Richard Castle: A Raging Storm

Jones smiled slyly. “Must have slipped my mind.”

Storm knew better. Nothing slipped Jones’s mind .

“Since you seem to have overlooked that part,” Storm said, “why don’t you tell me about the Russians now?”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Jones said. “You tell me what you’ve learned about the kidnapping and the Russians.”

This is how Jones played the game. Ask him a question and he answered with two questions of his own. Ask him two questions and he responded with a dozen more .

“There were actually two groups of kidnappers,” Storm said. “The kidnappers who really abducted Matthew Dull were ex–KBG officers.”

“And the second ones?”

“They turned out to be Samantha Toppers and her brother.”

“She’s the short blonde with the big—” Jones started to say.

Storm interrupted. “Yes, Toppers is rather well endowed. She and her brother tried to profit from the kidnapping by sending Senator Windslow and his wife ransom notes even though they didn’t have Dull. It was a pretty clever scam.”

“That you figured out,” Jones said.

It was as close to a compliment as Jones ever gave .

Continuing, Jones said, “Sadly, you weren’t able to save Dull. The real kidnappers killed him and now someone has assassinated a U.S. senator.”

“Hey, I didn’t pull those triggers,” Storm protested.

“True, but you also don’t know why they were pulled.”

“The men who did the actual murders were professionals. My guess is they are hired guns. The real question is who paid them? There are two likely candidates: Ivan Petrov and Oleg Barkovsky.”

Storm suspected that Jones already knew about both men. Jones always knew more than he shared with Storm. He never revealed more than what was necessary. He listened and expected his operatives to do their own digging, to develop their own clues, to reach their own conclusions. He expected Storm to dig up his own answers. It was Jones’s way of insuring that no rock went unturned .

Continuing, Storm said, “FBI Special Agent April Showers believes Petrov paid Windslow a six-million-dollar bribe. But at some point, Windslow changed his mind and didn’t follow through. That’s when Petrov had him killed.”

“Do you agree?”

“I’m sure Windslow took a bribe, but I’m not sure it was Petrov who gave the order to have him and Dull killed. It could have just as likely been Barkovsky.”

“Why?”

“To stop Senator Windslow from helping Petrov. The problem is that I don’t know what either man wanted from Senator Windslow. There’s always a motive for murder. Until I figure out that motive, I can’t identify the killer.”

Jones leaned back in his office chair, which squeaked. It had needed oil for as long as Storm had known Jones. The CIA spymaster swept his right hand across his face as if he were trying to wipe away a problem. Built like a bulldog and in excellent physical shape, especially for a man in his early sixties, Jones was both Storm’s mentor and tormentor. He was the only man capable of bringing Storm back into the CIA’s world of smoke and mirrors.

“The sniper left his rifle on the roof of the Capitol Police headquarters building,” Jones said. He leaned forward, causing another squeak, and removed a photo from a desk drawer. He passed it to Storm.

Storm inspected it and said, “It’s a photograph of a Dragunov sniper rifle. Military issue, not one of the cheaper, knockoff versions manufactured in China and Iran for sale outside Russia.”

Jones smiled. “Go on.”

“Does the media know a Russian rifle was the murder weapon?” Storm asked.

“No, but it’s only a matter of time. You know how Washington is about leaks and secrets.”

Storm did. When it came to the nation’s capital, Benjamin Franklin had said it best more than two hundred years earlier: “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”

“Matthew Dull was shot with Russian-made bullets,” Storm continued. “Now a sniper shoots Windslow with a Russian military sniper rifle. The killers clearly aren’t worried about covering their tracks.”

“Which is why the White House is concerned,” Jones said. “The American public doesn’t give a damn about the private war Petrov and Barkovsky are waging against each other. Who cares if a billionaire oligarch and his former best friend kill each other? But if word leaks out that an American was kidnapped and murdered and a U.S. senator was assassinated by one of them, then we’ll be facing an international shit storm.”

“How can you hide that fact?” Storm asked.

“The President is holding a press conference later today. He’ll assure the American public that the attacks were not acts of terrorism. He’ll say the FBI suspects the kidnapping and murders were carried out by a ruthless gang of Eastern European criminals. But there will be no mention of Petrov and certainly no mention of Russian President Barkovsky.”

“Which man is worse?” Storm asked rhetorically. “Petrov is an egomaniac and Barkovsky is as flaky as Muammar Gaddafi without the high heels and rouge.”

“The White House is more worried about Barkovsky. We can’t sit still and allow a Russian president to assassinate a U.S. senator. That’s why we have to be discreet.”

“Discreet?” Storm repeated. “Congress already is scheduling hearings to investigate and the media is going wild.”

Jones let out a sigh. “Yes, it’s going to be tricky, but not impossible.”

“With you, nothing ever is,” Storm said. “But I’m curious. How long before someone gets interested in Steve Mason? How long before some pesky reporter asks why you inserted a private eye into the kidnapping? How long before someone discovers that Steve Mason doesn’t exist?”

“The smart thing,” Jones said, “would be for you to disappear — to go back to Wyoming.”

“Montana,” Storm said, correcting him.

Jones shrugged. “Wherever. But the truth is that I need you more now than ever before. I need someone whom I can trust to keep one step ahead of this investigation.”

“Do you need me because you want to find out the truth? Or do you need me to help you bury the truth?”

“Probably both.”

Jones looked exhausted. The pressures from his job were clearly taking a toll. His face was becoming a road map of worry lines. There was little doubt that Jones would have had pure white hair if he weren’t bald. By contrast, Storm was still ruggedly handsome, although his body also was showing the signs of his past. Five scars in his abdomen marked where he’d been shot. There was a knife wound on his back where he’d been slashed from behind. More recently, a bullet had ice-skated across his shoulder, leaving an ugly superficial scar. Of course, the worst wounds had been delivered in Tangiers — physically and mentally.

One reason why Storm had faked his own death was because he’d quietly begun to question his own abilities after Tangiers. The couple helping him had been shot to death in front of him. He had been left for dead. Doctors couldn’t believe he’d recovered. But with his recovery had come doubts. Had he missed something? Was he somehow to blame? It was only after he had “died” — while he was alone in Montana fishing — that he had considered another possibility. Someone had betrayed him. Someone inside the agency. He had gone over every minute detail of Tangiers, over and over, and he’d reached the same conclusion each time, no matter how he twisted it. He’d walked into a trap. Storm’s first reaction had been to contact Jones and seek vengeance. But he had no proof. In Montana, he had been out of the game. What was the cost of getting back in? Now the landscape had changed. Now they’d let the fox back into the henhouse. Now he could test his hunch and expose the traitor who was responsible for the scars — both physical and mental — that he carried. If there really was a traitor, then Storm needed to unmask him. And he could only find the truth by working from the inside out .