Dead End Deal (3 page)

Fisher said, “You know for sure it’s Avengers or is Ritter a coincidence?” Hoping it might be, improbable as that was. Shit! They couldn’t guard every person on that list.

Lange said, “Nope, there’s a note, just like the other times. Except this one’s atypical.”

Fisher was about to say something when he noticed a security camera above the door to the tunnel. To date, no one could give a description of an Avenger because their kills were done at long range with a hunting rifle. A video could be a game changer. With a nod toward the camera, he asked Helms, “That security camera, you view it yet?”

“Not yet. I’ve been too busy here. But I asked for the feed to be frozen until I get a chance.”

Lange hitched up his pants, added, “That’s what we were discussing when you arrived. The recorder’s at their office. I wanted to wait for you before we took a look.”

Fisher had mixed emotions: The last thing he wanted was another Avengers-related murder. On the other hand, it could be extremely helpful to have an image good enough to enhance into a detailed picture. Was the resolution of the security cameras here worth a damn? Assuming, of course, they had been on and recording.

Helms, Lange, and Fisher piled into the Lieutenant’s cruiser, Fisher taking the back seat, Lange riding shotgun. Blue misery lights flashing, siren blurting out an occasional yelp, Helms nosed the car through the thickening group of onlookers clogging the parking lot road as reporters leaned in for a look inside the rolled up windows, hoping to recognize someone.

They followed N.E. Boat Street along the north shore of Portage Bay for three blocks to the Bryants Building, a drab, rectangular, two-story clapboard wedged between the street and the water. Took the wheelchair ramp to a pitted aluminum-frame glass-door. Then, with Helms leading the way, they walked single-file along chipped linoleum to an overheated room smelling of tuna fish and orange peel, probably from the brown lunch sack lying open down the counter. A long counter ran the length of the far wall and held an aged PC, a flat panel display, and numerous DVD jewel cases. A stocky female officer sat studying the screen as her right hand navigated a mouse.

To Fisher, she looked to be in her early thirties. About the same age as his younger sister, Carrie, had she lived. He caught the similarity between their profiles too, which was kind of spooky. He and Carrie grew up together in a small Tennessee town under the humorless eyes of strict Baptist parents who enforced Bible study every Wednesday evening along with endless bun-busting Sundays on pews hard as granite, during which he played head games instead of listening to how he was destined to eternal hell fire unless he put his faith in Jesus. Two months into senior year at Chickasaw High Carrie fainted. The principal pulled Fisher out of class to accompany her to the hospital while the school officials tried to locate their parents. Holding her clammy hand in his, the aid car siren screaming, she’d made him swear to never tell their parents of her abortion. She died from septic shock twelve hours later.

Although he kept her secret, he learned it was performed by a poorly trained midwife in the kitchen of her home because the only clinic in a fifty-mile radius capable of providing clean abortions had been shut down six months earlier by hard-line pro-lifers. The way Fisher saw it, the pro-lifers, not the midwife, were the ones who killed Carrie. When the Avengers case came up, he volunteered for the task force.

He had no problem with either pro-lifers or pro-choicers. Everyone was entitled to their own beliefs. But no one was entitled to ignore due legal process in favor of enforcing their own ideals.

Helms asked the officer at the computer, “What’ve you got for us, Diane?”

She clicked the mouse. “Caught the whole thing. Here, watch.” She scooted sideways in the rolling chair to give Helms a straight-on view. “I’ll start from the beginning.”

They huddled around the monitor that showed a grainy wide-angle image of the tunnel entrance and immediate surroundings. She scrolled the time bar at the bottom, found the minute she wanted, hit the pause button, “Here’s where it begins,” then clicked play.

In jerky sequence, a man, probably Jon Ritter, entered the field, walking toward the camera. He stopped suddenly. A second man appeared from the opposite direction, his face and hair distorted by something. The masked man aimed a gun aimed at Ritter. Helms muttered, “That’s panty hose, don’t you think?”

Lange said, “Looks like.”

The first man turned slightly, giving more facial definition. Fisher said, “That’s Ritter.”

“Sorry about the jerkiness. Runs at only three frames per second,” Helms said.

A moment later Lippmann stepped from the tunnel into the garage. Ritter turned around, appeared to yell and wave him away, but without audio the scene was eerily silent.

