Backfire by Catherine Coulter
“They found an Asian woman by the name of Lin Mei standing over Cindy, crying, still holding a bloody homemade blade. Lucky for Cindy she stuck her in the chest just once with it, then jerked the blade right out.”
Eve said, “Did she say why she did it?”
Savich said, “Lieutenant Clark in the San Francisco Sheriff’s Custody Division spoke to her while the EMTs were transporting Cindy Cahill to the hospital. He said her voice sounded like she was drugged or in shock, that she couldn’t seem to speak above a whisper. She told Clark a man who looked American told her in fluent Mandarin in the calmest voice she’d ever heard that he would slit her son’s throat if she didn’t stab Cindy Cahill to death. He handed her a photo of her son shooting baskets in a friend’s driveway. He even told her where she would find a blade to stab her with tonight—in a drain next to the women’s shower. She said she didn’t have a doubt he’d do exactly what he said if she didn’t kill Cindy.”
Sherlock said, “It seems so unlikely, but we know now that Xu looks American. No one who’s seen him thought he looked Asian, but he was always wearing glasses before. So it means he’s Chinese American, with Causasian features.”
Eve said, “So Xu visited this woman in prison?”
Savich shook his head. “Clark told me that Lin Mei had been out on bail until yesterday. Then she showed up after missing her court date, on purpose, it looks like, told by her court-appointed lawyer, who told her she’d see a judge in the next couple of days and be rebonded. Xu approached her while she was working at her job at the bakery at Whole Foods. He waited patiently until she was on break and stepped in front of her.”
Savich shook his head. “Do you know she was arrested for kiting a check for her brother to get him out of trouble with a Chinese gang because she didn’t have any money? Now she’ll be up for murder.”
Eve said, “Hopefully attempted murder with mitigating circumstances. Didn’t she think about what would happen to her and her son if she got caught?”
Cheney said, “Caught? She never tried to hide that she’d stabbed Cindy. She was paralyzed by what she’d done, that she’d just tried to kill another human being. Lieutenant Clark said after she described what she’d done and why, her eyes rolled back in her head and she fainted. When she woke up she didn’t say another word. He said he asked her over and over why she hadn’t come and spoken to one of the guards, but she only looked at him with great sadness. He had her brought here to the emergency room.”
Eve looked up to see her boss, Marshal Carney Maynard, standing in the doorway. He looked tired, she thought, and unhappy, and she couldn’t blame him at all. Maynard said, “There aren’t any nurses around who know anything about Cindy Cahill. Is she still alive?”
“She’s still in surgery and hanging in,” Eve said. “That was all the OR nurse could tell us. She said when the surgery’s done, the surgeon will come out and speak to us. It’s nearly one a.m., sir, you didn’t have to come.” Of course he had to come, you idiot. He’s here because of you.
Maynard said, “I did have to come, Eve. Cindy Cahill is here because my people screwed up.”
Nice way of putting it. “No, sir, your people didn’t screw up. I screwed up, and I’m singular,” Eve said, and looked him straight in the eye. “Let’s do this in front of everyone, I deserve it.”
Marshal Carney Maynard eyed her back and frowned. “How do you figure you suddenly rule the world, Deputy Barbieri?”
“Sir, the truth is I only glanced at the transfer papers. I should have studied them as carefully as I would if they had been papers bringing Qaddafi’s body to the U.S., but I didn’t.”
Maynard waved a hand to cut her off. He was more frazzled than tired, and here was Barbieri desperately trying to shoulder all the blame. It’d be easier if he could heap it all on her head, but he couldn’t. He said, “Since the proverbial buck stops with me, Deputy Barbieri, I’m the one responsible. I knew the importance of this transfer, but I was watching the Monday-night football game. This was the classic definition of a snafu. I’d hoped never to have one with such disastrous results under my watch, but it’s happened, and now we all have to deal with it.
“So dial it down, Eve.” He laughed. “We’ve given our FBI contingent a fine show. Here’s what happened. Turns out we had a new deputy driving the prisoner van. His partner didn’t look closely at the paperwork, and so they did the run they normally do. They drove Clive and Cindy Cahill straight back from one of our holding cells to the San Francisco jail. That simple. No, Deputy. You did your job. I didn’t do mine.”
