by John Lutz
“Sorry, fellas,” she said, “I gotta get in line behind the other cabs.”
Harper fished out his wallet and removed a twenty. “Not this time, all right?”
The cabbie, a wizened, elderly woman with hard eyes and frizzy blond hair, glanced beyond them at the crowd of media types. She unlocked and opened the trunk lid again. “We can make an exception. Been makin’ ’em all my life.”
Harper and Addleman tossed their luggage inside, then quickly piled into the back of the taxi. The driver was in before they were. Harper heard the doors lock automatically from up front. Just in time, as a frenetic journalist with half-rim glasses and a red beard tried to open one of the cab doors. He apparently hurt his hand, because he backed away and stood bent over clutching it and making a face. Someone tapped loudly on Harper’s window with a microphone, inches from his ear, as the cab pulled away.
“Persistent bastards, ain’t they?” the driver commented, with a glance in the rearview mirror.
“Their job,” Addleman said. “But I wish they’d do it someplace else.”
Harper grinned as Addleman pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his flushed and perspiring face. As always, it had been a struggle to extricate the profiler from his hermitage in South Philadelphia. Even though he, like Harper, had been personally invited down by the FBI Director to consult on the bomber case, he was as reluctant as ever to visit the J. Edgar Hoover building.
Now that they were free of the media, Harper leaned back in the cab’s soft upholstery. It was so much easier to relax in a cab when you were on expense account.
“How about that guy asking if Markman was really dead?” Addleman said. “That’s a question I haven’t been asked in a while. It’s like that guy had some doubt.”
Harper nodded. “A minority view.”
They exchanged a look, but said nothing. Harper gave the driver the address of the hotel the FBI had booked them into.
The Omnium was a new hotel, with a lobby that was as busy, utilitarian, and charmless as the airport concourse they’d just left. They checked in and Addleman went up to their suite while Harper asked the clerk where be could rent a car. The clerk smilingly assured him that it wouldn’t be necessary. An official limo would be pulling up outside at ten sharp to take Mr. Harper and Mr. Addleman to the Hoover Building.
Harper thanked him and turned away. Alarm bells would have been going off in his head if he’d been running security for a celebrity. He would’ve been asking how many people knew about the schedule, and how long had they known?
But he wasn’t running security. He was the celebrity himself. He hadn’t gotten used to it. In fact, he wondered how anyone got used to it. People seemed to know so much about him. They wanted to do things for him. And, of course, they wanted him to do things for them.
A few days before, Laura had been interviewed on television. She’d answered questions about their plans to restore their old brownstone, sell it, and retire on the proceeds. The interview brought a barrage of calls from TV producers. They wanted to know how Harper had managed to do the repair work. They wanted to videotape him driving screws and hammering nails. Harper refused, but that didn’t stop the craziness. Gifts of power tools began arriving in the mail. A lawyer called to say his client wanted to buy their house when they were finished with it, for half a million dollars. Ten minutes later another lawyer offered to buy the place immediately, for three-quarters of a million.
The phone rang all the time these days. Security consulting firms offered him jobs. Charities for disabled people and retired cops offered him seats on their boards. Print journalists and TV producers demanded endless interviews. Literary agents and publishers told him he ought to be writing the story himself. Plastic surgeons wanted to try out radical new procedures on his hand.
At night, Harper and Laura would unplug the phone and go to bed, and remind one another that this strong wind that was roaring around their ears and unsettling everything in their lives would eventually blow itself out.
But there was no sign of that yet.
He was walking toward the elevators when he heard his name called. He turned—and froze in astonishment.
Striding toward him across the lobby was Captain Brand, his old boss on the Bomb Squad. The man who’d maneuvered Harper out of his job and then implicated him in the IAD probe. Now Brand was bearing down on him, smiling with hand extended. He was wearing his NYPD dress uniform. Hurrying to catch up with him were a young woman carrying a bulky carton and a man with a couple of cameras slung over his shoulders. Great! Harper thought. More media types.
“Will, terrific to see you!” Brand boomed in the hearty voice Harper remembered far too well.
“Hello, Captain,” Harper said. He’d gotten over his first surprise and was curious to see if it would bother Brand to shake hands with him. It didn’t.
“Call me Nathan, please, Will.”
The Captain went on beaming at him. Harper smiled back. He couldn’t help it; he was genuinely amused. Brand was one of the most dedicated and energetic headline-chasers in the NYPD. Now here he was courting Harper. It was an accolade, of sorts.
“Listen, Captain, I’m a little pressed for time.” Harper couldn’t deny that it was a pleasure to say that to Brand, after all the times Brand had said it to him.
“Sure, Will, I understand. There’ll be more than enough time to reminisce later. We’ll just do the presentation now.”
“Presentation?” echoed Harper, bewildered.
Brand turned to the young woman. She was a tall, beautiful redhead in a short skirt. Brand had always liked having a lovely aide at his side. She bestowed a melting smile on Harper as she handed the bulky box she’d been carrying to Brand.
The cameraman moved into position in front of them. People all over the lobby were stopping and staring. Captain Brand commanded the stage on occasions like this, Harper had to give that to him. “Will,” he said, “the men and women on the Squad asked me to give you this. We all hope you’ll never need one again, but if you do, we want you to have the best.”
