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

a business manufacturing and selling porcelain dog figurines. One day your customers start calling to complain that the items they received all have the same damage. Let’s say the left ear has a crack in it. So you ask why are they arriving in that condition? That’s one. You find that every one was shipped that way. So, through a series of whys, you discover—number two—that they’re coming out of the mold like that because the mold tears during the injection process. And—number three—that’s happening because the person who’s operating the machine isn’t calibrating it properly. Why hasn’t he been calibrating it? Number four—because he’s new and he didn’t know he was supposed to. And—number five—why didn’t he know? Because it wasn’t part of his training. So you make it a requirement that anyone performing that task has to receive x number of hours of training. Problem solved and, in all likelihood, permanently.”

“So if we can answer enough whys, we can figure all this out?”

“I suppose if a person can answer enough questions, he can figure out anything. This is not easy to do. It takes a lot of discipline, a lot of looking at the big picture and the small picture at the same time. However, it does have a way of cutting through the layers of distraction, which in this case are everywhere. If we can do it, we might find a starting point.”

“Okay, what’s the first why?”

Vail moved to a wall adjoining the one with the documents pinned to it. “I think you’ve already asked that.” With a black marker, he wrote:

1. Why would the LCS be connected to Sundra, the safe house, & the Calculus list?

Kate said, “Shouldn’t that be ‘How’?”

“The important thing is to pursue answers to the questions. Toyoda probably wasn’t an English major, but he was a genius. Out of respect, let’s just use his whys.”

“Sorry.” Kate thought for a second. “The LCS has to be working with the Russians.”

“That’s the only possible explanation, with them coming after us in that safe house. And now we can trace Sundra back to Longmeadow, who we know is spying for the Russians. But Lithuanians, historically, have never been fond of the Russians. In fact, Lithuania was the first of the Soviet states to declare its independence after the fall of the Berlin Wall. So . . .” Vail wrote:

2. Why would the LCS and the Russians be working together?

“I don’t know, why?”

“What’s always the best guess for motive? Someone wrote a song about it making the world go round?”

“I’m guessing it’s not love, so you think this is about money?”

“Very few things aren’t. Zogas described himself as a businessman. He said they all own small businesses. They’re entrepreneurs. When the Russians need somebody taken out, they call the LCS and are able to keep their own hands clean. If that is true, it brings us to ‘why’ number three. If the Russians are paying the LCS . . .” He wrote:

3. Why do the Russians want their moles dead?

Kate thought about it for a second. “Like we’ve been saying all along, it doesn’t make any sense, because historically the Russians have always done everything to help their double agents escape to Russia or some other communist country.”

“That’s a good point. And it brings us to the next why.” Turning to the wall, he wrote:

4. Why didn’t they kill Rellick immediately?

Studying the wall, Kate said, “We haven’t really answered number three yet, have we?”

“No, we haven’t. I think we need to consider both questions together. That Rellick was the exception might answer why the others weren’t given the option to escape.”

Kate said, “The whole point of framing me was to protect Rellick. Maybe he was that valuable to them. Maybe they thought that once he was safely in Russia, he would have been some sort of monument to Russian ingenuity and American decadence.”

“Let’s assume you’re right, or at least partially right. That leaves one last unanswered question.” He wrote:

5. Why are other people with security clearances, who are not spies, disappearing?

“First the air force sergeant and now—for the sake of argument— let’s assume that Maurice Gaston with Matrix-Linx International is also part of this,” Vail said.

“At this point that doesn’t seem like much of a stretch.”

“No, it doesn’t,” he said mechanically, his voice already slipping away. Vail took a chair from the desk and rolled it over in front of the wall. He sat down, and his face dissolved into a reflective blank. Kate lowered herself onto the couch to wait, occasionally glancing at the questions and trying to guess where Vail’s mind was at the moment.

Almost fifteen minutes later, Vail stood up out of his chair. “There’s only one possibility—at least that I can think of. The LCS isn’t killing these people for the Russians, they’re doing it to protect themselves.”

“From what?”

“This is the age of outsourcing. They saw the need for a new service industry and offered it to the Russians. This is also the age of incompetence in government. Maybe the SVR wasn’t recruiting sources like the old KGB had, and Moscow was pressuring them to find a solution. The LCS is a full-service intelligence enterprise. Not only will they kill someone for you, but they also recruit informants for the Russians.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Two things. First, that’s why they’ve been killing their own moles when we get close. They’re afraid they may talk if we get them in custody, and once it’s exposed, that would be the end of what I’m guessing is a very lucrative business venture for the Lithuanians. It’s the only way to explain the two missing people. If you’re going to go out and recruit people to betray their country, chances are you’re not going to be one hundred percent successful. So if the LCS approaches someone and they’re turned down, what would they be most afraid of?”

“Their recruit going to the FBI.”

“And the LCS can’t have that. So if you refuse, you lose—your life.”

“They can’t be approaching these people cold and