(2012) Political Suicide

by Michael Palmer

  As he wended his way between buildings to the doctors’ lot, he became immersed in memories of the morning of his first night as an intern at Eisenhower Memorial. He had dragged himself out of the hospital to the doctors’ lot after a tense, grueling shift marked by more uncertainty, anxiety, and insecurity than any one person should ever have to bear. His ancient Chevy was up on blocks, and three men were expertly spinning off the wheels.

  “Hey, what are you guys doing?” Lou had managed.

  “You keep out of this, Doc,” one of them said. “This doesn’t concern you.”

  “Of course it concerns me. That’s my car.”

  “Oops. Hey, guys, it’s the doc’s car. Sorry, there, Doc.”

  The three nonchalantly replaced the wheels, tightened the lugs, lowered the car, and wheeled their jack away.

  Welcome to Eisenhower Memorial.

  This winter morning, with dawn having just made an appearance, there were no men stealing his tires. What there was instead, was a uniformed cop, slipping a ticket beneath the driver’s-side windshield wiper. His cruiser was parked a few feet away.

  “Hey!” Lou shouted as the cop turned to leave. “What’s going on?”

  The officer, strong-jawed with eyes deeply set beneath the shadow of his hat brim, tilted his head back to give Lou a curious look. “You’re a doctor here?” he asked.

  “Of course I am. We have our own security people. They don’t give tickets.”

  “The hospital asked us to handle this. You haven’t got a sticker. That means you get a ticket.”

  Lou’s hopeful mood evaporated. “Nobody has a sticker, just look around.”

  “Well, they will.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “Look, pal, I don’t make the laws, I just enforce them. This is just a notice, but now we have your license plate number. If you don’t see the parking office and get a sticker, next time will be a twenty-five-dollar fine.”

  “This is totally ridiculous,” Lou said.

  The cop sheathed his ticket book like he was holstering a gun, climbed into the cruiser, and opened the window nearest Lou. “Have a great rest of your day,” he said. “And make sure you look your ticket over carefully. It summarizes all the new regulations on the back.”

  The patrol car turned into an open row and then drove away.

  Bryzinski, Lou was thinking. This harassment must have something to do with that crooked cop.

  He slid the ticket out from beneath the wiper, brought it into the car, and turned on the interior light. One side looked like a standard orange ticket. On the other side was a note, printed in a heavy, masculine hand.

  Dr. Lou Welcome,

  You have to be very careful, but you also have to trust somebody. You can trust me. The police officer who gave you this ticket is a marine and a good friend of Elias Colston and me. We want to get to the truth about Elias’s killer. If it is Wyatt Brody, we will nail him and he will pay. Meet me Tuesday at the following coordinates: 38.84783,-76.73744. Nine P.M. sharp. Stay hidden beyond the wood line. You’ll know when I arrive.

  Your friend,

  Steve Papavassiliou (Mark Colston’s Papa Steve)

  CHAPTER 29

  You’ll know when I arrive.

  Creepy.

  What in the hell had Papa Steve Papavassiliou meant by that? Judging from the way he had chosen to deliver his message, and the use of map coordinates to specify their meeting point, the man was either an inveterate game player or paranoid, possibly both. Even though Lou’s life with Emily had turned him into a pretty good game player himself, he did not feel particularly trusting of Papavassiliou. Nevertheless, he had decided to play.

  Not that surprisingly, a Web site allowing him to input the GPS coordinates pinpointed the ninth hole of a public golf course in Midwood, Virginia, twenty-five miles outside the district.

  Creepy.

  It was half past eight when Lou arrived at 38.84783,-76.73744. Sharpton Hills Golf Club was dark and completely deserted. He negotiated a steel pole security gate, concealed the Toyota behind a cart shack, and walked out onto the ninth fairway carrying a printout of the course layout. The night was cloudless and below freezing, and the ground blanketed with a thin layer of crunchy snow. Lou took up a position inside the nearby wood line and shivered away the cold.

