Collateral Damage (6 page)

Annie leaned forward. “If that miracle happens, Charles, what does it mean for us?”

“Big trouble, Annie. Very big trouble.”

“Not if I own the
Post,
” Annie said.

Charles allowed himself a wide smile. “Yes, Annie, if you own the
Post,
you can call the political shots. You can sweep Ms. Connor right into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue after you help to make her the Democrats’ nominee.”

It was Nikki’s turn to lean across the table. “I think we might like to see everything there is to see on one Martine Connor.
Everything,
Charles.”

This time Charles laughed out loud as he slid a bright purple folder across the table. A very, very thick purple folder. “I thought you’d never ask.”

H
arry Wong snapped his cell phone shut and resumed tying his sneakers. His mind raced as he tried to come to terms with what Bert had just told him on the phone; the bottom line being: don’t fight it, go with the flow.

He knew someone was in the building, not because the intruder made a sound, he didn’t. He smelled the man’s scent, sensed his wariness, which Harry decided was a good thing. The shadows outside the workout room afforded him all the cover he needed.

The intruder was well versed in stealth, something at which Harry also excelled. He waited until he saw the man’s shadow crossing the narrow space near the kitchen. Harry counted silently, one, two, three, and the intruder was flat on his back, Harry’s foot on his neck choking off his air supply. The man’s arms flailed as his feet tried to go in all directions, to no avail.

Harry looked over his shoulder to make sure the hidden camera was working. The tiny light that was shining brightly between the fronds of a hanging plant reassured him. As Bert said, when dealing with the fibbies, the name of the game was CYA. Covering his ass was always paramount to what went on in his
dojo,
but he had thanked the agent for that bit of insight.

Harry eased the pressure on the intruder’s neck for a second, just enough for the man to take a strangled breath. Then he clamped down his foot again. “Breaking and entering is against the law unless you have a warrant. Do you have a warrant? Blink once for yes, two for no.” The man blinked furiously. “If you try to talk, you’ll crush your larynx. Do you understand? Blink once for yes, two for no.” The intruder blinked again. Harry eased up the pressure on the man’s neck. “Don’t move. I’m going to search you. If you move, my foot will be the last thing you ever see in this lifetime. Do you understand me? Blink once for yes, two for no.” The intruder’s eyelids blinked. “I like it when a guest follows instructions.”

Harry knew what was going to happen next. He had trained federal agents and cops, and the first rule they learned at their various academies was that you never gave up your weapon. Harry slowly eased the pressure on the man’s neck and slid his foot to the floor. True to form, the intruder rolled over, gasped for breath as his hands pummeled the floor. Then, like a jack-in-the-box, he was on his feet and swinging.

In the blink of an eye the intruder was airborne. Harry winced when he heard the loud thump as the flying body hit the wall. It sprawled like a broken doll. “If my calculations are right, you now have a broken collarbone and a fractured hip. You are one sorry sack of shit, mister. But to show you my heart is in the right place, I’m going to call 911 because I don’t want you dying in my
dojo
.” His fingers pressed the keys on his cell phone.

Strange sounds came from the man’s mouth. Harry rather thought he was being called a son of a bitch and that the man was a federal agent. “No shit! You’re a federal agent? Why didn’t you say so instead of breaking and entering? A man’s home and his work space are his castles. You’re supposed to announce yourself, show me your creds. I read that in the FBI manual. What do you do? You sneak in here, no warrant in hand, and you think I’m going to serve you tea and cakes? Not in this lifetime. By the way, I got it all on film. For posterity. Ah, I think I hear a siren. Your new ride…Mr. FBI Agent. To the hospital.”

Harry walked over to the door that led to the street. He stopped long enough next to the sprawled man and looked down at him. “You really do look like a sorry sack of shit.” The agent, in obvious pain, cursed. Harry thought he said,
“Fuck you.”
“I refuse to tolerate profanity in my place of business,” he said virtuously. To prove his point, his clenched fist shot out and a couple of the man’s capped teeth popped out of his mouth like speeding bullets. Harry blinked, raced back to the camera, and erased the last ten seconds of activity from the tape. He offered up a jaunty salute, then sauntered to the front door.

Both EMS workers were women. Large women. No-nonsense women. Harry knew them well. He’d trained them free of charge in return for emergency services when one or more of his clients managed to get injured. It kept his liability insurance at affordable rates. “No need to be gentle, Irma. Just dump him in the wagon and take the scenic route to the hospital. He
says
he’s a federal agent. I didn’t check his creds, so maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. He broke in here intent on harming me.”

