He waited, his eyes adjusting to the quality of indoor darkness, with no starlight or far-off spotlights. It was clear he was in the kitchen supply depot, as industrial-sized plastic bottles of ketchup, mustard, and relish stood everywhere, as did other wrapped-in-plastic foodstuffs. A glowing stainless steel door admitted the cookie to the walk-in freezer where perishables were kept. Bob ignored it, slid to the door, unlocked it, and opened it a crack. Not much to see: institutional green walls, a few other closed doors probably giving admittance to other storage facilities, at the far end a hold tank, where drunks or paparazzi could be secured until LE came out from town to haul them away. At the close end he saw stairs, slipped quietly to them, eased halfway up—would there be a crack as the old wood adjusted to weight bearing? no, not this time—and slipped up a bit further.
He could see into the big room, well-lit but empty. Junky Walmart furniture mostly broken down from daily use, piles of magazines from Guns & Ammo to Pussy & Juggs. In other words, the debris and squalor of men living together. Coke cans, paper plates, candy bar wrappers, like any day room in any guard post anywhere in the world. The guys were upstairs, he guessed, having a feeling of dense sleep above him, hearing the wheeze of one, the fart of another, the dream-driven toss of a third.
He slid along the wall, peeked into the kitchen and saw the cookie hadn’t arrived yet to throw the day shift breakfast on. Beyond it lay the security HQ office, he could tell, because although he did not see into that room directly, he saw the gray glow of security monitors on the wall through the doorway. A man or two would be in there; so would the arms safe and, he’d bet, in that would be the package, the whatever. Wouldn’t that be the safest spot on the ranch: in a room guarded 24/7 by armed guys with orders to shoot to kill? It made sense, if anything made sense.
He didn’t let rogue thoughts fly. He suppressed the notion that a) Tom Constable had simply destroyed the object (he wouldn’t; holding it would thrill him too much; he would think there’d always be time to destroy it; it had some kind of meaning to him), or that b) he’d lock it in a safe in his bedroom, where his various wives and now visitors stored their jewels, or c) he had it with him, wherever he was, just to keep it near and dear, or d) he put it in a safe deposit box in the biggest vault in the world. Nope, none of those: couldn’t be, wouldn’t be, no way.
Bob stepped around the corner.
“Hello,” he said.
“Huh?” said the security officer, rising from a soft chair where he’d been watching not the bank of monitors on the wall but a television showing some kind of spaceship thing.
Bob hit him in the face and eyes with the Kimber pepper and down he went, coughing spastically, and before he could reorient, Bob had him trussed in plastic cuffs pulled tight.
“You shut up, partner, or I’ll have to hurt you harder.”
The man spluttered, groaned, bucked, and Bob put a knee against the back of his neck.
“I can close you down the hard way if you don’t do what I say.”
The man went limp. But then he said, “Mister, do you have any idea what you’re fucking with? You are going to be so messed up.”
“Anyone else here? A partner, another patrolman? You alone, bub? Tell me or I’ll hit you with two or three more shots of pepper, and son, you won’t like that a bit.”
“I’m alone,” the man said. “Down here. But there are six very tough guys upstairs, so my advice to you is to run like hell and hope you get off the property before you get them pissed.”
“I didn’t come this far for the fun of it,” Bob said.
Bob looked around the room, and yeah, there was the secure steel door of what had to be an arms vault, snug behind a combination lock the size of a dinner plate, very old-style.
“You keep the rifles in there, right? But because the guys go in and out, you only keep it day-locked, right? You don’t want to fuck with the big combination six times a day, right?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“We’ll see about that.”
He raised the man to his feet and shoved him ahead.
“Key or more pepper?”
“Shit,” the guy said, and gave it up. He nodded toward the desk drawer. Bob reached in, pulled out a big key ring. He went to the arms vault and inserted a key in the day lock and pulled on the heavy door. That easily, it swung open.
Bob pushed the guard in, then followed.
“Y’all planning for the invasion?” he asked.
