The Coalition: A Novel of Suspense

by Samuel Marquis

  Shafroth gave the time, day, month, year, and names and titles of those present. Then he had Schmidt state his full name and give a brief synopsis of his background and occupation, which at present was video store clerk. Patton could see the fall from grace in every line of the guy’s face. On the rap sheet, it showed that Schmidt had gone from college whiz kid to oceanographer to gun runner to convicted felon to video store clerk, and now to suspected assassin. What was next, mass murderer?

  When Shafroth completed the formalities, Patton said, “All right, Franz, I’m going to give it to you straight. Last Sunday, we found specimens of your hair in the Union Plaza Building in Denver. We know they belong to you because we ran them for DNA and cross-referenced the results against your profile on our Convicted Offender Index. The hair was found at two different locations in the building: the room where President-elect Kieger was shot from and the route the shooter used to escape. When we put it all together, Franz, the picture’s clear: either you pulled the trigger, or you have a connection to the guy who did. What we want to know is which is it? We’ll figure it out one way or another, but we’re hoping you’ll clear it up for us right now.”

  He paused, hoping Schmidt would feel compelled to volunteer something rather than sit there in silence, but he said nothing. Patton continued to study him for the usual signs of lying and unusual tension: contracted pupils, arms clasped around the chest, uneasy hand movements, facial blushing, stiffened shoulders. So far, he hadn’t seen anything suspicious.

  “Okay, Franz, why don’t you start out by telling us where you were this past Sunday?”

  “I wasn’t even in Denver. I was on a wine-tasting excursion up north.”

  Sharp squinted skeptically. “A wine tasting excursion? You expect us to believe that?”

  Patton watched Schmidt’s reaction closely. There was a subtle twitch to his eye, but that was all.

  “We’re not here to make your life miserable,” said Taylor, who, like Patton, was playing the good cop role to Sharp’s bad. “We just want the truth.”

  “Look, I did my time,” Schmidt said, looking at Patton. “I made some mistakes, sold some weapons. But that was a long time ago. These days I’m clean. What I’m telling you is the truth.”

  “Personally, I’d like to believe you, Franz,” Patton said. “But you’re going to have to tell us exactly where you were, what you did, and who you saw.”

  Schmidt nodded and took a pull from his cigarette. “Sunday was my day off,” he said, thinking back, smoke draining from his nose in a bluish wisp. “I work six nights a week at Sal’s Videos. On Sunday, I went up to the wine country. Napa and Sonoma Valley.”

  His swift and candid delivery suggested he was telling the truth, but Patton had observed many clever liars in his day that appeared credible under interrogation. “Did you go by yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can anyone verify your whereabouts?”

  “At least one person. John Avery, the owner of Caruso Vineyards in Napa. He’ll remember.”

  “Anyone else?”

  Schmidt considered a moment. “I went to three other wineries—St. Francis, Rombauer, and Truchard. I don’t know anyone at these places personally, but someone should remember.”

  “How long were you gone?” Taylor asked.

  “I’d say from about eleven to six.”

  “And this John Avery,” inquired Sharp skeptically, “he wouldn’t be a friend of yours?”

  Schmidt saw at once that he was being played. “I’d say he’s more of an acquaintance.”

  The ASAC looked at him harshly. “As far as I’m concerned, you could have Mother Teresa vouch for you and it wouldn’t change a damned thing. We have your hair at the two crime scenes, which means we’ve got you there too. It makes no difference what anyone says. You were there, pal.”

  Now Schmidt looked flustered. “I was not there! My hair must have been planted!”

  “Oh, so now it’s a conspiracy.” Sharp gave a disdainful roll of his eyes.

  Patton pulled out the wanted poster of John Doe. He leaned across the table and pushed it toward Schmidt. “Have you ever seen this person before?”

  The prisoner squinted as he studied the two pictures, one a grainy freeze-frame video print, the other a police artist’s sketch. For a moment, there seemed to be a glimmer of recognition, but it was gone in a flash. “No,” he said, shaking his head and handing the poster back to Patton.

