Pray for the Innocent Read online

  Gosberg’s expression remained unchanged. “This is no joke, Dr. King. Far from it. I realize how this must seem to you, but you must trust me. This is important.”

  King tapped his chin with a pencil he’d plucked from the Best Dad in the World mug his daughter Amanda had given him when she was eight. “Uh-huh. Okay, I’ll play along. How can I be of help?”

  “Two days ago, a man escaped from our custody, and we’re fairly sure this fugitive believes he is Dragunov, from Attack on America.”

  “You’re shitting me,” King said, examining Gosberg’s face for some sign this was indeed some kind of giant put-on, but the man’s stony countenance didn’t crack. “How did you determine that?”

  “He left a note referencing Nick Nolan and signed it Dragunov. And yesterday, there was another incident. Dragunov attacked a man in his driveway and stole his car.” Gosberg paused. “He stabbed the victim with a screwdriver through the neck. Not your usual carjacking weapon. The crime scene was very, very bloody.”

  A burning sensation started in King’s gut and spread outward, becoming more intense, until it felt like his entire insides were aflame. A screwdriver to the neck? He’d described just such a murder in excruciating and grisly detail in Attack on America. If he recalled correctly, it had taken about six pages from the time the assassin started his torture until the victim’s painful last breath. King had earned his moniker as the Master of Thrills, Chills, and Outrageous Kills, and death by screwdriver certainly qualified as outrageous. “Is he dead?”

  “No. Thankfully. But we need to stop this guy, and soon.”

  King exhaled. “I’m still not sure what this has to do with me.”

  “Maybe nothing. But the more information we have, the better our chances.”

  “It was a book, a novel I wrote thirty years ago. Surely nothing from that time frame could be remotely relevant today.”

  “We’re not exactly sure what is relevant. But we’d appreciate whatever you have—old notes, outlines, research, anything.”

  “How do you think my notes are going to help you? Why don’t you just read a copy of the book? Then you’ll know everything there is to know about it,” King said. “If you want to cover all your bases, then I suggest you read the sequels and rent the movies, too. Do that, and you’ll have digested the entire canon of Nick Nolan fiction. There’s nothing more I could add.”

  Something flashed behind Gosberg’s eyes, and whatever it was, it gave King the willies. “This could very well have national security implications.”

  “You think this nut is going to try to destroy America?”

  “That’s Dragunov’s mission in the book, isn’t it? Perhaps it’s a worst-case scenario, but we need to take every precaution.” Gosberg leaned in and softened his voice. “Dr. King, we really need your help on this. We need to catch this guy before someone else gets killed.”

  A tsunami of horrific memories washed over King, threatening to overwhelm him. After his first wife Rina’s tragic death, he’d made a promise to himself, and to his daughter Amanda, that he would leave the world of violence behind, stop penning thrillers, and live like a peaceful, regular person. No more Thrills, Chills, and Outrageous Kills. The thought of getting sucked back into that world repulsed him.

  “Dr. King? Are you okay?” Gosberg was staring at King, concern on his face.

  “Huh? Yes, I’m . . . I’m okay. But I’m sorry, Dr. Gosberg, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “But this is extremely—”

  King held up his hand. “I’m sorry, but my answer is final. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  Gosberg rose and held out a business card. “I sincerely hope you’ll reconsider. Your help on this would be invaluable. Please give me a call if you do.”

  Gosberg dropped the card on King’s desk. “And please don’t tell anyone about our conversation. Thanks for your time, Dr. King.” He turned and slipped out before King could respond.

  King examined Gosberg’s business card. All it had was his name—Peter Gosberg, M.D.—and a phone number. No agency name, no job title, no address, no email. Something sure seemed fishy in Denmark. King had no intention of getting involved, but he always liked to know what—and who—he was up against.

  He also had the very strong feeling that Gosberg wasn’t going to stop pestering him until he got his way.

  King picked up his phone and punched in a number. “Emily, could you please meet me in my office, tout de suite. I’ve got a new project for you.”

