Girl of Lies (Rachel's Peril)

  In any event, Sean’s comment had worn on her mind, an ongoing nagging worry.

  Finally, in 2005, she’d called her mother and invited herself to San Francisco for a week. A week she and her mother spent together. Talking. In a few cases, screaming at each other.

  Adelina Thompson never divulged her secrets, but Julia came away from that week believing Sean was right. More importantly, she came away from that week believing in forgiveness. She didn’t have it yet. She hadn’t forgiven her mother, nor forgotten those horrible years in China and right after. But she at least believed it might be possible.

  Since that week, they’d talked on the phone every single week without fail, with only two exceptions. The first, the week of March 11, 2011. Morbid Obesity was in Tokyo for a concert when a tsunami hit the coast of Japan, wiping out entire towns and setting off a nuclear disaster. For several days power in the country was unreliable, along with cell service. For the first few days after the disaster, air travel was also disrupted, and they’d been unable to get clearance to depart until five days after the tsunami. She hadn’t spoken with her mother that week.

  The second time was the week after Ray Sherman died. For the first time in their lives, Adelina Thompson went into overdrive as a mother, taking care of Carrie and Sarah at a time when both of them needed her. All of the sisters were stunned, most of all Julia, who had borne the brunt of her mother’s bizarre behavior over the years.

  Those weekly Friday calls had become a mainstay of their relationship. Sometimes she and her mother went through periods of hostility, sometimes through periods where they were cold; but no matter what, they spoke. No matter what.

  This past Friday’s call had been normal. Julia talked with her about the new album and the process of getting it recorded. They talked about Carrie’s week-old baby Rachel, and the diagnosis, which had come as a shock to all of them. Julia had made the arrangements for Andrea’s flight to Washington.

  Mother and Jessica were supposed to fly east on Wednesday morning. Julia had taken that for granted, until now.

  “When was the last time you talked with her?” she asked Carrie.

  “A… a week ago?”

  Julia made a snap decision. “I’ll fly to San Francisco in the morning. But I think we need to consider having someone local go take a look.” She held the phone away from her head. “It’s almost 5 o’clock… let me see if I can get Bill Lemke to go take a look, just to see if they’re home and not answering the phone or whatever.”

  Sarah, still on the speakerphone, said, “Dad said Mom was taking Jessica off to some religious retreat.”

  Julia scrunched her eyebrows. Their mother was a devout Catholic, but this seemed… out of character. “I’m not sure I buy that. Either way, I’ll check it out in the morning.”

  They ended the conversation, and she turned her attention back to Anthony Walker. For just a second she studied him. Trying to decide. Could she trust him? The idea of trusting a reporter struck her as foolhardy.

  Something told her this was the time.

  “Anthony, I’ve got a chance of plans. I have to fly to San Francisco in the morning then back to Washington, DC. If you want to pursue this, you’ll have to fly with us.”

  “Commercial?”

  “No, we’ve got a jet. You travel as much as we do, it starts to make sense.”

  “I’m in.”

  1. Leslie Collins. April 29. 5:50 pm

  SIX PM IN DOWNTOWN Washington and traffic was predictably snarled. Leslie Collins sat in the back of a large Chevy Suburban, papers spread across the folding worktable. The SUV was still new, the smell of leather and bulletproof glass. His driver laid on the horn and said, “You want me to go to lights and sirens, sir?”

  Leslie Collins looked at his watch, an antique wind-up aviator’s watch with a badly scratched glass cover. “Yes, we need to be there in twenty minutes.” Even with the flashing lights and sirens it might take another fifteen minutes to navigate to their destination. Collins sometimes thought that certain roads in Washington needed to be reserved for official traffic.

  Inside his jacket pocket, he felt his phone buzzing. He reached in and pulled the phone out.

  Mitch Filner.

  About time. Collins answered the phone brusquely.

  “What is it?”

  Filner, as always, sounded out of breath. “Calling to report on progress.”

  The large black Chevy Suburban inched forward in the traffic. The driver leaned forward, gesticulating at what looked to be a thirty-year old lobbyist at the wheel of a Cooper Mini who blocked the intersection at Massachusetts and 30th. Amazing that poor excuse for a car, which could fit in the cargo space of the Suburban, could block three lanes of traffic. The driver jerked back from the noise of the Suburban’s siren and horn.

  Seconds later the Mini unsnarled itself and traffic began to flow again. For a block or two.

  “All right. Go.”

  Filner coughed in the phone. Bastard needed to quit smoking and maybe he wouldn’t sound like such an invalid. “Okay, first of all, the family here in Washington has Diplomatic Security protection now. Three uniformed officers at the Bethesda condo at all times. Secretary Thompson also has protection, but not DSS—his are private contractors.”

  “Is Thompson still living by himself?”

  “Base housing at Fort Myers. From what I understand, he booted some two-star out of his house.”

  Collins shook his head. “That’ll make him popular with the troops.”

  “Yeah, well, bottom line is, I don’t have any assets close to him.”

