by David Grace
After graduating from Princeton Wren had applied to the FBI and started his career as a lowly field agent. Within two years he’d managed a transfer to the Office of Professional Responsibility, the FBI’s equivalent of a police department’s Office of Internal Affairs. After three years in OPR Wren received a posting to FBI headquarters in D.C. The Department of Homeland Security was created in late 2002 and in late 2003 Wren made the transition to HS where he steadily moved up the executive ladder. If and when his boss, the Deputy Undersecretary, moved on Wren was on the short list to take his job.
Wren’s boss, Roger Dawson, grew up in Rhode Island. His father was an executive in a commercial casualty insurance company that had been founded a hundred years before by one of his ancestors. Dawson, like George Bush (43) attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts then Yale, though Dawson was more than ten years too late to have crossed paths with the former president. Dawson did a brief stint as a junior executive in the insurance industry then followed the path blazed by generations of well-born but not well-heeled New England gentlemen and secured an appointment with the CIA. Melding a combination of family connections, decent intelligence, social skills and political correctness Dawson made the jump to HS’s executive ranks upon its creation halfway through Bush’s first term. The most recent rumor was that Dawson was planning a run for Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional seat once the current occupant announced his plans to run for a soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Senate position.
Kane stared at the clock. It was four minutes after two. He could check on the teams watching Giselle’s home but what was the point in that bit of theater? Calling Franks would be counterproductive to say the least. That relationship was frayed almost to the breaking point as it was. Danny was doing something on the computer, his fingers tapping madly away. Was there any point in asking him what it was? Kane couldn’t think of one. He looked again at the clock. It was still four minutes after two. Fuck it! Kane picked up the phone.
“Allison, it’s Greg. Can you meet me in the lobby of the National Gallery in twenty minutes? . . . I’ll explain when I see you. . . . Good. Thanks.” Danny glanced over just as Kane stood up. “I’ve got a meeting out of the office,” Greg told him. “If something comes up call me on my cell.”
“OK,” Danny said and turned back to his keyboard.
Kane figured it would be faster to take the Metro and half-jogged from the Archives station down 7th to Constitution. Allison was there ahead of him in a black and white outfit that was supposed to make her look like a prim and proper executive assistant and, as far as he was concerned, failed completely. He thought about hugging her but knew that such a public display of affection would upset her. He stopped a polite foot and a half away and smiled.
“Thanks for meeting me,” he said.
“Is someone else after Justice Hopper?”
“Let’s walk and talk.” Kane looked around the foyer then led her into the West Gallery. “I was kind of out of it the last time I saw you. How have you been?”
“I’m fine. What’s this about?”
“Remember when I talked about our taking some time off and looking at the paintings? This is it. It’s about us spending a little time together. Catching up.”
“You called me away from work so that we could catch up?”
“You agreed to it, remember?”
“What is this, a date?”
This was not going well. Kane had not expected it to but he had hoped he might be wrong.
“Some things are going on at the office, an investigation, and I don’t know where it’s all going to end up.”
“Is it something my uncle can help you with?”
“Let’s go in here,” Kane said leading her into one of the galleries along the south side of the corridor. “Remember when I told you that I liked the Impressionists?” Kane pointed to a painting of small boats pulled up on a beach.
Allison glanced at the canvas and then looked back at Kane. “Where is this coming from?”
Greg took a breath. “The last time I saw you I had almost been blown up. It wasn’t a situation that was conducive to conversation. The time before that we were just about to make love and I had to run out because a Secret Service agent had been murdered. This afternoon I had some free time and I thought it would be nice for us to get together and look at some beautiful art and talk like two normal people. That’s not so terrible is it?”
“I have a job,” Allison said, glancing at her watch.
“The Senate is in recess. Your uncle won’t even be back in town until tomorrow.” Allison forced herself to look at the Monet then uneasily turned back to Kane. “Look, I was almost killed doing a favor for your uncle. Are you telling me that it’s too much trouble for you to spend an hour with me wandering around one of the finest art galleries in the world?”
Allison paused for half a second then let her shoulders slump. “Fine.”
For the next five minutes they exchanged polite conversation about the artists, each picking out paintings they especially liked.
“You can have a copy made you know,” Allison said when Kane expressed his appreciation of “The Bridge at Argenteuil.”
“It wouldn’t be the same. I’d pay someone to make me something that Monet might have painted but didn’t,” Kane said.
“Any artist good enough to do that you couldn’t afford.”
“This is nice,” Kane said a moment later, looking at her and getting a confused glance in return. “Just doing something for the pleasure of it. I’ve been trying to dial it back, let things go. It’s supposed to make you happier.”
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Someone gave me a book a while ago, about Buddhism. I thought it was all BS but, now I don’t know. I’m not so sure.”
“Buddhism?”
“The idea,” Kane said with sudden enthusiasm, “is that yesterday is gone and that tomorrow doesn’t exist. That we have to stop being tortured by the past and expecting to be happy in the future and instead we need to find the joy in each second today.” Allison stared at Greg as if she suspected that he was cursing her in Chinese. “So, this,” Kane gestured at the paintings, “is about enjoying the moment.”
