Wrongful Death (29 page)

He decided he could not stay in the house. His paths of escape were limited and could be directed. Outside he would have the cover of darkness, the weather, and the advantage of knowing the terrain. But that presented two problems: getting out, and deciding which direction to run.

He wouldn’t make it across the neighbor’s lawn, not with the floodlight illuminating the flagpole and everything around it. To the west, the high tide had narrowed the beach to a six-foot strip that would force him to run in a straight line and not very fast in the rocks and shells, a bad combination if someone was shooting at him. That left the front door, where the man waited, and the easement off the back porch, which was basically a dead end.

Not if you can reach the Indian Trail.

In his mind Sloane recalled Jake stepping behind the blue community Dumpster while cleaning up fireworks after the Fourth of July and seeming to disappear. Following him, Sloane had pulled back a hedge and discovered an overgrown footpath that led through and behind the yards of the homes perched on the hillside overlooking Puget Sound. Further inquiry revealed the path to have been originally used by Native Americans to access the beach a century before man carved Maplewild in the hillside.

If Sloane could reach the trail he would be well concealed.

That was well and good, but it did not solve his first problem, getting out of the house. If Argus had stationed a man at the front door, they likely had one or more at the back.

The room again pulsed blue light, followed by a near simultaneous clap of thunder. It shook the house, nearly masking another
sound; this one not the product of nature, but an explosion that plunged Sloane into total darkness.

JENKINS SLIPPED AND
slid on the wet ground, hurrying up the hillside from his hiding place. Three steps into the neighbor’s backyard he heard the command.

“Freeze.”

Jenkins froze.

“Hands. Show me your hands.”

He held up his hands, the backpack in one, his cell phone in the other. Rain sheeted off his camouflage poncho.

The police officer had his gun drawn, as did his female partner, standing to Jenkins’s right. The male officer continued to shout, but Jenkins was having difficulty hearing him over the storm. Water dripped down his face. “What?”

“Drop the backpack and keep your hands where I can see them.”

Jenkins dropped the backpack.

“What’s in your left hand?” the officer shouted.

“Cell phone.”

“Drop it!”

Jenkins looked down at the puddle at his feet.

“Now! Do not lower your hands. Let it fall.”

The phone landed in the puddle.

Then it rang. Sloane.

Jenkins nearly reached for it, but his instincts to not get shot prevailed.

“On your knees. Keep your hands above your head. I want to see them at all times.”

Jenkins complied. “I’m a private investigator,” he shouted. “I’m armed.”

The officer shared a look with his partner. “Where’s your weapon?”

“My right hip, under the poncho.”

The phone rang again. He and Sloane had agreed they would only call if necessary. Sloane was in trouble, and capable as he was in and out of a courtroom, he would be no match for Argus’s commandos alone.

“Are you carrying any other weapons?”

“No.”

The shotgun and the AR15 rifle remained hidden in the back of Alex’s Explorer parked on the street.

Again the phone rang. Damn it, Jenkins thought.

The officer signaled to his female partner. She approached Jenkins from behind and grabbed his right wrist. The cuff pinched the flesh. The officer pulled his arm behind his back and quickly snapped the second cuff. Then she felt along his side and reached beneath the poncho to remove his gun.

Lightening crackled, this time the thunder nearly simultaneous.

Then something exploded.

Jenkins jerked his head to look over his shoulder, but he could no longer see Sloane’s house behind the foliage. He half expected to see flames leaping into the sky.

He looked down at his phone. The screen had gone black. “My investigator’s license is in my back pocket.”

Sloane had insisted Jenkins get the damn license, worried about potential liability. Jenkins had called him a namby-pants. He hoped he had the chance to take it back.

“We’ll get that all figured out.” The male officer helped Jenkins to his feet and led him through the yard. Jenkins looked again, but could not see Sloane’s home. The female officer carried the backpack and cell phone as they crossed the yard. Frightened faces peered from behind curtained windows.

Jenkins leaned against the back of the police cruiser and spread his legs without being asked, hoping to move things along.

“What were you doing in the bushes?” the male officer asked.

“Watching a client’s house. He’s received anonymous threats. It’s the only place with a view. I should have asked the neighbor for permission, but you know people get squeamish about those kinds of things, especially when the request is made by a large black man.”

“Who’s your client?”

“David Sloane. He lives in the white colonial next to the easement.”

“What kind of threats?”

