In answer, Pine smiled and held up her ringless hand. “I’m not married. And I do MMA. There aren’t many guys around who could take me. I really did have an accident.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. But with the way people drive around here. And everyone texting.” He extended a hand. “I’m Father Paul.”
“I’m Lee,” said Pine, shaking his hand.
“Do you live around here?”
“No, I’m actually visiting. I live out west.”
“The wide-open spaces, then?”
“A lot wider than here. Father, can I ask you a question?”
“Certainly. Priests are asked lots of questions. But don’t hold me to always having the right answer.” He grinned.
Pine smiled warmly. “I think a friend of mine is one of your parishioners.”
“Oh, yes?”
“Ironically, his name is Ben Priest.”
“Oh, Ben. Yes, yes he is. Though I haven’t seen him in a while.”
“He told me he plays in a church basketball league?”
Father Paul smiled. “Yes, it’s an informal thing. I actually started it about two years ago. As you can probably tell from my height, I play. But Ben, though he’s some years older than me, is an exceptional player. Small forward. We compete against other churches in the area. Nothing official, but it’s good sport and fellowship.”
“You say you haven’t seen him for a while?”
“No. In fact, we had a game last week, but he didn’t make it. I called him but didn’t get an answer. But he goes off quite often. He’ll be back.” He paused. “So, you’re friends with Ben?”
“Yes. And his brother and his family.”
The priest’s brow furrowed. “That’s funny. He never mentioned a brother.”
“Ed Priest. He lives in Maryland with his wife and kids.”
“Hmm. Well, come to think, Ben never really talked about himself very much. He just always seemed to be listening to everyone else.”
“Yeah, he’s like that.”
“How do you know him?”
“Through mutual friends. I haven’t known him all that long. But I was supposed to see him while I was here visiting. But he’s not answering my phone calls either.”
“Have you been by his house?”
“I have. And no one was there.”
“And he knew you were coming?”
“Yes. We’d made plans.”
Father Paul now looked worried. “I hope nothing has happened to him.”
“I’m sure he’s fine. Like you said, he just goes off sometimes.” She paused and added, “I wonder where, though?”
Father Paul sat down in the pew next to her. “You said you met Ben through friends. How well do you actually know him?”
“It’s funny. He’s always struck me as a person who shows very little of himself. Like you just intimated. What do you know of him?”
“Probably not much more than you do.”
“I don’t even know what he does for a living. He mentioned something once about politics, government, that sort of thing. I suppose lots of people around here do that.”
“They do, yes. Probably half my parishioners work in some capacity that’s connected to the federal government.”
Pine faked a smile. “I know this will sound silly.”
“What?”
“It always struck me that Ben might be some sort of, well, spy.”
Her grin broadened as though she thought this was ridiculous, though she hoped the priest would take the bait.
“If you want to know the truth, I thought the very same thing.”
Pine feigned surprise. “Really? Why?”
“A million little things, which on their own probably didn’t amount to much. But taken together, they just led me to believe that whatever he did was sort of, well, clandestine, for want of a better term.”
“I wish I could find him. Do you know any of his other friends?”
Father Paul thought for a few moments. “Well, there is one fellow. Simon Russell. He also plays in our league. Ben actually brought him on. We made an exception, since he’s not a member of the parish. From what I could tell, I think they worked together. Or at least they once did.”
“What does he do for a living?”
Father Paul smiled. “He seems to have the same bug that Ben does. He never reveals much about himself. But he can hit threes with the best of them.”
“Description?”
The priest looked surprised. “You sound like a cop.”
“No, but if I do run into him I want to make sure it’s the right guy.”
“Well, he’s a bit taller than me and very lean. Not much hair on top. He has a trim beard. He’s about Ben’s age, I would guess, or a bit older.”
“Do you have contact information for him?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. I went to his house for a drink once with Ben and some of the other team members. We won the league championship last year, quite a comeback victory, actually, and Simon, on the spur of the moment, invited us all to celebrate. I thought it was quite nice. I mean, Ben lives nearby but he’d never had us to his place.”
“Ben is very private.”
“Exceedingly so.”
Father Paul wrote down an address and gave it to Pine. As he escorted her out he said, “If you find Ben, tell him to give me a call. I want to know he’s okay.”
“I’ll do that.” Pine looked around at the church’s interior. “This is a beautiful space.”
“It is. But that’s just trappings. The real strength of any church, I hope, are its parishioners. Jesus was a poor man. His faith was his pot of gold. Are you Catholic?”
“No. My parents didn’t take us to church. And I guess I just never got into the habit of going now that I’m an adult.”
“Well, it’s never too late.”
She gave him a sad look. “You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”
CHAPTER
33
Pine pulled the Mustang to a stop at the curb across the street from Simon Russell’s large town house near Capitol Hill. Like Old Town Alexandria, the area was definitely high dollar. Pine had worked in DC for two years at the WFO. The only thing she’d been able to afford on her GS-13 salary was a one-bedroom roach motel apartment a ninety-minute commute from downtown.
