Dead End (39 page)

‘Gotta lot of grateful gels to keep happy,' smirked Johnson.

‘Surprised you can manage it, the size of that gut,' the woman smirked back.

‘… And then there's Parnell's car,' resumed the security chief, as if there hadn't been any interruption. ‘That's another coincidence, your asking me for its make and registration on the very day it got damaged like it did. Wouldn't you say that's one hell of a double coincidence, Ed?'

Grant said: ‘Stop calling me Ed! No one calls me Ed!'

‘I'm sorry,' said Johnson, not sounding it. ‘I didn't mean any offence. You want to try some of this toast, with a little jelly? It's terrific.'

‘You're so far out of line, Harry, that you're in danger of getting lost and not being able to find your way back,' said Edward C. Grant. ‘You
are
watching too many bad crime movies. You should try different channels. And try remembering who I am and who you are. I don't ever want anything like this – your imagining you can put on anything like this – again. You've got a direct line to me because I worry – because it's my job to worry – about security at Dubette. Everything I've ever had you do is provably just that, my worrying about product and marketing security. You can stuff coincidence up your fat ass, like you're probably going to have to stuff an enema up your fat ass to get rid of all that shit you've been putting down your throat. I don't take threats, Harry. I make them. There anything I've said so far that isn't clear to you?'

Harry Johnson stared back across the table, holding Grant's look, his jaws crunching slowly, rhythmically, on his toast. A lost blob of red jelly made its way down his chin, finally pitching off to miss the serviette and add another stain to his already much marked jeans.

‘I asked you a question,' said Grant.

‘Let me ask you one back,' said the other man. ‘You think we understand each other now?'

‘I sure as hell hope you understand me,' said Grant.

‘And I sure as hell hope you understand me,' came back Johnson. ‘And that we can go on just as we were before this misunderstanding came up between us. You think we can do that?'

Grant was white-faced, once more not able immediately to form words. When he did speak, his voice was restricted, as if his throat was blocked. ‘You told me there was something to show me?'

‘Show
you
,' insisted Johnson. ‘Not pass on through Dwight Newton.'

Grant sat, waiting. It seemed a long time before the security head responded, not speaking either, but sliding a photograph across the table.

‘It's not a good picture,' complained Grant.

‘Good enough,' said Johnson.

‘Who is she?'

‘The ex-wife of Parnell's lawyer, Barry Jackson. She's a geneticist in Parnell's unit. The picture was taken last night, as she left Parnell's apartment, where she'd been for two hours.'

‘You've ignored a specific instruction!' accused Dwight Newton.

‘How's that?' asked Parnell, calmly. The mountains and rivers were back at their proper, surmountable heights.

‘I told you I wanted – Dubette wanted – maximum concentration on avian flu. You've downscaled, put Lapidus in charge of a smaller group … ignored what I asked you to do.'

It would have been Ted Lapidus's hoped-for liaison visit across the corridor, Parnell guessed, scarcely interested and even less intimidated by the vice president. ‘I downscaled first to save you and Russell Benn and Dubette. I'm still hoping both of you – and Dubette – will be saved. I won't know until I'm sure about Paris, which at the moment I'm still not …' Parnell stopped, scarcely interested either in the redness that suffused Newton's face. ‘We weren't getting anywhere – in fact, we were getting in each other's way – all trying to work on the avian problem when there was only one path to follow and that seemed to be blocked. It made absolute research sense to reduce the number of people and occupy other people elsewhere, which is what I've done and what I want to continue to do. Which is not ignoring and certainly not minimizing the project you gave me and my unit. It's responding properly, sensibly and scientifically, to it. We are today beginning a new approach, which it is still too early even to discuss. If there's anything whatsoever to discuss, you – and through you Russell Benn – will be the first to know …' The pause fitted, to make his point, but Parnell also needed to take breath. ‘And I really do think, Dwight, that if you're going to get anything at all worthwhile out of my unit, you should let me run it and organize it and not keep calling me in here every five minutes to explain the last thing I've done or thought about. You told me in the beginning you wanted to know what I was doing. I heard you. When there's something that makes sense to tell you and share with other people in this research area, then I'll tell you and share it, just as I hope you will tell me and share with me anything that comes up elsewhere, as happened in Paris. Doesn't that seem to you to be a sensible way for us to operate?'

