Although fatally wounded, Sakis was not paralyzed. He sank to his knees and fell forward, reaching for the box. Vail started to squeeze off another round but realized that it was too late when he saw Sakis’s index finger trip the switch.

He ran up to the gate as Sakis rolled off the box, his eyes vacant with death. In the darkness Vail could see the red LED display. It read 2:58 . . . 2:57 . . .

Vail ran back and retrieved the key. At the gate again, the lock was on Sakis’s side and the chain was thick and difficult to maneuver. The bars on the sides of the gate were narrower than the gate itself. Vail’s hand barely fit through. With his right he grabbed the chain on his side and manipulated it to bring the lock closer to his left hand. 2:43 . . . 2:42 . . .

Carefully, he tried to place the key in the keyhole, but the lock was large and had a spring-loaded metal cover to protect it from debris and weather. He pushed the cover back with the key and just about had it seated when it slipped from his hand and fell to the floor. 2:07 . . . 2:06 . . .

Dropping down to his knees, he shoved his hand through the bottom of the bars, but it was well out of reach. 1:59 . . . 1:58 . . .

Vail stripped off his belt, then his shirt and T-shirt. There was a small puddle of water under the gate; he soaked his T-shirt and then tightened his belt around it. 1:42 . . . 1:41 . . .

Threading them through the bars, Vail threw his shirt at the key, holding on to the end of the belt. His first cast landed on the key. Slowly, he drew it back to him, the weight of the water keeping the key under the shirt as it was pulled toward him. 1:30 . . . 1:29 . . . 1:28 . . .

Finally he was able to grab it with his fingertips. He delicately inserted it in the lock—this time it seated fully. He tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t move. Vail then realized that Sakis had thrown him the wrong key, maybe one for a gate ahead.

Vail’s laughter bellowed down the tunnel. “If I had a hat, I’d tip it to you for making that switch.” He glanced at the timer: 1:14 . . . 1:13 . . .

The closest part of Sakis’s body was his foot. Vail reached through the bars and could get just two fingers on his trouser cuff. He pulled it to the bulkhead. Working his way up Sakis’s leg, he eventually had the entire body against the gate. He pulled part of the other man’s suit coat through the bars and patted the pockets, hoping there was another key. He couldn’t feel anything through the cloth. 1:01 . . . 1:00 . . . 0:59 . . .

He grabbed at Sakis’s left trouser pockets, front and back, pulling them close enough to pat them. Still nothing. 0:47 . . . 0:46 . . .

Using only his fingertips, Vail grabbed Sakis’s belt and pulled it toward him to roll the body partially over. Finally he was able to feel the right front trouser pocket. There was a set of keys in it. But he couldn’t roll the body over any further, because it was against the bars, and the pocket, although he could grasp its opening edge, was facing away from him. He took out his lockback knife and slit the material open, exposing a key ring.

From behind him Vail could hear voices and footsteps. The cops. And it sounded like there were a half dozen or more of them. He looked at the timer: 0:31 . . .

Vail took the ring and was relieved to see a key similar to the one Sakis had decoyed him with. He stood up and, holding on to it with both hands, worked it into the lock. It turned. He pushed the gate open. 0:24 . . . Vail ordered himself to stop looking at the timer.

The device appeared to be basic. Timer, power supply, electrical blasting caps wired to the three shaped charges attached to the concrete ceiling. Vail wondered if the timer had been booby-trapped, but then he reasoned that he was never supposed to get to it. So he took the first blasting-cap wire, doubled it over, and stuck his knife’s blade into the loop and pulled. The wire severed cleanly. Quickly, he did the same to the other two. The first cop’s flashlight finally came into view. Vail looked at the timer and watched as it counted down from 0:11. “Plenty of time,” he said out loud. He watched as the readout continued, which it would even if the bomb was defused. When it was about to go to 0:00, he closed one eye, squinting at it. The display went black.

“Let me see your hands,” the first police officer said.

Vail raised them and then heard Les Carson say, “That’s all right, he’s the agent.”

Vail stepped back through the gate, partially closing it. “Sorry, guys, there’s explosives in there. I think they’re defused, but you’d better get someone down here who knows what he’s doing.”

A sergeant walked forward and peered through the gate. “That the shooter?”

“It was.”

“Why was he trying to blow a hole in the ceiling? To escape?”

“We’re under the Chicago River. Actually, he was trying to kill the rest of us,” Vail said.

Les Carson came forward and looked at the body. “Yeah, that’s Sakis. At least that’s the name he gave us.”

Vail straddled the body. Remembering the fake passports and escape plans that Petriv had been supplied with, he started going through Sakis’s pockets. There was no wallet, but in the suit coat Vail found a grainy photograph. Recognizing the background, he realized that it had been taken in Washington. But it still surprised him.

It was a photo of himself.

20

John Kalix watched Vail come through the gate after the flight back from Chicago. He searched his face for any indication that he had just killed another man, but he couldn’t see any. “How you doing, Steve?”

“Good. Any word from Ident on Sakis’s prints?”

“There’s no record. And that security director at the bank, Carson, forwarded his resume. He started checking it and said so far the work history appears completely phony.”

“He was a lot more educated than a bookkeeper should be,” Vail said. “When we were nose to nose, he started discussing game theory with me. It’s scary to think the Russians plant one of their people in a Chicago bank for that length of time just to handle wire-transferred funds. Makes you wonder how many more there are out there.”

“Maybe the Russians didn’t plant him there only for the Calculus scam. Maybe they were washing money through the bank, or something else. I’ll open a case on it and have Chicago check it out. Some Russian operations have been around for twenty years. There’s probably some that have been in place since the thirties, and we just haven’t uncovered them yet. They’re not like us—they’re got that long-haul mentality.”

“Maybe you should let them know the Cold War is over.”

“It’s all about technology now. They want to steal as much of it as possible. It converts directly into their country’s economy.”

“Did you get the court order for the bank here? What’s the name of it?”

Kalix tapped the breast pocket of his suit coat. “Right here. Northern Virginia Trust in Annandale. When do you want to go out there?”

“Kate’s still in custody—what do you think?” Vail increased his stride, and Kalix hurried to keep up.

Once they were in the car, Kalix said, “After your not-so-low-profile shooting, I had no choice but to tell the assistant director that you’d been reinstated.”

Vail laughed. “Sorry I missed that.”

“I wish I had. If I hadn’t implied that it was the director’s idea, I’d be working the Migratory Bird Act in the Bronx right now.”

“Why don’t you just give me the court order? I can take it from here if you want to go repair some bridges.”

“I think I’ll hang in there a little longer.”

“I’d almost admire your courage if the director weren’t your ace in the hole.”

Kalix smiled. “Actually, he’s more like a royal flush in the hole, so I’m with you—unless, of course, he becomes disenchanted with you. Then I’ll be calling for your head,” he said. “I assume this bank account will also turn out to be a phony?”