The Third Coincidence (29 page)

opposite direction.

“Regardless of how this turns out,” he slanted the drape covering the next window, “this’ll be it for me.”

“I drove home going over what we have,” she said. “He’s had to

the third coincidence 219

have been practicing shooting for years. At some point in the past he practiced under his real name. The part about his father, well, we’re reading some tea leaves on that, but I think it’s got merit.”

“I hope you’re right.” Jack sounded calmer than he felt. “What are your plans? Or did a rich boyfriend propose?”

“There’s no rich boyfriend, and since I’ve grown accustomed to eating and sleeping indoors, I’ll need to work. I just want to stop the bureau from being able to just up and transfer me to any old place, whenever they damn well feel like doing it.”

“I know that feeling,” Jack replied. “Since college I’ve spent more than half my life outside the U.S.”

“I can’t imagine how you’ve dealt with that as long as you have. At least my transfers have all been Stateside. You’ve been sent all over the world.”

“What type of work do you see yourself doing?” he asked. “Investigative work is okay. I enjoy the challenge. I just don’t

know what kind. It could be corporate security, or maybe some sort of computer work. I’ll figure it out. I just want to have a life. Am I being selfish?”

“No. I want the same thing.”

“I’d like to have a family. The doctors tell me I can’t get pregnant.

I’m okay with adopting, but first I need to get my life in order.”

Jack understood that not being able to have children could make a woman feel inadequate.

“What happened?”

“The doctors say it’s a birth defect in my reproductive system. I understood the high points. It has no effect on my health or life ex- pectancy.” Her voice seemed to be crawling out of somewhere deep inside her. “Just no little ones.”

He could hear the hurt in her voice, and knew that for Rachel the subject was difficult to speak about. He was flattered that she had confided in him.

“There are lots of children who need loving homes,” he said. “I’ve seen them all over the world.”

220 David M. Bishop

“It kinda shook me at first,” she admitted. “I’d like to get married some day, and I know men want children of their own.”

“Most men probably,” Jack assured, “not all of us.”

“Listen to me, will you?” she said ruefully. “There’s a million sad stories in the naked city, and you’ve just heard mine. Let’s change the subject. What do you see in your future?”

“I’d like something that would allow some balance between my personal and professional life. I had a beer with Frank the other night. He and Nora have talked about opening a private agency. He’s a good man and a fine detective.”

“I’m very impressed with both Frank and Nor—”

“Hang on,” he said, interrupting her. “My other line’s ringing.”

It was Marsha White calling to tell him the lists were done except for programing the commands that would allow them to manipu- late the data. She expected to have it all wrapped up and to the Bullpen in an hour.

God. Jack wanted this LW mess over with. He wanted to tell Rachel how he felt. Hold her tight and then walk off with her into the sunset. But he had to put those thoughts out of his mind, for this new information might lead to failure.

Still, he was betting it all that the lists would be the answer. They just had to be.

CHAPTER 45

Former NSA Director Robert Quartz has agreed to appear on this show one week from today.

—Mel Carsten, D.C. Talk

Jack’s running shoes squealed as he ran across the CIA emblem in- laid into the marble floor just inside the agency’s original head- quarters building. The Bullpen was located on the ground floor of one of the two six-story buildings, which together measured more than one million of the two-and-a-half-million total square feet of the CIA complex.

At this time of night he got little more than a nod from the se- curity guards who all knew him. He dashed down one of the two connecting corridors leading to the new headquarters building, past the portrait gallery of former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency, and beneath the model of the U-2 spy plane that hung in the four-story atrium. As he slowed his pace before turning the final corner that led to their squad room, he saw a young woman stand- ing outside the Bullpen. She had a heart-shaped face, eyes the color of old mahogany, a thin waist, and was busty enough to spread the rib stitching in her turtleneck sweater.

“Hello, Mr. McCall. I’m Marsha White. I have your lists right here.” She held up her laptop case. “Both hard copy and CD.”

“I’d like you to stay until the rest of my squad gets here,” Jack said as they shook hands. “Give us your overview. Answer questions and make sure Millet’s able to work with the data on your CD.”

222 David M. Bishop

Her grasp was as firm as a man’s. “Not everyone can be a data ex- pert, Mr. McCall, and not everyone can lead the chase. I suspect your job’s tougher than mine.”

“I’m not so sure about that. Here’s my group coming now. You’ve met Millet and Rachel, and I’ll bet you know Colin Stewart. Colin seems to know every beautiful woman in the city.”

“I surely don’t feel very attractive right now,” Marsha said. “I haven’t bathed or changed my clothes in two days.”

After Jack introduced Marsha all around, Frank mentioned that he and she had met two years before. “You gave a great presen- tation over at Metro on Internet research for police. The department adopted a lot of what you shared that day. We’re lucky to have you on this.”

“Marsha has been at this nonstop for more than forty hours,” Jack said while his team came to the table. “We can all relate to that. She has agreed to stay with us for a while.” He gestured to the newcomer. “Marsha, run with it. No one will interrupt until you’ve finished. Then you can expect questions.”

“We were asked to work up two lists,” she began. “The first to con- tain member and nonmember users of shooting ranges within a de- fined radius around D.C. and Dallas. The second list to consist of people with a public audience who have spoken out against the U.S. Supreme Court and/or the Federal Reserve System five or more times.”

Jack felt himself growing tense. This was it. In the next hour or so he would know whether or not they were holding an empty bag. “We found many more speeches and articles critical of the Fed- eral Reserve than of the Supreme Court,” Marsha continued. “Still, the shooting range lists are far longer, with just under seven hun- dred names. The lists of members are by club, showing the year each member joined with a notation of the year in which terminated members dropped out. We cross-referenced where we found a mem-

ber dropped out of one club and joined another.”

the third coincidence 223

Seven hundred shooters. Jack clenched his teeth. He hadn’t ex- pected that many.

