The Cyclops Conspiracy (46 page)

The aging apartment and the loud music sparked an idea. Jason rummaged around the apartment, looking in closets and the bathroom, violating the sanctity of his former technician’s domicile. He found what he needed under the kitchen sink.

Officer Karen Nolo keyed her radio. “This is Nolo, requesting backup. I think I’ve found the vehicle the two men stole from the hospital.”

Finding the missing pharmacist had become the police department’s only priority, it seemed. Every available body was taking part in the manhunt. The radio crackled every few minutes with bursts of traffic. Throwing this much manpower at your average, run-of-the-mill killer was unusual. But the brass had insisted the man be found.
Something big is going down
, she thought.
The shit just keeps getting deeper.

Finding the stolen car had been pure luck. She’d decided to cruise through the apartment complex, just a quick pass before heading for lunch, when she spotted the Lincoln. The Smithfield PD had sent out a bulletin on the make, model, and tag numbers. She had just run them through the system when she got a hit. The car, though stolen, had been rented from an agency at the airport.

“I’m going to knock on some doors and see if anyone knows anything about this vehicle.”

“Roger that,” came the reply from the dispatcher. “Be careful, Karen. This guy’s dangerous. The report said there were two men in the car when it left the hospital.”

Nolo alighted from the cruiser. Smoke hit her nostrils before the door thunked closed. A cloud of grayish white vapors filled a passageway between two apartment buildings.

Forgetting the stolen car, she ran toward the smoke. “Anybody in there! Open up! Police!” Nolo pounded on the door of the ground-floor unit.

Thin wisps roiled from under the door. She covered her mouth with a handkerchief, but still choked on fumes. Brief flashes of orange flame lit up a window. She thought she heard a banging noise coming from inside, but through the crackling and roar of the flames, she wasn’t certain. She grabbed the knob and burned her hand on scalding metal.

She raced up the steps of the open-air hallway, shaking her blistering hand, and banged savagely on a second-floor apartment door. When no answered, she kicked it in. Empty. The floor was warm, the heat from downstairs radiating up. Nolo climbed the third and final flight to the highest apartment. A woman answered with a small child in her arms.

“Get out now! The place is on fire!”

* * *

Broadhurst pulled the black, government-issue SUV into the courtyard. The sight of smoke and flashing lights caused both men to lean forward.

“You’ve got to be shittin’ me,” Peter said, spotting the source of the smoke. “That’s the apartment Jason’s in.”

The SUV skidded to a halt. Broadhurst sprinted toward the blaze, watching the safety of his presidents literally going up in smoke. Peter followed, limping badly.

A female police officer was banging on an upper-level apartment door and hollering. The agent covered his mouth with the crook of his elbow and tried to look in the first-floor apartment. He, too, was overwhelmed, and retreated. Peter caught up with him, trying to push past the special agent. Broadhurst grabbed Peter’s arm. With his wounded leg, Peter was no match for the taller, stronger man. His progress was halted instantly. “Let me in there!” Peter demanded.

“It’s no use,” Broadhurst said, placing both arms on Peter’s shoulders.

Peter ripped himself away, stumbled, and fell.

“Stay here!” Broadhurst helped him up and pushed him away from the blaze onto the grass.

Sirens closed in as the gathering crowd mushroomed. A shrill scream from an apartment pierced the air. Broadhurst ran in that direction. A woman, wet and wearing only a towel, raced out of her apartment. Broadhurst yelled, “Is there anyone else in there?” She screamed, too panicked to respond, and rushed past him into the courtyard, clutching only the towel.

Broadhurst entered her space, managing a quick look around. The blaze was in the next-door apartment, and tendrils of smoke seeped in from a large hole in the common wall. Flames licked through the opening, beginning to roar with force. With the danger mounting and convinced the naked woman’s unit was empty, Broadhurst left.

He returned to the courtyard, looking for Peter Rodgers. He was gone. Turning to an onlooker, he asked, “Where did that man go? The one who was limping?”

“He ran into that apartment, man. That guy’s got a death wish.”

Broadhurst’s eye followed the onlooker’s pointing finger. Gigantic eruptions of flame and smoke exploded from the lower windows, blackening the upper floors, melting the siding. Columns of black roiled skyward. An acrid, bitter smell filled the air. The crowd of gawkers was growing.

