Run for Cover

by Michael Ledwidge

  “They’re waiting for you in here,” she informed them as she pointed at a door.

  The conference room Special Agent Schoolmarm led them into was as plush as any Kit had ever been in. She looked at the glossy lacquered tables, the glossy leather chairs. The coffered ceiling had panels in bird’s-eye maple. She glanced at the navy-colored grass cloth wallpaper on the walls. It had a faintly raised filigree of fleurs-de-lis.

  After another step inside, on the other side of the slick mahogany conference table, Kit saw the famous Ethan Weber. Sitting contentedly, surrounded by his lawyers, he looked like the world’s scrawniest quarterback protected by a pudgy foppish middle-aged offensive line.

  This wasn’t good, Kit thought, shaking her head. Weber getting the VIP treatment wasn’t good at all.

  The tan, prosperous-looking lawyer to Weber’s immediate right looked vaguely familiar from cable news. The few remaining squiggles of hair on his large bronzed forehead gave him the look of a wealthy, arrogant Charlie Brown.

  When she turned to the left, she saw a little mousy blond middle-aged man with bifocals sitting in the corner with a laptop on his knees. He was a legal stenographer there to record everything as if it were a deposition, Kit realized.

  What in the hell was this? she thought.

  “Four lawyers, Ethan. Wow. That’s a lot,” Kit said.

  “I’ll be representing Mr. Weber in this matter,” Charlie Brown, Esquire, said. “Please direct your questions to me. I’m Attorney Fred Ingraham.”

  “Oh, boy,” Ferguson said as he sat.

  “My client,” Ingraham said, “has become aware that there is some inquiry into an alleged disappearance you believe he may have be involved in. My client is a very busy individual who would like to get the matter cleared up, so if we could get started? Agent Hagen, is it?”

  Kit nodded.

  “Please, Agent Hagen, if you could begin by clarifying precisely what information you need. And if you could be expedient about it, I’m sure the United States Congress would be most appreciative.”

  “To clarify,” Bill Ferguson interrupted, “we’re not looking into a disappearance.”

  “No?”

  “No,” he said. “Our inquiry is into a murder.”

  “Exactly,” Kit said as she passed over a still of the video Owen Barber had taken. “The murder of your client’s wife.”

  Weber and his lawyers leaned forward in unison to look down at the photo. Then they leaned back, and there was a great amount of whispering as they put their heads together.

  They finally sat back up normally as Ingraham cleared his throat.

  “My client wants to know what he’s looking at here,” he said.

  “Your client might want to look into a pair of glasses,” Kit said.

  “I’ll handle this, Kit,” Ferguson said. “There lies your client’s wife, naked and dead as a doornail.”

  Instead of answering, Ingraham brought up his briefcase onto the table and opened it and took something out of it.

  It was a thumb drive.

  “In this drive,” he said, holding it up before placing it on the table, “is security tape of the hotel my client was staying at in Jackson, Wyoming. You will see when you view it that my client went into his room and stayed there until his speech and then went back to his room, emerging only one last time to leave the following morning. You will also see from this tape that his wife was not with him on the Wyoming trip.”

  “Who said we were interested in Wyoming?” Kit said.

  The attorney smiled weakly.

  “Rumors abound,” he said as he lifted a remote control from the table and turned and clicked it at the wide screen on the wall to the left of the conference table.

  93

  Everyone looked over as a woman appeared on the screen.

  Kit started shaking her head.

  She was an Asian woman in her early thirties with a very uncanny resemblance to Lisa Weber.

  And she was very much alive.

  “Hello,” said the woman, waving at them from what looked like an outdoor table. She seemed to be sitting at a terrace with city buildings behind her. There was an older Chinese couple with her. They waved, as well.

  “Hi, honey,” Weber said, waving back.

  “Whatever this is about,” the Lisa Weber look-alike said, “these reports of my death have been highly exaggerated.”

  “Oh, you guys are funny. Real funny,” Kit said, looking at Weber. “This is some production.”

  “I would like to present to you Mrs. Weber from her hotel in Chongqing,” Ingraham said with a straight face. “That’s Chongqin, China, where her parents live. She’s been staying there for the last two weeks.”

  He took a slip of paper from his still open briefcase.

  “For your records, here is the manifest of the flight she took that left out of San Francisco International on the eighth.”

  “Oh, I see,” Kit said, staring at Weber. “You sent the body to China. Crafty, Ethan. She’s dead already, then you fake that she’s still alive and going on a trip using this look-alike. Where’d you put her body? In the luggage compartment?”

  “But I am alive,” the woman on the screen said.

  “What is this, Ethan. The latest in deep fake?” Kit said, refusing to look at the screen. “One of your geeky friends whipped up a Mission Impossible mask for that hooker there. Is that it?”

  “Kit,” Ferguson said.

  “Don’t Kit me. You’re falling for this? My wife’s not dead, she’s alive, but she’s in China? Look, she’s right here on a fake news video. That’s even better than ‘the dog ate my homework.’” Kit took a breath. “Actually, it’s not.”

