Wildfire (22 page)

The heavy exterior door came open with a loud
clack.

After entering, and then waiting for the heavy door to close automatically behind him with another loud
clack,
the team leader walked down the thirty-foot hallway—fully lined with solid metal panels, thick bulletproof glass view panels, and ceiling nozzles capable of filling the hallway with cayenne-pepper-based tear gas in under three seconds—and stopped at the second door.

Another loud
clack
echoed through the narrow hallway, and the team leader entered the tightly secured transfer room.

There were twelve smoothly surfaced metal chairs bolted to the floor along one side of the room, each bearing a number of strategically placed shackle rings. As expected, only one of the chairs was in use this morning.

The team leader walked over to the chair in the far right-hand corner and stood in front of the seated prisoner.

"Are you ready to go, Mr. Chareaux?" he asked in a professionally neutral voice.

Alex Chareaux looked up and glared silently at the uniformed federal officer. Even after six months in federal custody, his reddened eyes had lost none of their ferocity.

"Stand up, please, Mr. Chareaux," the federal officer directed.

Chareaux's feet were shackled together with a sixteen-inch chain. His wrists were handcuffed in front and connected to a thick chain locked snugly around his waist. His arms and legs were not secured to the completely immobile chair, so that he could have easily stood up if he had chosen to do so.

He remained defiant and sitting.

Shrugging indifferently, the transport team leader nodded to the three federal officers who stood waiting on the opposite side of the transfer room. These men were dressed in snug-fitting trousers and shirts—that revealed muscular chests, arms, and legs—soft-soled sneakers, helmets with visors, and thin leather gloves. They were a part of the elite tactical response team that the facility maintained on a twenty-four hour, seven-days-a-week basis to deal with federal prisoners who—in the view of the criminal justice system—represented a significant threat to federal investigators, witnesses, and officers of the court in general.

Coming up to either side of their uncooperative prisoner, two of the muscular officers grabbed Chareaux by the webbed straps that had been sewn at thigh and calf levels in the sides of his orange-and-yellow one-piece jumpsuit. The third officer came around behind Chareaux and power-lifted the Cajun guide up by the webbed straps sewn into the shoulders of the visually distinctive jumpsuit.

Chareaux provided no resistance as the three men easily carried him toward the first of the two exit doors. This was simply part of the ritual that he and the officers had established. He had long since discovered the futility of fighting back, but he wasn't about to assist these men in transporting him to a federal courthouse where his freedom would soon be taken away from him on what he assumed would be a permanent basis.

Something else that Chareaux clearly understood was the significance of the distinctively colored, wire and nylon jumpsuit that was locked on around his chest and shoulders. It had been explained to him in clear and simple terms when he had first entered the facility. The orange-and-yellow pattern represented a well-publicized warning to the public—and to any law enforcement officer in the greater Washington, D.C., metropolitan area—that the wearer was, one, a dangerous individual in federal custody; and, two, considered to be a serious threat to the community at large. The yellow portion of the brightly visible pattern identified vital areas to the human body.

In effect, the wearers of these difficult-to-remove jumpsuits were marked targets. And any federal, state, or local officers who observed such an individual moving freely about and not in the custody of a federal marshal was authorized to shoot to kill.

Out in the caged courtyard, the van's two shotgun- and pistol-armed guards stood back as the response team members shackled Chareaux into one of the twelve seats—six of which were bolted to the floor on each side of the van—that were identical to the ones in the holding facility's transfer room. Finally the rear doors of the heavy armored van were closed, barred, and locked.

The front portion of the van, separated from the passenger area by more armor plating, was designed much like a family van in that there were four doors and four captain's chairs. Beyond those basic amenities, however, there were a number of modifications not often found in a family vehicle, such as fully armored doors, door frames, windows, and windshield; solid rubber tires; an armor-plated engine compartment; and interior racks for the shotguns, ammunition, and portable radios.

The two shotgun-armed marshals secured themselves in the two rear seats and locked the doors. The team leader got into the front passenger seat, locked his door, accepted his pistol back from the driver, secured it in his hip holster, fastened his safety belt, and then reached for the radio mike.

"Tango-Uniform-Three to Base One."

"Base One, go."

"Tango-Uniform-Three, we are en route to Arlington Courthouse with one Poppa. Activating homer now."

Reaching forward to the dashboard, the team leader flipped a heavy-duty red switch to the on position.

"Base One to Tango-Uniform-Three, your homer is confirmed, zero-eight-zero-five hours."

"Tango-Uniform-Three, homer confirmed, zero-eight-zero-five hours," the team leader repeated. "Open the gate."

From a distance of approximately four hundred yards, the man known as Riser knelt down behind a concealing tree and watched the distinctive white van drive through the opened chain-link gate. Humming to himself, he waited until the van had disappeared through the surrounding trees on the narrow back road.

Then he picked up his spotting telescope and smiled.

Five miles east of the federal holding facility, and seventeen miles west of the Arlington Federal Courthouse, in the basement of a four-story brick and glass building located on the shore of Lake Thoreau, in the town of Reston, Virginia, Leonard Harris barely responded to a knock at the door to his large and dimly lit corner office.

"Yes, come in," he mumbled absentmindedly. He didn't bother to look up from his computer screen.

Five seconds later, when no one walked in the main door and the knocking continued, Harris realized his mistake.

Reaching under his desk, he released the lock to the small metal emergency access and exit door in the far rear corner of his office.

The young man known as Eric entered, carefully closed the door behind him, and then walked over to the workstation where Leonard Harris had been spending most of his time during the past few days.

"Hi."

"Hello, Erie. I'm surprised to see you here this morning. I thought you were going to take a few days off to go fishing with your father."