Newton's face was blazing now, the long-fingered hands twitching, seeking a scuttling direction. ‘We need to establish … recognize … a working relationship.'

‘I thought that was what we're talking about,' said Parnell.

‘Were you going to tell me about Beverley Jackson?'

‘What about Beverley Jackson?' asked Parnell, guardedly.

‘She's refusing to undergo a psychological assessment. She's told Wayne Denny that you know and that you've said you won't pressure her.'

‘That's exactly what I have told her,' confirmed Parnell. ‘And no, I wasn't going to tell you, because I think that's an administrative company matter for personnel to deal with – which is what they exist for – most certainly nothing important enough to bring before the vice president of research. Which brings us back to our problem, Dwight. Why are you worried, involved even, in whether Beverley sits some harassed mind test?'

‘Have you seen today's newspapers?' asked the man, instead of replying.

‘No,' replied Parnell, who hadn't bothered to stop at a newsstand or a gas station on his way from Washington DC. ‘I guess the coverage is pretty extensive?'

‘Dubette stock is at a six-year low and the prediction is that it will fall lower.'

‘I won't accept my action against the police is solely or even partially responsible for that,' refused Parnell. ‘You think, given a choice, I'd have gone through any of this?'

‘I got the impression from what you said on television, what I read in the papers, that you're in close contact with the FBI?' Newton's colour was subsiding, his voice no longer strained.

‘They've needed to speak to me,' said Parnell, guardedly again.

‘They got anything positive? Suspects?'

‘If they have, they haven't told me,' Parnell said evasively.

‘They must have said something!'

‘They haven't,' insisted Parnell. ‘Nothing that's given me any reason to think they're anywhere close to an arrest. Anywhere close to understanding it.'
Not understanding
it was joining the long litany of clichés, he thought. Parnell said: ‘What about you, Dwight? You're engaging yourself in everything: what do you think about Rebecca's murder and French flight numbers? You managed to find a connecting thread?'

Parnell waited expectantly for Newton to say he didn't understand, but instead he said: ‘Maybe I could see something if I knew all that was going on … if I had an overview …'

The remark rang like a bell in Parnell's mind. ‘You spoken to the FBI yet?'

Newton answered the internal telephone at once, identified himself but contributed nothing to the exchange before putting the instrument down. He said: ‘Sorry. Something's come up. Will you excuse me?'

He'd leave the office, Parnell decided. But he wouldn't excuse Newton from anything.

‘Which personnel files?' demanded Newton.

‘He didn't specify,' said Wayne Denny. ‘His name's Pullinger. A counsel for the FBI. He said he hoped their agents would be allowed access to the personnel records without needing a court order. Baldwin says it might give a misleading impression if we insisted, but that he wants himself and myself to be present.'

‘Go back and tell Pullinger that,' decided Newton. ‘If he objects, then ask for a court order – that'll be them creating a problem, not us.'

Twenty-Nine

T
he interview was geared for psychological pressure. There'd been a considerable input from the FBI's profiling division at their Quantico training facility in Virginia, from which both Howard Dingley and David Benton were graduates, and the pressure was imposed even before the encounter began, by inviting Harry Johnson to the Bureau's Washington field office – not by their going out to McLean – and advising the security chief to be accompanied by counsel, an obvious implication that he'd need legal protection.

Johnson arrived – in a sharply pressed suit, not his Dubette security uniform – with two lawyers, the company attorney, Peter Baldwin, and William Clarkson, whom the agents recognized from Dubette's huddled legal group at the press conference. Clarkson, a quick-talking, fidgeting man, immediately challenged Dingley's request to record the questioning, which Dingley countered by insisting it was as much to protect his client as it was to establish a verbatim record. A duplicate tape, as well as a transcript, would obviously be made available.