  The cloudless night and bright moonlight afforded him an unobstructed view of the par four ninth hole, and he wondered just how Papa Steve would make his dramatic arrival known. Too little snow for a dogsled. Just enough for cross-country skis. Too much for a golf cart. A snowmobile or ATV seemed the best bets. From his jacket pocket, Lou removed the folded-up parking violation and reread the first lines of Papa Steve’s note.

  You have to be very careful, but you also have to trust somebody. You can trust me.

  Lou thought back to what Detective Chris Bryzinski had probably done, possibly in collusion with Spencer Hogarth.

  You have to be very careful.…

  Reassuring or not, Lou was intent on keeping Papavassiliou at arm’s length until the man’s agenda became clearer. He and Sarah had discussed the note by phone and agreed it would make sense for Lou to go through with the meeting, but cautiously. Later, they would decide how far Papavassiliou could be trusted.

  Lou had spent an anxious day catching up on Physician Wellness work, including progress reports and an especially unpleasant hour with his boss, director Walter Filstrup, whose rant against alcoholism being an illness was especially annoying.

  “I have your last dictation regarding Gary McHugh,” Filstrup said. “Get this—your words: ‘Physician 307 seems to be on automatic pilot. It has now been more than four years since his last drink or drug. Random weekly urines have been negative. I continue to be concerned about his lack of reliance on recovery meetings and other forms of support, but no one can question his resolve to keep his illness under control.’ You really blew this one, Welcome. At least the man who had his illness under such good control is where he’s supposed to be. Behind bars.”

  “Even alcoholics are human,” Lou had replied, “just like most of the rest of you.”

  “Okay, Mr. Recovery, whatever you say. Meanwhile, McHugh’s given this program a hell of a black eye, and by association, so have you.”

  “He didn’t kill Colston.”

  “And I didn’t have scrambled eggs for breakfast this morning. Why don’t you go on back to work while you still have a job. If you run out of things to do, practice spelling guilty.”

  “I’ll do that, but McHugh is innocent. And, Walter?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ve got some of those scrambled eggs on your tie.”

  Nine o’clock arrived accompanied by what felt like a ten-degree drop in temperature. No Papavassiliou. Lou pressed against a tree and said silent thanks for the replacement parka, watch cap, and gloves he had picked up at L.L. Bean. As each minute passed, he became more and more suspicious of a setup. What was Papavassiliou’s connection with Brody? Did he have evidence that would exonerate McHugh? Were the Palace Guards approaching from the trees behind him?

  Ten minutes passed. Time to leave. Cautiously, Lou stepped clear of the wood line. The landscape was as cold and desolate as the moon. Maybe something had happened. Maybe Brody had found out about the note and sent the Palace Guards to stop Papavassiliou. Questions. More questions. Lou turned and panned the woods. Nothing. Not a sound. He cursed himself for not bringing a flashlight.

  At that moment, from the distance, he heard a faint machinery thrum. Half a minute later, he saw the powerful lights of a chopper—like an alien spacecraft cruising low across the rolling landscape. The small, single main rotor helicopter stopped twenty feet from the ground and dropped down right in front of him, just below the ninth green.

  You’ll know when I arrive.

  Nicely put.

  Lou shielded his eyes from the transient blizzard created by the rotor-generated winds. Quickly, the engine and light were cut off and the door
to the small cabin opened. A tall, broad-shouldered figure jumped down, pulling up the fur-lined hood of his parka. Ten feet separated the two men when Papavassiliou pushed his hood back. Lou recognized him instantly. If he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, Lou would have seen faded tattoos on his powerful forearms—one of a mushroom cloud explosion and the other of a calligraphic rendering of the letters TNT. All at once, the timely arrival of the police that night at the Mantis headquarters no longer seemed like a fortunate coincidence. Steve Papavassiliou worked on the base, and it was he who had saved Lou from Wyatt Brody.

  Does that mean I can trust him? Lou wondered. Or was that an elaborate setup to earn my trust?

