Fortunately, it had been empty, so he hadn’t needed to knife anyone else. Unslinging the purse from his shoulder, he stepped into a stall and locked the door. There he stripped off the dress, his wig, and the bustier, then pulled on the one-piece black nylon running suit and flat shoes. He wadded the dress, wig, and knife into the bag. He came out of the stall and opened the bathroom window long enough to drop the bag into the snow outside. The commotion out in the hallway was growing. Keeping an eye on the door, he washed his face and hands vigorously in the sink and quickly toweled off all the makeup. When he was done, he wiped the sink and then flushed the paper towels down one of the toilets, almost choking it. He went to the inner bathroom door and listened. It sounded like there was a growing crowd out there, and he heard at least two security radios going. So, the window. He went out feetfirst, dropping eight feet into the snow-covered bushes with ease after first closing the window behind him and then hanging by his hands before letting go.
Ultimately, a good forensics team would be able to trace his exit route, but he didn’t care. Pulling the tracksuit’s flimsy hood over the hairpiece net, he retrieved the bag and then trotted through the falling snow to the parking lot where the Suburban waited. He got in, then casually drove back to his motel, watching in his rearview mirror as the cluster of blue strobe lights began to grow in front of the lodge. That damned fat woman had almost ruined everything, coming at him like that. He wondered how she had seen through his disguise so quickly, because obviously she had. And that kick should have done the job, but no, she had to get up and, instead of running, attack him again. Well, she and that nurse could compare notes now, wherever they were. But he should have been more prepared, should have expected there might be someone in the bathroom. Should have had a contingency plan in place. He thumped the steering wheel. Too many mistakes. He was losing his touch.
As he pulled into the parking lot at his motel, he decided to wait out the night, since the police might throw up roadblocks immediately. Any vehicle leaving town at this hour would be conspicuous, especially in a snowstorm, and according to the map, there were only two roads in and out of this town. Yes. He’d wait until late morning, when there would be city-bound weekender traffic, then join it. No one had seen him go into that bathroom, and the police should be looking for a slick-haired Hispanic-looking woman, not a man. He’d watch the local television stations to see what they would report in the morning. His nose itched, and he unstuck the prosthesis.
He felt both relief and apprehension. Relief that this damned woman was out of his way, apprehension at the sheer scale of the thing he was going to do very soon. But given the score so far, he didn’t think he had much to worry about from the police, city or federal. Even the nurse had managed to evade them, despite the fact that they were probably trying to protect her. To her extreme cost, one had to admit. And now, if he couldn’t get out of the city, he had somewhere to go to ground once the attack had been executed.
He’d go to her house. Somebody might as well make use of it.
By the time Swamp penetrated both the hospital’s official wall of ignorance and the police barrier in the lobby, all he had learned was that the woman they’d brought in was in surgery, and that surgery was going to take awhile. There was neither a status nor an official prognosis available from anyone. Defeated, he punched a cup of coffee out of a vending machine and headed back out to his Rover. As he was exiting through the front door of the hospital, a county cruiser pulled up and a tall, lanky man in uniform got out of the front passenger’s seat. As soon as he saw Swamp, he motioned him over.
“Sheriff McComb?” Swamp asked, getting out his credentials as he walked down the steps. He noticed that the snow was thinning out and that there were patches of cold, clear sky showing through the low-flying clouds.
“And you must be Special Agent Morgan,” the sheriff said. He was tall enough to look down on Swamp’s face. He had a weathered look about him, iron gray hair, and a huge Pinkerton-style mustache. “Detective Cullen said we’d recognize you when we saw you.”
“Most people can,” Swamp said. “I was just inside, but nobody seems to know much, except that she’s still in surgery.”
McComb nodded thoughtfully. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to her sooner,” he said. “But that’s the same word my people are gettin’. You want to go get a better cup of coffee than that? Those hospital vendin’ machines are hard-piped to the pathology lab, I’m told.”