Sherlock said, “No one wins in a blame game, Marshal Maynard. Not even the FBI contingent.”
Nurse Camp looked in from the doorway. “Dr. Elba is tied up and asked me to speak to you. Cindy Cahill is out of surgery. Dr. Elba thinks she has an even chance, though she’s still oozing blood because of a clotting problem she’s developed from all the bleeding. We moved her to recovery. You won’t be able to speak to her until morning, all right?”
Harry asked, “Could you please find out about a new patient for us, a Mrs. Lin Mei, probably having a psychiatric evaluation?”
Nurse Camp said, “Not in my bailiwick, Agent. The people at the reception desk can help you find her.”
Eve thanked her and watched Savich dial Bill Hammond at the CIA. They could hear a man’s voice loud and clear: “Are you nuts, Savich? It’s four in the damned morning!”
Harry and Eve looked at each other, knew they didn’t want to hear this conversation, and left the waiting room. They took the elevator to the fourth floor to check on Ramsey before they left the hospital. It wasn’t the same elevator. That one still had crime tape plastered over the doors on every floor. Eve didn’t think she’d ever want to ride that particular elevator again in her life.
Judge Sherlock’s home
Pacific Heights
Tuesday morning
Judge Corman Sherlock said to his son-in-law the next morning across the breakfast table, “You’re frustrated, Dillon, and no wonder, after last night. How about I give you my membership card for the Pacific Heights Club over on Union Street and you get a good workout? I can call Mr. Eddie, he’s usually there, and he’s been looking forward to mixing it up with you. He outweighs you by a good twenty pounds, all of it muscle. Even though he’s older than you, he’s one tough bald bugger.”
Savich hated to say no; he couldn’t think of anything he needed more than a sweaty hard workout. He shook his head. “I’ve got to take a rain check with Mr. Eddie. Lacey and I have to get over to the hospital as soon as we can. Cindy Cahill’s awake, more or less, and this is our first chance to talk to her.”
Five minutes later, after Sean had demolished a bowl of Cheerios and started to rag on his grandmother about the visit to the zoo she’d promised him, even though the zoo wasn’t open yet, Sherlock started up their rental car for the ride across town to San Francisco General Hospital.
Savich booted up MAX as they drove toward Market Street. “Cheney is already working on getting a sketch of Xu from Lin Mei. He said he’d have it out to Hammersmith about now, but it doesn’t look like he’s posted it yet. I wonder how Cindy will react to it.”
“I only hope she’ll be able to talk to us,” Sherlock said. “Cheney said she wasn’t doing well.”
“If she can, I know in my gut that now she’ll tell us everything she knows about Xu, since he tried to have her killed.”
He sat back for a moment, closed his eyes. “Until Xu murdered Milo Siles, and his game plan became clear, it was a nightmare trying to predict him. Sometimes he was controlled and logical, sometimes not. What he pulled off last night was an act of desperation, beyond his control. He was lucky it worked out as well as it did.”
Sherlock turned onto 101 South. “Ripping up an elevator ceiling, throwing down a smoke bomb, and firing down on a bunch of ma
“I can’t, either. It’s so over-the-top and out of character for him. Why was he so desperate to kill Ramsey in such a crazy way? Bottom line, he’s a spy, probably has been for quite a while, and a spy’s first watchword, it would seem to me, is discretion. He buried Mickey O’Rourke in a spot no one would ever find, just bad luck for him that those kids were there.
“But then he murdered Milo Siles and Pixie McCray in broad daylight when he could easily have been spotted. He’s all over the place.”
Sherlock said, “I think with Milo it boiled down to eliminating anyone who could hurt him as fast as possible so he can get out of Dodge. It was desperation, like you said. I think if he’d thought he had a choice, he’d have waited until he could get Milo alone, bury him deep, like he did Mickey O’Rourke. I’ll tell you, Dillon, it gives me a headache.”
