US Marshall 03 - The Rapids Read Free Page B

hadn’t changed his ways. He couldn’t. She understood that part. She had that same sense of wanderlust.
    “Well, Pop,” she said, dipping her wooden spoon into her pan of spicy vegetables and rice, “we got the bad guy today.”
    She didn’t know if he’d ever really approved of her career in diplomatic security. He’d seemed okay with her political science degree in college, then her first job at the State Department. She’d hoped her decision to become a DS officer and the prospect of a foreign service career might have intrigued him, but he’d remained outside her life, not disinterested but not a part of it.
    The DS special agent in charge of her field office had given her the news of her father’s death himself.
    Philip Spencer had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
    Except Maggie hadn’t believed it. Still didn’t. Czech authorities, U.S. authorities—she wasn’t getting the whole story. She’d pushed and bucked andbitten off heads, and everywhere, from everyone, she got the same line.
    Shot by bank robbers who then got away.
    Bullshit.
    There were no witnesses. Newspapers, even in Prague, barely covered the story. And the reaction she got from investigators—American and Czech—amounted to stonewalling. But she’d finally backed off. What was the point in sticking her neck out for a man she’d seen maybe a half-dozen times in the five years before his death?
    Maggie dumped out the rest of her fried rice and ran cold water into the pan, leaving it until morning.
    No one—not the Dutch authorities, not anyone at the American embassy—was celebrating Nick Janssen’s arrest. As pleased as they were with having him in custody, they all knew his tentacles were far-reaching. There was a lot of work yet to be done.
    The media were all over the story. The embassy’s public affairs officers as well as the FBI and USMS people back in Washington were fielding questions. Janssen’s attorneys had descended, screaming and hollering. News of Maggie’s anonymous tip was out.
    On her way to bed, she noticed that her solitary plant, an orchid she’d bought in deference to the collective Dutch green thumb, looked dead. It was supposed to be a hardy variety that she’d have a difficult time killing, but she’d killed it in less than three weeks.
    She took it to the sink, doused it with water and left it next to her soaking leftovers pan. Maybe it’d revive by morning.
    She rolled her eyes. Who was she kidding? The thing was dead. To hope otherwise wasn’t optimism—it was refusing to face reality.
    And if nothing else, Maggie thought, she was a woman determined to face reality.
     
    Libby Smith left her window open in her room at her small hotel around the corner from where Dutch police had picked up Nick Janssen. It was brazen of her. A risk. But there was no reason for authorities to investigate hotel guests. Even if they did, they’d never suspect her of being anything but what she was: an American antiques dealer, a woman looking for off-the-beaten-track bargains.
    What if they had him under surveillance and saw you on the bench with him?
    If they caught up with her and asked about it, she’d say she’d stopped to rest her feet and they’d chatted for a few minutes about the sights.
    She couldn’t seem to get cool.
    She lay naked atop the cotton duvet and noticed the sheen of her sweat in the light from the street. She could hear the traffic, the sound of music playing somewhere not too far off, the voices of people under her window, out enjoying the warm summer night.
    The hundred-thousand deposit had been wired into her account. Janssen must have prearranged the transfer.
    Libby had never made such money.
    And it was just the beginning.
    She’d memorized Janssen’s list of targets and burned it, flushing the ashes down her toilet.
    Knowing his enemies—and eliminating them—would help her to understand his network and, in time, replace him.
    His arrest was inevitable, just a bit