The Silent Places (14 page)

Hastings shrugged.

“We shouldn’t have to take that,” Klosterman said.

“I think we do have to.”

“Shit detail,” Klosterman said.

“Yep.”

Klosterman clicked the mute button. Jay Leno could be heard again. A few moments passed and Klosterman said, “Oh hell. How many times can he have Howie Mandel on?”

“Change the channel,” Hastings said.

“This is the only channel we can get. You got anything to read?”

“No.”

“I’ve got some paperbacks in the trunk of the car.”

“I’ll get them,” Hastings said.

“You mind?”

“No. I need some air anyway.”

Cops, like soldiers, like to read paperbacks. They are in professions with a lot of downtime. Often books were read and discarded in the department’s locker room, to be picked up by anyone else with an interest. Klosterman kept a few paperbacks in the trunk of his car.

Hastings walked out to the car, opened the trunk, and observed the scattered collection. It included
Fatal Vision
, Vincent Bugliosi’s book on the O. J. Simpson trial, a couple of Fletch novels, and something called
The Chicago Way
. Hastings took two of the non-fiction books and two novels out and shut the trunk.

Stepping back from the car, he saw motion, someone coming out of the house.

It was the woman. Saying something to someone. Hastings heard a jingling of dog tags and then saw the little dog. An off-white Westie.

The dog smelled him and started to growl.

“Hi,” Hastings said.

Sylvia Preston squinted in the dark. “Oh, hi. Lieutenant?”

“Yes.”

The senator’s wife told the little dog to behave. Hastings set the books on the trunk of the car. Then he walked over to her.

Hastings ignored the little dog, knowing that doing so would relax the dog and him. The dog understood and ran off to find a place to do his business.

Hastings said, “I didn’t know you had a dog.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Preston said. “His name is Fred. He’s my daughter’s dog, actually. We got him when she was fifteen. But … I’m the one who’s ended up having to take care of him. You know how kids are.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. I just presumed you have children. Do you?”

“Yes. A daughter. She’s thirteen.”

“Here in town?”

Hastings hesitated for a moment, wondering where else his daughter would be. He said, “Yes. Her mother and I are divorced. We share custody.”

“Oh. Well … that’s good.”

“Yeah, it is. She’s a great kid.”

They were quiet for a moment, standing about ten feet apart. The pretty lady waiting in the dark while a little dog ran around in the yard. The policeman feeling awkward. Like many cops, Hastings was class-conscious. He was about to excuse himself, when she spoke.

“About this evening,” the woman said. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“My husband,” she said. “He was rude. He’s not usually like that.”

Hastings assumed that he very likely
was
usually like that. He said, “It’s okay. I embarrassed him.”

“He’s on edge, I think. He says he’s not afraid of this … this man. But he is. I am, too.”

“I’m sure everything will be fine.”

“Are you?” she said. She gave him a steady look, not hiding it. Then she said, “Why did you—why did you question that man, then?”

“Well,” Hastings said. “We came back and your driver was gone. And then I saw the man in the parking lot and he fit, roughly, the description of John Reese. I guess I’m a little on edge myself.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“You’ve never seen a cop make a mistake?”

“No.” She smiled. “No. I’ve never seen a police officer take charge like that. You were very cool. Even when you—” She laughed.

“Even when I realized I’d screwed up?”

“Yes,” she said, laughing some more. “I’m sorry. Seriously, you handled it very well. Better than I would have.”

“Yeah, well,” Hastings said, “it’s the, uh, training. I’ve got to get back in.”

“Okay.”

He started to walk away, feeling a little off balance. A few feet away, he heard her speak to him again.

“Lieutenant?”

Hastings turned and said, “Yes, ma’am.”

She gestured with her head to the back of the unmarked police car.

“Aren’t you going to take those books up with you?”

“Oh.”

She smiled at him again. “I presume only one of you will be reading while the other keeps an eye on us.”

“You’ve a very discerning woman, Mrs. Preston.”

“Sometimes,” she said.

David Chang picked out three movies—
Caddyshack, Chinatown
, and
As Good as It Gets
. His wife, who was at home, wanted to see the last one. She was a Jack Nicholson fan, even though she said Nicholson didn’t seem to be taking his acting too seriously since he’d played the Joker. Chang paid for the DVDs and walked out to his car.

