Beloved Enemy (4 page)

He gave a wry smile. “Is there an actual Edward Griffiths?”

“Well, you’re Edward Griffiths now,” she pointed out. “He
used
to be a two-bit hustler.”

“Drugs.”

“Drugs, girls, firearms. Anything he could lay hands on and move at a profit.”

“Charming.”

She grinned, showing large white teeth.

“And Mr. Griffiths is where, now?”

“Probably in the C&O Canal, but no one really knows. Bottom line: he’s ghosted.”

Jack nodded. “You did a helluva lot of work in a short time, Nona.”

She grinned again. “My specialty.”

“Really? I never suspected.”

“No one does.”

Jack regarded her in this new and startling light. “You’ve put yourself and your people in harm’s way.”

“Nothing you wouldn’t have done for me.”

He ducked his head. “I owe you, big-time.”

“You can pay me back by staying alive, Jack. I went to a lot of trouble for you. It would be a shame if it ended with you facedown in a puddle of your own blood.”

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.” He stole a brief glance out the SUV’s rear window. “Assuming, that is, I get out of D.C. in one piece.”

“You need to get out of the country. You can buy an international ticket under the name of Edward Griffiths. Take the first flight out.”

“No.” Jack shook his head. “The passenger terminal is covered by CCTV cameras. I’ll be spotted.”

She frowned. “Do you have a better idea?”

He thought for a moment. “As a matter of fact I do.”

When he pulled out his mobile, Nona plucked it out of his hand.

“You don’t want to use this,” she said.

“I know.” He stopped her as she was about to drop it into the bag at her feet. Taking it back, he popped out the micro SD card containing the Legere dossier Dennis had given him. Then he handed it back.

“I hope you’re not going to give me a burner,” he said, referring to the cheap mobiles sold in drug and convenience stores with pay-as-you-go plans that were the favorites of drug and arms dealers. “I need something that’ll read this.”

She smiled. “We aim to please,” she said, dropping a new Samsung into his palm. “It’s all set up. The GPS function has been disabled. Even I won’t be able to track you.”

He stared at her for a moment. “Are you sure you work for Metro and not some black ops agency?”

She laughed. “If I did, I couldn’t tell you.”

Jack grunted, inserted the SD card into the phone, then fired it up. He did not have his old phone’s directory, of course, but his brain could not help memorizing every number in it. He punched in a local number, and when Ben King answered, he said: “It’s Jack. I need to get out of the States.”

“Right,” King said. “I’ll get the plane ready.”

King was the pilot of Paull’s government plane that Jack had used over the past three years. King had already gotten him out of several tight spots.

“No,” Jack said. “I need a more clandestine type of ride. No one can know I’m leaving, or even that I’m at the airport.”

There was a silent moment while Jack held his breath. Then he said, “Look, Ben, something’s happened to the Skip. I need to set it right.”

“Is he okay?”

“No,” Jack said. “He’s dead.”

There was an elongated silence during which Jack’s ears were filled with the trip-hammer beat of his own heart.

“Jack,” Ben said at last, “is this the only way?”

“Yeah,” Jack said heavily, “I’m afraid it is.”

“Okay. Let me make some calls.” Ben’s voice was crisp and sharp now, a military man carrying out his orders. “I’ll phone you—”

“No,” Jack said firmly. “I’ll call you.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse. Ben, I don’t have a lot of time.”

“Fifteen minutes,” Ben said, and disconnected.

*   *   *

Dickinson, filing out of the situation room with the others, paused at Tim Malone’s side, and together the two men went slowly down the corridor. They watched President Crawford talking with Rogers and Alix Ross. The three stepped into the elevator by themselves, the bulletproof reinforced steel doors closed as the others milled about, waiting for it to return for them.

“This way.”

Malone led Dickinson through a fire door on their left into the bare concrete stairwell, and they began their ascent up to the White House’s ground level.

“I’ve sent out a BOLO and an all-points on McClure,” Dickinson said. “With the help of the Metro police, I’ve deployed agents and detectives at all rail and bus stations and airports in the D.C. metro area. Everyone has his photo. Also, we’re canvassing every rental car office.”

“And if he chooses to steal a car?” Malone said.

