A Minute to Midnight

by David Baldacci

  “I like corroboration.”

  “Now you sound like an agent, not an admin.”

  “You would be surprised how many agent skills an ‘admin’ like me picks up. But I’m not sure that cuts both ways.”

  The thick eyebrows rose. “Meaning what?”

  “Do you know all the procedural shortcuts to get requisitioned equipment?”

  “Uh—”

  “Or how to do a conference call with more than five remote attendees, with some of them in international locations?”

  “I—”

  “Or the adjusted travel per diems on work performed over various holidays? Or which support personnel at Hoover are critical if you want a priority database search dealing with certain levels of classified material? Or something as basic as which department handles coffee flavor requests?”

  “I guess that’s why we have support personnel.”

  “Exactly. We’re a team. Together we get a very big, very hard job done to the best of our collective abilities.”

  “Where exactly is all this leading?”

  “Back to my original question. Do you want to tell me about you and Agent Pine? That was the ‘it’ to which I was referring before, not that you weren’t aware of that.”

  “I don’t think there’s much to tell.”

  She sat back, disappointed. “Did I mention that I also conducted informal training for agents in order for them to detect when people were obfuscating?”

  “You mean lying? And agents are thoroughly trained in that already.”

  “A refresher course never hurts.”

  “All right. You tell me. You think I’m lying?”

  “You looked down and to your right and crossed your arms when you answered that there’s ‘not much to tell.’ Classic evading/cocooning. Also, I raised six kids. You exhibited the pouty/defiant look of my nine-year-old son when he’d done something wrong but refused to admit it. Do you want to load up and tell me again that there’s nothing?”

  His expression darkened even more. “You’re rapidly coming close to a line here, Ms. Blum. I wouldn’t want you to do anything that would jeopardize your long career at the Bureau.”

  She looked at him not in fear, or anger, but in sadness. “I’m sorry you feel that way. But I taught my kids when they were pretty much still in diapers that honesty really is the best policy, Agent Laredo. We obviously don’t see eye to eye on that one.”

  She rose.

  “Agent Pine is tenacious, smart, adaptable, and physically formidable.”

  He shrugged. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know about the woman.”

  “She’s also unforgiving. To herself and to others who have not met the standard she sets.”

  Laredo looked up at her, his features unfriendly. “I have my own set of standards. And they’re pretty damn high. As high as hers, in fact.”

  “Then you and she should have no problem. I’ll just assume that’s the case and go forward based on that assurance from you. Thanks for that.”

  She turned and left, leaving Laredo staring moodily after her.

  Chapter 32

  PINE HAD NOT GONE TO SLEEP. She had not even come close to shutting her eyes. She had sat on her bed, fully dressed, until well after midnight. She had heard Blum come in and go to her room. She might have come out then and talked to her friend, but she chose not to. She wasn’t exactly sure why.

  Coward.

  At one in the morning, Pine rose, walked back down the stairs and out the front door into a damp, chilly night in Andersonville. She drew her coat closer around her and headed out to a destination she hadn’t really thought about going to until that very minute.

  Eschewing her rental SUV, she hustled on foot across the highway to the Andersonville National Historic Site, barely beating a collision with a late-night motorist zipping down the road and not paying much attention. She entered the grounds and soon reached the location of the second victim’s body. The police tape was still up, but there was no one guarding the crime scene; apparently all available evidence had already been collected, or perhaps, like the spot where Hanna Rebane had been found, it was a simple lack of manpower. Although with the Bureau now officially involved additional resources had been deployed.

  She had never imagined that the additional resources would be Eddie Laredo.

  She looked down at the spot where the body had been found. She didn’t know yet that he’d been identified as Layne Gillespie, formerly of the U.S. Army with a general discharge for reasons as yet unknown. She didn’t know that he had lived last in Savannah. She didn’t know why someone had ended his life and then dressed him like a cheap groom.

  There was obviously something systematic about the killer’s methods and selection of victims along with the presentation of the bodies in the strange garb. But she didn’t know enough to truly nail what his goal was.

  These guys never make it easy. I guess that’s the point.

  She ducked under the police tape.

  A sharper breeze was starting to blow in from the north. As a child she had never remembered Georgia as being particularly cold, but now it felt downright frigid to her.

  Being in a cemetery at night probably doesn’t help.

  She knelt down and looked at the grave marker. It was the first one on the left.

  “Patrick Delaney from Pennsylvania,” she read off. The other names left to right were Charles Curtis, William Collins, John Sarsfield, W. Rickson, with the U.S. Navy, and A. Munn, also with the U.S. Navy.

  Was there any significance that the dead man had been placed on Delaney’s grave? The victim had been black, that was also something to keep in mind. But these graves contained the remains of Union soldiers. Though they had been bad guys as POWs, they had been fighting to free the slaves.

  Or maybe I’m overthinking this and it has nothing to do with the history here at all.

  But it had been a risk to carry a body out here. Very risky. But then it had been dicey to leave the body of Hanna Rebane in a public area. This guy liked to take chances, that was clear.

