Judith Leon - Code Name - Dove

When he knocked on the door, Graywing called, “Come in.”

Nova Blair sat on an examining table, her back to the door and her head tilted slightly down so the long hair draped her face. Dr. Graywing was daubing the back of Blair’s head with gauze.

At the sight of the wound, his anger rekindled. He was angry that by bad fortune Nova Blair had been the one to pursue the assassin. “Legendary,” his phone contact had said. Legendary for what? He moved to the other side of the room so he could see their faces.

“The assassin’s dead,” he said. “Suicide capsule I’d guess.”

His partner didn’t say anything.

Graywing shook her head and said, “Ghastly.”

“How’s your head?” he said to Blair.

Without moving she said, “It’s nothing.”

Graywing clucked. “Not so. It is a deep, two-inch long scalp wound. She insists she won’t remain here for observation, but I’ve told her for the next twenty-four hours she must look out for signs of concussion. Drowsiness or nausea.”

“How’d it happen?”

Blair shrugged. “I took the elevator and managed to beat him to the first floor, but I couldn’t hold him.” She spoke softly, her answer dragging like a whipped dog. Very unlike the confident woman he’d met a couple of hours ago.

“I suppose he just barged right past you?”

Nova Blair raised her chin slowly. She straightened her shoulders and her hair fell back from her face. “There was a bit more to it than that.” Her eyes had taken on a glacial, emerald chill.

He stuck his hands into his soggy suit pockets. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that quite like it sounded.”

“Yes, you did. Exactly like it sounded.” She lowered her head again and Graywing clamped another staple. A sickening sound. He was glad he couldn’t see what the doctor was doing. His partner said, almost as if to herself, “There was something bizarre about him. I’ve never felt that kind of strength in any man.”

A loud silence followed, as if the room was holding its breath. Agent Blair finally broke it. “You were telling us, Dr. Graywing, before we heard the screams, that there were three things Wiley said. First, that the terrorists had gas masks. Second, that Wiley smelled burning coffee. We’d like to hear the third. Agent Cardone, you’ll find my recorder inside my purse, on top. What was the third thing, Dr. Graywing?”

The doctor let her gloved hands hover in the air a moment, obviously thinking, while Joe found and started the recorder. After a brief pause the doctor plunged ahead, stapling as she talked. “It was the oddest part. I regret very much he can’t tell you himself, because I’m not absolutely sure I remember exactly how he put it.”

Joe said, “Do your best.”

“Well, Wiley said when he was a kid he loved dinosaurs. He’d memorized most of their names. He said he swore that when the man in the gas mask ran past his door he yelled out the name of a dinosaur. Terratornis. You’re stapled,” she finally said.

Nova raised her head, twisted around and the look of puzzlement on her face matched his own feelings perfectly. “A dinosaur name?” she repeated.

“That’s what Wiley said. He said he thought Terratornis was a kind of dinosaur, and he was sure that was what the man yelled out.”

“Well, it’s as good a lead as we’ve got,” Blair said. She stood and faced him with a new confidence in her eyes and said, “Let’s see what headquarters has to say about all this.”

Langley, Virginia, 4:30 p.m.

May 16

After passing innumerable security checks with Agent Cardone beside her, Nova made it to the seventh floor of the modern white complex in Langley—the heart of the CIA. In a very few minutes she and Cardone would meet the Deputy Director of Operations.

“Price’s office is to the right,” Nova said.

“How’s your head?” Cardone asked with obvious concern. “Your hair does a great job of covering the staples.”

“Doing just fine, thanks.” Although her head still throbbed where the wound was, Nova felt sharp and focused.

Everyone knew Claiton Price’s secretary, Cleo Jackson, by sight—always a colorfully dressed black butterfly in a field of blue, black and gray moths. She swept around her desk and hugged Nova. “It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen you, girl.” She held Nova at arm’s length. “As lovely as ever.”

Nova hugged Cleo again. Their friendship had formed during six months when Nova had done her CIA training.

“I saw the photos you did for Maximum Extreme,” Cleo added. “The ones of the guy sky-surfing. Woman, it looks positively crazy. Skydiving is bad enough. Trying to surf the wind is just…”

“Just great fun.”

“Would you ever let that sweet niece of yours do it?”

“Maggie?” Nova envisioned Maggie leaping from a plane, her heart pounding, her imagination soaring at the enormous great fall ahead, her skyboard stuck to her boots. “Maggie’s a lot like me, Cleo. She’ll do what she wants to do, whether it would scare the daylights out of me to have her do it or not.”

“Well then, I just hope neither of you gets splattered onto some farmer’s field.”

Cleo finally seemed to notice Nova’s partner. “Agent Cardone?”

“Right,” he said. Nova could only imagine what Joe Cardone might be thinking. He’d probably never before been anywhere near the DDO’s office, and he must be wondering why a contract agent was close friends with the top dog’s secretary.

Cleo pulled her smiling lips into a serious line. “The Deputy Director is expecting you both. I’m sorry, my dear, that once again when we meet it’s over bad news. How long do you think they will keep you today after you leave here? Could we find time for coffee?”

Nova looked at Joe. “We should know our schedule pretty soon, shouldn’t we?”

Claiton M. Price sat in his chrome-and-black-leather swivel chair with his back to the office door.

Price stood, circled the desk and stuck out his hand to her.

Nova smiled, took the DDO’s hand, and shook it. It was a firm, cordial and hearty handshake.

“It’s a true delight and pleasure to see you again,” he said to her.

Price then shook hands with Cardone. “Good to meet you, Agent Cardone. I understand you prefer Joe rather than Joseph.”

“Yes, sir. A pleasure to meet you, sir.”

Price retraced his path and eased into his chair. She heard the leather creak. “Please, sit,” he said indicating the pair of chairs in front of his desk. “I understand you’ll be debriefed later about Fairbanks. What I want to do now is put you into the broad picture with respect to Operation Jacaranda. Our government is facing a formidable threat to our sovereignty. To be a bit more precise, four of the Big Five nations are being blackmailed.

“In general, here’s the situation,” Price continued. “Over a year ago, a Transoceanic jetliner crashed in the Pacific. You may have read that no cause was determined. What hasn’t been reported is that a madman—he’s thought to be part of a larger terrorist organization—somehow incapacitated the crew and the plane crashed because it ran out of fuel. We know because a fax the President received almost simultaneously said the plane was downed as an attention-getter.”

“How many people on board?” she asked.

“Three hundred and sixty.”

The number stamped itself into Nova’s brain as if delivered with a branding iron. Three hundred and sixty innocent people had perished. In every project she accepted for the Company, real people had been affected. Not some governmental agency or because of some theoretical governmental need.

Price leaned back and laced his fingers together. For a moment he studied her carefully. The man knew very well what it would take to involve her. She felt her new partner shift in his seat, as if impatient to get on to the details.