“I’ve sent patrol cars rolling everywhere. We’ll catch him, Tim. That’s a promise. Dennis and I went way back. He was the one who recruited me out of Georgetown.”

“I know.”

Dickinson shook his head. “I’m not going to let this fucker get away with killing Dennis.” He licked his lips. “I screwed the pooch. I won’t make director if I don’t make it right.”

“I feel for you, Henry. But if you get this job done quickly and efficiently, you can turn sentiment in your favor.”

After that charged exchange, the two men kept their own counsel, each seemingly plunged deep in thought, as they passed out of the White House, through the various security checks, and into Malone’s waiting car. Dickinson signaled to his security team, which had been doubled the moment Dennis Paull’s body had been identified, and they vanished into their vehicles to take up position behind their boss. Before he ducked into the FBI director’s car, he saw Krofft watching him from the steps of the White House.

“This is turning out to be a helluva morning,” Dickinson said morosely as he settled in beside the FBI director. “I can’t fathom how this could happen. It’s unthinkable. Dennis was McClure’s mentor, scooped him up when President Carson died in Moscow four years ago, gave him carte blanche. Why in the world would McClure betray him?”

Malone considered a moment. “That’s what a good mole does: burrows in, gets close, then goes about his business.”

Dickinson’s gaze dropped. “This dossier is the most damning bit of evidence.”

“I did us all a favor, Henry. We’re lucky Krofft’s agents didn’t get their paws on it. You know his rep for sharing nothing.”

Dickinson laughed ruefully. “My boss seems to have been good at that, too. The dossier names Pyotr Legere. Who the hell is he? I’ve never heard of him.”

“It appears that he was Dennis’s private contact.”

“Off the books of homeland security.”

“Off the books of all the clandestine services.”

“Which is why he didn’t tell anyone—even me—about Legere.”

Malone nodded. “He didn’t know whom he could trust.”

“I’ll bet he told McClure. He told McClure everything. Every. Fucking. Thing.”

Malone gave him a look, but Dickinson was too busy with his thoughts. “Truthfully, had Dennis come to me with his suspicion, I would have been inclined to disbelieve him. After all, this isn’t the Cold War. It’s far too difficult these days to turn high-level personnel.”

Malone pointed to a section of the interview where Paull asked Legere the identity of the mole. “But now Dennis is dead—shot to death by one of his most trusted men. You ask why Jack McClure would turn on his mentor. This is why, Henry. McClure is the mole. The moment he learned what Dennis was up to, he killed him. In order to escape from the house, he had to kill the security guards, as well.”

Dickinson tapped a forefinger against his pursed lips. “This is a transcript of the interview. My people didn’t find a tape or CD. Did yours?”

Malone shook his head. “There was nothing of the kind. Dennis was too canny to leave the original lying around. My guess is it’s someplace safe outside his house.”

Dickinson had come to the end of the dossier. “How well do you know this man known as the Syrian?”

“Not well at all. No one knows who he is. We have no photos of him, we don’t know his background. He’s a ghost, or maybe a straw man Al Qaeda or another terrorist group has created for us to follow.”

Dickinson tapped the dossier. “It says here that the mole is being run by the Syrian.”

“That’s what Legere believed—or what he told Dennis, at any rate.”

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who’s running the mole, the Syrian, Al Qaeda, or some other cadre,” Dickinson said, “just that we shut the leak down.”

Dickinson blew air out of his pursed lips. “Any idea where this Pyotr Legere is at the moment?”

Malone shook his head. “But we do know from his debriefing that he was last in Bangkok.”

“That’s where I should start looking for him.”

“I don’t see why. We need to concentrate on running McClure down.”

Dickinson looked thoughtful. “You may be right, but knowing McClure as I do, it’s likely to be a helluva lot easier finding Legere than—”

“With all due respect,” Malone interrupted, “you don’t know McClure at all. Let’s focus on him.” When no immediate response was forthcoming, he added, “Listen, Henry, you start sniffing around in Bangkok, Krofft’s going to get wind of it. Then he’ll want to know what you’re doing and why you haven’t briefed him on it.”

“Because the minute he finds out, he’ll take over. That’s Krofft’s way.”

