by Jon Land
The figure was Samuel Jackson Dodd.
The smiling countenance caught on the posters brimmed with confidence. The face rolled and soft, like a movie star’s. The neatly coiffed brown hair too thick for a man in his midforties, flecked with patrician gray. It was the picture of strength, of hope.
“Who do we need?”
“Sam Jack Dodd!”
“When do we need him?”
“Now!”
The chanting continued as the marchers surged on up Constitution Avenue. Kristen noticed that some of their posters, had the election year printed beneath the picture. Only in this case it was not 1996; it was 1994.
Simmering discontent had turned into a boiling caldron of militant protest. Everyone with an ax to grind was making his or her feelings known, and everyone, it seemed, had an ax to grind. Needing a rallying point, they turned to Sam Jack Dodd, who did nothing to diffuse or discourage their efforts. He publicly derided those politicians who had allowed the nation to sink to its present depths. He spoke of a machine that plainly didn’t work well anymore and needed to be drastically overhauled before it broke down altogether. The country embraced his message, willing to accept the drastic changes he painted in broad strokes, any changes.
“Who do we need?”
“Sam Jack Dodd!”
“When do we need—”
Kristen rolled up the window, insulating herself from the chant, and gazed out at the faces of those hoisting Dodd posters as they snailed past the cab. After more than a decade in Washington including her years at Georgetown, Kristen had found herself able to identify a group’s cause swiftly by its mere composition. No more. This group defied analysis in its lack of homogeneity. It included all types, as if this were some pollster’s random sampling of the country. It wasn’t fair—or maybe it was. For generations, Washington had been changing the rules on the people. Now maybe the people were ready to change the rules on Washington.
Traffic started moving again in maddening stops and starts. Her brother’s phone call had exaggerated all the worries that had been plaguing her recently. Now more than ever nothing made any sense, and it wouldn’t again, she knew, until her brother was located.
Their parents had been killed in a car accident two summers before, just before the start of David’s freshman year in college. Kristen had blamed the tragedy for the off-the-cuff style her brother’s life had taken on since. He left school for a semester, then transferred, and now was taking another semester off. To get his head straight, he had told her. She was infuriated when he wouldn’t listen to reason. David was smart, brilliant even. Senator Jordan had offered to smooth the way for him into Georgetown; then, at least, he would have been close to her. But David hadn’t wanted that. They had always been diametrically different personalities, and the death of their parents had further polarized them. David, always the free spirit, ran wild. Kristen, forever structured, sought security in regimentation.
Working for Senator Jordan had become her one salvation. She had performed an assistant’s job with enough vim and vigor to end up in just three years as the senator’s chief of staff, a position she had held since the election in ’92. The sixteen-hour days, the never-ending chain of phone calls, juggling the senator’s itinerary to fit everything in—Kristen loved it all. It never occurred to her that maybe she was running just like David was, only in another way.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. There were two conference calls and a trio of press briefings on different issues for different segments of the media. Kristen got through it in a fog, her eyes never far from the phone.
“A Mr. Gathers on 410,” the receptionist’s voice hailed over the intercom finally, just before four o’clock.
Kristen lunged for the receiver. “Paul?”
“Right here, Kris.”
“What’s all that noise? You sound far away.”
“I’m not in the office. Listen, can you get out of there, say in about an hour?”
“Of course.” Her heart was pounding against her rib cage. Her throat felt heavy and the words had trouble sliding out. “What is it? What have you found out?”
“I’ve got a few more things to follow up. David’s call was placed from Colorado. A town called Grand Mesa.”
“Colorado?”
“You had no idea he was there?”
“He hasn’t been sending postcards from every stop. What else, Paul?”
“I’ll tell you when we meet, when I’m sure. An hour, like I said. You know L’Escargot?”
“Restaurant on Connecticut Street.”
“I’ll be there at five. No, better make that five-thirty. I might be at my next stop for a while.”
“What’s going on, Paul?”
He had already hung up.
Kristen arrived at L’Escargot fifteen minutes early, desperately afraid of being late. Not surprisingly, Gathers had not arrived yet, so she chose a small table on the right of the entrance and tried to pass the time reading a copy of the morning Post grabbed off the bar. The articles slid by just as the rest of the day had, misty and vacant. She found herself staring at the headlines, unable to concentrate on the stories beneath them. Kept flipping pages and sipping ginger ale just to be doing something.
Grand Mesa, Colorado …
Somehow Gathers’s discovery soothed her. Grand Mesa hardly seemed a place that could be a hotbed of controversial activity. A big city, any city, would have frightened Kristen much more. She checked her watch.
5:31.
Her eyes had been moving to the entrance every time the door opened. Now she fixed her stare upon it. A few times her heart rose at the sight of a man she thought was Gathers. But she was disappointed on each occasion. It had started to rain outside, and most of L’Escargot’s patrons came straight from work wrapped in overcoats and shaking umbrellas in the vestibule. Kristen realized she had brought neither.
5:47.