His Nissan Altima was parked next to a Lincoln Continental. He walked between the cars, when the door to the Lincoln opened and smacked into his car. Chang stopped and stared at the man who got out of the car.

“How clumsy of me,” the man said.

Chang heard something behind him. He started to turn around, but then he was grabbed from behind, an arm encirc linghis neck. He felt the wet cloth against his nose and mouth. Chloroform …

Dexter Troy rode in the van with two other men. They had Chang in the van, his hands tied behind his back, a thick piece of duct tape across his mouth. Clu and another man followed them in the Lincoln Continental. They drove to an isolated area in the woods. They stopped the vehicles and pulled Chang out. Then they walked. Two men in front of Chang, three behind. Two of the men held short machine guns with thick noise suppressors that were shaped like oil cans. Another of the men carried a folding chair.

They walked almost a mile. Then they reached a clearing. The man with the chair unfolded it and set it on the ground. Two of the other men placed Chang in it. They untied his hands from behind his back and taped them to the arms of the chair. When that was done, Clu Rogers stepped in front of Chang and tore the duct tape from his mouth.

Clu said, “That hurt you, professor?”

Chang looked up at Clu. He said nothing to him.

Clu moved away and Dexter Troy took his place.

Troy said, “A few questions, Mr. Chang. Answer them correctly and you go free. If you don’t, we’ll torture you and then we’ll kill you.”

“Torture me,” Chang said, as though the notion made him merely curious. He looked at the men forming a semicircle around him. “I thought terrorists usually wore masks.”

“We’re not terrorists. We just want information.”

“Torture usually leads to the wrong information. Or didn’t they teach you that?”

Troy smiled. “You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that. But once these fellows go to work on you, you’ll crack anyway and you’ll have suffered through it for nothing.”

Chang said, “Are you a soldier?”

“I was,” Troy said.

“And now you work for money.”

Clu said, “Now how did you know that?”

Troy asked, “Have you been warned about us?”

“I know nothing about you,” Chang said. “Or what you want.”

“I think you do,” Troy said. “You remember John Reese, don’t you?”

“Who?”

“That’s funny. John Reese. He got you and your family out of China. We think he’s been to see you lately.”

“John who?”

A kick from the side, tipping the chair over. Chang’s face hit wet mud. Clu walked over and put a boot on Chang’s other cheek.

“The name is John Reese,” Clu said. “He killed a man in Washington. Where is he?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Troy said, “Mr. Chang, you’ve already tipped your hand. You seem to know who we are. Maybe you were expecting us. Maybe Reese warned you we might be coming.”

Clu shifted the weight of his boot to Chang’s neck.

Troy said, “Where is Reese, Mr. Chang?”

“I told you. I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Clu pressed his boot down.

Chang struggled, but he did not talk.

Troy said, “Hold it. Trent, Matt. Go get his wife, bring her back here.”

Two of the men started to go.

“Wait,” Chang said.

Clu lifted his boot.

Chang said, “If I tell you what you want, will you promise to leave her out of it?”

Troy said, “If you tell us, yes.”

“Your word?” Chang said.

“Yes,” Troy said. “You have my word.”

“Reese was here, a few days ago. He asked to borrow some money. I gave it to him. He didn’t tell me where he was going and I didn’t ask. But I think he was going to England.”

“How do you know that?’

“Because that’s where he used to live. That’s where he was the most happy. He wanted to go back.”

“I think you’re lying.”

“What reason would I have to lie to you? John Reese is nothing to me. Years ago, he used me to get information for the CIA. I used him to get out of China. That is the extent of our relationship.”

“Yet you loaned him money.”

“I wanted nothing more than to see the back of him. I was willing to pay to see him go.”

“I still say you’re lying. What if I told you I have personal knowledge he is still in this country?”

“Then I’d say he lied to me, too. Torture me all you like, but it won’t change what I know.”

“Tell me the truth and we’ll let you go.”

“I have told you the truth. And we both know you’re not going to let me go. I’ve seen your faces.”

