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  “Malloche is like the bull’s-eye at the center of a target. Surrounding him is a small organization I have heard called the Dark—maybe ten or twelve men and women who are suicidally loyal to him. They are the only ones who ever have contact with him—and live. And around that group is another ring of supporters, much more diffuse and less informed, and then another ring. So far the network has proven impossible to penetrate very deeply. We’ve lost several people trying. Those at the center have no political agenda other than money. Malloche himself is ruthless, brilliant, incredibly careful, and absolutely without regard for human life—other humans’ lives, that is.”

  “And you’ve been chasing him.”

  “At the moment, I’m all that’s left of a unit that once was six. Four of the others have disappeared, and are presumed dead. One is teaching recruits. I can’t get more men or more money to keep after Malloche.”

  “Because people in Washington don’t think he exists.”

  Bishop looked as if he were about to speak, then nodded instead.

  “Do they know you exist?” Jessie asked.

  “They’ve demanded that I stop what I’ve been doing and return to Virginia to join my former partner and become an instructor for new recruits to the agency. I’m overdue to report by almost a month now. They’ve already sent a man here to bring me back or kill me.”

  “And did you kill him?”

  “I could have, but I didn’t. Next time they send someone, I will probably have to.”

  “That’s great to hear. There really isn’t a phone number I could call to verify all this?”

  “Not really.”

  “How do you get paid?”

  “I don’t think I do anymore. But when I did, it was a rather complicated, convoluted process.”

  “Of course. Forget I asked. You have a photo of this Malloche?”

  “Maybe. Maybe dozens. He doesn’t look the same in any two of them.”

  “Fingerprints?”

  Bishop shook his head. “Maybe,” he said again.

  “Okay, no definite photos, no definite fingerprints, no definite proof he exists. No pay stubs to prove you exist. What has all this got to do with me and my patients?”

  Bishop extracted some eight-by-ten-inch photographs from the envelope, hesitated, then handed several of them over.

  “These are pretty gruesome,” he said, “but after watching you in the OR with that child, I know you can handle it.”

  The photos were of corpses—one man and two women in white coats, another woman, quite young, in street clothes—taken in a medical clinic of some sort. Each of them had been shot in the center of the forehead, right above the bridge of the nose.

  “Explain.”

  “These photos were taken about three months ago by the police in an MRI clinic in Strasbourg, France, right on the border with Germany. The shot placement is a trademark of Malloche’s. It’s the only thing I’ve ever found him to do with any consistency. Look.”

  He passed over several more photos of various victims. Each had been shot in virtually the same place.

  “Two months ago,” Bishop went on, “I was able to question a man in one of those outer rings I spoke about, but one not that far from the center. It’s a break I’ve worked years for. The guy had been picked up by the police in Madrid in connection with a political killing there. They had him on video from a surveillance camera. He offered to cut a deal in exchange for being allowed to disappear. One of the arresting officers had known me for years, and when he found out what the killer was bringing to the table, he contacted me immediately. Basically, what the guy said was that Malloche has a brain tumor and that he’s looking for a doctor to operate.

  “I began sending out alerts to the FBI in this country, and the equivalent agencies throughout Europe, although I always knew he’d surface in the U.S. or, a remote possibility, in Italy or the U.K.”

  “Why those places?”

  “You tell me.”

  “The finest neurosurgeons, the best equipment.”

  “With the U.S. head and shoulders above the others.” He extracted another set of photographs from the envelope and continued. “Three and a half weeks ago, a prominent neurosurgeon in Iowa was shot to death in his office, along with his secretary.”

  “Sylvan Mays. He was involved in the same sort of robotics research we are.”

  “Exactly. Did you know him?”

  “I’ve heard him speak at some conferences, but we’d never really met. I think Carl Gilbride knew him pretty well.”

  “From what you do know of this Dr. Mays, do you think he’s the sort who might have come to Claude Malloche’s attention?”

