know anyone in Alexandria?”
“Not that we could discover. We’re doing a wide grid search to find him—or his body. Still no sign.”
Farriger watched Besserman start to pace her office, a long narrow room. She saw him momentarily distracted by her paintings of medieval tapestries on the walls. Why was Alan being so slow? She nudged him forward. “Alan, there has to be a reason Justice ran. We backtracked him to the Blaze Café—a waiter said he was obviously expecting someone, kept looking at his watch. But he got impatient and left. The bodega cam across the street shows two people walking toward him—and shows him running away. Why was he there? Who were these people he was running from?”
Besserman stopped on a dime, stared at her reflection in the glass. Farriger slowly turned to face him. “Think, Alan. I know you like the guy, you think he’s smart, and I agree he’s done excellent work, but—” She said nothing more, let her silence speak.
Besserman knew what this looked like, and he didn’t like it. He had no idea what had happened, but it couldn’t be what she was hinting at, absolutely not. He said slowly, his voice firm as a judge, “I am as sure as I can be Justice wasn’t at that café to meet with a foreign operative. Justice isn’t a traitor.”
Farriger shrugged. “Alan, I don’t want to think it, either, but we have to consider it. Remember, you told me about the chatter he’d picked up about some kind of breakthrough in surveillance technology on Russian back channels? You brought it to me and we decided it didn’t merit our attention. Well, maybe he lied to you, maybe he managed to identify the source of the chatter about ‘smart walls’ in Russia, and found out more, maybe someone offered him money to funnel them information. There had to be something going on to set this off. Have you finished the forensics on his workstation? His clearance was high enough that even if he didn’t escalate it, he could have copied enough sensitive information to hurt us badly. Let’s hope he’s not trying to be another Edward Snowden.”
Besserman stood tall and squared his shoulders, but still looked rather ridiculous with his mussed hair and rumpled suit. “We’re still checking, but it doesn’t matter, I will not believe Justice Cummings would ever contact a foreign government, would ever turn traitor. Absolutely no way, but if a Russian counterpart tracked his access back to him specifically?” He shook his head. “Still, there’d be no reason to kill him. The information was already in our hands, at least that’s what they’d think.”
He paused, looked pained to even say the words. “All right, let’s assume he contacted someone outside channels, see where it takes us.”
Farriger merely looked at him and waited. Besserman cursed under his breath. He said slowly, “If he believed the people he saw were ours and that’s why he ran, he thought he’d been busted.” He paused, ran his tongue over his lips. “But they weren’t our people. The people he saw outside, it’s possible they had nothing to do with him and he ran because—” He shook his head. “No, wait. I may be going far afield here, but there’s another possible scenario. He was cheating on his wife, meeting a woman after work at the café. It’s possible he ran from the people he saw outside because—” He looked frustrated because no good reason popped into his brain, except “Maybe he believed she’d found him out and thought his wife had hired a P.I. He got spooked.”
She tried not to laugh. “Say you’re right, then we’re back to why wouldn’t he call you after he got hurt? You’re not only his friend, you’re his chief. Or call some other friend? Why, Alan?”
“Because he’s dead, that’s why. He managed to get himself hidden and he died.”
Farriger smiled, a tight smile, rarely seen, but it was there, showing white teeth. It was disappointing Besserman and his crew were taking so long to find the trail of sensitive documents she herself had copied from his workstation—documents they would have to believe he’d copied, something never allowed, an act to trigger a major alarm. Those copied files would incriminate, and Cummings would have no choice but to cooperate with Nikki—at least Nikki believed he’d have to, or be branded a traitor. But what Claire really wanted was Cummings dead. She hoped Besserman was right—Justice’s body would turn up somewhere in Alexandria.