LITMIR.BIZ

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chicken. “She likes you.”

      Bridges started on his food. Lissa had been a reluctant focus for Bridges ever since he had moved into the office next to Marc’s. The combination of personalities was decidedly offbeat; Bridges the warrior monk, his principles as sharp-edged as a blade, and Lissa, divorced, sweetly cynical and with a city girl’s love of all things shopping. If anything ever happened it would be explosive. “You know you’re driving her crazy.”

      Bridges checked out his suit sleeve. “No markdown ticket from Saks. It’s not ever going to happen.”

      Just after five, Rear Admiral Saunders, Director of Special Projects and Marc’s boss, stepped into Marc’s office. “Any progress?”

      Marc sat back in his chair. “Nothing concrete yet. I’ve pulled Willard and Rossi off the task force. We’re tightening security.”

      He had closed down surveillance options around the building, but blocking every known camera wasn’t a cure-all. It was easy enough to install a hidden camera, and satellite coverage was a wild card he couldn’t control. If Lopez, or whoever it was who was targeting his team, wanted to watch them, there wasn’t much he could do to prevent that.

      He’d also put a team on running traffic cameras and collecting security tapes from every business within a four-block radius of the café where Corcoran had been shot. It was painstaking work and the results might not be conclusive, but his gut instinct said that Lopez had been the shooter and that he’d had to park a vehicle somewhere. If they could score a license plate, they would be closer than they had ever been to finally capturing him. “I’ve moved Jennifer and her daughter into a hotel until the funeral’s over.”

      He had also posted security around the house and issued a gag order for the press. If the fact that Corcoran had been an agent investigating Lopez were released, they had an even bigger problem. It was a remote possibility that Jennifer and her daughter could become targets themselves, and a given that if the media spilled the full story, every weirdo and head case in the country would crawl out of the woodwork to confuse an investigation that was already in trouble.

      Saunders’s expression was impassive as he listened to the details. “I talked to the director half an hour ago. He’s asked me to keep him briefed.”

      The remainder of the conversation was to-the-point and predictable. Saunders had a reputation for cleaning up messes and cutting through red tape with a facile skill that, over a career that had spanned decades, had won him more friends than enemies. That political savvy had shot him through the naval ranks and into the upper echelons of the intelligence sector. He was sharp and efficient, and it was no secret that he was standing in line for the job of Director of National Intelligence and a seat on the National Security Council. He needed a media circus now about as badly as he needed a heart attack.

      The inference was clear. Any shit, and he would pin it to Marc’s ass.

      Saunders exited with a crisp, “Keep me informed.”

      Lissa stepped into Marc’s office bare seconds after Saunders was out of earshot. She was on the point of leaving, the strap of her purse slung over one shoulder. “Do you think 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

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