E
llen Wiley’s pied-à-terre in Washington was on N Street in Georgetown, a handsome Federal-style town house, redbrick with black shutters. The door was answered by a maid in a uniform of gray dress and white cuffs and bib apron. She took me to Ellen, who was sitting in a high-back tufted wing chair in her library, just off the front hallway. The room was lined with books, floor to ceiling. She was talking on a landline phone. She was wearing a black skirt with a white silk blouse cut low enough to show the cleft of her tanned bosom, and a string of pearls.
“But that’s just it,” she was saying, “he has no idea.” She let out a whooping laugh. “Exactly.” She saw me, smiled, and waved me into a nearby chair. “Sweetie, I have to go, I have a visitor.” She paused. “Yes, a gentleman caller.” She laughed again and hung up.
“There he is, Nick Heller!” she announced. “You’re here a full hour early. He’s not coming until eleven.”
We had arranged for me to come by her house at ten, so I just nodded and said, “This shouldn’t take more than ten minutes, then I’ll be gone.”
“Jorge,” she called out, “can you bring this gentleman some coffee?” To me she said, “He makes the best sticky buns.”
“Not for me, thanks.”
“Are you sure? They’re still warm. If I can’t have them, at least my visitors can.”
“Do you plan to meet him in here?”
“Sure, here or in the front sitting room.”
“I’m going to need you to decide now where you’ll meet him.”
“Oh, heavens, then right here.”
“Okay.” I took out from my pocket an infinity transmitter, a small black GSM bug a couple of inches square. I’d already inserted a cell phone SIM card into it. “It would help if you decided now where you’re going to sit.”
“Ooh, spy stuff. I’ll sit right here. He can sit where you’re sitting.”
“Okay, great.” I looked around. The closest power outlet was some distance away. On the table between the two chairs was a brass lamp. I lifted it up. No room under the base. No drawer in the table. “I’m going to put it under the cushion in your chair. You’ll sit there, right?”
“Honey, I don’t even have to move. Do I have to do anything with it?”
“Ignore it. I’ll call into it just before he arrives, and it’ll go right into transmission mode. I’ll be listening in from my cell phone in my car.”
“Anything you want me to ask him?”
“All I care about is that you seem genuinely interested in hiring Centurion Associates. That you have serious security concerns. The more complicated, the better. Maybe you have a stalker who won’t go away. They pride themselves on being able to handle difficult cases. Just be a tough customer.”
“Oh, that I can do,” she said. There was a flash in her eyes, and she
gave a fierce smile, and I realized that I wouldn’t want to negotiate a contract with her.
—
I’d rented a silver Chrysler 200 because it was the most inconspicuous, anonymous-looking car I could find. I’d parked it across the street from Ellen Wiley’s town house and about a hundred feet down the block.
I sat there and waited. The traffic on N Street was two-way, but it was light. At ten minutes before eleven, a white Cadillac Escalade pulled up to the curb in front of Wiley’s house, slowed, and then moved ahead seventy-five feet or so and parallel parked. I took out my binoculars and focused on the vehicle. I saw two men in the Escalade, the driver and a passenger.
This had to be Thomas Vogel, accompanied by someone from Centurion Associates.
They were early. They knew who Ellen Wiley was and knew she represented an excellent business opportunity.
I continued to watch them through the binoculars. I could see the passenger talking to the driver. The body language indicated that Thomas Vogel was the passenger, talking to a subordinate.
At eleven o’clock exactly, Vogel got out of the Escalade, slammed the door behind him, and walked along the sidewalk to Ellen Wiley’s town house. As he walked, facing me, I could finally see him clearly.
Vogel was tall, but not a giant, maybe around my height, six-four. He was wearing a good navy suit, white shirt, and red tie—very patriotic colors—and appeared to be powerfully built. He had salt-and-pepper black hair and a mustache. He walked with a confident stride. He was a man who was used to physically dominating those around him. I recognized his face from the fishing picture in Curtis Schmidt’s house.
Vogel climbed the three slate steps in front of Wiley’s front door and rang the bell.
The door opened after a moment, and the same uniformed housemaid let him in.
I hit a speed dial button on my phone, which connected to the phone number on the SIM card in the infinity transmitter. It didn’t ring. After a few seconds, I could hear faint voices. Then I heard the maid’s voice.
“Wiley will be right down. May I bring you some coffee or tea?”
“Coffee would be great.” A booming baritone.
“Please have a seat. Mrs. Wiley likes to sit in that chair, so maybe the one next to it?”
Then, much louder, Vogel’s voice: “Thank you, ma’am.”
Then silence.
At the same time, I kept watch on the white Escalade. The driver was talking on a cell phone. I hadn’t expected a driver. This was too bad, because I’d brought a GPS tracker to affix to the car, and now I wouldn’t have a chance.
Then I heard Ellen Wiley’s voice, also loud and clear. “Mister Vogel, I’m Ellen Wiley.”
“Nice to meet you. Tom Vogel.”
