by Don Brown
CHAPTER 23
Balboa Park
Spreckels Organ Pavilion
San Diego, California
The grand strains of the "Widor" were coming to an end, at least in his mind, and cold reality, even in the warmth of the Southern California sunshine, was setting back in.
Zack opened his eyes to the empty seats of the vast pavilion. Then, realizing that he couldn't be paralyzed by the sweet memories of days gone by -- of days that might never be again -- he remembered his task at hand. Karen Jacoby was waiting for him, and he was still a naval officer.
He strode out of the pavilion, turned right, and followed the curved path toward the Friendship Garden. Before him rose the pagoda, a three-tiered Buddhist temple where he was to meet Karen, and in the distance was the koi pond, another place that brought back memories of Diane.
He checked his watch. Karen was five minutes late.
He walked around the pagoda. Five more minutes passed. Still no Karen.
He tried her cell phone. No answer.
He approached the koi pond, then stopped in stunned disbelief, almost afraid to walk closer. For a moment, he fought the sudden urge to vomit.
Floating just below the surface, facedown, was a woman wearing the khaki uniform of a female naval officer. Blood bubbled up from her neck, leaving a red cloud in the clear water that mixed with her stringy blonde hair. Her legs, performing a hideous slow-motion ballet just under the surface, attracted a curious nibbling from several orange koi fish.
"Dear Jesus!"
Zack reached into the water and turned over the body. Her eyes and mouth were frozen in a wide-open position, her skin as pale as a full moon against the cloud of crimson blood around her.
On her chest was a name tag issued by the Naval Legal Ser vice Office Defense Command. Even before he read the name, he knew it was Karen. "Dear God, no!"
Reaching his arms under her shoulders, Zack heaved her body out of the bloody water and pulled her onto the edge of the cement pond.
"Zack! Zack!"
Zack looked over his shoulder.
A strawberry blonde wearing white shorts and a Boston College T-shirt sprinted across the grass toward him.
"Shannon! Thank God you're here!"
CHAPTER 24
Claxton campaign California headquarters
Situation room
Hyatt Regency Hotel
Century City
Los Angeles, California
Twenty-four hours later
Jackson Gallopoulous sat alone at the long mahogany table, waiting for the arrival of the first female president of the United States and her entourage.
This morning's polls showed Eleanor within three points -- a statistical dead heat -- of San Francisco congressman William Warren. To break the heat, the campaign banked on the court-martial of the gay naval officer Wofford Eckberg, scheduled to resume tomorrow in San Diego, to attack the navy's Neanderthal mentality toward gay Americans. The fact that Web Wallace was stepping in as defense counsel would give them an extra boost.
The Eckberg trial was the sole matter on this morning's agenda. The strong comments Eleanor had made yesterday to the media had already bolstered polling numbers in the Bay Area and Hollywood.
But an unexpected wrinkle held Jackson's attention. The San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, and the San Diego Union-Tribune had been delivered, and he found his attention riveted to the front page of the Union-Tribune.
U. S. NAVY JAG OFFICERFOUND MURDERED IN BALBOA PARK
Body of LTJG Karen Jacoby Found by LCDR Zack Brewer
By Adrian Branch, Military Affairs Editor
The body of a U.S. Navy JAG officer was discovered Saturday in San Diego's Balboa Park.
Lieutenant JG Karen Jacoby's body was found floating in the koi pond at the Japanese Friendship Garden by Lieutenant Commander Zack Brewer, the well-known JAG officer who first made international headlines for serving as lead prosecutor against three Islamic U.S. Navy chaplains being prosecuted for treason.
Brewer found Jacoby's body floating in the pond. Her throat had been slit and she had been shot in the head with a small-caliber weapon, reportedly a .22 caliber pistol.
NCIS Special Agent Shannon McGillvery was the first to arrive on the scene and helped Brewer pull Jacoby from the pond. Jacoby was declared dead on the scene when paramedics and officers from the San Diego police arrived minutes later.
