by Gene Riehl
Good thing she’d stolen an SUV, Sung Kim told herself. She jogged to the big black car, started the engine and drove over to within a few feet of the guards. Moments later she had them in the back of the Explorer. She looked at the area where they’d lain. Al had bled when she kicked him in the face, and that could be a problem. She checked the floor, found the blood spatters, used her ski mask to rub them away. She scuffed the area with her boots, but ignored the scatter of tiny white disks that stretched away into the gloom. By the time anyone figured out what they were, it would no longer make any difference.
FORTY-THREE
At her desk in the Squad 7 bullpen on the fourth floor at WFO, Lisa suddenly remembered that she’d forgotten to call Puller about tonight, to tell him she’d be late again—more of the hundreds of leads that had resulted from the discovery of C4 at Dulles and Baltimore the other night—and that he should grab something for dinner before he came home.
She dialed his cell phone and got a busy signal. She returned to the work on her desk, finished dictating another of the endless number of FD-302s stemming out of the C4 case. This one had been the manager of the trucking company that had delivered the DVDs from Dulles Airport to dozens of electronics stores around the District and into Maryland. Another 302 with nothing but failure, but no less important because of it. There was no great secret to investigating crime. You just kept talking to people until one of them had something useful to say.
The 302 finished, Lisa tried Puller again. This time he answered. She told him about having to work late tonight, but could feel her eyes narrowing as she listened to his response. Or lack of it.
“Tonight?” he said. “Is that what you said?”
She could hear him shuffling papers.
“Okay, Lisa,” he said. “Say hello for me … and have a good time.”
“Say hello for you?” Lisa realized her frown was deepening. “What are you talking about, have a good time?”
But he’d already hung up.
Lisa cradled the handset, then sat back and stared at the phone on her desk. What the hell was going on with Puller now? It sounded like he didn’t even know it had been her he was talking to. Like he didn’t care what time she got home. Like he had something a whole lot better to do than wait for …
You shouldn’t be doing this, Lisa, she told herself as she reached for the phone again and redialed Puller. Now it was busy again. Quickly she slid her middle desk drawer open and pulled out a small sheet of paper bearing a single phone number. She dialed the McLean, Virginia, area code, then Bethany Randall’s home phone number.
It was busy, too.
Lisa hung up and stared at the wall.
“Paris.”
Just the one word, before the sudden click.
Behind the desk in his office, William Smith replaced the receiver, then rose from his chair and rolled the chair off the red and blue oriental carpet beneath it. He flopped the rug out of the way, then lifted a wood panel to expose the horizontal door of a steel floor safe. He bent to work the combination lock, opened the safe, and pulled out a silver-colored Toshiba laptop computer, then lifted the computer to the top of his desk and opened it up. Reaching to the edge of his desk, he pulled up a power cord, plugged the cord into the rear of the computer and hit the on button.
He waited for Windows XP to load, then used his thumb on the built-in mouse to get to the red and black screen that called for his password. He typed in the proper combination of numbers and letters, and seconds later he was downloading his message.
It was brief, and included two photographs. William started with the message, with the occult language of international counterespionage. The heading was characteristically terse.
Pyongyang/Paris: possrefJapanese PM/Battle Valley Farm.
The rest was much more cryptic, but only if you didn’t speak the language.
SNKIO/P-AMAUNSUB. 100804.18. AVQP ‘farm/Tokyo.’ SSNOT. CEU.
William translated as quickly as he read.
NSA had received information from a source in Paris—Sûreté, most likely, or the intelligence division of the Paris Metropolitan Police—that a suspected North Korean intelligence officer had met in Paris with an unknown subject, an Asian male, on the tenth of August, for eighteen minutes. The source had covered the meeting with sound and video, but the quality was poor. Computer enhancement was underway. Presumably there would be better sound and images forthcoming.
The NSA supercomputers had processed the audio/video input and triggered on the words “farm” and “Tokyo.” Because William had requested any and all hits concerning Thomas Franklin and Battle Valley Farm—because the word “farm” had come up in the conversation—the report, sketchy as it was, had been forwarded to him.
William thought about the rest of it, the “Tokyo” part. The possible reference to a connection between Japan and Franklin’s farm. What was the connection? he wondered. Franklin had lots of foreign visitors, of course. The president himself did lots of business at his friend’s farm, but there was nothing scheduled. And NSA would know if there were. Secret Service would already have been to Fort Meade as part of their regular advance work.
He turned from the message to look at the photos, grainy black-and-white pictures, not nearly good enough to make a positive ID. The first one showed two figures standing together at a railing with what looked like the Seine in the background. He couldn’t even tell if they were men or women.
William reached into the center desk drawer and pulled out a thick round magnifying glass. He held the glass directly above the photos, then straightened up. Worthless, he thought. Why had Paris bothered to send something like this? How long would it be before the computers turned this into something he could use?
FORTY-FOUR
His mind preoccupied with Sung Kim, Monk faked his way through his shift with Team 3, and was relieved when it ended early.