  Chapter Four

  Twenty seconds later, Emily Phan charged into King’s office and plopped down in King’s visitor chair, one leg tucked beneath her on the seat. Her T-shirt read, English Majors Do It Like Prose, in bright red letters, with the words Do It in parentheses. “What’s up, Professor King?”

  “Now why would you think something’s up?”

  “Because you’ve never told me to do anything tout de suite before.”

  “Really?”

  “Actually, the tone in your voice gave it away. I’ve heard that a million times before.”

  King suppressed a chuckle. Emily was the best graduate assistant he’d ever had. She wasn’t intimidated by him, which set her apart from 90 percent of his meek assistants. Plus she was brilliant, intuitive, creative, inquisitive—it was just like working with a twenty-four-year-old version of himself, if he’d been female. And Asian. And a lot more adventurous. And full of inexhaustible energy. And . . . King snapped Gosberg’s card down on the desk, turned it around to face Emily, then slid it across to her. She read it without picking it up.

  “Peter Gosberg. Never heard of him.”

  “I hadn’t, either, until he showed up here. He just left.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Is he on the faculty?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Where does he work? There’s no company name on the card, or job title, or anything.”

  “Exactly.” King smiled. “I know how much you like puzzles. And I have a feeling this will prove to be quite a doozy.”

  “I do love a challenge. What did he want?”

  King paused, to emphasize his coming words. “My cooperation. My notes.”

  “What notes?”

  “He wanted all the notes and research I compiled during the writing of Attack on America.”

  Emily’s brow furrowed. “Why? Does he want to sell them on eBay or something?”

  “I doubt he could get enough to pay shipping. He wants them to track down a fugitive.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “I’m pretty sure I don’t understand, either. This guy Gosberg said it was a matter of national security.”

  “Seriously? That. Is. So. Cool.” Emily beamed for a moment, lost in some fantasy.

  Maybe that’s where King had picked up the staccato sentence affectation. “I’m not sure ‘cool’ is the word I’d use. He claimed to be some kind of medical researcher. Wouldn’t say who he worked for or if it was really a government agency. He didn’t really say much of anything, except that he wanted my help.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him I wasn’t interested.”

  Emily’s face sagged. “Oh.”

  “However, I think he may return.”

  She brightened. “Okay. So what do you want me to do? Should we try a little good cop, bad cop on him? I’ve always wanted to be bad cop.”

  “Although I think you’d make a terrific bad cop, I need your research skills. You keep telling me what an expert you are on the internet. I want you to dig up whatever you can on Gosberg. Personal life, employer, government ties. What kind of car he drives. Anything at all.”

  “What about the lesson outlines you wanted?”

  “Put all of that aside. I’ve been teaching the same crap for twenty years. Besides, we’ve got plenty of time before the fall semester begins. And keep me updated on what you find. I’d like to know who I’m deali
ng with before he returns.”

  “What kind of notes do you have, anyway?”

  “Damned if I know. That was thirty years ago. Back in the days of typewriters and longhand. Spiral notebooks. Notecards. I did my share of research, especially about weapons, but I was also a big proponent of MSU.”

  “MSU?”

  “Making Stuff Up. Junk the public gobbled like M&M’s.” King sighed, and the weight of those thirty years pressed heavily on him. How many millions of minds did he pollute with his garbage? “Anyway, I wouldn’t even know where to look for that stuff.”

  “Don’t worry, Professor King. The only thing I like more than a challenging puzzle is a treasure hunt. I can help you find your notes if you want.”

  Add eager and helpful to the list of Emily’s attributes. “Thanks. I’ll get back to you on that. Right now, I’d like to know about this Gosberg.”

  Emily popped out of her chair. “Roger that, Professor King. I’ll get right on it.”

  “Thank you, Emily.”

  She scooped up her backpack and was out the door in a blur.

  Ah, youth. Excitable, enthusiastic, naive youth.

  #

  Emily Phan was scared to look down, afraid she’d see her heart beating out through her chest like in the cartoons. For once in her life, she was actually involved in some real excitement, and she kept telling herself to calm down and pace herself. It wouldn’t be cool to stroke out on her very first mission.

