Parrish considered this, and finally said, “You know, I might have some people who’d be interested in talking to you about that. About specialized apps. I wonder if there are military apps? Tactical apps? I wonder . . .”
Grant waved him off. “No, no, no. The problem with that is, you have to do research. Research costs money. The way we’re doing it: we pay some nerd five grand to rewrite the app with different code and pay some college language professor another two grand to translate the language. No research. If it’s already a popular app in fifteen major languages, the market research is done, too.”
“I’ll stick to guns,” Parrish said.
“Good idea.” She’d been rocking from one foot to the other behind the desk and now she stopped: “Speaking of which?”
“We missed him. We spotted him leaving the Watergate, but he grabbed a cab and took it all the way to a tailor shop, where he stayed for almost an hour and a half,” Parrish said. “We set up to take him, but when he came out he spotted us . . . and he ran. He was screaming for help. Jim told me it kinda freaked them out—he was supposed to be a fighter. We were all set for that.”
“He ran?”
“Yes. Hauled ass. Moore was coming up from one side, took a swing at him, but he blocked it and punched Moore in the face, and then he ran down the street, screaming for help.”
The story made Grant smile—for a moment anyway—but then the smile vanished, and she said, “That’s two fuckups. Are you sure you’ve got the right people? Do I have the right people?”
“Yes, you do. Delta, SEALs—you couldn’t get anybody better. They can take a guy down. But this . . .”
“I told you he was smart. You need to spend some time looking him up on the Internet,” Grant said. “He’s also violent, and somebody’s going to get killed if you miss him again. I think it’s time to reconsider.”
“Reconsider how?” Parrish asked.
“Maybe we lay low. Ignore him. If we see him following me around, we file a stalking complaint with the D.C. police and the Marshals Service, based on his investigation back in Minnesota. Let him die on the vine.”
“Well, we could try that,” Parrish said. “Still might be a good idea to keep an eye on him.”
“You can do that—but don’t fuck it up. Stay back. If you lose him, let it go, don’t go running around like a bunch of idiots, where he’ll see you.”
* * *
—
THEY SAT LOOKING AT EACH OTHER across Grant’s desk, and Parrish said, “Of course, there is the other problem.”
She nodded. “Smalls.”
“Smalls and Whitehead. If Davenport develops anything on that—we’re talking about murder—the only way he could develop anything is to find the truck, which would get him to Jim, and Jim would get him to Flamma and Heracles, and from there to me, and then to you. If Smalls prepares the ground by going up to the Senate and tells people you tried to kill him . . . and murdered his friend . . .”
“He’d have no proof,” Grant said. “Not a goddamn thing.”
“He doesn’t need proof: he’s not taking you to federal court; he’s trying to undercut your possibilities. How many people have figured out that if you lie enough, and loud enough, people will start to believe?”
Grant twiddled the pencil, muttered, “Goddamn that Davenport. I’ll tell you something: he’s not a bad-looking guy, and he’s rich. I would have gone out with him, if he’d asked, before all the trouble.”
“That’s wonderful. Maybe you could say that on the floor of the Senate,” Parrish said.
“Watch your mouth,” Grant snapped. She went back to twiddling. “Maybe laying low is the way to go—but if he looks like he’s getting close to anything, we need to remove him. Permanently or otherwise. Let me know before you move, I’ll want the details.”
“If we kill him . . .”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know: all the cops in the world will be after us. But not cops exactly like him. Other cops, I can handle. He’s the one I’m not sure about.”
“He’s your basic operator. He’s Jim Ritter,” Parrish said.
“But smarter. Goddamnit, Parrish, he’s got me worried, and I’ve got other things to worry about.”
“We’ll handle him. One way or another.”
* * *
—
WHEN PARRISH WAS GONE, Grant wandered around the SCIF. The room had unadorned polished concrete walls, floor, and ceiling, designed to make any alterations instantly visible. All the wiring for power and communications came through the ceiling in a single stainless-steel tube that ran through a safelike steel compartment on the first floor. If somebody wished to bug her, they would have to do it by first eluding one of the best security systems ever built and then getting into either the first-floor steel safe or through the steel basement door, all without making a mark. She’d been told that was, essentially, impossible with current technology.
The only way to get at her would be through a computer bug introduced into the dual computer systems by a visitor. Both computers also carried software designed to detect any attempts to do that. The secure computer accepted only encrypted messages, preceded by recognized keystrokes, and transmitted only encrypted messages. The other computer, which was isolated from the first, was considered nonsecure and was used for routine communications only.
Both computers had isolation capabilities: everything coming and going was captured in a software box, where Grant could check it before it was released to the rest of the computer. Anything not recognized would be burned.
She was still paranoid enough that she rarely used the computers and was careful to shut them down and kill the power when not in use. A minute’s delay in powering them up was worth the security that step brought.
