They acknowledged the orders.
The feint car hood edged slowly into view from the alley.
Ahmad shot out the tire and immediately lifted his weapon's muzzle, staring past the vehicle. "Can't see clearly but think there's somebody in the woods. Solo."
"Brick wall," Garcia called. "It's Loving's car. They're flanking us."
"Covering fire," I shouted. "Both directions. Mind innocents."
Both men fired, driving Loving back. The partner too vanished under cover in the woods.
"They're going to try again," Maree said, still crying. "We're trapped here!"
Now they knew we were ready for them. I dropped the transmission into four-wheel low gear and turned directly toward the stockade fence.
"What're you doing?" Maree gasped. "No! We'll get stuck!"
I nosed the Yukon against the wood and, a slight nudge, the panel of fencing broke free. I drove over it and into the farm field on the other side.
I ordered, "Target the gap in the fence. But don't fire unless you're sure it's them. There'll be spectators now." I was heading slowly down the hill toward a line of trees.
Surprisingly it was Joanne Kessler who caught on. "You had that escape route planned. You cut mostly through the fence posts, so you could drive over it if you needed to. When?"
"A couple years ago."
I pick all my halfway houses for escape as well as defensibility and I do a lot of work on the properties late at night. The Hillside Inn people never knew I'd vandalized their fence.
"I don't see anything," Ryan said. "Not yet."
We rolled slowly down the hill, slick with dew, then through a series of soft dirt rows of recently harvested corn husks and stems. You could measure the progress in feet but we were moving steadily.
"Still nobody," Ahmad said.
I ordered them to keep targeting the opening in the fence we'd just eased through, though I knew that Loving would take one look at the ground we were traversing and know that his sedan couldn't possibly pursue us.
He'd make the only rational decision he could: to retreat as fast as possible.
Chapter 18
A HALF HOUR later we were on the highway again, heading for the safe house.
It was a little after 8:00 p.m. and I'd been driving a fast, complicated and unpredictable route generally north though Loudoun and Fairfax counties.
In the back Ryan Kessler sat brooding, looking through his canvas bag. For ammo? Or booze? Joanne was quiet, staring out the window. Maree, calm finally, fidgeted with a pacifier, her computer. She was coming out of her hysteria but hadn't yet returned to referring flippantly to me as a tour guide.
Principals get terrified, of course. Disoriented too, and a little bit crazy. I need the people in my organization to be 100 percent with me. My principals, though? If they can be 75 or 80, if they can do what I ask with a measure of promptness and intelligence, I'm content. A sizable portion of my task is fixing as many of their inevitable mistakes as I can and minimizing the principals' more destructive foibles and habits.
Which is not a bad philosophy of life, I'd decided.
In fact, this was a typical sampling of principals' behavior. From experience I found Joanne's numbness more worrisome than her husband's bluster and her sister's juvenile banter and hysteria. Principals like her could melt down suddenly and explosively, and usually it happened at exactly the wrong time.
I glanced back in the mirror and my eyes met hers, which were blank and unfocused, and we simultaneously looked away.
Now that I was comfortable that there were no tails--it would be purest coincidence that Loving would find us--I made the call.
"Hello?" the deep voice answered.
"Aaron."
My boss responded, "Corte, I heard from Fredericks, at the Hillside Inn. He said you were okay. I assumed you were on the run and I didn't want to call."
"Thanks." This was one of his best attributes: He might have no instinctive feel for shepherding but he understood how we operated and he accommodated his job to ours. I said, "I haven't talked to Freddy yet. Any casualties there?"
He answered, "No, but it's a mess. They picked up a lot of brass, must've been forty, fifty shots fired. Two slugs hit guest rooms with people inside. I can't keep the lid on this one."
"What'll it be?"
"Loving gave us an out with the press, believe it or not. We'll springboard on what he said in his fax--that there was talk of a kidnapping and some organized crime involvement. I'll trot out Bad Hector. I don't have much choice."