They’d been scheduled to help Team 7 with the same opera-loving Chinese IO from the other night at the Kennedy Center, but the guy suddenly broke his State Department mandated itinerary—a major no-no—to head for Reagan National and take a flight to New York. Once he was gone, once Monk had alerted his counterpart in Manhattan, his team was finished for the night. He went back to the trolley barn and finished up the surveillance log for the case file, then grabbed a pile of the endless flood of administrative memos and other paperwork that filled an agent’s mail slot.
But despite his best effort to keep at the stack until he finished with it, Lisa crept into his mind and he gave up. He couldn’t concentrate while she was still angry with him, so he threw the paperwork back in his workbox and started for home. He made one stop along the way. To mend the damage with Lisa, he needed some tools.
“What can I get for you?” the young woman asked, from behind the counter at her flower stand near Georgetown University.
Monk stared at the overwhelming variety of flowers, colors, sizes, ribbons, and bows, then shook his head. “You’re gonna have to do it for me. Roses, maybe.”
“We talking wife here? Mother? Girlfriend?” She covered her mouth for an instant with her hand. “Oops, I’m supposed to say ‘domestic partner.’”
“She’s my … she’s …” Hell, he didn’t know how to describe her. Girlfriend sounded juvenile, lover sort of seedy, and “live-in” could just as easily be a Guatemalan housekeeper. “She’s a friend,” he said at last. “A real live grown-up gorgeous woman who doesn’t fit into any category.”
The flower lady laughed. “Well, listen to you … but I think I know exactly what you’re trying to say.”
She turned and went to work on the long bench behind her, and when she came back she was carrying a bundle of crimson roses almost big enough to fill the back seat of the Saab. She caught him staring at them, and laughed.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “By this time of day I need to get rid of everything I can … no extra charge. Trust me, she won’t complain there’s too many.”
T
wenty minutes later Monk carried Lisa’s flowers into the elevator, and he was on his way up when the cell phone in his pocket rang. William Smith on the other end.
“We need to talk again,” he said.
“What’d you come up with?”
“Not on the phone.”
“I can be there in an hour.”
“No good. Where will you be tomorrow night, late?”
“At work. We’re scheduled for something downtown.”
“I’ll call you. Maybe I can meet you somewhere for a few minutes.”
Monk frowned. “You sure we can’t get together tonight?”
“Tomorrow,” William said, before he hung up.
Monk put the phone back in his pocket just as the elevator arrived at the seventh floor. William’s words continued to annoy him. Waiting was hard on anyone, but for an FBI agent it was especially maddening. Thank God for Lisa, he told himself, then glanced at the flowers in his hand and smiled. Together they’d think of a way to pass the time. He stepped out of the elevator and across the corridor to his front door, used the key and went inside.
“Lisa?” he called.
There was no response.
Monk turned around and shut the door behind him, then called out again, but still she didn’t answer. “Damn it,” he muttered. How can I come home and apologize when you’re not here?
He set her bundle of roses on the small table next to the door and went straight to the booze cupboard in the kitchen area to pull down a bottle of Glenlivet. He poured an inch of Scotch into a water glass, then took the glass with him to the bedroom in the rear of the loft. Setting the glass on the nightstand next to the bed, he moved to the wardrobe. He bent down and removed his ankle holster, put his Glock high on the top shelf.
He might as well take a shower, Monk decided, while he waited for Lisa. If the flowers worked, he’d be ready for the makeup sex that almost made fighting worthwhile. Pulling off his clothes, he hung his khaki pants and his golf shirt in the wardrobe, tossed his socks and shorts into the wicker hamper, then stepped over to the nightstand, picked up his glass, and took the whisky with him to the bathroom.
In the bathroom, Monk stared into the mirror over the sink, ran a hand through his hair, and grunted. It was getting thinner up there every time he checked. A sudden image of his father’s scrawny bald head flashed through his mind. To get rid of it he lifted the glass and drank half the Scotch in one long gulp, then set the glass on the vanity, turned away from the mirror, and reached past the heavy cotton shower curtain to turn on the water. He let the water run for thirty seconds before it got hot, adjusted the temperature before stepping under the spray. Slowly the whisky and hot water began to work. Slowly his knotted shoulders and neck began to relax.
He stood that way with his mind turned off for five minutes, then pushed past the shower curtain and reached for his glass, drank from it and set it back on the vanity. As he did so he heard a noise from the other side of the bathroom door. The unmistakable screech of a footstep on the loose board outside the door. He smiled. Lisa was home. His body got even warmer as he thought about spending the evening with her.
“Lisa!” he shouted. “I’m in the shower. I’ll be right out.”
He kept his head outside the shower to hear her answer, but she didn’t respond. “Lisa!” he hollered, much louder this time, loud enough for the people downstairs to hear, but she still didn’t answer. He shook his head. Shit. It was worse than he thought. Lisa was really pissed at him this time, but she must have seen the flowers, had to know why he’d brought them. He got back under the water and began to soap and rinse. Soap in his eyes, he reached blindly for the shampoo on the small ledge underneath the shower head. He fumbled for it, found the plastic squeeze bottle, and was raising it to his head when he came to a complete stop, when he realized there was a second possibility.
