The FBI Thrillers Collection Books 1-5 - Catherine Coulter [648]
Becca grinned and pumped his hand. “Hi, Hatch. Listen, I’m ready. The next time he calls—I’m ready. We’re going to set a trap for him. I’m going to be the bait.”
“Hmmm. I don’t think the boss likes that. His jaw is all knotted up.”
Adam unknotted his jaw. “No, I don’t like it. It’s crazy. I don’t want her to take this kind of risk. Ah, shit, I can tell by the look on your face, Becca, that you’re going to do it regardless of what I think.”
“Look, Adam,” Savich said, “if I could think of another way, I’d dive on it, but there are enough of us to keep her protected. Now, Hatch, according to Adam, you have a pretty awesome reputation to maintain. Tell us what you’ve found out.”
Hatch took a slim black book out of his jacket pocket, licked his fingers, and ruffled some pages. “Most of this is from Thomas’s guys, who’ve been working their butts off trying to verify Krimakov’s death. Thomas got everyone working on it right away. Now, the CIA has actually spoken to the cop who was the one who poked around his body. Apollo—no shit, that’s his name—said Krimakov went over a cliff on the eastern end of Crete, near Agios Nikolaos, died instantly, one would suppose from the injuries. It could have been murder, he allowed, but nobody checked into it all that much for the simple fact that no one really cares. Nothing obvious about it, so they closed the case until our agents flew in and spread out and wanted to see and examine everything.”
“So he’s really dead,” Becca said.
Hatch looked up and gave them a big grin. “Nope, not necessarily. Here’s the kicker. Krimakov’s body was cremated. You see, for the longest time, our people were stonewalled by the locals, who wouldn’t allow them to view the body. It was only after the Greek government got involved that they let it out of the bag that they’d cremated him right away. Why? I don’t know, but there was a payoff, somewhere.”
No one said a word for a very long time.
“Cremated?” Adam repeated, disbelieving.
“Yes, burned to ashes, poured in an urn. Thing’s still sitting on a shelf in the morgue.”
Sherlock said, “So there is no definitive proof because there’s no body to examine.”
“Right,” Hatch said. “Now, while we all chew on that, let’s go back a bit. Krimakov moved to Crete in the early eighties. Just showed up and stayed. He was into bad things, but not bad enough so anyone would dig and find out exactly who and what he’d been in Russia. Actually, the impression is they never tried really hard to do any nailing. He probably paid everyone off.”
“Damn,” Adam said. “Okay. Now we’ve got to search his house, top to bottom and under the basement. If he ever was involved in this, there will be something there.”
“Our agents have gone over his house, didn’t find anything. No clues, no leads, no references at all to Becca. We heard that he had an apartment somewhere, but we don’t know where it is. That might take a little time. There aren’t any official records.”
Savich said, “If he had an apartment, I’ll find it.”
“Just you?” Adam said, an eyebrow raised.
“Didn’t Thomas tell you I was good?”
Adam snorted, watching Savich plug in MAX.
Hatch said, “More will be coming about his personal activities. But as yet, there isn’t anything out of Russia. It seems that way back when, all Krimakov’s records were purged. There’s little left. Nothing of interest. The KGB probably ordered it done, then helped him go to ground, in Crete. Again, though, they’ll continue searching and probing and questioning all their counterparts in Moscow.”
“Krimakov isn’t dead,” Adam said. And he believed it like he’d never believed anything in his life.
Having said that, Adam sat back and closed his eyes. He was getting a headache.
“Well, yeah,