She found the uninflected gray concrete environment of the SCIF surprisingly conducive to thought. She thought about Davenport, about Parrish, about George Claxson and the Heracles operators, and about the presidency. Parrish and Claxson assured her that the operators didn’t know her name, didn’t know who they were indirectly working for. She didn’t believe that. If they couldn’t figure it out—Parrish, after all, was her paid aide—they were too dumb to be working for her.
Knowing or suspecting was okay, though, as long as they had no proof.
* * *
—
DAVENPORT’S INVESTIGATION could probably be derailed by one simple action: she could fire Parrish, call it all off, wait for six or ten years to run for president.
The cable news shows loved her—she was hot, sassy, well briefed, always prepared with a few quips about whatever the subject matter was, always willing to treat the producers and the talking heads as if they were actual movers and shakers, which they loved more than anything. She could go on her pick of cable shows and let drop that her only current political interest was serving the people of Minnesota, and, no, she wouldn’t be a candidate for the presidency. Not now anyway.
Getting rid of Parrish, her connection with Claxson and Heracles, and announcing that she wouldn’t run for the presidency, removed all her motives for attacking Smalls, or anyone else.
She thought about that for a while.
Thought about how the newsies clamored after even the possibility of getting video of the President walking between the White House and his helicopter. About how they chased him around a golf course, about cameramen taking video of his friggin’ airplane taking off. Because, you know, the President is in there.
That was more than celebrity: they treated the President like Caesar. Like Stalin. Like God.
And that’s what she wanted. She could feel it, taste it.
To be the most important, looked-at person on the planet.
She was young enough, she could wait . . .
But she didn’t want to.
10
After finishing the report, Lucas
watched television for a while. And a few minutes after nine o’clock, there was another knock at a door—and, this time, it was his door. He removed the spitball from the peephole, checked, and saw Rae peering in at him.
“Man . . .” Lucas was pleased to see her, and him: Rae Givens, the tall, thin black woman, a former basketball player at the University of Connecticut; and her partner, Bob Matees, the short, wide former wrestler.
Rae was wearing a red pants suit that was loose enough to hide the Glock bump at her hip. Bob was wearing a blue cotton jacket over a knit golf shirt, and similar hip bump, and khakis. They were apparently happy enough to see him as well, Rae giving him a hug, Bob slapping him on the back, and Lucas, once he got the door shut, began cross-examining Bob about his leg wounds.
“All healed up. Still get some pain now and then, and they tell me that’ll probably go on for a while, maybe forever,” Bob said. “But it doesn’t slow me down at all.” He did a couple of squats to prove it.
“Not that he was all that lightning fast to begin with,” Rae said.
“Our rooms are down the hall,” Bob said, marveling. “Boy oh boy, the Watergate. Do we get one of those minibars?”
“Possibly,” Lucas said, laughing.
In addition to personal duffel bags, they each were carrying a heavy tan canvas duffel stuffed with black rifles, ammo, armor, helmets, and everything else you needed to break down doors and bust gun-crazed fugitives.
“Tell us everything,” Rae said, dropping onto the bed.
Lucas told them about Parrish and Grant, about Heracles and Flamma, about finding the Ford F-250, about the street attack, about checking out Parrish’s and Grant’s houses. “Pulling full-time surveillance on them would be difficult. They’ve got these former military operators hanging around, and there’s no good place to set up.”
He pulled up the addresses on Google Earth so they could check out the streets. “It’s all choked up, there’s no place to watch from where you don’t stand out like a sore thumb.”
They talked about that for a while, and Bob said, “You know, I don’t think we’ll find out much by trailing them around, Grant and Parrish. We need people we can talk to, voluntarily or otherwise. Might be better to figure out who knows about the bad stuff, might be willing to deal, and pick them up and squeeze them.”
Lucas considered that, and nodded. “You’ve got a point. They already know I’m poking around, but they don’t know that I spotted the truck.”
“As far as we know,” Rae said.
“Yeah, as far as we know. They might have been in my room, they sure as hell know I was in that tailor shop, but I never felt them watching me.” Lucas walked around, scratched his head, and said, “Everything is up in the air. I’m almost certain that Parrish was involved in trying to kill Smalls, but that doesn’t mean that Grant was. Parrish might have wanted to kill Smalls for his own reasons. He wants to ride Grant’s coattails as a senator and maybe someday as president. Did she know what was going to happen? If she did, she’s guilty of murder—”
“You told us that she’s already guilty of murder. Back in Minneapolis.”
“She is, but I couldn’t prove it,” Lucas said. “I don’t want that to happen again. This time, if she’s got her hand in it, I want to nail her.”
Bob said, “Okay, then one of the first things we want to do is not talk like that. We’re doing an investigation, not carrying out a vendetta. You and Rae and me might know that we’re trying to nail her, but that can’t go on the record. We’re looking into what we think might be a crime, a murder, and guess what? Senator Grant pops up, much to our surprise. No way, no how, did we frame her. Never even thought about it.”
“Of course not,” Lucas said. To Rae: “You did say he was smarter than he looks.”