Hector Carranzo was a small-time Colombian drug figure who was named in a number of felony warrants both here and in various Latin American countries. The reports gave mixed descriptions and vague background but all included warnings of his dangerous nature and the admonition to be on the lookout for him anywhere in the country. He was known to pop up unexpectedly.
He was also a complete fiction. When we had a shootout like the one at the Hillside Inn, under circumstances where we wanted to keep the truth quiet, we blamed the incident on Senor Hector and "possible drug or other illegal activity we have yet to identify with specificity." After we collared the primary in the Ryan Kessler case, Ellis might come back in a few days with: Ooops, we were wrong; the real perp was actually so-and-so. But Bad Hector would keep the press busy for a time.
"We're on the way to the safe house now."
"Good. Get there and stay there." A pause. I knew what he'd say next. "We all want to get him, Corte. But I want you to sit tight in the safe house. No more attempts to engage Loving."
He'd be thinking of Rhode Island.
"Only the flytrap was offensive. What happened at the Hillside was pure defense. We were trying to get away."
"I understand that. . . . But there may be some issue raised of why you used a halfway in this situation. Why you didn't go directly to the safe house."
Meaning, I supposed, was I subconsciously--or perhaps very consciously--trying to draw Loving to us? He wanted a reason. But, even though he was my boss, I wasn't going to answer.
He caught this and continued, "It was your call and I'm not questioning it. Just telling you that the question could come up."
I told him, "If I do anything at all, it'll just be to help Claire track down the primary."
"Fine," he muttered. Ellis was having a tough Saturday, so he wasn't treading softly any longer. "You didn't call Westerfield. You said you would."
"I will. It's been busy."
Which, though true, sounded lame.
We disconnected and I was scrolling through numbers to find Westerfield's. But then Freddy's name was recited on my audible caller ID.
I clicked ACCEPT and asked, "You get anything at the Hillside?"
Freddy said, "No trace. He vanished--real fast. Like Houdini. Or the allowance I give my kids. Thin air."
"Aaron said no injuries."
"Right. People're shaken up. But so what? Life shakes you up. Nothing wrong with getting shook once in a while. Aaron's handling the press? There're more reporters than you can shake a stick at."
"He'll do what he can."
Freddy added that the hostage Loving had taken, to coerce her husband to drive his car after us as a diversion, was safe. "Not that it mattered but she said she couldn't identify her kidnapper. The husband got amnesia too."
I asked, "Any indication which way Loving went?"
"None."
"We take out their Dodge?"
"Yup. Fan and a tire. They left it fifty yards west, where they had switch wheels hidden. The abandoned one was clean. And the new one? No tire treads our boys and girls could find. And you know them. . . . If there's a pubic hair, they'll get it."
"So was there a fax with Ryan's picture on it?"
"Yep."
"Who was it supposed to be from? You guys?"
"Federal Department of Tax Investigation."
I nearly smiled. An outfit as phony as Artesian Computer Design. You had to hand it to Loving.<
br />
I told him, "It said the typical: Don't try to apprehend, just give a call if you see him? And an eight hundred number?"
"Prepaid mobile."
"Now deactivated," I said.
Freddy didn't need to confirm this.
"What was the incoming fax number?"
"Sent from a computer through a Swedish proxy."
Naturally.
Freddy wondered, "How'd he tip to the Hillside specifically and send the fax there?"
"I think he went fishing. Sent faxes to dozens of possible halfway houses. I'll bet they're sitting in front lobbies all over the area."
"Jesus," he exhaled, pronouncing the name with an initial H. Maybe he was worried about being sacrilegious. I knew he went to church at least once a week. "This guy's earning his fee. What the hell does Kessler know that's so friggin' important?"
Just what Claire duBois and I were going to find out in the next few hours, I hoped.
Then Freddy got my attention, asking, "You know somebody named Sandy Alberts?"
"He give you a call?"
"Came to the office. Works for that senator from Indiana or Ohio, Stevenson."
"I know who he is. Ohio. What'd Alberts want?"
