The officer glanced from the photo on her ID to her face and then did a double take when he saw the side of her head.
“What the hell happened to you?” he said.
Tracie returned the ID to her breast pocket and said, “Subtlety is not your strong suit, is it?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Your…injury…caught me off guard. Please forgive me.”
She decided to take pity on him. She’d done plenty of staring at the injury in the mirror, so she knew exactly how ugly the stitches were.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said with a smile. “Car accident, nothing dramatic.”
“Looks pretty dramatic from here,” he said. “Anyway, about your interrogation. The minute I found out you were coming, I made sure to let Limington know. He’s nervous as hell that the FBI wants to speak to him again already.”
Tracie froze for a moment, before quickly regaining her bearings. Of course the FBI would already have interrogated Limington. The very reason it would make sense to the Norfolk cops that Steinman’s representative would want to speak with their prisoner would, of course, be the same reason the actual FBI would have done so.
Oh well, this cop didn’t seem bothered by the fact another Feeb was here, so she supposed it didn’t matter. As long as the real FBI didn’t show up in the next few minutes.
“Thanks for warming him up for me,” she said. It actually made sense to get Limington off-guard and nervous. Plus, the duty officer was being so earnest and helpful after his initial misstep she wanted to show sincere appreciation.
“Okay, Miss Clayburgh. The prisoner is weak from his surgery, and handcuffed to his hospital bed to boot, so he doesn’t pose much of a threat to you, but if he starts giving you any attitude or you need backup in any way, just raise your voice and call, I’ll be through the door in seconds.”
Tracie tamped down a smile. The day she couldn’t handle one treasonous scientist after he’d been shot in the head was the day she quit working for the CIA in shame, but again the cop was only trying to be helpful.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll be fine, but I’ll let you know.”
“One more thing,” the cop said as she reached to open the door. “The medical people have been paying pretty close attention to this guy, so I can’t guarantee you won’t be interrupted. I’ll try to keep everyone out until you’re finished, but it may not be possible.”
“I understand,” she said, and followed it up with, “You’ve been very helpful, I appreciate it.” She was surprised to discover she meant it.
The door closed behind her with an authoritative clunk. Sitting up in bed, surrounded by three fluffed-up pillows, left hand cuffed to the aluminum bed rail, was a tall, mild-looking man Tracie guessed to be in his early thirties. A brilliant white wrap encircled the man’s head, presumably to hold the top of his skull on following his surgery.
Stallings had given Tracie a slim file containing all the intel the agency had been able to assemble on Limington, which hadn’t amounted to much. The man suspected of selling out his country for money had no criminal record beyond a few speeding citations, none of which had been written in the last five years.
Tracie stood at the doorway for a moment and locked eyes with Limington. Waited patiently until he dropped his gaze first. Then she crossed the room and slapped her manila file onto a small bedside table before sliding a chair next to the bed.
She didn’t sit yet, instead standing with her hands on the back of the chair, making a show of looking the man up and down. She took her time, letting Limington know the interrogation would proceed at her pace. He appeared nervous and his eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t been sleeping well, or perhaps had recently been crying.
Or maybe both.
“My name is Candice Clayburgh,” she said. “I’m with the FBI, and you’re in a lot of trouble, Mr. Limington.” She flashed her fake ID.
He barely glanced at it before answering. “You think I don’t know that? Believe me, I’m well aware just exactly how screwed I am.”
“I’m a little surprised you didn’t request your attorney’s presence for this interview.”
“I don’t have an attorney,” Limington said.
Tracie blinked in genuine surprise. “No attorney?”
“No attorney.”
“You mean you decided not to have him here today.”
“No, I mean I decided I don’t want a lawyer. At all. Period.”
“I don’t understand.”
“There’s nothing to misunderstand. I know what I did, I regret what I did, and I’m willing to accept whatever punishment is coming my way for what I did. My life is ruined, anyway, no matter what happens from here on out, so what the hell difference does it make? All I want is for that backstabbing Russian fuck who screwed me out of fifteen grand, and then shot me for good measure, to get what’s coming to him as well. If that happens I’ll be satisfied.”
Tracie was shocked, not just by the fact the accused man was refusing legal representation, but by the soliloquy he’d just offered. She’d expected to have to deal with a recalcitrant suspect, maybe one who would refuse to speak at all. This was an unexpected development, albeit a positive one.
She sat without speaking for a moment, this time not in an attempt to intimidate the man but rather in an effort to reconsider her approach. She’d planned to hard-ass the guy, play good-cop/bad-cop without the good cop. But now it seemed that might not be the best strategy. Maybe Limington was bullshitting her, but if so, she couldn’t imagine to what end.
“Do you mean what you just said, Mr. Limington?”
“You don’t see a lawyer sitting here with me, do you? I mean it. Ask me whatever you want to know. I’ll answer to the best of my ability, although I don’t know what more I can add beyond what I’ve already told the police and your FBI buddies.”
