by Mike Lawson
John Levy knew he was going to die.
And then he heard the spitting sound of a weapon equipped with a silencer, and the man who’d been about to kill him dropped to the ground.
Who fired the last shot? And who the hell had been trying to kill him?
Levy sat there, his back against the wall of his apartment building, holding his gun now, breathing hard, scanning the parking lot and the surrounding buildings. He couldn’t see anyone, but he knew someone was out there.
Finally, he rose to his feet, his gun still in his hand. He was no longer worried about dying, however. The person who fired the last shot obviously didn’t want to kill him or he would have done so by now.
He walked over to the man lying on the ground. He knew the man-and he couldn’t believe who it was. He didn’t understand what was going on.
“Mr. Levy, please holster your weapon.” It was a woman speaking, but he couldn’t see her.
“Mr. Levy, we don’t want to kill you, so please holster your weapon. I’m going to show myself now, but if you raise your weapon you will be shot.”
A young woman stepped out from the shadows surrounding the parking lot and stood beneath the cone of light shining down from the streetlamp above her. She wasn’t holding a weapon.
“Mr. Levy,” she said, “I work for the National Security Agency. You need to come with me.”
Alice took Levy to an all-night diner halfway between Washington, D.C. and Fort Meade. Neither she nor Levy said a word while they were driving there. By the time she arrived, Dillon was already in the diner, drinking coffee. He was the only customer in the place. The night cook was out back having a smoke; he had a hundred-dollar bill in his pocket.
Levy sat down at Dillon’s table but didn’t say anything. He may have been in a state of shock but Dillon doubted that. At this point Levy was just processing things. Waiting for an opportunity. Alice took a seat several tables away, ready to kill Levy if he attempted to harm Dillon.
“General Bradford tried to have you killed tonight, John,” Dillon said. “You do realize that, don’t you? And my people saved your life.”
Levy still said nothing.
“We’ve been following you ever since Hopper was killed. Since the night you tried to kill DeMarco.”
“So you killed Hopper,” Levy said.
“I’m afraid so. He didn’t leave us a choice.”
“What do you want?” Levy said.
“Don’t you want to know why Bradford tried to kill you?”
“The general didn’t try to kill me.”
“Come on, John. Gilmore was your man. The only one who could have given him the green light to kill you was Bradford. You know that.”
Levy shook his head. “I don’t know how you got to Colonel Gilmore, but you got to him some way. You-”
“I want you to hear something,” Dillon said, taking a small digital recorder from his pocket.
Levy said, “If you’re planning to play the recording Martin Breed supposedly made, you’re wasting your time.”
“That’s not what’s on this recording. This is a recording of DeMarco talking to General Bradford today.”
“You’re telling me DeMarco snuck a recording device into the chairman’s office? Now I know you’re lying. DeMarco was checked for bugs before he-”
“John, please. I work for the NSA. Do you really believe I couldn’t record a conversation in Bradford’s office if I set my mind to it? Just listen.”
Levy showed no emotion as he listened to DeMarco and Bradford talking.
Dillon hit the STOP button. “Do you understand what DeMarco said, John? He said that you are the only one who can destroy Bradford. Without your testimony against him, General Breed’s recording is insufficient-and Charles Bradford knows this.”
Levy just looked at Dillon, and Dillon couldn’t help but think that Levy was possibly the saddest-looking man he’d ever met. It was also apparent that in spite of what he’d heard, Levy still didn’t believe that Bradford-his mentor, his commanding officer-had tried to have him killed.
“Now I’m going to let you listen to a very short phone call the general made immediately after you left his office today.”
Dillon hit the PLAY button on the recorder, and Levy listened to Charles Bradford’s words,
Mrs. Cleary, reach out for a Colonel Philip Gilmore. He’s stationed at Fort Myer. I want him to meet me in twenty minutes at the chapel at Arlington Cemetery.
“How do I know that’s General Bradford speaking?” Levy said. “You may have-”
“John, when Martin Breed told Bradford he was going to expose him, what did Bradford do? It’s okay. You don’t have to answer that question. You’re probably worried that you’re being recorded right now. So I’ll just tell you what he did: He ordered you to kill Martin Breed, a man who had been loyal to Bradford his entire life. And tonight he tried to kill you because now he’s afraid you’ll talk. You know I’m telling you the truth. Just like Martin Breed, you’ve been completely loyal to Charles Bradford and, just like with Breed, when you became a liability he decided you had to die.”
“What do you want?” Levy said.
“I want you to tell the president about the assassinations Charles Bradford ordered. You’ll obviously be given immunity”-Dillon knew Levy didn’t care about immunity-“and Charles Bradford will be court-martialed. He may go to jail, but whether he does or not, his career will be finished. But what I want to do right now, John, is take you to a safe house. Bradford will try to kill you again.”
“And I suppose, if I testify against the general, you’d like me to keep the NSA’s role in all this secret?”
“I would very much appreciate that,” Dillon said. “No one really needs to know about the transmission we intercepted.”
Levy didn’t consider Dillon’s proposal for even an instant. He stood up. “I’m leaving now. And if you think you can stop me by threatening to kill me, you’re wrong. I’m not afraid to die.”
