For an hour they discussed meanings, possibilities, ramifications. They didn’t like their conclusions.
“This is certainly going to blow away the task force at tomorrow’s meeting,” she said at last.
“Not so fast.”
The aging spymaster mashed out his last glowing butt in the mug, got up, moved to the window. He stood there, hands clasped behind his back, a dark gray silhouette against the lighter gray rectangle. He stared out past the parking lot, out somewhere into the shadow world surrounding the sprawling complex.
“Annie, we agree that we may have another mole. Somebody high enough in the pecking order here to know that we took Muller to Linden. Maybe somebody with the clout to send out someone else, maybe an SAD guy, to hit him. That would mean somebody right here on the seventh floor, right?”
“I suppose so.”
He turned to face her. “So, do you want to alert this person that we’re looking for him?”
She hadn’t thought of that. She shook her head.
“If we’re going to nail him, we can’t go through normal channels.”
She nodded. After a moment, she stood. Walked over to face him.
“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t want to alert him. I want to be the one to find him.”
“Oh?” The lights from the parking lot revealed a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
“Look, sir. I did what you said. I slept on it. And I’d like to accept that transfer offer and work for you.” She hesitated, then added: “But only if my job is to hunt that son of a bitch, sir.”
He looked down at her and, incredibly, actually smiled again.
“Grant. Call me Grant.”
SIX
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Monday, September 1, 1:25 p.m.
“Hell-o, Mr. Hunter!”
The pretty receptionist sang out the greeting as he entered the suite and approached her desk.
“And to you, Danika.” He had to smile back, in spite of his foul mood.
She pushed her lips into a playful pout. “I was thinking you forgot the address here. What’s it been? Two weeks?”
“I’ve been out of town. On assignment.” A half-truth.
She rubbed her chin, mock-serious, appraising him. “Now, that’s a bold fashion statement. Shades are nice, though.”
Hunter removed his Oakley sunglasses and followed her gaze down to his reversible windbreaker. He now wore it garish-orange-side out, the side with the snarling black panther leaping across his chest. He’d meant it to be a point of focus, a distraction. It seemed to be working.
“Well, Danika, I guess I just don’t have your taste and refinement.”
She tsk-tsked. “What you need is daily guidance from a woman of taste and refinement.” She leaned forward, the top two buttons of her pale-yellow silk blouse strategically unbuttoned. Whatever she wore underneath must have been spun from a single spool of gossamer.
“No woman of taste and refinement would possibly want me,” he said, careful not to let his eyes drift south.
“Don’t you be so sure, now.” She grinned, settling back and rocking her swivel chair so that he could get a good look at the rest of her. “You’d be an interesting project.”
“‘Project.’ How romantic. How’s Tyrone?”
She beamed. “He just had his fourth birthday party on Saturday. Ten neighbor kids showed up. They had a ball, but I spent all afternoon yesterday getting chocolate cake and ice cream out of the carpet.” She laughed. “That boy’s something. You know, before he opened his presents, he insisted on reading all his birthday cards out loud. Didn’t miss a single word.”
“Such a bright little guy. Takes after a lovely lady I know. And how’s Melvin treating that lady?”
She wrinkled her nose. “That man, he’s the most infuriating— Oh, don’t you get me started, now.”
“Any mail?”
“Nothing in two weeks. Just one call, this morning—Mr. Bronowski. That’s your editor, right?”
“So he believes.”
“He asked you to return his call today, if possible. And your one-thirty arrived early. Mr. Diffendorfer.” She tried to keep a straight face. “He’s occupying office number eleven.”
“All of it, I’m sure.”
She laughed, the dimples deepening in her smooth coffee skin. “You bad.”
“Danika, you have no idea.”
*
Hunter left her and headed down the hallway of the suite. It was a perfect set-up: a “virtual office” lease arrangement from a national chain that provided him a downtown address, mail and call-forwarding, and time-shared space whenever he needed it. Anybody who wished to find Dylan Lee Hunter could try to contact him here. But anybody whom he did not wish to find him would reach a charming but unyielding stone wall named Danika Cheyenne Brown.
The conference room was empty, so he ducked in. From the thigh pocket of his cargo pants he pulled a cell phone. It was one of the many cheap, prepaid models that he bought anonymously, with cash, from drugstores throughout Maryland and Virginia, then dumped after brief use. He reinstalled the battery, thumbed the number for the managing editor’s line at the Capitol Inquirer, then sat on the edge of the conference table as the call rang through.
“Bronowski.” The voice was harsh and harried.
“Hunter.”
“Finally! Dammit, Dylan, you’re harder to get ahold of than a virgin on a first date. Don’t you check your messages?”
“Annually.”
