Iris Johansen - Chasing the Night

“Yes.”

“Tell her to do her usual fine job. I want you to be able to recognize Luke with no problem. I imagine the period while you’re waiting to know is going to be excruciating.”

“He’s not Luke.”

“Of course he is. Look at the bone structure of his face. It’s just like yours. Can’t you see the resemblance?”

She was beginning to feel the panic rising. “Children change a lot in those first years.”

“Duncan taught you that. How annoying. It modifies my efforts in increasing your pain. I’m going to remember that when I have her at my disposal.” He paused. “I’ll be thinking about you while Duncan is doing her wizardry. I’ll be imagining every expression on your face, every bit of agony that you’re feeling. Is it really your little Luke? Did the bullet hurt him before he died? I wish I could devote more time and concentration, but I’ve had to initiate the prologue to my farewell party, and it’s requiring my attention.”

“Prologue?”

“It was an opening foray worthy of what’s to come. I was very pleased. But there are ends to tie up and congratulations to extract from doubting Thomases. It all takes time. But I’ll be back on the phone with you as soon as possible. It adds a certain zest to realize how close you are to me. I can’t tell you how I’m enjoying our being together at last. Remoteness does have its disadvantages.” He hung up.

“Bastard.” Catherine pressed the disconnect. “All he wanted to do was taunt me. No real threats. Except to you, Eve.”

“It didn’t bother me.” She added thoughtfully, “He’s looking at this as a supreme cat-and-mouse game. He wants this reconstruction to hurt you. He’s going to enjoy every minute of it.” Her lips tightened. “I’ve got to hurry it along so that I can cheat him of as much pleasure as possible.”

“Unless it is my Luke.”

“And you’ve got to try to block out what he said.”

“I can’t. He knows I can’t.” She moistened her lips. “But I’ll try to keep busy so that he doesn’t dominate my whole world.” She shook her head. “What am I saying? He’s dominated my world since the day he took my son.” She stuffed her phone into her pocket. “When are you going to start to work?”

“Right after supper.” She turned to Natalie. “I’ll need a table set up by the window, clean damp cloths, and enough lanterns to cast a strong light on the reconstruction. Can you help me?”

Natalie nodded. “There’s some old furniture in the barn in the back, and I think I saw a table.”

Eve turned to Catherine. “And I don’t want you hanging around watching me.”

“It bothers you?”

“No, nothing bothers me when I’m absorbed. But it will bother you. At some points in the reconstruction, the skull looks like a voodoo doll or something from a horror film. You don’t need to go through that. Go out and walk or help Kelly with her patterns.”

“I don’t need her,” Kelly said. “She can’t help me with-”

“Kelly, that’s the first time I’ve noticed you acting fourteen instead of thirty,” Eve said. “I’m sure it’s healthy, but you picked the wrong time for it. I was trying for a diversion. Now keep Catherine busy and out of my way.”

Kelly nodded. “But I can’t let her-”

“It’s okay, Kelly.” Catherine headed for the shower. “I’m not interfering in your business. You don’t have to be so protective of your blessed patterns.”

“There’s nothing blessed about Rakovac’s patterns,” Kelly said gravely. “I can already see hints of what he is just from reading this report. It’s all cut-and-dried, with no comments from the people who were shadowing him. But every now and then, they put in a result of what he did the day before.” She sat back down at the table and opened her computer. “And I’m beginning to get…anxious. His pattern is leading him…I don’t know. Somewhere…dark.”

“You can tell that by analyzing these patterns? Sounds like hocus-pocus to me.”

“An astronomer studying black holes isn’t into hocus-pocus, but the darkness is there.”

“Whatever. By all means continue. I didn’t like it when he was talking about his prologue. Prologue to what? I don’t think it had anything to do with Luke.”

“I don’t either,” Eve said as she moved toward the bedroom. “But I’m not going to dwell on it. I have to concentrate on that reconstruction.”

Kelly nodded, her gaze on the computer screen. “But I know I’m right. He’s heading somewhere…dark.”

Venable phoned Catherine while they were having dinner that night. She put it on speaker.

“How close are you?” he asked curtly.

“You shouldn’t have sent Kelly here,” Catherine said. “You don’t have a great deal of conscience, but I’d think a fourteen-year-old girl would be off-limits.”

“No one is off-limits now. How close are you to finding Rakovac?” he asked curtly. “For God’s sake, that’s why I sent her. Is she helping?”

She had never heard Venable sound so tense. She could almost feel the vibrations crackle over the cell. “She’s doing the best she can. It takes time.”

“We don’t have time.” He drew a deep breath. “I think time’s running out.”

She could see Eve straighten in her chair across the table from her. Catherine knew how she felt. Venable’s tension was contagious.

“What are you talking about?”

“Have you been watching the news?”

“No, we’ve been busy.”

“Pull it up on your computer. And then get back to me.”

“What am I supposed to be looking for?”

“Nine-eleven.” He hung up.

She sat there for an instant, stunned. “Nine-eleven?”

“I’ll do it.” Kelly had jumped to her feet and grabbed her computer. She was quickly surfing the Internet for news. She didn’t have to look long. It was the lead story. “Vantaro Airlines. Lima, Peru. Terrorist attack. A suicide bomber took over the cockpit and killed the pilot and forced the copilot to fly low into the heart of the city. He radioed the tower at the airport that he was doing this for the glory of Islam and the Red Darkness, a terrorist group based in Libya.” She paused, reading the next page. “He set off his explosion when he was near the capitol building. The death count may have reached over twenty-two hundred people.”

“Two thousand…” Eve said. “Peru’s 9/11.” She shook her head as if to clear it. She couldn’t clear it. The horror was too overwhelming. “I remember our 9/11. Watching those planes dive into the two towers. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t imagine the evil that could spawn something like that.”

“Neither could I,” Joe said. “I went up to New York as a volunteer and helped dig out survivors…and bodies.”

“Maybe it’s not Peru’s 9/11,” Kelly said slowly. Her gaze was fixed on the wreckage of the plane in the news story. “Maybe not.”

Catherine’s gaze flew to her face. “What?”

“Prologue,” Kelly said. “Rakovac said prologue.”

Eve inhaled sharply. “My God. Call Venable, Catherine. Call him now.”

Catherine was already dialing the number.

“What does that suicide bomber have to do with Rakovac?” she asked as soon as he picked up. “What actually happened in Lima?”

“It has everything to do with Rakovac. But we don’t know all the details about that suicide bombing yet. We’re still piecing the story together. We weren’t expecting Lima.”

“What do you know?”

“We know what the media tells you about the actual suicide bombing. The bomber was Manuel Camarez. He was an office-supply salesman and lived in southern Peru. No known affiliations to any Islamic group though he did spend a summer in Istanbul a few years ago. He could have been recruited at that time.”