“Yes, sir, I’d love one,” Swamp said, pouring the ugly coffee out into the snow.
He rode in the back of the cruiser, still holding his empty paper coffee cup. The driver, a deputy, had to open the door for him when they got to the Waffle House diner down the street, as there were no door handles inside the backseat area. They went in and the sheriff led Swamp to a corner booth. A waitress produced two fresh coffees and a handful of creamer cups without being asked, then left them alone. The sheriff’s deputy came in and took a nearby stool at the counter, parking his tactical radio on the counter, where it faced him like a waiting gnome. The sheriff poured a creamer into his coffee, lighted a cigarette, and shot a cloud of blue smoke toward the air vent in the ceiling.
“Okay, Special Agent, what in the hay-ull is goin’ on here?”
The diner was noisy, with waitresses calling in orders in Waffle House code and the clatter of crockery being dropped into the busing sinks. “Did Detective Cullen give you any background?” Swamp asked.
“He said they had a cop killer down there in D.C. and had lost a Homicide lieutenant. That it happened at the home of one Connie Wall, R.N., and that said Connie Wall was up here at the Garrison Lodge. Told me to please put some protective surveillance on her until one Special Agent Lee Morgan of the Department of Homeland Security arrived on the scene. Said there was a chance the cop killer was up here in Garrison Gap, intent on takin’ out the only witness to the lieutenant’s homicide. That’s it.” He sipped some coffee and then poured one more creamer into his mug, almost causing it to overflow. He raised his bushy eyebrows. “Sorta begs the obvious question, huh?”
In other words, Swamp thought, why are you involved, Mr. Secret Service Agent? He explained his own assignment in OSI, the background on the two cases, and how they had merged into what was rapidly turning out to be a perfect tar baby.
“A ‘firefly’ is what you called it?” asked the sheriff. “Right now, it seems more like an all too typical Washington cluster fuck to me. No offense.”
Swamp grinned. “None taken,” he said. “Although the police lieutenant getting killed added a certain exciting dimension to what I thought would be a fairly dull plod. Not to minimize that, but the government’s interest here is still focused on that threat to ‘bomb, bomb, bomb.’” He explained their assumption that the patient had been talking about the speech to the joint session in February, and his hope that Ms. Wall might yet give them a better description.
The sheriff wasn’t optimistic. “The ER doc told me they were pumpin’ her up with as much blood as possible, but he thought she was gonna scratch. Somethin’ about some big vein takin’ a direct hit. Strange thing is, there was a witness in the lobby, says he saw a woman, not a man, mind you, go into the men’s room at the same time the lodge security people were runnin’ into the ladies’ to find the victims.”
“Any description?”
“Witness was at the end of the hallway. All he got was dark-haired, pretty face, nice rack.”
“Terrific,” Swamp said.
“But a woman,” the sheriff said. “And the lodge security guy backs that up. Said he collided with a pretty woman who came out of the ladies’ room, actin’ hysterical. He couldn’t understand anythin’ she was sayin’. On reflection, thinks she was Spanish. They were focused on what was goin’ on inside the bathroom, tried to find her later, but she was long gone. Here’s the best part: A lounge waitress said Ms. Wall and some Spanish-lookin’ woman left the lounge together. She remembers them because they were wearin’
the same style and color dress. She wondered at the time if they were gonna have a catfight.”
Swamp shook his head in wonder. “Who was the other victim?”
“A Montgomery County lady probation officer, from down there in your neck of the woods. Lived in Bladensburg, Maryland. Up here for the weekend. She and her husband. Got herself stabbed three times in the gullet, bled right out.”
“Damn. Wrong place, wrong time.”
“More’n likely,” McComb said. “Our detectives say it looks like there’d been a scuffle in the bathroom. Metal trash can cover was in one corner, had some blood and hairs on it. But by then, so did most of the bathroom. Until and unless this nurse talks, we’ll probably never know. She got any kin you know of?”
