by Steven James
“Listen,” I said to the kids. “Did you see anyone come out of this alley? Just a little while ago? It’s very important.”
None of them responded.
I held up the phone’s screen with the picture of Aria Petic that Ralph had sent me. “Did this woman come through here?”
The children just stared at me.
I showed them the man pushing the wheelchair. “Or him?”
Silence.
“Go on,” their mother said. “Did any of you see them come out from between those two buildings?”
The girls clung to her. The boy just looked at me suspiciously.
All right, this was going nowhere. I was feeling queasy from the pain, and I was only upsetting the children.
Normally, we’d detain potential witnesses a little longer, have another officer follow up, but I didn’t like it that the kids were here at a time like this.
“I really should go,” Mrs. Rainey said.
I took down her address and phone number so I could follow up, then I handed her one of my cards. “If any of your children remember anything, anything at all, call me.”
She accepted the card, and I headed unsteadily toward a park bench to sit down and catch my breath.
But I hadn’t made it more than three steps when I heard her voice: “Wait.”
I turned and saw one of her daughters pointing.
At a taxicab.
34
The driver, who astonishingly spoke English as his first language, told me he’d just made a drop off, but hadn’t picked up anyone from this curb for hours.
Mrs. Rainey asked her daughter again and found out she’d meant that she saw someone get into a taxicab, not that taxicab, which, of course made sense, but still, it frustrated me.
Another setback.
The streets were surrounded by officers. No other taxis in sight.
Margaret had arrived and was walking down the sidewalk toward me.
This day was just getting better and better.
I called to the officer I’d spoken to a few minutes ago and told him to get some men to check all the drop-offs and pickups of DC cab companies along this street over the last twenty minutes.
He eyed my arm. “Are you okay, sir?”
“I’m fine. Are you listening to me?”
He didn’t look away from the bloody sleeve. “Yes, sir.”
I described the suspects and explained that we didn’t know if they were traveling together or separately.
“If we find their cab and they’re in it, don’t let the driver stop until we can get some undercover officers there waiting for the suspects. Got it?”
“Yeah.” He was still looking at the blood.
“Go.”
He hesitated. “Is your arm—”
“Go on.”
He left.
I started for the bench again, but Margaret was catching up to me. “So you got shot?” It sounded more like an accusation than a question.
“I did.”
“Apprehend anyone?”
“No.”
“Shoot anyone?”
“No.”
“Did you see the suspects well enough to identify them?”
“No, Margaret.” I made it to the bench. “I did not.”
A small sigh. “Well, then, sit down before you collapse.”
“Good idea. Did we find Mollie?”
“Not yet.”
I lowered myself onto the bench and cradled my arm in my lap. Tried to calm my breathing.
She took out her radio and called for a paramedic—ASAP—then addressed me again. “That stunt you pulled at the press conference, oh, that was . . .” She shook her head in lieu of finishing her sentence, then added, “You have no idea how tenuous your job is right now.”
Firing someone with my seniority wasn’t easy, but Margaret was a resourceful woman, and with the congressman on her side it wouldn’t be a tough sell to Rodale. “I might,” I said.
“I will be writing an official reprimand to be placed in your personnel file.”
That wasn’t exactly at the top of my list of concerns at the moment. “Okay.”
“But, you led us here. You were close to catching the suspects, and you were wounded by adversarial action, so I won’t be submitting the reprimand. At this time.”
I blinked.
How about that.
“Thank you.”
“Tell me what happened.”
She listened carefully as I filled her in on the chase and the shooting. “Mollie Fischer must be somewhere in that hotel,” I concluded.
“Yes,” Margaret said vaguely. She was looking at Mrs. Rainey and her kids, who were still standing amidst the swirl of law enforcement activity. “You said those children saw something?”
Beyond her, at the end of the block, I saw an ambulance pulling to a stop at the hotel entrance.
“Just someone entering a taxi—I think. I’m not even sure about that. They’re not really excited about talking to strangers.”
“I’ll speak with them.”
“Um, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”
“I’m good with children,” she said, and before I could dissuade her, she’d paced over and knelt beside the twin girls.
35
“Hello. My name is Mrs. Weeeeeeellington.” Margaret drew out her name in a long, comical way. “That’s kind of a funny name, isn’t it?”
One of the girls nodded.
“What’s your name?” Margaret asked.
“Her name is Lizzie,” Mrs. Rainey answered before the girl had a chance to reply.
“I’ll bet you’re five years old, aren’t you?” said Margaret, keeping her eyes on the girl and sounding impressed.
Lizzie shook her head.
“Six?”
Lizzie held up four fingers.
Margaret dropped her jaw, widened her eyes. “No, you must be more than four! You’re seven, right?”
Lizzie shook her head. She was smiling.
“We’re both four,” her sister said.
