Last Child Read online

  “I refused to take the blame for something that was not my—or my partner’s—fault.”

  She clucked her tongue. “Foolish. You didn’t by any chance suggest that it may have been his fault, did you?”

  He grinned. “I might have…indirectly, though.”

  “Foolish and dangerous. If I were given a choice to face-off with Maxwell or with a rattlesnake, I’d take the rattlesnake any day. When I knew him back in Washington, Paul and I still had a decent marriage. He’d come home from work, check the kids’ homework, kiss them good-night, and then come to bed and talk to me. There was an internal issue that Paul investigated. Maxwell was six months out of the Academy. He was assigned to work with a senior agent, and the two didn’t get along from the start. It would reflect poorly on a new agent to complain, so Maxwell had to put up with his overbearing partner—until the agent was shot in the line of duty. No,” she shook her head because she must have seen the question sitting on his lips, “Maxwell didn’t shoot him, but he was the one who went to get the Kevlar vests from the car trunk and took his sweet time. His partner’s vest slipped because the side straps broke. The bullet missed vital organs, but there was other damage that put the agent on permanent disability. The lab findings were inconclusive. It couldn’t be proved that the straps were weakened or cut, but Paul felt that Maxwell had tampered with the fabric…somehow. Paul’s a lousy husband, but he’s an excellent investigator and a very good lawyer. I believed him.”

  “Well, I guess being re-assigned then constitutes good fortune,” he said, reflecting on what she’d told him and finding it plausible. Back in L.A., those who worked for Maxwell considered him a prick and a career climber. They disliked him but didn’t fear him. Harmon always felt something cold and prickly in the back of his neck when he faced his boss. He tried to ignore it, telling himself that paranoia was a natural byproduct of aging on the job. Now, he knew that his instinct was as good as it was when it was first imprinted into his genes.

  “Re-assigned?” she asked, tipping her brows at him. “I see,” she grimaced. “He didn’t give you the whole story. That’s typical, just typical, of Special Agent Maxwell, hoping to be the Assistant Director soon.” She swept the empty office with her hand and said, “This is your home base, and you report to me, but that doesn’t mean you will be spending much time in here—or going anywhere alone.”

  Chapter Two

  Harmon spent the night in Best Western because he was in no mood to look for a boarding house. His rent down in L.A. was paid up for sixty days. He had at least that long to figure out whether he wanted to stay a cop or spend the rest of his life as a security guard at a mall.

  In the morning, he stopped at a coffee shop for bagel-and-coffee breakfast and then headed for 365 Pacific Avenue, wondering what dark challenges the day held in store for him. Other than to confirm that he’d be assigned a partner, Jaworski refused to say anything else until he met his new colleague. She did say, however, that once the social protocol was out of the way, the two of them would be heading out, to Bakersfield.

  “Assignment,” he repeated, trying to read from Jaworski’s expression whether that was a good or bad thing.

  She blinked and shrugged.

  “Not a real assignment then,” he said, stifling a sigh.

  “I’m not sure what it is or even if I understood my orders correctly,” she said, sounding frustrated.

  “What are your orders?” he asked.

  She tightened her lips.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to...if Maxwell told you not to disclose…”

  “Maxwell may have banished you here, but when it came to your assignment, he made it clear that he was just a messenger. I’m fairly certain he was just passing on the orders that didn’t come from him,” she said.

  “Where did they come from then?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think Washington.”

  “Washington’s Bureau?”

  “Not the Bureau.”

  “Not the Bureau,” he echoed. “Then from where?”

  “I think—though I may be wrong—that they came from some Congressional Committee.”

  He wasn’t aware that he was holding his breath until the pressure in his chest made him let it out. “You’re kidding? I mean why would a Washington Congressional Committee…what committee?”

  She motioned at her computer. “Once I made sure I’d read Maxwell’s fax correctly, I logged in and did a search of the existing standing Congressional Committees and their various involvements and mandates. I searched the Senate and the House and came up with something called the Select Committee on Historical Intelligence to Investigate Military/Commercial Applications of Ancient Archives. I have no idea what the Committee does, but its acronym—SCHI—corresponds to the authorizing entity in Maxwell’s fax.”

  “Could I see that fax?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t show it to you outright. The Committee panel has ten members, but only three were named in its tasking document. Dr. Karen Omar, Robinson Darkling, and Dr. Leopold Brownridge.”

  “The South African Leopold Brownridge…who was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for his pioneering work in genetics?” he asked.

  “The same controversial doctor who would have been stripped of his prize had it been possible to prove without a shred of doubt that he experimented on human subjects,” she said, flexing her voice.

  “What is a South African doctor doing on the panel of one of our Congressional Committees?”

  “Seven years ago, he was South African. Today, he’s a true-blue American citizen. Well, as true-blue as any man who still reaches for his whip when he sees an African-American citizen can be,” she finished on a cynical note.

  “What is this about?” He felt a chill crawl up his spine.

  “You and your partner are to go to Bakersfield and shake hands with the local sheriff, who will brief you on the issue. Other than that, I have no idea, but maybe your new partner will.”