  “I think you’re lying,” Sharp said. “You know this guy and you were with him in Denver.”

  Schmidt’s look narrowed defiantly. “That’s not true.”

  “Okay, then you sold him firearms. That’s how you know him.”

  “No.”

  Sharp’s hand crashed down onto the table. “I’ve had about enough of this crap. You’d better start telling us the truth and you’d better start right fucking now!”

  There was a strained silence. Patton didn’t like Sharp’s combative style, though it was sometimes advantageous to have at least one pit bull during an interrogation to shake things up. He preferred to slowly build up a rapport with suspects while at the same time garnering useful information. Under the right circumstances, it wasn’t unusual for even hardened criminals to come clean. And in this case, Patton had the feeling Schmidt was more valuable for what he knew than what he’d done. In spite of the physical evidence, he seemed to be telling the truth, though Patton was convinced he had some personal connection to the assassin.

  The silence was broken by Patton’s ringing cell phone. He quickly checked the caller ID and signaled the others to continue without him.

  CHAPTER 77

  “WHAT’VE YOU GOT FOR ME, WEDGE?”

  “Good news. We’ve tracked down the source of Ares.”

  “Holy shit, that is good news. Hold on.” Patton snatched up his iPad from the conference table and went to the corner of the room so he wouldn’t disrupt the interrogation. “Okay, give it to me.”

  “The computer forensic lab has traced the source terminal to a guy named Pep Boy. That’s his cyber alias. Believed to belong to one Anders Houser, a former Microsoft programmer. According to what we’ve got, he lives at Graystoke Apartments, 1651 Clayton Street in Berkeley. Apartment 308.”

  Patton had him go through it again so he could type it all down. “Any criminal history?”

  “Negatory.”

  “Do we have a photo?”

  “Yep. I’ve just emailed it to you out there—it’s with the DT desk head. Along with the little background we’ve got on him, mostly on his programming. Apparently this guy’s a freelancer. A little work for the Green Freedom folks, a little for ELF and ALF. We managed to track down someone who used to work with him at Microsoft. He was a top programmer there, but he got fed up and dropped out. The only trail this guy’s left behind is the one he’s left in code.”

  Patton felt as if he had just turned a corner on the case, and gave a little smile. “You’re the man, Wedge. I owe you a six pack.”

  “Make it Guinness.”

  “Fuck that—I don’t do imports. You get Fat Tire or you don’t get anything.”

  “I can deal with that, boss. I’ll call you if I get anything else.”

  “That’ll work. Over and out, Wedge.”

  When Patton punched off, Sharp was looking at him curiously. Patton pulled him aside and quietly told him the news.

  “Well, what are you waiting for? Take Agent Taylor and go get the son of a bitch!”

  “What about the interrogation?”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Patton didn’t like that idea because if Sharp was too combative, Schmidt might feel threatened and request a lawyer. If that happened, they would get nothing more out of him until he was subpoenaed before a federal grand jury, which could take days, even weeks. Patton felt he was beginning to understand Schmidt, and that through a sympathetic approach, he might be able to extract the information he sought. At the same time, tracking down th
e author of Ares was a huge lead that needed to be followed up. He would just have to trust Sharp not to fuck up.

  “All right, Henry, good luck to you then,” he said. Then to Agent Shafroth: “It looks like I’m going to need your team again. How does a trip to Berkeley to pick up a guy named Pep Boy sound?”

  CHAPTER 78

  THE LONG, NARROW HALLWAY was poorly lit and smelled of cigarettes, cheap disinfectant, and something Patton couldn’t put a finger on. He withdrew his Glock; the first round was already chambered. The raid team was still assembling on the far end of the corridor, in front of Apartment 308 where the illumination was weakest. The overhead light covering this section of the hallway was out. As Shafroth moved forward to give the order, a woman stepped out of a nearby apartment carrying a bundle of dirty laundry. An agent quietly whisked her away.

  Once the team was in position, the agent closest to the door motioned vigorously to Shafroth. What’s he found? Patton wondered. Shafroth stepped forward; Patton and Taylor followed to see what was happening.

