Back Blast (8 page)

She’d returned from a trip to Cairo three days earlier, where she’d been meeting with a source in Egyptian intelligence, and she’d yet to unpack
fully, so a large rolling North Face duffel sat on a table in the far corner of the room, open with dirty clothes spilling out onto the floor.

Two images appeared on her mobile, and Catherine looked at them one at a time. She zoomed in on the first, a woman with light brown hair in a tight bun. She did not recognize her. She swiped down to the next image; this one was of a white-haired man in his early fifties. He seemed to have a two-man security detail shadowing him.

Interesting. If he was CIA this would be beyond odd. Other than the director and some division heads, CIA execs didn’t ordinarily move with bodyguards in the USA.

She blinked away more sleep, and quickly rubbed her eyes. She looked at the photo of the white-haired man again. After several seconds she said, “That makes no sense at all.”

Though she was talking to herself, Shoal asked, “Do you recognize them?”

“The gentleman with the white hair is Jordan Mayes. I haven’t seen him since Iraq. Six years ago. Back then he was a senior officer, but now he’s assistant director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service.”

“Does that mean he’s a big deal?”

“Big enough to where I can’t think of a single reason he would be wandering through a crime scene in the middle of the night in the worst part of the city. Why would
anyone
do that?” With a little hesitation she said, “Hope that doesn’t offend you, Andy.”

“Not in the least. We can’t all get the good gigs like the national security beat.”

The comment barely registered with Catherine. She was still looking at the picture of Jordan Mayes. She said, “Mayes’s purview is one hundred percent outside of the U.S. Denny Carmichael holds Mayes’s leash.”

“Who?”

“Carmichael runs the show at CIA.”

“Director?”

“Directors don’t run the show, Andy. Directors are political hires. Sent in to watch over, but to keep their hands clean. No, Denny Carmichael is head of the National Clandestine Service. He’s the top spook in spook land. He does all the dirty things around the world.”

“He’s bad?”

“Depends on your perspective. He’s done a lot of good I’m sure, but I’ve watched while Denny has grown his fiefdom to the point where he makes his own rules over at Langley. I’m not crazy about that.”

“Are you going to ask Carmichael what his assistant was doing in Washington Highlands?”

Catherine thought this over. “No. That’s not the right play here. I’d rather probe into Mayes a little. Figure out who this woman is with him at the crime scene. If I go to Carmichael as clueless as I am now, he’ll know he can sell me anything. Once I have some facts, just enough to scare him into thinking I know more than I really do, I’ll confront him.”

Andy didn’t respond to this. Finally Catherine said, “Did I lose you?”

There was obvious amazement in his voice. “That’s genius.”

“I talk to men and women who lie for a living. You develop techniques to mitigate some of the BS along the way. Will you keep me posted on anything you learn about the Highlands incident?”

“Of course I will. What would you say to the two of us sharing a byline?”

Catherine smiled at the phone. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Andy. I don’t know there is a story there just yet. I get five ‘can’t miss’ earth-shattering leads a week that turn into nothing. For now, let’s just pull this thread from both ends and see what turns up. That sound good to you?”

“Sounds great. I’ll let you know what I find.”

Catherine King hung up the phone, pulled off her glasses, and lay back down on the bed. But after thirty seconds she rolled back up, climbed to her feet, and headed downstairs to her home office.

Whatever was going on that involved spooks from the CIA, the Aryan Brotherhood, and a double homicide was much more important to her than a few hours’ sleep. She’d sit at her computer and dig around on Mayes, Carmichael, and the mystery woman, and see what she could find.

A
rthur Mayberry was nearly seventy, and he looked it. Weatherworn black skin, a silver mane of hair, and Coke-bottle glasses. He had been 11-bravo, army infantry, back in Vietnam, and then he came home and drove a bus for Washington Metro Transit for forty-one years while his wife worked her way up to food services manager at a hospital in Falls Church. Arthur sired four kids along the way, which made him a man rich in many blessings, but not in much else. Now he and his wife were grandparents and empty nesters, retired and living frugally in a large but rickety two-story home in Columbia Heights.

