Riptide

and personal. Only me. Help me figure out a way to do
    this, please."
    "I don't like it."

Chapter 18

    Hatch, short, built like a young bull, sporting a large mustache,
    pulled off a tweed Sherlock Holmes hat to show his shaved head.
    For some reason she couldn't quite fathom, Becca thought he was
    so impishly cute she wanted to hug him. She thought from the
    cocky grin on Sherlock's face that she wanted to hug him right
    along with her.
    This guy was potent. He had more charm than a person deserved,
    she was thinking a few minutes later when Adam held out
    his hand and said to him, "Give me the pack of cigarettes in your
    right pocket, Hatch, now, or you're fired."
    "Yeah, sure, boss." Hatch obligingly handed Adam a nearly full
    pack of Marlboros. "Just one, boss, no more, and I didn't inhale
    much. All I had, just one. I don't want to smoke anywhere near
    sweet Becca. I wouldn't want to ever take a chance of hurting her
    lovely lungs. Now, tell me what to do to catch this creep so Becca
    can go back to writing speeches and smiling a lot." Then he turned
    those dark-brown twinkling eyes on her and said, "Hi."
    Becca grinned and pumped his hand. "Hi, Hatch. Listen, I'm
    ready. The next time he calls--I'm ready. We're going to set a trap
    for him. I'm going to be the bait."
    "Hmmm. I don't think the boss likes that. His jaw is all knotted
    up."

    Adam unknotted his jaw. "No, I don't like it. It's crazy. I don't

want her to take this kind of risk. Ah, shit, I can tell by the look on
    your face, Becca, that you're going to do it regardless of what I
    think."
    "Look, Adam," Savich said, "if I could think of another way, I'd
    dive on it, but there are enough of us to keep her protected. Now,
    Hatch, according to Adam, you have a pretty awesome reputation
    to maintain. Tell us what you've found out."
    Hatch took a slim black book out of his jacket pocket, licked his
    fingers, and ruffled some pages. "Most of this is from Thomas's
    guys, who've been working their butts off trying to verify Kriakov's
    death. Thomas got everyone working on it right away.
    Now, the CIA has actually spoken to the cop who was the one
    who poked around his body. Apollo--no shit, that's his name--said
    Krimakov went over a cliff on the eastern end of Crete, near Agios
    Nikolaos, died instantly, one would suppose from the injuries. It
    could have been murder, he allowed, but nobody checked into it all
    that much for the simple fact that no one really cares. Nothing obvious
    about it, so they closed the case until our agents flew in and
    spread out and wanted to see and examine everything."
    "So he's really dead," Becca said.
    Hatch looked up and gave them a big grin. "Nope, not necessarily.
    Here's the kicker. Krimakov's body was cremated. You see,
    for the longest time, our people were stonewalled by the locals,
    who wouldn't allow them to view the body. It was only after the
    Greek government got involved that they let it out of the bag that
    they'd cremated him right away. Why? I don't know, but there was
    a payoff, somewhere."
    No one said a word for a very long time.
    "Cremated?"Adam repeated, disbelieving.
    "Yes, burned to ashes, poured in an urn. Thing's still sitting on a
    shelf in the morgue."

Sherlock said, "So there is no definitive proof because there's no
    body to examine."
    "Right," Hatch said. "Now, while we all chew on that, let's go
    back a bit. Krimakov moved to Crete in the early eighties. Just
    showed up and stayed. He was into bad things, but not bad enough
    so anyone would dig and find out exactly who and what he'd been
    in Russia. Actually, the impression is they never tried really hard to
    do any nailing. He probably paid everyone off."
    "Damn," Adam said. "Okay. Now we've got to search his house,
    top to bottom and under the basement. If he ever was involved in
    this, there will be something there."
    "Our agents have gone over his house, didn't find anything. No
    clues, no leads, no references at all to Becca. We heard that he had
    an apartment somewhere, but we don't know where it is. That
    might take a little time. There aren't any official records."
    Savich said, "If he had an apartment, I'll find it."
    "Just you?" Adam said, an eyebrow raised.
    "Didn't Thomas tell you I was good?"
    Adam snorted, watching Savich plug in MAX.
    Hatch said, "More will be coming about his personal activities.
    But as yet, there isn't anything out of Russia. It seems that way back
    when, all Krimakov's records were purged. There's little