“Stephen speaks very highly of Centurion.”
“He’s a valued client. My card.”
“Oh, metal! How clever. You could cut yourself with this thing.”
“It doubles as a self-defense tool,” Vogel said, and the two of them laughed.
I couldn’t see the license plate on the Escalade, so I studied the rear exterior for any markings that would help me later on. There didn’t seem to be any. The vehicle looked new. There were no scuff marks or dents, as far as I could tell at this distance. No stickers or decals. Non-tinted windows.
Wiley and Vogel talked. He asked about her homes, and she told him about her art collection. He asked her about any thefts she might have sustained. “We’re not like any other security firm you might have heard about,” Vogel said. “There are plenty of good security and guarding firms—Triple Canopy, Aegis Defence Services, Pinkerton, Securitas—any of the top-tier ones. Well, we do VIP protection, but we’re different. The thing you’ve got to understand is—we take care of problems. You want security guards? Hire security guards. You want a rent-a-cop? Rent a cop. We’re not about patrolling a beat. You get me? We play offense, not defense. We don’t stand at a wall and protect you from trouble. We make the trouble go away. It’s a very . . . specialized skill set. If you’ve talked to your friend Brookhiser, then I assume you have some sense of what we deliver. Problem
solving
. Taking care of issues so they don’t . . . exist anymore. And if I’m talking myself out of a job, so be it. It is what it is. What we do, it isn’t for everyone. Not everybody has the need for it. Not everybody has the
stomach
for it, frankly. Mrs. Wiley, tell me this is making you the slightest bit uncomfortable, and I’ll leave you in peace right now. This meet never happened.”
After thirty-five minutes, Vogel emerged from Wiley’s front door. I watched him descend the three steps and walk the seventy-five feet to the white Escalade and get in. Vogel and his driver chatted for about a minute. Then the Escalade pulled away from the curb and began making its way down N Street.
And I began to follow.
T
he trickiest part of a mobile surveillance is the very beginning. Start rolling too soon and the vehicle you’re following will make you. You’ll be burned even before you start. On the other hand, take too long to roll and you risk losing the target.
I’d waited until the Escalade was almost at the end of the block before moving. It turned right onto Thirtieth Street, and I followed. Thirtieth Street was two-way but narrow, with cars parked on either side. I tried to hang back, but even after slowing my speed, the Escalade was waiting at a long light at M Street. I pulled up immediately behind it.
I had no choice.
Now I’d have to disappear from view at some point soon.
I noticed the vehicle’s Virginia license plate and snapped a quick picture of it on my phone. Then the light turned green and the Escalade turned left, without signaling. M Street is fairly heavily trafficked, or was at that time of day. I turned left, too, and saw the Escalade up ahead. I slowed, pulled over as if double-parking, and waited for a few cars to pull ahead of me. When I could still see the Escalade, I swung back into traffic.
For several blocks, heading east, I kept a few cars between me and
Vogel. We went over a bridge that spanned Rock Creek Parkway, taking us out of Georgetown and into the West End. The Escalade bore right onto Pennsylvania Avenue. I did, too, several cars behind, and soon we came to Washington Circle at Twenty-fourth Street, with George Washington University Hospital on the right. Traffic circles were a good place to lose a tail.
But the Escalade did not appear to be trying to lose me, which suggested that Vogel’s driver didn’t realize I was following. Which was good.
Washington Circle has traffic lights at every corner, which is annoying. Theoretically they’re synced, but nobody knows what they’re synced to.
In fact, Washington, DC, was deliberately designed to make it difficult for an invading army to move quickly from one side of the city to another, and to this day the traffic reflects that. Now a black Jeep was the only vehicle between us. That was fine with me. It provided cover.
At Nineteenth Street we bore left onto H Street, along with the rest of the traffic, because Pennsylvania Avenue is now closed to traffic in front of the White House. The White House was visible on my right, through Lafayette Park. On the left were St. John’s Church and the Hay-Adams Hotel.
So far the surveillance was going smoothly.
Then, on H Street, an SUV barreled out of a parking garage immediately in front of me, without braking or signaling. I slammed on the brakes and cursed the guy. Living in Boston, I’m used to bad, or aggressive, drivers, but this was a close call. I veered around the SUV just in time to see the white Escalade turning left onto New York Avenue. I made it through the next set of traffic lights, but just barely. We passed the old Greyhound bus terminal, still recognizable even though it was undergoing construction to become an office building, like just about every other building in that part of town.
As we passed Twelfth Street, we entered Washington’s small
Chinatown. The FedEx Office sign was half in Chinese, though not many Chinese people lived here anymore. When the light turned green, the Escalade jogged left on Sixth Street, then right on K. I maintained a good distance from Vogel’s vehicle, with two cars between us. I could afford to stay that far back as long as the Escalade was going straight.