  “Isn’t he one of your staff here?”

  She closed her eyes and let her smile grow squished until it made her look as if she was crying. “No, Agent Harmon. Your new partner is expected to arrive tomorrow morning and make your—and my—acquaintance.”

  A day later, he knocked on the door, then, without waiting for an invitation, turned the door handle and entered.

  “Good morning,” he heard Jaworski say more cheerfully than the occasion called for. “Agent Harmon, meet your new partner.” She waved at him to come forward. She was leaning on her desk, wearing jeans and a short black leather jacket, and for a moment, he didn’t see anyone else in the open-concept office. Then he heard a scraping sound, and a shadow moved. He realized that whoever sat in the chair behind the desk had stood up and moved toward him.

  “Agent Harmon, I’m Special Agent Kate McFarland, on temporary assignment from the Baltimore field office,” the young woman said, offering him a handshake. He didn’t have the gift of perfect pitch, but he had a good ear for voices. She spoke with a trace of an accent. It was faint, more like displaced intonation than a true accent, but he heard it and knew that, regardless of the English name, Agent McFarland’s first language was not English.

  He shook the offered hand and said, “How do you do, Agent McFarland? So, you’re my new partner and from Baltimore.”

  “It’s Special Agent McFarland,” she said, releasing his hand. “And it’s the other way around. You are my new partner.”

  He took a step back, and without hiding it, studied her from head to toe. She hadn’t yet developed the habit of every good field agent—moving her eyes without appearing disoriented, constantly checking her surroundings regardless of where she was. Her gun holster sat too high, making the gun almost inaccessible since it bulged under her armpit, forcing her to wing her elbow. She wore Nikes that offered little protection for her feet, and it would be a sheer miracle if her skin-tight black jeans didn’t rip across the seams if she had to climb a fence. If she was three y
ears out of Quantico, he should consider himself lucky. She was at least five inches shorter than him, had shoulder-length brown hair, blue eyes, and no fieldwork experience whatsoever. A walk through any FBI field office would yield a dozen young women like her, wearing earpieces and plugged into the grid, or sitting behind the computer, collecting and analyzing data. She was one of the sixteen thousand support staff that the Justice Department employed in its 56 FBI Divisions—and she had been assigned as his senior partner, the Special Agent in charge of whatever assignment waited for them. For the first time since he’d turned his back on Maxwell, he realized just how badly he’d fucked-up by asserting himself.

  “Right,” he said crisply, underscoring it with a nod. “Are you going to brief me on our pending assignment in Bakersfield?” he asked.

  She glanced at Jaworski, who had watched the scene with a narrow smile, her arms folded.

  “I thought I would pick up our orders here,” she said haltingly.

  “A fax came this morning,” Jaworski said and pushing herself off the desk with both hands, walked around to a fax machine. She picked up a sheet of paper and handed it to the young woman.

  “It’s just a street address,” Agent McFarland said, looking up at him then at Jaworski.

  “Yep,” Jaworski said and turned her back to them. Harmon walked over to his new overseer.

  “It’s a Bureau safe house, right?” She tried to dazzle him with her expertise.

  “Nope. It’s a Post Office mailbox,” he said.

  “How do you know that?” she asked, her eyes narrowed into suspicious slits.

  He tapped the sheet she held. “Unit 4. That usually means a mailbox in a post office outlet that will be located at the address.”

  “But where?”

  “I’d say the same place we’re supposed to head for—Bakersfield.”

  Chapter Three

  He liked to drive a vehicle that gave him a feel for the road, but when she motioned at the GMC truck parked a couple of spots down from his Honda and said, “We’ll take my rental,” he nodded and extended his hand toward her.

  “The keys,” he said, when she kept staring at him.

  “It’s my rental. I’ll drive,” she said.

  “Is this your first time on the West Coast?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I didn’t have a problem driving up here from San Francisco.”

  “And I’m sure you wouldn’t have a problem driving the fifty-odd miles back down to San Francisco—but we’re going to Bakersfield. Do you know where it is?”

  “You can be my navigator.”

  He swallowed what rose on his lips, namely that he was already her “minion,” and said, “I’ve lived and worked in California for fifteen years. We have a five-hour drive to Bakersfield. I’m sure you’ll have an opportunity to give me a break from driving. Now, let’s get on the road.”

  He gave her half an hour of silence and sightseeing, but when the Novato exit flashed by, he cleared his throat and said, “How long have you been at the Baltimore office?”

  “Four years,” she said. He glanced at her, but she kept staring out the window as if there was something fascinating to see other than traffic, distant rooftops, and an ubiquitous ditch lined with desiccated, grey-green grass.

  “Is that how long you’ve been with the Bureau?”

  “Yes.”

  He didn’t bother to suppress a grimace of satisfaction that his initial estimate of her “experience” was right. He knew that she wouldn’t look at him.

  “As a field agent?” he asked and started to time how long it would take her to reply. On the count of ten, she said, “No. I’m a field data analyst.”

  “Do you mean you do mathematical and graphical modeling of response scenarios for situations that require the Bureau’s intervention?”

