Hot Pursuit (8 page)

STONE CLEARED AWAY
the dinner plates and poured them both a glass of old Armagnac. She had been telling him the sorry details of her relationship with Kevin Keyes—his drinking, womanizing, and tendency to get physical when angry.

“Okay,” Pat said, “now you get to ask the question.”

“You mean the one about how a smart woman can get so involved with such a sorry shit?”

“That’s the one. Only he wasn’t a sorry shit all the time. We had fun together: he was smart and witty and had great charm, on his good days.”

“And I’ve already heard about the bad days. My concern is that you haven’t seen his worst days yet—those are yet to come.”

“Why do you think that?”

Stone’s cell phone rang, and he checked the caller ID before answering. “Excuse me, this is about you. Evening, Bob.”

“Sorry to call at dinnertime,” Cantor said, “but I thought you’d want to know.”

“Tell me.”

“I did a little under-the-table computer searching this evening, and Kevin Keyes is registered at a hotel in Times Square. He’s been here for three days, and he booked in for a week. He’s also got a rented Nissan Altima in the hotel’s garage.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s it for the moment. How did she take the lecture?”

“Better than I had hoped. You can go ahead and install the video equipment in the tenants’ apartments. You’d better drop them a note to let them know when you’re coming.”

“Will do. See ya.” Bob hung up.

“I’m sorry, you asked me a question,” Stone said.

“Why do you think Kevin’s worst days are yet to come?”

“Ah, yes, that question. Here’s your answer: old Kevin has checked into a Times Square hotel, booking in for a week, and he has a rental car at his disposal.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Exactly. Was he in the same armed pilots program as you?”

“Yes.”

“And he still has the gun.”

“He has several guns.”

“Swell.”

“Maybe he has some perfectly good reason for being in New York,” Pat suggested.

“Is that why he spent yesterday evening parked a couple of doors from your house? For some perfectly good reason?”

“Why must you put the worst possible slant on every little thing Kevin does? You don’t know him.”

“I know him better than you do,” Stone said.

“Oh? How’s that?”

“I’ve known half a dozen women with exes who didn’t like getting dumped, no matter how badly they had behaved. These men tended to think of themselves as being in the right, and the women, always, in the wrong. They thought of themselves not as husbands or boyfriends, but as owners of their women. Does that have a familiar ring?”

She said nothing.

“Do you think Kevin won’t harm you because he loves you?”

“I think that, yes.”

“Men like this, when they’re caught after harming a woman, nearly always give love as their motive. They seem to think that love is an exculpatory emotion for a serious felony, even for murder.”

“He’s completed an anger management course since I last saw him,” she said. “The judge made him. Maybe it took.”

“And you think he traveled all the way from Wichita to New York to tell you he’s not angry anymore?”

“He’s not going to tell me anything—I’m not going to see him.”

“He’s not going to give you a choice,” Stone said. “Tell me, does he have any money?”

“A tiny pension from the airline. He picks up an occasional charter flight.”

“So he’s just bought himself a week at an expensive hotel, when, more than likely, he can’t even afford the garage for his rented car. He’s probably maxed out his credit cards getting here, and I’m willing to bet he bought a one-way ticket.”

“He can’t carry a gun on an airplane,” she said.

“Yes he can, if he registers it and keeps it in his checked luggage. Or maybe he got a deadhead charter job to Teterboro. Nobody searches luggage at a general aviation airport.”

“You’re scaring me,” she said.

“Good, I’ve been trying hard to do just that. If I’m right, then he’s a man with nothing more to lose. And that makes him dangerous.”

“All right,” she said resignedly. “What do you want me to do?”

“Move in with me for a few days. I’ll have Fred, who has a carry license, take you home in the morning so you can pack a couple of bags.”

“I’ve got a new business to run,” she said.

“Have the phone company refer your calls here. We’ll dedicate a line to Pat Frank’s Flight Department. There’s even an office downstairs you can use.”

“All right, I surrender. I’ll take this seriously.”

“Hearing that is a great relief,” Stone said.

HOLLY FILED
into the Cabinet room for her second president’s intelligence briefing. Kate Lee joined them. “Do we have anything on yesterday’s item about a terrorist infiltration?”

Lance Cabot stood. “Yes, Madam President. As you recall, we sent out requests to locate the top twenty Al Qaeda subjects. We have reports back that place seventeen of them in various broadly defined areas—south Yemen, eastern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, and the like.”

“And the other three?”