Troy said nothing, suddenly uncomfortable. This man on the ground seeing him as he was, not as he thought he was.

Chang gestured with his head to Clu and said, “You’re going to have this man do it for you.”

Troy said, “How do you know that?”

“Because you don’t have the courage to do it yourself.”

Chang smiled, and Troy pulled a pistol from his coat and shot Chang twice in the head.

Reese arrived in St. Louis a little after one o’clock in the afternoon and checked into a Holiday Inn near Forest Park. He had stayed the previous night at a cheap motel in Tennessee and slept badly on an uncomfortable bed. He signed the register as Paul Bryan. In the hotel’s courtesy fax/Internet room, he checked Senator Preston’s Web page again and confirmed that he would be at the fund-raiser at the Chase Park Plaza at six that night. Reese returned to his room and debated taking a nap, then decided against it. He showered and shaved. Then he put on a new suit, brown-and-blue twill. White shirt, a tie, and cordovan shoes. The suit was off the rack from an Atlanta department store. Carrying the briefcase, he would look like a lawyer or a businessman. Inside the case was the disassembled rifle.

It was approximately two o’clock when he drove to the Central West End.

By three, he had secured an apartment on the tenth floor of a building across the street from the Chase Park Plaza.

Hastings and Klosterman had to come on duty three hours early because of the fund-raiser. Rhodes and Murph would have to stay on shift late, as well, at least until the fund-raiser wrapped up. There were other police officers there, all of them in uniform. But only a few.

Hastings and Klosterman were at the Chase Park Plaza before the senator and his wife. Hastings conferred with the hotel’s chief security officer and the hotel manager. After that, he and Klosterman stood in the lobby and watched a procession of limousines pass through the porte cochere.

It was not a red-carpet celebrity event. Some politicians are attractive, but a good many of them look like the rest of us. Klosterman followed politics more than Hastings and he recognized a few faces. A couple of senators were there, but most of them were members of the House. Representatives Tim Early of Texas, Robert Boudreau of California, Dana Caine of New Hampshire, Paula Enzbrenner of New York, and James Saunders of Illinois. They were all members of Senator Preston’s party. They were also all members of the House Homeland Security Committee.

The fund-raiser was sponsored by Cushman and Holt, a global law firm headquartered in St. Louis. Donors attending the dinner had to pay three thousand dollars.

Klosterman said to Hastings, “See, if it’s a luncheon, they would have had to pay only two grand.”

The senator and Mrs. Preston arrived after their guests. The senator wore a dark suit, not a tuxedo as Hastings thought he might. Mrs. Preston wore a black dress, flattering to her figure but tasteful. Hastings watched them as they walked up the aisle. Cameras flashed and the senator gave one of those politician finger points and a bright smile to a guy in the crowd, as if he was surprised and glad to see the person. It turned out to be someone he had spoken to only an hour earlier.

Hastings looked at the senator and then at Mrs. Preston. He turned his gaze as they walked by.

In the banquet room, Hastings and Klosterman took positions near the back and listened to the senator talk about the War on Terror. He spoke about the dangers of appeasement and Munich and Hitler, Iran and Iraq, pausing at times for applause. The speech was relatively short, about fifteen minutes, and he took a few questions afterward, one of which Hastings knew came from a plant. The senator asked twice if there were any members of the media in the room. The police officers knew there were not and knew the senator knew it, too. It was clever, Hastings thought. Letting the audience know he was confiding in them, making them feel special.

After the question-and-answer session concluded, the banquet attendees divided up into what was called “issues breakout sessions.”

Hastings watched the senator work the crowd, moving from table to table, shaking hands and touching shoulders. He was good, Hastings thought. If you didn’t know him, you would think he liked people.

Hastings did not loathe politicians as a rule. He attended the Police Academy with a guy named Steve Fawcett, who left the department ten years later to run for a seat in the state Senate. Fawcett was okay. He fought for better police pay and state pension benefits in the legislature and he did not look down on people. Fawcett told Hastings about the time he shook Bill Clinton’s hand and Clinton looked into his eyes and said, “Thanks, man,” and made him feel like he was the most important person in the room. “It’s the ones who can do that that you gotta watch out for,” Fawcett said, though not without some admiration.