USA, Inc. (A Mike Wardman Novel: Book 1)

by Larry Kahaner

  They sat on a boardwalk bench, shivering and looking out at the waves. Gulls dipped into the surf, leaving small splashes on their upswing. The rest of the year, bicycles and dogs were not permitted on the boardwalk, but from Memorial Day to Labor Day, all were allowed. Bikers and dog walkers coexisted peacefully as each group savored their new freedom of movement.

  “There’s a pattern here; we just don’t know it yet,” Mike said to Evelyn, who was eating French fries out of a paper cup. “It’s no coincidence that three commerce people were murdered while on the job. We know what your sister was doing, but what about the Judy Bee captain and the two surveyors? What’s the common thread?”

  “All we know is that they were out of their routines,” Evelyn said. “The surveyors each put in for days off, but were still surveying, and the Judy Bee was taking on contract work,” Evelyn said.

  Mike thought for a moment. “We need to talk to the wife of the surveyor. Buck …” He looked at his phone. “Walters. I read his personnel file, but let’s try his wife and see if she knows what he was working on. She’s already been interviewed by the FBI. I read the reports, and she gave them very little. But in my experience, spouses believe they may lose pension benefits if their loved one was involved in criminal activity, so they keep quiet. Come with me. Having a woman present can only help.”

  The Walters house sat on a small tract of land in Springfield, Virginia, a suburb south of Washington. Budding azalea bushes framed the modest brick rambler, and tall, thick oaks suggested the house’s advanced age. Mike rang the bell.

  “Never had a lawn,” Evelyn said, eyeing the fresh cut. “Seems like a lot of work.”

  Margaret Walters opened the door.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Walters. We’re the ones who telephoned,” Mike said. Instead of his badge, he offered her a business card. “This is my associate, Ms. Montclair. May we come in?”

  Margaret looked at Evelyn and smiled politely. She opened the door widely. “Yes, please do.”

  “We’re sorry for your loss, Mrs. Walters. We know that you’ve talked to other police officers, and we’re just another intrusion. To be quite honest, we’re at an impasse and could use your help.”

  “I’ve told the others everything I know,” she said.

  “We know,” Mike said gently. “But sometimes it just takes the right questions to jog a person’s memory.”

  She sat back, clasping her hands in her lap.

  “We know this is a rough time, but we’d like to see if there’s something you didn’t mention that could be of use.”

  “Like what?”

  “Did your husband mention taking on any side work?”

  “No.”

  “Had he done so in the past?”

  She hesitated. “He really didn’t discuss his work.”

  “Mrs. Walters—”

  “Call me Margaret.”

  “Of course. Margaret, everyone talks about their work, especially to their spouses. The only people who don’t talk about their work are crooks, and even they make up stories to tell their spouses so they don’t get suspicious.”

  Margaret straightened her back. “Buck was not a crook. He was a good man and always did his job. He never lied and he never cheated.” She patted her eyes with a tissue.

  “It’s important for you to know that no matter what your husband did or didn’t do on his days off, it has no effect on his pension. You will get everything that you’re entitled to.”

  Evelyn leaned forward in her chair. “I know how you’re feeling. My sister died recently, too. Like your husband, she was a dedicated civil servant who was killed on the job. The police believe that she may have been murdered by the same person who killed your husband.”

  The widow began to cry. “Buck, rest in peace, took on freelance work once in a while.” She relaxed her posture. “From time to time, Buck’s boss, Mr. Veach, would give him outside work. There was nothing wrong. He would handle it on his own time. There was never a conflict of interest. The extra money was a godsend. We have a granddaughter who needs extra medical care.” She pointed to several framed photos on an end table of a girl who looked about ten years old.”

  “Sweet girl,” said Evelyn. “What’s her name?”

  “Jennifer. Jenny.”

  “How often did your husband do these side jobs?” Mike asked.

  “Not very often. Maybe a half-dozen times a year.”

