She stood up. Well, if it were the bad guys, they wouldn’t be ringing the doorbell, now, would they?
She got up and went to the foot of the stairs, debating. Maybe she should just let it be. If it were any of the things she thought, then they’d go away and try again later... But now, she canceled that thought immediately. Whoever was down there now might need help... might need attention… Damn, if it was Jake Camden, then he might even be wounded or something!
She went down the steps.
She went to the door, turned the top Medico lock that Everett had so thoughtfully closed, then opened the bottom lock. She opened the door a crack, just a small crack.
“Yes.”
The door was shoved back in her face and she reeled backwards.
Standing on the front-door stoop were three men in grey suits. Another had grabbed hold of the door and was keeping her from closing it.
One of the men brandished a badge in a leather wallet. She was too stunned to try to read it, but the man obliged.
“FBI” he said.
Chapter 39
Willard Street was a one-way road, heading west, and in order to drive by Craig Steffan’s house, Everett Scarborough had to scoot laterally along Columbia Road and then head south on 16th Street. If there were any free parking spaces on Willard, Scarborough wanted to park the BMW there—as much for his own convenience as for a courtesy to Craig.
However, as it happened, all the places were taken, so he had to cruise all the way down to the end of Willard, where Craig Steffan’s townhouse was.
It was then that he saw the four men in sunglasses and suits in front of Craig’s house.
Their car, a blue Pontiac, was double-parked on Willard, and that was what Scarborough saw a split second before he saw the men. On Willard Street, cars parked on both sides meant only little more than a lane for driving. A double-parked car stopped traffic.
Scarborough immediately saw that it was trouble there at the house. And those guys there looked damned official. Not CIA—no, more like FBI.
If there had been only one of them, he would have done something. Two, maybe he would have tried to take them on. But four? It was foolhardy. He didn’t even have to think about it; his by now honed sense of self-preservation amidst desperation seemed to take over.
Although there was no way around the Feds’ Pontiac, Scarborough had glimpsed an alley as he passed down the road. He jammed the automatic transmission of the BMW into reverse, turned his head, and guided the car backwards. Sure enough, there it was. He backed to it, plunged the gear back into place, and wheeled the thing onto the cobblestones, past a couple of chained trash cans. A cat hopped out of his way. A dog barked. He wasn’t traveling fast, but he wasn’t traveling slowly, either. Just enough speed to get the hell out of there.
He didn’t have the luxury to worry about Marsha. There’d be plenty of time for guilt later. Those guys were professionals, he could sense that; any attempt at gunplay at the house would have just brought the whole thing to a bloody and unnecessary end. Where there was life there was hope, and right now he had to take this particular life to a safe place.
By the time he managed to get onto New Hampshire, heading south, and had determined that no Pontiacs were following him, nothing that looked suspiciously official, not even police cars, he allowed himself to actually think.
What had happened?
They’d clearly been found out... And agents had come to get them. But how? Who had turned them in?
Scarborough’s mind raced frantically, wrestling with that question. But then he realized that there were more important dilemmas that had to be dealt with.
Like, where on Earth could he go now?
His first impulse was to call Steffan or Scapelli. They’d know what to do...
But then the thought came to him that he had to consider as more than simply paranoia: What if Steffan had turned them in? What if Scapelli had been the traitor? How could he possibly know what the truth was?
Somewhere in his mind were the necessary clues, doubtless, but he couldn’t really grab hold of them heading south toward nowhere in the middle of Washington, D.C.
Well, if it was Craig Steffan who had set them up, when the Feds found no Scarborough at the house, and no car in the area, they’d have to assume that he had the car. All they’d have to do was to put out an A.P.B. on him to the District police and it wouldn’t take too long for them to spot him riding around in a hot car. The sooner he got rid of the car, or figured out what to do with it, the better.
Scarborough put the car in a parking garage on M Street. Get it off the streets. They’d be looking everywhere for him now, since there’d be no obvious sign of the car.
He knew just where he was going, too—he’d decided it pretty quickly. A form of hiding in slightly out of plain sight…
Scarborough hiked up to Dupont Circle.
There was a bar in the area that he and Mac MacKenzie would go to sometimes, that would afford just what he needed. It was called Mr. Eagan’s, and it had another part to it in the basement, called Mr. Eagan’s Too, which had a bar, was dark, and not well-frequented, had food and drink; but most importantly, it had a pay phone sequestered toward the back that Scarborough could use when he got his head screwed back on tight.
Mr. Eagan’s was a friendly neighborhood joint that did good business with locals and visitors alike. It was dark and fragrant with hops and spirits and the popcorn machine in the back that made lots of good crunchy stuff for free. Nothing fancy in the way of beer, here, mind you, but what more did you need really than your basic bar, tables, restrooms, popcorn, music (old jazz if you were lucky), a halfway decent kitchen in the back, and a TV set up on top of the ranks of spouted bottles of spirit?
Scarborough hardly glanced at the main bar. He headed directly downstairs.