Serious weaponry: not the Ruger Mini-14s but a rack of M4s, all with high-tech red-dot optics, several crates of 5.56 NATO and 12 gauge, four short-barreled pump shotguns, some chemical crowd control gimcracks, a rack of gas masks. On a metal shelf in the back, he found some papers, someone’s copy of Atlas Shrugged, and a nice but well-beaten briefcase with the initials JTS, for John Terrence Strong, he guessed. He opened it, saw only a small cardboard package, four by four, white, that bore on its corners yellowed strands of old Scotch tape.
Got it, even as he realized the absurd ease with which all this had happened.
He grabbed the case, pulled the guard with him, closed the vault.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” he said to his captive. “If I had a brain in my head I’d snap your spine and be done with you, cowboy. But I’m a nice guy, see. So you and me, we’s walking out the door like buddies, to the motor compound in the back. Then I’m popping tires on all the other vehicles, and you and I are going for a ride. I’ll toss you out somewheres along the way, and tomorrow night you can have dinner with the wife and kids. You’ll be out of a job but not out of the rest of your life.”
“Mister, you are in so much trouble. You put that goddamn briefcase back or—”
“Let’s go, bub.”
He led the now cooperating man through the back entrance, and as he stepped through the door, someone hit him a perfect shot in the brachial plexus, the nerve group that ran from his shoulder to his neck, and his body went useless and puttylike on him. He fell, and the others were on him in seconds with their hard professional knowledge of leverage and application of force and pain. In another second, his own hands were snared in flex-cuffs. He was hauled roughly to his feet.
Whack! the man he’d taken hit him in the face, and for his troubles was shoved hard to the ground by another dark figure.
“You’ll be minding your manners now, mate,” said his persecutor.
Then he turned to Swagger, smiling. “Well, damn me eyes, look and see what the cat has brought in from the meadow.”
It was Anto Grogan.
36
Nick was alone in the house, as he had been for much of the week. Sally was finishing up some big case and wouldn’t be home until much later. Nick had read, watched DVDs, listened to music, and otherwise filled the time of his exile. But enough with the Lean Cuisines nuked, stirred, renuked, and stirred again. No more macaroni and cheese!
He looked out the window. Finally, they’d all gone away, the entourage of reporters who’d set up shop in the front yard to bedevil him. The weather had turned cold, it was late on a Friday night and nothing happened in Washington on a Friday night, so all the boys and girls of estate4.com had gone home early.
He should have shaved, but what the hell. He slipped on a sports coat, went into the garage, and pulled out. God, for just a few seconds the liberation was its own reward, the sense of being outside the house, away from the same four walls. He drove aimlessly through Fairfax and finally decided, since it was late and the line would be down, to head to Ray’s the Steaks in Arlington. He slid through the Northern Virginia night without much difficulty, found parking on the street, and headed into the old house that had become one of the most popular restaurants in the area.
“Is the kitchen still open?” he asked the maître d’.
“You just made it, sir.”
“I can eat in the bar if it’s easier.”
“No, we’ve got tables. This way, please.”
&n
bsp; He followed the man through the three-quarters-full room to a corner table for two, approved of its darkness and obscurity, and took a seat. In a bit, he ordered a drink, since he sure wasn’t on duty and wasn’t carrying anything except his credit cards.
“Bourbon and water.”
“Preference, sir?”
“Sure, Knob Creek, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes sir.”
He studied the menu and ended up with what he always ordered—house salad, filet, medium rare, mashed—and since Sally wasn’t here, he allowed himself to enjoy the luxury of skipping the asparagus. He sat, meditating, enjoying the mellow power of the bourbon to confer its merciful blur on things, and tried to figure out what to do next but of course knew that whatever he decided would be preempted by the Bureau’s next move.
Would he be formally terminated with cause? It might happen. More likely, he’d be demoted to some make-work job—hmm, had they closed out the who-really-fathered-Bristol-Palin’s-baby investigation?—while the Office of Professional Responsibility put together a case against him; then he’d be advised of a hearing, he’d have to hire a lawyer, there’d be some back-and-forth, and what would happen would happen.
