* * *
—
THEY SAT IN SILENCE for a few minutes, saw Bob walk around the corner with a bag of Dunkin’ Donuts in hand. He walked far enough down North Veitch that he couldn’t be seen by a car coming up Wilson, and he waited. At the other end of the block, Rae perched on the hood of a Mustang.
The young agent said, “He’s here.”
Two cars ahead of them, a sedan pulled out of its parking space. Chase said, “Here we go.”
A Toyota 4Runner turned the corner, moving slowly, and Chase said, “That’s him.”
McCoy spotted the parking space, rolled ahead of it, backed in. A moment later, as he was getting out of the car, FBI agents climbed out of the cars ahead and behind him. McCoy saw them and did exactly what Lucas had done during the attempted mugging outside the tailor shop: he sprinted away.
A burly FBI agent tried to step in front of him in the street, but McCoy juked, juked again, stuck out a fist, and smacked the agent in the face—just as Lucas had during his almost mugging—and without hesitating, ran back toward Wilson Boulevard, and Bob, with a string of FBI agents chasing after him.
Bob was standing there, a ring of powder on his upper lip, a jelly donut in his hand, and McCoy, paying no attention to him, tried to blow on by.
Bob stuck out his other, empty hand and clotheslined him. McCoy went facedown in a heap on the sidewalk, and Bob put one heavy foot on his head.
In the front seat, Chase said, “Indeed.”
A few seconds later, the scrum of FBI agents arrived, and two of them squatted over McCoy’s body, bent his arms behind his back, cuffed him, and pulled him to his feet.
Bob still had a half-eaten donut in his hand. Chase said, “Wouldn’t want to fight the guy who finished first.”
“Got that right,” Lucas said.
* * *
—
LUCAS, CHASE, RAE, and the young agent walked around the corner to the café, Rae finishing her chocolate cake donut, the young agent carrying an envelope. They looked inside, and Chase said, “That’s him. In line.”
McCoy’s attorney was a thin man, balding, the remaining hair, gone white, cut tight. He wore gold-rimmed glasses, a rumpled gray suit, and was carrying an attaché case. He was waiting patiently behind two young women, who were discussing the menu with the counter clerk, and Chase took his arm, held up her ID, and said, “Mr. Bunch? I’m Jane Chase with the FBI. Could we speak to you for a minute?”
She guided him out of line, and Bunch asked, “What’s going on?”
Chase said, “We’ve arrested your client John McCoy. We’re holding him around the corner in a car. We are serving you with an NSL, a National Security Letter.” The young agent handed him the envelope.
“I know what an NSL is,” Bunch said, as he took the envelope. “But why?”
“Because your client is being held on a national security issue. We’d appreciate it if you could walk around the corner with us and advise your client of his rights and consult with him about what he should do this evening. We are taking him in for questioning.”
“How did you know we’d be meeting? Have you wiretapped me?”
“We have a warrant to cover Mr. McCoy’s phone calls. One of his calls went to you. But we were not monitoring you specifically.”
“Better not have been,” Bunch said. Then, “Where’s John?”
“Right around the corner,” Chase said, “like I said. Would you like to get a cup of coffee before you talk to him?”
Bunch looked down at his shoes, thinking, eventually nodding. “All right. I better get the coffee.”
23
McCoy and the other three Heracles employees arrested that evening were interrogated in four separate oversized FBI interview rooms by four separate interrogation teams, with Jane Chase moving among them.
Lucas, Bob, and Rae were not invited to the interrogations themselves, but each of the rooms was equipped with a discreet video camera, and they watched McCoy’s interview on a high-resolution screen in a separate observation room.
McCoy had been checked by a doctor for physical injuries after being decked by Bob, but the doc found only a few developing bruises, and McCoy agreed that he wasn’t badly injured. The interviews were two-part, with the interrogation teams first asking a series of questions, then Bunch and McCoy adjourning to a secure conference room to talk privately.
