Cold Frame (18 page)

*   *   *

They walked outside to the sidewalk on M Street, which was almost as crowded as the restaurant. She told him she'd enjoyed dinner. Then she looked around, almost as if she was checking for surveillance or eavesdroppers.

“Do me a favor?” she said. “In the event that there are any more, um, developments in the McGavin matter, would you give me a call?”

“Sure,” he said. “Except I don't have your number.”

“Just pick up the phone, dial three ‘fours' and then your own number. I'll get back to you.”

“So my place is still bugged? Or at least my phone?”

“
Every
body's phone is bugged these days, Detective,” she said with a smile. “Don't you read the papers?”

She then flagged down a cab. She got in with a flash of those gorgeous legs, waved good-bye, and then drove away. As the cab merged into traffic he wondered if he'd screwed that up, but then his better sense intervened. If nothing else, she was probably one of the wild ones, and those were precisely the ones to stay away from. The agents this afternoon
had
recognized her name, and not that CT bullshit, either. Ellen Whiting. Oh, fuck, they'd said. That had to mean something.

He started walking along M Street to get back to his building. Most people on the sidewalk were obviously out for a party night, so he was surprised when he saw two large men in suits get out of a parked black Crown Vic with tinted windows and fairly bristling with antennae to stand right in front of him. They both discreetly opened credentials cases where the letters FBI were clearly displayed. The taller man asked if he'd mind getting in the car.

“That depends,” Av said. “What's the beef?”

“No beef, Detective Smith,” the agent said. “Man in back wants to have a short conversation.”

Av looked into the backseat, where an older-looking black man, also in a suit, was looking at him expectantly. When he saw Av hesitating, he made a come-on gesture. Av glanced behind him, where two more guys in suits were standing next to yet another government car that hadn't been there a minute ago. The agent had called him Detective Smith, so, he figured, what the hell. He got into the backseat.

One of the agents outside closed the back door and got into the front. The other went around and got in on the driver's side. The car pulled out into traffic and went exactly nowhere, evening traffic on Georgetown's M Street being what it was.

The black man to his left turned in his seat and extended a hand. “I'm Supervisory Special Agent Tyree Miller of the FBI,” he said, pleasantly. “And I'm hoping you and I can have a brief conversation without our having to resort to some kind of, um, official proceedings.”

“I'm Detective Sergeant Ken Smith, Metro PD,” he said. “And if official proceedings are in the offing, we're not going to have a conversation about anything at all.”

“I understand, Detective,” Tyree said. “Truth be told, we're not all that interested in you. It's the woman you just had dinner with who's attracted our attention. Can you tell me her name?”

“CT,” Av said. Ellen Whiting had paid for a terrific steak. CT would do for now.

“CT?” Miller said. “CT what?”

“That's it,” Av said. The car was moving now, but still only at about two miles per hour. “She paid me a visit in the middle of the night. I found her sitting in my living room when I got up to tend to a red wine hangover. We talked, well, actually,
she
talked about a case I was working on. Then she left.”

Miller blinked once, like a large frog. “What case was that, Detective?”

“The case of a Homeland Security civil serpent dying under mysterious circumstances in a French restaurant up on Connecticut Avenue. Name of Francis X. McGavin.”

Tyree sat back and looked out the window for a moment. He didn't seem all that surprised. “And what was the outcome of your midnight discussion? Or was there a point?”

Av nodded. He told Tyree about the canal towpath incident, the supposed FPS connection, and how he'd been suspended for organizing that, even though one of the other Briar Patch detectives had done the real organizing. The following day all had apparently been forgiven.

“Then two of
your
people showed up, picked up our case files on the McGavin matter, told us they'd take it from there, and that was that.”

“And when you talked to those two agents, did the name Ellen Whiting come up?”

Aw, shit, Av thought. He nodded.

“Had you heard that name, Ellen Whiting, before, Detective?” Tyree asked.