  She thought she’d passed that Gosberg guy on the way to Professor King’s office—an average-looking guy in a blazer who’d ducked into the men’s room. She’d never seen him before, and they didn’t get too many visitors in the middle of summer in the English Department—at least not many over the age of thirty. Had to be him.

  If she was fast—and lucky—she just might be able to catch up to him. She had a parking spot in the faculty lot right next to the building, but Gosberg would most likely have parked in the visitor lot—a fifteen-minute walk.

  She hustled out of the building, double time, sidestepped a guy sitting on the steps reading a book, and dashed to her car. She dove into the front seat and started up her metallic-blue Prius. She made it to the visitor’s parking lot with time to spare—as she pulled up near the entrance, she spotted Gosberg walking along the path at the north end of the lot.

  She positioned her car by the lot’s exit and slumped down in her seat, ready to tear out in hot pursuit if that’s what the situation called for. Professor King had wanted her to google Gosberg, but wasn’t this a whole lot better? It was a whole lot more exciting, that was for sure. Impulsive? Probably a little. Her parents were always on her case about that, but really, wasn’t that the fun in life? Being impulsive?

  She peered over the dashboard and watched Gosberg climb into his car, a dark-blue American sedan. He pulled out slowly and rolled through the lot toward the exit. After the stop sign, Gosberg turned left out of the lot, and when he did, Emily sat up, stomped on the accelerator, and followed him, barely avoiding a fast-approaching SUV. Ordinarily, she would never have darted into traffic like that, but she didn’t want to risk losing Gosberg.

  Actually, it felt great driving a little wild.

  The light ahead turned green, and Gosberg cruised through the intersection. Emily kept pace a few car lengths behind. She wasn’t worried about being spotted, at least not at the moment. Traffic was fairly heavy on the two-lane road, and as far as she knew, he had absolutely no reason to believe he was being followed.

  They left the tree-lined campus drive and headed east. Emily imagined herself tearing through the streets of Fairfax, Virginia, in a fire-engine red Corvette, avoiding other vehicles, dodging pedestrians, careening up onto sidewalks, all in pursuit of the bad guy in the dark sedan. After a harrowing twenty-minute high-speed chase worthy of Jason Bourne at his finest, she apprehended the villain with a karate chop and a well-delivered quip. “You’re toast, scumbag.” Or maybe, “That’s all, dirtball.” Then she’d hop back into her sports car and roar off into the sunset, ready to solve her next case or nab her next fanatical terrorist.

  She’d had similar daydreams before. Many times.

  And at the end of all her vivid cinematic fantasies, one video clip, on an endless loop, always stood out—her parents, shaking their heads in disapproval, muttering about how they’d always wanted her to be a doctor. Not a hard-boiled PI, not a stunt driver, not a secret agent. And certainly not an English major whose goal in life was to write trashy genre novels.

  Emily returned to the present, keeping to the speed limit in her metallic-blue Prius.

  Gosberg’s turn signal blinked, and he moved into the right turn lane. Emily followed, checking her rearview mirror, hoping other cars would follow. She figured it would be a lot easier to tail Gosberg unobtrusively if she had company. Fortunately, two other cars fell in behind hers.

  They turned, and Gosberg drove on, seemingly oblivious to her presence. A few more minutes elapsed, and then Gosberg turned left off the main drag onto a side street.

  Emily caught sight of a “No Outlet” sign seconds before she followed Gosberg. Fearing her turning immediately behind him would be too obvious, she abruptly straightened the wheel and aborted the turn, veering back into traffic. The car behind her slammed on its brakes, and in her rearview mirror she saw the scowling driver flash the universal one-finger salute. Today, she didn’t care at all. Today, she was on a mission.

  At the next wide spot in the road, she flipped on her signal and executed an awkward U-turn, two wheels bumping up onto the opposite curb. When she regained control, she managed to give the scowling driver a salute of her own as she passed him going the other way.