  “Someone’s broken in,” the agent whispered. He shined a small pen light on the door. Patton saw at once that the wood was splintered around the battered doorknob. Because the hallway was so dark, apparently no resident had noticed the damage and called it in.

  Patton pushed the door halfway open with the barrel of his pistol. The doorknob, jury-rigged to appear intact, fell to the floor with a thud.

  He entered the room slowly and cautiously, trailed by Shafroth and Taylor. It was dark inside, but he quickly spotted the body sprawled on the floor, open eyes gazing upward blankly. Now he smelled the unmistakable odor of death and decay, but the odor wasn’t overpowering.

  Putting away his piece, he said, “Agent Shafroth, would you be good enough to call an ERT and assign a group to control the crime scene. No one gets in or out but you, me, and Agent Taylor.”

  “You got it.” Shafroth turned around and addressed his team. Several agents had already crowded forward to take a look, but Shafroth prodded them back like an Irish drill sergeant. “All right, all right, this isn’t a goddamned peep show. I want everyone out on the double. You, Jackson, get me an ERT. Ganier, track down the property manager of this shithole. Rourke, get a team together and start interviewing the tenants...”

  Patton stepped over a pair of nylon duffel bags, navigated his way around the body, and pulled back the cheap Venetian blind. The window was open. With the cool late-fall weather and open window, no wonder the smell wasn’t so bad. Patton pulled open the blind, allowing diffused yellow light to trickle into the room. He and Taylor took a moment to allow their eyes to adjust before bending over the corpse for a closer look. The cause of death was unmistakable: multiple gunshot wounds to the face. The senior Secret Service agent removed the wallet from the guy’s pants. They were about to check the picture on the driver’s license against the photograph from Weiss when Shafroth walked back in.

  “Is it Houser?” he asked.

  “Looks like it,” replied Patton, comparing the pictures. There were three entrance wounds—one through the eye, another between the eyes, and a third through the center of the forehead—but the face was intact enough for a visual ID. The entrance wounds showed perfect clustering and there were no powder burns, so the bullets were fired quickly and with exceptional accuracy from beyond two feet.

  “Hell, he’s just a kid,” Shafroth said.

  “Twenty-five. Too young to die, that’s for sure.”

  “Looks like heavy caliber,” Taylor said, pointing to the spatter marks on the desk and computer screen behind the victim.

  Forty-five? Patton wondered before fixing his eyes on the bloody screen. “Our friends at the forensic lab will need to go through that hard drive,” he said to Shafroth. “No problem with me bringing it back to Colorado, is there?”

  “Fine by me.”

  “Good. We’ll have you guys handle all the evidence except the computer.”

  “We’ll take care of it. Say, you see any brass? I don’t see any.”

  “You won’t find any here,” Taylor said. “Our killer’s a house cleaner. Professional hit with a semiauto then he tidies up afterwards. Not just the casings, but the rigged doorknob.”

  Shafroth gave a nod and went back out to speak to his team. Patton and Taylor took a minute to chart out a rough trajectory path of the shots.

  “I think the killer busted in and took our friend Pep Boy completely by surprise,” said the veteran Secret Service agent. “Maybe his associates in the Brigade thought he’d give them up. Or the kill order could have come from someone outside the cell, someone who found out about the Brigade’s involvement in the assassination and wasn’t too pleased.”

  “There’s also a third possibility,” Patton said.

  Taylor squinted at him. “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “Both Pep Boy and the Brigade have been set up.”

  CHAPTER 79

  AN HOUR LATER, they drove back to the field office with Shafroth, leaving an army of agents behind to canvas witnesses. The Bay Bridge wasn’t too congested since most of the traffic was heading east toward Oakland. By the time they crossed the bridge, a light rain began to fall again and Patton received more news from Weiss. Everyone identified in the Union Plaza videotapes had been accounted for except John Doe, which made it highly unlikely Schmidt had been in the building the day of the assassination. Weiss had also tracked down more background information on Schmidt. After his release from prison, he had dutifully performed his job as a clerk at Sal’s Videos, had met the conditions of his parole, and hadn’t received so much as a traffic ticket. The guy was clean as a whistle, unusual for a convicted felon.