  “One more thing,” Ingraham said, going into his briefcase again. “I just spoke to Judge Joe, your brother, I believe, Agent Ferguson? Well, I think this speaks for itself.”

  The lawyer showed them a piece of paper.

  Kit looked down.

  The arrest warrant had been rescinded.

  When she looked up, Weber was giving her a queer smile from behind his lawyers.

  “Smirk away, you ugly pencil-necked scumbag,” Kit said.

  Kit watched a hot flash of anger ripple across the placid calm of the young billionaire’s face.

  Apparently, people didn’t speak to him like that.

  94

  “That’s all, gentlemen,” Ferguson suddenly said. “Thanks for coming in. Sorry for the misunderstanding.”

  “No, thank you, Agent Ferguson,” Ethan Weber said, standing. “And you, too, Agent Hagen. I forgive you for your insults. I know how much you’ve been through.”

  “See that last little dig there, Bill?” Kit said. “That was in reference to Ethan having me shot. This son of a bitch had me shot. He killed Dennis Braddock and the others. Splattered them all over the top of Grand Teton and you’re going to let him walk out of here?”

  “We don’t have a warrant anymore, Kit,” Ferguson said as Weber and his phalanx of lawyers pushed past them out the door.

  “I don’t care. He killed her. That video on the screen is complete bullshit and you know it.”

  “I do, Kit. But would a jury buy that? They wouldn’t. We need to retreat here a bit.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, Bill. That computer freak is the only one allowed to do the buying around here, isn’t he? He’s the only one who buys things. Like senators, judges, district attorneys, FBI personnel.”

  “We don’t have a body, Kit,” Bill Ferguson said quietly as he stared down at his shoes. “If we had the body, we could do something, but we don’t.”

  “Who is this then?” Kit said, lifting the paper. “Who is this dead woman? And let’s not forget Tracy Sandhurst, mutilated and then draped like a party streamer up on Grand Teton to cover it up!”

  “Chill, Kit
,” Ferguson said, standing with a sigh. “We’re going to nail him but just not now. It’s only a matter of time. He can’t get out of it. He really can’t. This is just a stall tactic. This is round one.”

  “Yeah, round one,” Kit said as she stumbled out of the conference room. “A round one knockout.”

  She was coming by the director’s office in the hall when she stopped.

  “Kit, no!” Bill Ferguson said, hurrying after her as she walked inside.

  “Excuse me, you can’t go in there,” said Agent Schoolmarm as Kit burst past her and threw open the door.

  Inside, off to the left, Director Foldager himself was sitting at a dining table by the window, eating Chinese food and laughing with three other Brooks-Brothers-suited cronies.

  “You must leave now,” the agent said.

  “No, no, Carol. Honestly, it’s fine,” said the photogenic father-figure-like FBI director, smiling.

  He lay down his chopsticks as Kit walked over.

  “Special Agent Hagen, is it?” he said. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “No, I’m here to help you, actually,” Kit said.

  “Oh, boy,” said Bill Ferguson as he arrived behind her.

  “Is that right?”

  “Do you remember in the Old Testament where Lot tries to save Sodom and Gomorrah?” Kit said.

  “Perhaps,” the director said, shrugging his shoulders.

  “See, God wants to vaporize the cities because of how foul and rotten-to-core they’ve become, but Lot bargains with God. Lot says, ‘God, if there’s just one good person left—just one—will you spare them?’ And God says okay, but then what do you know? It turns out there isn’t even one, so God nukes everything from orbit.”

  “Your point, Special Agent?”

  Kit looked up at the coffered ceiling, then back level into the director’s eyes.

  “I’d stay the hell out of this place if I were you,” she said.

  95

  “Mike, check it out. By the pool,” Barber suddenly said.

  Gannon rolled over from where he’d been dozing in the wild grass and accepted the binocs.

  In Westergaard’s backyard next to the pool, a shirtless guy was rolling out a yoga mat. He was tall and muscular with a bunch of tats down one arm and had his blond hair tied back in a man bun. Gannon peered at him. Then he smiled when he saw he had a bandage on the right side of his face.

  “That’s him, right?” Barber said.

  “Oh, that’s him,” Gannon said. “You see that fanny pack in the grass next to him?”

  “Yep, he brought it out with him. Imagine? You have to be one paranoid son of a bitch to pack beside your own pool.”

  “Well, what do you think? So far so good. Target of opportunity? Should we get the truck?”

  “No,” Barber said standing. “Let’s just go now. I’ll go over the driveway fence. You go high and swing in around back.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  They came down the slope of the dry loose dirt hill and split up as they crossed over the road. Gannon went up high into the hill beside Westergaard’s house and made a wide loop. He passed a firepit and a tennis court. He could see the fence for the pool over some hedges.

  “In position,” he said as he grabbed the top of the waist-high fence.

  Gannon’s boots had just landed on the cement pool deck with a scuffling sound when he heard John Barber yell.

  “Freeze! FBI!”

  “You do it, you’re dead,” Gannon yelled as he came slowly up behind Westergaard and saw him lowering his hand toward the fanny pack in the grass.

  Gannon had closed half the distance to where Barber had him down putting on the first handcuff when there was a sound from the right.

