by Clancy, Tom
The flight from Washington had been routine. Routine for Rodgers, anyway. That invariably meant planning for conflict. The difference was that for the first time in his life, he was sizing up Americans. He was talking to Kat Lockley, trying to find out what she knew and what she might be hiding. Either she was very good at deception, or she was very innocent. He could not decide which. He was hoping it was the latter. In fact, he hoped this entire thing turned out to be a misunderstanding of some sort. Being away from Washington made him inherently less distrustful. The murderer of William Wilson was probably a former lover or a business rival. The EM attack on Op-Center may have been long planned, the timing coincidental. He still believed it was executed by a group or nation the NCMC had crossed. At least, Rodgers wanted to believe that. One of the failures of Homeland Security was that it presumed when the moat was drawn, only good guys remained in the castle.
Kat planted her ear to her cell phone the instant she left the plane. She said she had to talk to Eric Stone and to Kendra to see how everything was going. The senator had no plans for that morning. The convention opened in the evening, but the senator’s big night was not until the next day. He would make a speech and then, on Friday, the convention would select a candidate. Kat said she wanted to make sure that everything was going as planned.
Rodgers walked away from where Kat was sitting. He went to a quiet corner at an empty gate and stood with his back against a wall. It felt good to stand after being in the crowded plane. People were rushing about, but the general felt disconnected from their urgency. He had always felt that way in combat, too. There was a tightrope strung between himself and the outcome, with potential enemies everywhere. He had to be very attentive to each step. This investigation was like that in a way because of what the outcome meant to him personally and professionally. Rodgers felt apprehensive as he punched in the number. He did not think Darrell or Maria was calling to find out if Kat had told him anything. Rodgers would have called from a phone on the airplane if he had intel. The call probably meant the McCaskeys had information for him. Maybe they had found the killer, an angry former employee or maltreated valet.
The information Darrell had was not what Mike Rodgers wanted to hear.
“A woman from your circle was at the second crime scene,” McCaskey told him. “The time is right, and she was wearing a dress that matches the color of fibers found in the room.”
Since this was an unsecured line, McCaskey would not tell Rodgers how he found that out, but the former FBI agent was a conservative man; he would not have made such a conclusive statement if he weren’t sure.
“Who is it?” Rodgers asked.
“The reporter.”
Lucy O’Connor. Rodgers felt relief, doubt, and renewed concern in quick succession. The relief was because the killer appeared to be outside the group. The doubt was because it seemed unlikely Lucy would have conceived the one murder alone, let alone a second murder and possibly the bombing of Op-Center. In the little time he had spent with Lucy, she did not seem to have the patience for murder. And concern because, if all that were true, Lucy had to be in league with someone. That still did not clear Link or his people.
“What about the hat with the big brim?” Rodgers asked. “Is that a match?”
“Not worn in this image,” McCaskey said. “But it could have been stuffed into a shoulder bag.”
That made sense. If she were caught on a security camera outside, there would be one less element to connect her to images from the hotel.
“What do you want me to do?” Rodgers asked.
“I think you should tell your traveling companion and see how she reacts,” McCaskey said.
“I agree. We leave for San Diego in less than an hour. I’ll try to call back before then.”
Rodgers hung up. He flipped the phone shut and started walking toward Kat. She was still sitting there, her eyes fixed on nothing, her index finger in her open ear as she talked on the phone, conducting her business. But which business? And how was he going to find out? He was a soldier, not Morley Safer.
The seat beside Kat was open. Rodgers took it. She did not attempt to conceal what she was saying.
“. . . only CNN talks to him before the press conference. That’s the deal we made for a prime-time spot,” Kat was saying. She was silent for a moment, her shoulders straight and stiff, her mouth a tight, unemotional line. Then she said, “I understand, Diane. But Larry was the only one who offered that. What about this: you get the first talk with the ticket. I would want ten minutes in the eight o’clock hour of the morning show.” She was silent again. “Yes, an exclusive sit-down at the senator’s home in Georgetown.” Kat smiled slightly as she listened. “Good. I will present it to the senator, but I am certain it will be okay. Thanks. Say hi to Mike.” Kat punched the Off button and slumped into the seat. “Well, this is what I worked for. Now I’ve got it.”
“What is that?”
“A hungry press,” Kat replied. “Before Wilson, Senator Orr was only on the radar of the all-news networks. Now everyone wants him, especially if they can shoot at the party house.”
“Lucky break for us,” Rodgers said.
Kat looked over. “I’m too busy for sarcasm.”
“Okay. Let’s try it straight up.” Kat had given him a clean shot, and he decided to take it. Maybe that was the best way. “What do you say to Lucy O’ Connor being at the Hay-Adams when Wilson was murdered?”
“I would say she was trying to get an interview,” Kat replied. She speed-dialed another number.
“Or maybe trying to make news,” Rodgers suggested.
“What are you talking about?”
Rodgers looked around to make sure no one was listening. For all he knew, Lucy O’Connor had been on their flight. “There is an image of Lucy leaving the Hay-Adams shortly after the murder. The dress she had on is the same color as the one the assassin was wearing.”