Lance wielded a remote control and three photographs appeared on a large screen. “We apologize for the quality of these pictures, but they’re the best we have.” The names appeared under the photographs. “All of these men are active in contriving plots against us around the world. All three speak fluent English—two of them from having attended Eton College, in England, one having attended the University of California at Berkeley. As you can see, they all have full beards and are wearing the native dress of Mideast regions, so a clean shave and a change of clothing would make them substantially unidentifiable at points of entry into the United States.”

“Won’t the latest facial recognition program work?” Kate asked.

“Our software requires a distinct photograph for comparison, and as you can see, these photos are too indistinct to be useful.”

“What about photographs from their time in English and American schools?”

“We have been unable to locate any photographs of them from that or any other period,” Lance replied.

“But you believe that one of these men is our infiltrator?”

“All three certainly qualify for that distinction. Of course, that does not exclude many other male Middle Easterners, but their placement in the Al Qaeda hierarchy, their language skills, their past behavior, and the lack of any distinct photographs of them make them our three most likely suspects. Of course, all the agencies are combing their records for any other helpful information, but this is what we have now.”

“I want this to be the first matter presented at all future intelligence briefings until we have resolution,” Kate said.

—

AS THE MEETING
broke up, Holly fell into step with Lance. “Will you e-mail me those three photographs and the files on these men?” she asked.

“Of course. You’ll have them by lunchtime. How are you enjoying the West Wing, Holly?”

“It’s too soon to tell,” Holly replied. She waved goodbye and left him to return to her office.

Later that morning the photos and files arrived on her computer. She called in Millie. “I have an assignment for you,” she said.

Millie turned over a leaf of her steno pad and waited to be told. Holly called up the three photographs. “One of these men may have entered the United States with the intention of carrying out a terrorist plot, probably in Washington.”

“Very bad photographs,” Millie replied.

“They’re the only ones available.” She brought Millie up to date on what they knew. “I want you to make it your first priority to track the investigation of these three until we have evidence that will help us locate them. We will be getting daily updates from all the intelligence agencies that should add to our knowledge. I can’t devote myself to this full-time, that’s why I’m devoting you to it. Their files are attached to their photographs. Get to know them as you would a new boyfriend that you suspect of being a complete shit, and keep me posted as often as you get usable intelligence.” Holly typed a few keystrokes. “Everything is now on your computer.”

“How long ago were these men at their respective schools?” Millie asked.

“I don’t know—you find out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Millie replied, and left the room.

FRED FLICKER TUCKED
Pat Frank into the rear seat of the Bentley and used his remote control to open the garage door. “How are you today, Ms. Frank?” he asked.

“Very well, thank you, Fred.”

“I understand you’ve had a bit of bovver wif a gentleman,” Fred said, lapsing into his native Cockney for a moment.

“Well, your boss seems to think so. Nothing’s happened yet.”

“I understand,” Fred said. “Prevention is the best cure.”

“He believes that to be so.”

“Could you describe the gentleman for me?”

“Six-one, two-twenty, heavily muscled, thick, dark hair going gray.”

“May I ask, how did the gentleman come to be heavily muscled?”

“He was always a gym rat,” she replied, “but a couple of years ago he really got into the bodybuilding thing.”

“I see. Tell me, do you think he might have been using steroids?”

“It crossed my mind,” she said. “It all seemed to happen pretty fast. He spent an inordinate amount of time at the gym.”

“Does he use drugs?” Fred asked.

“He has, from time to time. I insisted that he stop it, if he wanted to be with me.”

“Did he use cocaine?”

“That was his drug of choice.”

“Oh, dear,” Fred muttered to himself.

“How’s that?”

“Sorry, just thinking aloud.” He stopped the car. “Please wait until I’ve had a look around before you get out,” he said. He opened the car door, stood on the sill, to make up for his short stature, and had a look down the block and at the cars parked nearby, then he opened the rear door. “Let’s get you inside,” he said.

Fred followed her to the door and waited until she had unlocked it. “Mr. Barrington has asked me to deliver security alert letters to your tenants, so with your permission, I’ll find meself a parking spot, then I’ll slip them under their doors and come back here,” he said. “Please lock yourself in.” He gave her a card with his cell phone number. “Ring, if you need me for anything at all. I’ll come back in an hour or so and help you with your luggage.”

“Have a good time, Fred,” she said, then closed the door behind her.

Fred got back into the Bentley and circled the block, taking a look at every car, but watching for a Nissan Altima, as his boss had instructed. He didn’t see one, but he found a good parking spot with a view of Ms. Frank’s door, then returned to the building to deliver the letters.

He rang the bell, and she buzzed him in, then opened her door. “Fred, can you come here for a moment, please?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Fred replied, and went to her. “How may I help you?”

