by Otho Eskin
I’m over the top and, falling to the ground, land heavily on my hands and knees. I bruise my left knee. My hands sting. I must have landed on pine needles.
There are muffled shouts from the other side of the wall and somebody is at the iron gate trying to force the lock. It’s old but it holds. My attackers will follow me in seconds over the top of the wall. I make out the faint light from the homes in the neighborhood. No light where I crouch.
I plunge through the darkness. What I hope are leaves and vines brush against my face. I zigzag left, counting my steps—ten—then pivot right—fifteen more strides—then drop to my knees and wait.
Judging by the voices, there are two of them. I hope neither has a flashlight.
I struggle for my cell phone, keeping it close to my chest to cover the light from the screen, and dial 911. When I get the standard response, I whisper: “There’s a murder in progress in Potomac Gardens. Officer down.” The voice at the other end calmly asks who I am and asks me to repeat the location. I say again, “Murder in progress in Potomac Gardens in Georgetown. Officer down.” I hear voices near me and cut the connection.
One of my pursuers is no more than ten feet away to my left and moves cautiously through the trees. There’s another behind me. No one has thought to bring a flashlight. We’re all lost in the dark.
I’m on my feet and running as fast as I can—returning the way I came—counting the steps so as not to get completely lost.
And suddenly, I’m hit in the face and thrown to the ground. I lie on my back, half dazed, on a bed of pine needles and dead leaves. I touch my face and feel blood. There’s a gash above my right eye and I brace myself for a second attack from my unseen opponent until I realize my opponent is probably a tree. I’ve run into some goddamn tree trunk or tree branch.
From behind, I hear a shot. Then another. I roll over on my stomach and see a muzzle flash maybe twenty feet away.
They must have heard me hit the tree. Or maybe I grunted. Now they’re firing in what they think is my direction. Firing blind in the dark. I count one, two, guns.
There’s a curse. “Stop shooting,” somebody shouts. They realize they’re shooting at one another now.
A man’s voice calls out from a distance and somewhere a light is turned on. I figure the caretaker has been woken and switched on a floodlight. I can even make out the silhouette of one of the shooters, crouched down. No details. A dark shadow among dark shadows.
Suddenly, there’s a light among the trees. Somebody with a flashlight is moving toward us. I curse to myself. It must be the caretaker. There is a shot from what seems a few feet to my left and the flashlight flies into the air. I hear the anguished cry as somebody feels the impact of a round and falls.
In the distance there are sirens—I count at least two patrol cars. There will be more. People all over the neighborhood will be calling 911 now, reporting the sound of gunfire. The police cars pull up to the main gate of the garden: Police officers will be piling out, guns drawn. The streets in the neighborhood and gardens will be swarming with cops in minutes. This is an upscale neighborhood populated by rich and powerful people, and the police response will be overwhelming.
My attackers know this. There are shouts, and I sense they’re escaping, groping their way among the trees and bushes, back toward the wall, trying to get the hell away before the police crowd through the trees. There are more approaching sirens and some cop on a bull-horn is yelling warnings. Time to make myself scarce. I don’t want to try to explain what is going on.
I get painfully to my feet, making as little sound as I can in case one of my attackers has decided to stay behind. I hobble among the trees until I see faint streetlights over the top of the wall. That gives me something to aim at. I take a deep breath and run for the wall, at the last minute jumping for the top. I’m able to just grasp the top and pull myself over.
The street below is empty. There is no sign of the SUV or the white van. I swing over the top and drop to the street below. There I crouch for a moment, keeping a low profile, head down, then dash for the Jag. It’s just as I left it. The key still in the ignition, the car half on, half off the sidewalk. Lights in the homes along the street are turning on. Curtains are cautiously shifting. A few heads peer out. At the end of the street there are flashing lights of a patrol car and a fire engine. Time to get out.
