To Free a Spy (39 page)

Warfield said quietly, “You know that’s not an option, Austin.”

“Goodwin?”

“Donald O. Goodwin, everything. All on the table when I meet Morgan tomorrow.”

Quinn walked out. Only the swagger was missing.

* * *

Quinn’s driver fought the storm all the way back to Langley. Hurricane Veronica continued to hover not far from land, dumping rain on D.C.—by the bathtubful, it seemed to Quinn. There was a chance she would blow right through the D.C. area once she cranked up forward movement, but now Veronica sat there building steam, taunting everyone within an incredible four-hundred miles of her center. Her winds had increased and the National Hurricane Center issued updates and warnings every few minutes.

Quinn checked his voicemail as soon as he got back to his office at Langley. He skipped half a dozen messages from members of Congress and two from his assistant, Angel Clawson. The one he listened to was from the attorney who represented Ana at her trial. He played it three times. “Mr. Quinn, uh,
Director
Quinn, Manny Upson here, Ana Koronis’s attorney. I’d hoped to speak with you. That U.S. attorney Joe Morgan called me and it sounds like Helen Swope’s going to retract her testimony. They’re meeting tomorrow morning at Morgan’s office. Swope and her attorney, a Filmore Dunstan. I thought you’d want to know because, well, I suppose because of Ana. Isn’t this great news?”

Quinn filled a bar glass with Glenfiddich Scotch, sat on the sofa across from his desk and set his drink on the coffee table. The hairline crack in the glass top reminded him of the day Leonard Magliacci visited him. It was Magliacci who started this. Quinn had invited him to his office at CIA thinking he could intimidate him or buy him off with a few dollars but the guy was smarter than Quinn anticipated. When Quinn paid Magliacci in return for the incriminating contents of Magliacci’s safe-deposit box, he buried them inside bags of cement from Home Depot for ballast and dumped them far out at sea, precluding any possibility they would ever be found.

The trees outside Quinn’s window bowed to the wind as huge raindrops blasted the glass. The room lights were off, and by the time Quinn finished another Scotch the room was all but dark. The lights from the courtyard below beamed through the rills of water trailing down the window and created a bed of worms on the ceiling.

Quinn looked up at the squiggling lines for a minute and flipped on a lamp to make them disappear. He poured another Scotch, played Epson’s message again, deleted it and looked up Judge Hartramph’s private home number. The judge answered.

“Austin Quinn, Judge. Sorry to bother you.”

“Austin? Well, it’s all right. But is there a problem? You sound tired.”

“No, I’m fine, Judge. Got a special request. Wanted to see if you’ll approve a leave for Ana Koronis. I’d like to take her out of the ADC for a couple days.”

Hartrampf paused before answering. “You’re asking a lot, Austin. That’s totally irregular.”

Quinn told Hartrampf he would be responsible for Ana’s return by Monday. He also said he’d get Cross to join in his request if that would make Hartrampf more comfortable with it. And he reminded the judge that Ana had not yet been placed in a federal prison. Taking her from the Alexandria jail would be less problematic.

Hartrampf agreed, but he didn’t sound comfortable with it. He reminded Quinn that he’d be charged with responsibility for her. “I’ll arrange it tomorrow morning.”

“Uh, Judge, I was thinking of getting an early start—”

“Sure. I’ll take care of it early for you, Austin.”

Quinn hung up, watched the rain pound the window and thought about the close call he’d been in years ago at the Golden Touch in Atlantic City, the night he’d murdered Karly Amarson in a fit of rage. The thought reminded him of an envelope he’d put in his personal floor safe. He took it out and looked at the photograph of Karly that he’d received at his office a couple of years ago in an envelope marked “PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL TO AUSTIN QUINN.” Someone had signed it “To Jag, from Karly” but there was no other inscription. Karly was long dead but it had shaken him. Fortunately, nothing had come of it since. Someone who’d known about Karly had sent it to him, but for what purpose? A sick joke, or was it Magliacci again with another blackmail scheme? It was a loose end that Quinn had never been able to dismiss.

Quinn turned to the phone and hit a speed-dial button.

“Biggers.”

“There’s a couple of problems.”

“Okay.”

“They gotta be fixed tonight.”

