by Clancy, Tom
Not that it mattered. He had learned what he needed to learn.
Mike Rodgers was not an ally. And if he was not an ally, then moderate or not, war hero notwithstanding, there was only one thing he could be: an enemy.
FORTY-FIVE
San Diego, California Wednesday, 1:16 P.M.
When Mike Rodgers was thirteen years old, a local Connecticut YMCA organized chess games against a local grand master. Rodgers got to play one of those games, and won. The reason he won was simple: apart from knowing how to move the pieces, Rodgers had no concept of chess strategy. As his opening move, he developed the pawn that sat in relative anonymity in front of the queen’s rook. He liked rooks—or castles, as he preferred to call them. That sounded more militaristic. He liked their sweep, their power. He wanted to get them out of their corner and ready for the fray. The grand master responded with Sokolsky’s opening. But Rodgers’s unorthodox move, located so far from the center of the board, unbalanced virtually every classic attack pattern for black. The grand master resigned the match after sixteen chaotic moves.
As Rodgers knocked at Kat’s door, he had to admit that what Eric Stone had just mounted was the clumsiest, most amateurish psy-ops probe he had ever experienced. In and of itself, it made Rodgers doubt that these people could be responsible for any kind of conspiracy. Yet, in a way, that was also what made them dangerous. They fit no profiles. They were unpredictable.
Kat answered the door. She was impatient, from her eyes to the cock of her hips. “Yes, General?”
“I need to talk to you,” he said. He walked around her and entered the room.
“By all means,” she said sarcastically. “Come in.”
“Sorry, but I did not want to stand there discussing this with Eric Stone watching and possibly listening.”
Kat let the door shut. “Why would Eric be listening? Could it be he is worried that you’re a loose cannon, dangerous to have at the convention?”
“No. He thinks I am concealing information. And he’s right.”
“What information?”
“That Detective Howell is being framed, and Stone may be involved in that,” Rodgers said.
“Framed how, and to do what?”
“He was tipped off to be at your apartment,” Rodgers said. “As for how—about fifteen years ago, he had an affair with a fellow coast guard cadet.”
“So he’s gay. Who cares?”
“That isn’t quite the entirety of it,” Rodgers said. “The other young man obviously had second thoughts and claimed he was seduced. Howell took the rap. Because Howell had seniority, the affair was deemed consensual by virtue of force majeure, a mild reprimand, but it went on Howell’s psych profile, which was sealed.”
“Until someone opened it.”
“Yes,” Rodgers said. “Someone who had access to military files.”
“Meaning Admiral Link.”
“Perhaps,” Rodgers admitted. “Since I doubt the admiral would tell us whether this is true, there is only one way to find out. We have to ask Detective Howell.”
“Why do you need me to do that?” Kat asked.
“I am not convinced he is playing entirely on Op-Center’s side,” Rodgers said. “If I call him, he probably won’t say anything. If you call, he may. Especially if you call saying that you decline to press charges against Darrell McCaskey and his wife.”
“Why would I do that?” Kat asked. “They broke into my apartment.”
“They did not really have a choice,” Rodgers pointed out. “They thought you might be involved in this.”
“And now they don’t? You don’t?”
“I am hoping you are not,” Rodgers said. “This would be a good way to strengthen that hope.”
“You know, I was supposed to be downstairs five minutes ago, meeting with reporters about the campaign,” she said. “But you made me so upset I couldn’t even do that. Now you want me to help you with this mad chase of yours. I really wish all of this would just go away.”
“Me, too,” Rodgers said. “I was supposed to be downstairs auditioning for secretary of defense. Instead, I’m up here begging you to help me fight a battle that is not even mine.”
“Nor mine, General,” Kat said. With an angry huff she walked to the bed and fished her cell phone from under her coat. “Let’s be done with this damn thing. What is Howell’s number?”
Rodgers pointed to the phone on the night table. “Would you mind using that one, on speaker? I would like to hear.”
“Fine,” she said. “Why the hell not? Let’s really humiliate the guy.”
Rodgers gave her the main switchboard of the Metro Police, which was the only one he knew. They put her through.
“Detective Howell, this is Kat Lockley,” she said. “I’m on a speaker phone. General Mike Rodgers of Op-Center is here with me.”
She made a point of emphasizing Op-Center, to show the general that she did not consider him to be on her team. Rodgers had taken many rough knocks in his career. He would survive this one.
“Ms. Lockley, I was going to call you,” Howell said. “I suppose you have heard we found two Op-Center agents in your apartment. We arrested them for breaking and entering.”
“Yes. I do not think I want to press charges, however,” she said.
“Pardon me?”
“We can discuss that later. Right now, the general feels there is something more important we need to talk about.”
“What is that?”
“Please excuse me for asking, Detective, but General Rodgers says he has reason to believe that you are being blackmailed.”
There was a long, guilty hesitation. Kat looked at Rodgers. She was sitting on the pillows beside the nightstand, and he was standing at the foot of the bed. The distance had seemed vast a few moments ago. Now it evaporated.