* * *
I pull the Jag into my garage and secure the door, check security around and inside the house and find no signs of intrusion. No van is in sight. No unidentified cars are on my street. After locking up, I brush the dead leaves and twigs from my hair, go to the bathroom, and check my face. I have a nasty cut on my right forehead. I wipe the blood away with a damp towel. In the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of Wild Turkey to help settle my nerves.
I’m too keyed up to sleep so I carry the Wild Turkey with me. As an afterthought, I go to my bedroom and remove my .45 from its place secured behind the bedside stand and I go out to my deck. I settle into my lounge chair in total darkness. In the distance I hear the faint sounds of traffic and the rustle of leaves in the trees in the park below my house. Somewhere in the distance, a dog is barking. There are other soft noises I can’t identify.
I rub my knee that still hurts from my fall and feel my bumps and bruises—the palms of my hands, my right forearm. My scalp is sticky with drying blood. I’m too old for this kind of thing. It’s not as much fun as it once was.
I switch on my phone and listen briefly to police radio calls. As expected, in addition to my own 911 call, many neighborhood residents reported the sound of gunfire. There’s a report of one casualty, still alive, being taken to a hospital. No reports about any of my attackers. There is no mention of me.
I switch off the police band and listen to “Lonely Woman.” Ornette can always soothe my nerves and, for a while, I let my mind go blank and just listen. It’s cool, there’s a slight breeze, and I almost doze off.
Eventually, I rouse myself and turn my mind to my immediate problems. There’s the men who tried to kill me tonight. Are they connected to Sister Grace and her feral family? Or maybe the Brotherhood of the Aryan Dawn? Or maybe something from out of my past? Some individual or organization I’ve pissed off along the way? There’s a long list.
There’s a whooping sound I think may be an owl somewhere. I know there are bats in the trees around my house, but I’m pretty sure humans can’t hear bats.
I turn my mind to the girl in the Reflecting Pool and her blue eyes I can’t forget. Frank Townsend could be right. Maybe it’s a routine crime best left to junior officers. But I know better. Someone with power is trying to shut me down. That seriously annoys me.
Then there’s Arora Lovelace. Does she have an agenda she’s not telling me about? Everybody has an agenda. I get that. Sometimes agendas are innocent. She’s a mystery to me, and I don’t like mysteries.
This gets me nowhere. Too much wine at dinner is not helping. Maybe it’s Arora’s smile. I pour myself a second glass of Wild Turkey and come back to Sister Grace and her demented orders for me to take care of Cloud.
The sky in the east is getting bright when I finish my drink, and I’m beginning to see the outlines of a plan to get out of this mess. It will be dangerous but it’s the only way.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
TWO MEN WHO might be related to the receptionist at the Secret Service building are waiting for me at FBI headquarters. One of them makes me sign in; the other examines my police ID carefully then announces: “You’re expected, Detective. Your escort will be with you shortly.”
A few minutes later a pert young woman, her bosom bedecked with laminated plastic IDs, takes me to an office high in the building and deposits me in an austere waiting room. I introduce myself to the young man sitting at a desk who examines my police credentials then asks me politely to take a seat until I’m called.
I look through the magazines to keep visitors entertained while they wait. I’ve often wondered what kind of readi
ng matter the head of the FBI’s Criminal Division keeps in her waiting room. I’m hoping for something like True Detective or at least Guns and Ammo. Instead, I find back issues of Time and The Wall Street Journal.
I’m reduced to studying the pictures on the walls: The President, the Attorney General, the Director of the FBI. I lose interest in them and return to “Time” when the door to the waiting room opens and Arora Lovelace enters. She looks surprised. I imagine I do, too.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been summoned,” she tells me. “You?”
“Same thing.”
We sit on the couch, side by side, and wait in silence. The phone on the reception desk chirps constantly, but discreetly. The receptionist, a young man with neat, close-cut hair, parted in the middle, handles the calls efficiently and smoothly. Try as I might, I can’t hear what he says on the phone.
Arora looks at the gash on my head that I tried to hide by combing my hair over the wound. “Rough night?” she asks.