Two EMTs in their early thirties—a stocky Caucasian man and a petite Persian woman—stepped out of the ambulance and began walking toward me. The woman carried a large paramedics response kit, the man was pushing a gurney. I had no intention of lying on the gurney, but I didn’t mind seeing that first aid kit.
“Wow.” Margaret was looking back and forth at the sisters. “You two look like you might be related.”
“We’re twins!” they shouted.
Fake surprise. “Really?”
Both girls nodded.
To the second girl: “So, is your name Lizzie too?”
“No!” The girls squealed in unison.
“I’m Jill,” Lizzie’s twin replied, then pointed to her brother. “And he’s Danny. He’s six.”
I could hardly believe my eyes. Margaret really was good with kids.
“You two are big girls,” Margaret said. “And smart too. I can tell. And it’s nice to meet you too, Stanley.”
He looked at her curiously. “It’s Danny.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Mannie.”
“My name is Danny!” he said impatiently, but he was smiling.
“Frannie?”
“Danny!”
She hit her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Right. Yes. Oh, I’m so sorry, Granny.”
All three children laughed. He had his hands on his hips. “Danny, Danny, my name is Danny!”
“Hi, Danny,” she said. “Good to meet you.”
He groaned.
Margaret had those kids in the palm of her hand.
Amazing.
The paramedics saw where I was sitting and picked up the pace.
Margaret pointed to the alley. “Tell me about the people who came out of there.” She nodded toward me. “Before this silly-looking man showed up.”
I’m a silly-looking man. I see.
“Is he hurt bad?” Danny asked.
Their eyes shifted
to my bloody shirt, and I turned in my seat to show them my good arm.
“Oh no,” she told them, then said to me, “Show them a funny face, Agent Bowers. Show them you’re not hurt badly.”
I did my best.
“See?” Margaret said.
I was so glad she was enjoying this.
Danny didn’t seem to buy it, but the girls laughed and Lizzie said, “They were in a hurry.”
The paramedics arrived, and the man, whose name tag read Neil Blane, said, “Sir, we need to have a look at that arm.”
I rose awkwardly, and the female paramedic, who introduced herself as Parvaneh Bihmardi and looked like she hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night, saw me wobble. “Wait. Sit back down.”
“No.” I shook my head, spoke softly, “Away from the children.”
Neil Blane gestured toward the gurney, but I declined. He reluctantly offered his arm to me; I declined that as well. They followed me toward a short concrete-barrier wall surrounding a treed-off area. The wall looked about a meter high, acceptable for me to sit on, and it appeared to be out of the sight-line of the Rainey family.
On the way there I heard Margaret ask, “So how many people were there? How many did you see?”
I glanced back and saw Lizzie holding up two fingers.
“A man and a woman?”
The girl nodded.
“Were they carrying anything?”
“The woman had a computer,” Danny offered. “The man had a big black bag.”
I paused.
Margaret asked, “What color was the computer?”
“White.”
If that was Mollie’s missing laptop, we could back trace its location as soon as they went online and, depending on the model, remotely turn on its video chat camera to catch a glimpse of the killers . . .
I phoned Doehring; he told me he would get on it, then I eased myself onto the concrete wall that encircled the trees, and Parvaneh pulled out large fabric shears. “All right, let’s get that shirt off and see what we’ve got here.”
36
Astrid waited impatiently as Brad finished breaking into the Honda Accord parked on Eisenhower Drive, across the highway from the Pentagon.
She hated that things had spun off in this direction, but they had, and now she would just have to deal with it.
“You were supposed to hack in, loop the video in the alley,” she said.
“I did.”
“Then how did they—”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you shoot that agent?”
“I was afraid.”
The lock popped open. She was better at hot-wiring cars than he was, so after he got the doors open, she started the engine, then slid to the passenger seat to fix her hair.
“We need to get back to the house,” he said.
“No, I need to get back to work or it won’t look right. You know that.”
Silence.
“Drop me off, switch cars, then meet me later.”
Brad didn’t look happy to hear that, but she didn’t care.
He guided the car onto the street. “What about Wellington?” he said. “She’ll be at the scene.”
“Tomorrow. We’ll do that tomorrow, unless . . .” Astrid said. “Unless . . .”
“Unless?”
“Let’s just see how things play out.”
With gloved hands, she set the computer in the backseat. The FBI would find it later. And the plan would work. The timing would work.
Everything would sort itself out, as long as Brad didn’t screw things up any worse.
Neil and Parvaneh worked fast.
It took them only a couple minutes to clean the wound, pour on some QuickClot, and wrap my arm with a pressure bandage. While they tended to the gunshot wound, I tried to regroup, to think through all that I’d been through over the last two hours . . . the emotionally draining meeting with Missy Schuel . . . the revelation that the victim at the primate center was not Mollie Fischer . . . the confrontation with the congressman . . . the press conference . . . the chase through the hotel . . . getting shot.