“I also said that wouldn’t be hard,” Rae said.
* * *
—
BOB AND RAE went to check out their rooms, down the hall from Lucas, to wash their faces and use the bathrooms. Fifteen minutes later they were back, talking about how to proceed.
They worried about the Ford truck: it was a key piece of evidence, but not yet a very good one. They had to combine the truck with other evidence if they wanted to get any of it in front of a jury, and they had to do it quickly.
Bob said, “The problem with letting it go is, if Ritter takes it out and deliberately smacks it into another car or scrapes a bridge abutment, there goes the evidence. If he managed to do it right, he wouldn’t even have to pay for it—his insurance would cover it.”
“Yeah, I know, but what are we gonna do?” Lucas asked.
“How about if we got your West Virginia cop over there to document it, sometime when Ritter isn’t around,” Rae suggested. “We’d at least have a record of the damage, and somebody official who could testify to it.”
“That might be something,” Lucas said. “Be nice if we could do it somewhere besides his apartment complex. Even if he’s not home, somebody could see us and mention it to him.”
They talked about how that might work and then let it go—they’d make some kind of decision the next day.
“Is there any possibility that Smalls could prod Grant?” Rae asked. “You say he’s already pissing on her. What if he made some kind of statement that hinted he thought she’d tried to assassinate him and wound up murdering Whitehead?”
“That could drive her underground,” Lucas said. “She might freeze out everyone, tell them all to disappear. What we need to do is get her worried, get her moving around, get her trying to fix things. Get her boys more out in the open.”
Bob: “I don’t think we should mess with either Parrish or Grant—not yet. For our sake. Listen, we’re messing with the U.S. Senate here. If that became public, we could lose our jobs.”
Lucas: “But she’s nuts, we need to get at her . . .”
Bob nodded. “Yeah, we do, but we have to come at it from another direction. We have to be protecting the Senate. Somebody tried to off Smalls, right? An assassination attempt. We try to find the assassins. That takes us to Ritter and Heracles, and Heracles takes us to Parrish, and Parrish works for Grant. We take that to the attorney general, maybe get a look-in from the FBI . . .”
Rae and Lucas looked at each other, and Lucas said, “He’s right, of course.”
Rae nodded. “He might be right, but where do we go with that?”
* * *
—
LUCAS MENTIONED that he and Smalls shared a theory about how Smalls’s Cadillac could have been hit but show no signs of anything other than impacts with trees. “They’d have hung a grid of tree trunks off the side of the truck, like a Boy Scout raft.”
Bob said, “So . . .”
“We know Ritter lives back here, in the Washington area, and his accomplices, whoever they are—another guy was seen in the truck—probably live here, too, working for Heracles. After they ran Smalls off the road, they’d have wanted to get those tree trunks off the truck as soon as they could. As invisibly as they could. I asked my West Virginia guy to talk to the local sheriffs, to have their deputies keep their eyes open for that, for the tree trunks, but that’s probably a low priority over there. We need to light some fires.”
Rae: “You think we should wander around West Virginia looking for tree trunks?”
“What the hell else you got to do, other than watch my back?” Lucas asked. “It has two benefits: if they’re tracking me somehow and see what we’re doing, they’ll try to interfere, and we’ll have a shot at them. If they’re not tracking us, there’s a fair chance we’ll find the tree trunks. Then, if we wanted, we could take the whole thing public. Or talk to big guys at the Department of Justice. Or do something to drive Ritter and his pals out in the open.”
“Like what?” Rae asked.
“I haven’t figured that part out yet,” Lucas said.
�
��I’d like to talk to the big guys at the Department of Justice anyway,” Bob said, “to tell them what I think about everything.”
“That’s a real good idea,” Rae said. “Remind me not to be there.”
Bob yawned, and said, “Let’s find a pancake place tomorrow morning and work it out. Pancakes, coffee, and West, by God, Virginia. They got pancakes in D.C.?”
“Haven’t looked, but there’s gotta be something. Maybe even downstairs,” Lucas said. “We’ve got to move early. Before nine.”
Rae: “In case somebody needs to tell you, nine’s not early . . . Say, I wonder if they got grits?”
“Jesus, I’m not watching you eat grits. Or okra. Let’s stick with pancakes,” Lucas said.
“Waffles,” Bob said. “Big scoop of creamery butter. They got cows in D.C.?”
“With all the bullshit that comes outta here, you’d think there’d be a cow around somewhere,” Rae said.
“Let’s talk more in the morning,” Lucas said.
* * *
—
BEFORE HE WENT TO BED, Lucas went to his iPad and called up maps of Virginia and West Virginia. Because the mountains ran northeast to southwest, so did most of the roads. The quickest way out of the area around Smalls’s cabin and back to the D.C. area was almost straight east. If they were right about the tree trunks, they would have been ditched in Hampshire County, West Virginia, or in Frederick or Shenandoah counties in Virginia.
But the killers wouldn’t have wanted to drive in traffic with the logs on the side of their truck . . .
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