O’Connell launched into an explanation, including the Chechen cover story.
“That’s all you got? That’s all he said?”
“That’s it. I still don’t know who the hell he was.”
“Are you sure you heard him right?”
“I think so. He had a thick accent, but it’s not as if he gave me a lot to memorize.”
“I don’t get it. It must have been something else,” Weaver proposed. “Have you checked with any translators? It probably isn’t even English.”
“I swear to God. That was all he said. It was in English. But I will check.”
“It doesn’t make any sense. Do you think it’s some kind of threat?”
“Don’t know. But I think he would have added missiles or bombs to it.”
“And he’s dead?”
“I didn’t stick around to find out. But I think so.”
“You sure he didn’t whisper anything else?” Weaver asked.
“Look, we didn’t have a chance to go out for a drink. He got fucking shot!” The reporter exhaled deeply. “Apparently, the FSB was onto the man. I’m lucky I got away.”
“Tell you what,” she recommended. “Go to the Internet. Type in the word, add any other fields you can think of, and see if something registers.”
He’d already planned on doing that.
“I think you better consider all the possibilities,” she added. “You have an expensive trip to account for.”
O’Connell picked up his bags and left, not worrying about the cost of the trip, but the cost of not finding out what the man meant. He headed straight for his desk in the City Room. He ignored the e-mails and started with Google.
“Okay, Ivan,” O’Connell said to himself, “what the hell were you trying to tell me?” He typed in the letters and waited to see what his first search produced.
Roarke and Davis were led into an airy living room with a vaulted ceiling. Gloria Cooper then excused herself to talk to her husband.
Roarke’s eyes wandered from the cherry cabinets and leather furniture that defined the room, to the French doors leading to the backyard. He looked through the glass. A garden pathway led past a small stream. The property stretched on into the woods, which bordered the Cooper’s home. It all appeared beautiful and, to Roarke, pristine.
Roarke turned back to the room. It was dark and cold, and although it was completely decorated, it also had an unused quality about it. The focal point was a shale fireplace. Above the mantle was a large photograph of a young man in a uniform, set off by an ornate frame. Richard Cooper.
Roarke stepped closer, utterly transfixed. He turned away only when he heard the footsteps of the Coopers coming into the room. Roarke and Davis had been alone for five minutes. Gloria Cooper obviously had used the time to convince her husband to come downstairs and listen to the visitors.
“Mr. Davis, Mr. Roarke, this is my husband, Bill.”
“Hello,” he said. Roarke gave him a quick study. Five-eleven, once taller, 210 to 220 pounds. High cheekbones. Thin lips. Short hair. Not unlike the man in the photograph.
“Mr. Cooper, thank you for inviting us into your house without any notice.” Davis continued to do the talking for the team. “We appreciate it.”
Davis restated the lie that brought them there. Mrs. Cooper invited them to sit down on the couch. The conversation started awkwardly. The Coopers were visibly guarded.
Roarke remained quiet through the first five minutes, encouraging them with smiles and nods. He continued to look around the room, often coming back to the picture above the fireplace.
“Richard got the acting bug in high school?” Roarke finally asked.
“Yes,” said Bill Cooper. “He was a great football player, but in the off-season he discovered acting through Moeller’s improvisation group.”
“Moeller?”
“Moeller — it’s a Catholic school that had a powerhouse football program for years. Probably will again. But while he was there, it lost ground to other schools and Richard tried acting. He loved it. Pretty soon, he told us he needed more than what Moeller offered.”
“Yes, but remember what he said?” Mrs. Cooper asked her husband. “He wanted to do important plays and grand roles.”
“That’s right,” he agreed. “Grand roles, so he told us he wanted to transfer.”
“I remember sitting in our house, not here, our old house, and talking to Richard about his choices,” Mrs. Cooper explained. “We didn’t really understand theater. We sure knew football. Everybody in Cincinnati does. After all, Bill was a running back in high school. That’s where I met him. And Richard had all his talent—”
“And more,” Bill added.
“But we didn’t want to tell Richard what to do. Not that he would have listened,” continued Gloria Cooper. “He was always so headstrong. So one day he announced that he wanted to apply to a high school across town. The School for Creative and Performing Arts.”
Bill Cooper picked up the story. “He felt he would get more out of a theater program than sports. That’s where he went. He did every play he could and never looked back at football again. He said he wanted to go into acting. He checked out colleges and chose Northwestern. He got a partial scholarship, but he still needed more help. We wouldn’t have been able to do it without that.”
Roarke held onto that thought for a moment. The Coopers were certainly living well. Very well for a retired auto mechanic and dental hygienist, he judged. He made a mental note to have their financial records pulled.
“Army ROTC?” Davis asked.
“Yes, they helped pay for school,” Bill said, suddenly losing his enthusiasm. “I wish…” He stopped short of completing the thought. He reached for his wife’s hand, but she pulled away.
Roarke immediately sensed the change of heart. He steered the conversation back in a lighter direction. “Tell us about the plays he did.” He wanted to learn about specific roles.
It was a better place to go. Gloria Cooper found happier thoughts again. “Oh, everything. More improvisation, musicals, dramas.” She went on to list his credits-Shakespeare, Ibsen, Miller.
Roarke memorized them all. Important plays and grand roles. After the Coopers shared more recollections, Roarke was ready to return to Richard Cooper’s early Army training, but in a less direct way than Davis had chosen. “Now, ROTC isn’t quite the ticket to Broadway.”
Mrs. Cooper looked at her husband. He waved her off. He wasn’t prepared to tell the story.
“As we said before, we needed the money,” she stated. “Richard told us that it would help him.”
Bill Cooper interrupted. “They trained him to kill. And then they took him to Iraq. He never did another play.”
Tears formed in Mrs. Cooper’s eyes, but only for an instant. The coldness she exhibited at the door returned. She willed the tears away. Her resolve drove the next thought. “I’ll tell you what your government did to our boy,” she said directly. “It’s in all his letters. You took his dreams away from him. You killed his spark, his joy. Oh, not at first. He couldn’t wait to get back, to find his way to New York or Los Angeles. But, as so many of his friends died, I felt like he was driven by something awful. His letters got more depressing. He wanted to leave and he couldn’t. So I think he acted his way through what he had to do. God only knows what that was. He never told us. And then one day, the boy we raised was gone.”
“Damnit!” O’Connell cursed. The word produced too many random hits.
Weapon. Bomb. Army. Navy. Air Force. Submarine.
Spy.
He ate at his desk, trying other word combinations. O’Connell didn’t know whether he’d even recognize a clue if he stumbled onto it.