  “What did he say about the Pennsylvania trip?”

  “Buck never went into detail. One thing I do remember is that it was for someone in the government, not a private company.”

  “Was that unusual?”

  “Yes and no. He would sometimes talk about congressmen who wanted free land surveys. They make so much money, and they still want something for nothing. Can you believe that?”

  “Did Buck have his own surveying gear?”

  “He had his old equipment from college. It’s in the garage, but I don’t think he’d used it for years.”

  “May we see it?”

  She led them to the garage and pointed to the empty far corner. “He usually kept it right there. He must have taken it.”

  “Thanks so much for your time, Margaret. You’ve been a big help,” Mike said.

  He and Evelyn headed for the car. Before opening the door, Mike looked over the roof at Evelyn.

  “What?”

  “I just want to say that what you did inside doesn’t always work.”

  “You mean being honest with people, making a connection?”

  “Bonding like that. It’s an effective tactic most of the time, but it can backfire.”

  Evelyn shot him a glance.

  “What I mean to say is—”

  “Thank you?” Evelyn said, smiling.

  “Yes. Thank you.”

  Mike was quiet for the rest of the ride home, working to bury both a grin and his ego.

  Chapter 17

  “I already talked to the FBI,” Bernard Veach told Mike on the phone.

  “But you haven’t talked to me.”

  Mike heard him let out a sigh. “Can we meet outside of work?” Veach asked.

  “Name it.”

  “Come to my house around five P.M. I’m leaving early for a doctor’s appointment, and I’m going home from there.”

  Mike wrote down the address. He had a few hours to kill, so he went to headquarters in Silver Spring to update his boss on the investigation.

  “I understand that Hearst isn’t getting very far. I see the summaries of his reports, and it appears that nobody knows anything,” Burke said.

  “He’s a fuckup, but he’s not a complete idiot.”

  For the first time in a long while, Mike heard Burke raise his voice. “The secretary is on my ass about these killings. I brief him regularly, and he’s not seeing forward motion. Neither am I. And I don’t care what the FBI is doing or not doing, or who they have running the show. I want some action from our department.”

  Mike told him about the visit to Walters’ widow.

  He quieted down, steadied himself. “Mike, do you need anything from me?”

  “Just time.”

  • • •

  Mike drove to Veach’s house in Bethesda. He curved around the cul-de-sac and parked heading out. Habit. He walked up the driveway and did a double-take at the yellow Camaro with tinted windows, aluminum wheels, and a spoiler on the rear deck. Mike hadn’t pegged Veach as the sporty type; maybe he was working through a midlife crisis.

  The front door was ajar. That and the yellow Camaro was all it took. Mike reached for his gun for the fifth time in three years—the third time in two weeks.

  That’s when a figure blasted through the door, knocking Mike backward down the entryway steps. His elbow smacked hard, sending a jolt of pain through his body.

  Then another figure jumped over Mike, who still lay dazed on the floor.

  Two doors slammed shut and the Camaro burned rubber.

  Mike got to his feet
and ran to his Jeep. The yellow muscle car was already at the end of the street. Mike saw it swing left. He hopped in and took off. Within a few minutes, he had the car in sight. With tires squealing as they rounded the curves of quiet suburban streets, Mike kept up with his prey.

  Bastards.

  Children playing in the roadways jumped to manicured lawns as they heard the cars gunning toward them. With speeds approaching sixty, Mike spied a Montgomery County police cruiser in his rearview mirror.

  He was certain that the MoCo cop had never seen a NOAA police car in hot pursuit. Neither had Mike—ever seen one, nor ever been in hot pursuit.

  “Stand down.” Mike heard the cop’s commanding voice piped through the cruiser’s roof speaker. We got it.”

  Mike ignored the warning and kept pace. If anybody was going to catch these guys, it would be him.

  “Stand down,” the voice repeated.

  From the corner of his eye, Mike saw a second cruiser waiting on a side road, rollers lit, ready to enter.