McCoy was willing to confirm some of the information in the documents hidden by Ritter but volunteered no further information, denying knowing anything about the attack on Smalls and Weather or the related murders of Whitehead and Last. When asked about Ritter’s death, he said, “Everybody knows that the marshal did it—Davenport. Jim was waterboarded and executed because Davenport thought Jim attacked his wife.”
The FBI interrogator said, “Mr. Ritter wasn’t interrogated. He wasn’t waterboarded. He was shot twice, in the heart, a few minutes after talking with Mr. Parrish.”
McCoy: “I’ve seen the autopsy report.”
“So have I. It doesn’t say anything about waterboarding because it didn’t happen,” the fed said. “I don’t suppose those documents were given to you by either Mr. Claxson or Mr. Parrish, the very people who’d have the most to gain from Mr. Ritter’s death?”
McCoy sat back, his tongue trailed across his lips, and he asked, “Parrish? What does Parrish have to do with it?”
The interrogator said, “Give me a minute.” He disappeared out the door, leaving McCoy and Bunch in the interview room. A few minutes later, Chase stuck her head in the door of the room where Lucas was watching with Bob and Rae, and said, “Lucas, we think we could use you in the room with McCoy. We want you to give him your theory of Ritter’s death.”
Lucas nodded. “Sure.”
* * *
—
LUCAS WALKED DOWN the hall to the interview room, where the interrogator was waiting. The interrogator asked, “You get the idea?”
“Yeah. Give him a reason to turn.”
Lucas followed the interrogator into the room, and McCoy looked up, frowned, and said, “Hey!”
Lucas said, “Nice to see you again, John.”
McCoy said, “What?”
“The way you reacted to the FBI guys, I thought maybe you’d taken a lesson from me, outside that tailor shop.”
McCoy shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You killed Jim.”
Lucas took a chair across the table across from McCoy, and said, “Couple of things. First, you knew who I was. You’ve never seen me before except outside that tailor shop unless you’ve seen some photograph or have been doing surveillance on me. How’d you know who I was when I came through the door?”
McCoy said, “Fuck you.”
Lucas said, “Second, I didn’t kill Jim Ritter. The most likely candidate for that is Jack Parrish. The next most likely candidates are you and Moore, because we know you’re willing to murder people, and Ritter might have looked like the weak link. We were about to pick him up on the assassination attempt on Senator Smalls and the murder of Cecily Whitehead. He knew that, and he was probably looking to Claxson or Parrish for help. One or both of them decided to get rid of him altogether.”
“That’s bullshit. They wouldn’t—”
“Sure they would,” Lucas said. “They’re not soldiers like you guys. They’re weasels. Suits. Bullshit artists. I have a cop friend back in Minnesota who’d call them douchenozzles. They not only would kill Ritter, they’d kill you. I’ll tell you, John, if Mr. Bunch manages to get you bail, I’d stay far, far away from those guys. They’ll kill you in a minute.”
McCoy shook his head, and turned toward Bunch, who shrugged.
Lucas continued. “I think you know all this, by the way. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a whole bunch of documents and other evidence stashed somewhere to cover you if the
y start giving you a hard time. Like Jim Ritter did.”
“Jim didn’t—”
“Sure he did. More than a million dollars, and a bunch of documents that are going to hang you and Moore and Claxson. The feds here hate to go to trial without being a hundred percent sure of a conviction. They’ve got you—you’re toast, man—but you might still make a deal for leniency if you help them out.”
“You’re looking for a turncoat.”
The interrogator sighed, and said, “John, you know, you use words like ‘turncoat,’ which makes you sound like a good guy holding out against a bunch of terrorists. Something admirable. What you’re really doing is, you’re protecting a bunch of murderous criminals.” He leaned across the table, and asked, “Have you ever heard of Inter-Core Ballistics?”
McCoy glanced at his attorney, who said, “Don’t answer if you think it might be a problem. We can talk first.”
But McCoy said, “Yeah, I’ve heard of them, but that’s all. I never had anything to do with them.”