The officer froze the scene, said, “Okay, now watch the left side of the screen. All you’re going to see is what looks like a hand with a gun.” A mouse click and the action resumed.

From the left of the screen came a blur of motion, then Lippmann jerked and went down. Ritter seemed to yell and start forward, but the first gunman slammed him in the temple with the butt of the weapon and Ritter went down. The first assailant exchanged words with the second one before both ran from view.

“See that? Guy’s left handed,” Fisher said. Then to the officer: “Can you run it again?”

After they’d seen it twice more, Fisher asked Lange, “What about the note?”

Lange scratched his chin. “Yeah, they left it on the windshield of Ritter’s car. But this one’s different.”

Fisher said, “How so?”

“Didn’t claim responsibility. Just gave Ritter an ultimatum. Said if he doesn’t stop work they’ll kill him and Dobbs.”

Helms seemed puzzled. “Mind explaining that?”

Fisher nodded. “Dobbs is Ritter’s partner; they work together on research. The thing that bothers me more is the other Avenger assassinations have been so different, so much more methodical. This entire garage thing is too damn sloppy.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t add up.”

Fisher asked Lange, “You check out Lippmann to see if he has anything to do with anything?”

Lange shook his head. “You’re kidding, right? I haven’t had time to take a leak. Speaking of which . . . ”

Fisher was looking at the monitor again, the frozen frame of the second assailant shooting Lippmann. The images could be enhanced but he didn’t have faith that the campus police, although part of the Washington State Patrol, had the horsepower to do it to FBI quality. He pointed at the computer. “Make a copy for yourself. I want to take the original with me.”

As the words came out, Fisher wanted to take them back, but before he could Helms shot back, “Don’t start that shit with me. We have the capability of enhancing images too.”

Fisher considered how best to smooth things over but decided to hell with it. “Aw Jesus, here we go. Look, I’m tired and you don’t want me to take this to the next level. You do, and you’ll lose, and that’ll waste everybody’s time. We can do a better job with it. You know it and I know it. In the end, isn’t that all we want? Right?”

The room fell silent. The female officer stayed seated with her eyes diplomatically glued to the screen instead of turning to watch her superior officer’s face grow deep crimson.

Fisher added, “You got other cameras at the entrance to the garage or the road approach?”

Helms nodded. “Yep.”

“I want the originals of those too. Oh, while you’re at it, make yourself a copy of the note they left.”

4

N
IGEL FEIST STROLLED
north along the waterfront, past the Edgewater hotel with the huge red neon E on the roof. By now he was certain he hadn’t picked up a tail. At the bulkhead connecting the pier to Myrtle Edwards Park he leaned on the railing and listened to the steady rumble from the massive concrete grain elevator feeding a freighter’s holds. Spotlights lit up the ship’s rust-streaked hull and he could read the white lettering on the stern: The Voyager. Allegedly from Panama. Feist didn’t believe it. Figured the vessel was probably Russian owned and operated out of Vladivostok. He checked his watch and decided to wait a few more minutes before making his phone call.

The smell of brine and seaweed triggered memories of the two-bedroom flat close to the Cairns Harbour where his old man ran a barely profitable SCUBA dive operation and Mum jockeyed drinks for tourists at the local casino. Hated the town. Couldn’t wait to escape to see the world. Now he can’t imagine living away from the ocean. Funny, the decisions that chart the course of a life.

Instead of participating in the high school graduation ceremony, he walks into the small, cramped local Royal Australian Navy recruiting office.

The lieutenant looks up from reading the newspaper. “May I help you?”

With excitement filling his chest, his mind dreaming of foreign ports, he says. “I want to enlist.”

The smiling officer points to a chair next to his desk. “Well, then, have a seat.”

“Feist. A word with you in my office.” Nigel follows the officer into the sparse room. “Close the door.” They stand facing each other. “Son, your aptitude test scores are outstanding. I know your goal is to become a naval officer, but have you ever considered intelligence analysis?”

Stunned, Nigel stares at him, his mind flashing through the James Bond movies he loves to watch.

“Well?” the officer asks.

“Are you serious?”

“Would I joke about such a thing? Right, I’m absolutely serious. I’m offering the chance to be an analyst for our Defense Intelligence Agency.”

