The Second Perimeter (11 page)

* * *

EMMA WAS SITTING
in the motel bar at a small table that overlooked Oyster Bay. She probably saw DeMarco walk into the room but she didn’t acknowledge him. DeMarco went to the bar and asked the bartender for a beer. The bartender, his Yankee-bashing pal, had been rather cool toward him since discovering he was with Emma. DeMarco joined Emma at the table where they sat in silence for several minutes before Emma said, “I couldn’t budge the dumb shit. Maybe he thinks Carmody will protect him. Or maybe he’s just more afraid of Carmody than he is of us.”
“So now what?” DeMarco asked.
Emma just shook her head.
DeMarco saw she was drinking a Manhattan instead of her usual martini; maybe that was the beverage she consumed on those rare occasions when she failed.
“Why not try again?” DeMarco said. “Right away. Mulherin’s stubborn but he’s scared. Why not have those two psychopaths you hired blow up his car or put a bunch of rifle shots through his front window?”
“For one thing, the Wangs are going back to San Diego tonight. The agency said this was a one-shot deal. The other thing is, I don’t think it will work. Mulherin’s going to tell Carmody what happened, and Carmody is going to explain to him that hired killers wouldn’t have missed him with half a dozen shots. Carmody is going to figure out in a New York minute that this was a setup.”

T
he Asian woman emerged from the water and walked toward the rocky beach.
She was wearing a black neoprene diving suit to insulate her body from the cold waters of Puget Sound. As she walked, she pulled a diver’s mask and snorkel from her head. Knee-deep in the water, she balanced on one leg at a time and removed her flippers, then walked onto the beach, oblivious to the rocks and oyster shells beneath her bare feet. She dropped the flippers, mask, and snorkel on the ground, then unhooked the tool belt on her waist and let it drop to the ground next to the rest of her gear.
She turned in a slow circle to make sure she was alone. The windows of the closest house, half a mile away, were dark as would be expected at two a.m. She pulled the diving hood off her head and brushed her fingers through her short hair. Her hair shined in the starlight as if coated with oil. She sat down on the beach next to her gear, unzipped a watertight pocket, and took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She lit a cigarette, blew smoke skyward, and looked out across the water at a full moon. A hunter’s moon.
Emma, the woman thought. After all these years. All these horrible years.
She smiled then, her teeth white and even. She hadn’t smiled— not a real smile— in a long time. She smiled now, though, because she had a plan. She wouldn’t be humiliated again. She wouldn’t lose again.

N
orton gripped the shaft of the barbless hook between his thumb and forefinger, then shook it a couple of times until the twelve-inch salmon came off the hook.
“Damn shakers,” he said. “They’re about all that’s bitin’ out here.”
“Yeah, but them downriggers are working slicker than shit,” Mulherin said. “Drop the lines down to one twenty, and we’ll make another pass.”
The two men were fishing off Possession Point on the southern tip of Whidbey Island. Mulherin was at the wheel of the fishing boat, a beer in his fist, a Seattle Mariners hat on his head. He wore jeans and a T-shirt and on the T-shirt were the words: I BELIEVE IN FILLET AND RELEASE. Mulherin wore the T-shirt every time he fished and it was spotted with fish-blood stains that were impervious to detergent.
Mulherin had caught an eight-pound silver and a twenty-pound king but Norton had yet to hook into anything of legal size. For reasons that Norton could never understand, Mulherin always caught more fish than he did even when they were fishing from the same boat at the same depth using the same bait. It really pissed him off.
Norton put another plug-cut herring on his hook and dropped the bait to the depth Mulherin had specified. He wore fish-bloodied jeans and an old T-shirt that stretched tight over his gut. He checked the drag on his reel then walked over to the cooler and took out another beer.
“I hope we got enough beer,” he said, sounding genuinely concerned. They had started off with a case of twenty-four cans when they left the marina at six a.m. but it looked like half their supply was gone, and it was only nine. Fuckin’ Mulherin, Norton thought, the guy drank like a fish.
“We’ll get some more in Everett,” Mulherin said.
“Why the hell did Carmody want us to meet him over there anyway?”
“Who cares? It works out perfect. We fish ’til eleven, catch a buncha salmon, then head on over to Everett for a nice lunch. I’m tellin’ you, Norton, this is the life.”
“You didn’t think it was the life last night. You were so scared you were ready to crap your pants.”
“No I wasn’t.”
“The hell you weren’t. Until Carmody told you what was going on, you were ready to run for fuckin’ Mexico.”
Mulherin nodded his head. “Well you would have been scared, too, if guys had been shooting bullets at your head.” Mulherin paused, then added, “I can’t believe our own government would do something like that.”
Norton just shook his head. Mulherin was such an idiot.
“You all set?” Mulherin asked. He had shut off the engine while Norton was rebaiting his line.
“Yeah,” Norton said.
Mulherin hit the ignition button to restart the big inboard motor, but the engine didn’t catch. He hit it again; the engine still didn’t fire.
“Son of a bitch,” Mulherin said. “Fucker sounds like it’s flooded, but it can’t be.”
Mulherin hit the ignition button again.