“I believe you,” the interrogator said. He told McCoy about Claxson and Parrish fixing the sale of inferior armor to the military. “That’s the folks you’re protecting, John. There are dead soldiers out there, but these guys made a buck off it. Is that where you’re at?”
“Fuck no. I’m not sure I even believe you.”
“I got the paperwork, if you want to see it,” the interrogator said.
McCoy turned to Bunch. “We need to talk. Again.”
* * *
—
LUCAS WAS WALKED BACK to the viewing room, and Rae said, “You look good on TV. Maybe you oughta be one of those talking heads. Interview the Kardashians and shit.”
McCoy and Bunch were out of sight for fifteen minutes, and when they returned, Bunch said, “We’d like to see some evidence about this Inter-Core company. We’d like to see it tomorrow. We’re done for tonight. No more questions.”
McCoy was taken to a holding cell, and Bunch made arrangements to return in the morning. “We’ll ask for bail, and we hope you will recommend something reasonable,” he said. “If you do that, I expect we’ll be able to provide at least limited testimony about Heracles and its activities, if what you say about this Inter-Core company is correct.”
“We’ll see you in the morning,” Chase told him.
* * *
—
LUCAS, BOB, AND RAE went back to the hotel, had a late dinner, agreed that the investigation was looking up, and headed off to their rooms.
Lucas was on the last ten pages of Hiaasen’s Skinny Dip when he took a call from a clerk at the front desk. “Marshal Davenport, we have a gentleman down here who wants to talk to you. He’s a colonel in the Army—um, a lieutenant colonel.”
Lucas knew only one lieutenant colonel, Horace Stout, whom he’d interviewed about Parrish. Had he told Stout that he was at the Watergate? Maybe. He said to the clerk, “Okay. Give him the room number, send him up.”
Five minutes later, there was a soft knock on the door. Lucas glanced at his watch: almost eleven o’clock. Bob and Rae were the early-to-bed, early-to-rise sort and would already be in bed. The last time Lucas got a nighttime knock, he’d almost gotten shot. The PPQ was sitting in its holster on the nightstand. Lucas slipped it free, got to his feet, and trotted to the door.
Another knock, harder this time.
One good way to get shot, he’d read in a novel somewhere, or possibly an airport survivalist magazine, or maybe he even made it up himself, was to look out the peephole of your hotel room. The killer on the other side, peering back through the hole, would know precisely where your body was and could shoot you through the door.
Sounded more like a novel; not that survivalist magazines were any less fictional.
In any case, he plucked the spitball out of his peephole and looked out. He could see a man’s shoulder, but that was about all.
Leaving the chain on the door, he brought the muzzle of the gun up, cracked the door, and was startled enough to take an involuntary step back: James Ritter was standing there. Lucas had seen the very same James Ritter dead on a slab at the Medical Examiner’s Office. Unquestionably dead. He blurted, “What the fuck . . . ?”
The man showed both hands: empty. “I’m Tom Ritter,” he said. “Jim’s brother. His twin brother.”
Lucas took a moment to absorb that. “Oh, Jesus, you scared the hell out of me.”
Ritter nodded, without smiling. “I understand . . . You Marshal Davenport?”
Lucas was still befuddled: Tom Ritter was an exact duplicate of his brother, and Lucas had never encountered anything quite like it. “Uh, yeah.”
“I need to talk to you.”
“How’d you find me?”
“I asked around Heracles, and some guys there had an idea where you might be. I came over and asked at the front desk. Can I come in?”
“Are you carrying?” Lucas asked.
“A gun? No.”
Lucas took off the door chain and backed away from the door, kept the PPQ pointed to one side but still up. “Yeah, come on. Push the door shut behind you.”
Like his brother, Ritter was short, muscular, tanned, and dressed in outdoor clothing—a long-sleeved blue cotton shirt, covered by a blue linen sport coat, tan nylon/cotton cargo pants, and light hiking boots. Lucas began to pick up some differences: James Ritter had a scarred face from a shrapnel wound, Tom Ritter didn’t but carried the same military look.
* * *
—
LUCAS SAID, “Take off your jacket before you come in.”