  The Camaro headed toward the Washington Beltway, which ringed the city. Known officially as Interstate 495, the Beltway was composed of an inner and outer loop, a designation that confused even lifelong area residents.

  This ought to get interesting. Mike reached over, nabbed his belt, and buckled in.

  The Camaro led Mike and the caravan to Northern Virginia, the outer loop, hitting eighty-five miles per hour as Mike merged onto the four-lane highway. He thought of all the car chases in LA he had seen on television. This was a first for the Beltway.

  Mike wasn’t letting up. God knew what they’d done to Veach. Four MoCo cruisers and one state police car were now chasing after Mike and the Camaro. Even during the blooming rush hour, speeds hit ninety-five as cars scrambled out of the left lane to let the speedsters pass. Some of those giving way landed in the middle of the median; others overshot and found themselves in the opposite lanes. Others rammed into adjacent cars, depositing them willy-nilly along the roadway.

  Mike heard an NBC Chopper-4 overhead. This had just got real.

  The Cherokee was made for carrying marine gear and offering high clearances in the sand, not racing. Mike could feel the knobby tires try to grip the road then slide at the slightest twitch of the steering wheel as it approached triple digits.

  The Camaro changed lanes constantly to fill void as the deadly procession weaved its way over the American Legion Bridge, spanning the Potomac River into Virginia. Mike copied its every move.

  He rammed a black Subaru that had nosed too far into his lane. He hit the car’s front end, and in his rearview mirror saw it do a half spin and stop dead with a cloud of smoke rising from the hood. The following cruiser hit the derelict car in the rear and spun it again the other way.

  Mike grew more determined with every car he saw become highway debris.

  He didn’t know it, but ten miles ahead, a Virginia state police officer had begun setting out tire spikes along the roadway. The plan was to funnel traffic off the Beltway before the trap and, without traffic to impede their progress, the Camaro would surely drive over the spikes and apprehension would follow. At least, that was the plan.

  Mike stayed with the Camaro as it passed roadblocks in the right lanes from police emptying the road. Now, with no one else on the four-lane, the Camaro’s speed increased as it headed toward the spikes. Mike’s speedometer read a hundred and ten, and keeping his vehicle on the pavement grew even more difficult. Several times, Mike could feel the hulky, top-heavy Jeep hit its tipping point as the wheels on one side left the ground. He stayed upright by sheer good fortune.

  Nobody took notice of one particular person standing with all the other gawkers on the overpass, waiting for the chase to reach them. With all eyes trained on the roadway below, nobody saw him casually remove a Magnum revolver from his coat, stick the barrel through the wire fence, and pull the trigger just as the yellow car passed below.

  Mike was inches from the Camaro when it suddenly fishtailed, went wildly off the road, and crashed into a twenty-foot-high concrete sound barrier.

  Mike slid his car to a stop on the dirt. He jumped from his Jeep, pistol drawn, pointing at the sports car.

  “Get out of the car!” Mike screamed. “Driver, let me see your hands!”

  No response.

  Coming from behind, he quickly crept along the side of the car and peered into the side mirror. He could see the driver leaning on the window. He opened the door and the driver fell to the ground, head first, his legs hooked on the seat.

  He looked at the passenger seat—empty.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the other cop cars approaching, seconds away.

  Mike peered over the roof and spied a steel door in the concrete sound barrier used by maintenance people. He ran to the door, turned the knob, and pulled the door toward him, all the time training his weapon ahead.

  Nothing but woods appeared in front of him. He looked down and saw drops of blood on the fallen leaves.

  Mike took a deep breath and ran through the portal, following the blood trail. It led up a hill into a cluster of older homes. He looked behind him to see if anyone else was following, but he was alone. No backup yet.

  He followed the red drops, which now were turning into splats. The passenger was bleeding out. Running was the last thing he should have been doing.