Jacoby graduated from the University of Texas and the University of Maryland School of Law. A recent graduate of the Naval Justice School, Jacoby reported for duty in San Diego only last month. She was military defense counsel in the court-martial of United States v. Ensign Wofford Eckberg.
The Eckberg case gained publicity this weekend when U.S. Senator Eleanor Claxton attacked the navy for its "Neanderthal" policies against gays, citing the Eckberg prosecution as an example of the military's outmoded thinking. Claxton also criticized Brewer for his role in prosecuting Eckberg.
A police spokesman declined to say whether any suspects had been identified, and when asked if Brewer was a suspect, department spokesman Andy Meredith said, "Commander Brewer will be questioned. But we have no comment on whether anyone is a suspect.
"This investigation is ongoing, and we will be working with the NCIS and all appropriate state and federal law enforcement agencies to solve this crime as soon as possible."
The large mahogany door swung open, and Mary-Latham held it open for Eleanor's entrance.
"Good morning, Jackson." Eleanor's smile seemed forced as Mary-Latham and then Web Wallace followed her in.
"Where are Billy Bob and Bob Jack?" Billy Bob and Bob Jack were the names the Yale mafia called Eleanor's two principal Secret Ser vice agents behind their backs.
"Out in the hallway with the other agents," Eleanor said. "They don't need to be in on everything."
"You're the boss."
"Let's get to it," she said. "Poll numbers?"
"Still a dead heat," Jackson said, "but favorable data out of the Bay Area as a follow-up to yesterday's statements."
"Yeah? What?"
"A one-point movement in our favor, in fact. You've touched a cord, and we haven't started yet."
"Fabulous." She turned to Web. "What's our game plan for tomorrow?"
"I've spoken to Lieutenant Commander Carpenter, who as you know is the senior defense counsel --"
"Excuse me," Jackson said. "Sorry for interrupting, Web, but you guys have heard about this, haven't you?" He slid the San Diego paper in front of Web and the Los Angeles paper in front of Eleanor.
Eleanor glanced down at the paper and then back to Jackson. "What a shame," she said, then turned to Mary-Latham. "Draft a sympathy statement laced with rage at this criminal act and a God-and-country tinge of some sort. You know, Lieutenant what's-her-name --"
"Jacoby," Jackson said.
"Right. Jacoby was a credit to her country, blah blah blah. We condemn this murder, blah blah blah. Something along those lines."
"Got it," Mary-Latham said.
"But in a sense," Eleanor continued, "this may help us. I never got the warm fuzzies from Jacoby." She glanced over her right shoulder at her legal advisor, as if to punt the whole issue to him. "Web?"
"Right, Eleanor." Wallace looked across the table at Jackson. "I've been practicing law a long time, and I have a sense about these things. Jacoby wasn't with us. She wanted to deal this thing from the beginning. I'm not sure she could have been trusted. Anyway" -- he swilled steaming black coffee from a mug featuring the words Gore-Edwards '04 -- "the senior defense counsel is in our camp. We've run a background on him, and get this -- he was a registered Democrat before entering the military. He's stayed registered that way. That's a real rarity these days. So Commander Carpenter will sit with me at counsel table, announce that I'm taking over, and we'll take it from there."
"Why was she with Brewer in the park? Don't you think that's strange?"
"Jackson, whatever happened between Jacob
y and Brewer isn't our problem." Eleanor's eyes grew icy, her voice determined. "Forget Jacoby. Our mission is to change this country for the better. Our campaign's involvement with the Wofford Eckberg trial gives us that opportunity."
Jackson held on to the silence for a moment. "Of course, Eleanor. You're the boss."
CHAPTER 25
Outside LCDR Zack Brewer's residence
4935 Mills Street
La Mesa, California
Sunday, 6:15 p.m. (PST)
It wasn't supposed to be this way. Shannon McGillvery sat in the driver's seat of the government-issued Ford Taurus, looking out at the night sky.