Savich grinned at her. “I’m hoping Xu is deluded enough or desperate enough to make a try to kill Cindy in the ICU. I doubled her guard. She’s as well covered as Ramsey. If Xu shows up, we’ll get him, no doubt in my mind.”
“You know he’s got to try. The last thing he wants is for her to talk to us, and he’s got to know she would talk, since he tried to have her killed.”
“Ah, here comes the sketch.”
Sherlock looked over at MAX’s screen at the man’s face. “Not very distinctive, is he? Not a single Asian facial characteristic except maybe for the thick black hair. Green eyes, and a thin, longish face. What age would you say, about thirty-five?”
Savich said, “Yeah, that’s about right.” He stared at the man and found himself wondering how Xu had hooked up with the Chinese government, and why he’d become a traitor to his country of birth. Does he feel more Chinese than American? Or is it all about money? Savich knew neither was the whole of it. Fact was, though, Xu was a psychopath who happened to be half Chinese and had found a perfect fit getting paid to do what he took pleasure in.
San Francisco General Hospital
Tuesday morning
They found Cindy Cahill in the surgical ICU only one cubicle away from where Ramsey had fought for his life, shot by the same man who’d ordered Cindy killed. Officer Colley looked them over from beside Cindy’s cubicle and smiled at them. He’d also done a guard shift when Ramsey had been here.
“Good to see you, Agent Savich, Agent Sherlock. Agent Christoff and Deputy Barbieri have been waiting inside for you for a couple of minutes. There’ve been lots of doctors and nurses in and out. I think she’s in trouble.” He held up his cell phone to show them the sketch of Xu. “Just got it.” He nodded to Sherlock. “No sign of him. You can bet they’ll strip-search any guy who looks like him before he leaves the lobby, ball cap or not.”
Cindy looked white as death, her eyes closed, her eyelids bruised, her hair matted down. There was a plastic oxygen mask over her mouth, and when she breathed, it was with effort, as if it was hard work for her. The single sheet pulled over her was stained pink where it touched her chest, and looked to be draped over a maze of gurgling tubes, packings, and pressure dressings, some of them stained pink as well. One of her IVs held a bag of blood that was slowly dripping into her arm. Without makeup, without a show of her usual attitude and the force of her personality, she looked young and vulnerable, and gravely ill.
Savich nodded to Eve and Harry. “Has she been asleep since you got here?”
Eve shook her head. “She’s awake, but she hurts and she’s dopey from all the drugs they’re pumping into her. The doctor told me he didn’t know whether she’d make any sense or not.”
Sherlock said, “All we can do is try.”
“Ah, there’s an eye opening.” Eve leaned over her. “Good morning, Cindy. You want to blink at me so I know you’re there?”
Cindy Cahill blinked. “I’m here,” she whispered.
“Are you in pain?” Savich asked.
Incredibly, she smiled. “It doesn’t feel like I’m swimming in Bali with the sun beating down on me, if that’s what you mean. I’ve always wanted to go to Bali, but I don’t know if I’m going to make it there now. Do you know she apologized to me after she stuck that knife in my chest?”
Everyone felt a pang of pity until Cindy whispered, a heap of venom in her voice, “I even went out of my way to talk to that skinny little bitch. I mean, I didn’t have anything better to do, so why not? And all she did was yak, yak about her son, as if I cared.” The real Cindy, attitude and all, had snapped back into focus, as ill as she was.
Harry grinned. “Sounds like you’re getting back to normal, Cindy,” he said, and kept his fingers crossed she’d stay with it.
“I won’t be back to normal ever. Look at me. At least the bitch didn’t kill me.”
“Her name’s Lin Mei,” Sherlock said.
“Who are you?”
“I’m an FBI agent.”
Cindy said, “I like your hair. I once had red hair, well, more auburn, really, but I didn’t curl it like you do yours.” She cut her eyes to Eve. “What I hate is blond ponytails. I mean, it’s so dated, like a woman trying to regain her girlhood. It’s pathetic.”
Eve said, “The reason Lin Mei tried to kill you is because Xu threatened to murder her little boy if she didn’t.”