‘I don't mind,' intervened Johnson. ‘Let's get it all down, hear what we've got to say to each other. Why not?'

‘Thank you,' said David Benton, activating the machine.

‘It's good of you to come. We appreciate it,' added Dingley, at once seizing Johnson's overconfident belief that he could handle whatever he was about to face, even on alien Bureau territory.

‘Anything to help,' said Johnson.

‘You've probably got more experience of this sort of thing than us,' flattered Benton.

‘I don't know about that,' said Johnson, too quickly.

‘You were with Metro DC police before joining Dubette, weren't you?' said Benton.

Johnson's face tightened, almost imperceptibly. ‘Uniform, never detective. Certainly not murder or terrorism.'

‘Don't remember your telling us that you were with Metro DC police department when we first spoke,' remarked Dingley. ‘We didn't know that until we went through Dubette's employment files.'

‘Don't remember your asking,' came back Johnson, truculently.

‘Maybe we didn't,' Benton appeared to accept. ‘Our oversight.'

‘What's the importance of my client having been with Metro DC police?' demanded Clarkson, sharply.

Benton's frown was almost overemphasized. ‘The two arresting officers were from Metro DC …' He looked at the security man. ‘I guess you already knew them, didn't you, Mr Johnson?'

‘I'm not sure,' doubted Johnson, quickly. ‘I left …'

‘… in '96,' finished Benton, more quickly. ‘Peter Bellamy and Helen Montgomery were at that time both serving in the Metro DC police department.'

‘Were they?' said Johnson and stopped. There was a wariness now, the overconfidence wavering.

‘Yes,' said Dingley and stopped.

The windows were double-glazed, preventing any outside traffic noise. There was none from any inner corridors, either, just the faintest sigh from the air-conditioning.

Clarkson broke the impasse. ‘Is this meeting over?'

‘No,' said Benton. ‘We weren't sure your client had completed his answer.'

Johnson was looking at the flickering light of the recording machine. ‘I had.'

‘I'm surprised, Mr Johnson, that you didn't know Officers Bellamy and Montgomery,' pressed Benton.

‘I was in administration in '95 and '96.'

‘Where were they?' asked Dingley.

‘Outside uniform …' started Johnson, stopping at appearing to know. ‘They must have been,' resumed the man, again. ‘They'd have had to be, wouldn't they, for me not to be able to remember if I knew them or not?'

‘We don't ask questions to answer them ourselves,' said Benton. ‘Is Metro DC police division that big? There's shared communal facilities, surely? Canteen, recreational areas, stuff like that …?'

‘I've told you, I didn't know every single person in Metro DC. Officers Bellamy and Montgomery I didn't call to mind when they came to Dubette. After they came to Dubette, I remembered seeing them around, in the department.'

‘What's the purpose of this questioning?' asked Clarkson. ‘Are you regarding my client as being criminally connected with what you are investigating? In which case …'

‘We are not at this stage regarding or treating Mr Johnson as anything other than an essential witness in an ongoing murder and terrorist-linked investigation,' broke in Dingley, formerly and with the same interruption preventing whatever closedown threat the lawyer might have intended.

‘It would be unfortunate if we strayed away from the reason for this meeting,' warned Benton. ‘Things appear to be becoming confused, and that's what we're trying to avoid, things that are already confused becoming more confused.'

‘I think that's an excellent precaution,' said Johnson's lawyer. ‘I'm also approaching the time when I am going seriously to query the point of a lot of this questioning, if it continues in the way it has so far done.' During the exchanges, Johnson smiled and straightened in his seat, his confidence visibly returning.

‘I'm very sorry it went off course,' apologized Dingley. ‘Our mistake. So, we've established, Mr Johnson, that although you worked for the same police department over an overlapping period, you never knew Officers Bellamy or Montgomery?'