I began to wonder where Vogel was going. We’d passed through the part of the city that most people consider downtown, which was the likeliest location for an office, I figured. Now we were entering a sketchier area. On the north side was Capitol Hill. I wondered if Vogel was heading to the Capitol, maybe to the Senate or House office buildings. But the white SUV kept going, into Northeast, still a few car lengths ahead of me. I still hadn’t been made, as far as I could tell.
Then the Escalade came to a traffic light as it was turning yellow. It barreled right through the intersection, and the Audi right in front of me braked.
I was trapped on the wrong side of the light. The Escalade kept going straight.
On my right was a Citgo station, situated right at the southeast corner of the intersection. I swung into the gas station, cut through the lot, turned left and then right, and I was able to catch a glimpse of a white vehicle halfway up the block. I accelerated, wove through traffic, and confirmed that it was Vogel’s Escalade.
We were driving through a landscape of liquor stores and car dealers and gas stations. The Escalade turned left on Franklin Street, and I followed, apprehensive. This was a lightly trafficked street in Brookland, the neighborhood around Catholic University. Even though I slowed to keep a good distance between us, I was still immediately behind them.
I didn’t understand why Vogel’s driver wasn’t taking evasive measures. How could he not have detected me by now? I’d followed them for miles through the city.
Either he wasn’t any good—not operationally skilled—or he wasn’t looking for a tail. Which was sloppy. Maybe the Centurions’ reputation for black-ops expertise was just overblown.
I passed by a block of connected brick row houses, each painted a different color. I followed the Escalade as it turned onto Rhode Island Avenue, which was heavily trafficked. I was relieved, because the traffic would provide cover. I let the Escalade get a few hundred feet ahead of me and watched it turn left onto Reed Street, which was small and not at all busy.
I hesitated. If I turned there, too, I’d be made right away. I’d already pushed my luck almost beyond the breaking point. Vogel’s driver still apparently hadn’t noticed me.
Unless he had.
And this was his attempt at a kind of countersurveillance called “dry-cleaning.” And he was waiting for me to turn left onto Reed Street—at which point he’d have flushed me out.
Or maybe this was a trap.
So I had a decision to make. Abandon the tail outright, which seemed foolish after coming this far. Or keep at it, and risk a confrontation, possibly armed. Those were the only choices I could see.
I turned slowly into the narrow street. Just in time to see the Escalade turning left again, a few hundred feet away.
I accelerated up the street and then stopped at the point where the Escalade had turned. It wasn’t a street so much as an alley, a cul-de-sac. On either side, a row of brick warehouses, hulking and dismal. Many of the windows looked broken. Some of the warehouse units appeared to be abandoned. But maybe not all of them. The Escalade had parked most of the way down the street, on the left. I saw Vogel and his driver get out of the vehicle and enter the last entrance to the warehouse row. Just before entering, Vogel glanced around.
The fact that the driver didn’t remain in the car told me this was probably not a business meeting. Was this, then, Centurion headquarters, in this mostly abandoned warehouse building?
It seemed possible. If not headquarters, then at least some kind of rendezvous location, and it bore closer inspection.
I parked the car on Reed Street. There were no other cars in the alley; driving down the cul-de-sac and then parking there would be risky. Approaching by foot would be risky, too. But less so.
With the scope I examined the section of the building that Vogel and his driver had just entered. No movement that I could detect. Still, I waited about fifteen minutes. No other cars approached. No one else came in or out.
Curtis Schmidt’s Glock was loaded—I’d bought a couple of boxes of ammo at a gun shop in McLean—but out of force of habit I thumbed the cylinder release latch and checked again. Jacketed hollow-point ammo to increase the odds of stopping them. Then I pulled out my shirt and stuck the pistol under my belt, under my shirttails, and got out of the car.
I started out walking along the row of warehouses, keeping close to the brick wall, approaching slowly. When I reached the doorway to the last warehouse, I stopped, kept still, listened.
The distant low murmur of voices from within told me there were at least two men inside, Vogel and his driver. Maybe there were others, but at least the two.
Given the element of surprise, I could easily handle two. More I could handle, just not as easily. After all, I wanted only to talk to Thomas Vogel.
I pulled out the pistol, cocked it, and, holding it in a two-handed grip, swiveled around to the entrance until I faced all the way in, the weapon at low-ready.
No one there.
Up six steps to a black-painted solid metal door. I stopped, listened. I heard the voices again, somewhat more distinctly. Shifting the gun to my right hand, I pulled the lever to the door. Very slowly. It moved; it was unlocked.
Now there was no turning back.
I made a split-second decision. The front doors of most homes swing inward, but the entry doors in most public buildings swing outward. For fast egress in case of fire. It’s common fire-safety building code.
So with one violent movement I yanked the door open, the pistol trained on the area to my right.
I was looking at an office room of some kind, plain and functional. I processed the details at once: a metal receptionist’s desk with a computer on it, a coat tree, a few chairs, gray wall-to-wall carpeting.
And on my left, a guy with a gun.
Pointed at me.
“Freeze,” he said.
Now I understood.