  “Told ya you’d know when I got here, Dr. Welcome.”

  “It’s Lou,” he said.

  “Papa Steve will do for me. That’s what comes from being the age of most of the guys’ daddies.” He shook hands with a grip that would have pressed garlic.

  “Why the helicopter?” Lou asked.

  “Guess the answer is the same as to why a dog licks his genitals.”

  “Because he can,” Lou responded.

  “I’ve been flying whirlybirds for about as long as I been blowin’ things up. Got friends in the business, so I borrowed one of their toys. Wyatt Brody is a head case. A damn smart head case, but a head case nonetheless. The men close to Brody are known around the base as his Palace Guards. They are tough and skilled and willing to do most anything for him. We got to be really careful. No matter how cautious I was, the guards could follow me. At least on the ground or the water they could. But no way could they could keep up with me in the air.”

  “Why is Brody following you at all? What’s going on with him?”

  “What’s going on is I think Brody is the one who murdered Elias.”

  “You have proof?”

  “Call it strong suspicion.”

  “Not one of the Palace Guards?”

  “Possible, but I doubt Brody would give any of them control over him like that. He’s all about keeping control to himself.”

  Lou peered through the darkness at the man. To this point at least, he liked what he saw. Still, trusting Chris Bryzinski with Colston’s CD had cut him badly. “What can I do?” he asked.

  “Brody’s taken a liking to me since I moved over to Mantis, but he doesn’t let anyone get too close. If he did kill Elias, I want to nail him, Lou. I want to nail him real bad. Elias and me have been through a lot together. I miss him. You can help me because that would mean helping your friend McHugh. It would also be payback for Hector.”

  “Payback?” Lou took a step back. He could feel his jaw tighten.

  “Sorry. I should have reasoned out that you might not know yet. Searchers found his body late yesterday.”

  “Where?” Lou asked, swallowing against the lump that had materialized in his throat. Hector’s death was as much on him as on the men who had killed him.

  “They found him on a wild part of the base,” Papa Steve said. “Word is he’d fallen off a cliff and broke his neck. Died instantly. Apparently, he’d been drinking, but the full toxicology report will take a few weeks. I heard they recovered an empty bottle of vodka near to where he landed. People think the guy was despondent about the rumor that he was going to get the boot from Mantis. Some people think he might have jumped.”

  “That’s a lie,” Lou snapped. “I was in the woods when guys he said were the Palace Guard tried to kill him and me. Hector was nowhere near the base. He wasn’t drunk either. It’s all a setup orchestrated by Wyatt Brody.”

  Papa Steve’s eyes flashed. “You think I don’t already know that?” he said. “Let’s have a seat in the cockpit and talk where it’s warm. We’ve got some things to discuss.”

  The interior of the helicopter was an aviator’s dream, compact and loaded with high-tech gadgetry.

  “When you defuse bombs for a living, you make a lot of friends in high places. I’m the guy you call when you don’t know which wire to cut. I’m also the guy who rigs up the wires in the first place.”

  “I saw your tattoos that night at Mantis,” Lou said. “I think you saved my life.”

  “So do I. I saw the ambulance bring you in. Hector and I are—were–pretty tight because he was my godson’s closest friend in Mantis. He asked if I thought he should meet with you. I told him I didn’t see why not. The cops showed up because of the gunshots. I just led them to Brody.”

  Lou started wondering again about Papa Steve. Someone had to have told Brody about the meeting between him and Hector. There was also the matter of the policeman delivering Papavassiliou’s note to the doctors’ parking lot. Clearly, Papa Steve had the man checking on him, maybe even following him.

  “So what are we doing here?” Lou asked. “Now it seems we’ve got two killers to catch, Colston’s and Hector’s.”

  “We’re after Wyatt Brody. He’s all that matters. But we need to go at this very carefully, and I need to know that you’re all-in. Brody has been up to something for years. I made a promise to Elias when I agreed to transfer to Mantis that I wouldn’t bring anyone into the fold who isn’t a thousand percent committed to finding out what that something is. And I haven’t … until now.”