Whatever Russell did for a living, it paid well. She wondered if his home inside was as Spartan as Priest’s. She might not find out tonight. While there were a lot of windows in the place, not a single light was on inside, at least that Pine could see.
She got out of the car, walked across the street, turned left, and then turned right at the next block. She reached an alleyway halfway along the block and walked down it. Another right and a short stroll brought her to the back of Russell’s home. There was also a one-car garage back here. This resembled an old-fashioned mews, like they had in England.
The wall around the rear of Russell’s home had a high brick wall and a tall wooden gate. She tried the gate, but it was locked.
She checked both directions, gripped the top of the wall, and hoisted herself up enough to where she could see over. This simple movement almost made her cry out in pain, as every injured body part she had screamed in protest.
As she clung to the rim of the wall she observed a small garden, with a stone wall water fountain emblazoned with the figure of a lion, some chairs and a matching wrought iron table, a few flower pots with well-tended plants, and a solid wood back door. Soothing, well-organized, and of no help to her whatsoever.
No lights in the house were visible back here, either.
She dropped back down to the pavement and retraced her steps, deciding along the way to take a direct approach.
She walked up to Russell’s front door and knocked.
Nothing.
She knocked again, looking around to see if anyone was paying her the slightest bit of attention. She was also checking for the umbrella-carrying ninja.
S
he knocked again.
No one came to the door. She peered through the sidelights. It was too dark to see much.
Okay. What was Plan B?
She didn’t relish breaking into another home. Her luck had almost run out on the last one.
She walked back to her car and got in. She decided to perform that most tedious and sometimes most valuable of all police work.
The stakeout.
She settled down in her seat and kept her eyes peeled on the house.
At a bit after midnight, her vigilance paid off.
A tall man came walking down the street from the direction of the U.S. Capitol. He had on a trench coat and a felt cap, and he was carrying a leather briefcase.
He walked up the short stack of steps to the front door to his home, fumbled in his pocket, and pulled out his keys.
He was at his door inserting the key when Pine reached him.
“Mr. Russell?”
He whirled and looked down at her. “Who are you? What do you want?”
Okay, normal paranoia or something more?
She slipped out her shield. “I’m with the FBI. I’m here about your friend, Ben Priest.”
His features turned even more suspicious. “Ben? What’s going on with him? Why is the FBI interested in him?”
“Can we talk about this inside?”
Russell hesitated but finally nodded. “All right.”
He let her inside, then turned off the security system and shut and bolted the door. He took off his hat and coat and hung them on a wall rack in the small foyer.
Pine saw that his hair was indeed thinning, and the little he had left had been allowed to grow in any direction it chose. As Father Paul had said, Russell possessed a trim beard and mustache, perhaps to balance out the loss on top. He was quite lean, and she gauged that his feet were about a size fifteen, which made sense for a man nearly six seven. His nose was long and spindly. His eyes were brown and darting. Right above them were a pair of eyebrows that, like the hair, roamed helter-skelter over his compact forehead.
She looked around. Russell’s digs were a lot nicer than Priest’s. The furniture looked antique, well-worn, and comfy-cozy. There was a fireplace in the room right off the foyer. It had a limestone surround in the design of something one might see in a church. The walls were covered with original-looking oil paintings.
The rug she was standing on looked to be at least a century old. Down the hall she could see colorful and costly wallpaper along with elaborate crown moldings. The ceilings and walls were solid plaster. Outside, she had noted the gutters and downspouts were copper and the roof was slate.
They didn’t make them like this anymore. Not unless you had the dollars to pay for it.
His words interrupted her observations.
“Would you like something to drink? Or are you on duty?”
“What are you having?”
“A G and T. Blue bottle Bombay is my preferred choice of weapon.”
“I’ll just take the T. Thanks.”
He led her down the hall to a large oval carved wooden door that looked like it belonged in a castle. He opened it and showed her into a sizable room outfitted as a library or study.
Three walls held shelves that sagged with books. A large partner’s desk sat in the middle of the room under which lay a square of faded Oriental carpet. There was a fireplace. Comfortable leather couch and chairs. And a small credenza with bottles and glasses topping it.
“On the rocks?” he asked as he prepared two glasses. “For your T?”
“Why not?”
He opened a paneled door built into a cabinet next to the credenza, revealing an icemaker. He cut up a lime he’d taken from a bowl on top of the credenza, put slices in each glass over the ice, then poured gin and tonic into his tumbler and only tonic into hers, while she watched to make sure.
He stirred the drinks and handed one to Pine, then picked up a remote and pointed it at the fireplace. There was a click, a whoosh of fired gas, and bluish flames popped alive in the hearth. He sat down on the couch and pointed to one of the chairs.
