The Third Coincidence (4 page)

“Untie our oil industry’s hands so they can develop our own fields,” Jack said, answering the president, “and there’s Mexico. If we diverted a third of our OPEC buys into increased purchases of oil from Mexico, we could, through bringing that quantity of our buys into our region of the world, further stabilize our sources of oil while enhancing the Mexican economy. The good-paying jobs created in the process would reduce the motivation for illegals to cross our bor- der. As part of the oil deal, we could likely barter for real cooperation on their side to slow down human and drug smuggling. I hope I haven’t been too candid, sir.”

“Nonsense. I asked, but we need to leave that discussion for an- other day and get back to why you’re here.”

Twenty minutes later, Jack drove out through the same White House security checkpoint. With his focus on assembling his team, he failed to notice the dark Ford Explorer that turned from F Street onto Seventeenth to fall in two cars behind.

chapter 6

Security is tight at the Supreme Court. There’s talk of an early summer recess, and whispers now and then about resignations.

—Sarah Little, NewsCentral 7, June 5

Rachel Johnstone left the FBI building in a snit. She had just fin- ished meeting with the FBI’s beefy director, Fred Hampton, where he’d assigned her the murders of two Supreme Court justices and the suspicious death of a Federal Reserve governor. Then came the almighty
but
. But, she would be working on a task force under Jack McCall.

She knew her desire to lead the investigation exceeded her ré- sumé. But the lead had not just been taken from her, it had been taken from the bureau and given to a spook, and not just any spook, Jack McCall.

Why me, Lord?

Thirty minutes later, Rachel walked into her one-bedroom apart- ment, dropped her keys in the basket on the mahogany sofa table just inside the door, ruffled the head of her cat, Jingles, standing next to the basket, filled the cat’s bowl with dry crunchies, and started shedding her pantsuit. She hung her blouse over the back of a chair and reached back to pop her brassiere. Then, using the remote she turned on some bluesy piano player that fit her sultry mood, the over- head fan cooling her sweaty skin.

She doubted Jack McCall would remember her. Not unless he

the third coincidence 25

remembered all the women who had come on to him, women he had shunted aside with one excuse or another. With her he had used the unimaginative “regulations do not permit personal involvement among intelligence personnel.” It had been a putdown and she had not forgotten.

It wasn’t her appearance, heaven knows. She didn’t think of her- self as vain, but certainly there was no shame in being conscious, even proud of one’s appearance. More frequent high reps with low weights would tone a few spots and keep her breasts firm and high, but all in all the curves were still in the right places.

Not bad for forty-three.

Ten minutes later she stepped out of the shower. After toweling the loose water out of her hair and patting the moisture off her face, she responded to the chimes of her cell phone.

Speak of the devil, Jack McCall.

“I believe you know why I’m calling,” he said.

She knew that for him, becoming an intelligence operative had not been a random choice made during some overwhelming cam- pus career day. The job possessed him. He lived it. She wondered if the years had worn the edge off that intensity, and how his well-mus- cled six-two frame and boyish face had changed. She also remem- bered that he believed in the chain of command, so she opened with the needle.

“Hi, Spook. Do you remember me?”

“Of course,” he told her. “Seven years ago. The Persian Gulf.

We worked together for two weeks.”

Cradling the phone with her shoulder, she sat on the bed, drew her knees up against her still wet, bare breasts and wrapped her arms around her legs. Jingles jumped up and began dragging his body across her damp calves.

“Is spook okay?” she persisted, determined to get under his skin, “or do you prefer Agent McCall?”

“Listen,” he said patiently, “I know you wanted to head this task

26 David M. Bishop

force, but you’re not. When no one else is around you can call me whatever you wish. My concern is whether or not I can count on you to follow orders and be a team player.”

She used the side of her foot to push Jingles off her bed. “I’ve been given my assignment. I’ll do my job.”

“How do I know you mean that?” “Trust me. I work for the FBI.”

“Now that’s the funniest thing I’ve heard today.” “I
do
work for the FBI.”

“You know about Monroe?”

She scooted back and leaned against the headboard. “Poison. His death was assigned to me the day he died. We all saw it as wait- ing for the autopsy to confirm heart attack. So the toxicology report brought us up short. Today, the director also put me in charge of the murder of Justice Montgomery and the death of Santee. You figure he was murdered too?”

“Probably. It could be an oddly timed accidental death, but I doubt it.”

“That’s how Monroe looked at the beginning,” Rachel said, “like an accident, well, like a heart attack. I’m not sure what we’re going to be chasing here, but we’re holding the loose end of a big ball of something.”

“Listen. I’d like us to talk in person,” he said. “Tonight. In the morning we need to hit the ground running. Shall I come to you or do you prefer to come here?”

“You didn’t ask if I already had plans.” “If you do, cancel them.”

“And which charm school did you attend, Spook?”

She heard him take a deep breath. “I’m sorry if you had other plans.”

“Give me directions.”

She jotted down what she needed and said, “I’ll be there in twenty to thirty minutes.”

“Have you eaten yet?” he asked.

the third coincidence 27

“No.”

“I’ll throw a couple of burgers on the grill. They’ll be ready when you get here.”

She knew that McCall had made a gesture with his offer of a ca- sual meal and she appreciated it. And she knew the two of them meeting before his entire team met was a good idea.

After trying on several outfits, she hooked a pushup bra, slipped on a scoop-necked blue jersey and white shorts. Her outfit, didn’t say FBI professional, but she didn’t wish to convey FBI professional.

Eat your heart out, Spook,
she thought.
Next time I’m turning you down.