  “Sometimes, when there is a need to update the existing portfolio of response scenarios, but mostly I do analysis of satellite data and input it into the database. I have an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Princeton and a Master’s in criminology from the University of Delaware.”

  He whistled. “Impressive. How old are you?” he slipped that in glibly, hoping she’d answer before thinking about it.

  “Almost thirty.”

  “You finished your Master’s at twenty-five—that’s damn impressive.”

  “Actually, twenty-three.”

  “Really?” He leaned forward and turned his head to look at her.

  “Yes, really,” she said with slight irritation. “Then I went to do my training in Quantico and…well, was posted to the Baltimore field office.”

  He pretended to concentrate on changing lanes even though there wasn’t any real need for it since there were no slow-pokes on the highway today. He needed a few moments to settle his state of mind. His overseer was an academic, without a shred of field experience. She’d probably knock herself out if she ever fired a gun. He hoped that whatever waited for them in Bakersfield was just a notch above a polite social visit and not an assignment that would require fieldwork or, God forbid, police activity. He had always been ambivalent about the possibility of a bullet finding him one day, but now that such a possibility hardened into near-reality, he found he didn’t like the prospect of being shot by the criminal element while his “senior partner” stood by, shocked and traumatized by such violence.

  “You may not be aware of it, but you have a slight accent,” he said when the silence grew uncomfortably long.

  “I’m not aware of it,” she said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her lower her head. She probably bit her lip, too.

  “Well, it’s there, though not all the time. Actually, it’s more of a displaced intonation than a true accent. Are your parents diplomats?”

  “Not really.”

  “Look,” he said, forcing patience into his voice. “You may be on temporary assignment, but neither of us knows just how long that means. We may have to suffer each other for months—or weeks; either way, we’ve got to work together. I’m a twenty-year veteran of the Bureau. You’re a…freshman, as far as I’m concerned. I need to understand why you are my senior partner, that’s all.”

  “When I went to Quantico, most of my classmates wanted to be profilers. I put down—as my first choice—that I wanted to do criminal investigations. My second choice was counterterrorism. I graduated in the top five in my class—and was assigned to the Baltimore office, to data collection and analysis. I’ve spent four years sitting behind a computer, and suddenly, three days ago, my supervisor asks me to go to the briefing room. When I walk out, I’m Special Agent McFarland, with a field duty assignment, but I have to go to California. Do you know how long I wanted to be out of that windowless office?” She stopped, waiting for him to say something.

  “Sure,” he said because he couldn’t oblige with sympathy. Three days ago, he was doing meaningful work, with a fully qualified partner. Today, well—did Maxwell really have the kind of clout that saw Harmon saddled with a desk-jockey as a senior partner? Didn’t Jaworski say that while Maxwell might have banished him to Santa Rosa, everything else following was driven by demands or commands of some Congressional committee? He felt manipulated, but then regardless of the nature of work, superiors have always manipulated their pawns across the political chessboard. Was that what was happening to him now? If so, then the analyst sitting next to him was not there as a result of Maxwell’s vengeful nature but for a reason. And it wasn’t because someone in Baltimore took pity on the hopeful aspirant and finally gave her a field assignment.

  “I was born in Russia,” he heard her say. “I came to America when I was fifteen years old.”

  “Interesting,” he murmured.

  “We lived in Orel. That’s about one hundred and fifty miles south of Moscow. My father died in a factory fire when I was fourteen. He was a chemical engineer. My mother and I went to live with my uncle, in Moscow. He’s a medical engineer, designs robotic arms for amputees. She married at seventeen and had me
when she was eighteen. She was always very pretty. My uncle introduced her to an American businessman who came to Moscow to open up a franchise—Alancourt McFarland….”

  He interrupted. “The Alancourt McFarland of McFarland and Sydantec Corporation?”

  “Yes, he’s my stepfather. He married my mother and brought us with him to the States. My parents, two half-brothers, and a half-sister live in New Hampshire.”

  “Uhm,” he said, thinking that a billionaire like McFarland probably had an estate residence in every other state in the Union.

  “I’m not lying,” she said defensively. “I’m just trying to explain to you why I’m here, and why I didn’t ask any questions when my supervisor told me that I would be going to Santa Rosa, a Special Agent, and that I would be in charge of whatever assignment waited for me there. I know you think I don’t deserve to be where…”

  He cut her off. “You’ve been in this country fifteen years, which means you’ve been an American citizen just as long as you were a Soviet. What did you expect?”

  “Fairness, justice, and equality,” she said. “Aren’t those the hallmarks of democracy? Aren’t those the very foundation of the American dream?”

  “No, kid. The American dream rests on greenbacks; the same thing that’s valued today in Mother Russia. As Court McFarland’s step-daughter, you ought to know that.”

  “I’m thirty years old. Don’t call me kid.”

  “I was fifteen when you were born, and to me, you will always be a kid. It’s your thinking far more than your age that keeps you in that category.”

  “It’s your cynicism, not your age or temper, Agent Harmon, that saw you re-assigned to Santa Rosa. Agent Jaworski told me you were re-assigned because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut.”