Prices in the District had skyrocketed in the past few years as the federal government became one of the few growth industries in America, and for this reason Mayberry’s property taxes had shot through the roof. Even though his street was one of the edgiest in Columbia Heights, which was one of the lower-end neighborhoods in the heart of the District, Arthur and his sixty-eight-year-old wife Bernice could barely afford their mortgage, so they’d taken to renting out a tiny and not exactly up-to-code basement bedroom for two hundred fifty a month. They’d recently lost their last tenant when he was arrested on a possession charge, so when the knock came at their front door first thing after church on Sunday morning, Arthur found himself hoping it was someone who’d seen the For Rent sign stuck in the tiny front yard.

This street was seventy percent African American, and twenty-two percent Hispanic. There were as many Asians as there were whites, and the vast majority of the whites who lived around here were elderly, so Arthur’s hopes that he’d get a new tenant today were effectively dashed when he looked through the peephole and saw a clean-shaven white man in a blazer standing alone on his stoop.

Bernice came up beside him in the entryway. She was still wearing her hat from church. “Who is it?”

“Some man.”

“He’s here about the room,” she said confidently.

“I doubt it.”

“Why do you say—”

Arthur opened the wooden door, but left the storm door and its iron grating alone.

“Oh,” his wife said, seeing the youngish Caucasian face on the other side of the storm door.

“Yeah?”

The white man spoke through the bolted door. “Good morning.”

“Yeah?” Arthur repeated, the suspicion obvious in his voice.

“I saw your For Rent sign. Can I take a look at the room?”

What the hell?
Arthur had no intention of renting to a white man. It wasn’t that he was racist, but he was a realist, and no young white man in this area with a job would want to live in a tiny basement on this street.

“Sir?” the man said after waiting ten seconds for a response.

“You from around here?”

“No, sir. Just in from Michigan. My uncle had a place in Petworth, but he passed away. I’m in town for a couple of months getting the house ready to sell.”

Arthur softened just a little. “Sure sorry to hear about that.”

“Thanks. What are you asking for the room?”

A pause. “Three hundred.”

“Really? I saw the notice you put on the board at the Giant up the street. It says two fifty.”

Arthur stiffened right back up now. “Then why’d you ask?”

A little smile from the white man. “I guess just to see if you’d rip me off.”

Everyone stood awkwardly for a moment in the doorway till Mayberry said, “Well, now you know. Price went up. Take it or leave it.”

“Can I
see
it?”

Arthur could feel an icy stare from his wife, standing just next to him. Bernice was generally more suspicious of people than was Arthur, and considering Arthur didn’t really believe this man’s story, he assumed his wife was ready to kick the door shut in the man’s face.

But Arthur was thinking about the three hundred bucks now, as well as the fact this guy could go and get a lawyer and make trouble if some black landlord refused to rent to him.

Mayberry snatched his keys off the wall and headed out onto the porch. Bernice followed close behind silently, but Arthur felt her misgivings. He knew if he rented the room to the man she’d tell him he was a fool, because the man was probably out of work and on drugs.

With a fatalistic sigh he led his wife and the white man down to the driveway.

—

C
ourt almost didn’t give a damn what the inside of the room looked like, because the outside was as close to perfect as he could hope to find from an operational security perspective. The entrance to the basement room was off the driveway, just six steps down to a tiny patio with a storm door that looked substantial, and on the other side of that was a wooden door that looked sturdy enough. There was just a small slit window at eye level, but it afforded a full view of the driveway and, since this was a corner lot, he could use the window to see a good distance to the south, east, and north.