“Very funny. Why the hell don’t you give me a direct number where I can reach you?”
“I’ve told you. I don’t share my personal contact information.”
“But this is stupid. I’m your editor.”
“Not stupid. What I write upsets people. Powerful, nasty people. I need to protect my privacy.”
“What, you don’t even trust me with your number?” Silence. “Well. I guess not, then. Dylan, this whole goddamned arrangement is weird. You realize we still haven’t met, even though you’ve been working for me for a year?”
“Not for you, Bill. Not for anybody. I work for myself.”
“Know something? Even for a writer, you’re an uncooperative, egotistical, insufferably arrogant prick.”
“Hey—who are you calling ‘uncooperative’?”
Bronowski laughed in spite of himself. “Well, you’re right about one thing. What you write does upset people. Wanna know who you’ve pissed off now?”
“No.”
“The frickin’ governor of Maryland, that’s who. He was none too happy with your feature about his inmate commutation policy.”
“Tough. I’m none too happy about his policy. Neither are the victims of all the thugs he’s turned loose.”
“Yeah, easy for you to say. You weren’t the one who had to take the phone call last night.”
“Did you give the guv my regards?”
Bronowski snorted. “Call wasn’t from him. It was from Addison. Our dear publisher was not amused. You’ve simultaneously pissed off both a governor and our boss.”
“Your boss. Remember?”
“Okay, my boss. Regardless. He wasn’t pleased about having his Sunday golf game down in Lauderdale interrupted by a call from Annapolis. He got an earful, and last night he returned me the favor. Now he wants to know what I’m going to do about you.”
He paused. Hunter said nothing.
“Don’t you care what I’m going to do?” Bronowski demanded.
“No.”
The editor dropped a cluster of f-bombs. Then stopped. Hunter heard a sigh.
“Dylan, what the hell am I gonna do with you? You know what kind of position you’ve stuck me in? Look, I’m not gonna lie to you. You’re the best investigative reporter I’ve run into in a long time. I don’t know where you got your training—but that’s the point! I don’t know a goddamned thing about you. Where you come from. Where you went to J school. Who you worked for before, where you live, whether you
have a wife or kids or a dog—”
“Cat.”
He snorted again. “How nice. You know, after you started freelancing with us, I Googled your name. I figured, your talent, a thousand links would come up. But nothing. Not one. You’re like the Invisible Man.”
Hunter was studying a wall photo of the Washington Monument. He spoke quietly. “My past doesn’t matter to me. Why should it matter to you?”
Bronowski was silent a moment. “Okay. I won’t pry anymore. Hell, I don’t care if you flunked English or were Saddam Hussein’s press secretary. Only thing that matters is, you keep delivering the goods. Right now your freelancing generates more mail than anything my staff here produces. Which reminds me—the circ audit just came in. I checked back. Since you started pitching me stories last year, we’re up eight percent. That’s while the competition is bleeding readers and advertisers.”
“So what did you tell Addison?”
“That’s what I told Addison.”
“Good for you, Bill.”
“Yeah, well, since you’re gonna cost me my job any day now, you damned well better make your next piece worth my while.”
It reminded him of why he had come here today. He felt his jaw tighten.
“It will be the talk of the town.”
He removed the battery from the cell again as he left the conference room, then rounded a corner and opened the door to number eleven.
*
Freddie Diffendorfer perched like an enormous Buddha on the armless visitor’s chair next to the desk. His legs were splayed far apart, unavoidable given the size of his thighs. An open box of a dozen assorted doughnuts covered much of the desktop—at least, it used to contain a dozen. Three were left.
He looked up at Hunter, a semi-circle of white pastry poised in his hand. His cheeks were streaked with powdered sugar.
“Hello, Dylan,” he mumbled as he chewed.
“Hello, Wonk.” Hunter barely managed to squeeze past him to get to the chair behind the desk. “What’s this? Late lunch?”
His visitor shook his head. A crumb hiding somewhere in one of his chins came loose and landed on his lap. “No, I had lunch at McDonald’s. But on my way through Dupont Circle, I observed that the hot light was on.”
“I understand. Opportunity of a lifetime. So, do you need some time to finish up?”
“No, I shall save the rest for a snack later, thank you.”
Hunter watched with a mixture of awe and disgust as Wonk crammed the remaining half of the doughnut into his mouth. Barely chewed before he swallowed. Then licked his fingers. Then clapped his fat palms together, raising a small white cloud. Then wiped his hands on stained, unpressed slacks the size of a circus tent.
Hunter closed the sticky lid of the box and slid it aside to clear space on the desk. “Now that you’re amply, if not properly, fortified, what do you have for me?”