The only two men who could help him sort out this mess were roasting inside the apartment.

Broadhurst contemplated going in after them, but nixed that idea quickly. He was no good dead, either to the service or his president. At this point, he expected to recover two charred bodies.

“Look!” someone shouted. “Someone’s coming out!”

Smoke steaming from his clothes, Peter staggered into the courtyard. He collapsed on the grass as Broadhurst reached him. Flames licked the back of his shirt. Broadhurst patted them out with his bare hands. The policewoman helped the special agent roll him over. Peter’s hands and the edges of his face were burnt and blistered.

“Are you okay?” asked Nolo.

Peter coughed. A mouthful of smoke shot from his lungs. “Just peachy. He’s not—in there.”

“You didn’t see a body?”

Peter shook his head.

“Where the hell is he?” Broadhurst asked.

* * *

Jason opened his eyes. He peered into a gray-black, crisscross pattern that wavered every few seconds in the breeze. Crooked lines and odd shapes jostled in the breeze. His mind gradually surfaced from the murky depths. The boughs of the elms and maples created a maze, bathed by the moonlight. When he’d lain down on the cold ground blanketed with pine needles, the sky had been awash in the golden glow of late afternoon. Now clouds blotted out the stars. Hours had evaporated.

He pushed himself to a sitting position. The gun, still clutched in his fingers, felt welded to his hand. Though he hadn’t pulled the trigger, it had saved his life.

He sucked in a deep breath, exhaled, and spasmed into a barking cough. His whole body convulsed, trying to expel the inhaled poisons. With each paroxysm, his side burned and nausea waved over him.

After escaping the burning apartment, Jason had run until his lungs wanted to burst. He’d stopped in a clearing between the gravel company and the railroad tracks just beyond Jefferson Avenue.

Setting the fire had been his only option.

The large container of lighter fluid under the sink had been almost full. Jason had doused everything, emptying the can. The front and back doors, curtains, furniture. He’d ignited the fuel with the matchsticks lying beside the lighter fluid. The fire had caught and spread faster than he’d anticipated. The smoke and fumes had hugged the ceiling in less than a minute, nearly overwhelming him.

As the blaze intensified, he’d chunked a hole in the plaster of the wall shared with the adjoining apartment with a kitchen knife, pulling away pieces with his bare hands. He’d realized he should have gouged out the hole first, before starting the fire. That mistake had nearly cost him his life.

Beneath the plaster, only fire-rated plywood covered the studs. Jason found the seam between two sheets of plywood. Luckily, he’d been right about the apartment complex’s construction. There was no
concrete firewall between the units. He worked the board away from the stud, ripping an opening. Several kicks forced out the plywood on the other side of the wall. Finally, he’d created an opening large enough to crawl through. At that point, Barbara’s apartment had been fully engulfed. He’d slid through the fourteen-inch opening between studs, pulling electrical wiring with him. The heat had suffocated him, smoke and flames licking at his Nikes.

The music was loud. That and the roar of the flames masked his break-in. The naked woman emerged from the bathroom as Jason darted for the front door. Soaking wet, singing, and gyrating to “Satisfaction,” the well-endowed female had frozen when she spotted him before letting out a scream.

She’d covered her breasts with one arm and her womanhood with the other as Jason walked calmly past. “The place is on fire,” he’d said. “You better get out.” He opened the door and stepped into the breeze-way, moments before the Secret Service agent he’d encountered at the shipyard appeared from around the corner.

Ducking behind the corner and belly-crawling along the cement patio, he rose up to all fours and made his way to the opposite corner. The killer was behind him, waiting in the reeds, apparently unaware of Jason’s escape. Jason crouched low, moving through the grass behind the man. He circled into the parking lot of the Patrick Henry Mall and completed his escape.

In the clearing, Jason stood to his full height. The heavy cloud cover hinted at coming rain. Every part of his body ached. The wound in his side felt like a torch had been taken to it. Despite his injuries, Jason pondered a question: how had they tracked him to Barbara’s apartment?

The killers had been one step behind him at every stage, at the hospital, his house, and now, the apartment. They’d tracked Christine and Peter as well.

