Changing of the Guard

dark-skinned date, Cox had known. Net Force must have broken the coded file, despite what Eduard had done to prevent it. They knew he was a spy. They had come to take his measure for the coffin they hoped to build.

A quick phone call had given him some background information on Thorn, and on his paramour, who worked for the CIA. He had been armed a little better when finally they had spoken.

Cox sipped his drink. He had tweaked Thorn and the woman a bit, knowing a good offense was the best defense. Let them know he knew what they were about to keep them off balance, that was how he had fought his way to the top. Give back more than you receive, that was how you won.

Even so, he had to resist the urge to panic. Them knowing was not the same as them proving. He knew that. Unless they had ironclad evidence, something absolutely certain and incontrovertible, the feds would not move against him. The Russian was dead, the other copies of the file were either gone or about to be, and his name written in an old Soviet document? Any lawyer worth his salt could argue that such a listing could be nothing more than disinformation, designed to impeach a man’s character, to sow distrust. It proved nothing in itself. Anybody could put a name into a file. For that matter, how do we know that the file in question wasn’t simply fabricated altogether?

Yes, if they knew how much he did not wish such information to become public, they could hold that over him, but they did not know that. And any threats to smear him would result in legal and political troubles that would give a strong man pause. A politician would have to be very brave indeed to venture onto such a tricky path where a misstep could result in the end of a career. The most fiery federal prosecutor had bosses to whom he must answer, and his bosses had their bosses. The higher you went, the more political things got. Attorneys-General and Presidents did not blindly sail into uncharted waters.

A crafty politician knew that when you fought a giant, you had best be careful with your sling. If your first shot was wide, you might be crushed before you had a chance to reload.

And if you had but one stone? Then the risk was extreme indeed, and the payoff had better be worth it — and guaranteed.

Cox did not wish to come to blows with the feds, but at this juncture he felt certain that they would not be eager to start that war, either. They didn’t have a walkover victory lined up. They couldn’t.

He should have thought of this much sooner, of course, long before tonight, even. His first reaction to the threat of being unearthed after all these years, sending Eduard after Jay Gridley, had been… less considered than it should have been. He had, in retrospect, acted in more haste than was wise. Then, even the hint of scandal about such things had seemed insupportable. And there had been several additional factors other than the Net Force file.

Now? Now, an accusation based on a single document, without any supporting evidence? That could be laughed off: Me? A Communist spy? My God man, look at me! I’m Samuel Walker Cox, I’m a billionaire! Are you out of your mind?

Even his enemies would smile at that one — unless there was hefty proof to back it up.

If there had been a handler willing to testify, and supporting papers from official sources, that would have been weightier, but a file allegedly given to Net Force by our sometimes-friends, sometimes-not-friends, the Turks? Where is their copy backing this? Lost, you say? What about the Russians, surely they had supporting evidence? Oops, can’t find it?

My, my.

He was in a better position than before. Still not ideal, but even so, if it got to that, he could afford the best spin docs in the world.

If it got to that.

And, unless they came up with something else, Cox was pretty sure it would never get to that. You didn’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blew. All was not lost.

He sipped the drink, finishing it. He needed to rein Eduard in, he saw. If Net Force had broken the code, as surely they had, or else they wouldn’t have come to have a look at him, then any further attempts against their people would be useless and dangerous. Eduard was loyal, but suppose he was captured or killed? There might be some way to link him to Cox, and that would give them another bit of circumstantial evidence, however tenuous. If they couldn’t come up with anything else, he was safe. Best not to give them a chance at anything else, no matter how remote it might be.

If your enemy’s fire was burning low, giving him more fuel was unwise.

He dug into the seat pocket and came up with one of the throwaway phones. He thumbed in Eduard’s number for the day.

Net Force might be a squall headed his way, but if he sat tight, hunkered down, and waited, it would pass. No point in risking the lightning by standing alone in a field.

“Yes?”

“Cancel the current contract,” Cox said. “Clean up everything, neat and tidy, and don’t leave any trash lying about. Nothing.”

“Yes, sir,” Eduard said.

And that was that.

34

University Park, Maryland

A week after his meeting with Cox, nothing new had developed on that front. The constant surveillance — which was costing a considerable amount of his budget — had not produced so much as a glimpse of Natadze and Cox together.

Thorn invited Marissa to dinner. He chose a small but sophisticated place where they could talk. He wanted to get to know her better, but he also wanted her take on some things that were bothering him, and he wanted them both without interruption.

After they had eaten and were lingering over coffee, he turned the conversation back to the party they’d attended. “You stood and listened to him taunt us,” he said. “We know he is guilty, but we don’t have the proof.”

“What do we know that he’s guilty of?” she said.

“He had at least one person we know of killed, albeit that one was a Russian agent and not a great loss to the world. And he had somebody shoot Jay Gridley — though he survived. The only thing that makes sense is that he was afraid of something Jay was working on, and my guess is that he’s listed on that file of Soviet agents — that would explain him having the Russian taken out. It doesn’t make much sense, a rich man spying for the Communists, but nothing else computes. The man was a spy. Maybe he still is.”

He sighed. “I’m sure he did other things at least that bad along the way, but we don’t have what we need to get him.”

“That’s how it works sometimes,” Marissa said. She paused. “Let me tell you a story.”

“Another story? You ought to have your own show on PBS,” he said. “ ‘Marissa the Wise Woman Speaks.’ ”

“That’s true, I should. Good of you to acknowledge it.”

He laughed.

She said, “Where there’s a will, there’s usually a way. We’re tropical creatures, our bodies are designed for warm climates, grasslands, trees. But we’ve come up with clothes that let us walk around at the South Pole, created machines that let us cover great distances at speed, allow us to cross land, the oceans — or to go deep under water, if we want. We’ve even been to the moon, through a cold vacuum where you’d die in seconds unprotected.”

“Yeah, we’re adaptable. So?”

“So, we don’t always come up with the ultimate answer, but for every question, we usually come up with something. Consider the mata-you.”

“What’s a mata-you?”