Wonk leaned forward; the chair’s metal legs creaked ominously. He couldn’t bend more than a few inches, but his chubby arms somehow managed to reach past the curve of his belly to grip the green canvas bag at his feet. He lifted it laboriously and balanced it precariously on what little remained of his lap. Then he poked around inside and extracted three thick manila folders, held together by rubber bands.
“Here they are,” he said, panting from his heroic exertion. He pushed the folders across the desk. “All three files that you asked for.”
They bore official Department of Corrections stamps and labels. Hunter whistled softly. “Amazing. How do you manage to get your hands on all this stuff?”
Wonk looked like a puppy tossed a treat. “Trade secrets. That is why I am the highly paid professional researcher, while you are the high-profile professional journalist.” He hesitated. Hunter knew Wonk was waiting to be begged for details. Amused, he ignored him, and instead took his time removing the rubber bands.
“The only thing that I can tell you,” Wonk blurted finally, “is that an administrative assistant in the DOC owed me a huge favor. But Dylan, please understand that you cannot keep these for more than two hours. I must get them back to her before the end of the business day.”
“No problem. I’ll look through the files and have Danika photocopy whatever I need. Did you find out anything else about these guys? The things I wanted to know specifically?”
“Certainly. I ran a Lexis-Nexis search.” He pulled out another file folder and placed it on the desk. “You can keep that one.”
“Just the headlines.”
“You already know from the news reports on Friday that the two younger perpetrators were quietly transferred last month from the juvenile facility into what the DOC calls their ‘reintegration track.’ Specifically, that refers to a community-based vocational training program called Youth Horizons, headquartered in Alexandria. That is what caused that victims-rights group to become so upset. They are really on the warpath about it.”
“What do you know about the program?”
“I am still compiling information. Supposedly, it accepts only nonviolent offenders, so I am not certain how these two qualified for admission. I can only surmise that because they were convicted as first-time offenders, the department’s psychologists may think they constitute promising candidates for rehabilitation.”
“But that doesn’t make sense.” Hunter took a slow breath, tried to keep his tone matter-of-fact. “What they did to...the Copeland woman. They couldn’t have just decided one day, out of the blue, to assault a total stranger. Violently, sexually assault her. Predators start very young, with petty offenses. Then they escalate over the years. By the time they’re caught and convicted for violent adult crimes, they’ve already got long rap sheets.”
“And that is precisely what we see with these young men. The challenge for me was that their juvenile histories have been sealed.”
“So tell me.”
Wonk leaned back, delighted to expound. “My sources in various prosecutors’ offices inform me that it happens all the time. Everyone wishes to grant a juvenile delinquent a ‘second chance.’ A police officer I know has labeled it the ‘Father Flanagan myth’—in other words, ‘There is no such thing as a really bad boy.’ So, in most states, the legal system minimizes a child’s crimes. They usually are not charged with the actual offense that they committed, but with something far less serious. In addition, their juvenile records are sealed, sometimes even expunged, so that the public can never discover their true backgrounds.”
“I know. It’s insane.”
“Perhaps. But prevailing theory is that most youths eventually outgrow their impulsiveness and stupidity; therefore, if their criminal histories are kept confidential, the stigma of juvenile indiscretions will not follow them into adulthood.”
“‘Indiscretions’? Are you serious? We’re not talking about stealing hubcaps, here. We’re talking about violent rape. And probably a lot more—if only we had access to their juvie records.”
His visitor folded his pudgy hands across the globe of his midsection and smiled serenely.
Hunter stared at him. “You didn’t.”
“Well, I was not permitted to take them with me. But a person who shall remain nameless did allow me to take a peek.”
“And?”
Wonk removed his black-framed eyeglasses carefully; one temple clung to the frame by white adhesive tape. He gazed toward the ceiling and, in the staccato of bureaucratese, began to recite chapter and verse from memory. Hunter wondered for the hundredth time if his research assistant was some kind of savant.
“William Michael Bracey, a.k.a. ‘Billy B.’ Age twenty. That is the individual in the top file. Born in Arlington. Raised by a single mother. Three half-brothers by different fathers. The others turned out reasonably well. Not William, however. Truancy at age eleven. Shoplifting arrest at twelve. His mother paid restitution, so nothing happened to him. Associating with gangs since the age of fourteen. Left school before his sixteenth birthday. Arrested several months later for stealing a car
, but the victim did not wish to prosecute. Suspected in a violent gang attack that put an honor-roll student in the ICU for weeks; but when the young man came out of the hospital, he either could not or would not identify his attackers.
“William and several other gang members then were arrested for the robbery of a corner grocery in the District, during which the owner was shot several times and later died. There were eyewitnesses to that incident, which is what led to the initial arrests. In fact, William— ”
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