  “Perhaps. If Malloche really exists.”

  “Do these help convince you? I got them from the Iowa City police. The one sprawled out on the floor is Sylvan Mays. The one at her desk is his receptionist.”

  “Same bullet holes.”

  “Malloche has a thing about witnesses. Mays’ wife says he had been talking about coming into a lot of money, but he wouldn’t say how, and there’s no extra money in any of his bank accounts. I have a feeling Mays had already agreed to do Malloche’s surgery, and then something went wrong. Malloche decided he didn’t trust him, or Mays tried to back out for some reason.”

  “Bad idea, it would seem. Okay, Alex, I’ve seen enough.”

  “You believe me?”

  “Hell no. And if this Claude Malloche really does exist, I have no reason to believe you’re not him.”

  “Jesus. Jessie, I’m telling you the truth. I’m certain Malloche has learned all he can about robotic surgery and Marci Sheprow’s operation, and has decided to have Carl Gilbride perform his surgery.”

  “Then why not go to Carl?”

  “I’ve checked around. I get the sense that Gilbride would be willing to cut almost any corner—or any deal—depending on what was in it for him. I don’t know if I can trust him. I don’t have time to check on whether or not he has made any major deposits over the last couple of weeks either, so I’ve just got to go with my gut. And my gut says Malloche is here or he’s gonna be here real soon. Five years, Jessie. Five years and this is the best shot I’ve had at the bastard—maybe the last shot.”

  “Well, good luck, and good night.”

  Jessie stood to go.

  “Please, wait, Jessie. I told you that our unit had lost four men.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, two of them were killed when an informant we trusted sold us out and we were ambushed by Malloche’s people. One of those men who was killed was my older brother, Andy. I was wounded. He was dragging me to cover when he was shot by a long-range sniper right here.” Bishop pointed to the spot just above the bridge of his nose. “His killer fired from nearly half a mile away. Malloche is one of the very few people on earth who could have made that shot.”

  “If that’s really true,” Jessie said, “I’m sorry. I honestly am. Now, I’m going home.”

  “Wait! Dammit, Jessie, please. I need your help. This is my last chance. I’m not going to give up and go teach at their secret agent school, and the agency is going to keep after me. If I kill one of their men, they’ll just send someone better.”

  “I think you should give up.”

  “With Mays dead, this seems like the obvious place for Malloche to go—especially after Gilbride got all that publicity for operating on that gymnast. So far, though, I haven’t been able to figure out whether or not Malloche is here. Since I arrived, I’ve been lifting prints off glasses and other things from every new male patient who’s come onto the neurosurgical service. I’ve sent them to Interpol, and today I brought them to D.C. in hopes of matching them to any of the two or three dozen maybes I’ve gotten on Malloche over the years.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. I’ve got to know more about each of the patients. And when we determine which one Malloche is, I may need help capturing him. There are just too many doubters. I need him alive. But even dead,
I have a chance to identify him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The witness in Spain, the one who told me about Malloche’s brain tumor?”

  “Yes?”

  “His name is Cardoza. He claims he’s seen Malloche—several times. He looked at all the photos I showed him, but refused to say whether any of them was or wasn’t Malloche. He wanted to cut a deal for passage for him and his family out of Spain, and enough money to set them up wherever they went.”

  “Why didn’t you make the deal?”

  “How could I trust him? He was still in prison. He could have pointed out anyone.”

  “But now you trust him?”

  “I do. Apparently Malloche found out Cardoza had been speaking with us. A few weeks ago, his apartment was blown up. As I said, he was locked up, but his wife and kid weren’t so lucky. The police in Madrid have him someplace safe for now, and they’re moving him around. But Malloche has money to burn, so it’s only a matter of time before someone on the force takes a bite and sells Cardoza out. They offered to take him out of the country for the time being, but he refused. He wants Malloche dead.”

  “What about the photos, then?”