Unaware of the difference between analyst and operative, he immediately says, “I accept.”

First day on the job, it takes Nigel only eight hours of plowing through intercepts to realize how mind-numbing this end of the intelligence business is. By day two, he hates the job. But a contract is a contract and he is a man of his word, so he puts in his time. Not, however, without making the most of it. His position allows him to befriend three field operatives. They, in turn, teach him the tradecraft of intelligence gathering. Fuck analysis. Information gathering rules!

Feist checked his watch again. Time to call.

Now several feet closer to the rumble of the grain elevators, he faced the harbor, minimizing any possibility of capturing his words with a parabolic microphone. Paranoid? Perhaps, but attention to detail was the only way to survive this game. He punched speed dial and listened to the connection being made.

“O
HHH, JESUS, AGAIN?
” Nikki Shepherd moaned.

Richard Stillman’s lips brushed her navel as his tongue licked salty sweat. “Mmmmmm . . .” Her hands were enveloping his shaved scalp when Snoop Dogg’s
Vato
began thumping from the black iPhone on the nightstand. Stillman hated Snoop Dogg. Hated rap and hip hop, but relished the up-fromthe-ghetto, bad-ass, nigga gangsta image he so meticulously cultivated. He loved to spin bullshit tales about childhood struggles against huge sociological handicaps, of growing up dirt poor and black in the projects, sharing a one-bedroom apartment with a sister and grandmother while his unwed teenage mother and vagrant father spent time in the county lockup for dealing crack. That the stories were complete fabrications didn’t matter. They were a hell of a lot more exciting than the truth of being the only child of a stay-at-home mom and a Silicon Valley software engineer in middle class suburbia. The truth was boring. With a capital B. The gangster image enhanced his reputation for being dangerous.

Snoop Dogg continued to rap.

He was expecting a call from Feist, so as enticing as Nikki’s body might be, he probably ought to check caller ID. He said, “Hold that thought,” and rolled over to check. Sure enough, Feist.

He muttered to Nikki, “I need to take this,” rolled out of bed and headed toward the balcony, one eye glued to her reflection on the sliding glass door. Loved that body. Too bad she wouldn’t divorce that pig of a husband. Not that he had any intention of marrying her if she did, but it’d make these trysts easier to set up. Jesus, if that bitch Schwartz found out he was boning the CFO, she’d need major psychotherapy. Cupping the phone so Nikki couldn’t hear, he whispered, “How’d it go?”

“Turned into colossal clusterfuck, mate. Your cobber killed a witness.”

“What!” Naked, Stillman faced the sliding glass door to a balcony. The drapes and slider wide open, giving him a magnificent mosaic of office buildings and condominiums and the traffic twenty-one floors below, leaving him totally exposed to anyone interested in watching him. Like the weirdo who lived directly across the street. His erection pointed straight toward at the voyeur’s brightly lit living room with the Mariners game on a large plasma-screen TV. The voyeur—a dumpy middle-aged guy with a crew cut—stood at the darkened bedroom window, binoculars glued to them. Dumb shit thought no one noticed, but Stillman usually saw the reflection of streetlight off the lenses. Initially, Nikki had been embarrassed when he watched, but with a bit of coaxing and the passage of time, it morphed into sexual titillation, a major turn on for her.

“That’s right. Fucking twit shot a witness,” Feist said.

“Christ almighty! Please don’t tell me it was Ritter.” Stillman watched a jaywalker dodging traffic as he cut diagonally across the street.

“Right-right, not Ritter. Some old geezer comes out the fucking tunnel whiles we was having our discussion. Asshole said he had no choice. So then I had to bang your boy up a bit.”

“Like?”

“Knock him out.”

Damn! That could mean anything from concussion to major head injury. Last thing he needed was for Ritter to be brain damaged. “Goddamnit! Thought I said do
not
hurt him.”

“Couldn’t be helped. Things went tits up fast.” Feist paused. “We was doing just fucking lovely until the geezer pops out the tunnel. Ritter starts yelling for him to run and call the coppers. Thompson shot him.” Just like that.

Stillman could feel his erection wither, his mind now too distracted for sex. “This witness . . . we’re not talking about Dobbs, are we?”