“Yes,” Av said. “Supposedly she was the woman with McGavin at the restaurant when he died. When we initially tried to shop the case to the Bureau, they declined, saying there was a Bureau angle to the case. We naturally assumed this Ellen Whiting was Bureau.”

The car made a left turn across a lot of traffic, evoking some horns of protest. Neither of the agents up front so much as glanced at the other cars.

“But then this woman who identifies herself as, what was it—CT?—appears in your home in the middle of the night.”

“Right. She says she's in the counterterrorism business, but did not mention the Bureau. Or the FPS, either.”

“So we've supposedly got the Bureau, the Federal Protective Service, and now some eponymous counterterrorism agency as her employer of record. Hence the CT?”

“I suppose,” Av said. “When she called earlier today, that's what she wanted me to call her—CT. My partners and I'd been calling her my fairy godmother, because of the way all the top-floor heat suddenly evaporated.”

“May I ask what you two talked about tonight?” Tyree asked. “Over steaks, beer, and fancy vodka, very cold?”

So they'd had someone in the restaurant, Av thought. That meant a lot of agents were out tonight on this matter. “Nothing of great significance,” he replied. “She wanted to know my thoughts on what ought to happen to Americans who joined forces with terrorists. She also told me that her brand-new husband had died in the World Trade Center on nine-eleven.”

That seemed to pique Tyree's interest, and Av thought the agent in the right front seat was writing something in a notebook. “Did you get the impression she was trying to recruit you for something, Detective?” Tyree asked.

Av, surprised, hesitated. Then he thought, what the hell, tell 'em the truth. “I don't know what to think, Supervisory Special Agent,” he said. “That's possible. In fact, I asked her if she was running some kind of government hit squad, but she blew that off.”

“So how did the dinner date end?”

“She gave me the impression that she was ready to go somewhere and put a fine finish on the evening,” Av said. “But I declined.”

“She cuts a pretty impressive figure,” Tyree said. “Why'd you decline?”

“She's a little scary, maybe?” Av said. He wasn't inclined to share his own personal rules of engagement with these guys just now. “What's the Bureau's interest in this woman, if I may ask?”

“If I told you, I'd have to quarantine you, Detective,” Tyree said, but then he smiled. “That was my feeble attempt at a joke.”

“A joke,” Av said. “Fancy that.”

One of the agents up front stifled a snort. Miller ignored it. “I think you can guess from the nature of my questions that we're very interested in talking to this individual, for a variety of reasons, including her penchant for even hinting that she works for us.”

Av nodded. Impersonating a Bureau special agent was a major crime in the eyes of everyone at the Hoover building. “She never did actually claim that,” he pointed out. “So I guess she probably does
not
work for the Bureau?”

“We, on the other hand, are worried that she does. Not directly, perhaps, but in some capacity.”

Av was confused. They'd obviously had someone in the restaurant close enough to hear their dinner order. So why hadn't they just grabbed her up? And this guy was implying that they could not identify this woman as one of their own employees? His BS detector started to hum. Those two agents had surely known that name.

“What directorate do you work for, Mr. Miller?” Av asked.

“Professional Standards.”

Ah, Av thought. That was the Bureau's name for their internal affairs people. That would explain some of this ambiguity. Or did it?

“So, if she calls me again, you guys want, what, a heads-up?” he asked.

“We'll probably know before you will, Detective,” Tyree said, pleasantly. “But we would surely appreciate a debrief of whatever happens after that. Here's my card. Anyone who answers that number can take your report. I believe this is your residence?”

Av looked out the window and saw his building. He nodded. “It is and I will,” he said. “Always glad to help my Bureau.”

“That's the spirit,” Tyree said as the rear door was opened. “The Bureau is a good friend to have.”

“And the converse is also true,” Av observed.

Tyree smiled again. “Just so, Detective Smith. Good night now.”

Av laughed quietly as the car drove away. Message received, he thought. In a way, he liked the FBI. They came right to the point most of the time. If they said it, fucking believe it. F.B.I.

