Chapter 19
Washington, D.C.
The streets of Georgetown were crowded with pedestrians on their way to dinner or heading home after a late day at the office. Early diners were already seated in the restaurants along picturesque M Street as Alan Sedgewick strolled along, slowing to admire the groups of female university students ambling in the warm breeze.
Sedgewick had changed from his business attire into a rugby shirt, jeans, and a frayed Baltimore Orioles baseball cap, and appeared to be almost as young as the students around him – perhaps a late bloomer working on a doctoral thesis. He looked nothing like a top aide on the Hill, which was the point; he was embarking on a dangerous course, he knew, from which there could be no turning back, and he wanted to avoid attracting attention.
At the corner of Thirty-First Street, he jaywalked along with a dozen others and continued along the block until he reached his destination – a popular French bistro well away from his usual haunts, where the possibility of being recognized was slim. He dutifully waited for the couple ahead to be shown to a table, and spotted his rendezvous as he shifted from foot to foot: a stocky male Sedgewick’s age with black curly hair, nerdy glasses, and a pallor that spoke of long hours in front of a computer screen.
Sedgewick moved to the table, and the man looked up.
“Alan, good to see you. Please, sit.”
“Larry, been too long,” Sedgewick said.
“Yeah, well, life does have a habit of getting in the way, doesn’t it?” Larry gave Sedgewick an appraising glance. “You look good. Being a parasite agrees with you.”
“Long hours for crap pay.”
“They don’t really feature that in the sales material, do they?”
Sedgewick shrugged. “I knew what I was getting into.”
“How long do you see yourself doing it, though? It’s a young man’s game.”
“Another few years. Then it’s onto the lobbyist gravy train. That’s where the money is. Only way to make easier cash is panhandling or televangelism.”
“Or working on Wall Street.”
Sedgewick made a face. “I’d turn tricks in rest-stop bathrooms before I’d stoop that low. I have some morals.”
Both men laughed. Sedgewick and Larry Burnell had gone to college together, Larry pursuing journalism while Sedgewick had gone into public service. Now Larry was a reporter for the Washington Post, trying to make a name for himself and dreaming of winning a Pulitzer for an earth-shattering story that so far had eluded him.
They studied the menu and made small talk and, after ordering, got down to business. Larry sipped his chardonnay and sat back. “So to what do I owe this pleasure? Not that hanging out isn’t reward enough, but you mentioned on the phone you had a story?”
“Might have a story,” Sedgewick corrected. “First of all, let’s establish some ground rules, okay? Everything I tell you is off the record until I give you the go-ahead to run with it. Deal?”
“Sure. This must be pretty serious if you want to muzzle me. Why even tell me at all?”
“I want to bounce it off you and see what you think.”
“Fine. Shoot.”
“You know I work for Whitfield, right?”
Larry nodded. “It came up.”
“His daughter went down in a private plane crash a few days ago. In Laos.”
“What? That’s the first I heard of it. But…that’s the big secret?”
“Part of it. They’ve kept a lid on the news so far.”
“Why?”
“That’s where it gets strange.” Sedgewick paused. “You know Whitfield’s on the committee investigating the DOD, right?”
“Of course. The liar’s club, we call it in the business.”
“Well, a couple of CIA rankers showed up, and apparently Whitfield’s got them looking for the plane wreckage on the sly.”
Larry considered the information. “That doesn’t make sense. It would be in his best interests to have a full-blown aerial reconnaissance over the flight path. Pull out all the stops.”
“That’s what I say. Something’s fishy. There’s more to the story, and I think I know what it is. And it scares the hell out of me, because we’re talking about…treason.”
“What? Who – Whitfield? He’s as red, white, and blue as they come.”
“That’s what I’ve always thought, but now I have my doubts. I think we could be looking at something as big as Snowden. Maybe as big as Watergate.”
The waiter arrived with their dishes, and they remained silent until he’d left.
“Do you have any evidence?” Larry asked, after confirming the adjacent tables were still empty.
“I’m collecting it.”
“Care to tell me what you suspect?”
“Not until I have it documented. If I’m wrong…let’s just say I don’t want to say anything more. I just want to know whether this is something you could run with if I hand everything off to you once I’ve got definitive proof.”
“Of course.”
“And would you keep me anonymous? If word leaked, I’d be finished in this town.”
“I’d treat it as a confidential source. Wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me.” Larry eyed him. “Dude, you look pretty stressed. This must be huge.”
“You have no idea.”
The two men ate quickly, and when they were done, Larry signaled for the bill. “What kind of time frame are we talking?”
“I’m hoping within forty-eight hours.”
“Wow. That fast, huh?”
“It’s the story of the decade, Larry. Total game changer.”
“You angling for a slice of the book royalties? Because I’m a whore. Name your price.”
“Nah. I’ll be hiding on an island somewhere warm until it all blows over.”
Larry paid the bill and they rose. Sedgewick led him to the front entrance, and they shook hands inside the waiting area. “How do you want to do this?” Larry asked.
“I’ll call, and we’ll do a handoff in person.”
“My phone’s always on.”
