it matters to him that Jim died?”
Bayard pulled up a file on his laptop. “Trust me, don’t go there.”
Saunders had feelings—just not very many of them.
The first time Marc had met Saunders had been over twenty years ago at the memorial service of Todd Fischer, Sara’s uncle and his friend Steve’s father. At that time, Saunders had been almost single-handedly responsible for the cover-up of the Nordika dive tragedy in which Todd Fischer had died, and the leaked file that claimed the “missing” naval dive team had deserted. His actions, aimed at protecting the Navy’s reputation, had reaped him professional advancement, but with the recent recovery of the bodies of the naval dive team in a mass grave in Juarez, Colombia, Saunders was hurting.
When Lissa turned to leave, Marc stopped her. “Did you drive in today, or take the Metro?”
Her expression was dry. “I don’t have a dedicated parking space so I’m afraid it’s the Metro. Why?”
“I’ll ring down and get security to escort you to the station. Until further notice, you can drive in. I’ll authorize a parking space.”
Her expression didn’t change, but Lissa was nobody’s fool. She had a double degree in foreign affairs and business administration. She ran his office like a well-oiled machine, and when it came to understanding the nuances of the intelligence world, she was as sharp as a seasoned agent. “You think it’s Lopez.”
He kept his expression impassive. “I’m just taking precautions.”
After calling security, then arranging that one of the visitor spaces be redesignated, he studied the file on Lopez. The moment in the morgue when Herschel had described the shooter replayed in his mind. The fact that Lopez had shot Corcoran himself was significant. Lopez’s network was in tatters, most of his key people behind bars. Financially, he had to be hurting.
The fact that Lopez was killing to an agenda made him predictable and vulnerable. In strategic terms, Marc had the upper hand. He could play the decoy game and use offensive surveillance tactics. With the resources at his disposal, he could guarantee Lopez’s capture. He just had to get Lopez before he killed again.
* * *
Just after six, Marc drove into the garage of his apartment building, collected his mail and newspaper and took the elevator to his third-floor apartment. Leaving his briefcase in the hall, he tossed the mail and the newspaper on the dining table and walked through to the bathroom. If it had been a normal evening, he would have worked off the tension by going for an extended run, but Corcoran’s death had ruled out that option. Until they found the shooter, he and his staff couldn’t afford to expose themselves any more than necessary.
Feeling restless, his muscles tight—a side effect of the fierce anger that had gripped him when he had seen Corcoran’s body in the morgue—he showered and changed into sweats. He could think of another way to relieve his tension, but that option wasn’t viable. He wasn’t into instant sex, and lately he didn’t have time for relationships. Snagging the remote on the way to the kitchen, he flicked on the television and caught the end of the evening news as he sipped a cold beer and reheated day-old pizza.
Still feeling edgy, then outright pissed when he caught the sports news and saw that the Falcons had lost to the Giants, he ate, rinsed his dishes and stacked them in the dishwasher—not a complicated process when he’d drunk the beer direct from the bottle and the pizza had arrived encased in cardboard. When the kitchen was returned to its usual sterile state, he checked his mail and scanned the newspaper.
A story on the second page caught his attention. The column was small, the details sketchy. Sourced from a piece published in a local Shreveport paper after the death of Ben Fischer, the article rehashed the scandal surrounding the Nordika—a ship that had been hijacked out of the port of Lubek on the Baltic Sea near the end of the Second World War. The wreck sunk off the coast of Costa Rica, had become central in the investigation into both the Chavez cartel and the cabal, and had been the scene of the mass murder of the team of Navy divers that Todd Fischer, Sara’s uncle and Ben Fischer’s brother, had commanded.
The article mentioned the fact that Ben had brought back possessions belonging to Todd Fischer. Marc had been aware that Ben had gone to Costa Rica to assist in the search for his brother and the seven other missing divers, but to his knowledge, he hadn’t brought anything back. If he had, Todd’s son, Steve, a CIA agent, who had been active in the recent investigation, would have received the items and Marc would have known about it.
If Ben had brought items back and concealed them, there could only be one reason: they would somehow have added fuel to the scandal and disgrace surrounding the disappearances. If that was the case, then the items were undoubtedly connected to the investigation, and he needed to see them.
But that wasn’t all that worried him.
If Ben had brought back material that could provide a lead in the ongoing investigation, then he wasn’t the only one who would be interested in that fact. Lopez and Helene Reichmann—the head of the cabal—would have a stake in recovering what could be incriminating evidence.
There was also another angle. No documentation pertaining to the cache of looted gold, artwork and artifacts the Nordika was purported to have carried had ever been found but, thanks to the media, the legend was now public knowledge. Despite the fact that the Navy had dived on the wreck a number of times and grid searched the area, and that the Nordika was now cleared for recreational diving, the treasure hunters were still lining up.
He studied the newspaper article again. It had been picked up by one of the national dailies, so it was too late to put a lid on it. Chances were there was nothing in it, that whatever Ben Fischer had brought back from Costa Rica had been nothing more remarkable than his brother’s personal effects. But Bayard didn’t like leaving anything to chance.
Picking up the phone, he dialed Sara’s number.
The phone rang several times then clicked through to her answering service. He left a message.
Just before he hung up he thought he heard a small click.
He didn’t normally conduct business from his land line. When he was at home he liked to keep his life as ordinary and real as he could. If he had to make work calls, he had his cell and a satellite phone in his briefcase, but he hadn’t considered a cautionary call to Sara as work.
Picking up the receiver, he listened, but aside from a faintly hollow background sound, all he could hear was the dial tone. The building was old, a grand Victorian lady with high, ornate ceilings and a creaking lift—as far removed from his high-tech day environment as he could get. Sometimes when it rained, the electrics got a little freaky, which could explain the noise. Lately, with the heat and humidity, they’d had rain most days. That probably explained the sound he’d heard.
Frowning, he set the receiver back down.
Four
Shreveport, Louisiana
Sara Fischer stepped up onto the airy veranda that wrapped around three sides of the Fischer family homestead. The house, which had been built in the 1920s by her grandfather, stood nestled in an enclave of bronze-leaved magnolias, towering oaks and a tangle of rhododendrons and dogwoods. The lawns were neatly trimmed, courtesy of a mowing service, but the fields, now empty of cattle, and the For Sale signs that had already sprouted along the roadside, gave the property a derelict