C
oast Guard Lieutenant Amanda Minelli was young, early twenties, and petite, no more than five foot three. And the blue coveralls she wore were a little baggy on her slender frame, making her seem even smaller. But Emma knew it would be a mistake to assume there was anything fragile about Minelli. At her rank, she probably commanded the rescue boat that went out when the wind was fifty knots and the waves thirty feet high, and rescued fishermen too dumb to heed the weather reports. Amanda Minelli likely had more courage than men three times her size. Emma was just disappointed she couldn’t tell her more.
“What’s left of the boat is in five hundred feet of water,” Minelli said. “At that depth, it’ll be a major effort to inspect the wreckage and the chance of finding anything conclusive is pretty small.”
“If it was a shaped charge you’ll be able to tell,” Emma said.
“Yeah,” Minelli said, “but the debris will be spread out all over the place. And it could have been an accident. This guy, Mulherin, we talked to his neighbors. According to one of them, he was one of those incompetent do-it-yourselfers. He’d just finished installing electric downriggers on his boat and not too long ago he replaced an alternator. If he used an automotive alternator instead of a marine one, he could have blown himself up.”
“Why’s that?” DeMarco said.
“Because marine alternators are made with spark suppressors; automotive ones aren’t. And Mulherin’s boat used gas not diesel. Gas is more explosive than diesel. So if Mulherin had a fuel leak, even a small one, and he used a rebuilt alternator taken off some truck, he could have blown himself to kingdom come just to save a few bucks.”
“But you
are
getting a dive team over here,” Emma said.
“Yeah,” Minelli said. “Navy deep-dive guys from San Diego. They have a saturation dive suite and an ROV.”
“An ROV?” DeMarco said.
“A remote operating vehicle. A robot, in other words, with mechanical arms and cameras. At the depth that fishing boat is at, we’re not talking scuba diving.”
“When will the dive team get here?” Emma asked.
“Maybe next Thursday,” Minelli said. “They’re on some other mission, I guess.” She looked down at the paper in her hand, then back up at Emma, and said, “With the clout you seem to have, maybe you can change the navy’s priorities, but I sure as hell can’t.”
“No,” Emma said. “Next Thursday will be fine. I’m already sure this wasn’t an accident. It would just be nice to have it confirmed.”
“When these divers go down, can they search the boat?” DeMarco said.
“For what?” Minelli said.
“Anything that belongs to the U.S. Navy and looks like it might be classified,” DeMarco said.
Minelli didn’t say anything for a minute. “I think maybe you guys oughta tell me a little more about what’s going on here,” she said.

I
’ll have the blackened halibut, a Caesar salad, and half a baked potato,” Emma said.
“We can’t sell you half a potato, ma’am,” the waiter said.
Emma closed her eyes briefly, then said very slowly, “Then
sell
me the whole potato, but just before you bring my dinner, take half the potato off the plate.
You
can eat the half you don’t bring me.”
“I can’t…Yes, ma’am,” the waiter said.
“And a Grey Goose martini, up, with a twist,” Emma said.
“Will that be a whole martini or half a martini, ma’am?” the waiter said.
Emma’s eyes flashed at the waiter but when she saw the small smile curving his lips, she smiled back. “You got me,” Emma said.
“Yes, ma’am,” the waiter said and turned to DeMarco. “And you, sir, what would you like?”
After their drinks arrived, Emma said, “This doesn’t feel right.”
“What do you mean?” DeMarco said.
“Killing Norton and Mulherin. Why now? It’s the
timing
that bothers me,” Emma said. “Killing those guys the day after we questioned Mulherin draws attention to them. It puts a spotlight on the whole operation and it’s going to make the navy and the Bureau dig harder to find out what they were doing. And that’s the last thing a good control would want.
“I mean,” Emma said, “why didn’t they wait a while? We didn’t have anything definite on them. Hell, you and I were the only ones who even believed they were spying— until this happened.”
“I don’t know,” DeMarco said. “We scared Mulherin pretty good. So maybe it’s just like you told him when we ran that bluff: whoever’s running this thing realizes he’s finished here and he’s closing down the operation. Carmody’s probably dead, too.”
Phil Carmody had disappeared. After DeMarco and Emma had visited the Coast Guard, they went to Carmody’s home and office, but couldn’t find him. Emma alerted the FBI and asked them to start looking for Carmody and was curtly informed that the Bureau was already on the hunt, thank you very much, and that they didn’t need any advice from a couple of civilians. God help them, DeMarco thought, if the Feebies found out what he and Emma had done to spook Mulherin.
Emma shrugged in response to DeMarco’s comment about Carmody being dead. “Maybe he is,” she said, “but I doubt it. Carmody would be a lot harder to kill than the pirates.”
They sat in silence until their dinners arrived. The blackened halibut was really good. DeMarco wondered if they’d give him the recipe. As they ate, they talked briefly about what to do about the homeless guy, “Cowboy” Conran, who had been arrested for killing Dave Whitfield. The DNA tests had been completed on the knife found in the bum’s backpack and Whitfield’s DNA had been on the blade, giving the Bremerton cops the last bit of evidence that they needed to nail the poor schizo bastard. It still bothered Emma that Whitfield had been knifed while facing his opponent. “No way,” she said, “would a guy as perpetually on edge as Whitfield let Conran get that close to him. A friend or a woman I could understand, but not some guy who smells like the inside of a tennis shoe.”
“That FBI agent, the lady, she—”
“You mean the agent who looks like your ex?” Emma said.
DeMarco ignored that. “She was looking at one of Whitfield’s neighbors,” he said. “Maybe she’s on the right track.”
“No,” Emma said. “
We’re
on the right track. But if we can’t prove that somebody associated with Carmody killed Whitfield, Conran could be convicted.” She paused then added, “Although I suppose Mulherin and Norton getting blown into the afterlife and Carmody disappearing will cast some doubt on the prosecutor’s case.”
“Yeah, right,” DeMarco said. “I’m sure the United States Navy is going to tell some public defender that Conran’s best defense is the embarrassing possibility that one of their shipyards was penetrated by a bunch of spies.”
Emma muttered, “So young and so cynical,” then checked her watch and turned to look in the direction of the front door. And at that moment Bill Smith walked in.
After Smith had been introduced to DeMarco— just a name, no title— Smith flagged down a waiter. “Irish coffee,” he said to the waiter, “with lots of whipped cream.”
The waiter stared a moment at Smith, studying his face, before saying, “Yes, sir.” The waiter turned to get Smith’s drink, then turned back and opened his mouth to speak.
“Don’t you dare say it,” Smith said. “Just bring me the drink.”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter said. DeMarco saw the waiter talking to the bartender, pointing a finger at Smith. Both men started laughing.
“I thought you weren’t helping us anymore,” DeMarco said.
“That changed when Mulherin and Norton went to that great fishing hole in the sky,” Smith said. “Now
everybody’s
helping you. And I’ve got some news for you guys: Carmody was stopped by the highway patrol south of Eugene, Oregon, an hour ago.”
“You’re kidding,” Emma said. “A cop caught Carmody?”
“I said the highway patrol
stopped
him. They didn’t catch him.”

