Martin Vail 03 - Reign in Hell

by Diehl, William

  “I’m more interested in how he found us,” Firestone said. “We didn’t file a flight plan to New Mexico until we were in the air. We didn’t file a flight plan out of New Mexico until we were in the air, and we didn’t file a flight plan from Fort Wayne until we were on the runway. We didn’t even reserve a car, it was delivered by two marshals from Columbus.”

  “Maybe he’s telepathic,” Hardistan said sarcastically.

  “Maybe he flies his own airplane,” said Flaherty, who had been quiet up to this point. Hardistan, Vail, and Firestone turned and looked at him.

  “What are the options?” he said defensively, his hands held out at his sides. “Either there was a breach of security, or you were followed. And if he followed you, he had to do it by plane.”

  “He followed us to New Mexico in a private jet?” Vail said with a smile.

  “Didn’t have to. He’s probably from somewhere within a two-hour flight from Fort Wayne.”

  “How do you figure that?” Firestone asked.

  “Someone picked up your flight plan on a scanner coming out of New Mexico,” Flaherty said. “That person called someone who was close enough to get to Fort Wayne about the same time as you. That’s two hours tops. He heard you file on the runway, followed you to the Lima airport, then followed the car by air, straight to Waller’s door.”

  “That’s movie stuff,” Hardistan said.

  “Then it had to be a security problem, which means there’s a mole somewhere in the loop.”

  “Nobody knew Waller’s new name but Sam, the A.G., and me. Nobody,” Hardistan said. “And Sam is the only one who knew he lived here, and he didn’t put the data in the computer.”

  “Then I agree with Derm,” Meyer said. “We’re looking for an assassin who has his own plane, can fly it, is a dead shot, and lives within a two-hour radius of Fort Wayne.”

  “Narrows it down to what? Fifteen, twenty million people, more or less?” Flaherty said.

  “If that’s true, he’s a freelancer,” Firestone said. “The Sanctuary hasn’t got some hotshot shooter sitting out here in the middle of nowhere on the chance that somebody they want to terminate might drift through.”

  “Maybe it’s somebody they worked with in ’Nam,” Vail said.

  “You mean somebody from Phantom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re all accounted for, Martin.”

  “There are two unknowns in that photo. One of them is dead. Who said so? Gary Jordan. Nobody else so far. And there’s no way of back-checking because there aren’t any records.”

  “They didn’t have to phony anything,” Flaherty said. “They just gave out the news that the guy is dead. Up until now, nobody gave a damn.”

  “And it didn’t have to be in ’Nam,” Hardistan said. “The Phantom Project was in Nicaragua. And in Desert Storm. Somewhere along the line this guy quit and went into business for himself.”

  Vail shrugged. “It’s a sidebar anyway. He’s a pro. He planned his shot and his getaway perfectly. His first shot was a head shot at night. That’s one very confident shooter. If we do find him, he’ll never give anything up.”

  “I want the guy who did him,” Firestone said.

  “We all do. Let Billy worry about it. If this guy can be found, I’m sure the FBI will find him.”

  Four agents were awaiting them when they got to the tree line, all wearing blue FBI parkas. The leader of the team was a tall black man, his hair trimmed close to the scalp.

  “Billy, you know Dick Lincoln,” McCurdy said. “This is Foster, Kravitz, and Sheridan. What’ve you got, Dick?”

  “We’ve got tire tracks over there in the bushes. He left in that direction.” He made a chopping motion with his hand. “We lose the tracks at 501. We got footprints in the mud leading from where the car was parked to that.”

  He pointed to a large oak tree with the deep-set scar in its trunk. “There’s a small hole in the ground right here. My guess is he used a unipod, sat in that depression in the tree, and waited until he got a shot.”

  “Casings?” Hardistan asked.

  Lincoln shook his head. “Probably took ’em with him.”

  “You think a man can fit in there?” McCurdy asked, pointing to the split in the tree trunk.

  Lincoln took out a flashlight and, straddling footprints leading to the tree, checked the depression in the tree.

  “We got some fibers in here,” he said. “Looks like fleece, dark, either blue or black—” He stopped and squinted as he looked at the inside of the tree trunk.