* * *

Warfield left the White House after meeting with Quinn and drove to his condo. He left his car in the driveway while he ran in to get some clothes to take to Hardscrabble. The phone was ringing when he walked in. It was Fleming, still at her office, and she suggested they go out to dinner. To hell with the weather. She said she’d swing by Warfield’s and pick him up.

Fleming got Warfield at his condo and drove them through the storm to Ticcio’s. Ticcio seated them and sent over a bottle of wine. Warfield couldn’t extricate himself from his thoughts and told Fleming some of his concerns without naming Quinn. After dinner Fleming suggested they drive to Hardscrabble instead of adding the trip back to Warfield’s in the weather. She could drop him off at his place to get his car tomorrow morning.

Warfield couldn’t sleep. It was as if he had left some important but unidentifiable duty undone. His restlessness woke Fleming and they talked for an hour while she massaged his neck and scalp. Her voice always soothed him. They finally fell asleep, their nude bodies intertwined, as the wind and rain pounded the windows.

Next morning, Warfield picked at a bowl of Cheerios while Fleming had coffee and an English muffin with honey. The rain continued and the century-old Hardscrabble house creaked and groaned to the tune of the wind. Veronica threshed schizophrenically offshore and continued to outfox forecasters, who had calculated the storm would have identified her prey by now. News on the kitchen radio said the maximum winds near the center were a hundred and twenty miles per hour this morning and showed signs of strengthening. The blow at Reagan National Airport was thirty-nine with gusts to fifty. Washington area schools and offices were prepared to act when necessary but for the moment it was business as usual.

Fleming studied Warfield as she sipped her coffee. “I know you, War Man. When you’re this deep into something it’s about to come to a head.”

“I don’t think I’m going to like it.”

Driving rain and pockets of water on the road made driving to Warfield’s condo torturous. When they were half a block from his condo, they saw the commotion around his place. Fire trucks and police cars were all over. As they drew nearer, Warfield could see that his condo was destroyed. He jumped out of the car before Fleming was completely stopped and ran through the yellow police ribbon to the nearest cop.

“What the hell happened here?” he yelled above the wind and rain.

“This your house?”

He started to say yes but caught himself. “Across the street,” he nodded. He surveyed the damage to his home. The fire was almost out with help from the rain but the pungent smell of charred wood filled the air. Smoke from two of the tires on his car curled upward and disappeared into the rain. The roof of his condo had crumpled into the building and burned, and two of the brick-veneered side walls had collapsed. The windows in the two teetering walls that remained had blown outward, leaving ragged holes. His townhouse-style home stood separate from others and was the only one with much damage. Probably because of the rain.

Warfield the neighbor listened silently as the police and firefighters told him what they knew about the origin of the fire. The explosion occurred around four that morning. Fire crews first burst the door in to see if anyone was inside. Investigators said it appeared the fire resulted from explosives thrown through a window of the condo. The blast that followed ignited the car. Warfield now realized that CIA Director Austin Quinn, a man in a position to have unfathomable resources at his fingertips, was not going down without a fight.

What luck that he’d spent the night at Hardscrabble. He told Fleming to ditch her car, find the nearest cab and check into a hotel away from the city. She might be a target as well. “Don’t go back to Hardscrabble. Call my voicemail once to let me know you’re okay and don’t say anything else. When they find out I’m alive they’ll figure out how to pick up any calls. The only people I’m sure you can trust right now are Cross and Paula, but if Quinn or Fullwood already got to Cross, he may be slow to act.”

“I’m going with you.”

“No good. They find me, you don’t need to be there. Besides, you’ve got patients waiting for you.”

“But—”

“No time to argue, Fleming. Just be careful.”

She pulled his head down to hers and nuzzled him for the second he remained still. “Take care of yourself.”

Warfield left Fleming in her car and disappeared, caught a cab four blocks away, sent the driver through a maze of turns and got out ten minutes later. He gave the cabbie a twenty for the Redskins cap he was wearing and hurried through an alley to another street. He surveyed the area, jumped into another cab and took the Roosevelt bridge across the Potomac. He gave the driver random left and right turns until they got to Washington Circle, where traffic became frustratingly stop and go.