Nothing had gone right, and to top things off, the suspects had apparently slipped away.
Taking a deep breath, I felt myself beginning to relax, but Parvaneh’s words put an end to that: “This might prick a little.”
I opened my eyes just in time to see her swab my right forearm with an alcohol wipe and position a ridiculously long IV needle against my skin.
Oh bad.
I hate needles.
She pressed.
And it went in, leaving a small ridge of raised flesh in its wake as it descended through my muscle and punctured my vein. The sight was more unsettling to me than the gunshot wound had been.
I had to look away.
“For your blood loss,” she explained.
“I see,” I managed to say. I could feel a tug of skin as she removed the needle, leaving the catheter behind.
Neil pulled out his radio and told someone that we were on our way in, then ended the transmission and wheeled the gurney closer to me. “We need to get you to a hospital.”
I didn’t want to miss anything here at the scene. I shook my head. “I’m staying here.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“I’ll get my arm taken care of after things settle down. I just need a few minutes to brief the officers here—”
Parvaneh and Neil glanced at each other, and then she said, “We’re taking you to Mercy Medical.”
“No,” a gruff voice called, and I saw Ralph quickly approaching us. Behind him, more squads, news vans, and ambulances were pulling up to the hotel—Metro police, FBI, Capitol Hill police.
Spaghetti.
“I’ll take him in.” Ralph strode toward us. “Come on, Pat. We need to talk.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Neil said. “This man has been shot, he’s losing blood, he has an IV in his arm. We can’t let you—”
Ralph reached down, grabbed the IV’s tube—
“Um, Ralph—”
Jerked it out of my arm.
Oh yeah.
That didn’t feel so good.
“There we are,” Ralph said. “Fast and clean.” The sheath of the plastic catheter glistened, wet with my blood, as he set it onto the gurney and said to Parvaneh, “I’ll let you take care of that.” He pressed the plastic tape that had been holding the IV in place over the needle hole.
Parvaneh was staring at us wide-eyed.
“All right.” He helped me to my feet. “Good to go.”
My phone rang. Tessa’s ring tone.
Unbelievable.
I needed a cup of coffee in a big way. A little caffeine to calm me down.
“Listen, Ralph.” I debated whether or not to answer the phone. “If this is about the press conference—”
Ringing.
“No.” Ignoring the continued objections of the two paramedics, he led me toward his car. “It’s about Richard Basque.”
“What? Basque?”
Still ringing.
Go on, Pat. Tessa needs you. She already left two messages.
“Hang on,” I said to Ralph. “It’s Tessa.”
As I answered the phone, I saw his car at the curb. Not far.
“It’s me,” I told her.
“Hey.”
“Are you all right? Your message from earlier, I was concerned.” Agents Tanner Cassidy and Natasha Farraday along with the other members of the FBI’s Evidence Response Team were entering the hotel.
“Sure, yeah,” Tessa said. “I’m okay.”
“What is it? What’s going on?”
“It’s just . . . when are you coming home? Are you in class?”
“Not quite. Something came up.”
“Oh.” Then, “You sound kind of . . . I don’t know. Out of breath.”
“I was exercising.” I tried to keep my voice even and measured. “Did I do something? Are you upset because of something I—”
“Tessa, I . . .” A glance at Ralph. “The truth is, I’m kind of in the middle of something here. But if you need me, if it’s urgent, I could be home in about half an hour.”
Ralph shook his head, mouthed “No you can’t.”
I mouthed “Yes, I can.”
“No, that’s . . . it’s no big deal,” Tessa said. “Later’s okay.”
“Give me . . .” I checked the time.
3:36 p.m.
“I’ll try to be home by 7:00, okay?” That gave me just about three and a half hours to get to the hospital, get seen, get out, and get home, which would be a minor miracle, but maybe I could find a way to hurry the hospital staff up.
“Sure, yeah. I’m okay, so don’t worry or anything. It’s just . . . I need to tell you about something.”
“Tell me now.”
“It can wait.”
“It’s okay, you can—”
“It can wait,” she repeated.
I was growing increasingly impatient but also more concerned. “Tessa, listen to me. Are you safe? Are you all right?”
“Yeah.”
“If you’re in any kind of danger or trouble right now, ask me to stop bugging you with so many questions. I’ll get the police there in—”
“No, it’s not that. I’ll see you at 7:00? I’m fine. I’ll be fine.”
We ended the call.
But things didn’t feel right.
Ralph and I arrived at his car, and he put his news about Basque on the back burner for the moment. “She okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Want me to have Brineesha go check on her?”
“When’s she off work?”
“4:30.”
From the bank, the drive to our house would take at least thirty-five minutes. I shook my head. “No good. That’s too late.”
“She could probably leave early.”
I had a thought.
“Hang on.”
Cheyenne.