  “So you’ve been helping Colston investigate Brody?”

  “That’s the reason I transferred,” Papa Steve said. “Colston wanted to shut down Mantis, not because his son died serving the unit, but because he felt, as did others in Congress, that the unit was redundant. The functions of Mantis could be integrated with the SEALs and other Special Forces outfits for better efficiency. I think you can guess that was not a popular idea with Wyatt Brody.”

  “What happened?”

  “Brody had a vendetta against Colston because of the funding issues. He’s promised to ruin him anyway he could. I think he just lost patience.”

  “He doesn’t know about your connection with Colston?”

  “Can’t tell. You know the old adage, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. That may be what he’s doing.”

  “Jesus,” Lou murmured. “And you think what Elias was doing in Congress gave Brody enough motive to commit murder?”

  “I think anybody who threatens Mantis is putting themselves in harm’s way.”

  “Including you.”

  “And you,” Papavassilious said.

  Lou had theories of his own—connections between Brody’s thesis on fear and Colston’s interest in Reddy Creek—that he was not yet ready to share with Papa Steve.

  “So, what have you found out?” Lou asked.

  “Just that no matter how much funding Colston hacked from Mantis, Brody always has found a way around it.”

  “Maybe he ran out of tricks.”

  “That’s what I think. Elias was squeezing too hard, and Brody finally decided to take him out.”

  “Where does that leave us, then?” Lou asked.

  “I need something from you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ve been following Dr. McHugh’s case. I know of his lawyer’s firm. They are famous for their in-house approach to explosives and ballistics. A friend of mine—one of the best in the connect-the-wires-and-watch-things-go-boom field—once got paid big bucks to give some lectures to the lawyers there. He said they were all brainiacs. You being friends with McHugh, I wondered if you knew his attorney, a woman named Cooper, Sarah Cooper.”

  “I know her,” Lou said.

  “Well, I need to see the ballistics report on the slugs that killed Elias.”

  “Why?”

  “You saw Brody’s gun collection, right?”

  “It’s an image I’m having a hard time forgetting.”

  “Well, I’m willing to bet that one of those weapons was used to kill my friend. I need that ballistics report to narrow down the choices, and I need it done quietly in case whatever weapon was used is still around.”

  The bullets. Lou wondered if this was the whole point of Papa Steve arranging this meeting.
Maybe Papavassiliou was completely on the level, but maybe Brody wanted to know if he had anything to fear from the ballistics report, and he had asked Papa Steve to find out. It worried Lou to involve Sarah with anyone from Mantis.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, “but you’re not going to be able to prove that Brody had the opportunity to kill Colston.”

  “Why is that?” Papa Steve asked.

  “He told me he was at a Marine Day parade on the day Colston was murdered. People saw him leading Mantis into the stadium. They can prove he couldn’t have been the shooter.”

  Papa Steve appeared unfazed. “I’ve been keeping an eye on Brody for several years,” he said, “and I’ve seen things that contradict what Brody told you—a pattern.”

  “Pattern? What do you mean?”

  “Brody leaves the base at the same time every single Wednesday. Every single Wednesday.”

  “Where does he go?” Lou asked.

  Papa Steve shook his head. “That I don’t know. Wish I did,” he said. “He’s not easy to follow. The Palace Guards keep a close watch on him. But I do know he leaves to go someplace every Wednesday. He usually comes back after three or four hours.”

  “You were at the parade, weren’t you?” Lou said.

  Papa Steve smiled. “I wanted to see if Brody would disappear from the parade, too—you know, keep up with his pattern. He did. Walked out like he was headed to the bathroom. I followed him for a while, but the Palace Guards picked up my tail, so I had to back off. They’ve gotten in the way every time I’ve tried to follow him. What I do know is that Brody was headed west, toward Elias Colston’s house. And that is irrefutable evidence, because I’ve got it all on videotape.”

  Lou quietly pondered the implications.