A weathered pickup truck loaded with tool boxes inched along on the cab’s left. The sign on the door said, “Leroy’s Anytime Plumbing Service.” Warfield dropped some cash on the cab driver’s front seat, checked all around, and jumped out of the taxi and into the truck.

The pickup driver was taken by such surprise that he almost rammed the car in front of him, but before Warfield knew it, he was staring at the end of a large blue semi-automatic pistol two inches from the bridge of his nose. Veins pulsed in the black man’s muscular arms as he looked wide-eyed at Warfield.
“You crazy, man?”
he screamed.

Warfield threw his hands up. “
Listen, friend, listen. Listen! Someone’s after me. I’m not here to hurt you
.”

“You on the wrong end of this gun to hurt
me
, asshole!”

The driver studied Warfield for a moment and relaxed the pistol.

“Who’s after you, man?”

“Are you Leroy?” he asked, remembering the sign on the truck door.

“Hell yes, I am!”

“I’m Warfield. Keep going. I’ll get out down the street. They won’t bother you.”

Leroy continued around the circle to K Street and drove east. “So what’d you do to ’em?”

“Plan to ask first chance I get.”

Lines that radiated from the corners of Leroy’s eyes tightened when he laughed. A four-by-six photo of Leroy standing in front of a modest white house with two women and four small children looked down at him from the sun visor.

“Yours?” Warfield said, hoping he could make Leroy less nervous. But he scanned every car for the threat he knew was looming.

“Those are my kids and my wife and my mama. I bought that house there too.
First one.
My wife Mona, well, I did some time and she hung on, then she put up with a lot more while I was getting this business going. Nights, days, weekends, whatever. She said I always put work before her and the kids, but it had to be that way. She’s a good ’un.”

“So business is good?” Warfield said, mechanically.

“Long time to get something up and going, make a little money, pay off the loans. Did it though. Me and the Lord and the bank, we’re on real good terms now.”

Leroy asked for directions as they approached Mt. Vernon Square.

“Go around to New York. I’ll get out in a couple blocks.” Warfield didn’t want Leroy to get caught up in this.

After they were on New York, Leroy said, “They drivin’ a black Mercedes?”

Somehow they recognized Warfield through the blinding rain when he looked around. The first shot bounced off a steel tool box in the back of the truck and echoed through the truck.

“God help us!”
Leroy screamed.

“
Zig-zag, Leroy! Back and forth, back and forth.
” Warfield grabbed Leroy’s pistol from the seat.

Leroy swerved left into Fourth Street with the Mercedes right on him. When he turned left again onto Ridge the Mercedes pulled up beside the pickup. The rider in the right front seat took aim at Leroy with a sawed-off shotgun. Warfield saw his own barrage from Leroy’s gun explode the shooter’s chest but it was too late.
The contents of Leroy’s head flew throughout the cab of the truck.
Warfield ran his hand across his own eyes to clear the blood away. The truck hit the curb and rolled to a stop against a utility pole.

Some of the shot from the sawed-off caught Warfield’s shoulder, but he continued to fire until the three-fifty-seven was empty. He thought he caught the driver but he was shooting blind because of the blood and broken glass. Warfield looked at the man upon whom he had brought this tragedy.
God forgive me!
Half of his skull was missing. Blood, bone and brain tissue covered Warfield and everything inside of the truck. It was a scene Warfield wouldn’t forget. As he started to jump out, he reached back and grabbed the photo off the visor and shoved it into his pocket.

Warfield heard sirens but now he trusted no one. Even if it were the D.C. police he would be detained and the FBI or CIA or whoever they sent after him would soon know they had him. As he ran several blocks north through the backyards of houses, he caught a glimpse of the Mercedes creeping along Fifth Street to his left.

Warfield came to an unbroken line of backyard fences across his path, turned right toward Fourth, navigated through the trees at full stride and came upon another five-foot chain-link fence. There was no way out except the way he entered. The German Shepherd claiming the yard came to attention, but Warfield’s choices were limited. He gripped the steel top rail of the fence and threw his body over, bounded two long strides to the point where the taller wood fence that had blocked his path in the adjacent yard connected, and jumped back over the other chain link. It happened so fast that the snarling Shepherd was still sharpening his fangs when Warfield was out of reach again.