“Nice room,” said Pine as she took her seat and looked around the space.
“I do a lot of my work in here, actually.”
“And what work would that be?”
He sipped his drink. His features, never inviting to begin with, turned instantly chillier.
“‘None of your business’ is the answer that first occurs to me. Unless you have a warrant. And even then, it would still be none of your business. Now tell me about Ben.”
“He’s missing.”
Russell said nothing to this. He slightly turned his head and studied the gas flames.
“You don’t seem surprised by that.”
He shrugged. “Ben routinely goes missing.”
Pine decided to take a chance in order to get the man to open up. “Does he routinely get kidnapped and taken away in a chopper?”
This got Russell’s attention. He looked at Pine. “Is this a mere hypothetical or are you being factual?”
“He’s in trouble. Big trouble. Let’s leave it at that for now.”
“I’m prepared to leave it right here.”
Pine looked around the room. “If I were to profile you from what I’ve seen in your home, I’d say you came from money, were well traveled, had an interest in geopolitics, were security conscious, and cared about what happened to your country.”
“I won’t extend this talk by asking how you came by those deductions.”
However, Pine plunged ahead. “The silver set on the table over there is a Tiffany original. The monogram shows it was probably a family heirloom. I’d wager that set is older than your grandparents. That means you inherited it. People who get handed down things like that are usually well cared for in other respects. The rest of my deductions come from your books, the multiple locks and security system, and those detailed maps of China and the Middle East on the walls over there.”
“And my caring about my country?”
“The framed letter over there from a past president thanking you for your service.”
Russell seemed to appraise her in a new light. He sipped his drink and nodded. “All right. I may be all of those things. What do you want from me tonight?”
“Do you have any idea what Ben was working on that could have led to his being in trouble?”
“We didn’t work together.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“Then you obviously heard wrong.”
“You never discussed work matters with him?”
“There was no reason.”
“And he never did with you?”
“I thought I just said that.”
“He lives in Alexandria and you live here. How did he come to get you to join the church league?”
“Probably some dreary party where we ran into each other and were bored enough to talk about church and basketball.”
“So, I guess you have no idea about the other guy then?”
“What other guy?” he said sharply.
“Or about the password-protected message Ben left behind.”
Russell was now watching Pine closely as he softly jiggled the ice in his tumbler.
“What happened to your face?” he asked.
“Ran into a door.”
“You ran into something. Maybe a fist.”
“Comes with the territory.”
“How did you come to be involved in this, may I ask?”
“It’s my job.”
Russell cleared his throat. “Are you in the National Security Branch at the Bureau? Or the Intelligence Branch?” He paused. “But if I can make a deduction, you don’t strike me as the type. I mean National Security or Intelligence.”
“So you know those types. And you’re aware of those branches within the Bureau. At least that’s some information you’ve shared.”
When he said nothing to this, she added, “What type do I strike you as?”
&
nbsp; “Rogue,” he said immediately.
Pine pointed to the bookshelves. “You’ve got books there written in Russian, Chinese, Korean, and Arabic. Do you speak all of them?”
“As do many people in this town.”
“I came to you as a shortcut. I take those when they present themselves.”
“Sorry to disappoint.”
“So you’re just casual b-ball teammates?”
Russell took a long drink before answering. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he said, “He’s a good small forward. Can pass effectively off the dribble and create his own shots. Midrange jumper is like clockwork. I’ll give him that. With my height, I live in the paint. Turnaround jumpers, hooks, pound the boards, and grab the rebounds. I used to be able to dunk. Now my knees no longer cooperate.”
Pine put her drink down and rose. “Well, thanks for the tonic.”
Russell looked up at her. “Are you even really with the FBI?”
She took out a piece of paper and wrote something down on it. “Here’s where you can reach me if you have a change of heart.”
Russell took the paper without looking at it and set it down on a table next to the couch.
“You’ve actually given me a lot to think about,” he said, once more jiggling the ice in his glass while the gas flames threw his sharp-edged features into stark relief.
“I wish I could say the same. I’ll see myself out.”
She didn’t walk back to her car because she knew he would be watching her from the window. Instead, she turned left and walked briskly down the street and turned right at the next corner. Then she took up a position by a tree that allowed a sight line of his front door.
She had gotten nothing from Russell except the weirdest of vibes.
Twenty minutes later the possibility arose that that status might change.
The man came out the door and walked off in the opposite direction.
Pine walked quickly to her car, pulled out onto the street, and followed.
CHAPTER
34
Pine’s decision to follow by car paid off, because Russell had gone only about two blocks when a black SUV pulled up to the curb and he climbed in. They quickly left the Capitol Hill area and proceeded north through the city.
Pine knew DC well because of her time there. They headed west, passing through the business district, and then arced farther north into some of the most affluent areas of the city.
Long Road to Mercy Page 19