“General, I have another call,” Howell said. “Can you give me a moment?”
“I can.”
Whether there was or was not another caller did not matter. Rodgers gave him the “moment.” Howell returned in under half a minute.
“What makes you think I’m being blackmailed?” Howell asked.
“Are you?” Rodgers asked.
“Would you answer my question, sir?”
“We wondered about the snare Mr. and Mrs. McCaskey walked into,” Rodgers said. “The timing was too neat. Someone went to the apartment with evidence to frame Ms. Lockley, our team entered, then you showed up.”
“You assume we were not watching the apartment.”
“If you were, you would have nabbed the first person who went in,” Rodgers pointed out.
“General, this is not a conversation I wish to have.”
“I understand,” Rodgers said. “But you have to understand something as well. Op-Center was attacked. A coworker died—”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Others have died as well. We are going to stop this. I do not have to tell you what will happen if you are implicated in any way.”
There was a soft snicker on the other end. “Who was the one just asking me about blackmail?”
“This is internal affairs followed by due process,” Rodgers said. “That’s very different.”
“Detective, I have always thought highly of you. I need you to tell me something, truthfully,” Kat said suddenly. “Is General Rodgers hallucinating, or am I the one who is not seeing reality? Am I involved with bad people?”
For the third time, Detective Howell was silent. Kat’s brow creased, and her mouth sagged at the edges. Rodgers shifted his eyes to the painting over the bed. It was a lithograph of a Spanish vessel in San Diego Bay when it was still a Spanish settlement. There were people gathered onshore as a bumboat approached. The name of the painting was Aguardar Noticias Del Hogar.
Awaiting News from Home.
Rodgers marveled at how different the world was, how different life was, when people had to wait weeks for an answer to a question like that. It was the reason men of great wisdom
and even greater instinct had to be put in the field.
“I think that answers my question,” Kat said sullenly.
“Detective, talk to us,” Rodgers said. “If Ms. Lockley is correct, let us help. Whatever this is, we can fix it.”
“No,” Howell said. “I made my choices. I will live with them. But I do want you to know that I had no idea Op-Center was going to get hit.”
“Did the same people do it?” Rodgers pressed.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“What do you know?” Kat asked.
“Only that someone, a man, phoned one day.”
“When?” Rodgers asked.
“Two and a half weeks ago. He had information about my service record that could have ended my police career if it were revealed. I was told the information would be removed from my record if I cooperated.”
“What did this cooperation entail?” Rodgers asked.
“He didn’t say,” Howell replied.
Of course not, Rodgers thought. That might have made him an accomplice to murder, far less desirable than a career scandal. “What did he ask for when he did say?” Rodgers asked.
There was a final silence, but it was brief. “At first, just a level-one autopsy,” Howell replied.
“What is that?” Kat asked.
“The body goes in and out, no fine-tooth comb,” Howell said. “Your people wanted Wilson off the slab and out of the country, Ms. Lockley. They said it was to get attention from the senator as soon as possible. That sounded reasonable. It was apparently a heart attack. I saw no harm in helping to rush things along.”
“You said ‘at first,’ ” Rodgers pointed out.
“Yeah. I did that one as a favor. Then your Mr. McCaskey came along and found out it was murder,” Howell said. “At that point, I had already committed a departmental infraction. I might have been able to smooth that one over. But then they hit me with the other thing.”
“The service record,” Kat said.
“This is a scary town,” Howell said. “You both know that. I did not want to end up a small-town sheriff somewhere, and I hoped—no, I prayed—that Darrell McCaskey could smoke these boys out.”
“He still can,” Rodgers said. “Ms. Lockley isn’t pressing charges. Let him go. Help him.”
“How?”
“That depends. Did you get the sense that these crimes were part of a larger operation?”
“Probably,” Howell said. “They told me I would be informed when my ‘interface,’ as they put it, was no longer required. I received no such notification.”
“So more killings may be planned,” Rodgers said. “Detective, are you able to contact them?”
“No. I don’t even know who I was talking to. Their ID was blocked.”
“It was someone who had access to your service record,” Rodgers said.
“Correct.”
“So that means it could have been Link,” Rodgers said. He did not think the admiral was the point man, however. That would be too risky. “When was the last time you spoke with this person?”
“Just now,” Howell said. “He wanted to know if anyone had been asking about the case.”
“How recently is ‘just now’?” Rodgers asked.
“Right before you called,” Howell said. “I hung up on him to talk to you.”
Rodgers felt a chill. It was not fear. It was like an electrical current flowing along his neck as his brain started making connections. He wished that he had a firearm. Or an EM bomb, something that would shut everything down until he could have a thorough look around.
“Detective, did you tell the man that we were on the other line?” Rodgers asked.
“Yes,” Howell replied. “He asked.”
“All right. I need two favors, Detective,” Rodgers said. “I need you to release the McCaskeys.”
“I cannot do that without the proper documents,” Howell said. “I will fax them to Ms. Lockley—”
“There is no time for that,” Rodgers protested. “Come on, Detective. You know they are not criminals. Call it a false arrest and let them go. Say they had permission to be on the premises.”