Kat terminated the call. “That hardly makes her a killer or even an accomplice,” she said. “Maybe they bought it off the same rack.”
“That’s a reach,” Rodgers said.
“So is your idea of what constitutes a murder suspect,” Kat said. “You’ve got a hungry reporter. A reclusive newsmaker. Of course she would be at the hotel after the party, trying to intercept him.”
“You’re defending her pretty adamantly,” Rodgers observed.
“This is America. Lucy is still innocent. Besides, she doesn’t deserve to be pilloried. Nor does Senator Orr,” Kat said.
“Is that what you think is happening?” Rodgers asked.
“Yes. You or someone at Op-Center has obviously made up their minds that we are guilty of murder, or worse.”
“No one has made that determination,” Rodgers told her. “This is an investigation.”
“Yours or Op-Center’s?”
“Until my resignation takes effect, I am working for Op-Center by assignment and command of the undersecretary, Department of Defense Security Cooperation Agency,” Rodgers replied.
“Then I suggest you get back to Washington and complete your assignment there,” Kat said.
“For the record, I have spent most of my career in the field, protecting America and the rights of its citizens. I have condemned no one, either openly or in here,” Rodgers tapped his right temple. “You, on the other hand, have made up your mind that I am out to get you. If that were true, I would have turned this over to Paul Hood and his bulldogs.”
Kat’s expression returned to neutral. She looked at her phone and tapped it in her open palm. “It sounded like an attack,” she said.
“I’m a soldier. A lot of things I say come out like that.”
“Not always.” The young woman regarded Rodgers. Neutrality suddenly looked more like exhaustion. “General—Mike—I really don’t know about what Lucy did or did not do. And I do not want to be defensive. It’s just this whole thing has been a distraction at the worst possible time. Part of me believes it was designed that way by a
person or group that does not want to see the senator become president or even have a voice in this election.”
“Do you have any idea who that might be?”
“Sure. Every lobbyist and politician from the center to the left. Political rivals like Senator Debenport and Governor Jimmy Phyfe of Ohio, both of whom want President Lawrence’s job.”
“Do you have specific information that either of those men may be involved in the assassination?” Rodgers asked. “If you do, even if it’s just a suspicion, this would be the time to tell me.”
“There are rumors that Debenport and Lawrence are using the presidency to attract allies for partisan activities, but we have no proof of that,” Kat told him. “Anything you can imagine is possible in Washington, but I don’t even want to believe that.”
Rodgers had always felt like a resistance fighter, risking his life to stop oppression. At the moment he felt like a collaborator, dirty and small. He moved closer. “You just said that anything you can imagine is possible. I have never done a lot of abstract thinking, Kat. I look at maps, at facts, at logistics. Since this thing started, I have been taking one small step at a time, just as I did whenever I led a unit against an enemy position. The difference is, I am accustomed to knowing who my opponent is. This is new ground for me and for Op-Center.”
“For all of us,” Kat said. “I have never been part of a murder investigation.”
“At least your involvement is peripheral at best,” Rodgers pointed out. “For that matter, the spotlight is on Lucy now, not any of your coworkers.”
“I still do not believe she had anything to do with it.”
“Why? Talk to me.”
“Let me ask you something first,” she said. “You’ve killed people. What does it take to do that?”
“Unless you’re a textbook sociopath, all it takes is the first kill to commit the second and third,” Rodgers told her.
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s like skydiving or eating snake,” Rodgers said. “You’ve already made the determination that it’s something you need to do. What you need then is something to kick you over your gag reflex. One of my Strikers, Corporal Pat Prementine, had to think of a high school bully he hated the first time he lobbed a grenade.”
“What did it take for you?”
“Economy.”
“What?”
“Two weeks after I arrived, my platoon was doing recon in the southern region of the Central Plateau,” Rodgers said. “We bumped into a large ’Cong encampment. They tried to surround us, and we knew we would have to punch hard and fast to secure an exit route. I was ordered to hunker down behind a rank-smelling tree trunk and cover a small clearing. I did. My soles were deep in muck, bugs crawled over my boots, and I was hot as hell. I heard gunfire start to crack in sporadic bursts. It was a hollow, distant, lonely noise that shut all the birds and insects up. I never experienced such silence once the shooting started. I knew the guys with guns would be coming my way soon enough, and I had to face the fact that I could die. I was okay with that. I made mental good-byes and said some quiet I-love-yous to my folks. While I was doing that, I saw an opportunistic target. Five ’Cong moved into position about two hundred yards away. They did not see me. I remember staring along my M1 thinking it wasn’t fair to clock them from hiding, without warning. I even thought, Hell. This is their home. What business do I have shooting them? Then I saw one of them pull a bamboo stick grenade from a pouch. That was highly explosive, very deadly ordnance. I couldn’t see our guys, but obviously Charlie could. Otherwise, he would not be going for the grenade. And at that moment it hit me. If I tag him, he’ll drop the pestle—that’s what the grenade looked like, a pharmacist’s pestle—and it will blow all five of them to snake food. The’Cong were crouching, and this guy stuck his head up for a last look. I had done the math, it worked, and I took the shot. It was clean, through his temple. The other four guys shouted and scrambled, I ducked behind the tree, and the pestle blew. I sat there with my back against the damp trunk as the smoke and the sharp smell of the explosive charge rolled by. I held my breath so I didn’t start to cough and reveal my position to any backup they might have had. After about a minute, I swung around to look at the clearing. I saw a couple of ’Cong crawling through the smoke to try to find whoever had fired the shot. I picked them off.”