“Slipped on my bathroom floor.”
The receptionist speaks to us: “Agent Lovelace. Detective Zorn. The Director will see you now.”
The receptionist is on his feet and opens the inner door for us. Arora Lovelace goes in first. I follow, still limping.
Carla Lowry, the Director of the FBI’s Criminal Division, sits behind her desk that is littered with papers and files. “That will be all, Ben,” she says to the receptionist who leaves the room, shutting the door silently behind him.
“You two, sit down,” Carla commands.
Arora Lovelace and I sit in chairs facing the desk. Carla Lowry pulls off her reading glasses, placing them carefully among the documents on her desk, then comes around from behind her desk and stands in front of us, half leaning, half sitting on the edge of her desk.
She studies us, looking first at Arora, and then at me. Her eyes seem to focus on the bruises on my face and the gash on my head. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s keep this short. You two are investigating the murder of Sandra Wilcox. Right?”
We both nod.
“You are running separate investigations. But coordinating.” Arora glances at me. Carla doesn’t wait for an answer. Which is just as well.
“It looks like one or both of you have put your foot in it.”
“It?” I try to sound innocent. As usual, Carla ignores me.
“I’ve been getting pushback about your inquiries,” Carla tells us. “You’ve made some people unhappy.”
“Who have we made unhappy?” I ask.
“None of your business. Suffice it to say there have been suggestions—not so subtle suggestions—that the investigation into the murder of Sandra Wilcox be put on the back burner.”
“That’s outrageous!” Arora Lovelace blurts out. Then calmer. “The murder of a federal agent should never be put on the back burner. The murder of anyone!”
Carla Lowry holds up her hand, a gesture for silence. “The way it has been put to me is to leave the investigation to the Secret Service. Leave it to the national security teams.”
“That’s the same thing as putting the case on the back burner,” I suggest.
Carla Lowry gives me a skeptical look.
“Have you been ordered to stop the investigation?” Arora asks.
“Not in so many words. And I’m not stopping the investigation. Nothing pisses me off more than to have some politician tell me how to do my job.”
“So, what are we doing here?” I ask.
“I think I owe you a warning,” Carla tells us. “There’s a lot of high-level interest in this case. I can take the heat, but you—” she’s looking at Arora Lovelace. “You might get in trouble.”
“Are you telling me I should stop the investigation?”
“I don’t want you to stop the investigation. I want you to be worried.” Carla Lowry turns to me. “Now Marko here, he can take care of himself. And if he gets in trouble, okay. If he gets chewed up by the system, who cares? But you, Agent Lovelace—” she turns back to Arora—“you’re one of us. You work for me, in a manner of speaking. I don’t want to see you hurt. If you decide to stop your part of the investigation, I’ll understand. It will not be held against you.”
“I’m determined to find out who murdered Sandra Wilcox,” Arora announces.
“Good,” Carla says. “That’s what I thought you’d say.” Carla seems to relax a bit—to the extent she ever relaxes. “What have you two got so far?”
“The Secret Service believes a domestic terrorist group called the Brotherhood of the Aryan Dawn had Sandra Wilcox killed.”
“Why would the Secret Service believe that?” Carla asks.
“They think the Brotherhood recruited Sandra to work with them—to plan the assassination of the President. Then killed her to keep her quiet or maybe because they no longer trusted her or no longer needed her.”
“What was her connection to this Brotherhood?”
“The Service suspects the assassin the Brotherhood recruited may be Tony Wilcox, Sandra Wilcox’s brother.”
“Do you buy their theory, Agent Lovelace?”
“It makes sense to me.”
“Marko, you look skeptical.”
“It sounds plausible spelled out like that but I don’t buy it. It doesn’t feel like a job by the Arian Brotherhood.”
“If it wasn’t this militia group, who did kill Sandra Wilcox?”
“I don’t know.”
“You better find out. See what you two can uncover on any line of inquiry.”
“Have you found your mole yet?” I ask.