In the last year, she'd solved a terrorist plot to use U.S. Navy jets to attack Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock and then helped Zack Brewer bring the lone surviving pilot to justice.
But a murder?
They sometimes happened in the military. But usually in barroom fights between drunken sailors over sleeping with someone else's girlfriend or something.
Officers didn't get murdered. Not JAG officers. JAG officers work more closely with NCIS than any other group in the navy.
If they could kill a JAG officer, then they could kill an NCIS agent. She had been trained to accept this. But none of that training had prepared her for the startling sight of the pale, lifeless body of Lieutenant Karen Jacoby sprawled beside the bloody koi pond.
She'd held her cool at the scene, her nerves seemingly made of steel while in front of Zack and SDPD crime-scene investigators.
But after her initial interview by the detectives, she'd retreated to the women's restroom and cried. And then vomited. When she emerged, she had been greeted by Barry MacGregor, the NCIS special agent in charge, who had already opened the NCIS investigation into Jacoby's murder.
Barry ordered stepped-up protection for Zack Brewer on a twenty-four-hour basis, assigned three additional agents to security detail, and offered to give Shannon a few days off. She refused and insisted on remaining in charge of the security detail.
She wasn't about to lose another JAG officer, especially not Zack.
She had parked the Taurus across the street and cattycorner from Zack's modest stucco home near downtown La Mesa, the bedroom community just east of San Diego. From here she commanded a clear view of the front door, and though others were posted nearby, she was the closest NCIS agent to the home.
Shannon did a quick radio check.
The static bursts from all NCIS radios reported that no suspicious activity had been noted in the corridors leading to Zack's house.
Still tense, she settled back behind the steering wheel of the Taurus. Who murdered Karen Jacoby? And why? And did Karen's murderer pose an immediate threat to Zack?
Did Chris Reynolds have anything to do with all this? Had he been stalking Zack, seen that Zack was meeting Karen in the park, and somehow perceived Karen as a romantic threat?
She glanced at the report on Reynolds that she had received earlier in the day. For the fourth time, she started reading the FBI's dossier on Chris Reynolds:
Subject is a twenty-seven-year-old Caucasian male, diagnosed as delusional and manic depressive. History of confinement at various mental institutions on the east coast after numerous misdemeanor arrests for stalking and trespass. Subject tends to stalk male attorneys, military personnel and politicians. Neither extensive treatment nor medication has resolved the issue.
Spent over one year at the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute (NVMHI) in Falls Church, Virginia, for harassment, annoying telephone calls and stalking of an Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney.
A vocational nomad, subject has worked as a florist and as a waiter at several upscale restaurants upon his release from NVMHI to Southern California.
Because of delusional disorder and manic swings, subject is considered dangerous. Caution is advised when dealing with him.
Father Robert walked north along Spring Street, crossed the busy intersection at University Boulevard, then turned right off Spring Street onto Mills Street. The small green stucco house was on the corner of Mills Street and Orchard Avenue. A silver Mercedes 320 sat parked in the driveway.
He double-checked the address on the mailbox, then stepped on the front porch of the house. Something yanked him back, and his head crashed onto the ground.
"On your stomach," an angry female voice shouted. He was face-down in the grass, a pistol barrel jammed into his temple. "One move and I'll blow your head off," the voice snarled. A knee pressed into his spine. His arm was twisted behind his back.
"Identify yourself," the female voice snapped.
"Please. I'm a priest."
"Right! And I'm Mother Teresa!"
"Please! My collar is in my hotel room at Harbor Town."
"Agent McGillvery, what's the problem?" This from a male voice.
"About time you boys got here. He claims he's a priest."
"What's going on?" Another male voice.
"Okay, Father..." the woman said.
"Robert."
"Robert. What priestly duty brings you this way?"
"I have some important papers for Commander Brewer."
"Oh, you do, do you?" The woman twisted his arm harder. "What papers? And from whom?"
"I'm a priest at Sacre Coeur in Paris. The papers are from an attorney named Jeanette L'Enfant. They contain important information about the Council of Ishmael."