She tried not to feel nervous. Gathers said he had to check out a few things, that his next stop might take some time. It must have simply taken longer than he had expected.
Why hadn’t he called her from his office?
Kristen began to fixate on the tone of his voice. Had it been rushed, panicked? She replayed the background noises in her head. Where had he been calling from?
Stop! Stop!
She was driving herself mad with this. But it was closing on six o’clock and there was still no sign of Paul Gathers. He would have called if he was going to be this late. Unless he couldn’t call.
The door blew open again and Kristen’s heart rose. Another man entered dripping, the brim of his hat soaked clear through.
It wasn’t Gathers.
Kristen moved to the pay phone. A man was using it. He took one glance at her and turned away, covering his free ear with a finger. Kristen was furious. It seemed that he was staying on the line just to antagonize her. She was desperate enough to consider grabbing the receiver from him when he at last hung up. The receiver had barely touched the switch hook again when Kristen snapped it to her ear and dialed Gathers’s office number, bypassing the Bureau’s switchboard.
“Mr. Gathers’s office,” a female voice greeted.
“Yes. Could you tell me if Mr. Gathers has called in?”
“Excuse me?”
“We had an appointment and he seems to be late.”
“Who is this, please?”
“Kristen Kurcell. I was in to see him this morning. We made arrangements to meet later and I was worried he may have forgotten.”
The woman on the other end paused briefly. “I’m afraid Mr. Gathers is in transit. He was called away suddenly on assignment.”
“You don’t know how to reach him?”
“He’ll be calling in for his messages, I’m sure. Would you like to leave one?”
The phone was trembling in Kristen’s hand. “No, I don’t think so. Er, when was he called away?”
“Early this afternoon, I believe. He left in a hurry.�
� Another pause. “Are you sure I can’t—”
Kristen returned the receiver numbly to the hook. As far as his secretary knew, Paul Gathers had been called away on assignment before he had called Kristen’s office from somewhere outside the Hoover Building at four!
“I’ve got a few more things to follow up … . I’ll tell you when we meet, when I’m sure.”
And now he was gone. Not in transit, not on assignment. Just gone.
Like her brother.
But Gathers had left her something: the place where David had called from the night before.
Grand Mesa.
Colorado.
CHAPTER 5
“I want to know the death toll,” McCracken insisted.
His side ached where the bullet had grazed it, the pressure of the bandage making the throb worse. A pair of painkillers he had no intention of downing had been waiting in his pocket for almost twelve hours now.
“I want to know how many people were injured.”
Captain Roy Martinez stood against the glass front wall of his office as he spoke. “I thought we had extended you enough courtesy, Mr. McCracken, by not putting you in a cell.”
“How many, Captain?”
“Why is it so important that you know?”
“Because I was there.”
“And maybe you feel guilty. Maybe you were responsible for at least a few of them.”
“Do you really believe that, Captain?”,
“Do you?”
McCracken’s response was a knowing stare. Though much of what had unfolded in the Coconut Grove in the early hours of Friday morning remained muddled, enough was clear to point to the fact McCracken’s presence had put a severe crimp in whatever the actual plan had been. By turning the gunmen’s attention on himself and away from the patrons of Cocowalk, he had saved countless lives. But that hadn’t been enough.
The police had placed Blaine under arrest and taken him under heavy guard to Mount Sinai Hospital. An intern had barely finished taping the bandage over his wound when his escorts whisked him away to police headquarters and a holding cell. He refused to speak to anyone other than the commanding officer who at that point was on scene in the Coconut Grove.
“Thirty-seven dead,” Captain Martinez said finally. They had spoken twice during the morning, but this was the first time Martinez had provided any information. “Over three hundred wounded. Both numbers expected to rise.”
“They always do.”
“You’ve seen this kind of thing before, then.”
“What does my file say?”
“Since you had to give clearance before we could access it in Washington, I’m sure you know.”
McCracken rose and joined Martinez near the glass wall. “Most of the good parts were left out. Trust me.”
“If half of what that file says is true, I want to know what the hell you were doing in Miami.”
“We come back to that again.”
“And we’ll keep coming back to it.”
“Guns brought me down here, Captain. Thirty percent of the illegal traffic in this country originates in South Florida, and I had a line on one of the biggest distributors.”
“Alvarez—”
“As in father and son, I learned last night.”
“The son is—I mean—was Carlos. His father’s name is Manuel.” Martinez took two steps away from the glass wall. “You see, we’re not totally ignorant down here, Mr. McCracken. We just have this little thing called due process to keep in mind, something I get the feeling you stopped bothering yourself about quite a while ago.”
“Captain, due process for me went out the window even before those blank spaces in my file started appearing.”
“Did you come down here to kill Alvarez, Mr. McCracken?”
“Father or son?”
“Does it matter?”
“Well, the father sells to adults, the son specialized in other kids. No, I guess it doesn’t matter. And no, I didn’t come down here to kill either one of them. Huge shipments of heavy firepower have been moved through Miami and the Alvarezes over the past few months. I came down here to find out where it all ended up, who has it.”