“Mole?” Carla’s face is frozen.
“You know, the person who intercepted Agent Lovelace’s report to Headquarters containing the name of the assassin. Who then promptly told the Brotherhood about Solly Nelson, who then arranged to have your agent and the defector killed. That mole.”
Carla is furious with me. “That’s none of your business. That is strictly a Bureau internal matter. Stay out of it!”
I give her a moment to calm down. “There’s one more thing.”
Carla covers her face with her hands for a moment. “I know I’m going to regret this. I know I shouldn’t ask you what ‘one more thing’ is.”
“I want an airplane.”
“I want a vacation. What are you talking about?”
“There’s one line of inquiry we need to explore further.”
“And that is?”
“Anne Lovell.”
“Who is Anne Lovell?” Carla demands.
“Sandra Wilcox’s sister-in-law,” Arora explains. “Tony Wilcox’s ex-wife.”
“Tell me why I should care.”
“She and Sandra kept in touch,” I say. “She’s the only one outside the Secret Service that Sandra Wilcox seems to have talked to recently. Somebody must talk to Anne Lovell and find out what she knows.”
“Two Secret Service agents talked to her yesterday,” Carla says. “They didn’t learn anything useful.”
“That’s because they didn’t know the right questions to ask.”
“And you do, I suppose.”
“Yes, I do. I need to talk to her.”
“And how do you propose to do that?”
“She’s living just outside of Greensboro.”
“Greensboro, you said? As in Greensboro, North Carolina?”
“I know the Bureau has aircraft at Andrews Air Base. Arrange to have me flown to Greensboro. Today. There’s a small airport there. All I need is an hour with Anne Lovell. Then bring me back to DC.”
“That’s all you want? Would you like me to have you canonized as well?”
“I believe I’d have to be dead for that.”
“That can be arranged. Do you have any idea how much this trip would cost the American taxpayer?”
“I have no idea. But think of the potential payoff. If I could learn something—anything—
that could stop this domestic terrorist group, it could prevent the assassination of the President of the United States and the FBI would get the credit. Not the Secret Service.”
“You seem to forget that we’re all on the same team here,” Carla pronounces. “Federal agencies do not compete for credit.”
All of us in the room know better than to believe that.
Carla turns to Arora. “Agent Lovelace, do you have an opinion on Zorn’s proposed trip to North Carolina?”
Arora makes her nervous gesture, pushing her glasses onto the bridge of her nose. “Yes,” she tells Carla. “I think we should talk to Anne Lovell.”
“We?” Carla is genuinely shocked.
“We’re at a dead end in the investigation,” Arora says. “In tracking down this militia group and in solving the Sandra Wilcox murder. We need a break. I don’t know what the sister-in-law can tell us. Maybe nothing. But it’s worth a trip to talk to her.”
Carla Lowry settles back in her desk chair and scans her cluttered desktop. I wonder whether she’s searching for something sharp to throw at me. Then she says something I don’t expect.
“Maybe you might learn something. But if the Bureau is to provide transportation and support, then this is a Bureau operation.”
“Meaning?” I ask.
“Meaning that Special Agent Lovelace will go and she will have the lead. If you go with her, Marko, it is only to carry her luggage. Is that perfectly clear? This is an FBI operation from beginning to end.”
I feel Arora watching me closely. I shrug. “Okay,” I say. “Fine. Deal. Special Agent Lovelace has the lead.”
“I’ll call Andrews and make the arrangements,” Carla says. “But there is one more thing before you go.” She picks up a paper and puts on her reading glasses. “My incident report this morning tells me there was a shooting in Potomac Gardens in Georgetown last night. Witnesses report hearing what sounded like gunshots. There was even an anonymous 911 call reporting an attack on a police officer. When the police arrived, they found the caretaker wounded. Everyone else involved had disappeared including the so-called police officer. This was not some minor dispute between two drunks. This was no robbery gone bad. This was an armed attack. Strange, don’t you think, Marko?”