He and Mac never went downstairs to drink and had only peeked down there a couple of times out of curiosity. It was much darker than the main bar, with a scuffed third-hand bar, a derelict-looking popcorn machine with dead-looking popcorn inside, and a series of dilapidated booths. But according to a few of the Mr. Eagan’s patrons he’d talked to, it had its own regulars and was extremely popular with local students on weekends.
The main reason, though, that he and Mac never ventured down long was the music. Once in a while, the upstairs folk said, the bartender played some blues or normal rock, but what he mostly played, and what the regulars and the students liked, was a group called the Grateful Dead.
Diane apparently had a few Grateful Dead records because Scarborough had heard the strangely syncopated, plunking whiney rock before he’d ventured down to Mr. Eagan’s Too. But apparently it was Timothy Reilly, Diane’s boyfriend, who was a “Deadhead”; i.e., in Diane’s words “a stone fan of the group.”
Now, as Scarborough descended into the dark den, strains of a song called “Dark Star” rumbled ominously from suspended, ratty speakers. The moist, yeasty cellar odors wafted up the wood and the cement. The bartender was sitting on a stool, reading the Style section of the Washington Post. Two students were in a booth eating cheeseburgers, fries, drinking bottles of Heineken, while an older, morose-looking man sat at the bar next to a half-full pitcher of draft beer. The air was cool, pleasant and relaxed, but Scarborough’s tenseness was not relieved at all. He stepped around the old popcorn machine and looked down the aisle toward the bathrooms, holding his breath.
Yes, there it was. Still there.
The public phone. Lit in a kind of pale phosphorescence like some creature at the depths of the ocean.
Scarborough ordered a Lite beer from the smiling, overweight bartender and asked for as many quarters as possible in his change. The bartender obliged without comment, took the dollar tip with thanks, and then went back to reading his paper.
Scarborough pocketed the quarters and headed past the bar and the booths for the telephone. This was one of the reasons he had chosen Mr. Eagan’s Too. Not only was the phone far in the back,
but the music provided a good deal of privacy as well.
He drank a swallow of his beer to wet his mouth and realized he was quite thirsty. When he finished, half the bottle was gone, and he was glad that he’d just gotten Lite… Regular beer would have been too heavy, and in this situation he needed all his faculties.
He put the thin beer down on a nearby table, licked his lips, and pulled out the computer printout that Marsha had given him.
He started dialing numbers.
He surprised a number of people, asking for Brian Richards. He stayed on the phone only a certain length of time with each call, to minimize the chances of being traced. When and if he got hold of Richards, chances were that the call would be traced, but he’d have his business over and done with and be long gone from here soon after that, anyway.
Finally, after eight quarters and eight calls, a brusque voice answered that he recognized. “Yes?”
“Brian Richards?”
“Who is this?”
“Everett Scarborough.”
There was a long pause and then an intake of breath. “How the hell—I mean, Scarborough?” He paused another moment. “I’m listening.”
“I assume that you realize that your associate Maximillian Schroeder’s secret office was burglarized recently. But did you realize that what was obtained there was irrefutable proof not only of the existence of Projects White Book and Black Book, but that Project Blue Book was a scam? Proof of your activities as well, Richards. Deadly stuff.”
Pause. Then, “How do I know you’re not bullshitting me, Scarborough... And how did you get this phone number?”
“That’s not important, Richards. What’s important is that I’m talking to you now and I’ve got a batch of letters here between Schroeder—may his soul rot in UFO hell—and Julia Cunningham... ditto to her.”
He quickly read excerpts. He could almost hear Brian Richards’s intake of breath with each mention of his name.
“Convinced?” said Scarborough.
“Why did you call me? Why aren’t you just taking this to the press or the law? Sounds like your vindication, Scarborough!”
Scarborough didn’t like the way he said that. “Look, both you and I know that there’s a lot more going on here than just you and I. Sounds like you’ve been as much a pawn as I have. I don’t know where my friends are... Manning… Camden… I don’t know if l can trust anybody... not even the Others, really, not anymore. This is all I’ve got right here in my hands, Richards. I’m not sure I’m going to get any satisfaction out of your demise, political or otherwise. All I know is that I’ve got something on you, something that gives me some power... And I want to know if we can make some kind of deal.”
“Better to deal with the devil you know than the devil you don’t know, eh, Scarborough.”
“Something like that.”
“And you just got those papers… how?”
“Express mail... From Camden, presently incommunicado.”
“Good. I believe that.”
“What difference does it make?”
“You’re in Washington.”
“I’m not saying.”
“I know you’re in D.C., man, and have an idea of the approximate area. But that’s neither here nor there. I just want to make sure you don’t have time to copy those letters before you give them to me.”
“Copy? Give them to you? Why should I give them to you?”
“I’ve got your daughter, Scarborough. I have Diane—and if you want her back, you’ll make a deal.”
The words hit Scarborough hard. “You have Di... But I just talked to her… yesterday.”
“And I found her today. Look, I don’t have time to gab with you. I’m actually glad you called. I don’t want to hurt her... I want to get out of this situation, Scarborough. But I can’t get out of it unless I get those letters.”
“And me.”
“Originally, maybe. Now, I just want to cover my ass. Have we got a deal?”
