An early-autumn storm was falling outside, though it felt more like one of late summer. It was humid and warm, an uncomfortable combination, but one not uncommon in Washington this time of year. Even the rain was warm. The president, however, was not aware of the climate beyond the glass. It was a comfortable sixty-eight degrees where he stood.
* * *
The car and driver were perks of his new position. Prior to the meeting, as expected, the president had asked Bud to take the position officially. He had readily accepted it. It would be a challenge. His biggest challenge.
His first dilemma in the position was the one in the past. Or was it? He could have informed the president of the revelations told him by the DCI, but he didn’t. That went against his better judgment, against his core feeling of duty and integrity. For whatever reason, things were different the further one progressed in government.
So this is it?
Bud wondered if it would happen to him. And the past. Was it really behind them? He would have given anything to be psychic just for a while.
Beltway traffic was picking up as the Secret Service Lincoln joined the throngs of other government workers leaving early. There was a pall over the city, and it had nothing to do with the weather. People were on autopilot, just performing. Only the stonehearted were unaffected by the killing of the nation’s leader.
Tomorrow would be a new day. The beginning of the fledgling president’s administration. Bud would be rested, as the president had insisted. Already he was feeling the lack of restful sleep catch up with him, but lying down in the backseat wouldn’t do. He would be home soon, anyway, which was all the better since his side was really starting to throb again. Fortunately there was a full bottle of Tylenol in the medicine cabinet.
Los Angeles
“Bingo!”
Art was pleased, as Eddie could see. “And that’s not all, boss. We’ll have a list of charges on that card in a few hours.”
The photocopy of the charge slip and driver’s license was the next step in the trail. Art was happy, and thankful as hell that Aguirre had had her brainstorm. Otherwise the car would still be buried among hundreds of others and the trail would be dead. He reminded himself that it wasn’t the end. Just a little closer.
“Harry Obed…hmmm. This isn’t the same guy in the picture with the kid.” Art compared the two again. The photocopy was grainy, but it would do.
“Nope. New York is sending a copy of the license info. We’ll have a better photo then.”
Art studied the face. Middle Eastern features. And the name added credibility to his guess. But from where? Egypt? Lebanon? Yemen? This wasn’t looking like an easy one to deal with. Solving it might bring even more problems, considering the way of the world. “I think tonight is going to be busy. How about you?”
“Shoulda brought my jammies,” Eddie joked. He was good for some comic relief when needed. Things were liable to get stressful now that they had a suspect, or a knowing accomplice.
“So, what’s our next move?” Art mused.
“I think we should wait until the American Express records get here. That’ll give us a trail.”
“If they used it.”
Eddie became serious. “They used it once. Why not again?”
“What if they used the other card? Forensics found that blue tint in the melted card. Amex is green.”
“Right.”
“It was dark blue,” Art added. “Visa and Diner’s Club both have blue in them. Maybe they were trying to spread their trail around.”
Eddie got up from the table and walked to the two-pot coffee machine someone had brought from the office. It was saving trips to the 7-Eleven already. “You want some?”
It was placed close to Art’s area, and his fill for the past hour or so had been achieved. “No thanks.”
“You know, boss, it still all comes back to their carelessness.” Two sugars were emptied into the cup. “We’ll have their bio before long, but what about whoever was in the background? How do we find them?”
Art knew that was supposing there was an accomplice, or accomplices. It was becoming more apparent that there was considerable help given. “It’s not going to be a direct link, that’s for sure. We’ve got possible assistance with the car. Maybe it was rented for them in advance.”
“The records don’t show that,” Eddie said.
“Then check back to the reservation, and the credit card. Who’s paying the bills?” That was already in progress, a task made easier by the proliferation of credit and computers. “Someone who dealt with the transaction might remember something.”
Eddie returned to his chair. “Slim, but worth it.” He didn’t really think so. His hunch was that the car end of things would be cold soon.
Art had a thought. He stared away from Eddie as the concept formed. “Ed, these guys were sacrificed. They were willing, at least I’d think they’d have to be, but they were used. Whether they knew or not… I doubt it.”
“What’s your track?”
