as the diver knows what he’s doing.’
‘How sure are you that the right plane’s been found?’ Hawkins said after a few moments. ‘There must be lots of wrecked aircraft at the bottom of the Mediterranean. What’s your evidence?’
John Nicholson shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘It’s mainly circumstantial at the moment, but I think it’s convincing enough. You remember the satellite watch we placed on the crash site?’ Hawkins nodded. ‘OK. A few days ago a work boat, which N-PIC later identified as a diving tender, was spotted in the area. In fact, it was anchored within a quarter of a mile of the original impact point. Only one image was available and that showed no activity – just the boat riding at anchor with nobody on board.’
‘And from that it was inferred that there were divers underwater and at the wreck site? That sounds very thin, John.’
Nicholson nodded. ‘I agree,’ he said, ‘but I did regard it as a wake-up call and requested N-PIC to take additional pictures there every time the bird passed overhead. There was no other activity for a couple of days, then another series of images all showing the same scene – the same diving tender in the same place. This time, we could see the diver as well, and he was hauling three aqualung sets back into the boat. My diving specialist tells me that using three aqualungs suggests either a very lengthy or a very deep dive, and the logical conclusion is that he went down deep. Very few divers will stay in mid-water, as the most interesting marine activity is usually on or just above the seabed.’
‘It still sounds circumstantial to me,’ Hawkins said. ‘What you’ve got is a diving tender spotted in the area. That doesn’t prove the diver found the wreck itself. In fact, we don’t even know for sure that there’s anything left to find after thirty years underwater.’
Nicholson nodded again. ‘Yes, but there’s more. The last frame received showed that one end of the rope he’d secured his aqualungs to was still in the water and there was almost certainly something else still attached to it.’
‘Could have been a weight,’ Hawkins suggested, ‘or just another aqualung, maybe.’
‘Yes, indeed it could,’ Nicholson agreed, ‘but I don’t think so. N-PIC counted the aqualung racks visible on the tender, and that number matched the sets you can see in the pictures, so I don’t think it was an extra lung. Furthermore, the diver cleated down the rope after he’d got the aqualungs up on deck. If all that was still in the water was a weight at the end of the rope, why would he bother to do that?’
Hawkins shook his head. ‘I’ve no idea.’
‘I think this diver found the wreck and retrieved something from it. The reason he didn’t haul it straight into the boat was because he wanted to make sure that nobody was watching him.’
‘In a diving tender out in the middle of the Mediterranean?’ Hawkins’s tone was mocking.
‘You’d be surprised how many boats pass to and fro there,’ Nicholson replied. ‘Fishing boats, yachts, cruise ships, ski boats. If he’d found something he didn’t want anyone to know about, it’s logical that he would have had a careful look around before he pulled it on board.’
Hawkins nodded, reluctantly. ‘OK, John. I concede that your scenario does make sense, though it is still entirely circumstantial. Because you’re here talking to me, I assume you’ve already taken some action. What have you done to retrieve the situation?’
‘I’ve sent a team out to Crete – in fact they should be there by now. I’ve briefed them to find and totally destroy the remains of the Learjet, after retrieving the case with the flasks.’
‘And the file too, I hope?’
‘Yes, and the file too.’
‘What about this diver? Could N-PIC identify the diving tender? Can you trace the diver through his boat?’
Nicholson shook his head. ‘I don’t think we’ll need to trace the diver.’
‘Why not?’
‘I checked the database before I called you, looking for any developments that might be related. There were two new entries that I think kind of tie everything together. First, this morning a Greek newspaper reported the death of a man called Spiros Aristides on Crete. He was an unlicensed diver. Second, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta have just responded to a request for assistance from the local Cretan medical authorities.’
Nicholson looked keenly at Hawkins, whose face now seemed paler in the fading daylight around the car. ‘Why the CDC?’ Hawkins asked. ‘What was the nature of their problem? And what killed the diver?’
‘A possible epidemic. The Cretans have reported that Aristides had probably been killed by Ebola, or some other kind of filovirus, but real fast-acting.’
Hawkins leaned back in his seat, and stared sightlessly through the windshield. ‘So that’s it,’ he said at last. ‘You’re right. It’s the only explanation that makes any kind of sense. This diver discovered the wreck, pulled out the case, then opened it up and found the flasks. And now he’s dead because he opened a flask as well. Dear God, what a mess. I thought – I hoped – that after all this time we’d heard the last of it.’ He shook his head. ‘So what now? What secondary actions will you be taking?’
Nicholson didn’t reply immediately, but glanced around the deserted area outside the car to check that they were still unobserved. When he spoke, his voice was low and almost sad. ‘We – or rather I – have to protect the Company, and America. I’m the only one left inside the Agency who knows exactly what happened, and why we had to do what we did. Under no circumstances can details of CAIP be allowed to leak out. That means I’ve had to take some hard decisions – and none, CJ, has been harder for me than this one.’
He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a small-calibre black automatic pistol with a silencer attached. He pointed it directly at Hawkins’s chest.
‘I’m truly sorry about this, CJ,’ Nicholson continued, as the old man tensed and his face turned even paler, ‘and you must believe this isn’t easy for me. But I have to make sure there are no possible loose ends, and that means ensuring that all the agents involved in CAIP keep total silence. I’m afraid this is the only way I can be completely certain of that.’
For a long moment Hawkins stayed rigid, and Nicholson wondered if he might make a futile attempt to wrest the gun from his hands. Then Hawkins relaxed, seeming to accept the inevitable as he stared into the eyes of the younger man. ‘You’re probably right,’ he said, ‘but I would never have talked, you know. You don’t need to do this.’
‘You can say that,’ Nicholson replied, ‘but if they ever recovered the file they’d put you and the others under intense pressure. Your name and face would be splashed over the newspapers. You’d be publicly disgraced and humiliated. Then you might talk, just to explain what happened. I really can’t take that risk. If you were in my position, you’d do the same.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps not,’ Hawkins muttered, then without warning swung a wild punch at Nicholson’s jaw. The blow connected, but Nicholson had anticipated something of the sort and rode with it. He grabbed the older man’s wrist with his left hand and forced his arm back. The pistol’s aim barely wavered.
‘This won’t help, CJ,’ Nicholson said, raising his voice and gesturing with the pistol. ‘You know I have to do this, and it’s up to you whether it’s easy or hard.’ Hawkins tensed again, and then relaxed, finally recognizing the futility of any attempt to overpower Nicholson: he was unarmed, twenty-five years older and seventy pounds lighter than his captor.
‘I hate guns,’ Hawkins murmured, slumping back into his seat.
‘I can offer you a choice.’ Nicholson reached into his pocket and tossed Hawkins a small twist of paper. In his safe at home, Nicholson kept a number of things he had acquired during his career with the CIA. One of them was a screw-top jar containing a dozen or so small brown pills obtained from Fort Detrick many years earlier.
Hawkins looked across at Nicholson, then undid the paper and stared at the pill.
‘Just swallow it, CJ,’ Nicholson said softly. ‘I promise you it won’t hurt. You’ll just fall asleep. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll have to use this’ – he motioned slightly with the silenced automatic – ‘and that
Hawkins stared at his former colleague for a long moment, then across the Potomac at the last sunset he would ever see. ‘You will take care of my wife, won’t you?’ he asked. Nicholson nodded as Hawkins took a last long look at the water in front of him, then swallowed the pill.
‘That’s why I was a few minutes late getting here,’ Nicholson murmured, as Hawkins’s eyes started to glaze over and his head slumped back in his seat. ‘I already have.’
Three minutes later Nicholson checked for a pulse but found none. He got out of the car and strode off up