“Threats to his wife and children. He’s a lawyer,” Jenkins said, keeping his response vague. “My license and identification are in my back pocket. I have a permit to carry a concealed weapon.”

The male officer pulled out Jenkins’s wallet and opened the back door of the car. “Okay, take a seat out of the rain.”

“Could you rush it?” Jenkins asked.

He debated asking the officers to go to the house and check on Sloane, but Sloane had been adamant about not involving law enforcement. Law enforcement would only spook Argus, and that would give them time to destroy whatever evidence could still exist. Argus was also a trained combat force, and Jenkins could be sending two police officers unprepared into an ambush.

“It will go as fast as it goes,” the officer said.

Jenkins sat on the edge of the backseat, folded his knees to his chest, and squeezed into the car. His knees pressed against the hard plastic, and the handcuffs forced him to lean forward, putting a strain on his neck and back.

The male officer directed his partner to go and reassure the homeowner, then slid in the driver’s-side door out of the rain, typing on a computer. He would run a Department of Licensing check
to confirm that Jenkins did have a concealed weapons permit, and also check to ensure the gun wasn’t stolen. He’d also search for outstanding warrants.

It was routine, but routine took time, and that was the one thing Jenkins feared Sloane did not have.

P
endergrass slipped inside a bathroom, locking the door. He stood at the sink, staring at his reflection in the oval, gold-leaf mirror, feeling sickened and lightheaded. He lowered the toilet seat and sat.

Someone knocked.

His head snapped to the sound. Another knock. He stood.

“Just a minute.” He turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on his face. Then he dried his hands and face on a hand towel, checked his appearance again in the mirror, took a deep breath, and pulled open the door.

A well-coiffed woman leaned against the doorframe, breasts swelling over the top of a low-cut, sequined gown. Her eyes widened as if she had discovered something she liked on the menu. “Hello, soldier,” she said, words slurring. “Don’t you look yummy.”

He stepped past her.

“Hey, don’t run off.”

Walking back into the Great Hall, Pendergrass did not see
Park or Keane, although the crowd had thinned, most now outside under the tents. He hurried quickly to the tent and surveyed the faces. The crowd buzzed with anticipation. Pendergrass looked at his watch. The president was due to arrive at any moment.

He needed to leave quickly. He needed to warn Sloane.

Houghton Park exited the French doors to the wing of the house and approached Johnson Marshall. The incumbent senator stood on the patio in spit-polished shoes, a navy-blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. Keane emerged through the same doors a discreet moment later.

Park raised his hands. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m advised that the president will be joining us very shortly. At this time, however, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Washington’s own senator, Johnson Marshall.”

Marshall stepped forward to applause. Pendergrass didn’t wait to hear the speech. He stepped back into the Great Hall, now deserted but for the staff, and moved quickly across it to the porte cochere. The bus was not there. He’d have to walk. He started up the driveway on foot. Halfway up the road, four police motorcycles descended toward him, lights flashing. Pendergrass walked back down and stepped to the side as the president’s motorcade arrived. Secret Service exited black Town Cars and fanned out across the property. Two agents moved directly toward Pendergrass.

“I’m going to have to ask you to return to the party,” one of the men said. “We need to secure this area.”

Pendergrass didn’t bother to debate. He walked down the road and back inside the Great Hall. Starting across it, he had a thought and veered in a different direction, retracing his earlier steps. He found the corridor that led to the room with the stone fireplace and frescoes, crossed to the door into which Keane and Park had stepped, and reached for the handle.

“Tom.” Pendergrass subtly pulled back his hand, turned. “I’ve been looking for you,” Keane said.

Pendergrass maintained a calm demeanor. “I was looking for the bathroom. I must have got turned around.”

“Certainly understandable in this place,” she said. “You missed the announcement. The president has arrived.”

“That would be just like me to miss it.” He smiled. “Story of my life.”

Keane took his arm. “Well, I’m not about to let that happen to my escort.”

Walking back to the Great Hall, Pendergrass thought of the three dead guardsmen. Astronomical. What were the odds of all three dying so close to one another? Astronomical.

He thought of Captain Robert Kessler.

Then he thought again of David Sloane.

THE IDEA CAME
suddenly.

Sloane did not question it.

He ripped open the door and aimed the gun. The man had turned his head to the reverberating echo from the explosion, giving Sloane the split-second advantage he had sought. The only thing that kept him from pulling the trigger was he had aimed too high. By the time he corrected, the synapses in his brain had ordered him not to shoot.