“Except for those very busy two weeks seven years ago,” Jack said to Rachel, “I know nothing about you. Tell me about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?” Rachel asked.

“Oh, just start somewhere and end somewhere else.”

As he listened, he noticed she was wearing her dark hair a little longer than he remembered. Shoulder length with a softer look along her forehead. A thin nose above a mouth a little wide, and at times a little too smarty, an intelligent face with a gentleness that avoided the hard cynical look that all too often leeched in from their work.

While eating, his glances caught her studying his face. Line by line like Sherlock Holmes with a microscope. Jack considered his face to be ordinary, but found himself hoping she thought it was a good face.

After dinner they discussed the case over a bowl of Jack’s home- made vanilla ice cream studded with Maraschino cherries. Their only clear decision: they should, at least at the start, include the two

D.C. homicide detectives Jack had been with at the Justice Mont- gomery murder scene. Lieutenant Wade and Sergeant Burke would provide a local element to further the president’s desire for a multi- agency face.

She ran her tongue across the end of her ice cream spoon before clanking it into the melted white pond at the bottom of the bowl.

28 David M. Bishop

“So, Spook—I’m sorry, I need to stop calling you that.”

Strangely enough, Jack found that he didn’t care whether she did or didn’t. He had come to terms with the quirks in their rela- tionship, if he could yet think of it as a relationship.

“What were you going to say?” he asked.

“How do you think you’ll like working out in the open in the real world?”

“The real world?” Jack said, his eyebrows raised. “Just what do you think I’ve been working in all these years?”

“Some parallel universe where madmen and patriots engage in large and small evils justified by some definition of the greater good.” “That sounds like something you read on the editorial page of

the
New York Times
,” he told her. “I expected better from you.”

“I probably expressed that view more profoundly than I hold it.” She shrugged. “Let’s change the subject. You’ve got a nice place here. You needn’t have straightened up on my account.”

“I pick up after myself as I go along and have a housekeeper in once a week. Next time I can make a mess here and there, if it’ll make you feel more at home.”

“I can handle neat.” She stood, turned, and bent down to lift her purse off the couch.

He watched the white material tighten across her butt, then the trim muscular curves of her calves as she moved toward the door. Rachel was obviously a strong woman, yet very shapely and femi- nine. He got up and followed.

“We made some progress tonight. Thanks for coming over.”

At the door, she stood close. Jack felt the warmth in her breath. “Maybe we can work together.” She looked up at him without

tilting her head back. “But don’t underestimate me.”

He grinned lopsidedly, willing his eyes to avoid her cleavage. “I will never do that.”

“Yes, you will,” she told him. “To quote V. I. Warshawski, ‘Never underestimate a man’s ability to underestimate a woman.’ ”

“V.I. who?”

the third coincidence 29

“You don’t know V. I. Warshawski? She’s only the world’s great- est fictional female private detective.”

Rachel’s lips turned up at the corners, her teeth filling the cres- cent of her smile. She opened the door, spilling a corridor of light into the night, and stepped out onto the porch. He held the screen door open, half hoping she would boldly change her mind and stay. But she turned her back and walked down the hall of light that widened as it reached for the curb.

After she had shut her car door, the headlights sent two piercing beams into the night, spreading until they illuminated the leaves of the trees along the edge of the Potomac river.

Jack stood there looking into the darkness, wondering what waited out there in the abyss.

Rachel drove home knowing more about Jack McCall than she had known before, and wondering if perhaps that had been his purpose for the invitation. He liked sea kayaking, Zinfandel wine, stage plays, and in films, mostly film noir, but his favorite movie was
True Lies
, particularly the scene in which Jamie Lee Curtis did a sexy dance for a man in a hotel room without knowing that man was her husband. She had told him her favorite movie was
The Sting
, but they had both liked Dustin Hoffman in
Tootsie
. She dug light jazz while he favored traditional pop and show tunes. They had challenged each other to a game of golf, after the case of course. He carried a nine

handicap, she carried a ten.

Rachel parked behind her condo building in the Kalorama Heights area of D.C., north of Sheridan Circle, and sat in her car to take a personal call before going inside.

For the first time she could remember, Jingles was not on the entry table meowing when she slid the key into the lock, thrusting his nose into the crack when it opened. Tonight, her furry friend sat quietly on the entryway floor, his tail wrapped neatly around its own legs.

“What’s wrong, Jingles?” she said, bending down to stroke the

30 David M. Bishop

cat’s ears. “Yes, I know. Every time I come home I need to fill your crunchies.”

Jingles ignored his freshly filled bowl. Instead, following her into her bedroom, hopping up on the bed and caterwauling while she disrobed.

“My gosh, you’re certainly a chatterbox tonight.” She sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed the cat’s head between her cupped hands. “Let me shower and put in a load of clothes. Then we’ll play. Okay? Now settle down.”

As the shower spray worked its way through her hair, cascading down over her breasts, she relaxed and imagined the water washing away the stress of her day—the stress of again seeing the mysterious Jack McCall.

She had never forgotten the afternoon the two of them stood to- gether on the forward part of the weather deck on a naval vessel off the coast of Egypt. When he had paid her a compliment, she took it as a comment from a man on the make. But he hadn’t been be- cause he later turned away her advances. In a strange way that had made the compliment seem even more special.

Fifteen minutes later, wearing a cotton nightie, she dumped the hamper on her bed and began sorting out her underwear for the washer only to discover that her bra, the one she had just taken off and dropped onto the bed, had disappeared.

Maybe I put it in the hamper.