“I never thought you were,” Dillon said, his voice almost a whisper.
Dillon watched Levy leave the diner before saying, “Alice, offer to drive Mr. Levy back to his apartment. If he refuses and takes a cab, follow him.”
“Yes, sir,” Alice said.
“And, Alice.”
“Yes, sir?”
“Excellent job tonight.”
Earlier that day, as soon as Bradford called Colonel Gilmore at Fort Myer, Alice’s people began following Gilmore. She had watched Bradford meet Gilmore outside the chapel at Arlington National Cemetery. She’d brought a parabolic mike with her to record their conversation, but Bradford took the colonel inside the chapel to talk to him. And even though Dillon didn’t hear what Bradford said to Gilmore, he was positive that Bradford had told him to kill Levy.
Gilmore had waited at Levy’s apartment for him to come home, and while he waited, Alice waited, too, with the three agents who had been involved the night Hopper was killed. When Gilmore approached Levy with a drawn weapon, one of Alice’s men shot out the window next to Levy’s head, which not only startled Gilmore but also gave Levy the impression that Gilmore was the one who had taken the shot. Then Gilmore was killed before he could shoot Levy.
Now all Dillon could do was wait and see if Levy would do as he predicted after reading Levy’s file. If he didn’t, Dillon might soon find himself in the crosshairs of a sniper’s rifle aimed by one of the sentinels who guarded the Unknowns’ Tomb. Dillon didn’t know exactly what was going to happen next, but he did know one thing for sure: John Levy would never testify against Charles Bradford.
41
Levy parked his car and walked across the damp grass toward the tomb.
It was five A.M. and the only one there was a solitary sentinel. The young man was tall and slender and wore a black coat with light-blue epaulets and dark blue pants with a yellow stripe down the side. The short bayonet on his rifle had been polished until it shone like silver in the dawn light. And the sentin
el marched just as John Levy had marched all those years ago. Exactly as Levy had marched. The twenty-one slow steps, the twenty-one-second pause before the turn, the click of the heels coming together, the choreographed movement of the rifle shifting to the shoulder farther from the grave.
The sentinel didn’t know Levy was watching-he thought he was all alone in the morning mist-and yet he performed the time-honored routine as if the whole world were watching. Levy was so proud of the young soldier-and wished so badly that he could be the one, right now, walking those measured steps on that hallowed ground.
Levy approached the tomb so the guard could see him and saluted. The guard didn’t respond, of course, but he must have been surprised to see Levy there at that time of day and must have wondered how he’d gotten into the cemetery. But he didn’t stop marching-nor would he, unless Levy attempted to desecrate the grave he protected. Then he’d kill Levy if he had to.
From his position, Levy could see the sentry, the magnificent tomb he guarded, and beyond that row after row of white headstones. There were small American flags near many of the headstones. The top of the Washington Monument was just visible in the distance.
He stood there, in that one spot, never moving, until the sun was above the horizon.
He witnessed a perfect sunrise.
His last sunrise.
“Imagine,” Dillon later said to Claire, “that you had devoted your entire life to God. Imagine that you joined a monastery and took vows of silence and chastity and poverty and prayed six times a day, every day, all your adult life, because your belief in God was so strong, your commitment to Him so great. And then one day, in walks an old man and gives you irrefutable proof that God doesn’t exist.”
Dillon sat with Claire and two of her technicians in the operations room. Through a speaker, he heard Alice.
He’s leaving the cemetery.
Fifteen minutes later:
He’s entering the Pentagon.
“Claire,” Dillon said, “tie into whatever frequency Pentagon security uses for their radios.” Claire nodded to one of the technicians.
Ten minutes later the silence in the operations room was shattered:
Red, red, red! I repeat, red! We need medics to the Chairman’s office, now! Now!
The man speaking was screaming. Two minutes of silence followed.
Where are those medics, goddammit? Where are they?
They’re on the E-ring. They’ll be there in another minute. An ambulance is waiting at the entrance.
Forsythe, take Henderson with you and accompany the general.
Roger that. Where are they taking him?
Arlington General.
Four minutes of silence.
Forsythe. Status.
A siren could be heard in the background.
We’re three minutes from the hospital, sir.
Two minutes later:
This is Gregory Hamilton.
Hamilton was the Secretary of Defense.
Captain, what the hell happened?
Sir, General Bradford was shot.
I know that! But who shot him?
John Levy, sir.
42
DeMarco had been awake for half an hour. He was sitting in the living room of the farm/safe house in Maryland, sipping coffee, watching the morning news. His unsociable bodyguards were in the kitchen, ignoring him as usual. He was wearing the pants, shirt, and shoes he’d worn to Bradford’s office. The suit coat that contained the listening devices had been taken from him-which didn’t surprise him-but they also took away the new belt they gave him and insisted he put on his own. This made him wonder if there had been something special about the new belt or if they wanted him to wear his old belt for some particular reason-because it was bugged or had a tracking device installed. His paranoia made him suspect the latter.