“Obed. Picture. Name. It’s a good bet he’s middle eastern, and probably his partner. If there’s a connection here with any terrorist groups, then we might want to get with some people who have experience with this sort of terrorism.”
Eddie agreed. “That’s one possibility. Israeli Intelligence.” It wasn’t a question.
“Right. Do you have copies of the license info and picture?”
“Plenty.”
The senior agent scribbled a note onto his legal pad, then tore it off and folded it down. “Here. Give this guy a call. Meir Shari. He was with the embassy in D.C., if I remember right, but he’s back home now. I was at a seminar he spoke at in Frisco. Smart, realistic thinking sort. No politico thought there.”
“Connections?” Eddie asked.
“He was it. Military liaison with a full portfolio.” Art remembered another bit of information. “He’s the guy who cuffed Eichmann.”
“Who?”
He was young, Art realized. “Adolf Eichmann. He was a Nazi war criminal hiding out in Brazil back in the sixties. Mossad sent a team in to bring him home. He had a date with the gallows.”
“And Shari was in on it? Sheee-it…”
“His connections go back. Way back. He might be able to help us. Hell, he may already be looking into it. The Israelis get nervous when any Arab kills someone in a big, loud way.”
“But how would they know the killer might be an Arab?”
Art smiled. “I’ll give you a book to read. It’s called
The Guys
. It’s on the restricted list, but we’re cleared. The topic is intelligence appraisal, Mossad style. The way they get some of their stuff is spooky.”
He wasn’t an avid reader—his last book had been
The Hunt for Red October
—but this one sounded worth the effort. Eddie figured he’d take Art up on it.
“We better keep this quiet.” Art knew that would require a secure line. There were plenty at the office, but secure sometimes meant ‘away from colleagues.’ “The Israeli consulate will have a direct line to Tel Aviv. Head on—”
Their attention shifted to Dan Jacobs. He entered the Hilton’s nearly empty banquet room carrying something wrapped in a white towel. “Dan,” Art said.
“Hell. When are they going to get you a desk.” Jacobs unwrapped the item. It was a two-by-four with fractured pieces of drywall nailed to its shorter edges, one side of which was singed an uneven black. “This might interest you, Art.”
“What do you have?”
“Just a wall member with a story to tell. Look.” He pointed to the top, exposed part of the wood. Eddie and Art came close, leaning over the piece. “They’re faint, but we can print them. We already did.”
“Scuff marks,” Eddie offered.
“Actually from a black sole, we think. This is virgin wood. It was above a doorjamb, so it was clean as a whistle. Not even dust. There was an acoustical hanging ceiling to about here.” Jacobs traced along an obvious line where paint on the drywall had faded from exposure to light.
“Where was this originally?” Art asked.
“Do you have those floor plans—fifth floor?”
Eddie retrieved them from a nearby table.
“Okay,” Jacobs began, “here’s the room where the fire came from. We figure that the charge was about here, in the center of the room. The blast went every which way, but less so to the left and right, or east and west in this orientation. Everything, street side, shooters, walls, and all, was blown out onto Seventh, while the interior south wall blew straight across the back side of the building.”
“We know all this, Dan.” Art was impatient.
“I know. Bear with me. So, we had most of the blast go north and south, plus up and down, more up though. This wall”—his finger pointed to the blue line—“was an interior support structure. You see it runs from the exterior north to almost the interior south. There’s this little indentation here; it kind of makes the room look like a lopsided L.”
“That was the east wall,” Eddie observed.
“Right. This little alcove—it measured about seven by seven—used to be an open area to the room, just like these prints show. But we found this piece of wood strapped to the northwest corner junction of the alcove’s walls. That’s code. It’s for earthquake safety. See, these prints are from the late sixties, but there was a major remodeling done in the late seventies when an art school moved into the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors. This room where the shooters did their dirty work was an AV class—audiovisual. The little alcove was walled in a year after the remodeling to create a small room to store equipment in. Recorders, cameras—stuff like that. It had a single door”—Jacobs sketched the location’s most recent appearance—“right here. And it was padlocked. Only the teacher and dean had keys because there was about two hundred grand’s worth of stuff in there. Anyway, this piece was from right here.” The pencil point came down. “Right above the door.”