“Perfect.”
Outside the restaurant, a dark blue van was parked in a loading zone. In the rear, two men exchanged a glance.
“You heard it. We have it on tape,” the older of the pair said.
“We do,” his partner agreed.
“We have to neutralize him.”
“Agreed.”
“I’ll get authorization.” The older man placed a call on an encrypted cell phone and, when the line picked up, spoke softly: “We activated his cell remotely and recorded the whole thing. It’s as we feared.” He paused, listening. “No, nothing hard, but it sounds like he’ll have something soon. He told the reporter about the daughter, but nothing else.” Another pause. “Roger that. We’ll take care of it immediately.”
The older man hung up and moved into the driver’s seat, leaving his partner to shut down the eavesdropping gear as he started the engine.
Sedgewick retraced his steps and made a right toward the Potomac, preoccupied with the road he’d embarked upon. Part of him felt guilty at betraying the senator’s trust, but another part was exhilarated. He was doing the right thing in a town where that never happened, where people’s actions were overwhelmingly dictated by self-interest and the accumulation of influence and raw power. And it felt good.
He reached the canal and some faint instinct caused the hair on the back of his neck to prickle. A city dweller, he’d developed a keen sense for urban predators, and even in Georgetown, a relatively safe enclave, there was plenty of crime – although nothing like the surrounding areas, many of which had higher murder rates than Detroit. He paused at the corner and glanced over his shoulder, painfully aware of how secluded the area was. All the traffic was on the main streets; the dirt path that bordered the canal was deserted now that night had fallen, even the most motivated joggers having returned home.
Two men in overcoats were walking steadily toward him; overco
ats that were out of place on a balmy evening. He tried to resist the impulse to run, but his mind was screaming in protest, clamoring for him to bolt.
Sedgewick opted for a compromise; he turned onto the canal path and began jogging west. He was only a block from the next street, which hopefully would have more traffic. Halfway along the way, he dared a glance over his shoulder.
There was nobody there.
“Little paranoid, aren’t we, buddy?” he muttered to himself as he slowed. His imagination was running away with him – he was jumping at shadows, seeing threats behind every tree.
When he reached the street, he took the stairs two at a time and, after a final look back at the empty path, shook off his premonition and grinned at a pretty girl walking by, who returned his smile before continuing along the sidewalk. Normally not a drinker, Sedgewick felt drawn by the Irish pub he passed, and it took considerable willpower to keep from going in and downing a few pints. That wasn’t an option – he’d have to be in chambers by six a.m. to get everything he needed accomplished for the senator’s morning. A hangover wasn’t in the cards until the weekend.
Sedgewick hurried the six blocks to the townhouse he’d inherited from his father on Prospect Street, a quiet block of ancient, brightly colored three-story homes, and pushed his front gate open. Looking over the postage-stamp-sized front yard, encircled by a wrought-iron fence, he made a note to himself to do some necessary housekeeping on Sunday – the grass was overgrown and the place looked shabby.
Once inside the foyer, he switched on the lights and dropped his keys on a side table. He checked for messages on his cell phone as he mounted the steps to his bedroom on the third floor, his footsteps echoing in the empty house, and was reading a text from the senator when he entered the room.
A gloved hand clamped over his mouth, and he dropped the phone as he tried to twist free. He grunted and elbowed his assailant as hard as he could, and then convulsed as an electric shock seared through him from his scalp, short-circuiting his nervous system.
Sedgewick dropped to the floor, spasming, and barely registered a second man holding a stun gun, its prongs stuck into his scalp, the assailant’s shoes covered by plastic bags cinched around the ankles with rubber bands.
“Not your lucky day, buddy,” the first man said, and then they lifted Sedgewick and carried him into the bathroom.
Thirty minutes later the pair were back in the van, moving toward the Key Bridge.
“Think the coroner will spot the punctures from the stun gun?” the driver asked.
“Nah. We’ll see to it that it’ll be ruled a suicide. Poor guy. The pressure was too much for him, so he slit his wrists in the bathtub. At least he did it the right way – too many botch it by slicing across, instead of up.”
The driver grinned. “Bet he had a hell of a headache before he went out.”
“Should have stuck to fetching pencils and sucking up.”
“The senator will be devastated.”
“A tragic loss.” The passenger flicked the red tip of a safety match against his thumb and lit a cigarette.
“Christ. Do you have to do that in here?” the driver complained.
“Sorry. I didn’t get enough breastfeeding as a child.”
“At least roll down the window.”
The passenger complied and blew a stream of nicotine at the moon. He smiled in satisfaction and turned to the driver. “Nice work, Mr. Smith.”
“Likewise, Mr. Jones.”
Chapter 20
Chiang Rai, Thailand
Clouds darkened the night sky as a storm moved north, and the air was heavy with the smell of incipient rain. The airport was still and the surrounding homes in shadows as three figures ran from the brush toward the silhouette of the helicopter parked on the cracking tarmac. All wore muted clothing and moved like wraiths, their footsteps soundless as they neared the aircraft.