They all saw how quickly Cindy computed this, even as sick and drugged as she was. “Poor kid’s dead now. I mean, since I’m alive, it means Mom failed, and Xu will find that out fast enough.”
“Her boy is being protected,” Sherlock said. “He’ll be fine.”
Eve continued, “Do you know Lin Mei’s in shock and here in the psychiatric unit?”
“She’s probably faking it. I hope she goes down hard for this.” They saw a hand clench. “I actually pretended to listen to her! I actually paid her some attention, and this is how she repays me.”
Savich said, “I’m sure you agree she was smart to pay more attention to Xu. She didn’t think the police could protect her son from him.”
“All right, so she was smart to believe him. I mean, he shot Judge Hunt, murdered Mickey O’Rourke and poor Milo, the greedy idiot. Wait—” Sudden panic bloomed in Cindy’s eyes. “Clive. Where’s Clive?”
Savich hadn’t wanted to go there, not yet, but Cindy’s face was flushed, her eyes focused on him. He didn’t have a choice now. He said, “Xu hired a prisoner to stab him in the shower, just as he had Lin Mei stab you. Clive didn’t make it. I’m sorry, Cindy.”
Cindy’s face went perfectly blank. She tried to shake her head at them but couldn’t seem to make her head move. She closed her eyes and didn’t make a sound, except for her labored breathing. Tears seeped from beneath her eyelids and streamed down her white cheeks.
Eve thought, So Cindy hadn’t been simply using Clive after all.
Savich said, “You can’t help Clive now, but you can help yourself. I’ve got that offer from the U.S. attorney for you, Cindy. Are you ready to tell us what you know about Xu?”
Cindy whispered, her eyes still closed, “Is it fifteen years, like I wanted?”
“Yes, since Xu’s now a serial killer, fifteen years is on the table if what you tell us helps us find him.”
“You got that in writing?”
“There hasn’t been time, Cindy, and we don’t have much of it now. He could be leaving the country as we speak.”
“Can I trust you, Agent Savich?”
Savich leaned down close to her face. “You can trust me.”
Cindy opened her eyes and studied his face. She whispered, “Xu’s first name is Xian, X-i-a-n, but he’d always been called Xu, said it was easier than Xian. He’s a lot younger than Clive, but he didn’t tell me his age. I teased him enough for him to tell me he was from Indiana, got out of there when he was eighteen. He said he changed his name
“Does this look like him, Cindy?” Savich showed her the sketch of Xu on the cell phone.
“That’s not too bad. He’s handsomer, though, really pretty green eyes. He did tell me he got his eyelashes from his mom, Ann.”
“Do you know where he’s staying?”
“No, he never told us that. He showed up when he wanted to. I think he moved around.”
“What was Xu after from Mark Lindy’s computer?”
“He never told us that, either. He said the less we knew about it, the better for everyone. Lindy did tell me he was an expert on computer worms and viruses, stuff like that. He bragged to me once when he was lying on top of me after sex that he was one of the major designers of the worm that shut down Iran’s bomb plans.”
An alarm went off on one of the electronic monitors Cindy was connected to, and a nurse and resident rushed into the cubicle. “Please leave now,” the doctor said. “She needs some help.”
The four of them were hurried out of Cindy Cahill’s cubicle. They stood motionless outside the cubicle. “Is she going to die?”
No one had an answer for that.
Savich punched the elevator button. They said nothing more, waited until they were inside. Savich said, “Since there’s nothing we can do about Cindy, I need to sit down somewhere, run the information she gave us on Xu through MAX.”
As they walked to the cafeteria, Eve said, “I want her to make it, I really do. I’ll admit I was surprised she was so upset about Clive. I always thought she was using him, like he was some sort of father figure to her. It’s all just so—useless.”
Savich shook his head. “I’d say they had a mutual dependence, strange as it was.”
Eve nodded. “I also think she had a bit of contempt for him, since she knew very well Clive was weaker than she was—but yeah, she depended on him, he was always there for her. I wonder what will happen to her now.”