  Collins looked to his left. Across the street was the Islamic Center. Built of white stone with an ochre tiled roof and crenellations along the top wall, the building had a minaret. A fucking minaret, in Washington DC, fifteen blocks from the White House. Letters in blue lined Arabic covered the front of the building in a line about five archways into an interior courtyard. The entire building, a remarkable piece of architecture if it had been in Cairo or Baghdad, was a giant middle finger erected against the American people. Luckily for the inhabitants, the building had an eight-foot cast iron fence surrounding it.

  He focused his attention back on the moment. “What about the daughters?”

  “One of the DSS agents is ours,” Filner replied.

  “All right. Keep them in place, but don’t do anything yet.”

  “Right. As I understand it, the sisters here in DC are headed out to a restaurant shortly. Our agent is with the escort.”

  2. Andrea. April 29. 6:00 pm

  “I’m ready,” Andrea said, walking back into the living room.

  All of her clothes—along with her phone and laptop—were still in the custody of the police. Luckily, Carrie had lent her a dress, linen with a blue herringbone pattern. It wasn’t something Andrea would have chosen to wear on her own—Carrie was a bit too fashionable for her taste—but it fit her.

  “Ready?” It was Leah Simpson. Like the others in the security detail, she’d changed from her semi-uniform into nondescript civilian clothing, in her case jeans and a sweater that was probably too heavy for the April weather. It was just heavy enough to cover her sidearm, which was no longer visible at her hip. Her blonde hair, previously tied up in a simple ponytail, was now braided. It looked professional, but not the sort of thing you would wear out on the town.

  Sarah and Alexandra were playing gin at the kitchen table, and Dylan stood on the porch smoking again. Carrie was in the nursery giving instructions to her nanny.

  “I’m ready,” Andrea said. “But it looks like I’m the only one.”

  Sarah smirked. “Soon as Carrie comes out we can go. Everything takes twice as long when you’ve got a baby.”

  Andrea shrugged. She wasn’t planning on having any babies. She looked at Leah.

  “You’re coming with us?”

  Leah nodded. “For the foreseeable future, you’ll have a Diplomatic Security escort wherever you go.”

  “When
do you go home to your family?” Andrea asked.

  “We’ll have a rotation in place by late tonight. But my primary concern is your safety.”

  She sounded like a robot. Andrea thought that Leah Simpson’s primary concern was probably her family, her own safety, her career first. Which was completely normal. She didn’t particularly care for misdirection.

  “Are you married?” Andrea asked.

  Leah raised an eyebrow. “I am.”

  “Kids?”

  “Two.” She smiled, then slid a well-worn men’s wallet out of her pocket. She opened it up. “My son Jim and my daughter Rebecca.”

  The boy in the photo was four years old or so. If she was completely objective, Andrea thought the boy was pretty ugly. He had too small eyes and a pug nose and uneven teeth that only a mother could love. But the thing was, his mother obviously did love him. And that mattered more than anything. Beside him in the photo was a younger girl, maybe two years old. She wore a yellow and red Washington Redskins cheerleading outfit, complete with pompoms and an Indian head logo on the skirt.

  Andrea smiled. Then she said, “I think your first priority is them.”

  Leah returned the smile. “True. But your safety is my professional responsibility, and I take that seriously. Jim and Rebecca are with their step-dad tonight. Once we get you settled we’ll be on a fairly normal routine.”

  Andrea nodded. “You… it must be kind of scary, doing this for a living. When you have kids.”

  Leah shook her head. “Most of the time I do paperwork and stand around. Or we provide security details for boring old dowager countesses.”

  Sarah and Alexandra looked up, and Sarah stood as Carrie walked into the room. She’d changed into a knee length pleated dress, dark purple with brass buttons down the chest and flat sandals.

  “Sorry about that,” Carrie said. “Rachel’s asleep. Why don’t we get going?”

  3. Bear. April 29. 6:03 pm

  The studio apartment was simple. At three hundred square feet, Bear had enough room for a twin bed, a tiny couch and television, a kitchen table that doubled as a desk, and a small dresser containing most of his clothes. He owned little else.

  The folder on his kitchen table, next to the laptop, was a serious enough security violation that he could expect a reprimand in his file if it was discovered. Not because he had it—after all, the Secretary of State himself handed him the file. But the fact that it was on his kitchen table, instead of secured at the office, was a problem. The tall glass of bourbon and Coke next to it also presented a problem, though not as serious as the bringing of classified documents home.

  Regardless, he sat down at the table and took a sip of his drink. He felt the pungent liquor slide down his throat and breathed a sigh of relief. Bear was glad he hadn’t stayed in the office, where Tom Cantwell was undoubtedly scheming to bring an end to Bear’s career.

  Sometimes Bear was ready to pack it in anyway. His career hadn’t been perfect, but it had been solid, marked by steady promotions and steps up in seniority. But the further he moved up the ladder, the more political his job became. Sometimes it paid to keep your nose down, do your job and not get noticed.

  He sighed. Then broke the seal on the envelope and slid the documents out of it.

  The first document at the top of a small stack was an application for federal employment. This was a copy of course, showing the original document filled out in 1973. Richard Isaiah Thompson. Born in San Francisco, California, April 23, 1949. Attended Exeter Academy, followed by Harvard University. Exeter, of course, was an exclusive boys’ preparatory school on the East Coast, far from his birthplace.

