Fool Me Twice (Riley Wolfe 2)

“No, Captain,” Corporal Schmidt said. “Not without your order.”

Koelliker made up his mind. “Good. You may notify them now. But tell them we must hold the body for a few days.”

“Hold the body, Captain?” Schmidt said, clearly puzzled.

“Yes, of course,” Koelliker replied. “For the autopsy.”

He took one last look, then turned and strode out of the basement.

32

That’s about all we know for sure,” Special Agent Rosemond said. She nodded once at the display at the far end of the conference table, where a full-screen picture leered down at the assembled agents of the task force. In large block letters, it was labeled, “BAILEY STONE.” “Now here’s the guesswork.” She tapped her computer, and the next PowerPoint slide came up on the screen. A map of the Indian Ocean filled the display. Even accounting for scale, it was huge, and mostly empty, except for the edges of three landmasses.

“That’s South Africa on the left, Australia on the right, and Antarctica below. In the middle, that tiny little dot right there—”

She clicked the next slide; same picture but with a small dot in the center of the screen circled in red.

“The Kerguelen Islands. If it looks like they’re sort of isolated, out in the middle of nowhere—that is not an optical illusion. The Kerguelen Islands are the ass-end of nowhere.

“You say to yourself, ‘Gosh, Helen, I love geography and that’s really interesting—but why do we give a shit?’” There were a couple of amused snorts from the assembled agents—not from Frank Delgado, and not from Special Agent in Charge Dellmore Finn.

Rosemond didn’t seem to notice. She smirked and said, “We care an entire fucking shitload. Want to guess why?”

She looked around the room, holding her smirk. There were no takers. Special Agent in Charge Finn rotated his hand in a get-on-with-it gesture. Rosemond nodded. “Because,” she said, “the Kerguelen Islands are, by pure scientific measurement, the most isolated spot on planet Earth.”

There was a low mutter of surprise around the table. Rosemond nodded and said, “The nickel drops, right? That’s where Riley Wolfe said he was going—the most isolated spot on earth. On the far side of the world. And that’s right here.” She pointed at the image on the screen. “Kerguelen Islands.”

Special Agent Hillman, the IT specialist, raised a hand. “Bailey Stone is in Australia,” he said. “I mean, we’re still targeting him, right?”

“Bailey Stone is still our primary target,” Finn said firmly.

“Right, okay, so,” Hillman said, “couldn’t Wolfe have been saying that, you know, like, metaphorically? The far-side-of-the-earth thing? I mean, Australia is on the far side, too, so—why do you think it’s this Kergle-whatever Islands?”

Rosemond’s smirk grew into a broad smile, the kind generally referred to as a cat-that-ate-the-canary smile. “Because,” she said, “according to our best information, the Kerguelen Islands is where this guy lives.” She hit a key and a new picture came up on-screen, a mug shot of a man. “Anybody recognize that beautiful, suave face?” Rosemond asked mockingly.

“Jesus fuck,” Special Agent Berkowitz said. “Patrick Boniface?!”

“Got it in one,” Rosemond said happily. “Patrick Boniface. King of arms dealers, and not coincidentally the most ruthless sonofabitch on the planet.”

The room buzzed with talk for a few seconds before SAC Finn raised his hand for quiet. “Why do we think Wolfe is going to see Boniface?” he asked.

Rosemond shrugged. “It’s guesswork,” she said. “But I think it’s right. Wolfe said another dangerous man, somebody that Bailey Stone was trying to kill, right?” She paused and looked around the table. “Bailey Stone has had a hard-on for Boniface for like ten years now. He’s made several attempts, and they’ve all blown up in his face. Disastrously.” Rosemond looked serious. “The profilers say that Bailey Stone wants to be number one—needs to be. And they also say that his personality would react to being beat down by trying even harder, again and again, until he succeeds. And on top of that—Wolfe mentioned great art. We know Boniface collects art. A lot of works that have gone missing are supposed to be in his collection now.”

She glanced at Delgado, raising an eyebrow. Delgado nodded once.

“So, do the math, guys. We did—and it adds up to this.”

Rosemond put up her last slide. It showed three frames next to each other, two photographs and one blank square with a question mark in the center. The two pictures were again labeled, “BONIFACE” and “STONE.” The question mark read “WOLFE” underneath. “We still don’t know what Riley Wolfe looks like,” she said. “But we know this: Bailey Stone is using Riley Wolfe to get at Patrick Boniface,” she said.

Agent Berkowitz raised her hand. “Hold on,” she said. “If Riley Wolfe is getting in between Boniface and Stone—doesn’t that drop him in a world of trouble?”

“Two worlds,” Rosemond said. “More and deeper shit than you can imagine.”

“So why would he do that?” Berkowitz said.

Rosemond shrugged. “Pure guesswork? But I think one of them—probably Boniface?—grabbed him by the balls, and the other one, Stone, found out and decided to take advantage.”

“And if Boniface finds out?” Agent Hillman asked.