The news guy was going on about a tornado that had wiped out a trailer park in Kansas-which made DeMarco think about Dorothy and her red shoes and the Wizard of Oz-but then the newscaster was abruptly replaced in midsentence by Katie Couric, who was sitting behind her desk in the CBS newsroom with a serious expression on her face.
“We have breaking news,” Katie said. “The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Bradford, has been shot. All we know at this point is that the general was in his office at the Pentagon when the shooting occurred, and he’s been taken to a hospital in Arlington, Virginia.”
DeMarco was as stunned as Katie appeared to be. His first thought was: I wonder who shot the bastard? His second thought was: Maybe if he dies, Dillon will let me get back to my life.
For the next ten minutes, all Katie did was demonstrate how little information the network had, but she made the best of it. The station showed an aerial view of the Pentagon, photos of Bradford with the president, photos of Bradford in combat fatigues, including one of him standing next to a bombed-out bunker in Iraq. Katie filled up airtime by talking about Bradford’s career and then began to wonder out loud how anyone could penetrate the Pentagon’s security and shoot the nation’s highest ranking military officer. The picture then cut to a reporter standing in front of a hospital, who told Katie that he didn’t know zip and that he and all the other reporters were waiting for somebody to come out and tell them what was going on.
A man in an army uniform walked out of the hospital a moment later and took up a position facing the reporters. He introduced himself as Colonel Andrew somebody and said he was the public affairs officer at the Pentagon. He started off by saying that General Bradford had been shot in the shoulder, and although one of his lungs had been nicked, he was expected to make a full recovery. The reporters immediately started yelling questions, the main one being, Who the hell shot Bradford? The public affairs guy got a funny look on his face, like what he had to say was really painful, and finally answered the mob.
“The general was shot by a man named John Levy. Mr. Levy was a civilian employee at the Pentagon who worked for the Pentagon Force Protection Agency.”
Whoa! the reporters exclaimed.
The Pentagon spokesman waited until the uproar died down, then added, “It appears Mr. Levy had some sort of mental breakdown. We don’t know, at this point, why he tried to kill the general.”
“So where’s this guy Levy now?” a reporter demanded. The colonel gave the reporters an irritated look, the look seeming to say, If you damn people would just shut up, I’d tell you.
“Mr. Levy is dead. He was shot by a member of General Bradford’s security detail.”
The reporters started screaming again, but the colonel raised a hand and said, “That’s all we know at this point. As other facts become available, you’ll be informed.”
The television switched back to Couric, who had this wide-eyed, can-you-believe-it look on her face, and then she began repeating for the slow learners everything that the Pentagon spokesman had just told the media.
DeMarco let the noise from the television wash over him. What the hell was going to happen now? He didn’t know, but he was certain of one thing: with John Levy dead it was going to be almost impossible to convict Charles Bradford of a crime. Hell, the way things worked, Bradford might even come out ahead on this thing, an assassination attempt being a public relations dream for any high-ranking official.
Charles Bradford’s right arm itched where the IV entered a vein near his elbow. He’d been shot twice in Vietnam and this wound was nowhere near as painful as those had been. But maybe the painkillers they used these days were better.
The surgeon had told him that some of the muscles in his shoulder had been severely damaged and it was going to take at least one more surgery to set things right, and after that a lot of physical therapy would be required.
He was a man who had always prided himself on his physical abilities and the thought of being crippled, even for a short time, was depressing. And it wasn’t just physical limitations he was concerned about; it was also his image. A general had to appear strong in both mind a
nd body.
He wondered, too, if he was still in shock or if it was because of the drugs, but he felt amazingly calm considering what had just happened.
He had been sitting in his office. He’d arrived at dawn, not being able to sleep, and had been expecting that at any moment Gilmore would call and tell him that John Levy was dead. So when Levy himself opened the door to his office, Bradford was certain his face must have betrayed his astonishment.
The first words out of Levy’s mouth were: “Why? You’ve known me for over twenty years! How could you have ever doubted my loyalty?”
Naturally, he said he didn’t know what Levy was talking about. At the same time, he placed his finger on the button beneath his desk.
“You sent Gilmore to kill me last night,” Levy said.
“Gilmore? You mean the colonel over at Fort Myer? Why on earth would I have him kill you, for God’s sake?”
“I heard you call him.”
“You heard me?”
“When DeMarco came to see you, he planted a listening device in your office.”
Bradford’s heart almost stopped when he heard that.
“I heard DeMarco tell you that they were going to make me testify against you. You should have known I would never do that.”
Levy started crying then. Not sobbing, just these fat tears rolling down his long, sad face. “You betrayed me,” he said.
“John, you’re having some sort of breakdown. It’s the stress, the lack of sleep. You know I would never-”
Levy pulled the big Colt from the holster beneath his suit coat and Bradford pressed down frantically on the panic button beneath his desk.
All high-ranking personnel in the Pentagon had a button similar to Bradford’s: the Secretary of Defense, the assistant secretary, and each of the joint chiefs. In spite of all the security to prevent armed people from entering the Pentagon, there was always the danger that some employee would go berserk and try to kill his co-workers. That was a too-common occurrence in corporate America, and there was no reason to think the Pentagon was immune to such madness.