Two of the men stood by the fuselage, assault rifles in hand, as the third approached the turbine cowling, a satchel with tools in it hanging from his shoulder.
Fifteen minutes later the three returned to the brush, where their motorcycles had been hidden for a quick getaway. They started the engines and roared off, back toward the porous border from whence they’d come. Their leader, a prominent drug lord, had recognized the helicopter that was working its way toward his meth labs, and had ordered his best men to arrange for it to have maintenance issues. Word had gone out, a small fortune by Myanmar standards had changed hands, and an ex-Myanmar Army sergeant who’d worked on helicopters for four years had agreed to incapacitate the aircraft.
Tomorrow the annoyance would be ended, and the labs could return to normal, their production schedule back on track to meet the endless demand for the stimulant whose annual cash value was estimated to be greater than the entire legal Myanmar economy. With the vast majority of the country’s population living in abject poverty, working in the drug trade was the only way for most to support themselves, be it from growing opium or trafficking narcotics, or on the manufacturing side. For all the effort to quash the trade, drugs remained the only viable solution to endemic impoverishment, and sustained most of the hill tribes that lived in the Golden Triangle.
~ ~ ~
Uncle Pete wiped his brow with a stained rag as he sat in the helicopter, waiting for Daeng to start the engine. Dawn had come and gone a half hour earlier, and the whole group had a sense of time passing by, no closer to their objective than they had been the prior day.
Spencer passed out the weapons again as the turbine growled to life, and soon they were hovering over the third of six quadrants on the Laos side of the border. Daeng watched the line of storm clouds over Myanmar with a wary eye as they began the grid search, coaxing the helicopter along ten stories above the tree line. They’d agreed to move in as close as possible the prior day, fearful of missing a telltale sign of wreckage, given that the canopy was so thick in places that they couldn’t make out the ground.
“Didn’t spend any extra money on the cushions back here, did he?” Allie muttered to Spencer, shifting on the bench seat.
“If I never see this miserable contraption again, it will be too soon,” Spencer agreed from beside her.
Uncle Pete remained silent, and Allie’s nose wrinkled at the sour smell of alcohol and cigarettes seeping from his pores. Apparently their guide liked a morning eye-opener after a night of festivities on the company account, though Uncle Pete’s hangdog expression announced that he was regretting his celebratory enthusiasm today.
Daeng tapped one of the gauges and furrowed his brow.
Drake leaned toward him. “What is it?”
“Our oil temp is in the red. Something’s not right,” Daeng said, his voice tight.
“That’s bad, right?”
Daeng was about to speak when the helicopter shuddered and the turbine groaned. Daeng battled the controls as they lost altitude, and then alarms shrieked in the cockpit as the rotor blades froze and the helicopter plunged at a sickening angle toward the earth.
Allie was screaming when the aircraft crashed into the surface of a tributary that fed the Mekong River, the force of the impact so jarring her gun flew from her hands. The windows shattered, spraying safety glass all over them, and water gushed through the gaps.
Uncle Pete was the first out, unbuckling his seatbelt and kicking what remained of his window free before climbing from the wreckage and plunging into the river. Spencer helped Allie get her belt loose, and she crawled through the opening as the helicopter sank. When she was clear, he leaned forward to where Drake was fumbling with his harness.
A glance at the unnatural angle of Daeng’s head told him that the pilot had taken his last flight. Spencer wedged himself into the gap between them and freed Drake.
“You okay?” he yelled.
Drake nodded. “I think so. Bruised.”
“Get out of this thing. It’ll be on the bottom in a few more seconds.” Spencer glanced at Drake’s submachine gun still cl
utched in his hands. “Don’t let go of that, whatever you do.”
Water rose to chest level and Spencer fumbled for the duffle handle. After retrieving it, he launched himself through the cabin window as Drake scrambled out the windshield opening. The current was strong, and muddy water swirled around them as they pulled for the nearest shore.
When Spencer crawled from the river, he spotted Allie nearby, dripping wet but otherwise with no sign of injury. He made his way to her and she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. He held her for a long moment, and then Drake’s voice called from across the water. They both looked over at where he stood, Uncle Pete beside him, on the far bank. The frothing brown river rushed by as the helicopter settled on the bottom, leaving only the top of the rotor shaft and one blade jutting from the water as evidence of its existence.
“Are you okay?” Drake yelled.
“Yeah. You?” Spencer called.
“Sore and swelling. Allie?”
“Same here.”
“Daeng?” Allie asked Spencer, and he shook his head.
“He didn’t make it.”
The still air exploded with gunshots, and the earth around Drake fountained as slugs pounded into the bank. Uncle Pete ducked and ran into the brush. More shots sounded from downstream, and Spencer squinted at a bend in the river, where a boat filled with gunmen was fighting the current, its outboard laboring as the shooter standing in the bow tried to steady his aim.
Spencer swung his AKM into firing position and squeezed off a burst to buy Drake time, and nodded in satisfaction when at least a few of his rounds thumped into the wooden hull. The men onboard all began firing at him as the bow shooter took cover. Spencer yelled at Allie as rounds sprayed the sloping bank a dozen yards short of him.
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