  Emily hit the gas and turned onto Gosberg’s side street, careful not to screech her tires. She hoped she hadn’t lost him and was relieved to see the rear of his car disappear about sixty yards away, into an alley or parking lot—she couldn’t be sure from her angle. Emily slowly cruised down the street in Gosberg’s wake.

  Although the streets leading there had been mostly residential, this area seemed to be a mix of small-scale enterprises and light industrial businesses. A couple of auto body shops flanked a sprawling EZ Storage facility. On the other side of the street there was some kind of processing plant, a commercial bakery, and a large, ugly warehouse.

  She approached the spot where she’d seen Gosberg’s car disappear. A parking lot. With an automated security gate. She rolled past the adjacent building slowly, trying to spot a sign displaying the company’s name.

  Nothing. A plain dull-gray two-story building with corrugated metal sheets for walls. Looked like a typical warehouse. The windows were tinted, as were the glass front doors. Two scraggly trees struggled for their lives in a meager grass strip by the street, but instead of appearing natural, the attempt at greenification just seemed pitiful.

  Emily reached the end of the dead-end street, where yet another auto body shop stood, then steered her car through the arc of the cul-de-sac. She pulled over and put the car in park.

  What now?

  She’d followed Gosberg to a plain-Jane warehouse with no identification. She knew its address and could pass that information along to Professor King. That’s exactly what he wanted, wasn’t it? To find out more about Gosberg. Where he worked.

  But where he worked was only part of the story. Who he worked for was a lot more important, wasn’t it? Wouldn’t that information be infinitely more valuable?

  Of course it would.

  And something was suspicious, too. What kind of place needed a security gate topped with razor wire protecting the parking lot? What kind of legitimate company didn’t put up a sign? Didn’t they ever get a UPS delivery?

  So what was it? A secret research facility? Here in the land of body shops? Maybe it was some kind of illegal operation. A meth lab or illegal gun repository. Maybe Dr. Gosberg was a spy sent by a foreign government to ferret out America’s weak spots. Her pulse throbbed. What if they’d stumbl
ed onto some kind of far-reaching international terrorist plot?

  She took a deep breath, realizing her imagination was running wild. Most likely, Dr. Gosberg was what he appeared to be—a boring scientist. But why all the subterfuge?

  As she debated her next move, she considered what Nick Nolan would do. She’d read every book in the series, multiple times. She’d seen all the movies, multiple times. She worked with the brilliant series creator on a daily basis. Surely, if anyone would know what Nick Nolan would do, she would.

  She turned off the engine, opened her car door, and hopped out.

  She knew exactly what Nick Nolan would do.

  Chapter Five

  The man who knew himself only as Dragunov sat on a bench under some trees in a little park. A pair of high-powered binoculars hung on his neck; a copy of the Kaufman Field Guide to Advanced Birding rested on the bench beside him. Every so often he’d raise his glasses and focus on something in the trees, making appreciative chirping noises.

  Sometimes, though, he’d swivel sixty degrees and focus on another place of interest about 150 yards away, down a long hill: Washington National Cathedral. A nondescript white panel van was parked in a handicapped spot near the cathedral’s front entrance. Inside the van was a homemade bomb, rigged to a remote detonator. He knew this because he was the one who’d rigged it. He’d stolen the van, procured the necessary materials, and fashioned the explosive device. And nobody had said a thing or questioned his actions or tried to stop him. This was America, after all, where people were too busy with their own lives to take notice of those around them.

  Dragunov wasn’t sure where he’d learned to steal cars or make bombs. He never recalled being taught those things, but somehow he just knew how to do them.

  Somehow he knew how to do a lot of things.

  His mission was clear: destroy America from the inside, relying on his wide range of lethal skills to foment panic. Assassin, bombmaker, arsonist, kidnapper. He was well versed in all matters of deadly mayhem. Sometimes his mission required him to demolish an iconic American institution or mangle vital pieces of the country’s infrastructure. Other times, he created havoc by attacking random members of society as they worked or played, igniting a firestorm of terror among the people.