He turned the water off this time, stepped out of the shower, and faced the door. “Bethany? Is that you, Bethany?”
Christ, he hoped not. The way his cards had been running, Lisa would walk in the door and find Monk naked with a woman she already didn’t much care for.
Then he thought about a far worse possibility.
He grabbed the towel from the rack next to the sink, cinched it around his waist, then searched the bathroom for a weapon. The choices were slim. Half a bar of soap … a bottle of shampoo … a can of Barbasol. Not much use against a stun gun. He saw the tumbler with what was left of his Scotch. He grabbed it, dumped the whisky into the sink, and held the glass in his hand like a baseball as he stared at the door, waiting for it to open.
It didn’t.
Straining to listen for another footstep, Monk heard nothing.
He crept to the door, put his free hand on the knob, and raised the tumbler behind his head, ready to hurl it forward. He pulled the door open slowly, just a crack, just enough to see what was on the other side, but he saw no one. He opened the door a little wider, his arm still cocked. Now he could see farther into the loft, but still he saw no one. Opening the door wide enough to step through, Monk advanced slowly with the glass in throwing position. His eyes swept the entirety of the wide-open loft. There was no one there—no one he could see from here anyway—but there had to be. He’d heard the creaking board. He couldn’t have been mistaken. He glanced down at the board. Surely he wasn’t mistaken.
“Lisa?” he called again, feeling foolish now. Unless she were crouched down behind the bed across the way or hiding from him behind the storage cabinets at the rear of the loft, unless she were behind the furniture up front, near the windows that formed the front wall, she just wasn’t here.
Gripping the glass even tighter now, he crept toward the bedroom, his eyes darting to the left and right, his ears straining. At the big bed, he bent quickly and checked underneath. Nothing. Stepping over to the wardrobe, he grabbed his Glock from the top shelf and left the whisky glass in its place. Holding the weapon in both hands, lifting it into firing position directly in front of his chest, he moved toward the rear of the loft, to the large wooden cabinets they used for storage. He paused for a moment, then stepped around the cabinets, all the way around to the back of them. No one. Nothing. He turned toward the front of the loft, moved quickly toward the furniture up there, the green-fabric upholstered couch, the high-backed chairs, his eyes sweeping back and forth. He circled the furniture, saw no one, saw nothing to indicate anyone had been there.
Next he went to the door.
He tried the knob, to satisfy himself that the door was still locked, but it wasn’t. He stared at the door. Had he forgotten to lock it when he came in? It wasn’t likely. In the District, you kept the dead bolt thrown all the time, even when you were home. But maybe he had forgotten. With his arms filled with flowers he might easily have done so.
He stepped back for a moment, breathing more quickly now as he pulled the door open just enough to see past it, to satisfy himself that no one was standing on the other side. He stepped through the doorway, looking left and right. Nothing. Across the hall, the elevator door was closed.
“Lisa?” he called. “Are you out here somewhere?”
Holding the Glock in both hands now, Monk turned to his right, then moved quietly toward the stairwell at the end of the wide corridor, to the back stairs that led to the rear of the building. Seconds later he stood next to the heavy door at the entrance to the stairwell. He listened for a moment … and heard footsteps, faint footsteps. The hair on the back of his neck began to tingle. He dropped his left hand off the Glock, and cracked the door.
“Lisa?” he called into the stairwell. “Bethany?”
No answer.
Monk took a breath and let it out, then jerked the door wide open and in the same motion swung himself into the doorway, his gun leading the way. His eyes widened as Lisa screamed. He dropped a full step back. On the other side of the doorway, Lisa did the same thing, her own eyes just as wide, as the echo of her scream in the hollow stairwell died away. She stared
at the gun in his hand, then at the towel around his waist.
“What the hell?” she said. She looked past him into the hallway. “What in God’s name are you doing?”
“Damn it, Lisa, I might have shot you! What are you doing hiding in the stairwell?”
“I’m not hiding.” She hesitated. “I … I just came up the back way is all.” She glanced at his towel and shook her head. “It seems to me I should be the one asking the questions.”
“Did you see anybody? On your way up here? Or downstairs?”
She shook her head.
“I was in the shower,” Monk said. “I heard the … I thought I heard that damned board squeal. I thought I heard someone outside the bathroom.”
“And you were expecting Bethany Randall?”
“Bethany?”
“I just heard you call her name, Puller.”
Shit. “Why would I think she’d be here?” This was definitely not the time to talk about giving Bethany a key. “You sure you didn’t see anybody?” he asked again. “Or hear a car, maybe?”
He reached for her hand, but she pulled away, and in the next moment she was pushing past him on her way to the loft. Monk stared at her back for a moment, then followed. Inside, Monk moved to her, tried to put his arms around her, but she pushed him away.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she said. She turned and started for the kitchen, then turned back. “We have to talk.”