“So Ben’s their focal point.”
“Yes, and that’s fine with me.” Pritchard opened a laptop, tapped a few keys. A video began to play—two men running, one clearly injured. “Someone tried to kill your attacker and Ben Forsberg last night in a parking garage off Second Street. Bullet holes all along one wall, blood. We got a solid image of Mr. Nice Guy’s face from the security camera.” Pritchard tapped more keys; the photos blew up, focusing on the men’s faces. One was Ben Forsberg. The other was the big-shouldered man who’d hit her and locked her in the closet and inadvertently saved her life.
“Yes. That’s him.”
“We’ve had facial recognition programs running to see if we can find a match on him.” Pritchard tapped her fingertips together. “Kidwell, poor son of a bitch, he was much closer to striking gold than he knew.” She clicked on another file, conjured another photo on the screen.
In the picture, the man was a decade younger, had brown hair. His old jaw was more pointed and his nose was thicker, more hawkish then. He was plain, neither handsome nor ugly. A face that you wouldn’t remember. But the eyes—the blue eyes that watched her over the barrel of the gun—were the same. Intense. “I think it’s him. He’s had minor surgery, there on the nose and cheeks and chin. Who is he?”
“Randall Choate,” Pritchard said. “He was a top CIA assassin. He massively screwed up a CIA mission in Indonesia ten years ago, got caught. He was jailed near Samarinda, and then died in an escape attempt while crossing the Mahakam River. An Indonesian police captain testified he shot Choate four times in the back.”
“I thought corpses didn’t keep so well in humid climates.”
“The body was never recovered. Police assumed that it was swept down to the Makassar Strait and out to sea.”
“The police captain lied.”
“Clearly bribed,” Pritchard said. “Choate’s the key, Joanna, he’s the smoking gun.” An odd joy tinged Pritchard’s voice—driven by the scent of the prey close at hand, Vochek thought. “He’s been working for someone for ten years, and it’s not the CIA, it’s not any agency. We find him, maybe we find our first real unapproved group inside the government. Our first major success in bringing down the unauthorized, illegal dirty dogs.”
The big prize; this guy could be it. The key to the suspected private CIA, the biggest of the illicit groups. Shivers of anticipation, of fear, of resolve, traveled down Vochek’s spine.
She studied the man’s face. It held no weakness, but last night he had been weak; he should have killed her when he had the chance.
She would bring him down.
Margaret Pritchard closed her laptop. “Your work has never mattered more, Joanna. This is our best chance. I want to feel this group wriggling right under my thumb. Especially if Choate killed Kidwell.” She gave her a half smile. “I’m counting on you to give them to me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She paused. “He could have killed me, he didn’t; why would he kill Kidwell?”
“Unknown. And we don’t know the relationship between Forsberg, Choate, and these Arabs. Make no assumptions. These people could have all been in league together. These alliances often fracture into bloodshed.”
“And what, Choate and these Arabs kill Kidwell and the contractors and then Choate kills the Arabs?” She shook her head.
“Well, we’ll only find out how they all connect by finding Choate and Forsberg.”
“My cell phone’s gone. I’m assuming that Choate took it and still has it.”
“So here’s a new one. Call them.” She handed Vochek a phone.
Vochek dialed her old number, said after her voice mail greeting, “I’d like my phone back. And to talk. Maybe we can help each other.” She gave her new number and hung up. “They may not turn the phone on so it can’t be traced. What now?”
“You say good-bye to me. I’ve got a private jet ready to take you to Dallas. Adam Reynolds tried to call this Delia Moon woman there four times yesterday, before he died. I’d like to know why. She was in no shape to answer questions when I called her; she didn’t know about Adam’s death. She went into hysterics. I warned her, rather sternly, she was not to speak with the press.” Pritchard glanced out the window; they were turning into the Austin airport, heading toward a section for private planes. “And I want to know if there’s any connection between Ben Forsberg and Nicky Lynch, other than that business card. If Forsberg is working with Choate, there has to be an earlier time in their lives where they intersect. And see what else you can learn about Ben’s life with his wife. She died in Hawaii, but they lived in Dallas. Anything else?”