“Forget the past and live for today. Is that it?”
“It’s–”
“Tradition? Honor? We should just throw them away?”
“I’m just saying–”
“We have a debt to our families, to our loved ones, not to forget them. We owe them that.”
“Remembering someone and trying to live with them in the past are two different things,” Kane said fighting to keep the disapproval out of his voice.
“So, because I won’t pretend that Brian never existed I’m a fool who’s living in the past?”
“I’m just saying that it’s a bad idea to have your emotions all tangled up in the past and in the future because then you can’t be happy in the only place where you’re actually alive, which is now.”
“By ‘now’ you mean my being here with you. Do you actually think you can tell me how to live my life?”
“I’m not telling you how to live your life. I’m just saying that obsessing over something that’s already happened and that you can’t change is a bad idea.”
“Who are you to lecture me? If I want pop psychology I’ll call Dr. Phil,” Allison said, turning away.
“Wait!” Kane reached for her arm but she shook him off.
“Don’t touch me.” She glared at Kane for a moment then held up her hands. “That’s it. We’re done.”
“Allison, please. I care–”
“Don’t!” she half shouted. “Don’t you dare tell me that you care about me.” Kane took a half-step back and held up his hands in surrender.
“I was only trying to tell you about something that seemed to be helping me. I know you’re afraid of getting hurt again and I just want you to be happy.”
“My happiness is not your concern.” Allison started to
leave then turned back. “I know what you mean by ‘living in the now.’ You mean replacing Brian with you but that’s not going to happen. I’m never going to turn my back on my husband. Not for you. Not for anyone.”
“You can’t hang on to someone who no longer exists. No matter how much you wish it wasn’t so he’s gone and you can’t get him back.”
“He’s not gone unless and until I say so and that’s never going to happen.”
Allison’s heels made an angry clicking sound as she stormed away.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
“None of this fits,” the man called “Mr. X” said when Munroe reported Farber’s demand. “Less than a week after they find Farber’s address he claims to know who I am and insists on a meeting? What if he didn’t get away at all? What if they caught him and covered it up and this is all a scheme to lead us into a trap?”
“He used the safe word,” Munroe answered.
“He could be cooperating with them. We’re in the dark here. We need information.”
Munroe wanted to ask about Farber’s cryptic reference to “The Professor” but he knew that it would be a bad idea. If it had been nonsense Mr. X would have laughed it off and told Munroe to sever all contact with the former deputy. If the reference meant something, as Munroe suspected it did, Mr. X wasn’t going to let him in on the secret. That led to a further question: How would Farber know more about Mr. X than I do?
Farber’s claim that he got the information by using his law enforcement skills didn’t wash. Farber had been a deputy sheriff who spent most of his time transporting prisoners and serving eviction orders. He sure as hell wasn’t some Sherlock Holmes. So, where had he gotten this “Professor” crap?
Mr. X was worried. That was pretty clear. Mr. X distrusted phones and they usually communicated through an intermediary but now they had been forced into in almost daily telephone contact. It was pretty clear that Mr. X or The Professor or whomever was worried and that worried Munroe as well. Mr. X had promised to cut him in on a multi-million dollar drug empire and now all of that seemed as if it might be at risk.
“What do you want me to do?” Munroe asked.
“Stall him. Tell Farber that you won’t be able to meet him until late tomorrow night. Say that you’ll call him an hour in advance with the location. That should give us enough time to get some answers.”
Munroe didn’t ask where those answers were going to come from. He knew his employer had a source who was feeding him info. How else would he have learned about the raid on Farber’s house?
“I want you to grab that agent, Kane,” Mr. X said.
“What?”
“If this meeting with Farber is a setup Kane will know all the details. Tie him up and take him somewhere safe and question him.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Surprise him inside his home. Incapacitate him before he knows what hit him. I’ll get you his address.”
“It’s not that simple,” Munroe complained.
“I’ll give you a hundred thousand dollars. Be creative. Do it tonight.”
* * *
Kane lived on the fourth floor of a six story apartment building halfway between Trinidad and Brentwood Park. The lobby door was locked but Munroe figured that he could get past it pretty easily. The main questions were, first, if he could get into Kane’s apartment; second, how he was going to quietly disable a trained agent and, third, how he was going to get Kane out of the building without being seen. He started with the last question first. How did people remove a body in the movies? In a rolled-up rug. It was as good a way as any.
Munroe checked Google for D.C. carpet cleaners and then sign makers. Using an ID that wasn’t linked to his real address he rented a white panel van and then visited a sign shop on the way back from the rental lot. It took them about fifteen minutes to create an eighteen by thirty plastic stick-on that read “Montpelier Carpet Care – Cleaning & Restoration.” A final stop at Walmart got him a hand-truck and a six by eight foot Arabian-style carpet. A few minutes with Photoshop produced two invoice forms with the heading “Montpelier Carpet Care” and the company’s real address and phone number. The first document was a work order for the delivery of a newly cleaned carpet to Gregory Kane in apartment 4C. The second was instructions to pick up a stained carpet from Gregory Kane at the same address.
