James Patterson - London Bridges

"Joe, I don't understand why nobody seems to know who he is. What he looks like. His real name. That's the story I've been getting for over a year now, but how can it be? How could we work with England to extricate an important KGB guy, and not know who he is. Something bad happened in Paris-but nobody knows what. How is it possible? What am I missing? What has everybody missed so far?"

Joe Cahill spread his large workingman hands, palms up. "Look, I obviously don't have all the pieces, either. It's my understanding that he was undercover when he was inside Russia. Supposedly, he was a young, very cagey agent, which would mean he's still only in his early forties. But I've also read reports that he's in his late fifties or sixties now. That he was actually pretty high up in the KGB when he defected. I've also heard that the Wolf is female. I think he spreads the rumors himself. I'm almost certain that's what he does."

"Joe, you and your old partner were his controls once he got here."

"Our boss was Tom Weir, who wasn't the director yet. Actually, the team included three other guys-Maddock, Boykin, and Graebner. Maybe you should talk to them."

Cahill rose from his easy chair. He went and opened French doors leading out to a stone patio. A cooling breeze swept into the room.

"I never met him, Alex. Neither did my partner, Corky Hancock. Or the rest of the team-Jay, Sam, Clark. That's the way it was set up from the beginning. It was the deal he brokered when he came out of Russia. He'd help us bring down the old KGB, name names there, and here in the U.S. But nobody got to see him. Believe me, he delivered names and information that helped bring down the evil empire."

I nodded. "Right, he keeps his promises. But now he's on the loose, and he's established his own crime network-and a whole lot more."

Cahill took a bite of his coffee cake, then talked with his mouth full. "Apparently, that's exactly what he did. Of course, we had no idea that he would go bad. Neither did the Brits. Maybe Tom Weir did. I don't know."

I needed some air. I got up and walked to the open doors. A couple of horses were hugging a white wooden fence under the shade of oak trees. I turned to face Joe Cahill.

"Okay, so you can't help me with the Wolf. What can you help me with, Joe?"

Cahill frowned and looked confused. "I'm sorry, Alex, not much. I'm an old plow horse, not good for much of anything anymore. Coffee cake's good, right?"

I shook my head. "Not really, Joe. Trust me, store-bought's never the same."

Cahill's face sagged, then he grinned but his eyes weren't smiling. "So now we're gonna be honest, I guess. Why the hell are you here? What's this about? Talk to Uncle Joe. What's going on? I'm kind of lost. You're playing way over my head."

I stepped back into the room. "Oh, it's all about the Wolf, Joe. See, I think you and your old partner can help us a lot-even if you never met him in person, and I'm not so sure that you didn't."

Cahill finally threw up his hands in frustration. "Alex, this is a little crazy, you know. I feel like we're running around in circles. I'm too old and ornery for this shit."

"Yeah, well, it's been a tough couple of weeks for everybody. A lot of craziness going around. You don't know the half of it." But I'd had enough of "Uncle" Joe Cahill's crap. I showed him a photograph.

"Take a good look. This is the woman who murdered CIA Director Weir at the Hoover Building."

Cahill shook his head. "Okay. So?"

"Her name is Nikki Williams and she's former army. She operated as a mercenary for a while. A sniper, a good one. Lots of private contracts on her résumé. I know what you're going to say, Joe- so?"

"Yeah. So?"

"Once upon a time, she worked for you and your partner, Hancock. Your agency shared your files with us, Joe. New era of cooperation. Here's the real twist- I think you hired her to kill Weir.

"Maybe you did it through Geoffrey Shafer, but you were involved. I think you work for the Wolf. Maybe you always have-maybe that was part of his deal, too."

"You're crazy, and you're dead wrong!" Joe Cahill stood up and brushed crumbs from his trousers. "You know what else, I think you'd better leave now. I'm sorry as hell I invited you into my house. This little talk of ours is over."

"No, Joe," I said, "actually, it's just getting started."

I made a call on my cell phone. Minutes later, agents from Langley and Quantico swarmed onto the property and arrested Joe Cahill. They cuffed him and dragged him out of his nice, peaceful house in the country.

We had a lead now, maybe a good one.

Joe Cahill was transported to a CIA safe house somewhere in the Alleghenies. The grounds and the home looked ordinary enough: a two-story fieldstone farmhouse surrounded by grapevines and fruit trees, the entryway thick with wisteria. But this wasn't going to be a safe house for Uncle Joe.

The former agent was bound and gagged, then left alone in a small room for several hours.

To think about his future-and his past.

A CIA doctor arrived: a tall, paunchy man who looked to be in his late thirties, horsey, WASPish. His name was Jay O'Connell. He told us that an experimental truth serum had been approved for use on Cahill. O'Connell explained that variations of the drug were currently being used on terrorist prisoners at various prisons.

"It's a barbiturate, like sodium amytal and brevital," he said. "All of a sudden the subject will feel slightly drunk, diminished senses. After that, he won't be able to defend himself very well against prodding questions. At least, we hope not. Subjects can react differently. We'll see with this guy. He's older, so I'm fairly confident we'll nail him."

"What's the worst we can expect?" I asked O'Connell.

"That'd be cardiac arrest. Oh hell, it's a joke. Well, actually, I guess it isn't."

It was early in the morning when Joe Cahill was moved out of the small holding room and brought into a larger one in the cellar with no windows. His blindfold and gag were removed, but not the binds around his wrists. We sat him in a straight-backed chair.

Cahill blinked his eyes repeatedly before he could tell where he was and who else was in the room with him.

"Disorientation techniques. Won't work worth a crap on me," he said. "This is really dumb. Nonsense. It's horseshit."

"Yes, we think so, too," said Dr. O'Connell. He turned to one of the agents, Larry Ladove. "Roll up his sleeve for me anyway. There we go. This will pinch. Then it'll sting. Then you'll spill out your guts to us."

For the next three and a half hours, Cahill continued to slur his words badly and to act like a man who had half a dozen drinks or more in him, and was ready for more.

"I know what you guys are doing," Uncle Joe said, and shook a finger at the three of us in the room with him.

"We know what you're doing, too," said the CIA guy, Ladove. "And what you've done."

"Haven't done anything. Innocent until proven guilty. Besides, if you know so much, why are we talking?"

"Joe, where is the Wolf?" I asked him. "What country? Give us something."

"Don't know," Cahill said, then laughed as if something he'd said was funny. "All these years, I don't know. I don't. "

"But you've met him?" I said.

"Never seen him. Not once, not even in the beginning. Very smart, clever. Paranoid, maybe. Doesn't miss a trick, though. Interpol might have seen him during the transport. Tom Weir? The Brits, maybe. Had him for a while before we got him." We'd already checked with London, but they had nothing substantial about the defection. And there was nothing about a mistake in Paris.

"How long have you been working with him?" I asked Cahill.

He looked for an answer on the ceiling. "Working for him, you mean?"