Tracie nodded. “I understand. You’re probably already tired of telling your story. But sometimes going over events multiple times will cause something to shake loose in your mind, something you may have forgotten.” She had no idea whether that was true or not, especially given the fact that until today the only interrogations she’d ever conducted were the illegal kind, more often resembling torture than law enforcement information-gathering.
“Fine,” Limington said with a shrug. “Ask away. I’ve certainly got no place to be.”
“The police found five thousand dollars in cash when they searched your apartment, but you just said the Russian screwed you out of fifteen grand. You were supposed to be paid twenty?”
“That’s what we agreed upon, and I was stupid enough to think he was playing straight with me.”
Welcome to the world of international espionage, Tracie thought, where no one plays straight with anyone.
Instead of saying that, she settled on, “How did you expect to get away with selling a classified military prototype communication device? Didn’t you realize you were all but certain to be caught once your co-workers discovered the device missing? Wasn’t it only a matter of time?”
“The device wasn’t ever supposed to be missing,” Limington said, his voice shaking. Tracie thought he might be about to start crying, or maybe even suffer some kind of breakdown. He seemed truly miserable. She had to remind herself this meek, miserable man had apparently sold out his country to the Soviets.
“How can you say it wasn’t supposed to be missing? You agreed to sell this thing for twenty thousand dollars but you never thought he would actually take possession of it? That doesn’t make sense.”
“I never agreed to sell it to him.”
“I don’t understand. Make me understand, Mr. Limington.”
“He told me all he wanted to do was take photographs of it. I thought I would bring it to him, he’d snap a few dozen pictures of it, then he’d hand it back to be and I would return it to Marine Technix and no one would ever be the wiser.”
“Except the Soviets,” Tracie said sarcastically. “They w
ould be the wiser.”
“Not really,” Limington said. “Even if he’d dismantled the outer case to take his pictures, the wiring and electronics are far too complicated to be deciphered simply by looking at photos.”
“So you thought you’d take advantage of your contact’s lack of knowledge about the subject matter to make some easy money, is that it?”
“Something like that,” he mumbled, staring at his cuffed wrist.
“But when it came time to return the device, the Russian just kept it.”
“That’s right. And he stuck a gun in my face to boot. I about pissed myself, and I did puke.” He offered a trembling smile. “That was when he shot me. But I got plenty of puke on that son-of-a-bitch’s car. I hope it hardens on there and never comes off.”
Tracie pushed back in her chair.
Ran her fingers through the hair on the left side of her head.
Said, “Did you really think the Soviets were going to pay you twenty thousand dollars in cash just for a few pictures? That’s a little hard to swallow.”
“I know I’m stupid,” he said, his voice cracking. “You’re not the first one to imply that. Your fellow investigators have said as much, too. You’ll have to excuse me if I’m not well-enough versed in treason.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid, Mr. Limington. I think you made a really big error in judgment, one you may never be able to recover from. But I never said you were stupid.”
“Everyone else has said it enough for both of us.”
It was time to refocus him. This was interesting—fascinating, really—but was doing little in terms of helping Tracie accomplish her assignment.
“Let’s return to the events of that night. You said you vomited on his car?”
He chuckled bitterly. “I vomited pretty much everywhere. I was terrified. Most of it went on my car and the pavement, but there was plenty left over to splatter onto the side of his car as well.”
“Do you recall the make and model of the car?”
“Sure. It was a Lincoln Town Car, either black or dark blue. I couldn’t tell you the year, but if it wasn’t brand-new, it couldn’t have been more than a year or two old.”
“Did you notice the license plate?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t look for it when I drove up next to him, and I wasn’t in any condition to see it when he drove away.”
“Okay. Did the Russian ever give you a name? Even a first name? A nickname? Anything?”
He nodded. “He told me his name once. Andrei.”
“Okay,” she said, writing it down in a small notebook. “Now we’re getting somewhere. So you called him Andrei.”
“Not really.”
She put her pen down and stared at him. “You just told me his name was Andrei. Is that true or false?”
“It’s true, but that’s not what I called him.”
“What did you call him?”
“Sir.”
She resisted the impulse to roll her eyes.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Limington said, “but this was one scary dude.”
And yet you took him at his word.
She sat for a moment, considering how to proceed. Getting information out of a subject without the threat of force or any kind of implied violence was not something she’d ever attempted before, and was turning out to be much more difficult than she’d expected. “Can you describe him to me? Be as precise as possible, and leave nothing out.”
“I’ve described him to every single person I’ve talked to. Can’t you get the description from one of them?”
“Like I said before, Mr. Limington, sometimes going over your story multiple times will cause memories to shake loose. Humor me.”
He sighed and closed his eyes. “He was a big guy, tall and muscular, although some of the muscle looked like it was in the process of turning to fat as he aged. Long silver hair hanging almost to his shoulders. And he wore a suit every time I saw him. I’m no fashion expert, but the suits struck me as expensive. I couldn’t tell you why, just a feeling I got.”
