Last Chance to Die by Noah Boyd (large screen ebook reader .txt) 📗

if the director or Kalix found out what we were doing. Your telling me to keep it quiet was just a test of my loyalty, wasn’t it?”

“If it was, do you think you passed?”

She laughed sarcastically. “You do understand that the real problem here is your inability to trust anyone. I understand that, because I’m the same way. At least I was. But I’d like to think I’ve made myself change. And do you know why? Because I thought there was a chance for us. The first time I came to Chicago, that was one of the most difficult, most open things I’ve ever done. I was hoping that my trust would be contagious. But it wasn’t. That’s why our last date was a catastrophe. That’s why I told you not to come here for New Year’s. You can’t trust anyone or anything. I understand now that it’s because of what your father did. The other night when you told me about him, I thought you were finally letting me inside your life. The problem is that deep down inside, you don’t want to let go of what your father did to you. You think it gives you an edge, and I suppose it does. Nothing gets by you. While that makes you a great agent, it’s the reason there’ll never be any hope for us. You absolutely will not allow yourself the vulnerability that is necessary if two people are going to trust each other. You keep trying to make your life failureproof, and you believe that the only way to do it is to cut everyone out of it.”

“You don’t think I’ve tried to trust people?”

“I don’t think you’ve even tried to trust yourself.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? You’re even afraid to let anyone see your sculptures. Your pieces are good, really good, but you don’t trust yourself enough to put them out there. You’re one of the bravest men I know, but I seriously doubt that you have the courage to ask yourself why that is.”

Vail stopped at a light, and she got out, slamming the door. The light changed, and he sat there, watching as she hurried away.

Vail stood in Alex Zogas’s house, unable to stop thinking about his argument with Kate. She, of course, had been right. He was incapable of trusting anyone. But that was hardly a revelation for him. It was something he had reluctantly accepted about himself long ago. And she was right about its giving him an edge, especially when it came to resolving complex situations like going after the LCS. And also, there couldn’t be any argument that he was unwilling to do anything that would take away that advantage.

If asked twenty-four hours earlier, he would have said unequivocally that the one person in the world he did trust was Kate Bannon, but, as she had demonstrated, that wasn’t true. Since there was no longer an investigation to camouflage his flaws, he wondered if he hadn’t picked the fight with her so he wouldn’t have to complicate his life by committing to a relationship with her. Maybe that was why he was now standing in Zogas’s house—to prolong the investigation, to delude himself with the possible repair of the impossible rift between them.

There had not been anything in Zogas’s pockets except his wallet and keys, which Vail used to get into the house. He turned on the computer, which sat on a living-room table. While he waited for it to fully load, the image of Kate’s face, twisted with anger and, even worse, disappointment rose up in his memory. He blanked it out halfheartedly, knowing that it would be back.

To suppose that the FBI had uncovered every single double agent in Washington, at least those recruited by the Lithuanians, would have been naïve and shortsighted. They had given up their inactive sources to further the Calculus scheme, but there still had to be individuals currently supplying them with information. If the entire Calculus matter had proved anything, it was how susceptible the government had become to counterintelligence. Espionage was no longer about one country trying to gain an upper hand militarily or politically; it was about the global marketplace—technologies and trade secrets to be stolen and sold.

Raymond Radkay had existed completely undetected, so why not others? If there were others, their names, addresses, and contact points had to be kept somewhere. Vail started checking the files on the computer. There weren’t many documents stored, but he would have been surprised if Zogas had been that obvious.

Next he checked the Internet history. It looked as though the last Web site that Zogas had visited was something called American Business News. Vail clicked on it. At first glance it appeared to be a generic business site, as uninteresting as its bland graphics.

He clicked on the “About Us” link, and again the description was uninteresting, except for one fact—although it tried to make the reader think otherwise, it wasn’t American. The syntax, possessive pronouns, and vocabulary contained a few small errors that indicated that someone whose first language was not English had written the copy.

There was a freshly posted article that had been cut and pasted from some unattributed publication. It described a new chemical process for supersynthetic motor oil that was being developed by a company in Maryland.

Off to the right side of the home page was the heading “For Our Clients.” Vail couldn’t access it because there were user-ID and password windows that had to be filled in to open it. What was this site? Vail pushed back from the table and stared at the screen, trying to make sense of it. He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, reminding himself how little sleep he’d had in the last two days. To distract himself he got up and walked around the room, settling onto a recliner in the living room. He turned on the television and started running through the channels, using the rhythm of the changing images to hypnotize