He pulled Barbara’s phone out of his pocket. Barbara wouldn’t have given Jason up; even if she had, the police or the FBI would have shown up, not Zanns’s assassins. Had they followed him to Keller’s, then to the
apartment? He doubted that, too. They had doubled back numerous times. They’d done nothing but drive to the apartment and collect their weapons. And Peter had made a call to the Secret Service agent.

Jason pounded a fist into his thigh. Phone calls! Of course!

His mind flashed to the attack at his house. Peter had called him on his home landline from Lisa’s cell, minutes before the killers burst in. He’d also used his wife’s phone to call Broadhurst. If they were tracking Peter, they’d be able to track his wife’s cell, too. Most cell phones contained GPS chips. Peter had mentioned moles in the Secret Service. Hell, a camera had been put in his house. It wasn’t a stretch to think they had access to their cell numbers.

Jason considered ditching the phone. He stopped, and instead he opened the back and removed the battery. He’d read somewhere that if the battery were removed, it couldn’t be tracked. They probably didn’t know Jason had Barbara Jensen’s phone. But he wasn’t taking any chances.

A second question again nagged him: how many were out there after him and the others? He did a quick tally. Peter had killed two men. He and Christine had left two more dead at his house. Two more men had followed him to the hospital, where one had died. His buddy was outside Barbara Jensen’s apartment. That made for at least six killers.

That invited a third, final question: how big was this conspiracy?

He already could imagine the answer.

That fact nudged him to make a decision. It was time to come in. He’d try it again. Staying on the run would only lead to his death. The flash drive in his pocket was his ticket. Jason was counting on the fact that Peter had reached Broadhurst and filled him in on the plot. He prayed, too, that his brother had negotiated terms for his surrender that would keep him out of jail until he could prove his innocence. The rendezvous point had been agreed upon in case of trouble. Jason began the slow trudge in that direction.

* * *

Broadhurst flipped open the laptop and inserted the CD. John Palmer had delivered it a minute ago and was standing to the side. The computers had finally come back online forty minutes ago. Broadhurst, together with two other agents, listened without comment. Palmer and the detective remained silent, letting the voices on the recording speak for themselves.

Broadhurst felt a frown crease his face. Everything about the recording sounded legit, but he needed to ask Peter Rodgers the question anyway. “How do I know this recording isn’t just a setup?”

Peter scoffed. “Two gunmen killed a detective from Newport News in my hospital room. Just ask Palmer here,” Peter said, pointing to the detective. “They were there to kill me, too. Hours before that two other guys also tried to put my lights out. The same thing happened to my brother. Walter Waterhouse is dead. How much more friggin’ proof do you need?”

Palmer added, “He’s right. I can confirm the murder of the private investigator. The Poquoson PD has set up a crime scene.”

“There’s something very sophisticated about this whole thing.”

“Ya think?” said Peter.

“According to your friend, this Simoon organization, if it exists, is of Middle Eastern origin. There are no countries or organizations in the Middle East other than the Israelis with the ability to do what they’ve done. Hell, if Austin’s right, the whole Secret Service communications network is compromised. They may have the financial resources, but not the intelligence network or electronic hardware to cripple the Secret Service. The sophistication is just not there.”

“You’re a spy now?” Peter challenged.

“No, just a law enforcement official. My job is to protect the president and keep him out of danger, and that includes assessing threats. This operation is too complex to be the work of a single organization like the Simoon.”

“You got all that from what I just told you.”

“I’ve been in law enforcement for fifteen years. If it walks like a duck…”

“So cancel the event.”

“I’d love to. That’s not my call. Austin was supposed to talk to the president. Now’s he’s dead. I don’t know if he even discussed it with him.”

“When do the presidents arrive?” Peter asked.

“That’s none of your business,” Broadhurst barked.

The stench of stale urine and rotting food hung in the littered alleyway. Jason crouched beside a blue dumpster. Cars entered and left the parking lot of the 7-Eleven at the corner of Oyster Point Road and Jefferson Avenue every few minutes. Jason had no idea how long the walk from the sand company to City Center would take. Stealth, not speed, was the priority. That meant using wooded cover along Jefferson Avenue, cutting through parking lots and side streets. From behind the convenience store, he walked quickly to the edge of the sidewalk on Jefferson, staying in the shadows. Instead of using the crosswalk, he walked a hundred yards south and crossed in front of a Plaza Azteca, timing his jaunt across both directions of the divided avenue so he wouldn’t have to stop in the median.