 

TEN

Carl Mandeville pasted as pleasant a smile as he could manage onto his face as he listened to Assistant Secretary Hilary Logan bang on about his growing concerns over the Kill List and the need for a full review of the DMX committee's whole operation. They were having dinner at a tony restaurant in residential Georgetown called 1789. They were seated in the Wickets Room, one of six dining areas in the restaurant.

Hilary, one l, thank you, as he would say, not two like that Gorgon, considered himself to be a respected gourmand. He was one of those men who really did live to eat, and, not surprisingly, it showed. Three chins presided over an acre or so of worsted wool vest, and the high color in his face told Mandeville that Logan had maybe about three more years before his coronary arteries finally put him in the ground. The problem was that Mandeville didn't have three years. Logan, a staunch advocate of killing off the DMX program, was a clear and present danger. Unfortunately he was also the scion of a wealthy Boston family with titanium-strong ties to the Massachusetts congressional delegation. His father owned a bank in Boston, and thus it was that Hilary was the Treasury Department's rep to DMX.

“My
dear
Mandeville,” Hilary puffed, between mouthfuls of a fourteen-ounce filet smothered in bordelaise sauce. “You simply
must
understand that this DMX business is becoming an increasingly dangerous liability to America's foreign policy. Murder will out and all that, yes? And we
are
talking murder. It's simply un-American to send operatives out into the third world to murder these demented Muslims. Un-American.”

“Those same demented Muslims of whom you are so fond feel that they are engaged in a war with the West, not just an energetic discussion,” Mandeville said. “They think it's okay to fly hijacked airliners into buildings. To park dump trucks full of explosives in front of American embassies. To drive a motorboat full of explosives into the side of an American warship parked peacefully in a harbor. To mail envelopes full of anthrax to American government buildings. You think these things are, what, okay?”

“Of course not,” Hilary said, pursuing the final roast potato around his plate with a fork. “But there are rules, Mandeville. Rules of
civilized
behavior. DMX is basically uncivilized. Some of us feel that we'd be much better off if we captured them, brought them to trial for the murderers that they are. Make them face the consequences of their actions in a court of law. Prove to them time and again that the civilized world does not condone their barbarous tactics. But we do
not
sink to their level and shoot them in the head while they're parking their car in front of the mosque.”

He reached for his wineglass, which was half full. “Oh, dear,” he said. “We seem to have expended this bottle—another one, perhaps?”

“Yes, why not,” Mandeville said, signaling the hovering waiter. They had been indulging in a really good 1999 Ch
â
teaux Margaux and it suited his purposes to have another bottle presented, especially since Hilary, with one l, was buying.

Mandeville's left hand gently massaged the tiny, clear gel cap in his coat pocket. Just squeeze it, his contact at the army labs had told him. Pop it like a pimple. And the best part was that it would take about an hour before its effects came on. He waited for the waiter to bring a second bottle, open it, and then let it breathe on the table for a few minutes.

“I understand your concerns, Hilary,” Mandeville continued. “But the American people will
not
abide it. Ordinary citizens know that our judicial system bends over backward to give lawbreakers in this country every protection, but when they see buildings falling down at the hands of foreigners bent on killing America, itself, people here at home want those bastards dead, not pulling off some kind of O.J. on them.”

“Not
everybody
wants them dead, my dear fellow,” Hilary said. “In fact, I want them captured, tried very publicly so that the whole world knows what they did and why they did it, and then caged for life. As you know, I don't approve of the death penalty.”

“Funny, the terrorists have no such qualms about killing,” Mandeville said. “They even like to film it these days—like the journalist they captured and then beheaded on television a year ago.”

“Hear me out, Mandeville. I believe it's worse to be caged up for the rest of your life than put to sleep like a surgery patient. We get enough of them in cages, maybe that will make some of these turd world countries reconsider their visa policies, rather than allow these thugs to run free under their noses.”