  Nearby, John Nash had a steel tape measure and was checking the depth of a footprint. “Adidas,” he said. “Pretty well worn.” He walked around the tree and studied the tire tracks, measuring the depth of the depressions. “Goodyears,” he said. “New. Probably less than five thousand miles on ’em. Common as fleas.” He flicked a spot of dirt off one of the grids. “Got a little scar on it. Looks like the tire ran over some glass.”

  Sheridan, meanwhile, was squatted down in front of the tree with a pair of binoculars, studying the shot line.

  “I make it twelve hundred yards and change,” he said. “Almost three-quarters of a mile.”

  “Somebody give me a Baggie,” Lincoln said. Kravitz handed him one and Lincoln reached into the scar for a moment, then handed out the Baggie with a five-by-seven photo and a pushpin in it. Hardistan took the Baggie and held it up to the light. It was a fuzzy photograph, obviously digitalized, of a man looking upward at the camera, shielding his eyes from the sun.

  “It’s Waller,” he said. “The shooter must’ve used the picture to make sure he had the right target.”

  “Look at the back, sir,” Lincoln said.

  Hardistan turned the bag around. They all stared at the printing on the back of the photo: 2-3-13.

  “Son of a bitch! Son of a bitchl Every time we turn around these bastards are shooting us a bird,” Firestone said.

  Flaherty studied the photograph. “There aren’t any trees by that tractor,” he said.

  “So…?” Vail said.

  “So the picture was shot from above, pretty far above, judging from the quality. The shooter made Waller from the air.”

  “Okay. Seal off this whole area, Floyd,” Hardistan said. “I want molds of tire tracks, footprints, fibers that might be inside the depression in the tree, everything in this area. I want a hard target search of every landing strip within a hundred-mile radius of here. Check motels, rent-a-cars, filling stations, you name it. I want a door-to-door of all houses, barns, silos, stores, in the area. Somebody saw that plane.”

  Firestone stepped away from the group and cocked his head to one side, then looked off to the north.

  “Anybody hear anything?” he said. They all walked out into the clearing and followed his gaze. Then they heard it. Chompchomp-chompchomp.

  “We got a chopper in the area, Floyd?” Hardistan asked.

  “Not yet. Two on the way.”

  “Then we got company.”

  The chopper swung in over the trees and circled around them. In the open doorway, a cameraman supported by straps was shooting down at them. Behind him, leaning over his shoulder, Vail saw a face he recognized and quickly turned his back to the cameraman.

  “That’s Valerie Azimour from WWN,” he said.

  “Too late,” Firestone said to Vail. “You just got made.”

  ***

  At five a.m. that day, as was his custom, Eddie Maxwell had arrived at the nerve center of World Wide News. Maxwell was a lean man, his rough and tumble life reflected in a worn and craggy face. He walked down the row of computers on what was known as the “platform,” checking what the reporters were working on. Next, he checked the large Plexiglas atlas that covered one wall of the room and showed, in different colored lights, where reporters and camera crews were, where satellite vans were stationed, and, in red, where news stories were breaking. Then he went to his office, a glass bubble in the corner that gave him a panoramic view of the spraw
ling newsroom, which even at that hour was rumbling with activity. Directly across from him in the opposite corner was the major news studio, one of three on the floor.

  This was the heart of the news department, where tips were received, reports phoned in, new agendas written, reporters assigned to write stories, and key news decisions were made.

  Maxwell shook off his coat and sport jacket, threw them over a chair, poured himself a cup of coffee, doctored it with half a spoonful of sugar, got a can of grapefruit juice from a small refrigerator, popped the top, and sat down at a desk the size of a lake.

  Behind him on the wall, plaques and awards traced a long and impressive career, from newspaper correspondent in Vietnam, to television in several B market stations, to the major markets, and finally news director of a major network. What was not on the wall were awards and memorabilia of the three years that Maxwell had been an unemployable drunk. But a successful rehab had drawn the attention of Ray Canton, executive VP of WWN, who brought him aboard as a reporter. Within a few months Maxwell had started moving up the ladder. There were Emmys three years in a row for producing, and finally a Peabody Award as executive producer and directing editor of the news division.

