The Third Coincidence (22 page)

It’s good to know you’re hard at work. I have eliminated the chief justice. It appears you continue to be a day late and

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a dollar short. I took extreme care to prevent leaving any forensic evidence. I doubt you’ll find anything useful. I never used the toilet or the kitchen. I wore gloves when I assembled the gun and I sprayed it to dissolve any traces that may have somehow slipped by my careful attention.

You cannot stop my militia. We will restore representa- tive government in America.

Commander LW

“Damn,” Jack muttered, handing the note to Rex, who had just came back.

“With your permission,” Rex said, “I’ll let the ERT read the note. I want them to see that this asshole is thumbing his nose at them.”

Jack glared at Rex, his face still tight. “Do it. But remember, other than that the content, even the existence of this note is a se- cret.”

“I’ll get back to you after they’re finished,” Rex said. “May I make another suggestion?”

Jack took a deep breath and eased it out. He had never been sure which was emotionally harder, an assault that became a firefight or one that turned out to be a dry hole.

“I need all the ideas I can get,” he said.

“We ought to stake this place out,” Rex said. “LW has a reason to come back.”

“Do it.” Jack said with enough emphasis to add some of his saliva to the crime scene. “I want agents set up with line of sight. Get ’em within a block. Don’t use the chief justice’s house. LW will be watch- ing that one. Maybe one of the neighbors has a garage we can use. Use a cover story so they won’t connect this to LW. Coordinate the effort with the protective detail moving with the chief justice. Let me know as soon as it’s up and running.”

Rex turned to go. Jack grabbed his shoulder.

“Leave this place like we found it. Order your squad to not speak

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of this to anyone. You make the report. Give it only to Director Hampton. Tell him I want it held, not filed in accordance with nor- mal procedure.”

On the way back to the CIA, Jack found himself falling into a funk. Rex would challenge the FBI’s forensics experts, but what had an hour before appeared to be a trove of leads, now had the cold feel of a damp, dead-end alley.

Chapter 34

McCall is hanging by his chinny chin chin. He will be replaced if the LW case is not solved within seventy-two hours.

—Washington Web Rumors, June 16

Jack had just gotten got back to the Bullpen when he received a call from Director Hampton. Jack started to explain why he had hung up on him earlier, but Hampton interrupted him.

“Listen,” Hampton said, “I just got a call from the producer of

D.C. Talk.
They’ve received another communiqué from LW and Carsten’s people want him to read it on the air. I’ve faxed you a copy. It should be there. I’m having the original picked up.”

“Rachel just brought it to me,” Jack said. “Give me a minute.” Rachel read over his shoulder. “I don’t see a problem. Let them read it.”

“I agree. We want to keep this bastard talking,” Hampton said, “and that if MSNBC doesn’t read them, LW will just find an alter- native messenger—maybe one of those—”

“You just recapped why I want it read,” Jack said. “The commu- niqués are becoming more frequent. We’ve got to keep him talking. He’s going to slip up and tell us something that will nail him.”

“Jack. I agree, except that I doubt Justice Budson wants a threat to her family reported on national television.”

Jack exhaled slowly. “I see your point. How about we approve

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Carsten reading all but the part about Budson’s family?” With that agreed, they both hung up.

Fred had been right, Jack realized. He wouldn’t want the details for his sister’s family to be read on television.

Rachel laid the LW communiqué in the center of the table and read the message aloud.

During his press conference McCall attempted to bait me into coming after him. Did you get that idea from a movie, Jack? No dice. I didn’t like your nasty comments, but I understand what you were attempting to do, so I forgive you. In your press conference you said you had a great father. I wish you’d met mine so you’d realize that your father could not have measured up.

Let me take this opportunity to say good night to Justices Budson, Huckaby, and Sanders, as well as Mr. Chief Justice Thomas Evans, also Federal Reserve Governors Nelson, Powers, Capone, Jones, and Busch.

You should all follow the lead of Justice Dunlin and re- sign. When you do, I will take your name off the list for elim- ination. If you don’t care about your safety, think of your families. I know everything about each of you. An example. Penelope Budson: You have three children, from oldest to youngest, Martha, Bradley, and David. Martha, thirty-two, is married to John Coleman, and they reside on Olive Street in Detroit, together with Budson’s grandchildren, Erin and Sharon, ages seven and four. The government cannot in- definitely protect you. They cannot even protect you tomor- row and the next day. The best solution for all of you is to immediately stand down and support representative govern- ment.

Commander LW

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“Notice that he again used the term, ‘stand down,’ ” Colin said, poking the page.

Millet poked the copy as had Colin. “He’s saying his daddy can beat up Jack’s daddy, as if they were schoolkids. That’s what this jerkoff is doing.”

“What strikes you about this, Rachel?” Jack asked.

“He’s finding the protective surveillance difficult.” She wrinkled her brow. “Sure, he’s bragging like a schoolboy. But, more impor- tant, he’s ratcheting up the level of fear and terror, hoping to bully a few into early retirement.”

“I’m not done with the timeline yet,” Colin said after stopping Jack on the way back to his desk. “But it is looking like one person could be doing it all. I’ll know pretty soon.”