Marsha glanced toward Millet. “The CIA’s database software will allow you to slice-and-dice the data any number of ways. There are two names that appeared on both the dissident list and the list of shooters. We poked around enough to tell you they both appear to be solid citizens. Those two have double asterisks.”

“May I share some other observations?” Marsha asked. “I’ve spent a lot of time with these lists, but I don’t wish to come off like I’m telling you how you should do your thing.”

“Please do,” Rachel said encouragingly.

Marsha fought down a rising yawn. “This afternoon Rachel told me LW may have been planning his killings for two years, perhaps even longer. With that guidance we assumed LW had frequented a shooting range using his real name before his decision to start killing and that after that decision he switched to a new range and a new name.”

She pointed to one stack of papers “The shooters on that list dropped their memberships within the last five years; there are thirty- nine names. When we broke out the members who dropped within the past three years, the list was cut down to twenty-three names. May I also summarize the list of dissidents?”

“Take whatever time you need,” Jack told her.

He admired Marsha for fighting through her exhaustion and making her presentation as professional as possible.

“The list of dissidents is much shorter,” she told them. “We found thirty-one people who had used speeches, articles, columns, or pub- lic appearances to rail against the Fed or the Court more than four times. We ignored disagreements, even vehement ones, with a sin- gle ruling of the Court or financial decision of the Fed, and focused on attacks that were more institutional in nature. I’m holding those who did not meet your criteria of more than four times in a raw data file in case you want us to develop them later.

224 David M. Bishop

“We then grouped these dissidents by the number of occur- rences. The quantities range from one energetic fellow who protested one hundred twelve times, to the stipulated minimum of five. You requested copies of their speeches or writings. We have about seventy-five percent in their full text. We’ve provided abstracts or news accounts sufficient to bring the total with some type of written record to ninety percent. We’ll continue the effort to get the remainder under normal working schedules, that is, unless you in- struct us to continue what Colin described as a balls-to-the-wall ef- fort. We did not research the exact meaning of that description.”

“Marsha, I’ve never heard an overview of a major research proj- ect presented better,” Jack said when the team had stopped laughing. “Are you ready for questions?”

“I hope I’ll be able to answer your questions.”

“Marsha,” Frank said immediately, “you indicated that one dis- sident attacked the Fed or Court more than a hundred times. What’s the next largest quantity?”

“Seventeen.”

Frank whistled before asking the obvious. “What’s the name on the top of that list?”

“A man. Harry Dalton. I did a cursory reading of about a third of his hundred twelve. In the overwhelming majority he went after both the Court and the Fed. He accused them of destroying representa- tive government in America. Stuff—”

Colin’s posture came erect. “He used those exact words? Repre- sentative government?”

“Many times.”

A crackle of energy rippled through all of them.

“Do you have anything on this Harry Dalton?” Jack asked with- out bothering to disguise the urgency in his voice.

Marsha grinned like a Cheshire cat. “I thought you might be in- terested in him so I dug around some. Give me a moment while I switch to a different doc in my laptop. Here it is. Harry Dalton was

the third coincidence 225

married to a Jane Styles, a woman twelve years younger than him- self. Mr. Dalton died in nineteen eighty-two, Mrs. Dalton in nine- teen ninety-five. In the seventies Harry Dalton worked as a college professor of political science. In seventy-eight, he retired after refus- ing his university’s repeated demands that he end his vehement talks on the threats from within the government.”

Rachel started to speak and then, apparently, thought better of it. “Harry Dalton ran for the U.S. Congress in nineteen eighty,” Marsha continued. “He filled his campaign with the same angry rhetoric that had poisoned his academic message. He lost in the pri- mary with less than two percent of the vote. In eighty-two he com-

mitted suicide by shooting himself through the mouth.

“Mrs. Dalton died prematurely of cancer. She left a trust fund to care for their only child, a son, Isaac Dalton. The trust fund provides Isaac a hundred thousand dollars a year with annual cost of living in- creases. Mrs. Dalton also left Isaac a free and clear home. It appears the son still lives in that house. They moved there the year after Harry Dalton shot himself on June twenty-first—oh, that’s tomor- row—in the Baltimore house where the family had lived when Isaac was born. The son found his father’s body after the suicide. We have an address, phone number, and a social security number for Isaac Dalton.”

“Millet, get on your computer,” Jack blurted, no longer able to contain himself. “Now! Find out if Isaac Dalton shows up on the lists of people with a history of violent behavior who had been in the military or had worked in the intelligence community.”

Millet had begun stroking his keyboard by the time Jack finished his instructions.

“Do you recall whether or not the name Isaac Dalton showed up anywhere on the lists from the shooting ranges?” Colin asked Mar- sha.

“Isaac Dalton is on one of the lists of people who dropped their memberships.”

226 David M. Bishop

“Within the past three years, right?” Rachel asked.

“Isaac Dalton dropped out of the Baltimore Gun Club just about three years ago.”

“And Isaac Dalton didn’t use any other gun club after that?” Nora asked.

When Marsha shook her head, Rex slammed his fist on the table and exclaimed, “Isaac Dalton must be LW!”

Jack could feel the group’s energy.

Millet’s voice got back to the table before him. “Isaac Dalton joined the FBI in nineteen eighty. He resigned in ninety-five after his mother died. I called the Bureau. They’re sending over his full jacket by helicopter. To hold down rumors I asked for the personnel files on all the ex-FBI agents with violence in their background. They still had them pulled from making the list for us. ETA, twenty min- utes.”