“Precisely. I mean, he had his boys at my crime scene. What the hell.” The flat of Malone’s hand cut through the air. “No, Henry, we leave this strictly domestic, we keep Krofft out of our hair.”

Dickinson sighed, then, reluctantly, nodded. “Right you are, Tim.” But he was already thinking of the best person to send to Bangkok in search of Dennis Paull’s elusive contact.

T
HREE

“D
ULLES
C
ARGO,”
Jack said to Nona the moment he ended his second call to Ben King.

Nona pulled over, drew a stained hoodie out of her bag. “Put this on,” she said. Then she cuffed him. “Now just keep your face averted and we’ll be okay.”

When he was settled, she put the SUV in gear, changed direction, and headed off.

Jack said, “My sense is we’ll only have one shot to get into the foreign trade zone, which will gain me access to the cargo runways without going through the terminal. An InterGlobal Logistics aircraft is due to take off in just under fifty minutes.”

Nona nodded. “We’re no more than eight minutes from the airport, so the time frame shouldn’t present a problem. It’s getting you there that’s bound to be tricky. In light of the secretary’s murder, a cordon has surely been deployed around the entire D.C. area by now.”

As if to punctuate her words, she said, “We’ve got a problem.”

“What is it?”

“Two state police cruisers parked in a chevron formation half across the highway. They’re funneling traffic down to one slow-moving lane.”

“Roadblock?”

The lights on the tops of the cruisers were flashing, and, as Nona steered the SUV to join the line waiting for clearance, she could see heavily armed officers interrogating the people in every car, checking identities of everyone in each vehicle before it was allowed to pass through.

“Uncuff me. I’d better get out of here.”

Nona shook her head. “You get out now, you’re a dead duck.”

He looked into her dark eyes. “Does that mean you have a better suggestion?”

*   *   *

Bobby Brixton had applied three times to be a fed, and three times he had been turned down. He had no idea why and no one would tell him. Gradually his disappointment and rage had been subsumed into his work as a state police officer. So it was understandable that when he received orders to head out to Dulles International as part of a district-wide cordon to intercept a known murderer he was immediately psyched, even though his partner was less than enthused.

“Who’d we piss off this time?” his partner, Andy Hay, had said as Brixton switched on the top lights and floored their police cruiser. “These cordons, I’ve been on ’em before. The only thing more boring is a stakeout. At least, when you’re part of a cordon you can pee without worrying that you’ll miss the perp.”

“This one’s different.” Brixton’s eyes were alight with anticipation. “The flag came down from the feds.”

“The feds!” Hay spat out his window. “Fuck, let state do their grunt work for them, sure, why not? Then if on the off chance something happens, they take the credit. Fucking feds. I don’t know why the fuck you want to join their team, Brixy.”

Brixton laughed. “I want to be able to break your balls, is why.”

“Fuck, you do that already, you cocksucker.”

“True that!”

They had arrived at their appointed coordinates to find another state cruiser already there. One of the uniforms in the other car had already stopped traffic on its way to the airport, and the two vehicles formed up into the standard chevron formation to better handle traffic flow. Brixton and Hay got out and started checking the IDs of the vehicle occupants. They pulled trucks to one side and inspected whatever was in the transport compartments.

After forty minutes of this, Hay said, “What’d I tell you? A whole lot of nothing.” He gestured. “And look at this fucking lineup. Except for FedEx, mornings are the worst for cargo traffic.”

Brixton, who’d had just about enough of his partner’s bellyaching, said, “Go take a crap or something, maybe that’ll lighten your mood.”

Hay grunted. “The only thing that’ll lighten my mood is getting the fuck outta here and back to some meaningful police work. This is like babysitting the fucking blacktop.”

Brixton waved his partner away as yet another black SUV rolled to a stop beside him. “IDs,” he said automatically.

Nona showed him her ID.

Brixton found himself admiring her heavy breasts before he tore his gaze away to check out her creds. “A bit far from your home turf, Chief Heroe, aren’t we?” Then, craning his neck, he saw the SUV’s second occupant and he felt the hair at the back of his neck stir.

The man was leaning forward, his manacled wrists crossed at the small of his back. A black hood obscured his head.

Brixton felt his mouth go dry. “Christ, is that a terrorist?”

Nona looked up at him, her expression maddeningly neutral.