A shadow fell across the table.
He looked up.
“I figured it would be you. At least it’s not Banjax,” he said.
“Hi, Nick. I’m hoping you won’t chase me away. We should talk,” said Bill Fedders.
“Sure, Bill,” said Nick. “Sit yourself down. Waiter, waiter, bring Mr. Fedders a drink, whatever he wants, on my tab.”
“Well, aren’t we feeling generous,” Fedders said. “Better let me put it on my tab. It’s the least I can do.”
Fedders ordered a vodka martini, dry, Grey Goose, and explained that by “dry” he meant that the olive should be allowed to read the label on the vermouth and that was it for vermouth.
Nick thought it was actually kind of funny but suspected that it was a treasured Feddersism, famous all over DC. He was hearing it late because normally he was so distant from the fabulous Fedders orbit.
“So, Nick,” said Bob.
“So, Bill,” said Nick.
Fedders’s drink came and Fedders toasted, “Nick, to you. I always liked you. None of this was because anybody disliked you. You’re a hell of a guy, Nick, and a hell of an agent.”
“Hear, hear,” said Nick, drinking to himself.
“It’s not too late, Nick. You can call the director, tell him in the time off your thinking has clarified on the case and you are one hundred percent behind resolution now and moving onward. Get that report issued, hang the case-closed tag on it, and sit back and relax. Then maybe some of the forces that seem to be conspiring to destroy you could conspire to help you.”
“You can make it happen that fast?” said Nick. “You can stop the Times in mid hue and cry—or maybe that’s full hue and only half cry—and turn it around to help me?”
“Well, Nick, you overestimate my power, sure. But I can make some things happen. I’ve been in this old town since the first Roosevelt. I used to date Alice Longworth, in fact. I’ve got a few favors owed me; I’ve sure done enough in my time.”
“Impressive, Bill, I give you that. Impressive.”
“Nick, really, what’s the problem? The Big Guy doesn’t want to spend the last years of his life reading how he hired aliens to murder his ex-wife because she was sleeping with some kid with too much mousse in his hair. Can you blame him? Once all you guys go to case-closed, the report is the record, the verdict, the official version. Nobody will have access to the evidence. No more nutcase articles, nobody getting rich on craptastic books and DVDs, no movie versions, no Rushes to Judgment. The whole circus dries up and dies.”
“Wow, again, you can do that?”
“My pleasant voice, suave charm, brilliant instincts, and, oh yes, Tom Constable’s six billion bucks. Money talks loud. He just wants this goddamn thing to go away.”
“I’d think he’d want the guilty party drawn and quartered.”
“Nick, I can’t argue the case with you, but the crazy marine sniper thing made absolute sense to Tom and he bought it totally. Maybe he’s deluding himself, because he also saw how quickly and neatly it ended things.”
“Or maybe he did pay somebody to kill her and frame Hitchcock. Or maybe killing her wasn’t even the point, maybe it was killing one of the others, like that, what was his name, the comic, Mitch Greene.”
“Nick, believe me, nobody would go to that much trouble to kill Mitch Greene.”
“Well, I’m sure you’re right about it, but I can’t see hanging it up until we’ve worked out all the possibilities, not just the most obvious ones. That’s my obligation as a law enforcement officer. I can’t walk away from that, no matter what.”
“Nick, really, the news isn’t good. Not tomorrow, but in a few days, the Times has another bombshell. It’s bad, Nick. I don’t think even your most ardent supporters in the Bureau will stand behind you after this one. I can’t tell you what it is, but it’ll leave a crater the size of Manhattan.”
So that was it. That’s why Bill was here, to deliver the news in person. Nick had no doubt that at some level Fedders was genuine in his affection for Nick and was probably going to some kind of extra exertion out of some kind of twisted nobility to deliver the news in person.
“You know, it’s all crap,” Nick said. “I never did a thing for FN, took one red cent, one lousy meatball. I didn’t even know they’d bought Winchester. I have no brief for the Model 70 over the 700. I don’t know anything about firearms acquisitions; that’s handled at Quantico. I missed most of the meetings for the Sniper Rifle Committee.”