Martinez nodded as if his own point had been made for him. “So maybe, just maybe, the men in that helicopter came to stop you from finding them.”
“It wasn’t me.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because if it was, they couldn’t have had time to set up such a complicated strike. They must have been watching the Alvarezes for quite a while. The kid was the one they were after.”
“And, on the chance you’re wrong, maybe you’re responsible for those thirty-seven deaths.”
“And if I’m not, number thirty-eight might well be Manuel Alvarez, unless you find him first.”
“You think he was the actual target?”
“Since he and his son worked so closely with one another, both would have been on the list.”
“Whose list?”
“One of the parties they were selling to. A party that must want to hide what they’re up to awfully bad to pull off what they did last night.”
“I don’t suppose you can prove that,” Martinez persisted.
“I think I can, Captain. Have you been able to identify any of the gunmen yet?”
“No, but we will.”
“Then you’ve fingerprinted them.”
“Waiting for something to come back from Washington as we speak.”
“Nothing will, Captain. Their fingerprints won’t be on any file you can access.”
“You’re quite the expert on this, aren’t you?”
“You wouldn’t be able to identify me under similar circumstances, either.”
“Meaning …”
“Meaning the group that hit Cocowalk last night is part of something much bigger. The Alvarezes had to be removed before that group’s real business can start.”
“Manuel’s still alive.”
“For now.”
Some of the female killer’s final words fluttered through Blaine’s head.
“You can’t stop us! No one can stop us! You’ll see, everyone will see!”
“Give me copies of the fingerprints,” Blaine offered. “I’ll fax them to someone who’ll be able to access the right files.”
“And then you’ll share the information with me, is that it?”
“There won’t be anything you can do with the information, Captain. But yes, I’ll share it with you, if you like.”
Martinez’s face grew taut with exasperation. He was about to speak when the phone on his desk buzzed. He moved to it and snapped the receiver up angrily.
“I thought I told you not to—Oh … . Yes, I’ll take it.” Martinez pressed the button of one of the incoming lines. “This is Captain Martinez … . Yes, I understand … . Of course … . No, it’s no problem at all … . He’s right here.”
McCracken moved to the front of the desk and accepted the receiver from Martinez.
“Yes?”
“It’s Tom Daniels, McCracken,” a high voice greeted.
“Sorry, I think you’ve got the wrong number.”
“Back off. I just got you sprung.”
“So you can recommend my file be flagged in red yet again, no doubt.”
“Hear me out.”
“I’m all ears, Daniels.”
“Not now. In Washington. In person. I’ve got you booked on a two P.M. flight into National. Reservation’s under the name of Lord. There’ll be a room waiting for you at the Four Seasons under the name Troy.”
A detective came to Martinez’s office and knocked gently on the glass. The captain crossed the room and opened the door.
“This just came in, Captain,” Blaine heard the detective report as he handed a piece of paper to Martinez.
“Why all the subterfuge?” McCracken asked into the phone.
“I don’t want anyone to know you’re in Washington,” Daniels replied, “and I especially don’t wa
nt anyone to know you’re meeting with me.”
“I hadn’t realized I’d agreed yet.”
Daniels paused long enough for Blaine to figure he’d given up. Then his voice returned, calm and deliberate.
“The attack last night was just the beginning. You know that.”
Blaine tried to keep the interest from his voice. “And you know who was behind it?”
“I think so, yes.” He stopped. “And I know they’ve got to be stopped.”
“Go on, Daniels.”
“Sorry, McCracken. In person. In Washington. Captain Martinez will have someone take you to the airport. Check into the Four Seasons and wait for my call.”
The phone clicked off in McCracken’s ear. He hung it up himself.
“Your file didn’t mention you were CIA,” said Martinez, sounding suddenly reserved and accepting.
“Because I’m not. Sometimes the trails we follow just happen to cross.”
Martinez showed Blaine the sheet of memo paper the detective had given him. “Well, the trail down here just went ice cold. Coast Guard just reported finding what’s left of a yacht belonging to Manuel Alvarez. It blew up at sea.” He swallowed hard. “I’ll get you copies of those fingerprints.”
Daniels had chosen Rock Creek Park for their meeting, and McCracken arrived at ten P.M. sharp as agreed upon. They were to meet in the wooded picnic groves not far from the Carter Barron Amphitheater near the banks of the creek itself. McCracken approached from the south and walked across a bridge constructed over the creek, ducks paddling atop its still waters. The specific grove where he was meeting Daniels was fifty feet to the left. A small yellow cooler would be waiting on one of the picnic benches. Its absence was the signal that the meeting was off.
The cooler was there. Daniels wasn’t.
Daniels wasn’t the only person Blaine had spoken to before leaving Miami. He had put in a call to Sal Belamo from Miami police headquarters.
“Sal’s Sweet Shop,” a gravelly voice answered. “You got the cherry, I got the cream.”
“Your cream’s seen better days, Sal.”
“McCrackenballs! I was beginning to think all my friends forgot my private number.”
“Spending your days at home now?”