“I’m not clear on this,” Art said. “What’s the significance?”
“Lifelong cop, right?” Jacobs inquired. Art nodded. “Do you know how I put myself through school? I was a draftsman. Learned it in high school, three years of it. It paid damn good. All my meager knowledge told me that a wall went from floor to ceiling.”
“Right. So?”
“So why, or better, how did the scuff marks get there? I’ll tell you how—the new wall did not go all the way to the
true
ceiling. It went about three inches above the suspended ceiling. That gave maybe twenty-seven inches of clearance to the true ceiling.” There was still no light of revelation. “Shall I expand?”
“Please.” Art didn’t let on that an image was forming in his mind. It both intrigued and angered him.
“The wall that closed off the alcove was weaker structurally than the rest of the east wall, so it folded back against the north side of the small room when the blast went off. Strapping kept some of it intact, including this part and the doorframe. A lot of debris was blown into this seven-by-seven area, and the stuff in there was buried by it. Layers of debris. The outer layer was stuff from the room—bits of chairs, etcetera. Next were the actual parts of the blown-in wall and door, including the padlock, still closed on the hasp.” He raised an eyebrow. “Then the electronic equipment, all smashed to pieces. Finally, along with little parts of all kinds, were twelve empty soda cans and cookie and candy wrappers. The bottom of the pile.”
Eddie looked at Art. He was staring down at the wood, his jaw muscles flexing. The Joker had never seen his boss this pissed.
“So,” Art said, the air coming from his lungs like steam passing from a pipe, “we suspected they hid out for a day or two.” His body straightened up, hands in pockets, the right one squeezing his key ring for all it was worth. “The tow date on the car was Friday. That means they spent two nights in the Eight One Eight, in a locked room.”
“Correct,” Dan affirmed. “They went into the building, maybe that evening, and somehow got into that classroom. From there, just move a couple ceiling panels and climb over.”
“The scuff marks,” Eddie said. Jacobs nodded agreement.
“A few snacks and forty hours later they climbed back over and…”
“God damn it!” Art cursed loud and slow, each word distinct and filled with the anger his body was frying to suppress. His hands came to his hips as he turned away, looking up to the ballroom’s patterned ceiling. The lines crisscrossed and twisted, interconnecting each design with the eight to all sides of it.
Go easy. Art. Breathe. Breathe
. The compressed feeling in his chest abated slightly with the last of the three breaths, and he turned back. “That building was swept by the Secret Service on Saturday, and again on Sunday before it was secured. For Christ’s sake, how did they miss this?”
“It’s just a guess, but the Service was working off of floor plans only as recent as the remodeling.” Jacobs had thought that one out. It pissed him off royally.
“Which didn’t have the new room on it.”
“Right, Eddie.”
Art was shaking his head.
Idiots.
“That’s a bullshit excuse. There was a door. They had to see it, and they should have checked it. Dammit!” His heart rate rose again. “Why didn’t they just stick the key in the lock? What the hell was so hard with that?”
“No excuses, Art.” Dan wouldn’t try to make any for the Service. “The maintenance super for the building was supposed to meet the Service security detail on Sunday morning for the lockdown of the area. The one Saturday wasn’t real thorough. That was supposed to be the one on Sunday. Anyway, the maintenance guy didn’t show, so they contacted his assistant. Apparently, though, they didn’t wait for him. By the time he got there the detail was already to the sixth floor.”
“How the hell did you get all this?” Art had calmed somewhat. He sat down, his hand massaging one comer of his growing forehead.
“The assistant super was over at the building with some people from the management company that oversees the place.”
“When?” Something clicked in Art. A quick look to Eddie confirmed that he had caught it also.
“This morning. They’re pretty worried about the structure, you know. They want to get some engineers in there as soon as we’ll let them.”
Dan Jacobs was an agent who specialized in the scrutiny of physical, inanimate evidence, not the oddities and nuances of human behavior. That was the street agent’s territory. Art’s and Eddie’s. They had worked the street, knocked on doors, and asked thousands of questions during their years in the Bureau. The potentially important clue Dan had unknowingly brought to their attention might have been discovered later—maybe too late.