The Third Coincidence (30 page)

“Do you have anything more, Marsha?” Jack asked.

“No,” she told him. “I just hope we aren’t jumping to conclu- sions.”

“Take a break everybody,” Jack said. “Get some fresh coffee. Use the restroom. Stretch your legs, whatever until those FBI files get here. Think about what questions you still want to ask Marsha. Once those files arrive, I want to let her out of here.”

The team scattered.

Marsha walked over to Jack. “I appreciate your concern for me, but I’m pumped. If you want me gone for security, I understand. But don’t worry about my sleep. I had everyone working on this round the clock so I shut my section down for a few hours and stag- gered their comebacks. If you need anything, I should be here.”

“Stay as long as you want. You can crash over there.” He pointed to a brown leather couch.

She yawned. “I hoped you’d let me stay.”

As Marsha had so aptly put it, he, too, was pumped. They all were. Jack went to the men’s room. When he got back, Marsha was

the third coincidence 227

already asleep, the others having congregated in the kitchen area where, clearly not wanting to disturb her, they were talking in low voices. He turned off the lamp next to her head.

Jack recalled Marsha saying that tomorrow was Isaac Dalton’s father’s birthday. Something would happen tomorrow. He just knew it.

Where’s that damn Dalton file? Come on!

CHAPTER 46

The president told reporters during a news conference in the Rose Garden, “There are no plans to replace Jack McCall and there will not be any.” Today’s
New York Times
’s editorial page, reports, “Our sources describe McCall’s progress in one word: zero.”

—Mel Carsten, D.C. Talk, MSNBC

The hollow thumping of helicopter blades beating the night sky told Jack that the FBI files on violent agents had arrived. Five minutes later Millet took the box from the FBI’s courier. Jack signed the re- ceipt. The moment the door closed behind the courier, Millet slid Dalton’s jacket down the table.

Jack could feel his team’s eyes fixed on him as he searched through the file on Isaac Dalton. When he finished, he looked up, grinned, and said, “I think we’ve found our man.”

After the cheers quieted, Jack shared more details.

“His file shows the information Marsha obtained and more. Two field offices had recommended he be removed from active duty and put into therapy for his violent tendencies and antigovernment rhet- oric. He resigned four months after the second recommendation, never having gone into therapy.”

Jack flipped back a couple of pages. “Here’s a more complete physical description, as well as a good picture.” He held it up. “As you can see, it’s very consistent with the descriptions we’ve gotten from witnesses. His eyes are brown.”

the third coincidence 229

He smiled at Marsha, who had joined them at the table. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Do you want to go home?”

“Quit worrying about me, Jack McCall, and tell me how I can help.”

“How about making two hundred copies of his picture,” he told her. “You can do it faster down the hall than in here.”

“Is the FBI address from his resignation still good?” Frank asked. “It’s the same address as on Marsha’s list,” Rachel said. “Rachel, Millet,” Jack said, “I want everything current you can

get on this guy. Fast. His credit report, driver’s license, whatever. We need his address or verification that what we have is good. Get with Marsha for the names and addresses of all the shooting ranges within a reasonable distance of his home. What he drives. Does he have a police record? Check his bank accounts. Get a bank president out of bed if necessary. Oh, and find out where they buried his father. When you do, get a map of that cemetery and mark his father’s grave.”

“How cool,” Millet said. “Are we gonna stake out a grave?” “Colin, get to that cemetery,” Jack said, ignoring Millet’s ques-

tion. “Find out if Isaac Dalton’s been visiting his father’s grave. If so, get back to me so we can come up with a plan.”

“Rex, get a SWAT team ready to roll. Have them equipped and positioned as near as possible to Dalton’s home. They have to be in- conspicuous. If that can’t happen, have them hang back until we call them in. Frank, Nora, what am I missing?”

“We should tell the protection squads to stay on their toes for the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours,” Frank said. Then Nora added, “Tell them not to leave their charges alone anywhere—follow ’em into the can.”

“We can tell them we had an anonymous tip that LW plans to strike soon,” Nora added.

“Do it. Keep a log of the time and the agent you speak to in each squad.”

Marsha returned with the copies of Dalton’s pictures. “Jack,” she

230 David M. Bishop

said while handing the pictures to him. “I may know the fictitious name Dalton uses at the local shooting range.”

“Talk to me,” he said to her.

“We know when Isaac Dalton quit his membership at the Balti- more Gun Club. And I assumed he still lived in the house his mother left him.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Colin said. “Go on.”

“The two ranges closest to his house had thirty-two new non- members who could be Dalton switching clubs and using a phony name. I excluded all shooters who shot on any of the dates of the killings. That dropped the list to fourteen. After running prelims we eliminated eleven whose physical descriptions didn’t match up at all. That left three. I cross-referenced those three local shooters with the nonmember shooters on the lists from the Dallas ranges. One day in April one of those three, a Matthew Devine, used the Dallas Gun Range.”

Jack closed his eyes and took a long breath. In every operation there was a turning point. Was this it? Did they have the right guy? “That left me with the possibility,” Marsh went on, “that some- one named Matthew Devine started shooting using the gun club near Dalton’s home the month after Dalton dropped his real-name membership. And, that same Devine or another person with the same name used the Dallas range in April. We found no Matthew Devine living near Dalton’s home. However, we did find a Matthew Devine who had lived in the Dallas area for more than fifteen years.