It was almost three-thirty when Munroe arrived at Kane’s building. He set the rolled-up carpet vertically on the hand truck and pressed the buzzers for all of the apartments on the third floor. If anyone asked who he was or what he wanted he had a clipboard with a work order bearing the notation “Deliver with customer-supplied house key.” No one asked any questions. One of the third-floor occupants just buzzed him in. Dressed in a khaki shirt, brown pants and a brown baseball cap Munroe wheeled the rug into the elevator and pressed the button for the fourth floor.
Now came the tricky part. Given a minute or two a skilled burglar could pick a garden-variety residential lock but most thieves just jimmied the door or used a bump key. A set of twenty bump key blanks that would fit a wide variety of residential locks could be purchased over the Internet for fifty dollars. High-end bump-proof locks were available but most apartment houses didn’t want to spend the money to retrofit an entire building. Kane could have done that himself, of course, but most single guys, especially cops who figured that they could take care of themselves, weren’t that worried about their personal security.
The lock on Kane’s door was an old Yale. Munroe pulled the Yale bump key off the ring, slipped it in, then simultaneously gave it a firm tap and a twist. Nothing. The timing between the rap, or bump, and the twist had to be just right. Munroe did it again. On the third try the pins bounced above the cylinder just as Munroe applied the torque and the lock turned. Munroe took a look down the deserted hallway then wheeled the rug inside. A quick check confirmed that the apartment was empty. He stuffed the rolled-up carpet in the back of the closet then entered the bathroom. The floor was some kind of vinyl but Kane had placed a towel in front of the toilet, apparently to insulate his feet from the cold floor while he peed.
Munroe ran a fine wire from the back of the toilet down into the water at the bottom of the bowl and secured it with a dab of super glue. He equally spaced six more fine, bare wires under the towel then joined them near the edge of the porcelain and ran that single wire to the rear of the tank. He attached the wire from the bowl to one terminal of a stun gun and the wires from under the towel to the other. He taped the stun gun to the backside of the tank then locked down the switch. Lastly he dropped a handful of salt into the water. Now he just needed to test it.
The stun gun was rated at eight million volts. Munroe dropped an insulated wire into the bowl and set another one on top of the towel. Then he moved the two free ends toward each other. When they were about an inch apart a surge arced through the towel and electricity sparked across the one-inch gap. Munroe was not surprised. The manufacturer had promised that the jolt would penetrate several layers of clothing with enough voltage to incapacitate a man. Munroe quickly pulled the ends apart then filled the sink with water to which he added another handful of salt. Once the towel was dampened with the salt water he laid it back across the bare wires.
The final step was making sure that he would know if and when his trap had been sprung. Munroe scanned the bathroom and spotted a Kleenex box on the shelf next to the medicine cabinet. He cut a flap in the back and inserted a wireless camera. The pinhole lens fit neatly behind the hollowed out center of one of the “e”s. The battery wouldn’t last more than twelve hours and the broadcast range was only five-hundred feet but that was enough. Munroe took one more look around then grabbed his clipboard and hand-truck and returned to the van.
He drove around the block then pulled into a new space across from the entrance to the building’s underground garage. Along with his address Mr. X had provided him with Kane’s DMV picture and the make and model of his car. Munroe settled in to wai
t. Around a quarter after six he spotted Kane’s black Mustang and he scrunched down in his seat. As soon as the car disappeared into the garage Munroe got out the hand-truck and headed for the building. This time he punched the buttons for the fifth-floor units and, again, a helpful tenant buzzed him in.
He dithered a minute in the lobby pretending to be checking his iPad then rode the elevator to the fourth floor. Once there he slipped into the stairway and called up the view from the spy camera. The bathroom was dark. Now he just had to wait and hope that the building wasn’t full of health nuts who enjoyed climbing the stairs. He had a scare around a quarter to seven when he heard footsteps descending. Luckily there was no one in the fourth-floor corridor and Munroe returned to the landing as soon as the tenant had passed by.
Inside the home Kane pushed the half-empty pizza box aside and chugged down the last of his beer. So, he thought, looking around his empty apartment, now what? It had been a disaster of a day. Franks had sent him a text telling him that they hadn’t gone live on Bellingham’s phone surveillance until four that afternoon. Some problem with the warrant application.
For about one second he thought about trying to fix things with Allison then snorted. Yeah, that’ll work. Kane eyed the empty bottle and decided that one more beer wouldn’t hurt him. He found a basketball game on ESPN, put his feet up on the coffee table and half watched the screen. Around ten after seven he felt the beer demanding to be set free. As he settled in front of the toilet and started to unzip, Kane noticed that the towel was damp. Jesus, was the plumbing leaking? After the day he’d had that’s all he needed. How much is it going to cost to get a plumber up here at night? Would the landlord pay for that? Ten to one the manager would try to blame it on him. Fuck. Well, maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe it was just a washer. The beer became more insistent. Well, pee first, check the pipes second.