  Taken together, these facts reinforced the view crystallizing in Patton’s mind that Schmidt was nothing more than an unwitting pawn in this high-stakes game. The same with Anders Houser and the Brigade. But that still didn’t get him any closer to catching the bad guys. What he needed was some real evidence that tied one or more persons directly to the assassination. And he had to resist the temptation to get caught up in Jennifer’s conspiracy theories involving Locke, Kieger, Fowler, Dubois, and Governor Stoddart. His foremost priority was to track down the goddamned shooter. That was his best chance to solve the case and apprehend the responsible parties.

  When they reached the field office, they rode the elevator to the thirteenth floor and headed toward the interrogation room where they had left Schmidt and Sharp. As they rounded the corner, a field agent nearly bumped into them.

  Shafroth’s eyes bulged with surprise. “What’s happening, Dave?”

  “His boss”—he nodded towards Patton—“is about to strangle Schmidt.”

  “Are they still in the interrogation room?”

  “Yeah. He hasn’t done him bodily harm yet, but I think he’s about to blow a gasket. And now Schmidt’s demanding a lawyer.”

  “Let me handle this,” Patton said, and he was off and running.

  Reaching the glass observation window of the interrogation room, Patton saw Sharp standing behind the seated Schmidt, yelling in his ear. Patton had considered the possibility Sharp would be overbearing during the interrogation, but hadn’t dreamed he would have a complete meltdown. Subtle mind games and clever trickery were fair game during an interrogation, but it was crossing the line to employ physical abuse or cruel verbal harassment. The Hooverian mantra drilled into every raw recruit at Quantico was DON’T EMBARRASS THE BUREAU. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Sharp appeared to be doing.

  Why is Henry doing this? Is Washington pressing him too hard? Or is there another reason?

  Patton made eye contact with the two befuddled agents manning the door to the interrogation room. “Stand by, you two. If my boss won’t come peaceably, we may have to drag his ass out of there.” He stepped past them, opened the door, and slammed it shut behind him.

  Sharp wheeled around and shot him a glare.

  “What’s going on, Henry?” Patton asked innocently, giving a l
ook that was more puzzled than judgmental. He was hoping to quickly diffuse the situation without having to involve Shafroth or Taylor, if possible.

  “Get out of here, Special Agent. He’s mine and I’ll interrogate him as I see fit.”

  “Why don’t you let me take it from here? You look like you could use a breather.”

  “No fucking way. He’s lying and I’m not leaving ’til I get the truth.”

  “I want a lawyer,” Schmidt said, looking frazzled.

  “We’ll get you one, Franz,” Patton said. To Sharp: “I know you’re upset, Henry, but you’ve got to stand down. This won’t look good on our 302s. Besides, I have new information. I think it’ll help clear things up, but I’m going to have to talk to Franz alone for a few minutes.”

  To Patton’s surprise and relief, Sharp took the bait. “What? What new information?”

  Patton glanced at the tape recorder on the table; thank God it was off. “I’ll tell you about it after you give me ten minutes alone with Franz here. That’s all I’m asking for: ten minutes.”

  For a several seconds, Sharp stood there implacably, his lips set in a stubborn line, squinting like Wyatt Earp. Then the hard edge to his face seemed to soften, as if he had reached the conclusion it might be in his best interest to back down on this one.

  “All right, Special Agent, you’ve got ten fucking minutes. You’d better make the most of it.”

  CHAPTER 80

  WHEN THE DOOR CLOSED, Patton took a seat next to Schmidt. He reached across the table for the pack of Camels, grabbed two smokes, lit them up, and handed one to Schmidt. “I believe you’re innocent, Franz,” he said after taking a drag. “But you’re going to have to help me.”

  Schmidt still looked distrustful. “I want a lawyer.”

  “I know you do, but first we have to talk. It has to do with why you’re innocent.”