"Just asking questions. About wiretaps, Patriot Act, so on and so forth. Got to say, Corte, your name came up. All happy, cheerful, good things. But, well, like I said, your name came up. Find that interesting."
Interesting, I reflected glumly. "And?"
"No 'and.' I told him I was busy. Had to go."
"Thanks," I muttered.
"For what?"
"I'm not sure."
We disconnected and I considered Albert's visit to Freddy.
Then I decided I could no longer delay the inevitable. I scrolled down and found Westerfield's number. Hit SEND.
The man answered on the second ring. My heart sank; I'd been hoping for voice mail. "Corte," he said and didn't slip into French. "Listen, we need to talk. But I'm in with the AG right now."
He was sitting in the U.S. attorney general's office on Saturday night . . . and he'd taken my call?
"I'll get back to you when we're through. This number?"
"Yes."
"You have an alternate?"
"No."
Click.
I pulled off onto a side road and stopped. Maree gasped and looked up, alarmed, her psychic pendulum still on the hysterical side. Joanne slipped from her coma long enough to say to her, "It's okay. It'll be okay."
"Why're we stopping?" the younger woman asked, her voice on edge.
I said, "Just checking the car. We took some hits."
Ryan began scanning the dark roadside like a sniper for prey.
Ahmad climbed out of the back and joined me and we inspected the Yukon carefully. It wasn't badly damaged from the shootout or the rough escape. The SUV was doing better than my back was.
As we checked the tires, I glanced up and saw Joanne, still in the backseat, look at her watch and place a call. It was to Amanda. From the conversation, which I could hear through the open door, it seemed everything was fine. She caught my eye again then lowered her head and continued the call. She was struggling to be animated as her stepdaughter apparently pelted her with a report of her day in the country.
Ryan took the phone and, his face softening, also had a conversation with the girl.
Parents and children.
For a moment some of those memories I'd had earlier surfaced, some children's faces among them, memories I didn't want. I put them away. Sometimes I was better at that than others. Tonight they vanished more slowly than usual.
I got back inside and when the door slammed Ryan spun around, startled, and gripped his gun. I tensed for a moment but he oriented himself and relaxed.
My Lord, did he want to shoot everybody?
As I started to drive, my phone buzzed and the caller ID voice announced a number I recognized as the Justice Department. My finger hovered over the ACCEPT button.
I didn't press it. The call went to voice mail and I steered the Yukon back to the main road.
Chapter 19
MORE DARK, WINDING routes.
Nobody was behind us, unless he was driving without lights, which was possible, thanks to the new night vision systems. But the way I was driving--fast then slow, occasionally abrupt stops, sharp turns down roads that I knew well but I doubted Loving would--left me convinced that no one was following.
After forty minutes I hit Route 7 briefly then Georgetown Pike and took it to River Bend Road. Then, bypassing downtown Great Falls, I took a series of tangled roads and streets on which GPS was helpful but not definitive.
Finally, after a drive through dense woods, during which we passed no more than three houses--three very large houses--we arrived at the safe house compound, separated from the road by a seven-foot-high stockade and, farther along, six-foot chain-link fences.
The compound had a seven-bedroom main house, two outbuildings--one of them a panic facility--and two large garages, as well as a barn, complete with a hayloft. The grounds were nearly ten acres of rolling fields, bordering the Potomac River, the turbulent part, the narrows, where there is indeed a series of falls and rapids, though "Great Falls" is by anyone's estimation exaggerated; "Modest but Picturesque" would be a better name.
The property had been a bargain. You can't be in any government service nowadays without being aware of the bottom line. In the nineties, the compound had been the residence of Chinese diplomats, a retreat from the embassy downtown. It was also, the FBI had learned, where the People's Republic secret police regularly met their runners and agents, who'd been collecting information from contractors and low-level government workers and taking pictures of the NSA, the CIA and other unmentionable facilities in Langley, Tysons and Centreville. Most of the work, it was learned, was commercial property theft rather than defense secrets. But it was politically naughty, not to mention illegal.
