introductions.

“We’ve met.” Hawk managed to keep his face impassive as he leaned across the table to shake Aaron Campbell’s hand.

“Well,” said the coordinator briskly as he took the chair at the head of the table, “let’s not waste any more time. Just to recap, so we know we’ve all got the same information up to this point.” He picked up the file in front of him, set it down again and laced his fingers together on top of it as he gave everyone at the table his eyes in turn.

“On March fifteenth, our agents in Kuwait received a, uh, communication purporting to be from Jarek Singh, who, as you know, was an Indian computer expert reported missing and presumed kidnapped from his home in Cairo at the end of the Gulf War.”

Devore said, “Ours came to our bureau in Ankara.”

“They were apparently identical. We know Scotland Yard, the CIA and the Israelis each got one, too. We don’t know how many others. In the. uh, communication-” which Hawk knew had come via computer, in the mysterious and incomprehensible manner fully understood only by hackers and wizards “-Mr. Singh claims to have been kidnapped by agents of Saddam Hussein and forced to design and program the security system for an elaborate secret facility built as a hideaway for Hussein’s stockpile of chemical and biological weapons. Most of which, as you know, did not turn up during our inspections after the war. We know they existed. Where are they now? Mr. Singh claims to know exactly where, as well as how to circumvent the facility’s security system, and has offered this information to the highest bidder. Unfortunately-” he paused as Devore coughed and shifted in his seat “-we have reason to believe this offer was also made to some very undesirable and dangerous bidders.”

“Khadafy, for one,” said Devore.

The coordinator nodded. “For one. North Korea and China, almost certainly. Others we can only guess at.” He looked unspeakably glum.

“In all fairness to Singh,” Campbell remarked, speaking for the first time, “he must have known he was a marked man. It would have taken a lot of money to put himself and his family out of Saddam’s reach.”

“He expected Saddam to pay him off,” said Devore, “with the promise that, if he didn’t, or if anything happened to him in the meantime, the information would go elsewhere.”

“Something like that. We can’t know precisely what Singh had in mind. We know he delivered only enough with his offer to demonstrate the probable accuracy and authenticity of what he had. The rest is inaccessible except with a key, which is what he was offering for sale. It was a clever enough plan.”

“Except,” muttered Hawk, “Singh wound up dead anyway.”

Once again the coordinator nodded. “His body turned up in an alley not far from his home in Cairo on March seventeenth. Estimates are he’d been dead at least three days. So apparently, Saddam’s agents caught up with Singh before his communication reached Baghdad.”

“And so,” Devore said dryly, “begins the treasure hunt.”

“Some treasure,” said Hawk,

“A treasure map, certainly. The map to enough chemical and biological agents to wipe out the entire population of the globe several times over. And unlike conventional weapons, almost impossible to detect by existing security systems. A vial the size of a cigarette, a few drops of a deadly virus in the water supply of a major city…”

The coordinator took a breath and went on, “It’s absolutely imperative that Jarek Singh’s key doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. We searched Singh’s house immediately, of course; it had been ransacked before we got there.” His eyes flicked to Devore and settled appraisingly on Hawk.

Hawk said nothing. Devore sat forward in his wheelchair, leaning one forearm on the table as he quietly said, “We also found it so. However, our agent-” he indicated Hawk with a nod “-observed a faint marking on one wall, which suggested a painting had hung there-a mark that did not fit any painting in the house. It seemed reasonable to assume that whoever had broken into the place had taken it, but when asked about it, Mrs. Singh said her husband had suddenly shown up the day before the communications from him began arriving-”

“That would be the day we assume he was killed,” said Campbell.

“Right According to Singh’s wife, he was very excited about something, and in a great hurry. She thought he seemed frightened, as well. Anyway, he packed up this particular painting and told her to mail it, then pack her things and go stay with her mother in Giza until she heard from him. He gave her the address of an antiques dealer in Marseilles-”

“Loizeau,” the coordinator offered, although everyone there knew the name.

Devore nodded. “Then Mr. Singh left again and that was the last his wife saw of him. She did as he’d told her and went off to her mother’s, stayed there until she learned of her husband’s death, when she returned to find her house a shambles.” He raised his eyebrows at Hawk. “Would you like to take it from here?”

Hawk didn’t say anything for a moment. He’d rather not have been there at all, if the truth were told. He hated meetings like this, always had. In his opinion, they were a waste of time. He knew where he needed to be, which was out there tracking down those other paintings. Most of which, it appeared, according to the records of the auction house, were in a town called Cooper’s Mill, North Carolina.

Sprawled in his chair, idly spinning a pencil on the polished tabletop, he looked across at Campbell and said casually, “You know, something else Mrs. Singh couldn’t seem to find was the shipping receipt from when she mailed that painting. She said she came straight back home to pack, and left it on top of the dresser in the bedroom. You guys take it?”

Campbell and the coordinator looked at each other. Campbell said quietly, “We found out about Loizeau’s having the painting the same way you did. Mrs. Singh told us.”

“So,” said Hawk, sitting up straight, “that means whoever trashed Singh’s place probably found it, went straight to Loizeau’s. got the information about the auction from him and then killed him. I’d be curious to know,” he added, looking across at Campbell, “how you guys found out about that auction.”