The big woman grinned as she pushed the gurney closer to the agent. Her partner, a woman named Heidi, who looked as big as an oak tree, glared down at the man, who seemed to be insisting they look at his credentials.

“What’s he saying, Irma?” Heidi asked.

“Beats me. Do you know what he’s saying, Harry?”

Harry shrugged.

Harry waved as the ambulance peeled away, siren wailing, lights flashing. He smiled when he thought of the route Irma would be driving. It wouldn’t surprise him one little bit to find out she’d have either engine trouble or a flat tire along the way.

Harry removed the tape, walked into his office, and made three additional copies. He shoved the original tape in an envelope, stuck on sufficient postage, and addressed it to Charles’s mail drop. He’d find a mailbox on the way home. He addressed the second one to Elias Cummings at the FBI. The last two went into his pocket.

Harry took one last look around, locked all the doors, and left by the back entrance. He fired up the Ducati, sat a moment as he thought about the past thirty minutes. Then he laughed as he pulled out his cell phone, powered up, and was speaking to Jack Emery within seconds. “Listen up, big guy, I have a story to tell you.”

Jack cursed long and loud the moment he broke the connection with Harry. Intending to call Bert, he turned on the phone again, but then the doorbell rang. “Shit!” Well, where was it written that he had to answer the door? Nowhere, that’s where. The bell shrilled again. Confident that his evening caller couldn’t see through the door, Jack meandered back to the kitchen, where he popped a longneck Bud and sat down. He powered up his cell phone and punched in Bert’s number. The agent answered on the first ring.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s supposed to be a roundup, strike all of you at one time. How long you planning on holding out?” Bert demanded.

“Till hell freezes over. Give me the lowdown on Charlie Akers.”

“Nice guy. Thorough agent, dots all his I’s and crosses all the T’s. Goes by the book. Retirement is right around the corner for him. He’s a good family man, sweet homemaker wife, two kids in college. He’s not going to get violent. He’ll try to reason with you, talk nicely to get you to go to headquarters for a chat. He’s like a dog with a bone. He’ll sit outside all night. What I’d do if I was you would be go out the back door and walk around to the front, whenever you’re ready, and pretend you just got home.

“Word just came down a few minutes ago that Harry put Doug Parks in the hospital. Well, let’s put it this way, he’s on his way to the hospital. Seems the ambulance had a flat tire. Those two Amazons didn’t want to get their hands dirty and called AAA. Parks’s condition isn’t life-threatening. Then they got caught up in a couple of traffic bottlenecks. Life’s a bitch sometimes. Any news, Jack?”

“At the moment, no. How’s it looking on your end?”

“Busy. Powell is like a dog chasing her tail. She doesn’t know which way to go, so she’s going in all directions. It’s amusing to a degree. We have a six
AM
meeting to report our progress. It will be zip. She’s going to go nuclear when she hears about Doug Parks. One guy out of commission. If we could just figure out a way to take out Joe Landos, I’d feel a lot better. Any ideas?”

Jack swigged from the longneck. “Not at the moment. I’ll call.”

Jack finished his beer and opened a second. The front doorbell continued to ring. For one wild moment he thought about turning the power off but nixed the idea. This might be a good time to change the sheets on his bed and take a shower. He could pretend he’d just gotten out of the shower after a nap. Shit!

Contemplating his dilemma, Jack continued to drink. If he kept up with his drinking, he wouldn’t have a problem. Yeah, yeah, there was nothing worse than interrogating a drunk.

At the end of the day, he knew the fibs would haul his ass into their offices, even dragging him out of the courtroom, if necessary, which wouldn’t do his reputation one bit of good. He slammed the empty into the recycle bin and stomped his way to the front door. He yanked it open, and barked, “Yeah?”

The man looked like someone’s father, which he was. His hair was almost gray, neatly parted and combed. Brown eyes, strong jaw. A compact kind of guy, but gravity was winning out. He was dressed neatly in a dark suit, a spit shine on his shoes. He held out his credentials as he verbally identified himself. “Take your time, Mr. Emery, make sure you’re comfortable with my credentials.” He sounded, Jack thought, like he was giving directions to a football stadium.

“So you’re Special Agent Charles Akers. I bet your colleagues call you Charlie. What can I do for you, Special Agent Akers? I hesitate to point this out, but it is seven o’clock at night. My workday ends at five. What that means to you is you’re invading my personal space and my private time.”