“I don’t carry a gun. Not in the States.”
Lucas said, “Take your jacket off anyway.”
Ritter did, stepped into the room, nudged the door closed with his foot, and did a pirouette so Lucas could see that he didn’t have a gun holstered at the small of his back. “I’ve got some questions, and I might have some information you need,” he said, when he was looking at Lucas again.
Lucas had backed up to the desk. He said, “Sit on the bed. I’ll take the chair.” Sitting on the bed would make a hidden gun harder to get at. Lucas sat on the edge of a hard-seated office chair. Ritter might well have been a computer programmer, or a life insurance salesman, but he didn’t look like that. You had to have experience as a cop to notice he bore the wound-spring look of a man who could hurt you.
When Ritter was sitting on the bed, his jacket across his lap, Lucas asked, “Who told you where to find me?”
“I’ve got a story about that,” Ritter said. He was younger than he looked, Lucas thought: the tan put on a few years and some wrinkles, but Ritter was not yet thirty-five.
“I’m listening,” Lucas said.
“I’m an Army officer, Third Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Second Infantry Division, in Afghanistan. I was granted leave to bury my brother.”
“That’s . . . rough. Maybe even rougher with a twin.”
“Yeah, it is. Hard even to explain how rough it is. It’s like you lost a leg. Non-twins wouldn’t understand,” Ritter said in his quiet voice. “The people over at Heracles say you shot him.”
“I know what they’re saying. It’s horseshit. Your brother was our best way into our case. I don’t want to sound . . . insulting . . . but he was small fry. The last thing we wanted was him dead. The people who killed him are responsible for murdering three people now—two of them completely innocent. The third was your brother.”
Ritter watched Lucas for a minute or two, judging him, and asked, “What do you know about waterboarding?”
Lucas said, “Nothing. I was going to look it up on the Internet tonight, but I forgot. We were told by a source that Heracles is passing around some fake autopsy papers that say he was waterboarded, but he wasn’t. If you check with the ME, the medical examiner, he’ll tell you so. Heracles was trying to convince people that I kill
ed Jim.”
“But you were pissed about what happened to your wife, and you’re working for Senator Smalls . . .”
Lucas nodded, and said, “Yes. I’m more than pissed about my wife, I’m . . . if I was sure I found a guy involved in that, he might fall down a couple of flights of stairs. But I wouldn’t kill him. I wouldn’t kill him especially if it was your brother. Like I said, he was about our only entry into the case, but he was nowhere near the top of the food chain.”
* * *
—
ANOTHER BIT OF SILENCE, then Ritter asked, “If you didn’t kill Jim, do you have any idea who might have? Specific names? Anything at all?”
Lucas said, “I’m not ready to talk about that—we’ve got an ongoing investigation.”
Ritter looked around the room, appraising it as if for ways to defend it, and said, “I looked you up on the Internet. You’re a rough guy, huh?”
“I have my moments,” Lucas said. “What are we talking about here?”
Ritter said, “I was passing through Kuwait when I heard about Jim and caught a flight back home. I’ve got fourteen days. You gonna find the killer in that time?”
“I could if I could get some leverage on somebody involved,” Lucas said. “Now, tell me how you knew where to find me . . . or even what my name is?”
“I called some people. I went over to Heracles Personnel. I guess you’ve already been looking at them.”
“Yes, we have,” Lucas said.
“I know people at Heracles, ex-Army guys, friends of Jim—and tapped into the rumor mill. Word is, some guys have been involved in questionable actions here in the States. I’ve got names, not easy to get, but I’m . . . trusted, to a certain extent.”
“They weren’t questionable actions, Colonel,” Lucas said. “The first attack was an attempted assassination of a U.S. senator and the murder of a completely innocent woman. The guys who did it, including your brother, I’m sorry to say, knew what they were doing—that they’d kill her along with the senator. The second attack was an effort to get me, personally, off their backs. They did it by going after my wife—and by the cold-blooded murder of an innocent man. Do you know about all of that?”
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