  Maxwell got a sheet of paper from the wastebasket, folded it into a small square, and put the coffee cup on it. He took out a pack of Vantage Lights and lined ten cigarettes on the desk next to the writing blotter, one for each hour he would be working, unless the world came to an end, which was not uncommon. He drained the juice, threw the can in the basket, took a sip of coffee, and leaned back to check the morning line, to find out what was happening, about to happen, or no longer going to happen.

  His secretary, Ann Wells, waited until he finished the routine before tapping on the door, which was always open except when he arrived in the morning or when something was breaking. He waved her in.

  “Good morning, Mr. Maxwell,” she said, picking up the coat and sport jacket and throwing them over her arm. “There’s good news and there’s bad news.”

  “Arggh,” he growled. “What’s the good news?”

  “Valerie Azimour is onto a breaking news story near Lima, Ohio.”

  “Lima, Ohio? There’s nothing in Lima, Ohio. I thought she was doing that thing in Akron?”

  “She finished.”

  “So what’s the bad news?”

  “She pulled one of the two video men who were with her out of the satellite van. And, uh… she’s rented a chopper.”

  “Lima, Ohio? A chopper?”

  “She’s on the honker.”

  He grabbed the red phone reserved for emergencies and roared, “What the hell’s going on?”

  “I think I’m on top of a hot one, Eddie,” the reporter said.

  “You think! You better be on top of the hottest one since the Lindbergh kidnapping. I repeat, what the hell’s going on?”

  “We finished up here about four this morning, and Sid wanted to drive back so we get in by noon. We’re eating breakfast about five when my beeper goes off. An affiliate here in Akron says he was talking to a radio pal of his in Lima, Ohio, who says the FBI is all over a murder case ten miles south of there. I call the radio guy and here’s what I know. A farmer named Anderson was apparently shot and killed about ten miles south of Lima early last night. The radio guy picked it up on a police scanner about nine o’clock last night, so he drove down to the funeral home, and the funeral director says Floyd McCurdy, FBI agent in charge of Columbus, called him and says nobody touches the body until the FBI gets there. So this kid gets curious and he hangs around and about three o’clock McCurdy shows up with an army. He says they have the place sewed up tighter than Scarlett O’Hara’s corset.”

  “Get to the point, Val.”

  “I’ve got a chopper on standby. I’ve got Tommy Sewell with me, and the satellite truck’s on its way down there. I should be there about seven—”

  “What the hell’s the story? Some farmer probably was running a hot car ring and got whacked in a shootout.”

  “The G-boys didn’t arrive until three a.m.”

  “It’s a waste of time.”

  “Trust me on this one, Eddie. In two hours we’ll know what’s going on, and right now nobody else is on this story.”

  “Nobody else wants it.”

  “The whirlybird’s warming up, Eddie. Gotta go. I’ll call you back in an hour or so.”

  “Listen… Val… Azimour! Goddamnit.” He slammed down the phone.

  “Something wrong?” Wells asked from his doorway.

  “Did I miss something? Has Azimour taken over my job?”

  “Nooo.”

  “She has a chopper, a satellite van, and a crew of five heading to some dipshit town in Ohio because a farmer got whacked last night.”

  “You left out about the FBI.”

  He glared at her. “So…”

  “So, if the FBI’s involved, I’m interested in who this farmer is. And who whacked him.”

  “Well, maybe you oughta be the directing editor.”

  “Maybe…”

  An hour and a half later Azimour was circling the crime scene, scanning it through binoculars. Blue FBI jackets were everywhere. There was a group huddled around a bay of trees, and the chopper circled it.

  “Wait a minute!” she said, and refocused the binoculars. “God damn, that’s William Hardistan. What’s he doing here?”

  “Ya got me,” the video cameraman said, still shooting. “Who’s William Hardington?”

  “He runs the FBI. How about the other guy with his back to the camera? I didn’t get a look at him before he turned around.”

  “Don’t know. It’ll be on the tape.”