  It was the sliders on the other side of the pool, and a woman—a young pregnant blond woman—came out from its shadow yelling.

  “Get the hell away from him!”

  “Gun!” Gannon yelled, breaking into a full sprint as he saw the steel in her hand.

  He and Barber were already lunging into the bushes around the corner of the house as the gun started popping.

  “Shit!” Barber yelled as they watched Westergaard fly across the grass like a jackrabbit in his bare feet and scale the pool fence and disappear down the slope.

  “I’m on him,” Gannon said leaping up after him. “Get the truck.”

  “Careful. He took the fanny pack,” Barber called at his back.

  “Don’t remind me,” Gannon mumbled as he hopped the pool fence and came skidding down a hill.

  At the bottom, there was a parking lot for the condo facility and across it, there was an apartment door open, and he bolted for it.

  He’d just poked his head in when he sensed movement up the short set of stairs to the right. He dove back as a gun came over the bannister and blew apart the door frame beside his left ear.

  A second later, there was a thumping and the crash of glass, and he plunged through the doorway behind his gun. He crossed a living room with a kitchen at the other side of it and through its broken slider, he saw Westergaard past the backyard in another parking lot, running for the street.

  He’d just gotten to the street himself when a white convertible Jaguar came squealing around the curve in the street above. It was the crazy pregnant woman who had tried to kill them, and Gannon ducked down behind a car as it shot past him down the hill. It made another hairpin turn and was screeching to a stop about a block away beside a corner church when Gannon looked up. He was just in time to see Westergaard dive into its open passenger window. Then the Jag peeled out down the wide palm-lined street.

  Gannon shook his head as Barber arrived in the Escalade a full minute later.

  “What! Gone?” Barber yelled.

  “We missed him. She picked him up in her car.”

  “No!” Barber yelled like a savage as he punched at the steering wheel.

  “Screw it, John,” Gannon said, getting in. “Let’s get the hell out of here. The locals have to be on their way after those shots.”

  “No way. Not yet,” Barber said as he began reversing the big truck at speed back up the hill. “We got a minute yet. I’m not leaving here empty-handed. It’s pocket litter time.”

  They parked beside Westergaard’s house and went back in through the open slider. In the room beside the master was an office, and they’d just grabbed a couple of laptops and a cell phone when the wall phone rang.

  “Vinny’s Pizza,” Gannon said, lifting it up.

  “You have no idea what’s going on, do you?” Westergaard said. “Not the foggiest clue.”

  “If that’s the case, why am I standing in your office, Clarence?”

  “Two can play at that game, eh?”

  “Not if one of them is dead. Besides, you started it up on that mountain, Clarence. Hope those big-pocket buddies of yours at Sonexum gave you a life insurance plan for the little lady and Clarence Jr. Because you tapped the wrong guy in that ambush, friend.”

  “Go to hell,” Westergaard said.

  “Your choices are down to two. You can turn yourself in right now and play ball with the law or we can do it the hard way.”

  “You’re the one messing with the wrong guy,” Westergaard said.

  “The hard way it is, then,” Gannon said.

  “Is there any other?” the South African said and the line went dead.

  96

  Outside of the Hoover building, the gray street was hot and pale in the noon sun, the sidewalk baking. From the various federal government buildings, workers on their lunch break were pouring out onto the hot concrete like ants from a burning nest.

  “C’mon, Kit. Let’s get something to eat,” Ferguson said as he was about to climb back into the SUV on 10th Street.

  “I can’t,” Kit said as
she went to the rear door and grabbed her carry-on. “I need to... I need to take a walk or something.”

  “I get it, Kit. Call me if you need anything, okay? I’m sorry. I know this hurts like hell but this is the battle, not the war. Okay? We’re going to rebound,” he said.

  “Okay, Bill,” she said, unable to look him in the eye.

  The Suburban had pulled out and Kit made it as far as the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue before she stopped and covered her mouth with her hands as she started crying.

  She shook her head and bit at her lip as she looked out at the rush of the traffic, the flow of the people.

  Weber really had won. He’d killed Dennis, shot her. And he was really going to get clean away with it. Instead of being cuffed he was probably at the Capitol Building right now being greeted like a rock star, getting seated by some name Congressman while some intern asked him if he’d like a cup of coffee or some water.

  Justice was dead, she thought, stunned, as she looked back at the Hoover building. It was official now. After that meeting, it was official. She lived in a country where there were two tiers of justice. One for the rich and connected and one for everybody else.

  Which made the purpose of her being in law enforcement what now? she wondered. To arrest only the little people? Round up the dissidents?

  What the hell was she going to do? she wondered as she wiped at her eyes. What the hell was anyone supposed to do?

  She’d managed to compose herself as she grabbed the handle of her rolling carry-on and was just about to head across the street when the Range Rover pulled up. She saw that its rear passenger window was already in the process of zipping downward.

  When she saw who was inside of it, Kit’s eyes shot wide-open and something in her stomach dropped like a cable-snapped elevator.

  Her breath caught as she stood there rooted to the concrete, thinking she was about to see the barrel of a pistol.