Captain Robert Kessler turned back and flinched, but otherwise sat motionless staring up at Sloane through the rain.

“I’m alone,” Kessler said. “And I’m unarmed.”

“What are you doing sitting out here in the rain?”

“I can’t stand.” Kessler smiled. “I couldn’t get up the steps to reach a door.”

Sloane scanned the yard but did not detect anyone else. “What do you want?”

“I know Cassidy didn’t tell you we were selling supplies on the black market.”

“Yeah? How do you know that?”

“Because it’s a lie. And because Cassidy would have had no reason to lie. You also had to know Cassidy. That boy began to twitch the second we left base. He wouldn’t have sold a pack of cigarettes for a million dollars if it meant staying off our FOB longer than necessary. So I’m guessing you came to my office to let me know it was Griffin who told you that story, just like you put me on the stand to let me know he coordinated the witness statements.”

Sloane lowered the weapon, stepped off the porch, and helped Kessler up the steps.

Inside, Sloane pulled back the blind to look out the den window to his neighbor’s yard. The light remained out. As with the screen door banging against the house, Sloane had recognized the sudden explosion to be the transformer atop the pole in the easement. It had exploded twice before, including that winter when the Point actually got snow for the first time in many neighbors’ memories.

He grabbed two towels from the bathroom and tossed one to Kessler, then went to his study and returned with his boom box, which ran on both electricity and batteries. The shadow on the blinds wasn’t someone creeping past the windows. It had been Kessler struggling to wheel the chair on the saturated lawn.

Sloane turned on the boom box and Kessler nodded his understanding, keeping his voice low. “Did you actually talk to Butch?”

“Right before he was shot. He said Griffin’s story was bullshit, but I already knew that.”

Kessler gave him a look.

“I knew James Ford would never have done it,” Sloane said. He had been suspicious of Griffin the moment he met the colonel in the Tin Room and Griffin recounted Sloane’s history as a marine, including removing his flak jacket in Grenada. Sloane had deliberately fed the information to Pendergrass on the observation deck of the Federal Building, knowing someone was listening to their
conversation through the bug in his jacket. He had hoped it might help him figure out who that person was. Griffin also had no good reason to research Sloane’s background. His statement that he liked to know who he was meeting didn’t fly. Neither did his story about Kessler selling contraband on the Iraqi black market. It had been intended to convince Beverly Ford to settle the case and save her husband’s reputation. Sloane had dealt with the tactic before. But Griffin had been lazy. Had he truly done his homework, he would have known how far out of character it would have been for James Ford to do what Griffin was proposing.

Sloane’s problem was how to feed the information to Kessler without Griffin learning that Sloane knew the story was a ruse. Sloane needed Kessler and Pendergrass to take a closer look at the witness statements. He had suspected Kessler did not write his own statement when he had refused to consider it. He confirmed it when Cassidy told them Kessler had been knocked unconscious and later told Cassidy that he had little recollection of the events. The only logical conclusion was that Griffin had coordinated all four statements. Sloane also wanted Pendergrass and Kessler to know that Ferguson, Thomas, and Cassidy were all dead.

Getting Kessler on the witness stand was act one of his plan. His tirade in Kessler’s office, which he suspected was also bugged, was act two.

“You were very convincing,” Kessler said.

“What happened after I left?”

“I told everyone you were crazy and tried to maintain a normal routine. It wasn’t easy. At four I told Anne I was leaving to watch my son’s Little League game. She asked again if I was all right. I assured her you were a nut job. After the performance you gave, I had little trouble getting her to believe me.”

“You weren’t followed?” Sloane asked.

“I don’t think so,” Kessler said. “Argus knows where I live.
They’d have little trouble finding me and no reason to follow me thanks to your performance. I stopped at a restaurant and used a pay phone to call the JAG officer who handled Ford’s claim. You made an impression on him in court as well.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he became suspicious when Ford’s claim was reopened and that his suspicion increased when the U.S. attorney instructed him to settle. He checked after court and said the administrative staff has no record of a settlement offer. I don’t know what that means exactly, except I assume they should have had such a record.”

“The settlement offer made no sense,” Sloane said.

In the legal case Pendergrass had provided, the secretary of defense had used his discretion to settle the claims, but it had required congressional approval. Argus would not have wanted such publicity.

“There was no settlement offer, not from the government,” Sloane said.

“Then where’s the money coming from?”