“Nick, the evidence says different, and it’s a hard one to talk your way out of. I’d get good counsel, if I were you, and I’ll tell you what he’ll say. He’ll say, ‘Let me cut a deal. You sign off on something else, maybe behavior detrimental to the Bureau, have a suspension, and when you come back, they’ll move you someplace out of the mainstream. That way you keep your pension and it all looks rosy and cosy.’ That’s good advice, Nick. Don’t try to play hardball with this thing. It’s too big. It’ll squash you. The more you fight it, the worse off you are.”
“See, Bill, here’s the funny thing. If you want to go after me, that’s fine. I’m a big boy, I’m in a hot-seat job, it’s what I wanted, it was the risk I ran to pay for my ambition. I can go down; it’s the way of the wicked world. But you guys went after Swagger. Let me tell you, it takes a powerful kind of fool to go after Swagger. He never did anything but his duty, hard and straight, no bullshit, and he dodged enough lead in his time to sink an aircraft carrier. He did it for something he thought of as his country, and his country is a lot better off because of the risks he took and the wounds he bore and the responsibilities he embraced. Now you make him out to be some kind of cracker Svengali manipulating me into stupidity. I will tell you this: I’ve seen smart boys try to throw the rope around Swagger before and it always turns out the same. They think they’re hunting him, and it turns out he’s hunting them.”
“Nick, it’s nothing personal. It’s just—”
“So when I talk to you, Bill, the truth is, one way or the other, it’s like I’m talking to something that’s already been hit and just doesn’t know it yet. You and your rich boss and all the thugs he’s hired? Baby, you’re walking into bullet city.”
37
They took him downstairs into a blank white room with a heavy lock. It was one of those zones of permanent noon. Two TV cameras monitored it, mounted on brackets in the corner. It had an antiseptic quality to it, and a drain in the floor, in the center of the cheesy linoleum. The lights were harsh and shadowless. A sink hung off one padded wall. He knew what it was for.
The search came first: it was hard and professional, a bunch of clapping and probing and rubbing. Jimmy, one of the hulking, muscle-knotted gym rat contractors, even peeled a bandage back on one of his fingers, looking to make sure it covere
d a bloody wound, and only picking at the scab to draw a drop of blood convinced him it was real enough. “Cut ourselves wanking, have we now?” he asked, as he squashed the thing back in place. Raymond, the scrawny one, went to it on his boots, probing the lasts for hidden blades or whatever, finding nothing.
Then they threw him in a chair, the four of them, three hulking men in desert tan battle dress and Raymond, who he now realized was Carl’s doppelgänger during the week of shootings. Of course, there had to be a guy of Carl’s size and coloring who, in grubby clothes with a three-day beard and a ballcap pulled low over the eyes, could pass as any grizzled loner.
But that was the past; in the present, he could feel their weight and concentration of purpose palpably, filling the room. His tightly bound wrists, the plastic bindings deep in the flesh of his arms, sang in pain; his hands felt like blue gloves.
“I see Team Homo has formed up again,” he said. “Shouldn’t you boys be puking up green beer behind some dive in Boston?”
“Oh, Bobby,” said Anto, “with the smart comments, as if he’s reading from a movie script. He ain’t scared, is he, Ginger?”
“He is not,” said Ginger, “or if he is, the fellow controls it well. But we’ll change that.”
“We’s in for a long night’s journey, I’m afraid.”
Two departed and returned with folders, and Anto Grogan sat across from Bob, taking off his ballcap, running a hand through his dark crew cut, smiling broadly; handsome fellow he was too, radiating charisma.
“Nicely handled in Chicago,” he said. “Too bad we haven’t it on film. Counter-Ambush Tactical Improvisation. A damn classic. Also too bad that damn kid was so slow on the gun. He liked filling up the black gentleman with lead, and by the time he came around for you, you was gone. And three seconds later, he was dead. Very nice. Who said this was no country for old men?”