  Bear began to make notes. Because the first question had already been raised. Thompson graduated from Harvard in 1971. What did he do the two years in between graduation and applying to work at State? Nothing in the personal file gave a clue, and the application itself was oddly pro forma. Not everything was filled out on the application, but the cover letter was clear enough. In May 1973, Thompson had enough pull to get a personal recommendation from then National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. No wonder he hadn’t filled out the entire application. He didn’t need to.

  Bear let his mind wander, not entirely focused on the file, letting his eyes scan over the documents as he free-associated.

  Behind the federal application for employment was his initial security investigation, marked SECRET and never declassified. Bear began to page through it. Interviews with his college professors and fellow students were included. One interview with his father, Cyrus Thompson.

  Still nothing in the file regarding the years from his college graduation in 1971 to his beginning of employment at State in 1973. It made no sense at all. His eyebrows began to work uncontrollably, a line appearing down his forehead. He took another drink, then scanned through the background investigation again.

  Thompson was granted top-secret clearance based on a report which including nothing of the last two years of his life. It made no sense at all. None.

  The phone rang. Bear jerked in his seat, then glanced at the phone and picked it up.

  “Bear.”

  “Bear, it’s Leah.”

  He winced. But he kept his tone professional, as always. “Hey, Leah. What’s the low-down?”

  “We’re en route with the Thompson sisters to Benihanas in Bethesda. But there’s something weird going on.”

  “What?”

  “Bear, I think someone has the sisters under surveillance. And it’s professional.”

  Crap. Who? “Professional. You mean like intelligence professionals?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t pinned it down yet.”

  Bear turned the report to the last page and froze. He narrowed his eyebrows, for just a second tuning out Leah.

  Richard Thompson’s background investigation was signed by William Colby.

  He shook his head. That didn’t make any sense. Diplomatic Security Services conducted the background investigations for State Department personnel.

  William Colby, in 1973, was director of covert operations for the Central Intelligence Agency. In September of the same year he took over as Director of Central Intelligence, just a few weeks before Kissinger took over the State Department.

  “Bear?”

  “I’m here.”

  “What do you want us to do?”

  Bear’s heart was thumping. Richard Thompson… suddenly he began to wonder. What was Thompson doing from 1971 to 1973? And why had Henry Kissinger, then the National Security Advisor, written a letter of recommendation for him? Why had a CIA official signed off on his background investigation?

  Was Thompson originally CIA? Was he still?

  “Bear?” Leah sounded impatient.

  “Sorry!” he shouted into the phone. “Listen. Keep an eye out. Don’t approach or attempt to apprehend the followers, all right? Don’t let them know you’ve seen them. Try to get pictures. I want to know who the hell they are. Understand?”

  “There’s only three of us here. We’re going to need more backup.”

  “All right,” he said. Yeah. If he was right, backup might be needed right away. “Let me make some calls.”

  4. Leslie Collins. April 29. 6:16 pm

  Collins answered the phone again, annoyed this time. They were now two blocks away from his destination. The downtown traffic along Pennsylvania Avenue was a nightmare and he was tempted to just get out and walk.

  “What?” Collins said.

  It was Filner. Of course.

  “Sir, we’ve got a problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “The Thompson Sisters… they’ve got a tail.”

  “Your people, right?”

  “No, sir. I’ve got two teams following them. But we’ve got more followers. I’m certain it’s surveillance.”

  Collins rolled his eyes. “Who is it? The Saudis?”

  “No. British, maybe.”

  Collins was angry now. “Give me some goddamn detail, Filner!?
??

  “Sir. Right now the Thompson family… or four of the sisters, plus one of their husbands, are walking together down Bethesda Avenue. They’re accompanied by three DSS agents in plain clothes. I’ve got a positive ID on all three agents. One of them works for us too.”

  “Okay…”

  “We’ve also got two men, following on the other side of the street.”

  “You’re certain they aren’t just pedestrians?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Our guys are anonymous? Run off the pursuers. Then fill me in later. I can’t talk on the phone any more.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about, Collins? You can’t stop talking to me right now.” Filner’s voice had an edge.

  “Use your best judgment,” Collins replied. Some things superseded even a crisis. This meeting was one of them.

  The uniformed secret service agent at the gate of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue approached the Suburban as it rolled to a stop. Collins’ driver leaned out to speak with him and displayed ID.

  “I’m going into a meeting that can’t be interrupted,” Collins said, his eyes on the White House.

  “Go ahead to the West entrance, sir,” the secret service guard said.

  Collins’ driver pulled forward onto the grounds.

  5. Dylan. April 29. 6:16 pm

  Dylan Paris had been walking slightly behind the four sisters. Something had set him on edge, and even though they were only walking four blocks to the restaurant, he felt as naked as if he were on patrol in Fayzabad again. A cold breeze, just a slight remnant of winter, blew up the street as they turned onto Norfolk Avenue. The restaurant was two blocks away. It was a few minutes before six-thirty, and the sky was just beginning to dim. Full sunset wouldn’t be for another hour.