Killer Pursuit: An Allison McNeil Thriller

by Jeff Gunhus

  Seconds later, the doors blew open and Garret stormed out. Well, as close as he could get to storming on his crutches, sporting a thick cast on his right leg. He froze when he saw her.

  “You,” he stammered. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Allison stood. She hadn’t seen Garret since the raid three days earlier and wasn’t sure how he felt about her decision to shoot him in the leg. Apparently, he didn’t feel that good about it.

  “Director Mason asked to see me,” Allison said. “Hey, I wanted to apologize for—”

  Garret held up his hand to stop her. “Apologize? Really? Apologizing is what you do when you spill coffee on someone’s notes. Or hit the wrong floor button on the elevator. You shot me, McNeil. On purpose.”

  Allison shrugged, using every bit of willpower not to let loose all the one-liners piling up inside of her, begging to get out. She reminded herself that good men had died at the raid, her raid, so playing games with Garret didn’t seem appropriate.

  “It was the only way I could see to––”

  “She saved your life, Garret,” said a voice from inside the office. “You ought to be kissing her backside instead of demanding her termination.”

  Garret looked horrified. He leaned in and poked a finger at Allison. “This isn’t over. I’m going to finish you, no matter what the old man says.”

  With that, Garret limped out of the room. When Allison turned, Mason was standing next to her, watching him leave.

  “That should take care of the reprimand for shooting Special Agent Morrison,” he said.

  “Yes sir,” Allison replied, unsure as always on how to read Mason’s body language. He gave her a wry smile and she relaxed.

  “Hold my calls, Mrs. Watkins,” he said to the receptionist. He held out a hand toward his office. “Come in. You’ve had an eventful few days and I want to hear all about them.”

  There were few places in Washington outside of the Oval Office that were more carefully designed to give a better home-field advantage. Mason’s office was large, laid out in three distinct areas to give a sense of intimate spaces within the overall area. A long glossy boardroom table was to her right, surrounded by eight high-backed leather chairs, a simple vase with three red roses at the center of it. Allison pictured old Mrs. Watkins placing new flowers there each morning in anticipation of Mason’s arrival. A touch of old-school class.

  The other area was comprised of two couches facing one another with a low coffee table in between. A half-dozen newspapers from around the world were lined neatly down the middle so that the headlines on each were visible at a glance. There was a single leather chair at the head of the table. It was rugged and worn, out of place in the refined air of the office. A little like Mason himself, Allison thought.

  The final area was Mason’s desk, a massive, ornate structure that dominated the far end of the room. The wall behind the desk was all window, giving a view of the DC skyline from eleven stories up. Allison noted the slight distortion in the glass. Bulletproof. Hell, it was probably Stinger missile-proof. It was no secret that Mason had his share of powerful enemies. Half would be content to wreck his career. The other half wouldn’t be happy until he was dead.

  There was a cluster of photos on one wall. Allison walked toward it, soaking in the history. In chronological order, there was a photo with each president starting with Lyndon Johnson. The personalities of each man were on display in the photos. Carter too serious. Reagan with a smile and a twinkle in his eye. Bush the Elder standing at attention. Clinton with an arm around Mason as if they were drinking buddies. Bush the Younger smirking like he was doing a Clint Eastwood impersonation. Obama looking impatient and preoccupied. Through all the pictures, Mason looked the same. Sure, he aged, his jet-black hair turning salt-and-pepper and then totally grey and thin, crow’s-feet starting around his eyes around Reagan and covered with wrinkles by the end of Bush the Younger. Yet, in each picture Mason had the same steely look, the same upright posture, the same regal bearing as if he belonged in the photo with the most powerful man in the world. The message was clear: Presidents came and went, but Clarence Mason was forever.

  She felt Mason step up next to her. “There’s a lot of history in those pictures,” she said.

  “A lot of ego on display,” Mason said.