  “A dozen or so nos, one maybe. That’s the best he could do. The maybe is so blurred that it could be anyone. As soon as I have a suspect, Cardoza’ll be flown over.”

  “This is just crazy. You’re working this case all by yourself?”

  “I have a little help from the local FBI. Not much, but a little.”

  “So who killed Cardoza’s wife and child?”

  “What?”

  “If this Malloche is as good as you say at killing, it’s a little hard to believe he hasn’t killed Cardoza as well. And if this whole phantasmagorical story of yours is true, it would seem you had quite a bit to gain from blowing up that family in Madrid yourself.”

  Bishop’s look held genuine admiration.

  “You know,” he said, “the truth is, if I had thought of doing it, I very possibly might have. But I didn’t.”

  “Killing an innocent woman and a child?” Jessie said. “How noble.”

  “I told you I didn’t do it,” Bishop replied, “but I also told you how much getting Malloche means—how many lives his capture or death will save.”

  “Well, either way, I don’t see how I could possibly be of any—” Jessie felt a sudden chill. She took several deep breaths through her nose, trying to maintain some composure. “Alex, or whatever your name is, tell me something. That car trouble you saved me from, was that rigged?”

  There was the briefest hesitation, during which Jessie was certain Bishop was mulling over whether or not to lie.

  “I … Jessie, I was desperate to learn about Gilbride,” he said. “I needed to get inside the neurosurgical service quickly. From what I could tell, he wasn’t someone I could trust. You were. I had to get close to you.”

  “Jesus.”

  “I’m sorry. I really am. Jessie, I admit the way I met you and some of what I told you about myself was contrived, but none of what I’ve told you tonight has been. I’m sorry I had to lie, but I need your help. I’m begging you to help.”

  “Get out!”

  Bishop stood.

  “Jessie—”

  Jessie leaped around the edge of the desk and punched him viciously on the side of his face. Then she pushed the photos at him. He clutched them clumsily against his chest and backed into the hall.

  “Alex?” she said less stridently.

  He took a step back into the doorway.

  “Yes?”

  She moved forward and slapped him, raising a crimson, palm-shaped welt on his cheek.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  She slammed the door in his face.

  CHAPTER 19

  MIDNIGHT … TWELVE-THIRTY … ONE. LYING in her darkened bedroom, Jessie watched the time pass on the lighted dial of her clock radio. One-thirty … two. She remembered a vial of sleeping pills in her medicine cabinet from some bygone era in her life. Although she hadn’t taken any in years, and they were probably expired, she seriously considered trying one or two. Finally, she picked up the novel she had been inching through at a page or two a night, and padded out to the living room couch. She was wearing her usual sleeping garb—an extra-large T-shirt, this one from Earth Day. Nothing more.

  She was furious at Alex’s deception, but even more, she was angry at herself for buying into it. Fairy tales were tales—it was as simple as that. And expectations, as often as not, led to pain.

  Keep your expectations in check, tend to business, and good things will come, she told herself. Alex Bishop was nothing more than a pothole in the road of her life.

  She set the book aside and tried some warm milk. Nothing was going to calm her thoughts. Gratefully, Ben Rasheed’s selling his OR time had left her with a relatively light day ahead. If she had to endure a night without sleep, so be it. She had the proven constitution to work thirty-six hours with little or no rest, although her body inevitably paid the price when she did.

  Was Alex telling the truth? she asked herself.

  The photos were impressive, but they could just as easily belong to the killer as to the CIA. The sicker the man, the slicker the lies. Who said that? Maybe no one. Maybe the line was all hers. The slicker the man, the sicker the lies.

  Two-thirty.

  Jessie queued up a ball in Pin Bot and lost it between the flippers after just five seconds or so—a catastrophe that could have been avoided by a right-hand nudge that was usually routine for her. This simply wasn’t going to be her night for anything. She opened the novel again, read a few sentences, and then set it aside. The questions kept rumbling through her mind like tanks.

