Riptide

hadn't asked. He wondered now
    what Thomas Matlock was doing at this precise moment, if he, like
    Adam, was lying awake, wondering what the hell was going on.

    Chevy Chase, Maryland

    It was raining deep in the night, a slow, warm rain that would
    soak into the ground and be good for all the summer flowers. There
    was no moon to speak of to shine in through the window of the
    dimly lit study. Thomas Matlock was hunched over his computer,
    aware of the soft sounds of the rain but not really hearing it. He had
    just gotten an e-mail from a former double agent, now living in Istanbul,
    telling him that he'd just picked it up from a Greek smuggler
    that Vasili Krimakov had died in an auto accident near Agios Nikolaos,
    a small fishing village on the northeast coast of Crete.
    Krimakov had lived all this time in Crete? Since Thomas had
    found out about his daughter's stalker, after the man had murdered
    that old bag lady, he'd put everyone on finding Krimakov. Scour
    the damned world for him,Thomas had said. He's got to be somewhere.
    Hell, he's probably right here.
    Now after all this time, all these bloody years, he'd finally found
    aim? Only he was dead. It was hard to accept. His implacable en

emy, finally dead. Gone, only it was too late, because Allison was
    dead, too. Far too late.
    Was it really an accident?
    Thomas knew that Krimakov had to have enemies. He'd had
    years to make them, just as Thomas had. He'd gotten messages from
    Krimakov back in the early years, telling him he would never forget,
    never. Telling him he would find his damned wife and daughter
    --yes, he knew all about them and he would find them, no
    matter how well Thomas had hidden them. And then it would be
    judgment day.
    Thomas had been terrified. And he'd done something unconscionable.
    He escorted a very pretty young woman, one of the assistants
    in his office, to an Italian embassy function, then to a
    Smithsonian exhibit. The third time he was with her, he was simply
    walking her to her car from the office because the skies had suddenly
    opened up and rain was pouring down and he had a big umbrella.
    A man had jumped out of an alley and shot her between the
    eyes, not more than six feet away. Thomas hadn't caught him. He
    knew it was Krimakov even before he'd received that letter written
    in Vasili's stark, elegant hand: "Your mistress is dead. Enjoy yourself.
    When I discover your wife and child, they will be next."
    That had been seventeen years before.
    Thomas had considered seeing Allison that weekend. He had
    canceled, and she'd known why, of course. He sat back in his chair,
    pillowing his head on his arms. He read the e-mail from Adam. Consider Krimakov.
    But Krimakov was finally dead. The irony of it didn't escape
    him. Krimakov was gone, out of his life, forever. It was all over. He
    could have finally been with Allison. But it was too late, just too
    late. But now someone was terrorizing Becca. He just didn't un

derstand what was going on. He wished he could learn about Dick
    McCallum, but as of yet, no one had seen anything out of the ordinary.
    No big deposits, no new accounts, no big expenditures on
    his credit cards, no strangers reported near him, nothing suspicious
    or unexpected in his apartment. Simply nothing.
    Thomas remembered telling Adam how there were only two
    other people--besides Adam--who knew the real story. His wife
    and Buck Savich, both dead now. Buck had died of a heart attack
    some six years before. But there was Buck's son, and he was very
    much alive, and Thomas realized now that he needed him, needed
    him very much.
    The man knew all about monsters. He knew how to find them.

    Georgetown

    Washington, D. C.

    Dillon Savich, head of the Criminal Apprehension Unit of the
    FBI, booted up his laptop MAX and saw there was an e-mail from
    someone he didn't know. He shifted his six-month-old son, Sean,
    to his other shoulder and punched up the message.
    Sean burped. "Good one," Savich said, and rubbed his son's back
    in slow circles. He heard him begin to suck his fingers, felt his small
    body relax into his shoulder. He read:

    Your father was an excellent friend and a fine man. I trusted him
    implicitly. He believed you would change the course of criminal investigations.
    He was very proud of you. I desperately need your help.
    Thomas Matlock.

Sean reared back suddenly and patted his father's whiskered
    cheek with his wet fingers. Savich stroked his son's small fingers
    and dried them on his cotton