  “I think you have to have a pretty healthy ego to want to sit in the Oval Office. Part of the job description, I imagine,” Allison said.

  Mason laughed. “I wasn’t talking about them. What kind of damn fool needs a display like this in his office? An old, crusty one, I guess.” He smiled and pointed to the couches. “Have a seat. Do you want some water? Coffee?”

  Allison made her way over to the couch, feeling her legs tremble as she did. She was more nervous than she wanted to let on. Even though she’d met Mason before, he was still the Director, not to mention a living legend. “I suppose if I say no, I’ll appear nervous. If I say yes, I’ll look too eager to please.”

  “Which are you? Nervous or eager to please?” Mason asked.

  “Neither,” Allison said.

  “Then what are you?”

  “Thirsty,” she said.

  Mason barked out a short laugh and poured two cups of water. He handed one to Allison and held out his as if to propose a toast. “Back in the ’60s this would have been a Scotch.”

  “At ten in the morning?”

  Mason shrugged. “Different time.” He raised his glass. “To Sam Kraw. Burning in hell where he belongs.”

  Allison sipped the water and it somehow tasted bitter in her mouth. Mason sat in the leather chair and studied her.

  “You don’t look like an agent who just cracked a major case,” Mason said. “Most agents get one or two cases like Kraw in their career. You have this and Arnie Milhouse in under twelve months.”

  “Four men died,” Allison said, her voice cracking.

  “I know,” Mason said. He reached to a small side table and picked up a short stack of folders. Allison could tell they were personnel files. He opened the top one. “Michael Connell, Stephen––”

  “McConnell,” Allison corrected. “Michael McConnell. Stephen Garcia. Dwayne Goodard. Sergio Benedict. Three of them were married. Sergio was about to be.”

  “None of them had children, from what I understand. A small blessing.”

  “Steve Garcia’s wife is six months pregnant,” Allison said, her voice coming out flat and lifeless. Detaching herself emotionally was the only way she could say the names of the men without breaking down.

  Mason closed the folders and placed them on his lap. “Do you know how many victims’ remains have been identified at Kraw’s hideout?”

  Allison shook her head. “Last I heard, there were nine––”

  “Eighteen,” Mason said. “And that’s just so far. The dogs are finding graves all over the place out there. It was the middle of nowhere. Impossible to find. Except for you. You put the puzzle together and found it.”

  “The pieces were already there,” Allison said, distracted as she digested the number she’d just heard. Eighteen bodies. Eighteen little girls.

  “And Garret and his shop had been working with those same pieces for two years before you came along. You found Kraw. You. And the men who died were professionals. They knew the risks of the job and they still signed up for it. Think of the lives you saved, Allison. Take my word for it, sometimes that’s the only way to get through all of this.”

  Allison nodded and took a drink of water. The bitterness lingered, but the cool water also soothed her throat. She was conscious that Mason was sizing her up and she didn’t care.

  “Is this why you summoned me? To tell me that those men died doing their duty so I should be OK with it?”

  “No,” Mason stated, taking a sip from his water with a smile. “I summoned you here to fire you.”

  8

  Libby drove his own car past the Lincoln Memorial, round the backside and merged onto Memorial Bridge. The view as
he crossed the Potomac over to Arlington National Cemetery always brought a surge of patriotism in him. For a few brief seconds, he remembered a time when he believed in words like duty, honor, sacrifice. When he believed that Washington had at least some good men willing to put the public good above politics and petty jealousies. Nothing like a few decades in the sewer filled with bureaucrats, lobbyists and politicians to eradicate that idealism completely.

