Enigma (FBI Thriller 21)

ce and blurry blue eyes looking back at her. He was sucking on his fingers. “Is he well?”

“Of course,” Ella said, patting his head. “He’s perfect. I’m a nurse.”

Sherlock smiled down at him. “It’s good to see you again, Alex. Your mama’s going to be very happy.”

Sherlock and Connie turned at the sound of Dr. Lister Maddox’s voice. “Take him back to the nursery, Ella! What are you doing?”

“His name is Alex, Dr. Maddox, and he’s not staying here, not with you. He belongs with his mother.”

Lister took a step forward, stopped, and sagged against the hallway wall. “You betray me, Ella? You betray my father?” Tears sheened his eyes. “He’s gone again, my father is gone.” He waved his hand toward Sherlock and the baby. “I suppose you will take him, like everything else.”

“Dr. Maddox, we have the baby now, and we have Ella and the others to tell us everything we need to know. And we’ll soon find Sylvie Vaughn. Isn’t it time for you to admit to us what you’ve done, for you to help us put some lives together? Who is the young man in the hospital? Where is his family?”

He only shook his head, said nothing.

Ella said, “His name is Arthur Childers. I did my best for him as well. And there was another one before him, another subject. Dr. Maddox called him Enigma One. His name was Thomas Denham. He died.”

“You stupid woman! After all I’ve accomplished! My work must continue, it must go on!”

Connie said, “Cut the crap, Dr. Maddox. You used those men like lab rats. This nightmare is over, and you are going to jail. I pray for a very long time.”

“How can you be so blind? You’ve seen Cargill! You’ve seen my seventy-eight-year-old father. Why can’t you understand I had to use human subjects?”

Sherlock gave the baby to Connie, pulled flex-cuffs from her belt, walked over to Lister, and jerked his arms behind his back.

“But the baby! Someone must study him! He could hold the answer for all of us!”

Sherlock fastened the flex-cuffs around his wrists. “I thank the Lord none of that will ever be up to you again.”

58

SERGEI PETROV’S HOUSE

SOUTH OF ALEXANDRIA

WEDNESDAY NIGHT

A half-moon shone on the Potomac, and wind-whipped waves slapped against the wooden dock, rocking the yacht gently at its moorings. It was a pity about the half-moon and the bright clear sky with its stunning display of stars, but there was nothing to be done about it.

Jack and Cam huddled down near the water with five of the FBI SWAT team out of the Washington Field Office, at the edge of the woods looking at Petrov’s house. Ruth and Ollie were already with the other half of the team in the trees at the back of the house. The SWAT team’s standard-issue earpieces and the microphones in their shoulder pouches were dialed into the CAU comms units at their wrists. They saw bright lights shining from the living room and the master bedroom, and Ruth had reported lights in the first-floor back bedroom.

They all wore black from head to toe, their faces blackened. Cam and Jack wore black caps pulled low, Kevlar beneath their FBI jackets, the SWAT team wore their military-issue bulletproof vests, camouflage helmets, and night-vision goggles. They all carried H&K MP5s that could be set to full automatic for thirty-three rapid rounds, and extra ammunition on their belts. Cam and Jack carried their FBI-issue Glocks as well, and the SWAT team their preferred Springfield .45s. Several of the SWAT team carried crowbars and lightweight battering rams to breach the front door.

As they moved quietly into position, Cam whispered to Jack, “I feel seriously underdressed next to these guys.”

He whispered back, “They’ve got to be ready for battle, an ambush, anything. We can move faster if need be.”

SWAT team leader Luke Palmer set up a parabolic mic facing the house and they listened for voices, hoping to count and place everyone inside. They heard only the sound of a single man’s footsteps in the living room.

Jack looked down at his watch, said low into his comm, “Ruth, is everyone in place?”

“Yes, we’re ready.”

At Luke’s nod, Jack raised the SWAT team bullhorn. “This is the FBI. Sergei Petrov, come out now with your hands over your head. The house is surrounded, there’s no way out.”

They heard a shout, and someone running, then another man’s loud voice, but they couldn’t understand his words. He was speaking Russian.

“I make two men,” Luke whispered. “They’re running, getting weapons together.” He said into his microphone, “Launch tear gas grenades.” The launchers fired in unison from both the front and back of the house. They heard the sounds of breaking glass as the grenades crashed through the windows. The lights went out, they heard more shouting, and then the obscenely loud crack of weapons on full automatic aimed at their positions. They heard more automatic fire from the back of the house, loud and clean on their comms.