"I like your positive outlook on life."

He took a sip of his beer. "And I like your taste in women. I do love a redhead."

"She's just a friend from work."

"Good kisser?"

"Dad, come on."

"You're no fun."

Hansen thought for a moment, then said, "Can I ask you something? You ever know anyone who killed himself?"

"Yeah, I knew a fella once."

"Why'd he do it?"

"Wife left him. Took the kids. He got depressed. Starting messing up on the job. Got fired. Then one night we heard the gunshot, not that anyone was surprised. Why you asking me this?"

"I don't know."

"You're not depressed, are you?"

"Me?"

"Well, yeah."

"No, I've been busy with work, but we had a guy who might've done that."

"Why you say that? Could've been murder."

"No, he just kind of vanished. Might be dead or not. No body."

Dad leaned forward in his chair. "There are certain members of our government who are more susceptible to alien abduction, you know that, Son, right?"

Hansen repressed the desire to roll his eyes, sipped his beer, and said, "Good point, Dad. Good point."

"All I'm saying is that you cannot rule out the possibility."

"No, sir."

Gillespie came out onto the porch, beer in hand. "Mr. Hansen, I want to thank you for dinner. I really enjoyed it."

"You're welcome, sweetie. Anytime. Now, I'd better close my mouth because anything else I say is going to deeply embarrass my son."

Hansen smiled at his father. "Dad, after all these years, you're finally learning."

He winked. "Sometimes we teachers are the worst students."

35

ODESSA, UKRAINE

THEcall had come in at 3:00 A.M., and Hansen and the team were back in the air and racing toward Odessa, with a plane change in Frankfurt.

Unsurprisingly, Fisher had quite literarily returned from the depths of the Rhine and had resurfaced in the Ukraine. According to Grim, Fisher was seeking medical treatment from an old friend, Adrik Ivanov, a former medic in the Russian army. Ivanov was single, in his fifties, and a compulsive gambler who'd been hard-pressed to hold a steady job since being discharged.

It wasn't until they were on the ground in Odessa, at 9:40 P.M., that Grim came through with the particulars: Ivanov lived in a duplex near the Tairov cemetery but spent most of his free time at a bar adjacent to the Chornoye More hotel. Hansen had asked if the man was an alcoholic, and Grim had only snickered. Of course he was. Moreover, something in her tone told Hansen that Fisher wasn't really going to see Ivanov for medical attention; in fact, all of it sounded exactly like another ploy. Hansen already had his guard up.

Moreau said that surveillance on Ivanov's duplex apartment indicated no lights, assumedly no one home, but Hansen sent Valentina and Gillespie up for a look anyway. They picked the lock, searched the place, and found no evidence of Fisher having been there or any medical treatment performed.

Grim then told them that Ivanov worked as a night watchman at a LUKOIL warehouse annex at the city's northern industrial docks. LUKOIL was the largest oil company in Russia and its largest producer of oil, with obviously relaxed standards for its security guards. Grim followed up with the warehouse's location, uploaded directly to their OPSATs. Hansen found it interesting that she selectively released information, as though buying someone on the other end a little more time. . . .

The team jammed into a single rental car and drove from Ivanov's place to the warehouse, which was set off the road and about a hundred yards from the beach. Other warehouses were clustered around it, but most looked abandoned, with signs in Cyrillic indicating they were for lease.

They parked about two hundred yards away and skulked off into the complex, a refinery hub whose innards swept overhead, making Hansen feel as though they were in the bowels of a dying old beast. Some of the larger pipes snaked down through the lot and plunged into the sand at the beach line.

With a little help from Moreau, they pinpointed the LUKOIL annex, a redbrick building splotched with graffiti and long rust stains where broken gutters sent rainwater down the walls.

After a cursory scan of the building's blueprints, and realizing that the annex had only one main door, Hansen ordered the team to fall in behind him.

"You want us to get in there with goggles and scan for heat signatures?" asked Gillespie.

"I'm not worried about it. I think we'll find Ivanov, but I think Fisher's long gone," answered Hansen.

He worked his magic on the door's lock and eased it open, stepping through with his SC pistol leading the way. The place was dimly lit by weak overhead bulbs and smelled like a combination of mold and rusting metal.

Gillespie, Valentina, Noboru, and Ames moved in behind him, and he sent Ames and Valentina off toward an office area visible behind glass walls while hand signaling Gillespie and Noboru to work the perimeter and finish clearing the place.

The annex was relatively small, perhaps fifteen hundred square feet, and split on the right side by twenty-foot-tall rack shelves buckling under the weight of boxes and crates. A few rows of fifty-five-gallon drums labeled as cleaning solution were stacked three high, off to the left, creating a wall of curving metal.

"I think we have our boy," whispered Valentina into her subdermal. "Don't move, buddy," she added in Russian. "You're coming with us."

"All clear back here," said Noboru.

"Roger that," answered Hansen. "Clear. Okay, bring him out."

Hansen started over toward the office, where Ames ordered Ivanov forward, and the old man's arms splayed outward in a froglike manner. Apparently, the old man wasn't walking fast enough for Ames, who suddenly shoved him much too hard, and Ivanov hit the concrete, belly first, right in front of Hansen.

Ivanov tried to pull himself up, but Ames jabbed his heel into the man's butt and forced him back down.

Hansen glared at Ames. "Enough, Ames. Leave him be."

Ames mumbled something about trying to soften up the guy, but Hansen translated it into: Bite me, boss man.

Kneeling beside Ivanov, Hansen helped the man to his knees and confirmed his identity. He looked leaner and more haggard and weatherworn than his file photo.

"Who are you? What do you want?" asked Ivanov, his English a bit broken but certainly acceptable.

"We're looking for a man," Hansen said. "An old friend of yours named Sam."

Ivanov's expression turned guilty. He denied knowing any Sam. Hansen insisted that Fisher had been there, and the old man went on about how he worked alone and had come in at six o'clock. Hansen cut him off: "You owe some people money."

Ivanov raised his voice, saying he'd paid them off.

Hansen explained about how computers were wonderful tools and could make people seem as if they still owed money. In fact, Hansen went on to say that they could make it appear that Ivanov owed a lot of money to some very dangerous people.

Ivanov protested.

"Tell us what he wanted," Hansen insisted.

The old watchman gave an exaggerated shrug, then spread his arms in confusion, but there was something--something in the glimmer of his eyes that told Hansen he was lying.