  Even the story of Arlington Cemetery itself was a story more fitting of today’s Washington than most of the public realized. The white mansion that sits on the hill overlooking the Potomac and most of the property on which the cemetery now sits was once owned by none other than Robert E. Lee, the South’s brilliant commanding general during the Civil War. After the graveyards in the area began to fill, the Union Quartermaster General Montgomery Meigs ordered new burials to take place on Lee’s property. Even then, the Union general using Lee’s home as a headquarters demanded the burials take place on the far west of the structure so he wouldn’t be inconvenienced. On hearing this, and fearing that Lee might be able to return to his home after the war, Meigs ordered the mansion’s flower garden dug up and the next internments to be immediately next to the house. Within a month, nearly three thousand bodies were buried on the grounds, making a return to the house impossible for Lee and his family. The entire property was eventually wrested from the Lee family for a meager monetary compensation and transformed into the hallowed ground it is today. Pure Washington. On the face, a place of honor and sacrifice. Underneath, the place was simply a total F U to an opponent.

  Libby felt the cynicism claw away at his insides, but he didn’t know how to stop it. After everything he’d seen and done, he wasn’t sure if it was possible. Maybe if he could find one pure thing in DC, then some of his faith could come back. But he knew he might as well be hunting unicorns in Central Park. The only thing that mattered at the end of the day, the only thing that gave him the ability to do anything remotely good for the world, was power. Who had it? Who didn’t? How to get it and keep it? These were Libby’s stock and trade. And once in a rare while, power could even be used to accomplish things that helped people.

  Just like Arlington, action in Washington that helped people was usually just a happy by-product of someone in power using their influence to stick it to someone else. A piece of legislation jammed down someone’s throat to show dominance. Stealing funds from one district to reward one congressman and punish another. A million petty ways to play the game. Libby had learned his craft by watching his father, but now that he was in a game against him, he worried whether he was up to the task. The fact that he was having a meeting with someone like Scott Harris proved how desperate he was to get a win.

  Harris was a relic of the Senator’s old life. A shadowy figure that had orbited Summerhays before Libby had joined the Senator’s team, years before the first White House run. Libby knew nothing about the man’s personal life, hell he doubted either he or Summerhays even knew the man’s real name. All he knew was that if there was a problem that needed to go away, a call to Harris would make it happen. Only the last time Libby had made that call, a problem-causing congressman ended up in intensive care after a random mugging busted his jaw, broke four ribs and punctured a lung. He’d resolved never again to use the man’s services, but it turned out that never hadn’t really been in the cards.

  Beyond getting Harris’s help, he also needed to know something before he moved forward with any of it. The only way he’d know for certain is if he looked Harris in the eyes when he asked him his question.

  Libby parked his car and headed toward a rectangular gate built of red sandstone and red brick with “MCCLELLAN” carved across the top in gilt letters. He knew from his reading that the gate was commissioned by the same Montgomery Meigs who founded the cemetery, just when his boss McClellan was running for President. Below it, on one of the support pillars, Meigs had ordered a second name to be carved into the stone. His own. Libby touched the name as he walked through the gate, thinking it was two Washington staples showcased in one place: the art of sucking up to powerful men and that of unabashed self-promotion.

  “You’re late,” said a voice behind him.

  Libby stiffened and cursed himself for letting the man get the drop on him. He’d let his mind wander and hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings. He turned around and saw Harris staring back at him.

  The last two years hadn’t changed the man. He had a military bearing, ramrod straight posture, with lean muscle rippling with every movement. He was tan and looked younger than the late fifties where Libby pegged him. Unnatural, pale blue eyes stared into Libby’s, instantly sizing him up, his lips curling into a pucker of disgust.

  “I said, you’re late.”

  Libby held up his watch. “It’s four minutes after twelve.”

  “Which is late. But you always were sloppy,” Harris said.

  “And you always were a pain in the ass,” Libby said. “Why the hell can’t we meet at a Starbucks or something? You and your cloak and dagger bullshit.”

  Harris looked around the cemetery. “I like it here. This is where a lot of my friends ended up.”

  Libby wasn’t sure if Harris was telling the truth or not. He decided it didn’t matter. “We’ve got a problem,” Libby said.

  “I figured.”

  “Do you know what it is already?”

