Jeff Abbott - Fear

‘Because you were afraid. Because you wanted to believe him that he wouldn’t hurt Brian.’

‘Well, how stupid was I?’

‘I wanted to believe Andy would be happy about me getting us both out of the mob. You wanted to believe Brian would be safe if you followed orders. Do you think Brian blamed you, for one second?’

She didn’t answer.

‘If you had screamed, do you think Brian would have run? Hell, no. He would have run to you. Fought to save you.’

The truth of what he said crushed her. ‘All because I wanted to be on a stupid TV show.’ She buried her face in her hands. ‘So why can’t we move past all the grief?’

‘Because we loved these people. You don’t shed them like a skin.’

‘Do you think if I kept taking Frost – I would forget what happened to Brian?’ Her voice cracked. ‘If I forget the terror we experienced, aren’t I awful?’

‘Brian wouldn’t want you to carry that grief forever. He sure wouldn’t want you always cutting yourself.’

She wiped at her eyes. ‘Thank you for showing me the confession.’

‘Thanks for telling me what happened to you too.’

The silence between them grew awkward; almost as if they’d been physically intimate and didn’t know what to say, how to part, how to step forward.

She came to his bed, and she curled herself into his arms. They lay, tense, barely touching each other, and she closed her hand around his and he began to relax. Touch to touch. Her hair – she had showered after they ate, put on loose clothes Victor gave her – smelled of tangerine and he realized he had forgotten the perfection of holding a woman, the yield of skin, the beat of breath.

If he kept chasing Frost, he could be dead in a day. Or in prison. This might be the last bit of happiness, a final morsel, in his life.

He closed his eyes and slept.

A hand touched his shoulder. Miles opened his eyes. Victor sat, wheeled close to the bed.

Bad news, he mouthed. Let’s talk.

Victor’s office held a range of computers: two Linux-based workhorses, a gleaming Apple Macintosh, four beige-box PCs.

One monitor displayed a picture of Quantrill. The next of Sorenson, then one of Allison.

Groote stood by one screen, staring at the picture of Sorenson.

‘I haven’t found your daughter, Dennis, and I’m running into stone walls inquiring about government safe houses. Locations are closely guarded secrets. I’m going to have to use a roundabout approach, and that will take time.’

‘If they kill her because Dodd’s dead…’

‘I doubt it. Dodd’s death will freeze them up; they’ll need to regroup. You have to be hopeful,’ Victor said.

Groote sat, put his battered face in his hands, then stood. ‘So what does it buy me? A day, two? Even if we get Frost, I’m not sure how to contact whoever Dodd works for.’

‘I’ve put a couple of bullets in your gun, gentlemen. Or it’s evidence to help you decide either no way in hell you two move forward, or you lay low, or you go to the police right now.’

‘We’re listening,’ Miles said.

Victor gestured at Sorenson’s face on the screen. ‘James Sorenson. But before he was Pentagon, he was posted with the Foreign Service in Beijing. Before that, the army. Now he’s no longer on a government payroll – at least not one anyone will admit. I can find nothing else about him: family, academic background, zilch – those files are sealed. He’s quite the bureaucratic nomad. Usually a government lifer wriggles into a spot and holds on tight.’

‘Or he’s the hot potato, handed around, because he’s trouble,’ Miles said.

‘I have contacts in the army archives and at Defense trying to find out more, but nothing yet, other than one Pentagon friend telling me Sorenson was, and I quote, “a loose cannon, crazy, difficult to deal with.” Sorry, I don’t have a bridge into the Foreign Service; that’s a brick wall to me.’

‘Okay. Quantrill.’

‘I can tell you,’ Groote said, ‘he’s a corporate spy.’

‘More than that,’ Victor said. ‘A dot-com millionaire, moved his money before the Internet bubble broke. He owns a consulting firm that once was accused of corporate espionage, but the charges got dropped; I smell a payoff. He’s also linked to a number of companies that own other companies that own specialty hospitals, both here and overseas, or have contracts with the Veterans Administration.’

‘If he’s illegally testing drugs at one hospital, could he be doing it at another one?’ Groote said. ‘Maybe he and Dodd worked out a deal, to get Frost back from Sorenson – and Amanda’s at one of his hospitals…’

‘I can check, but I don’t think Dodd and Quantrill came to any understanding before Dodd died,’ Victor said. ‘Regarding the testing, I’m almost sure if he tested Frost at one, he might have tested it at others. His only health-care scandal was a VA hospital in Minneapolis accused of testing unapproved cancer medications on patients. Two doctors and an administrator were prosecuted. Another doctor ducked on not enough evidence. That doctor resigned from the VA and took a job with a hospital that Quantrill’s holding company owns in Florida. Otherwise Quantrill sticks to the shadows.’

‘Like Sorenson.’

‘Has it occurred to you Sorenson’s hunting just as hard for you? He’ll know by now his hit in Yosemite failed – and, better for him, he’ll know the government’s willing to lie to the media to cover up Dodd’s involvement. If you’re caught by the police, you’re on the news. You can wipe him out by going public.’

‘Unless he can reach Amanda and she dies if we talk,’ Groote said.

‘Even if he doesn’t, we go public, and the government shuts us up or discredits us, or we talk and we send Frost to pharmaceutical purgatory,’ Miles said. ‘It would kill public acceptance of the research, set it back for years. No. I have to get the formula and then get it to a company that’ll develop it responsibly.’ Miles stared at the photo of Sorenson on the computer screen. A nagging tugged at the back of his brain. The facts didn’t click together in sweet harmony; facts didn’t always; but he couldn’t put his hand on what bothered him.

‘This is a lot, man, thanks,’ Groote said.

Victor wheeled over to Groote. ‘Would you please excuse us, Dennis? I need to speak with Miles privately. Thank you.’

Groote stood and walked out the door without a word.

Victor waited until he heard Groote return to the backyard patio and close the sliding glass door. ‘You can’t trust him.’

‘I know. But I need him. I can’t fight Sorenson alone.’

‘Groote’s ex-FBI. He has a private security firm. You already know he’s not terribly interested in following the law.’

‘Despite his rough edges, he still has that federal air. It’s the only thing that gives me hope he might act decently in the end.’

‘He might need Frost,’ Victor said, ‘more than you or I do. Now… I know you’re angry with Nathan for not telling you the truth about Dodd. But you need to know Nathan’s story. A bit of careful cajoling and a promise of ten free hours of highly expensive database work got me his file via the Department of Defense.’

Miles held up a hand, stood. ‘Don’t tell me. I don’t care.’

Victor leaned forward, tapped Miles on the knee with his prosthetic arm. ‘You asked me to help you, eyes wide open. I’m telling you to listen, ears wide open.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Cleopatra,’ Victor called to one of the computers, ‘play Ruiz video file.’

Prompted by voice-activated software, the computer began to show a film. A nervous Nathan, clean, hair damp, but his nose broken, his eyes bruised, his face pitted and bandaged, sat staring into the camera.