  “Jesus, look around here, Teddy. There must be thirty, forty Fee-Bees scouting that field.”

  Teddy swung his camera around and shot back toward the house. “Looks like somebody tried to park a tractor in the back of that farmhouse,” he said.

  “Swing over there,” she ordered the pilot.

  At seven-fifty Eddie Maxwell snatched up the red phone on his desk. “Yeah,” he snapped.

  “It’s Valerie.” She was shouting above the noise of the chopper blades and the wind. “We’re freezing up here.”

  “Too bad. This better be good, Azimour, or I’m taking the cost of the trip outta your next paycheck.”

  In the chopper, she was staring at a freeze frame of the tape Teddy had shot twenty minutes earlier.

  “Eddie, we’ve got a farmhouse sitting out in the middle of nowhere, two, three miles from the nearest building. We’ve got a tractor embedded in the back of the house. We’ve got a twenty-four-year-old farmer named Anderson who was shot twice, once in the head, once in the torso. We’ve got an FBI field lab here and FeeBees twenty deep crawling all over the place.”

  “I’m not enthralled.”

  “It gets better. Guess who showed up for breakfast?”

  “Efrem Zimbalist, Junior.”

  “William Hardistan.”

  Suddenly Maxwell got interested. “Hardistan’s there?”

  “It gets even better, guess who’s with him?”

  “Oh for Chrissakes…”

  “Martin Vail.”

  “The lawyer?”

  “How many Martin Vails do you know?”

  Maxwell’s mind started racing. “Any competition there yet?”

  “No, but it’s just a matter of time. I just talked to the satellite truck. It’ll be here in ten minutes. We’ll set up for a live shot. We can use the flyover tape with my voice-over after my intro.”

  “You need to get to Hardistan.”

  “We’re still in the air, Eddie.”

  “You got Hardistan and Vail on tape?”

  “You betcha.”

  “All right, as soon as you can get the tape to the satellite truck, call me. I’ll alert Julie Lane now, she’s producing the news this morning. Think you can pin Hardistan down for an interview?”

  “You know Hardistan, he never talks to anybody And he’s
a chatterbox compared to Vail.”

  “Okay, hold it to three minutes with a tease at the end.”

  “Will do.” She looked down at the field behind Anderson’s house. “Something big happened here last night, Eddie.”

  “Damn good thing. Now find out what it was.” He hung up.

  “Great,” Vail moaned as they trudged back toward the farmhouse. “I’m on the job less than twenty-four hours, our only witness gets popped, and we’re about to have our faces spread all over international television.”

  “Welcome to the real world, Martin,” Hardistan said. “Get used to it. She’s gonna be dogging you from now on.”

  They went back in the house, drew cups of coffee, and rubbed frozen hands over the hissing fireplace. Vail was quiet for several minutes, staring at the blazing logs.

  “I tell you what we’re going to do,” he said finally “We’re going to leave for Fort Wayne. Billy and I have an appointment with a federal judge in less than four hours. Sam, Ben, and Dermott will go with us, that gets all of us out of here. Floyd, I’d like you to have a sit-down with Azimour, tell her we were on our way to Chicago and Hardistan stopped off here en route to another appointment to see what’s going on. I’m with him on an unrelated matter.”

  “An unrelated matter? I’ll bet she buys that,” Flaherty said, and laughed.

  “Floyd doesn’t know what it is. Do you know why I’m here, Floyd?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Good, let’s keep it that way for a while. That way he’s telling the truth.”

  “If she gets pushy,” said Hardistan, “tell her we’ve got a lid on this investigation and she’ll find out what’s going on when everybody else does.”

  “That’ll put her on Jupiter,” Flaherty said.

  “Screw her,” Vail said.

  “She’s got you on tape, Marty. If she doesn’t get some satisfaction, she’ll be speculating about what you’re doing here.”

  “She will anyway.”

  “Not if you give her a little sugar.”

  “What the hell’re you driving at?”

  “Let Floyd give her a live minute. He can corroborate what she already knows and then put a cap on the investigation. She gets the first break—she ought to, she got here first—and maybe he can get her to lay off you.”