He opened the carton. Inside it was a blast-protection suit. Brand held it up for the camera. The flash went off. Then he handed the box to Harper.
It surprised Harper how light the box was. The suit was a new model, unlike the kind he’d worn during his days on duty. It was brown, and on the sleeve was the stencil NYPD.
“It’s the latest technology,” Brand said proudly. “More protection and less weight. You can move around like a cat in it, despite its bulk. It’s even vented so you won’t sweat like a pig in it, and its shatterproof visor is a special material that won’t fog and obscure your vision.”
“Impressive,” Harper said, staring at the bomb suit.
“When the Feds let you go, the Squad would like to invite you to come back to Rodman’s Neck,” Brand said. “We’d be honored if you’d lecture at the training school.”
“Even though I’m a subject of an IAD probe?”
Brand shrugged. “I happen to know that’s never going to go anywhere. Besides, real cops will think you’re more of a hero than ever for having been investigated by those bastards in IAD.”
Harper didn’t have the time to think it over, but he knew what conclusion he’d reach. Brand was obviously self-serving, but Harper did want to go back and talk to the Squad again. “I’ll be there,” he said.
Brand grasped his hand again and turned to grin at the camera. Harper knew it was naive of him to think that anything Captain Brand said could be true, yet he hoped that it really had been the men and women on the Squad who’d sent the bomb suit to him. A few months ago, Brand had told him they wanted nothing to do with him because he was a hard-luck guy. That had hurt him deeply. Deep down, he’d always believed he was still one of them.
One last handshake and photo, and Brand let him go. Tucking the box under his arm, Harper made for the elevators. He had to hurry and change into his suit if he was going to be ready when the government limo arrived
to take him to FBI Headquarters. Not that it would matter that much if he was late. He’d noticed that these days people expected him to be late. They knew how busy he was. They were willing to wait.
Frances Wilson would be especially willing to wait. Now that he and Addleman had become media darlings, Wilson and the FBI were courting them no less ardently than Captain Brand. They were completely vindicated. They had triumphed. If Harper had any doubts about that, all he had to do was look at the television.
As the elevator ascended, he couldn’t resist opening the box to look at the bomb suit again. He ran his fingers over the NYPD stencil. It was pleasant to anticipate his return to the Bomb Squad. He thought of familiar faces he hadn’t seen in a long time. Imagined the admiring gazes of the new recruits.
Back in St. Louis, in that odd, brief meeting that Harper couldn’t get out of his head, Anthony Markman had told him that all the happy endings were on the screen. There were no happy endings in real life.
But now it seemed that old injustices were going to be put right, old grievances forgotten, and there was going to be a happy ending to his career at the NYPD. What would Markman say about that?
Harper closed the box and straightened up. His reflection in the mirrored wall of the elevator looked grim. He knew what Markman would say.
That it wasn’t over yet.
38
At first, Harper thought they were being taken to Frances’s office, but instead they were ushered into a conference room. It had a view of Pennsylvania Avenue, and in the distance the Washington Monument. The white spire was more visible than on Harper’s and Addleman’s first visit, when the day had been overcast.
The room itself was large, with a wide, hexagonal table of oak with an inset slate center. Brown, leather-backed chairs were arranged around the table. There was a smell of astringently scented air freshener. As in Frances’s office, the walls were hung with portraits of the President, the Attorney General, and the FBI director. No J. Edgar Hoover portrait here, either. The Bureau was always trying to live down something. It was a fine organization, but with too many Frances Wilsons.
“Get you some coffee? Anything?” asked the agent who’d shown them in. He was a clean-cut young man with hair so short his scalp showed through. The knot in his tie was the size of a pea.
Harper and Addleman declined. The agent padded across the soft carpet to the door and left them alone in the quiet room.
They didn’t have long to wait.
Frances Wilson burst through the door smiling broadly. She was wearing a light-gray suit with a rather long jacket and a rather short skirt, and carrying a leather briefcase. In her wake trailed a short, slender, gray-haired man. Harper, who noticed hands, saw that this man’s were manicured and as delicate as a woman’s.
“Special Agent Ralph Dexter of Investigative Support,” Frances said. There were handshakes all around.
“Please make yourselves comfortable,” Frances invited. Pulling out one of the leather-backed chairs, she sat, showing a lot of leg.
Agent Dexter waited until everyone was seated, then chose his chair carefully, as if to complete some sort of symmetry. He didn’t look comfortable.
“I’ve asked Agent Dexter to sit in because he’ll be taking over the day-to-day running of the Markman investigation,” Frances said.
Addleman raised his eyebrows. “You’re moving on to other things, Frances?”
“Other cases are pressing, yes.”
“We called this meeting to get your input,” Dexter said.
“Loose ends need to be tied up and questions need to be answered. Even though we have no trial to prepare for, the media pressure is intense, so we want to wrap up this investigation as soon as possible. Do you think we have to worry about caches of explosives the bomber may have left behind?”
Addleman glanced at Harper. Harper said, “I don’t think he had explosives cached. But I think he may have taken some with him.”