At that instant, the woman released his arm, but the gun remained pressed hard against his head. "They murdered Jean-Claude la Trec because of the plea agreement. They tried to kill Jeanette too. She said her only chance for survival was to go to the Americans with sensitive information about the council and seek our protection."
"Our?"
"Yes. I'm an American priest, assigned by the Holy Father to Sacre Coeur because of the large number of U.S. citizens in Paris."
"Father, I'm a Catholic girl myself, and so I hope you'll understand when I tell you that there are five federal agents surrounding you right now with their guns trained on your head. So if I decide to remove my gun from your temple -- and that's a big if -- then it would not behoove you to try something the Holy Father wouldn't approve of. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly."
"And do you understand you do not move unless and until I give you the go-ahead?"
"Yes, my daughter."
Robert felt the gun barrel withdraw from his head.
"Now I want you to just lie there very still, and out of an abundance of precaution, I'm going to have these gentlemen pat you down for weapons."
"Certainly."
"Arms straight out! Spread eagle!" a man's voice commanded. Robert complied. Hands patted down his legs, his buttocks, his waist, and his back. They pulled off his shoes and checked those too. "Roll over," one of them ordered, and then Robert was looking up at the starry, twinkling sky, which provided a backdrop to a couple of palm trees and the silhouettes of people hovering over him.
"What's this?" An agent pulled the envelope from under his shirt. A flashlight blinded him.
"Those are the papers I'm supposed to deliver to Commander Brewer."
"Give me those," the woman's voice boomed over the blinding light. Someone cut the light. But his pupils were so dilated that everything appeared black. "Okay. Let him up."
Robert pushed against the grass and stood, thanking God that he was alive. He blinked about ten times. The tough-talking woman who'd nearly taken his head off, visible in the soft glow of Brewer's front porch light, was a slim, young, attractive strawberry blonde about six inches shorter than he.
"Wesner. Raynor. Stay here and take the point at Zack's house until I return," the feisty woman said.
"Yes, Shannon," one of them responded.
"Frymier and Carraway, you take a ride with me and Father Robert here."
"Where to, Shannon?" one of them asked.
"To Father Robert's hotel room. We'll find out if I need to go to confessional for roughing him up like I just did, or for killing h
im if I find out he's lying to me."
Robert suppressed the urge to grin.
"So if you gentlemen would accompany him to my car, I'd be grateful."
"With pleasure," one of them said, then grabbed Robert by his left arm. The other grabbed his right arm. "This way, sir." They led him to the back of a white Ford Taurus, where they sandwiched him between the two of them. The woman they called Shannon slipped into the driver's seat.
"Okay, Father," she said. "Where are you staying?"
"Hilton at Harbor Island."
"The Hilton at Harbor Island, it is." She hit the accelerator, squealing the tires and thrusting Robert back in his seat. He hoped this Shannon would be on the right side in this fight.
Babcock & Story Bar
Hotel del Coronado
1500 Orange Avenue
Coronado, California
8:30 p.m. (PST)
The ornate Babcock & Story Bar, on the ground floor of San Diego's internationally renowned Hotel del Coronado, was named for the hotel's founders, Elisha Babcock and H. L. Story. The original mahogany bar, which stretched forty-six feet in length, had been carried by ships around Cape Horn from Philadelphia in 1888.
None of this was lost on Jackson Gallopoulous, who was just as much a history buff as a liberal activist. Nursing a glass of Scotch, alone with the exception of the smooching couple at the other end of the bar, Jackson contemplated the seaside resort's history of hosting the rich and famous, which included not only movie stars and foreign heads of states, but also fourteen presidents of the United States. Nixon had once hosted the Mexican president for a summit and state dinner here. Clinton, Reagan, Kennedy, and FDR had all been guests at the Del.
It was natural, therefore, that the Claxton campaign would reserve a suite of rooms and establish a temporary San Diego beachhead in preparation for tomorrow's court-martial.