“I suspect Houghton Park.”

“How?” Kessler asked.

“I’m not sure yet, but Keane also has some interest in this, given her appearance in court. She would need to make it look like the money was coming through the Treasury Department, and I suspect Argus could call in enough chips to make it appear that was the case.”

“They didn’t anticipate Beverly Ford turning it down. She sounds a lot like James.”

“How much do you actually remember about that night?”

Kessler’s gaze dropped to the floor. “Bits and pieces. I remember trying to get my men to safety. I remember the ambush.” He looked up. “I don’t remember much before or after that.”

“You didn’t get lost in a sandstorm, Captain.”

“But I remember the sandstorm.”

“There was a sandstorm,” Sloane said, “but it isn’t what caused you to go off course. Michael Cassidy remembered it very well. You received a call for help, another unit in trouble, an ambush. You and your men responded to that call and found yourselves in one hell of a firefight.”

SHIMRAN AL MUSLO, IRAQ

ALL HIS LIFE
James Ford had looked to the Cross to save him. Now he prayed it didn’t get him killed. He needed to secure the gold crucifix beneath his uniform; any shimmer of light could be a target for the insurgents. But to do so would require that he take a hand off the M249. And he wasn’t about to do that, not with the staccato chatter of AK-47s all around him. The Lord would forever be his savior, but prayers wouldn’t keep him alive this night. The machine gun just might.

He fired three-round bursts into the doorways, windows, and holes in the buildings. With each block the resistance became heavier, as if they were running into the teeth of the ambush, rather than from it. His chest heaved for air. He felt weighted carrying the big gun and the extra drums of ammunition. Each step his boots sank in the ankle-deep mud and sewage flowing down the street, making a sucking sound when he pulled free.

Ten meters in front of him, Captain Robert Kessler drop-kicked a battered metal door, springing it inward, then crouched in the doorway and sprayed the surrounding buildings until Dwayne Thomas and Michael Cassidy ducked inside. Ford set up opposite Kessler and fired the big gun down the alley. When Fergie slipped in, Ford followed, and the captain slammed the door shut.

Ford pressed his back against a cinder-block wall, gulping for air. Adrenaline caused his heart to jackhammer in his chest. He kissed the crucifix, tucked it safely beneath his perspiration-soaked T-shirt, and
looked about. The absurdity of their situation nearly made him laugh. They had ducked into the building for cover, but only two to three feet of crumbling mud and brick remained of the back wall.

“Can’t stay here, Captain.” Ford gestured to the gaping hole.

“Don’t intend to,” Kessler replied. “Man that sector.” He turned to Thomas. “DT, give me the radio.”

Thomas sat with knees pulled to his chest, sobbing. Cassidy sat beside him, wide-eyed. Vomit stained the front of his vest.

“Thomas!” Kessler yelled.

Ford pulled the radio from the pouch on the back of Thomas’s rucksack and handed it to Kessler.

“Wolverine six, this is Alfa one-two. Over.” Kessler called their tactical operations center using the convoy’s designated name. “Wolverine six, this is Alfa one-two. Request alternate LZ.” The captain sought an alternate landing zone at which to rendezvous with air transport. “Wolverine six. We are encountering heavy resistance. Say again. Requesting alternate LZ. Over.”

The radio burst static. Then it went silent.

Ford looked over his shoulder as Kessler began another transmission. “Wolv—”

“Captain!”

Kessler looked at him.

Ford pointed to the mouthpiece. “It’s broken, Captain. They can’t hear you.”

For a moment it looked like Kessler might throw the radio to the ground, but he calmly handed it to Ford, who slid it into the slot on his own pack.

“What do we do, Captain?”

“We push on.”

“We’ve got heavy resistance coming from the end of the block, Captain. We’ll be running into it,” Ford said.

“You want to let me finish, Private?” Kessler snapped. “We push on
to the LZ. We don’t have a choice with the radio out. They probably have an evac en route. Once we reach the traffic circle we’ll send up a couple of clusters.” He turned to Ferguson. “How many white stars do you have?”

“At least three.”

Kessler took a deep breath, gathering himself. Then he shouted, “Everybody up!” He pulled Thomas and Cassidy from the ground. “Get up! Move your ass! Remember your training.” He pointed out a hole in the wall, yelling at Thomas. “When we go out that door, you fire at the rooftops. You got that?”

Thomas nodded.

“I want to hear you say it, Private. ‘I fire at the rooftops.’”