  How could Alex be so certain Malloche was headed to Carl for his surgery? Was he really the dogged CIA pursuer making an expert guess based on five years of tracking down his prey, or was he one of Malloche’s people, or even Malloche himself, in the process of making up his mind about who would cut on him? If Malloche was Mr. Thorough, as Alex claimed, it only made sense that he would check up on Gilbride and the whole neurosurgical service at EMMC before letting Carl drill open his head. And what more reliable, efficient way to do that than to start up a romance with one of the surgeons in his department?

  Why in the hell couldn’t it all have been real?

  She rubbed at the exhaustion stinging her eyes as she again confronted the most troubling question of all: What if Alex was telling the truth? What if he was so set on capturing this Malloche that he would use her as he had? And even if she ever did come to trust what he was saying, could she possibly agree to help him? What about the patient/physician confidentiality she so treasured? Did it not extend to Gilbride’s patients—even to one who might be a killer?

  The telephone startled her so that she sloshed some of the warm milk onto her thigh.

  “Hello?”

  “Jessie, it’s Alex. Please don’t hang up.”

  About to do just that, Jessie kept the receiver to her ear.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “No!”

  “Jessie, please. Everything I told you in your office was true. Deceiving you the way I have was stupid and cruel. I’m sorry I did it. I’m under tremendous pressure, and in the world I come from almost nothing matters more than getting the job done. But it was still a dumb mistake.”

  “Okay, you’ve apologized. Good night.”

  “Wait!”

  “Dammit, Alex, you’ve hurt me. I don’t want anything more to do with you. Now—”

  “Listen, Jessie. Malloche is in your hospital right now. I’m almost certain of it. If I’m right, there’s a good chance people are going to be killed—maybe me, maybe you, maybe even some of your patients.”

  Jessie sensed herself freeze at the last possibility. She felt certain Alex knew that she would. Damn him!

  “Where are you?” she asked finally.

&nb
sp; “I … I’m right outside. I’ve been here for a couple of hours, thinking. I had decided to leave and not try to speak with you until the morning, but then your light went on.”

  “So you knew where I lived and which one was my apartment. Why am I not surprised?”

  “Jessie, I’m going to get Malloche no matter what. But it would be a hell of a lot easier and maybe a lot safer for everyone with your help.”

  Jessie chewed anxiously on her lip, wishing she was anyplace else.

  “Ring the bell. I’ll buzz you in,” she heard herself say.

  Her condo was on the third floor. There was a security camera mounted downstairs in the outer foyer. Channel Two. She switched on the TV and flipped to the channel. Alex, wearing a light windbreaker, entered the outside door and looked up at the camera as if he knew she would be watching.

  The doorbell sounded. She went to her bedroom and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a hooded sweatshirt. She then stood by the intercom box, reminding herself that, Malloche or CIA, the man she was about to allow into her apartment at two-thirty in the morning was a professional killer. The bell sounded again, and she buzzed him in. Then she opened her door and watched him trudge up to the top of the wide, carpeted stairway that had once graced a sea captain’s mansion.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” he said.

  Fatigue etched his face.

  She motioned him to an easy chair and took a place on the end of the sofa farthest from him.

  The sicker the man, the slicker the lie, she reminded herself.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked.

  Bishop leaned forward.

  “I’m almost certain Rolf Hermann is Claude Malloche,” he said. “In fact, I’ve contacted the people in Madrid. They’re in the process of sending Jorge Cardoza over here right now. There are many factors in favor of Hermann being Malloche, and not many against it. That wife of his is what made me suspicious of him in the first place. Although I’ve never seen her, I’ve been told that Malloche has a remarkably beautiful wife—a former recruit of his from Austria. Her name’s Arlette. Not Orlis.”

  “The Countess seems pretty cold, all right,” Jessie said, “but Rolf actually seems like quite a nice man, and he barely speaks English.”