Agent Dexter squinted at Harper. “I don’t get—when—”
“When he escaped from the garage,” said Addleman.
Sighing, Dexter turned to Frances. “Well, here we go,” he muttered. “Supermarket tabloid time.” He was obviously cut from the same bolt as Frances.
“We haven’t said anything to the media about this,” protested Addleman. He was unwrapping one of the candies he chewed when he wasn’t able to smoke. He popped it in his mouth and bit down on it. “But we think you ought to conduct this investigation on the assumption that the bomber is still out there—at least until stronger evidence of his death surfaces.”
Dexter was shaking his head disgustedly. He started to speak, but Frances held up a hand. “Let me say first off, we appreciate your coming to us rather than the media. We’ll give your views a full hearing.”
She smiled at them with what appeared to be genuine gratitude. Harper thought she had more gray hairs now than when they had met in this building just a few weeks ago, and that her eyes seemed more hooded. Sleeplessness, pressure, and frustration would do it to a person. The Markman case had not been kind to Agent Wilson.
Dexter said, “The bloodstained piece of workbench isn’t good enough evidence for you that he’s dead? Its DNA matches Markman’s DNA. We took several organic samples inside his house. Hair from the bed, samples taken from used tissues, mouthwash, a razor. Do you think our lab guys made a mistake?”
“No. It’s Markman’s DNA,” said Harper. “I bet he cut himself deliberately, then smeared the blood onto the piece of wood. Then he planted it.”
“That’s some devious thinking, on the spur of the moment,” Dexter said.
“It was preparation,” Harper said. “An adaptable plan. Markman never does anything on the spur of the moment.”
“If he had time to do all this, how come he didn’t just make a run for it?”
“He saw the advantages of being thought dead. Chief among them, the advantage of surprise. Once again he has the freedom of operation he used to enjoy when nobody knew about him,” said Addleman.
Frances stared at Harper. “Do you actually think that’s possible, Will?”
“Of course it’s possible. And it worked. You and Dexter are convinced Markman’s dead.”
“I’m convinced Elvis is dead, too,” Dexter said.
Frances raised her hand again to silence him. “How did he get out of the garage without being seen?”
“There was another door at the back. The neighbor told the police that.”
“But if he was that close, and out in the open trying to run away, the explosion would have killed him.”
“He knows how to direct blast. Remember the Buckner killing? He brought that building down exactly the way he wanted to, and he did the same with the garage.”
Dexter could contain himself no longer. “You saw him run into the garage, you saw it blow up. How can you of all people—”
“I’d alarmed him when I talked to him,” Harper said. “Given him too much time to prepare. When the cops arrived, he was ready. Knocked me into the drainage ditch where I’d be able to witness the show he was putting on.”
“Harper’s appearance was a serious threat to him,” Addleman said. “But he figured out how to turn it into an opportunity, like a master chess player. That’s Markman’s profile. We know this guy, Frances.”
Dexter said, in a bored and dismissive tone, “Tell us where you think Markman went.”
“He’s not far away from us right now,” Addleman replied, glancing out at the Washington Monument.
“Why wouldn’t he leave the country, if he’s such a careful planner? Go where he’s safest?”
“Safest?” Harper said. “He didn’t fake his death to be safe. He did it so he could complete the pattern. He has one more strike to make. The big one.”
Addleman nodded vigorously. His face was turning red with excitement. “Frances, come on. Markman’s still out there, more dangerous than ever. You can’t close the case just because you want to get it
over with.”
Frances straightened up. Her heavy lids lifted from her dark eyes and she glared at Addleman. Then she got control of herself. “I admit this investigation’s been an embarrassment for the Bureau. And for me personally.”
“Which is why you want it closed and forgotten as soon as possible,” Addleman said.
She remained calm, which impressed Harper. “There are other considerations, Harold, which you and Will have the luxury of not worrying about.”
“Political considerations, I’m sure,” scoffed Addleman.
“Of course they’re political. This is Washington. When the Aquila pattern was leaked, it shook people up, and they haven’t calmed down yet. If we now announce that the bomber might still be alive, a lot of senators and congresspeople are going to get seriously worried that they might be the next targets. And these are the people who vote on our budget. Cabinet members—even the Attorney General—would get worried too. You can’t imagine the kind of pressure we’d bring on ourselves if we waffled on the question of Markman being dead.”
“Waffled,” muttered Addleman, and shook his head.
“You know how many people in this building have been going without sleep for the last few weeks, working on this case? And it’s the same with the Secret Service. They were at the highest level of alert until we announced Markman was dead. Can you imagine how they’ll react if we go back to them and say we’re not sure?”
Addleman made a sweeping gesture. “None of this matters, Frances! Will you forget all the bureaucratic bullshit and listen to your gut instinct? Deep down, do you feel sure Markman is dead?”
Frances looked him in the eye and said, promptly and tonelessly, “Yes, I know he’s dead.”
Addleman laughed harshly. “Hey, you’ve learned to say the official line as if you mean it. That would be enough if this was a press conference. But it’s not. We’re all cops here.” He glanced sideways at Dexter. “Except I don’t know about this guy.”