We figured if that real Devine were a shooter he would have shot at the Dallas range more than just that one day in April.”

“Your conclusion?”

“If you ended up thinking Isaac Dalton could be LW, we should start out thinking that Isaac Dalton used the name Matthew Devine at both the Baltimore and Dallas ranges. We weren’t able to discern a pattern as to when Devine shoots at the Baltimore South Range.”

“Anything else?” Colin asked.

“I rechecked the dates Matthew Devine used the Baltimore

the third coincidence 231

range and none of them clashed with any of the dates of the assassi- nations, or the immediately previous dates with respect to the mur- ders you believe were his out-of-town killings.”

We gotcha!

Jack swivelled his chair to face the other end of the Bullpen. “Listen up,” he said. “This amazing woman has the name LW uses when he practices shooting: Matthew Devine, D-E-V-I-N-E. She also has identified the range in the Baltimore area where he shoots under that name. There’s no use pattern, but also no reason to think he won’t continue to shoot there.”

Colin shot his fist into the air and they all broke into applause.

Marsha blushed.

“Rex, put together an FBI Special Operations Group to watch that range every hour it’s open until we’ve got Dalton in our hands,” Jack said. “It’s a perfect cover. Rotate special agents inside the range acting like shooters with their guns in plain sight—not standard FBI issue. Have them dress like casual shooters, not like agents. And be damn sure none of those agents were ever posted with Dalton while he was with the bureau.”

“Shall we apprehend on sight?” Rex asked.

“No. While he’s shooting, have them attach a magnetized satel- lite tracker to the underside of his car and then let us know. They’re not to apprehend unless he realizes he’s spotted. It’s possible Dalton is so accustomed to the route between his home and that range that he may be more careless about looking for a tail, but don’t rely on it. Make sure the outside agents are very familiar with vehicle-sur- veillance tactics. Include both wheel and pavement artists capable of using a floating-box. . . . Hey, everybody. This guy is a crack shot.”

“Why don’t we just grab him?” Marsha asked.

“We’re short on proof this is our guy,” Jack answered. “We haven’t connected him to a single one of the killings or even the red cap. His father wrote some strange letters that connect with LW’s commu- niqués, and his FBI file shows he’s violent and a crack shot. That’s all we’ve got except that he fits a general description that would prob-

232 David M. Bishop

ably match up with half the guys in his jury pool. That’s enough for a search warrant, but not an arrest.”

By half past two the morning of June twenty-first they were ready. Isaac Dalton’s car registration and his driver’s license showed the ad- dress in the FBI file. Isaac Dalton drove a 1999 dark-green Ford Ex- plorer. They had the license plate number.

An FBI drive-by called to report a dark house and a closed garage. Rex had gotten a federal judge out of bed to get a search war- rant for Dalton’s house, his car, and any places he frequented, such as storage units, second homes, or lockers at clubs. A sharp attorney might argue they were a bit light for that broad a warrant, but Jack had expected they could find a judge who would be accommodat- ing and they had. This asshole had killed judges—Supreme Court judges. The judge also approved the installation of electronic sur- veillance equipment.

Jack picked between three thirty and four in the morning for their assault. In covert ops, two-to-three hours before sunrise was a prime infiltration time.

CHAPTER 47

LW has killed fourteen people and there have been no arrests. Rumors persist there aren’t even any suspects.

—Marian Little, NewsCentral 7

Tomorrow, on the anniversary of his father’s death, Dalton would as- sassinate Thomas Evans, the chief justice of the United States, the king on the chessboard of the unelected government.

The U.S. Supreme Court had already been forced to stand down for lack of a quorum. Assassinating Evans would jettison the rudder from America’s already sinking judicial ship.

Dalton felt sexually aroused as he often did when he was about to make a kill. Since Kitt in San Francisco, he hadn’t taken the time to find relief. After a few minutes with the D.C. phone book, he used one of his disposable cell phones to call America’s Finest Escort Service. He hoped their name stood for more than a market- ing tease.

“My name is Tim LaRue,” he said to the woman who answered. “I’m at the airport. I’ll be checked into the Capitol Hill Hyatt Re- gency on New Jersey Avenue by eleven thirty. I want your finest woman at my room at twelve thirty—that’s half an hour past mid- night.”

“All our ladies are fine,” she told him. “Perhaps you’d like to be specific about the woman you have in mind.”

Dalton thought of his mother’s dark hair and full figure, then

234 David M. Bishop

said, “She must have black hair, long black hair, be busty, and she must look clean-cut.”

Momma had always been a classy woman.

Dalton showed his black market Tim LaRue drivers license, paid cash, and carried his own luggage up to his suite in the Hyatt Re- gency. His larger bag contained the rifle he’d chosen. The smaller bag held his tearaway casual pants, sweatshirt, sweatbands, and sev- eral red baseball caps. He also had a roll of orange florescent tape, the kind joggers and bikers wear so cars could see them at night.

He watched the news for a while. There was nothing new. Then he found a music channel and went down the hall to get some ice. He had brought a bottle of wine and some Scotch in case the woman wanted a drink. He would take the bottles with him when he left.

Fifteen minutes later he heard a quiet knock on his hotel room door. He turned up the music, but not too loud. Frank Sinatra was singing “Luck be a Lady Tonight.” Dalton knew he was about to get lucky, and also knew that whatever the woman outside his door was, she was no lady.