She partly closed her front door and pointed to some marks around the lock. “What do you make of that?” she asked.

Fred held a finger to his lips and stepped inside the door. He examined the lock and the plate that received the bolt. “Someone has attempted to get into your apartment,” he said softly, “but I don’t think he made it. Please wait here and be very quiet.” Fred drew his pistol and began walking silently from room to room. He checked her apartment’s upstairs, too, then came back.

“No one is here but us,” he said. “I’ll go deliver the letters now. Please lock the door behind me, and don’t open it for anyone but me.”

“All right,” Pat said. “Anything you say, Fred.”

Fred went to the bottom of the staircase, slipped off his shoes, and walked slowly up the stairs, walking on the outside of each step to avoid squeaks, and with his pistol at the ready. He stopped on the third floor and examined the lock, finding no marks. He slipped a letter under the door and continued to the fourth floor, where he found the door closed and unmarked.

One more floor to go. He was feeling better about things now. His feeling changed when his head rose enough to have a view of the fifth-floor apartment. The door was ajar. Fred stopped and listened for about a minute, waiting for any sound at all—a footstep, a drawer closing, anything. He heard nothing. He continued up the stairs as quietly as possible and paused at the door and listened again. Still nothing. With a single finger, he pushed the door open slowly, hoping it wouldn’t squeak. When the door was fully open he looked around the doorjamb and peered into the apartment. All he saw was a single foot, wearing a brown loafer and an argyle sock. It was entirely immobile. As he continued into the apartment a second foot came into view. The leg to which it was attached was drawn up, and another step revealed a man lying facedown on the floor, inert, with a bloody hole in the back of his head. His face rested in a pool of dark blood. He looked up and saw another man seated on a white sofa, his head flung back and the top of the sofa and the wall behind it covered in gore and blood.

Fred had seen such sights before on battlefields, and he knew that the color of the blood made the killings some hours old. Nevertheless, he carefully searched the rest of the apartment and found no one else there. He paused to look into a bedroom that had been converted to an art studio. There were two drawing tables in the room, and the cork-covered walls had various graphic designs, in various stages of completion, pinned to them. Fred called 911.

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” a female operator asked.

“A double shooting,” Fred replied.

“Is an ambulance required?” she asked, skipping the obvious question in favor of brevity.

“Only one from the morgue,” Fred answered.

She asked for the address and his name, and he gave them.

“Do you live at this address?”

“No, I’m visiting a friend who lives on the ground floor. I came upstairs to deliver a letter.”

“Please hold.” Thirty seconds later she came back. “A unit has been dispatched. Please don’t touch anything in the apartment, and wait at the downstairs door for the police to arrive.”

“Will do,” Fred said, then hung up. He left the apartment and walked slowly down the stairs, still using his phone.

“Woodman & Weld,” Joan said.

“It’s Fred. Give me Mr. Barrington, please.”

“Hi, Fred, he’s on a call. Can he call you back?”

“Please interrupt him and tell him it’s urgent.”

Stone was on the line in seconds. “What is it, Fred?”

“A double homicide on the top floor of Ms. Frank’s building. I’ve already called nine-one-one.”

“Is Pat all right?”

“Yes. Her door had been tampered with, but the bloke didn’t get inside. She’s safe, and the police are on the way. They told me to wait at the front door.”

“Then you do that. I’ll call the commissioner and make sure a good detective team is sent. Tell Pat to stay in her apartment until the police arrive.”

“Yes, sir.” Fred hung up and hurried down the stairs. He stopped for a moment on the ground floor to recover his shoes, then he went to the Frank apartment and rapped on the door, standing directly in front of the eyehole.

She opened the door. “Come on in, Fred.”

“I have to wait by the front door.”

“Why?”

“Do two young men occupy your top floor?”

“Yes, they’re commercial artists. I haven’t met them yet. Have you?”

“In a manner of speaking. They’ve both been shot and are quite dead.”

Pat put a hand to her mouth.

“Powder room, miss, if you’re going to be sick.”

She took her hand away. “I’m not. What about the others upstairs?”

“No one’s answering. I’ll let the police take care of that.”

They heard a police car coming down Park Avenue and turning into East Sixty-third Street.

“That will be them,” Fred said. “Excuse me, please.” He holstered his weapon, turned, and walked to the front door, in time to open it for two uniforms.

“Top floor,” he said to the men, pointing upstairs. “I don’t know if anyone’s home on the third and fourth floors.”

“Did you call nine-one-one?”

“Yes.”

“Wait here.”

“I’ll be in there,” Fred said, pointing at the door. “Landlady’s apartment.”