C
armody had been going ninety miles an hour. Occasionally he’d push the speed up to a hundred. He passed a dozen cars. He tailgated the cars before he passed them, he honked
as
he passed, and after he passed, he would swerve his vehicle over the lane markers, doing his best impression of a drunk behind the wheel.
Finally it happened. Behind him, almost half a mile back, he could see blue-and-red lights flashing. Thank God for cell phones. He slowed down to allow the highway patrolman to catch up to him but he didn’t stop; he wanted to be closer to a freeway exit. The officer turned on his siren when Carmody didn’t pull over immediately, and when Carmody still kept going, he pulled up next to Carmody’s car and made an irate motion for him to get off the highway. Carmody looked ahead. The next exit was only a quarter mile away, so he applied his brakes and stopped his car on the shoulder of the highway.
Since the cop had been chasing him for at least ten minutes, Carmody figured that the officer had had ample time to get his license plate number and radio in to see if the car was stolen or if the driver had any outstanding warrants. The cop would have his name and so would the people in the highway patrol’s communication center.
The officer exited his vehicle, slamming the door. He was pissed. Carmody opened his door and the cop yelled, “Sir, stay in your vehicle. Do
not
get out. And put your hands on the steering wheel.”
“Wha…?” Carmody said, and stepped out of his car.
“Sir! Get back in your vehicle. Now.” The cop placed his hand on his service weapon but didn’t unholster the gun.
Carmody took a step toward the cop, then fell to one side as if he’d lost his balance, then leaned against the side of his car, rocking unsteadily. He muttered “Dizzy,” and closed his eyes.
“Sir, walk to the front of your vehicle and put your hands on the hood.” The cop looked behind him. He was probably afraid that if Carmody tried to walk he’d end up in the middle of the highway and get hit. But Carmody didn’t move. He just continued to lean against his car, his eyes closed, swaying, feigning a drunk on the verge of passing out.
He heard the cop mutter, “Shit.”
The cop was now close enough to touch Carmody. He reached out and took hold of Carmody’s upper arm, intending to walk Carmody to the front of his vehicle so neither of them would get run over. But when he touched Carmody, Carmody pivoted on his left foot and drove his fist into the cop’s solar plexus. The cop grunted in pain and bent over, and when he did, Carmody struck the back of his neck with the side of his right hand.
Carmody reached down and felt the pulse in the cop’s throat. It was strong and the cop was young and looked like he was in good shape. He shouldn’t be out for more than a couple of minutes. Carmody grabbed the man’s wrists and dragged him between the two cars so the cop’s body was hidden by his patrol car. Carmody started to leave, then it occurred to him that if somebody hit the cop’s car from the rear, the cop could get hurt. He went back and pulled the unconscious man to the side of the road, positioning him four or five feet from his patrol car.
Carmody got back into his vehicle and took the exit just ahead of him. Five minutes later he found a small shopping mall and parked his car next to another vehicle that was a good distance from the stores and other cars. He took a screwdriver out of his glove compartment and in two minutes, switched license plates with the vehicle he had parked next to.