  This area smelled of death even though the last burial along this short row of graves had taken place more than 150 years ago. But the stench lingered. It would be here forever because all those who had died here would never leave this place. If you believed in God, you would trust that their spirits had long since gone to a better place. But six feet under her boots, Pine knew the human remains of those “spirits” would have an eternal presence in Andersonville.

  Pine didn’t know if it was the snap of a twig or just her personal antennae that made her reach for her gun. She pivoted on the balls of her feet to take in as much of her surroundings as possible. Maybe it was a squirrel, maybe it was a late-night visitor like her.

  Maybe it was the killer coming back for something.

  Maybe coming for her.

  Another twig snap.

  Now she went on the move, not electing to be a sitting duck. Her first tactic was to force whoever was out there to lose a sight line on her, if he had one. She did this by hustling across the graveyard and reaching the office building for the Park Service. It was a two-story structure made of wood and brick painted red with some trimmed hedges and a wrought iron railing that ran along the first level. Behind it was a large outbuilding. She could see wheelbarrows lined up against one wall, and rows of tools hanging from hooks. That must be the storage shed for some of the landscaping operations that would be required here.

  Pine parked herself behind one of the hedges and waited to hear footsteps. The damn wind had picked up, making it hard to hear anyone approaching. She sighted along the top rail of her Glock, pivoting around again as she aimed at the direction from which she had just come.

  Another snap of a twig. There seemed to be a lot twigs on the grounds of a well-manicured and -preserved national cemetery. And someone seemed to be hitting them all.

  Shit.

  She whirled around right as something hit her from be
hind, launching them both into the hedge she’d taken up position behind. She could feel the sweat and the booze coming from the man. His long, oily hair whipped across her face as they fell.

  The breath was knocked out of her when they hit the dirt, his weight landing fully on top of her. He had the advantage right up until she crushed her Glock against the side of his head.

  He cried out, gripped his head with one hand, and landed a weakened punch to her shoulder with the other. Pine absorbed the blow with a grimace, then planted her knee in his groin and kept it wedged there while she landed a straight palm strike to her attacker’s nose. He responded by slamming all of his weight down on her, ripping the air from her lungs.

  He gripped her gun hand with his, and now things were getting perilous.

  Until she got her elbow under his throat and cut off his air. When he pulled back to try to draw a breath, as she knew he would, she slammed the crown of her head against his already busted nose. The nose was a sensitive appendage. One blow hurt; a second blow disabled.

  He got to his knees, freeing her from his bulk, his body teetering from side to side. She slid out from under him and drove him to the ground by landing a brutal kick to his kidneys. When he fell sideways, she stomped his head, drilling it into the grass. Red blood now colored the green blades.

  She added one more stomp for good measure and the man stiffened, then went slack.

  Pine had about two seconds to enjoy her triumph when she was knocked off her feet a second time by another man who hit her right at the waist, lifted her off the ground, and pitched her over his head. She could have hit the ground flat on her back or her head, either of which would have left her stunned. But she put out her hand, let it strike the ground first to give her a bit of leverage, and then tucked and rolled, coming to her feet quicker than her attacker probably thought would have been possible. Although there was now a shooting pain in the arm and shoulder she’d used to lessen the impact of her fall. And, even more problematic, she had lost her gun in the process, and with it her main advantage.

  The man rose in front of her. He was big, over six-three, nearly twice her weight. She could tell, even in the dim moonlight, that he was pissed off beyond belief. And he was about to take all this fury out on her.

  She sat on her haunches as he gathered steam and whatever wits he possessed.

  “I’m an FBI agent, in case that makes a difference to you,” she said breathlessly.

  He didn’t seem to comprehend what she was saying. He had on a dirty sweatshirt and a jean jacket over that. Dirtier jeans below that. Muddy boots, a chain around one wrist. A beard that nearly touched his thick chest. He was maybe twenty-five.

  “You hurt my buddy bad,” he roared, pointing to the lump lying on the ground and not moving. “Deke might be dead.”

  “Then maybe Deke shouldn’t go around attacking people.”

  “We were just looking for a good time. That’s all. Could’a been nice and sweet for everybody.” He looked at his fallen buddy once more. “Now I’m gonna mess you up bad, bitch. For Deke.”

  “And I’m telling you not to do that because you’ll regret it like you won’t believe.”

  The man shook his head from side to side, thumped his chest with a hammy fist, spit a lump of something on the ground, screamed out like a bull, and charged her.

  She rose and easily sidestepped him, tacking on a roundhouse kick to his ass as he passed by her. That and his momentum caused him to launch over a bush and land face-first in the grass.

  He rolled over, screamed a string of profanities, and lurched to his feet.

  “Now you’re dead,” he hollered.

  He charged again.

  A second later the Beretta Nano Pine pulled from her ankle holster was pointed at the man’s crotch. He pulled up so fast the toes of his boots caught in the dirt and he fell forward again, landing at her feet.

  He looked up to see the muzzle of her weapon now pointed at his skull.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” began Pine slowly, the collective pains in her shoulder, head, ribs, and wrist worsening. “And I strongly suggest you fucking use it.”