“How do you know I’m not lying to you?”
“Fair enough.” He heard a rattle as the phone was dropped, heard a rustle, and then a clatter as the other end was brought up again. Richards’s voice again, distant: “Say hello, Diane.”
“Daddy?”
Scarborough’s heart skipped a beat. “Diane?”
“Daddy... They killed Tim! Dad, what’s happening?”
Richards’s voice took its place. “There you go, Scarborough. Believe me now?”
“Yes.”
“Do we have a deal?”
“I don’t want to do this on your territory.”
“Very well. Someplace public. Neutral territory. The Mall, say? How about the Museum of Natural History? The rotunda of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, by the mastodon.”
“No.” They probably had metal detectors going in and he wanted to bring his gun. “Outside, on the south steps.”
“Fair enough. But I’m not going to be there for thirty, forty-five minutes.”
“I’ll meet you there in forty-five minutes.”
“No. You don’t understand. I want you there in fifteen minutes. I don’t want you stopping off at any copy shop!”
“But I’ll be a sitting duck.”
“No, you can be inconspicuous enough. I’ll have an associate there, but since it’s a public area, you’ll be safe enough.”
“But once you get the papers?”
“Then we’ll both have to be very careful, won’t we... but that’s the deal, Scarborough. Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it.”
“Excellent. See you in forty-five.”
The connection ended.
Everett Scarborough hung up the phone and took a swallow of his Lite beer.
Had he done the right thing?
But then, what else could he do?
And, if nothing else, he’d get Diane back safely, which was his goal all along.
The ball was up in the air again. And where it would land, God only knew.
Scarborough drained the beer and then paced from the cellar bar, clopping the bottle onto the bar as he left.
Chapter 40
The Mall is a rectangular sward of grass, with walkways and the Reflecting Pool, bordered to the west by the Lincoln Memorial and to the east by the Capital, and centered by the Washington Monument. Surrounding this are the various buildings comprising the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Gallery.
The God of Parking was again with Everett Scarborough and he found a parking space near the Federal Triangle that did not cease existence at 4:00 P.M.
He used the remainder of his quarters to supply the BMW an hour and twenty minutes of parking and then quickly hiked down the street to Constitution, which bordered the museum.
He didn’t like the idea of being in the open, not at all. But how else could he prove to Richards that he wasn’t using the time to Xerox copies of these letters?
As he quickly paced down the sidewalk, he gripped the envelope of letters tightly. The truth about them, of course, was that they probably wouldn’t hold up as any kind of proof, anyway... not in copied format. And the content, while damaging, wasn’t exactly hard evidence. But if Richards thought it was worth trading Diane for… then that was fine with Scarborough.
He turned onto Constitution and when he got to the foot of the steps of the Natural History Museum, he pulled out a copy of the Washington Post, put the envelope of letters on the stone steps, and sat down on it. He opened the paper and used it as a cover for himself.
Not reading.
Waiting.
Someone must be watching him; he was aware of that. Some kind of agent that Richards had dispatched.
But wait, though. Was that possible? And Scarborough realized that he hadn’t thought it through. Of course there wasn’t anyone watching him now... Less than twenty minutes had passed since he’d hung up that pay phone. No way that Richards could get someone down here... And besides, if he could, then he could just ha
ve the agent arrest him.
A moment of paranoia crept up inside of him. Could Richards just phone the authorities—have him arrested?
But of course that wouldn’t be real bright, he realized immediately. Then Scarborough would use these letters to prove his story.
An assassin, then? No, too chancy. The authorities would, again, find the files.
So, Richards wanted this to be personal. He wanted to do this himself. A trade… And Scarborough could see why... He could well understand that if Richards indeed was only a flunky, then he was probably in a lot of trouble... and would get in even more trouble if Scarborough handed over these letters to someone else.
No, better to make the exchange... And then maybe capture Scarborough again later, minus the damning material…
Or perhaps something else?
Everett Scarborough’s mind churned with possibilities. He had to stop and just let his overheated brain cool down.
Relax, man.
Anything can happen—and it probably will... So you’ve got to be prepared.
The day was still golden, bright and fresh, a perfect day for sightseeing. And, predictably, there were many, many sightseers. They swarmed up the steps in their Bermuda shorts and their baseball caps; they congregated around the souvenir and refreshment stands across the road; they strolled along the grass and lined up in front of the Washington Monument. Tourists, tourists, everywhere—and Everett Scarborough was, for once, glad they were there.
They would make it very difficult for Brian Richards to pull off anything other than a simple exchange.
Time passed at a snail’s pace.
Five minutes before Richards and Diane were due, Scarborough folded up the paper—of which he’d not been able to read a word—and placed it in a nearby wastepaper basket.
Then he began to walk up the stone steps toward the imposing pillars of the Natural History Museum for his appointment with Fate.
Fate was stuck in traffic.
Richards had purposefully ordered his driver into Virginia and down the George Washington Parkway to speed things up. Driving the other main routes to downtown would take too long, what with all the traffic lights.
The UFO Conspiracy Trilogy Page 109