Court and the Mayberrys stepped into the basement room, and with three people there was little space to move around. It occurred to Court that there would be a bit more room to move if the heavyset lady took off her huge hat, but he made no mention of it. Instead he checked the space over quickly. It was just ten feet by ten feet with a tiny bathroom off the back, a kitchen counter that ran across the rear wall, and a knee-high refrigerator taking up floor space.

It was obvious this setup had been built by hand. The cheap linoleum flooring buckled from water damage and the paneling on the walls looked like a weekend project by the homeowner, and a water pipe ran across the middle of the room so that anyone over five-six would have to dip his head to move from the bed to the bathroom. But even with these limitations, it was as nice a place as any other Court had lived in the past few years, and better than most.

The bed was just a twin, but it was all that would fit. There were a table and a chair by the one little window and even a small TV that looked like it was plugged into a cable box.

Cable?

Court wondered if he’d died and gone to heaven.

On the southern wall right behind where the front door opened was an accordion door covering a small closet. The storage space was just two feet deep but six feet wide. Court peered in and noticed the back panel of the closet was rippling, as if from moisture or excessive heat on the boards.

“What’s all that?” he asked.

“Oh, that ain’t nothin’,” the landlord said. “I built this room in a corner of my basement. The water heater and the furnace are on the other side of that wall. Maybe I shoulda put a little more insulation in the wall or something, but it don’t bother nobody who stays here.”

Mayberry leaned into the closet and knocked on the wood. “See? It’s solid.”

It sounded hollow as a drum to Court, but he considered that a feature, not a glitch. The basement would have access to the main house, which meant Court would just have to make a small “adjustment” in that wall and he’d have an escape route in case someone he didn’t like came to the front door.

Court looked around the room again. “I like it,” he said.

“Didn’t get your name.”

Court was always quick with a name and a story, though like his trip from Michigan and his dead uncle in Petworth, it was
never
the truth. “Jeff. Jeff Duncan.”

“Got to ask, Jeff. How come you ain’t stayin’ up at your uncle’s place?”

“I won’t be able to afford the property taxes on the house, so I’ll have to sell it. Before I put it on the market, I’ll be doing some renovations. Have to shut off the water and heat while I work on the plumbing and HVAC.”

Court saw the older black man soften to him even more. It was basic social engineering. Court would say things to create an instant bond between himself and his potential landlord.

When the man replied with, “I know that’s right. Taxes are through the damn roof. It’s gotten real bad around here,” Court knew he was in with the man, but Court noticed the wife was still gaping at him like he was a fucking unicorn.

“It’s three hundred a month for the room?” Court asked.

“That’s firm,” the man replied.

Court pretended to think it over. Then he said, “I can give you first and last month’s rent. Will that do?”

The old man was on the spot. He clearly didn’t expect an offer. He stammered for a moment, then said, “No room in the driveway for your car. Hard to find parking around here.”

“No problem. I’ll keep my car parked at my uncle’s.”

The man bit his lip. He glanced to his wife, then said, “Not much of a kitchen. Toilet runs a little bit. TV is just basic cable.”

“That’s all I need.”

“Okay, then,” Arthur said. Then, “Of course I’m gonna need to see your driver’s license. Run a background check.”

Court smiled a little. “What do you say we make it four hundred a month?”

Despite the fact that he was being offered one hundred fifty dollars more per month than he’d originally been asking, Mayberry frowned. “Son, I can’t allow no criminals in here.”

“Not a criminal, Mr. Mayberry. Just a guy who’s hoping to avoid some red tape.”

“Well, that’s a problem, because I’m by the book. I guess this place isn’t for you.”

Court turned his head back and forth, scanning the small room. “You’re right. By the book is best.”

“That’s what I say.”

“Cool. Can I take a quick look at the back door?”

“The what?”

“The back door?”

“Uh . . . just the one door.”

“Huh,” Court said. “I could have sworn building codes say private apartments have to have two exits in case of fire. I could be wrong, though. How ’bout while you are running that background check on me, I check with the city to make sure you’ve complied with all the building and zoning laws. That way we
both
know what we’re getting into here.”