“Don’t think so. Parents are deceased. Her brother was a cop, got killed in some drug deal in southwest D.C. several years ago. She came from a cop family, dated cops, hung out with this Lieutenant Ballard, the one who was just killed. They were probably closer friends than they should have been, seeing as he was a married man.”
“Oh boy. Maybe the D.C. cops would know about next of kin.”
“I’ll ask Detective Cullen, whom I have to call pretty soon. I drove up from my place in Harpers Ferry. There somewhere I can get a room up here tonight?”
McComb smiled. “Thought I heard some West Virginia. But Saturday night, ski season? Rooms are scarcer’n hen’s teeth. Although I guess Ms. Wall’s room is free.”
Swamp shook his head at McComb’s black humor. “I assume you’ll have some people in there pretty quick.”
“Already have. Only thing of significance there was that she had a grand in her makeup kit. So maybe she was off on more than just a weekend?”
“Maybe,” Swamp said. “How about her car?”
“We had a quick look. She had a Very pistol in there—you know, a World War Two flare pistol? Boys up here sometimes use ’em for snake guns.”
“Snake guns?”
The sheriff shrugged. “Eight-inch barrel, twelve-gauge? You get snakeburger, long as you keep the muzzle out beyond your own knees. Takes all the hiss right out of ’em.”
“That car is probably valuable.”
“My deputies were fallin’ all over themselves to get into that thing. They’d been talkin’ about it before any of this shit went down. Got it down at impound, so’s it doesn’t get boosted.”
Swamp nodded. “Well, the government will help your investigation any way it can, Sheriff. Although I’ve already told you the gist of what we know. We have a name, too, but we made a big damn assumption pegging that name to this guy. Especially if he’s acquired some female help, although that would be out of profile.”
The sheriff got out a small notebook and pen and looked expectantly at Swamp, who gave him Heismann’s name and some of the details from the CIA fax. He also explained about how PRU at Secret Service headquarters did not agree that there was even a threat.
McComb nodded. “I used to work for the Bureau,” he said. “Long, long time ago. That’s why I left—had to get some damn committee to agree to every step of the process. Couldn’t do good police work.”
“It’s supposed to be better now, with this Homeland Security Department.” He described the fusion committee.
“Law enforcement by committee, like I was sayin’,” the sheriff said, unconvinced.
“It’s a good idea, in theory,” Swamp said, “But at the working level, everyone’s still worried about their job and their budget. Anyway, this Heismann’s the best candidate we got right now, so I’m continuing to work it.”
“Prove it out, one way or the other?”
“If I can. But if he’s had a year and a half of plastic surgery, I don’t know how the hell we’ll find him.”
“The nurse cooperatin’ before this?”
“She was, actually. At least I think so. It’s just that there were so many patients. I think the second time he came after her, she would have been glad to tell us, if she knew.”
“Why’d she rabbit, then?”
“Maybe because we were using her as bait, to suck the bad guy in?”
“Ah.”
“We did tell her, and she agreed to it.”
“Some people forget that when you’re bait, your ass is necessarily on a hook.”
Swamp nodded. Tonight’s disaster was a perfect example of that little axiom. “I was thinking earlier about how to salvage something useful out of this mess,” he said. “Assuming she pulls through, we might want to announce that Wall did not make it, even if she does. Get her off that hook.”
“So to speak,” the sheriff said with a wry grin. The deputy at the counter was bending forward and talking into his radio. One of the waitresses was watching, fascinated.
The sheriff explained the probable media reaction. “A situation like this will make state news for sure,” he said. “We can start by sayin’ that she’s not expected to survive. That’s the God’s honest truth. Then next, maybe do a coma bit. TV news in this state has the attention span of a gnat. Ya have her go mamba for a few days, the vultures will usually move on to the next roadkill.”