When the Chinese got busted, the delicate negotiations involved an agreement that the diplomats and fake businessmen would leave the country without prosecution and, in exchange, the government would get the house . . . and some other, nondisclosed, treats. The property was used by a number of agencies as a hideaway until Abe had grabbed it for us about eight years ago.
The large, brown-painted nineteenth-century house itself had been retrofitted with all the accoutrements of modern-day security that we could afford. Which wasn't as high-tech or sexy as people might expect. There were sensors on the fence, though they would deter only people who didn't know about sensors on fences. The grounds themselves weren't monitored everywhere, though at key approaches (not necessarily the obvious ones) there were weight sensors buried in the dirt. Of course, the whole place was amply covered by video cameras, some obvious, some not. I'd activated an employee, what we call spectators, or specs, that morning to begin monitoring the place. Ours sit in West Virginia, in a dim room, and watch TV screens all day long and--though they don't admit it--listen to really loud music, usually headbanging. They can do so because our cameras aren't miked. That takes too much bandwidth. Someday we'll be able to afford both, and the specs'll lose their sound tracks. But for now, it's silent movies of the compound and Def Leppard coming from the speakers.
I called the spec assigned to us and he answered immediately.
"We're here," I said, though he knew that since he'd been watching us for the past five minutes.
It was quiet, he reported. He'd seen nothing suspicious.
"Where're the deer?"
"Where the deer should be."
Because of this job and some other aspects of my life, I've learned a lot about wildlife--for instance, what intimidates deer and other animals and why. I've told my specs--and proteges--always to watch for patterns of animal behavior that might give away clues as to intrusion. I'd actually lectured on this at professional conferences. An uneasy badger saved the life of one of my principals a year ago, alerting us to a hitter's presence.
&nb
sp; "No funny business with nearby traffic either," was the spec's twangy comment. I'd never met the man but I had some impressions. Given his residence in the mountains of West Virginia, his accent and his taste for heavy metal, how could I not?
I thanked him and punched in the code to the front gate, which swung open and a nearly invisible but impressive tire strip receded into the ground. We headed through the stockade fence and up the winding drive, which was about a hundred feet long. Garcia and Ahmad were looking around, carefully, as were Maree and the still alert Ryan Kessler, who I believed had snuck a drink or two. Joanne glanced out the window as if she were looking at a month-old magazine in a doctor's waiting room.
I parked and we got out. Beside the front door--looking like wood but reinforced steel--I opened a panel and typed on the keypad below a small LCD screen. The program confirmed via motion, sound and thermal sensors that the house was completely unoccupied (it can identify a beating human heart but won't bother me with the sound of a river rat nosing about for food or the water heater coming to life). I unlocked the door and stepped inside, then temporarily disabled the alarm; it would reactivate once we were inside and then would lock, though there was a panic button that would allow anyone inside to open it in the event of fire or intrusion. The same was true of most windows, which otherwise would open only six inches.
I got the lights on and the heat going--the temperature had dipped--and then I booted up our bank of security monitor screens, which mirrored the ones in West Virginia. Next the secure computer server. I checked to see that the shielded landlines were working. Finally, I verified that the generators were armed; they'd come on automatically if an intruder cut the main line.
I showed the principals briefly around the musty ground floor.
"Oh, neat!" Maree said, striding up to a number of old, sepia-tinted photographs on the wall, ignoring shelves of books and magazines and, yes, board games, though not ones I'd donated. Looking at the younger sister's giddy expression, I tried to recall when I'd had a principal who could so quickly forget that she'd been part of a shootout an hour earlier. Never, I decided.
I explained about food, beverages, the TV. Like a bellboy. I took the Kesslers to their room on this floor in the back, Maree to hers next to it. The young woman seemed impressed. "You're redeeming yourself, Mr. Tour Guide," she said. She offered me a dollar as a tip, a joke, I guessed. I didn't know how to respond and so I ignored the odd gesture. She offered another pout.