Riptide

Savich nodded, waiting.

Thomas Matlock sipped his iced tea. He needed to know more about these two. He said easily, “I remember the String Killer case. That was an amazing bit of work.”

“It wasn’t at all typical,” Savich said. “We got the guy. He’s dead. It’s over.” Then he looked at his wife, and Thomas saw something that suddenly made him aware of the extraordinary bond between them. There was a flash of incredible fear in Savich’s eyes, followed by a wash of relief and so much gratitude that it went all the way to Thomas’s gut. He should have had that bond with Allison, but one stray bullet in a woman’s head had put an end to that possibility forever.

Thomas cleared his throat, his mind made up. These two were bright, young, dedicated. He needed them. “Thank you for explaining more about your unit. I guess there’s nothing more to do except tell you exactly what’s going on. My only favor—and I must have your agreement on this—is if you don’t choose to help me, you will not inform your colleagues about any of this conversation. It all remains right here, in this booth.”

“Is it illegal?”

“No, Savich. I’ve always believed that being a crook requires too much work and energy. I’d rather race my sailboat on the Chesapeake than worry about evading the cops. The FBI is, however, involved, and that does make for some conflict of interest.”

Savich said slowly, “You’re a very powerful man, Mr. Matlock. It took MAX nearly fourteen minutes to even find out that you’re a very well-protected high-ranking member of the intelligence community. It took him another hour and two phone calls from me to discover that you are one of the Shadow Men. I don’t trust you.”

Sherlock cocked her head to the side and said, “What are the Shadow Men?”

Thomas said, “It’s a name coined back in the early seventies by the CIA for those of us who have high security clearance, work very quietly, very discreetly, always out of sight, always in the background, and frankly, do things that aren’t sanctioned or publicized or even recognized. Results are seen, but not any of us.”

“You mean like the ‘Mission Impossible’ team?”

“Nothing so perfectly orchestrated as all that. No, I’ve never burned a tape in my life.” He smiled then and it was an attractive smile, Sherlock thought. He was a handsome man, well built, took care of himself. A bit younger than her father, but not much. Ah, but his eyes. They were filled with bleak, dark shadows, with secrets huddled deep, and there was pain there as well, pain there for so very long that it was now a part of him, burrowed deep. He was a complex man, but most important, he was alone, so very alone—now she saw that clearly—and he was afraid of something that went as deep as his soul. She didn’t think that being a Shadow Man was the reason for all that bleakness in his eyes.

She said, “It sounds like cloak-and-dagger stuff, sir, like it should have gone out of business when the Cold War ended.”

Thomas said, “Perhaps there’s a bit of cloak-and-dagger still in the mix. Actually, before the end of the Cold War things were a lot simpler. We knew the enemy. We knew exactly how the enemy operated, what to expect. However, now the projects we’re involved in are rarely so clean, so splendidly satisfying and clear-cut as that ‘Mission Impossible’ TV show.

“In my area, there is rarely an obvious and clean line between us and the bad guys, although Saddam and Qaddafi look like they’re going to be long-timers. An enemy of yesterday is a confederate of today. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true.

“This is more true today, of course. So many petty tyrants and greedy despots who want to rule, if not the world, then a larger portion of it than they do currently. China is the giant fist, more frightening than the USSR ever was. So many people, so many natural resources, such endless potential. Somehow we have to deal with all of them.”

Thomas looked off over Sherlock’s left shoulder, seeing into the past, into the future, she didn’t know. Then he said quietly, “There are always failures, mistakes, lives lost needlessly. But we try, Mrs. Savich. More often than not, thank God, we do succeed and perhaps make the world a bit safer. For the most part we’re not allowed to be nice people, so your husband is smart not to trust me. However, this is something entirely different. This isn’t business. This is entirely personal. I need help badly.”

She lowered her head and began weaving a packet of Equal through her fingers. Finally, she looked straight at him, picked up her iced tea glass, raised it toward him, and said, “Why don’t you call me Sherlock.”