  Chapter 33

  STUPID.

  That had been the first word that came to Pine’s mind as she sat in a chair at the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office. Going out alone at that time of night to a secluded place and nobody knew where she was? It was just the sort of insult she would have screamed at anyone, in particular a woman, for doing what she had done.

  She had an ice pack on her bruised shoulder and tape around her aching ribs and right wrist. And there was a yellow-and-purple lump on her upper forehead where she’d head-butted the first guy.

  “Deke” was in the hospital with a concussion and other assorted injuries but was expected to make a full recovery just in time to go to prison. His buddy was in a holding cell yelling that he wanted a lawyer and, “That bitch started it.”

  The cops had shown up about ten minutes after she had called them. Deke had still been unconscious, and the other moron was still screaming at her for busting Deke up.

  “Just wanted a good time and there she was, what’s wrong with that,” he kept saying over and over, as though that was perfectly reasonable and should have been enough of an explanation to let him and his buddy go on their way. “I mean, why else would a gal be out there at that time ’a night ’less she wanted some?”

  She had told her story to the first cops on the scene after she called them. She had told her story a second time to a detective with a notepad and a tired expression.

  “They obviously didn’t know you were armed,” said the detective.

  “Obviously,” said Pine. “Not that it would have resulted in a different outcome.”

  He had looked askance at her comment. “They were two pretty big guys.”

  “The bigger they are, the easier they fall.”

  “Right. I’ll go do the paperwork. We’ll need you to sign your statement when it’s ready.”

  “With pleasure.”

  And she had sat right there, signed her statement, and was about to leave when she looked up to see a flustered Max Wallis hurrying down the hall toward her. She inwardly groaned as she saw who was trailing him.

  Eddie Laredo.

  It was six in the morning. She had not phoned Blum yet. But she was thinking about it. She knew she would get the same lecture from the woman that Pine would have delivered to anyone dumb enough to do what she had. That was principally why she hadn’t called. She could imagine everything the older woman would say to her. And Blum would be exactly right.

  Wallis drew up a chair across from her. Laredo just stood there, arms folded over his chest, something between a smirk and a scowl on his features, at least to Pine’s mind. Inwardly seething, Pine thought that the night had been shitty enough without this, too.

  “You want to tell us what happened?” said Wallis. He patted his pockets for something, pulled out a single, bent cigarette, and popped it, unlighted, into his mouth.

  “I’ve already told it twice and signed my statement.”

  “Please. Just a courtesy.” He took out his notebook.

  “What are you even doing here?”

  “Got a call that lifted me out of my bed. Female FBI agent in some sort of trouble. You’re the only one in town.”

  “I’m glad they get so gender specific down here.”

  “You’re an anomaly. They get noticed.”

  This came from Laredo.

  She didn’t even look his way.

  Pine told her story. It took her all of twenty seconds delivered via five practiced sentences.

  “What were you doing out there at that hour?” asked Laredo.

  “Following up a hunch.”

  “And that was?”

  “The position of the body over the grave for Patrick Delaney, one of the Raiders.”

  Laredo glanced at Wallis. “Yeah, I got filled in on that group. So what’s the hunch?”

 
; “Why lay him there when he had over ten thousand other choices?” said Pine, who had not once looked Laredo in the eye. She kept her gaze on Wallis and his open notebook.

  “You think it symbolized something? You think there’s a connection between this Delaney guy and our killer?”

  “If there is a connection, it’s an attenuated one. Delaney’s been dead since 1864.”

  “So, symbolic then?” interjected Wallis.

  “Maybe. This guy doesn’t strike me as random in his planning. Quite the opposite.”

  “Meaning everything he’s done up to this point has been meticulous and meaningful,” noted Laredo.

  “Yes.”

  “But you could have waited until morning to go out there,” observed Laredo. “From what the locals tell me that cemetery can be unsafe in the middle of the night. Hell, any place like that could be unsafe at night.”

  Pine decided not to let that one go. She looked up at Laredo, taking in every molecule of him before saying, “Well, it did turn out to be unsafe…for those two morons.”

  Laredo shook his head. “You always took risks. Too many for some of us.”

  She stared him down, until his gaze dropped to the linoleum.

  Pine glanced at Wallis. “What else? Or are we done?”

  “That’s it. These two idiots are known around here. Got a pretty long rap sheet. Mostly petty shit. But they’re going away for a while over this one.”

  “It’ll be my word against theirs. They’ll say I assaulted them. Just like the guy’s been screaming about this whole time from his holding cell.”

  “I don’t think we’ll have a problem getting them to cop a plea. Two men against a gal? No way a jury’s going to buy that one, least not in Georgia. And I’d be surprised if those dopes would have the balls to try it. I mean, what’s a little prison time if the alternative is admitting that a girl kicked your ass? They’d never be able to walk into a bar again.”

  “Good to know how enlightened it’s become down here.”

  “So what did your little late-night excursion really score us?” asked Laredo. “I’d like to hear how you see it.”