“The second group was easier to kill?”
“Not just easier. Easy. Once you cross that line, you’re not worried about damnation anymore.”
“Like women and sex, I guess,” Kat said.
“Killing. The male virginity,” Rodgers said.
“Do you regret that experience?”
“How can I?” Rodgers asked. “It allowed me to do my job in Vietnam, in the Persian Gulf, and at Op-Center.”
“A job whose legitimacy you questioned the first time you did it,” the woman pointed out.
“I was nineteen.”
“That did not make you wrong,” Kat said.
“Okay,” Rodgers said. “Now I’m the one who doesn’t understand. Are you justifying what Lucy may have been involved in?”
“No. I’m questioning what appears to be your own convenient morality. Killing is okay in the first person, if you do it, but not if someone else does it.”
Rodgers had opened himself up to Kat, hoping she would do the same. He had not expected that response. He also did not appreciate it.
“You’re looking at me like I’m holding a pestle in a clearing,” Kat said.
“No. You already lobbed it,” he replied.
“Touché,” she said. “It was not my intention to attack you. I’m just trying to understand what drives the man who may be the next secretary of defense. But we’re obviously getting ahead of ourselves. I do not know about Lucy O’Connor’s activities that night, and I do not believe she is capable of what happened at the hotel or at Op-Center. I can only suggest that your people talk to her.”
“I am sure they will,” Rodgers said.
There was a poorly concealed threat in her comment about “getting ahead of ourselves.” If Rodgers did not join the team, he would become a free agent.
“So where does that leave us?” Kat asked as she picked up the phone.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I feel like I’ve crossed a line here, but this is an unusual situation.”
“I agree,” Kat said. She crossed her legs and moved her right foot anxiously. “Let me make this really simple, because I still have calls to make. I want this relationship to work. You’re an exceptional man, and you would be a great asset to the party and to our team. But the core group should be able to watch out for each other. We should not have to watch each other.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Rodgers said. “That’s why I said I am not sure where this leaves us.” The way Kat was sitting then reminded him of seeing her on the bar stool at the Equinox in Washington. Her foot bouncing as it did now, Kat wired at the end of a long and stressful day. How much different the world and his own future seemed just a few days ago.
“You should let Admiral Link know,” Kat said. “That’s only fair.”
“Sure. Just one more question, though,” Rodgers said. “What would you do if you found out someone in the core group was behind this?”
“You’re really pushing me, General.”
“Would you watch their back?” he demanded.
“Until they were proven guilty, yeah,” she replied. “This is America.” She went back to her cell phone.
Rodgers walked over to a refreshment stand and ordered a black coffee. Thinking about the Equinox dislodged something in his memory. Something that had not seemed unusual at the time but did now. Rodgers took his black coffee and went back to the corner of the empty gate. He sat down, sipped the coffee for a moment, then took out his own cell phone. He called Darrell.
There was something Rodgers needed him to check.
Fast.
FORTY-ONE
Washingto
n, D. C. Wednesday, 1:29 P.M.
Darrell McCaskey was in the car with his wife. They were about to get onto 395 when McCaskey’s phone beeped. It was Mike Rodgers. The general asked if anything was new.
“Maria and I just did a UPS on the reporter,” McCaskey told him. “Her apartment, her car, and the radio station were clean.” A UPS was an unsanctioned prescreen, meaning the two Op-Center agents had a look around without the benefit of a search warrant. That was necessary when law enforcement did not want an individual or group to know that new evidence had surfaced. Op-Center wanted time to get agents on her trail. Until then they wanted to make sure she continued talking to the same people as before. “We’ve got the Metro cops picking through the dump right now, looking for signs of the dress. We were about to join them.”
“I don’t think they’ll find it,” Rodgers said.
“Talk to me,” McCaskey said.
“The night after the murder, I had dinner with my traveling companion,” Rodgers told him. He was being nonspecific because of the unsecure line. “When I got there, she was talking with your target. My companion had a shopping bag. She told me it contained comfortable shoes, Nikes, which she never put on. She is wearing high heels now as well. I’m thinking—”
“She may have given her the dress for disposal after I exposed the crime,” McCaskey said.
“Correct.”
“That was the night of the second crime,” McCaskey said.
“Also right.”
“Got a name on that shopping bag?” McCaskey asked.
“Grove burn,” Rodgers said. “Yellow plastic, red rope handles.”
“We’ll look into it at once,” McCaskey said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and find the hypodermic there as well.” He turned the car around and headed toward Kat’s apartment on the corner of New Hampshire and N Street. “One more thing. What is her attitude about all of this, Mike?”