"I still am, but I'm not leaving until tomorrow. He's going to be tied up with some business until Sunday morning, so I'm going to catch up with him then."

"That's nice." Harris nodded absentmindedly as he continued to stare at the three monitors, waiting for one of the pieces of information he needed to appear. "So where are you planning on going?"

"We're going to meet at the Hawk's Nest Marina, out on Cat Island in the Bahamas. Check out the Tartar Bank, then head out to the Bimini Islands and work our way south, see if we can hook into a couple of big blues."

"Is that so?" Harris said, his eyebrows coming up in surprise as he turned away from the monitors and stared intently at his young assistant. "Sounds like it might be an interesting trip. Are you going to be staying at the villa?"

"No, I've got a room booked at the Cutlass Bay Club. Apparently Dad's going to be using the villa for some corporate board stuff this weekend."

"Oh,
really?"

"Yeah, bummer deal." The young man shrugged. "But that's okay, they've got a good bar down at the Cutlass. Besides, who the hell wants to hang out with a bunch of corporate types when you're on vacation?"

"Good point." Harris nodded carefully, wondering if his young assistant really
hadn't
picked up on the possibilities, or if he was just playing dumb. The latter was still always a possibility, no matter how unlikely, the veteran game player reminded himself. "So aside from all of that, how are things going this morning?"

"Actually, that's what I came to ask you," Eric said.

"Other than Crowley still being an outstanding issue, and Riser seems to be in possession of one of our computers"—Harris shrugged—"not too badly."

"What's happening with Crowley?"

"The police have contacted his parents. Naturally, they have no idea what their son could possibly have been doing to cause himself to get killed in a downtown Boston hotel room. As far as they were aware, he was just a typically rebellious twenty-four-year-old with wealthy parents who hadn't quite gotten himself settled into the family traditions yet. They are deeply shocked and saddened, of course, even though William—as they call him—had turned out to be something of a disappointment. But they are also an extremely religious family who have three other younger children to be concerned about. In essence, they seem to believe that their son's death was God's will. More to the point, they are also convinced that it had to be the result of a random hotel break-in, and that their son just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Which is basically true, when you get right down to it," Eric said. "Christ, what a family! No wonder Crowley seemed depressed all the time."

"Yes, but I doubt that the police are going to be willing to let it go at that."

"What can they do? From the sound of things, they can't have many leads."

"No, they don't. But they are doing all the predictable things, among which is contacting all Crowley's known associates. Somewhere along the line there's a chance that they might get to you," Harris warned.

"Crowley? Let me think a minute. Short scrawny little character? Wears those funny wire-rim granny glasses? Yeah, that sounds like a guy I used to know at Harvard." The young man shrugged. "Actually, I really didn't know him all that well. Matter of fact, I don't think I ever knew his first name. Kind of a shy type. I remember we drank a few beers together a couple of times, usually after a touch football game with a bunch of the other guys. Used to run across him on campus and occasionally at the hockey games. Haven't seen him in quite a while, so I really don't know—"

"Actually, that's not true," Harris corrected. 'You saw him just recently. Four days ago, to be exact. At the airport. Remember?"

"Oh, yeah, that's right." Eric nodded uneasily.

"Do you remember what you were doing there?"

"Sure. I was there to pick up a friend. I saw Crowley sitting there at the bar and remembered who he was. We ordered a couple of beers, sat around shooting the bull until he had to leave to catch his flight."

"Do you remember the name of the friend you were waiting for? And about what time he or she arrived?"

"Uh, no, actually, now that I think about it, that must have been a different day. As I recall, I . . . shit, what
was
I doing there?"

"Waiting to pick me up," Harris said.

"I was?"

"Of course. As you recall, we've been trying to arrange a new Dungeons and Dragons Masters tournament for over a month now. I told you I would be going to New York early that morning, and then returning on the two-thirty shuttle. I had asked you to pick me up, but then I had to cancel the trip at the last minute and forgot to tell you about it. You thought I'd missed my flight, and waited around for another hour. Which is why you happened to be in the airport at the right time to see Crowley and have a beer with him, should anyone ask, which they probably won't.

"That's right, I forgot all about that." Eric nodded. Then he smiled and said, "When did you work all that out?"

"When I realized that Crowley was dead and there would undoubtedly be an investigation."

"You think ahead."

"As should you, my young friend," Leonard Harris said in a serious voice. "There are going to be times in the very near future when Ember and I may not be in a position to provide you with an alibi. When those situations occur, you
must
be prepared to account for your whereabouts on your own. And you want to be very careful how you go about doing that," the older man warned. "The police are rarely as clever in conducting their homicide investigations as the movies and television would have you believe, but they are invariably methodical and persistent. They depend greatly upon the premise that the guilty parties will always lie to them initially, out of fear or panic if nothing else, and then be forced into telling more lies when their story starts to come apart. Eventually, those individuals become irretrievably entangled in their own deceit. At that point, it's just a matter of the formalities. You don't
ever
want to find yourself in that position."

"So I have to assume that if they ever do talk to me, and take a statement, they'll compare whatever I say with statements from other witnesses, right?"

"As a witness in a homicide investigation, you should assume that
anything
you say will be checked out, word for word." Harris nodded solemnly. "And remember, you want to try to be as vague as possible whenever you can. The police won't expect you to remember every little detail of your life, especially if you had no reason to think that those details were important at the time. But definitive statements are always dangerous, because there are hundreds of ways for an investigator to check them out. Credit card receipts, airline and hotel reservations, telephone records, security cameras ... or statements by a witness who might have noticed the two of you arriving at the airport in the same car?"

Harris waited until his young assistant finally realized that it had been a question.

"Uh, no, it's okay. We went in separate cabs."

"Good. What about the receipt?"

"What about it?"