  Harris squinted at him. “Are we playing games today? If so, I’m not in the mood.”

  A shiver passed through Libby. The threat of violence coiled within the man’s voice was visceral, almost like there was a gun pointed at him.

  “When is the last time Summerhays contacted you?” Libby asked.

  Harris stared back at Libby, tight-lipped.

  “I need to know,” Libby said. “Did he contact you? Did he have you…take care of anything for him?”

  Harris shook his head. “I’m not answering that. I’m not like you, remember? I’m not sloppy.”

  Libby felt his face flush with anger. “Fine, forget it then. Go back to whatever rock you were under when I called.”

  Libby turned and walked away. It was a game of chicken in reverse. Like walking away from the negotiating table when you were the one who most needed the deal to happen. With each step, he felt more nauseous. He didn’t really have a backup plan.

  “Wait,” Harris called out.

  It took all of his self-control not to stop. He kept walking.

  “OK,” Harris said. “He called me.”

  Libby stopped and turned. “When?”

  “Last night.”

  Libby bit down on the inside of his lips so hard that he felt the salty taste of blood in his mouth. This was exactly the type of thing he’d promised himself he wasn’t going to tolerate this time around. Whoring his way through DC was one thing, it was the man’s base instinct at work, but lying right to his face and calling Harris directly showed a lack of trust that Libby knew should be a deal-breaker. He also knew he shouldn’t say another word. He should just walk away from the whole thing before it got any messier. But somehow over the years, Libby knew he’d turned into a moth and the Office of the President of the United States was the brightest flame in town. He wasn’t going anywhere and he knew it.

  “What phone did he use?” Libby asked.

  “Don’t know. Don’t care. Can’t trace the number to me.”

  Yeah, but try explaining a phantom number on the official call log from a campaign phone, thought Libby. He filed that away as an issue to deal with later.

  “What’d he want?”

  “Not sure. I stopped him before he got going. Told him it was better for him to let other people contact me.”

  “And?”

  “He agreed,” Harris said. “But before he hung up, he told me price was no object on this one.” For the first time, Harris smiled. “I can’t lie, I liked the sound of that.”

  Libby tried to keep a poker face even though he was screaming in
side. At least Summerhays hadn’t revealed any details over the phone. Libby had friends over at NSA and he knew enough about the capabilities over there to know the idea of a private phone conversation was an anachronism. “How long had it been since you spoke to him before last night?”

  Harris’s smile disappeared and was replaced with a scowl. “Sounds like maybe you should be asking your boss these questions. Let’s cut the shit. What’s the job?”

  “I asked you a question. How long?” Libby asked.

  Harris hesitated, then said, “Not since the thing.” He squinted at Libby. “Are you wearing a mic?”

  “W—what? No,” Libby said.

  Harris waved him forward and gestured for him to raise his hands.

  “I’m not wearing a fucking wire,” Libby said.

  “Then you won’t mind me checking,” Harris said, making it clear it was no longer a suggestion.

  Libby was in a hurry. As much as he hated to give in to the guy, he raised his hands. Harris patted him down quickly, including a full clutch of Libby’s groin. Finally, he stepped back.

  “Satisfied?”

  “Cell phone?” Harris asked.

  “Did you feel a cell phone on me?” Libby snapped. But Harris just stared back. “Left it in the car like the other times. I’m not stupid.”

  Harris shrugged as if to say the last point was debatable. “Can’t be too careful. Mistakes get you put in the ground. And I like the view from up here, you know what I mean?”

  Libby took a deep breath. “Can we get down to business now?”

  “By all means.”

  Libby wanted to slap the smug bastard upside the head, but he resisted the temptation. First, the man would probably lay him out before he landed the first punch. Second, Libby needed his help. “There was this call girl. High priced. We both know our friend has his appetites and he fell off the wagon. Problem is, turns out she filmed her tricks. One camera for whoever was paying her, the other––”