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Back in Putnam he gave his statement to Harper. Afterward, he went to his cottage and showered, scrubbing extra hard, then changed into clean clothes and phoned Campbell to give him a fuller report. It was late but he could always leave a message. However, the man picked up on the second ring.
“Okay, this is getting weirder every minute,” noted the retired general after Devine had made his report.
“The question is, is it connected to the Silkwell case, or something else, meaning me?”
“The group in Geneva, you mean?”
“They were speaking Farsi and I heard a woman’s voice.”
“You thinking the woman on the train?”
“It’s possible.”
“How would they have tracked you down so fast?”
“There’s only one way, sir.”
Campbell said, “Wait, you think we have amoleinourorganization?”
“We wouldn’t be the first.”
“I can’t believe—”
Devine cut him off, because, one, he was tired, and two, he was pissed. “What I know to be true is that two Middle Easterners and one Asian guy knew exactly where I was and almost punched my ticket for good. I want to know why. So should you.”
Campbell was a fine leader, which is why he simply said, “You’re right. On it. Stay tuned and watch yourself.”
Devine put his phone away and looked around his room.Right. Watch myself. But who’s watching me?
Best-case scenario: He had seriously reduced their manpower resources and they would have to pull back and regroup, which would give him time. They would also probably know that the feds would be all over this, another reason to lie low for a while.
Worst-case scenario: They would redouble their efforts and try to finish the job tonight because he wouldn’t be expecting it.
And worst-case scenario is what you always prepped for.
He walked out to his rental, grabbed his go bag, and walked back to his cottage. He waited ten minutes and then turned the lights out. The rain had stopped and the sky had cleared. It was actually warmer than it had been.
He constantly checked the door and the windows, looking for anyone watching him. An hour passed. He opened the window in the bathroom, and knelt there for five minutes, watching, listening, and using his sense of smell to detect anything that might do him harm.
Satisfied, he clambered out and closed the window. He paralleled the main road for a quarter mile, then turned toward it and picked up his pace. His Army jog was designed to set a pace, not too fast and not too slow, that he could maintain pretty much forever with a sixty-pound pack on his back.
He reached Jocelyn Point and jogged up the main drive. He had taken great pains and used all his skills to make sure he was not being followed either by vehicle or on foot. He had even scanned the skies for drones. He saw Dak’s Harley with a customized rain cover over it. Alex’s bike was still parked on the covered porch.
He walked over to the art studio and tried the door. It was locked. He took a pick gun from his go bag, and twenty seconds later he opened the door and slipped inside.
He looked around the dark space, took in the smells of the paints and the charcoal pencils, and the peculiar aroma of drying clay. And he could also sense the woman’s shampoo and the body wash, which he had earlier imprinted in his brain in case it became important later.
That also meant it had not been so long ago that Alex had left her studio.
He checked his watch. After three in the morning.
But what did they say about artists: When the creative bell sounded you needed to answer the call no matter the time. He used his phone light to look around at her works in process and he marveled at both the woman’s obvious skill and imagination. He didn’t know which one he admired more.
Then he came to a sketch he had not seen before, because it hadn’t existed when he had been here previously.
She had gotten the jawline right, and the eyes, too. Deep-set and brooding, looking angry even when the person wasn’t. The neck was a bit thicker than he had thought, at least in perspective to the head, but everyone had their interpretation.