The African American man glared at the white man for a long moment.

Court smiled. “Like you said. By the book.”

Bernice reached out and took her husband by the arm, giving it an anxious squeeze. Slowly the corners of Arthur Mayberry’s mouth rose, and he smiled a wide, toothy grin. “All right, then. You gonna have it your way,
and I’m gonna have me five hundred dollars a month, plus two fifty security deposit.”

Court calculated he’d have to burn this tiny room to cinders to do two hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of damage. But with a little smile he reached for his wallet. “A hard bargain, sir, but I like your style.”

Bernice spoke up for the first time, and apparently none of the new mutual respect between the two men had rubbed off on her. “I’ll tell you right now, young man, we’re not gonna stand for no parties.”

Court had never thrown a party in his life, but still he wondered how much of a party one might actually throw in a ten-by-ten basement with a metal water pipe running across at forehead height. “I’ll be gone a lot. I guarantee I’ll be the quietest tenant you’ve ever had.”

“And no drugs,” the woman added.

“Absolutely not.”

—

J
eff Duncan” handed Arthur Mayberry $1,250 and took a key, and when Arthur asked the younger man when he would actually move in, Jeff replied he’d been up all night so he’d go right to bed, and then bring some things over from his hotel that evening.

Arthur and Bernice left him in his new apartment and headed back to the front of the house. As soon as the storm door shut Bernice said one word. “Drugs.”

“You’re probably right,” replied Arthur. Plaintively he added, “But what was I gonna do? First and last month’s rent ain’t nothing to turn your nose up to. And all that bonus money.”

Bernice made a clicking sound with her tongue and said it again. “Drugs.”

Arthur sighed. He knew he’d be hearing this a lot over the next two months.

—

C
ourt wedged one of the metal chairs under the door and then he took a shower, his first in days. He took the .380 pistol into the stall with him, leaving it in the soap niche. There was no soap or shampoo, so all he really did was rinse off, and there were no towels so he did little more than drip-dry, although he patted himself down with the thin comforter from the bed. He put his clothes back on, even his shoes, and then he pulled a pillow
and a wool blanket off the bed and threw them in the long narrow closet behind the door to the outside. He rolled the damp comforter around the remaining two pillows and he put them under the bed sheet in the center of the bed, making an approximate man-sized shape under the sheets.

He turned off the lights in the room, walked over to the blanket and the pillow in the closet, and lay down, drawing his pistol from his pocket and putting it on the linoleum floor to the right of his body.

He thought about the locks on the doors and the wedged chair. This wasn’t exactly a high-security facility, but he was dead tired and he could barely think. Anyone who kicked open the door would see the bed, and Court hoped they would assume someone was sleeping there. They would open fire on this target first, giving Court a little warning. They wouldn’t see Court here in the closet until they stepped a few feet into the room and looked to their left, at which point Court would shoot them dead.

That was the plan, anyway. Court wondered if he’d even wake up at the sound of a shattering storm door. And of course, most attackers came in pairs, or in long lines of jocked-up operators, and his little .380 peashooter wouldn’t do much more than kill the point man and maybe one of his buddies.

No, this wasn’t much defense at all, but Court realized he needed to try to get his energy back before doing anything else to fortify the room, so he lay there with his eyes closed and tried to will himself to sleep.

He’d been on the go for over a month. Moving from place to place in Russia, in Sweden, in Germany and Belgium. Then to Spain and into Portugal, where he met up with the cargo ship that brought him to the U.S.

Eight days on the water, the daylight hours in his hiding place in the bowels of the ship like a bilge rat, the late nights walking or running the holds for exercise.

He’d had help in his escape. A Mossad officer who felt like he owed Court a debt, though in truth Court knew the man owed the debt to someone else. Still, the guy worked as Court’s genie in a bottle, granting him his wish and getting him into the United States.