“His age?”
“Maybe late fifties or early sixties would be my best guess.”
“A guy that age with long hair? Seems a little unlikely.”
“I thought so, too,” he said. “But it was long and straight, almost like…” His eyes widened. “Oh, my God, you’re right.”
“I’m right? About what?”
“What you said about repeating my story shaking something loose. Talking to you just now, picturing his long hair, it brought something back, something I only saw once and had forgotten about until just now.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, his whole aura was conservative. The dark suits, the way he carried himself, the way he spoke was like, I don’t know, an insurance salesman or something.”
“Except for the Russian accent.”
“Well, yes. But the conservative persona was why his long hair seemed so out of place. Then, one of the times I was talking to him, he brushed his hair back, just for a second, and I got a glimpse of his ear.”
Tracie leaned forward. “What about his ear?”
“It was mangled. Hideous, even. His earlobe had been split in two and the ear looked…I don’t know…like it had been in an accident and doctors hadn’t really been able to repair it properly.”
“Bad enough that a man would grow his hair out to cover it?”
“I wouldn’t want anybody to see it.” Limington had mostly been staring down at the blankets, but as he spoke he lifted his head and gave a long, searching glance at the right side of Tracie’s skull.
“Car accident,” she said simply.
“I-I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to stare.”
“Don’t worry, you’re not the first. I’m guessing you won’t be the last. But back to this Russian. Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”
“Absolutely. You’ve probably never had a gun shoved in your face, but—”
“You might be surprised,” Tracie said.
“Well, I don’t know what it was like for you, but for me, time more or less stood still. I felt like I stared down the barrel of that gun for an hour, even though it was probably only a couple of seconds. And do you know what was just beyond the gun?”
“His face.”
“That’s right. So hell yes I’d recognize him again.”
It was time to wrap things up. Tracie needed to speak with Aaron Stallings, and the sooner the better.
She’d never sat down in the chair, and now she slid it back against the wall where she’d found it. Picked the manila folder off the table and stood at the end of the bed.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Limington,” she said.
She’d never imagined she could feel sympathy for a traitor to the United States, and wasn’t sure that was what she felt right now, but one thing she knew for certain: Carson Limington was perhaps the saddest sad-sack she’d ever seen. She wouldn’t have wanted to be in his shoes, and not just because he was suddenly facing a very bleak future.
“Like I said before,” he answered. “I just want to see that son-of-a-bitch get what’s coming to him.”
She nodded, then turned and exited the hospital room.
11
June 21, 1988
7:35 p.m.
McLean, VA
Time seemed to drag as Tracie waited for Aaron Stallings to return her call. She wasn’t welcome at Langley because she was not longer employed by the Central Intelligence Agency, and hadn’t been for most of the past year. Even when she’d been an official agency employee, her time spent at CIA headquarters was minimal, but the current arrangement meant that any communication with her handler had to come during his off-hours.
And Aaron Stallings worked long hours.
Following her jailhouse interview of Carson Limington she’d returned to her apartment and resumed pacing, exactly as she’d been doing barely more than twenty-four hours earlier,
but this time for a different reason. The overwhelming sense of depression and sadness she’d felt since being sidelined following her last assignment was gone, replaced with the rush of exhilaration she’d only ever experienced while working.
Finally, around six p.m., her phone rang. She was mildly surprised. Given the CIA director’s hectic schedule, it wouldn’t have surprised her to be waiting until ten o’clock or later for him to get back to her.
She picked up before the first ring had died away and was greeted by the perpetually annoyed voice of her handler. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
“I’ve been working,” she said, “and we need to talk.”
He sighed deeply. Besides being perpetually annoyed with her, Stallings also seemed perpetually aggrieved by her, despite the fact he’d hired her and reassured her multiple times she was doing important work.
“Fine,” he said. “Give me ninety minutes to have dinner, and then meet me in my study.”
***
“You’re late,” he called through the closed door following her knock.
She rolled her eyes and entered the office. “You said to wait ninety minutes before I came.”
“Yes, and it’s now been…” He made a show of looking at his watch. “Ninety-five minutes.”
“I was giving you time to digest,” she said sarcastically.
“I assume you requested this meeting because you interrogated our friend, Mr. Limington, today, and not solely because you enjoy my company?”
She couldn’t help but smile. “You assume correctly.”
“So, what do you need?”
“Most of what Limington gave me was useless. Even given that the shooter had a Russian accent, he could be any one of hundreds of men in the D.C. area. Thousands, probably, considering Washington is one of the diplomatic centers of the world. He wore a suit. He drove a dark-colored car. All very generic stuff.”
“But…”
“But then Limington mentioned that his contact suffered from a physical deformity, one that would make him be pretty recognizable.”
Objekt 825 (Tracie Tanner Thrillers Book 9) Page 6