David Baldacci - Stone Cold

“He comes all the time to see her grave,” Stone added.

“Who cares?” Annabelle snapped. “But for a lousy ten thousand bucks that this scum ripped off Bagger, she’d be alive today.”

“I never thought he’d come after your mum. I don’t know who tipped Bagger off where she was. If I did know, I’d have killed the bastard.”

“Save it for someone who cares.”

“And not a day goes by that I don’t think about having my hands around Jerry Bagger’s neck.”

“Really? So why haven’t you? It’s not like you don’t know where the guy lives.”

“He’s got a damn army around him.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

Paddy stared at her curiously. “I heard Bagger ran into some trouble recently. Scuttlebutt around the con world. Was that you?”

Annabelle rose and opened the door. “Get out.”

“Annie-”

“Get out!”

Paddy left, stumbling against the wall as he did so. Annabelle looked at Stone. “I’ll never forgive you for this.”

“I’m not looking for forgiveness.” He stood.

“So why did you really bring him here?”

“Why don’t you think about it and see if you can come up with the answer on your own. It might mean more to you that way.”

Stone walked out the door and Annabelle kicked it shut.

TWO OF BAGGER’S MEN discovered that Milton had been to the hotel across the street from the Pompeii. They talked to the clerk on duty and also to Helen, the masseuse who’d worked on Milton. Confronted with Bagger’s grim foot soldiers, neither held back anything. And Milton clearly was not a cop or a fed. The call was made later that morning to Bagger with this information.

“Pick him and his friend up, find out what they’re up to and then kill them,” was Bagger’s response. “Then make sure Dolores knows about it. If that doesn’t shut her up for good, I know something else that will.”

The men drove to Milton and Reuben’s motel on the outskirts of the casino strip, where Bagger’s surveillance team had told them the men were staying.

They pulled to a stop in front of the motel and got out. Milton and Reuben were on the second floor, room 214.

They went in hard and fast. Milton was on the bed packing his bag.

One of Bagger’s men said, “Okay, you sorry sack of-” That was all he could manage because his jaw was cracked by Reuben’s hammer fist. He dropped to the carpet, out cold. Reuben grabbed the other fellow, lifted him up and slammed him against the wall, laid a massive elbow into the back of his head and then let him fall limp to the floor.

Reuben quickly rifled through their pockets, taking the ammo from their pistols and their car keys. He flipped through their IDs. Pompeii Casino. They were Bagger’s goons. He had watched them drive up in the Hummer, slipped into the bathroom and pounced when they’d burst in.

“How’d you know they were coming here?” Milton asked as he gazed at the two unconscious men.

“I figured if they killed that Cindy chick, they’d probably be keeping a close eye on the mother. They must’ve spotted you last night talking to her, spent the time in between retracing your steps, found out you were interested in this Robby Thomas guy and Bagger ordered a little visit.”

“Pretty good deduction.”

“Ten years in military intelligence wasn’t entirely wasted on me. Let’s go.”

They loaded their bags in Reuben’s truck. Five minutes later they were heading south as fast as Reuben’s decade-old ride could carry them.

“Reuben, I’m scared,” Milton said as they hit the interstate.

“You should be scared, because I’m shitting in my pants.”

CARTER GRAY WAS BRIEFING the current CIA director on the matter of Rayfield Solomon. “I think it’s someone close to Solomon,” Gray told the director. “The picture that was sent, they wanted me to know why I was being killed.”

“Did Solomon have any family?” the director asked. “I know about the case, of course, but it was before my time here.”

“Solomon was involved with a Russian. That’s what started the whole thing. We only knew her first name, Lesya.”

“And after Solomon died, what happened?”

“She disappeared. Actually, she disappeared before he died. We believed it was prearranged. They knew we were closing in. We got him, but not her.”

“And this was how long ago?”

Gray said, “Over thirty years.”

“Well, that means if she’s still alive I doubt it’s her running around killing people.”

“I don’t believe that it is. But that doesn’t mean she’s not involved. She was always very good at manipulation.”

“You know that much about her, but not her surname?”

“Actually, since she’s Russian, she would have three names: her given name or imia , a patronymic name or otchestvo , and a surname or familia .” By Gray’s condescending expression, he could’ve finished this mini-lecture off with the words “you idiot,” but he wisely refrained.

“Cold War baggage,” the director replied. “Not really our focus anymore.”

“You might want to rethink your priorities. While you’re placing all your bets on Muhammad, Putin, Chávez and Hu are eating this country’s lunch. And they make Al Qaeda look like kindergarteners as far as their potential for destruction on a large scale.”

The director cleared his throat. “Yes, well, how come you didn’t try to find this Lesya back then?”

“We had other priorities. Solomon had been eliminated. Lesya had gone deep underground. We made a tactical decision that using additional assets to pursue her was not worth the cost. We did believe that we had for all intents and purposes put her out of commission. And for over three decades she has been.”

“Until now, at least you believe. So any associates of this Lesya we have to account for?”

“We have to find that out.”

“What specifically do you know about the woman?”

“She was one of the best counterintelligence agents the Soviet Union ever produced. I’ve never seen her in person, only photo images. Tall and beautiful, she hardly fit the model of a spy because she tended to stick out. But she proved that stereotype wrong. She had more sheer nerve than just about anyone in the field. Indeed, she was aptly named, as Lesya means ‘bravery’ in Russian. She didn’t work directly for the KGB. She was a cut above that. We always believed that her chain of command went right to the Soviet leadership. She worked in this country for a time, then England, France, Japan, China and all the other typical high-level assignments. She did her best turning others. She recruited Solomon, secretly married him and turned him against his country. His treachery cost America dearly.”

“How do you know they were married?”

“Let me correct that. We believe that they were married. It was based on facts uncovered at the time. Largely circumstantial, but taken together, it looks like they walked down the aisle.”

“And he killed himself?”

“That’s what the file says, yes. I believe it was both from guilt at what he’d done to hurt his homeland and also the fact that we were closing in on him.”

“But you said before that ‘we’ got him. So did we kill him and the suicide was window dressing? Or did he really commit suicide?”

“Whether we did it or he killed himself, it doesn’t really matter; he would have been executed for treason in any event.” From Gray’s tone it was clear he was not going to say any more on that particular subject, even to the director of CIA.