“That would help, I think. Assuming we understand the first goddamn thing about this mess.”
“Comin’ from the federal law-enforcement machine, that’s quite an admission,” the sheriff said.
“The older I get, Sheriff, the less I understand very much of anything about this world. But one thing is clear: If some squirming-brain terrorist is setting up evil shit in the capital, I feel it’s my duty to accept help from wherever we can get it. And in my book, that’s a two-way street.”
“So Detective Cullen said,” the sheriff replied. The deputy was standing by their booth. “Yeah, Tommy?”
“Larry over at the hospital says the nurse is out of surgery, but she’s still unconscious and in a—” He glanced at his notebook. “In an induced coma.”
McComb looked over at Swamp. “See?” he said. “That wasn’t hard.” Then his face sobered. “But what is hard is that I have to go interview the Bladensburg lady’s husband. And I suppose you don’t want me to tell him anythin’ about what you’ve been tellin’ me.”
“No, I don’t. Maybe you could just say two barflies got into a fight and his wife somehow got tangled up in it?”
“I’ll think of somethin’,” the sheriff said.
Connie Wall was dream-flying down the Potomac River. It was a cold moonlit night, and she was skimming soundlessly just a few feet off the surface, the winter air streaming past her face and numbing her cheeks. She was close enough to the surface to be able to see the flat ledges and deep pools lurking in the river. Crusts of ice winked at her from along the shores, where bare trees watched her pass in silent amazement. She swept down past the palisades below McLean, where darkened, many-windowed mansions surveyed the river below with quiet authority. Past Chain Bridge, past the spires of Georgetown University and under the arches of Key Bridge, past the graceful marble monuments of the Mall and the Tidal Basin, past the Memorial Bridge and the Fourteenth Street bridges, past the squat, baleful Pentagon building and one of its principal products, the thousands of white headstones dotting the Arlington heights in front of Robert E. Lee’s old home. She saw commercial jets prowling the ramps and taxiways of Reagan National Airport, but she couldn’t hear them, only the sound of her own wraithlike body slicing smoothly through the night, past the row of generals’ quarters at Fort McNair, where the Potomac River was joined by the stinking Anacostia River, past Bolling Field and the ghostly white satellite dishes of the Naval Research Lab, then down past Old Town in Alexandria and under the notorious Woodrow Wilson Bridge, where semis sometimes punched through its rotting decks. And then past the marinas below Old Town, Belle Haven, and finally past George Washington’s stately home up on its expanse of dormant lawns, down to where the river began to widen in earnest.
She shivered in the cold and then realized she was wearing almost nothing, some filmy gown that trailed out b
ehind her, a rippling fabric tail streaming almost as far as she could see. This wasn’t right. She shouldn’t be out here like this. She should go back. She stretched out her arms and started a wide banking turn to the left, to go back up the river to wherever she had come from. But it was difficult. She encountered real resistance to the turn. She had to work at it, pushing one arm down, the other up, forcing herself to twist and bank, and now she could see that diaphanous gown trailing behind her like a wedding train, the back half still streaming down the river even as she passed it going the other way, back up the river. But she finally managed it, and this time she was soaring way above the river and the sleeping city with all its lights and monuments, and now she knew somehow that everything was going to be better, maybe even all right. But first she had to get back to West Virginia, back to Garrison Gap, back to the hospital, back to the ICU, where there were people calling out her name. Even from way down here, miles downstream, she could hear them.
7
ON HIS WAY BACK TO WASHINGTON ON SUNDAY, SWAMP PUT a call in to Lucy VanMetre. “This thing of yours is bothering me,” she said. “I gave it the Washington Post test, and it failed.”
“Ah,” he said. So, she had written down the bald facts as they might be reported in the capital’s newspaper after some disaster. A litany of what PRU had known, with the clarity of perfect hindsight, of course, and what they’d done about it. Which at this stage of events was nothing. “So you’re having the same problem with it that I am.”
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