Before sunrise the next morning, LW was sitting on the ground lean- ing against the back of his father’s headstone, the dark sky pocked with stars. More stars than all the gravestones in all the cemeteries in this great country. Despite the chill from the stone, he always felt safe when he was here. He stared at his black tennis shoes, bit his fingernails, and listened to the crickets. After a while, he spoke aloud to his father.

“The protection around these aristocrats is tight. Late yesterday I walked by the house I’d set up across from Chief Justice Evans. I’d taken a dog I bought at a pet store for a walk on a leash, then turned it loose after it provided my cover. Just as I got there, the FBI was pulling away from the curb. I had planned to save the chief justice for last. I admit that was foolish and melodramatic. It won’t happen again, sir.”

He ripped out some of the scraggly strands of grass that were growing over the gravestone at an angle that kept them below the blades of the lawnmower.

“Perhaps, we should lie low for six months, Father. They can’t keep up around-the-clock protection forever. On the other hand, by then they’ll have the vacancies filled, our surveillance would need

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updating, and they’ll have new security procedures in place. “Their moves. Our countermoves. This is very much like the

chess you taught me. I still play you know. I entered the Golden Knights’ correspondence tournament you used to play in. I’m into my sixth match. My opponent is really quite good, but not as good as you, Father. Without being under a threat, I recently used the king-side castle move you taught me to reposition my opponent’s focus. I expect to win with a few more moves. The victory points from this match will qualify me for the finals.”

He sat there another hour, without speaking further. After a while his eyes began tracking the large branches of one of the old gnarly trees whose roots he imagined snaked down into the very coffins. Then he stood and moved around to face his father’s name. “You’re right, Father. I will stay the course. Like you always taught me, if it goes bad, stand up straight and don’t cry.”

Colin pinned his completed timeline and map next to their paper graveyard. The squad gathered around.

“It fits!” Colin declared. “These red pins are the sites of the mur- ders. The yellow ones are the locations where LW sent his commu- niqués.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “Colin’s timeline proves one person could have done it, not that one person did. Should we assume we’re look- ing for only one person? That LW has no militia?”

Frank massaged his chin thoughtfully. “Ever since Nora and I went to Oregon and Cleveland, my instincts have said that LW’s a loner. The timing of the killings in Oregon and Cleveland allowed for one person to travel between them, and the descriptions we’ve gotten are too similar. Ringo’s timeline removes any doubts I had.” “In the note LW left at the Harrelson house and in his most re- cent communiqué, he spoke in the singular,” Jack observed. “Saying ‘I,’ not ‘we,’ took care to avoid leaving forensic evidence. ‘I,’ not ‘we’ have this kind of detail on all the justices. If he had a militia, at least

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one member would’ve been with him to help set up that big AM- 180, yet he spoke of the assembly in the first person.”

Colin scooted back to sit on the table. “I’m the one who has been resisting the idea, but no more. This dude’s on his own.”

Jack made eye contact with each member of his squad. “Is any- one opposed to assuming LW is a one-man militia?”

“Still,” Rachel said, “we need to keep an open mind in case we find something that does suggest he’s got help.”

“Okay then,” Jack summarized, “for now, no militia. We have a serial killer of high government officials who has conned himself into thinking he serves some noble purpose.”

Rachel reported that she and Millet had narrowed the list to fewer than twenty passengers.

After the meeting broke, Jack stood in front of the paper grave- yard of dead officials that he had been looking at off and on all day. Something kept squirming in some dark place at the back of his mind, but he just couldn’t bring it into the light. He kept staring, but the lurking thought stayed just out of reach.

“Most of the murders were here in D.C. or within a day’s drive,” Jack said to Rachel who had come over to stand with him. “I’m guessing that the D.C. murders didn’t require LW to travel.”

They rearranged the pictures so that the photos of the victims killed within driving distance of D.C. were in one row, pinning the others off to one side.

“If LW lives near here only Taylor in Cleveland and Breen in Oregon would have required him to travel. We’re assuming he flew.”

Rachel moved the idea forward. “Living here would have also simplified the surveillance of his targets.”

“Makes sense,” said Millet, who sneezed and wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve. “And it would explain why we found phony passen- gers on just the flights that fit what you’re calling the-out-of-town murders. It’s not rock hard but it’s more than a guess.”

“Can you go back and see if any of your remaining twenty took

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an earlier flight to Cleveland or the West Coast within the prior year?” Jack asked Millet. “It could’ve been LW on surveillance trips.” “What we’re doing now with the flights is all within a known time span, framed by the dates of the murders. To do what you’re asking now would have no time frame. LW could have made those trips weeks or even months before the murders. Think number of passengers times all those flights, over all those months, even years, and the jobs gets too big unless you can get us access to the airline’s master computer. If the airlines will cooperate, they could search the names we give them to see if they have ever had a passenger with

those names.”

Rachel agreed to speak with the FBI Director to see if there was a precedent for the cooperation of the airlines without a court order. It would take a few days at least to get that clearance, and they all knew that if they did get it, they would need to share parts of their in- vestigation with a broad group of people untrained in detection.

They were bogged down with paper pushing. Right now, that was their best choice, but Jack didn’t like it.