  Mike stood still, listening for the man’s movements—crunching leaves, breaking branches, anything that would be a sign of his direction. He heard nothing, indicating the man had cleared the woods and was on the road above. Or maybe he was inside one of the houses. How had he moved so fast? Mike continued to climb through the brush until he reached the back of a neighborhood. He eyed a backyard with swings, a patch of neatly cut lawn, and a brick patio. Mike called on his walkie-talkie, ordering dispatch to relay his position and status to the other police agencies. One individual, injured, no description, no direction of travel, was all he could offer.

  Mike walked to the front of the house and surveyed the street. It was empty save a woman driving a minivan.

  She called to Mike, “What’s going on?”

  Before he could answer, five county police cars converged on his position. The woman, now terrified, froze in place, hands gripping the steering wheel.

  “Where do you live, ma’am?” one of the officers yelled.

  She was so nervous that she could barely speak. She weakly pointed to a blue house across the street and said, “There. I’m going to pick up my kids from school.”

  By now, both sides of the street had been blocked off and officers were going house to house.

  “Step out of the vehicle,” an officer screamed. She complied, but could barely stand up, her legs having turned to rubber. The officer’s large arm herded her to the curb.

  While another officer opened the back door, still another trained his gun inside. He lifted a blanket and saw blood on the rug. “Got something.”

  Mike ran over and studied the bloody fabric. He probably hid in the back of the minivan until he heard all the sirens, and then he escaped.

  Just then, something caught his attention. He studied the line of homes, the sidewalk, the street. Most of the houses had their trash and recycle cans neatly lined up by the curb. Halfway down the street, that neat pattern abruptly ended, and the cans were facing every which way—the trash truck had stopped collecting mid-block. Why? Mike had never known a trash man who put the cans back neatly in their rush to move to the next customer.

  “Need to borrow your vehicle,” Mike yelled to the MoCo cop still staring at the back of the minivan. Before he could answer, Mike jumped in his cruiser and took off, rubber scorching the pavement. He could barely hear the officer scream. Even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered. Mike knew where the second man was and he sped to catch him.

  He crisscrossed the neighborhood at top speed, searching for the trash truck. Several blocks over, he saw it. Instead of trying to overtake it, he hung back, knowing that the gunma
n was holding the driver, and probably his partner, hostage. Let them think they had made their getaway. At least the two trash collectors would be safe for a while longer.

  Mike was half-right. The driver indeed was jumpy about all the police cars in the area, but what really made him nervous was his own partner lying in the garbage pile inside the truck and the injured man sitting next to him holding a gun.

  Friggin’ Jack poked a pistol into the driver’s ribs. “Keep driving. Don’t stop until I tell you.” He looked in the side mirror and saw the patrol car. “If he suspects anything, you’re dead.”

  Mike put even more distance between him and the truck. He heard a siren. Two cruisers were approaching from behind. The truck sped up.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” someone hollered over the radio. Mike grabbed the microphone. “The Camaro passenger is in the truck. He’s got hostages. Break it off or he’ll kill them.”

  “Did you see them?” the voice asked.

  “No, but I’m sure of it.”

  “Are you the NOAA agent?”

  “Ten four.”

  “Aren’t you out of your jurisdiction, asshole?”

  “Look, if you don’t break it off, they’re dead.”

  Before the cop could answer, the truck sped up, careening around turns and running cars off the road with its huge bulk.

  “For the third time today, we’re telling you to stand down.”

  And for the third time today, Mike ignored the request.

  From out of nowhere, a black Suburban appeared and tried to push the truck off the road. It was no match, and the SUV was flicked aside, barely keeping upright after swaying back and forth. Chunks of garbage flew out of the back of the truck—cans, newspapers, plastics bags. Then a leg, cut off at the thigh, bloody and raw.

  An Iraq vet, Mike was no stranger to seeing disconnected limbs blown by IEDs. The sight only made Mike more determined not to let this motherfucker get away. The guy was just picking up garbage, for God’s sake.