There was another uncomfortable silence; rival law enforcement agencies never enjoyed revealing their sources and methods. This time it was the coordinator who said, without expression, “We had immediately placed Loizeau’s shop under electronic surveillance.”

“Ah,” said Hawk, smiling slightly. Phone tap, of course.

“I’d like to ask you that same question,” said Campbell, his eyes glittering. “Loizeau was dead when you got there?”

“That’s right,” said Hawk evenly, showing his teeth.

“So, it would appear,” said the DECCA coordinator, unnecessarily shuffling through the file in front of him, “that only three people were able to follow the trail as far as Rathskeller’s. The two of us-” his nod took in Hawk as well as Devore “-and whoever ransacked Singh’s house and killed Loizeau. Are we in agreement that those two are most likely one and the same?”

Three nods answered. “All right, then-”

But whatever the DECCA coordinator had been about to say would have to wait, because right then someone’s beeper went off. The coordinator reached for his, checked the number and handed it to Campbell. “It’s IAFIS.”

Alarm ran through Hawk like an electrical charge. It couldn’t be his sample, the prints lifted from Jane’s tube of toothpaste. It was too soon. A futile search through the millions of prints in the FBI’s data banks should take hours, even days.

Campbell went to a phone on the wall near the door and punched in a number. He spoke quietly, then listened, eyes on the floor. After a moment or two, those same eyes, glittering bright, found Hawk across the room. And then, carelessly covering the mouthpiece with his hand, he said, “That fingerprint sample you delivered this afternoon? It seems IAFIS has a match.”

“Impossible,” Hawk muttered. He stood by the windows, tensely smoking. Not Jane. No way. I don’t believe it. Impossible.

“I’m afraid,” the coordinator said mildly, “it’s not only possible, it’s a fact.” He glanced at Campbell, who nodded.

“Atkinson says he’s never seen IAFIS get a hit so fast, or so positively. The thumbprint lifted from that toothpaste tube you sent them is a perfect match with the one you guys found on the shopping list in Loizeau’s pocket. And-” it was his turn to flick a confirming glance at Devore “-the one from the Flight 310 bomb fragment.”

“I’m not saying it isn’t,” growled Hawk, “I’m just saying it can’t be Jane’s. My God, if you’d ever met the woman-”

“I have met her,” Campbell said under his breath. There was a rueful twist to his mouth, and he was absently rubbing a spot on his midsection, just below his ribs.

Hawk snorted, and muttered for the FBI agent’s ears only, “Why in the hell didn’t you just ID yourself?”

“I was about to when she decked me. I don’t know how-”

“Lucky shot. Don’t feel bad. Believe me, she was at least as surprised as you were.”

Then aloud he said as he strode angrily across the room to stub out his cigarette in the ashtray the coordinator had politely produced, “Dammit, I’m just saying this woman is no terrorist. There has to be some explanation.”

“I can think of one,” Campbell unexpectedly said. Three pairs of eyes focused on him. It was Hawk’s he chose to meet, his own eyes glittering dangerously. “Cadysle wasn’t alone at that auction. She shared a ride, and she shared a hotel room. Maybe that’s not all she shared.”

No one spoke. Hawk felt his heart lurch and his pulse quicken, not sure whether or not to be glad that someone else had finally given voice to the suspicion that had been nibbling at him for a white, now.

Devore coughed and said, “You are suggesting Carlysle had an accomplice? The woman she was with…”

The coordinator glanced down at his file and supplied, “Connie Vincent.”

“I’m saying, when I went down-” and Campbell flushed brick red under his olive skin “-Cartyste was in her seat, bidding. Vincent wasn’t. I felt something-a prick, like an insect bite-on my thigh. I remember thinking I must have an ant in my pants, and what the hell was I going to do about it, because I couldn’t leave the bidding right then, and the next thing I know I’m looking up at all these worried faces.” He shook his head and made a sound replete with self-disgust. “All I know is, there’s no way Carlysle could have been responsible.”

Again there was silence, until Devore diffidently cleared his throat and said, “Agent Hawkins?”

“Vincent bought the other paintings,” Hawk said with a carefully noncommittal shrug. “She could have pulled the switch.”

And Jane knows it, he thought. He was remembering their conversation in the truck, Jane’s sudden silence and subsequent evasiveness.

He paced again to the windows, reaching for his cigarettes with jerky, angry motions. He was furious with her for not telling him her suspicions, with himself for not figuring it out sooner. Most of all, though, he was furious with himself for dismissing someone as a suspect solely because she was a woman. Well, perhaps not solely-he’d suspected Jane, after all.

But for God’s sake, he thought in disgust, Vincent looks like somebody’s mother. All right, so Ma Barker was somebody’s mother, too. But…she wore those damn glasses on the end of a chain, like a librarian, or his second-grade music teacher. And button-up-the-front sweaters.

He stared out the window and drew deeply on his cigarette while a chill scattered goose bumps down his spine. Pink sweaters. That’s what he was thinking of. Pink sweaters made of Merino wool.

She knows.

Yes, there was no doubt in his mind that Jane had figured it out. The question was, what was she thinking of doing about it? He thought again of Loizeau, and the possibilities terrified him.

Behind him, Devore coughed and said, “If Vincent does have Jarek Singh’s painting…”