“They did,” Kat said impulsively. “I said it was okay.”
“All right,” Howell said. “What is the second favor?”
“If your guy calls back, try to find out who he is,” Rodgers said. He started moving toward the door. “Let Darrell know.”
“I will,” Howell said.
“Thanks. Talk to you later.”
Kat terminated the call as Rodgers jogged along the short entranceway. He stopped by the front door and listened. He heard nothing. Kat had followed. She stood at the other end of the small hallway.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. I want you to stay here,” Rodgers said.
“Why?”
“Because I’m going out, and there may be trouble,” Rodgers said. “If there is, I need someone who can bail me out.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“I have no idea,” Rodgers said as he cracked the door. “But there is one thing I do know. What happened in Washington was just the preliminary. The big show is going to be here.”
FORTY-SIX
Washington, D.C. Wednesday, 4:42 P.M.
There is an impunity that comes with being onceremoved from danger. A lock on the door. A police officer on the beat. A man of influence standing between you and those who want to hurt you.
In each case, it is an illusion. Darrell McCaskey knew that from his years at the FBI. He was betting that the young and inexperienced Lucy O’Connor did not. Before the afternoon was over, she would.
McCaskey and his wife had been released from the holding cell at the First District Substation. Detective Howell personally drove them to their car, which had been taken to the DMV impound lot at 65 K Street NE. The detective called ahead to have it released and waiting.
Howell was surprisingly forthcoming about what had happened. McCaskey felt as though he had suddenly been drafted as father confessor. Not that he minded, as long as he did not have to keep any of the intelligence a secret.
McCaskey did not judge the man. Fear and selfpreservation always colored people’s reactions. On the FBI he had seen countless crimes of passion that were conceived, executed, and regretted within the space of five minutes. That did not absolve the perpetrator, but McCaskey understood the drive.
McCaskey was sitting beside his wife in the backseat of Howell’s car. When the detective was finished, McCaskey asked him what he expected in exchange for his cooperation.
“A way back out,” Howell said plaintively.
“That may not be so easy. When we get these people, you know they will finger you,” McCaskey pointed out.
“I know they’ll try,” the detective said. “I’ve been thinking. I can pretty much cover my own actions. If you two will say that I was working undercover and feeding you information from the start, that will neutralize their charges.”
“When you cornered us in the apartment, you did not give us the option to explain things to you,” Maria said angrily.
“They had me on a leash,” Howell said. “I’m sorry.”
“If General Rodgers did not call, we would be standing in front of your district attorney right now instead of driving to our car,” she went on.
“I would have found a way to make this go away,” Howell said.
“You say that as if it is an upset stomach,” Maria said. “This would have been with us the rest of our lives.”
“Yes, but in fairness, you did enter the woman’s apartment unlawfully.”
“We picked a lock to get a leg-up on something big and ugly,” McCaskey interjected. “On the Richter scale of crimes, that is one point zero.”
“Look, I already said I screwed up,” Howell told him. “Hell, I screwed up in the military, too, which is what got me in this fix. What I did then wasn’t even a crime. The tribunal made it one to give some punk kid absol
ution for feeling guilty about consensual sex.”
“A punk kid,” Maria said. “You mean a boy? A man?”
Howell nodded as they pulled up to the lot. “I took the hit for him because I knew what he was going through. I cared about him. I could have appealed the decision, but I didn’t. Then these bastards dig it out and throw it back at me. I felt—only for a moment, but that was long enough—that I had earned myself a free pass for one future misdeed. This one. If I thought it would grow into what it did, I would never have agreed to help them. It was wrong. If you help me, I can make amends through continued public service. I’ve done a damn good job till now. If not, I’ll atone in prison, which doesn’t help anyone.” He looked back at McCaskey. “The blue line, Darrell. Stick with me on this one. Please.”
McCaskey opened the door and stepped out. He walked around to the driver’s side. Howell rolled down the window.
“If I did what you asked, I would not be able to look Mac McCallie’s widow in the eyes,” McCaskey told him. “I will fight for you, Detective, I promise. But I will not lie for you.”
Howell’s face flushed, but he did not reply. He simply rolled up the window and drove away.
Maria took her husband’s hand. “You did the right thing,” she said. “I am proud of you.”
“Boy, I wish that made it all better.” He sighed. He watched the detective’s car as it turned the corner.
As afraid as Howell had been when he made that decision, McCaskey imagined it faded to insignificance beside the fear and loneliness he was feeling now. He wished there had been another way out. Maybe he should have bucked it up to Paul.
“Or maybe he should have behaved himself,” Maria said.
“What?”
“I know you,” Maria said. “You are standing there wishing this all could have been different. Detective Howell made his choices. People died. He has to live with the consequences.”
“I know,” McCaskey said. “You know, I love what I do, but I there are times I hate what I have to do.”
Maria gripped his hand more tightly and gave him a quick, reassuring smile.
The couple went and got their car. They nosed into the thickening traffic of rush hour.