“And you think I give a good rat’s ass about that, Mr. Emery?”

Whoa. So there was still some fire in the belly. Now Special Agent Akers’s tone sounded like he was giving parking directions at the local jail.

“Guess not. Gotta make sure that pension stays intact. What do you want, Akers?”

“I’d be more than pleased if you’d accompany me down to the Hoover Building.”

Jack’s mind raced. “Do I have a choice?”

“Not really,” Special Agent Akers said jovially.

“Okay, let me get my jacket. Just so you know, I had a poker game scheduled for nine o’clock. I need to call someone to cancel. That won’t be a problem, will it, Special Agent Akers?”

“Five minutes. If you aren’t standing next to me, I’ll be breaking down your door.”

“Understood.” Jack slammed the door shut. Ten seconds later he had Maddy, the office manager at Nikki’s firm, on the phone. “Listen up, Maddy, this is Jack. The FBI is here at the house to haul my ass downtown. I’m going to need a lawyer, ASAP. The best of the best. Fifteen minutes and I’ll be at the Hoover Building. Unless this guy takes the long way. And I’d like the press there when they walk me in. A picture of me being hauled in will make for a Kodak moment. Can you do it?”

The voice on the other end of the phone made a very unladylike sound. “Consider it done.”

Jack heaved a mighty sigh of relief as he reached for his jacket and slipped into it.

He dropped the cell phone into the bottom of the umbrella stand and fished out a second one from his jacket. He speed dialed Harry’s number and waited for the martial arts expert to speak. “They’re here to take me downtown. If anyone asks, I called you to cancel our poker game. Be alert, Harry, the shit is starting to fly.”

“Gotcha.”

Jack went out the front door and locked it behind him.

“What took you so long, Mr. Emery?”

“I had to go to the bathroom, Special Agent Akers. I know for a fact you guardians of the law aren’t big on bathroom breaks when you drag someone in for questioning. I think that’s against my civil rights.”

“Shut up, Mr. Emery. Get in the car.”

Jack knew he needed to stall for time. He wasn’t sure Maddy could get her people to the Hoover Building before he arrived. “Look, Special Agent Akers, I don’t mind your coming here and asking me to accompany you downtown, but I do object to your not telling me why. Let’s cut the bullshit and tell me why you’re dragging me out of my home at this hour of the night.”

“All in good time. Think of this as a come-to-Jesus meeting. We’d like some input from you. We’re a generous bunch, so we’ll share what we have, and perhaps we can all learn something.”

Jack did a quick little dance. “You see, you see! That’s just it. Learn what? Share what? I’m all for both, but I need a clue. You want me to cooperate, you need to give a little, Special Agent Akers. Being the Deputy District Attorney for the District of Columbia, I’m hardly a novice at interrogations. In fact, Special Agent Akers, you might want to remember that when you work in the District you are subject to its laws, and I represent those laws. ’Nuff said?”

“It’s not my place to enlighten you, Mr. Emery. My boss will be doing that. I’m following her orders. Think of me as a foot soldier. A messenger.”

Jack worked up some more outrage, hoping his eyes were bulging. “Her! Did you say
her?
A woman? Well, no woman is going to tell me what to do. What are you, some pussy? A wuss? You take orders from
a woman!
Well, damn. Now I really do feel sorry for you. Nah, I don’t think I’m interested in going with you.”

He turned around to walk back up the steps to the house. He heard the click of the agent’s gun but didn’t stop. No one was going to shoot a deputy district attorney on the steps of his house right here in Georgetown. No way, no how. He fit the key in the lock. He risked a glance down at his wrist. He’d wasted almost ten minutes. That was good. Another ten, and things should be in place.

“Stop right there, Mr. Emery.”

“Or what?” Jack asked, opening the door. He turned around. “So shoot me! Make the eleven o’clock news. There goes your pension, big guy! You’ll be up to your ass in political bullshit till those retirement papers are moldy. That means no monthly income. So, asshole, take your best shot!”

“You think this is a joke, don’t you? It’s not. I asked you nicely. I’m going to ask you nicely one more time. If you refuse to accompany me, I’m going to have to call for backup.”

“Dead or alive, is that it? Someone to lie for you when you shoot me. You guys suck, you know that? I didn’t do anything. I didn’t break any laws. I’m an officer of the court. You now, you’re a different story. You might think you’re the eight-hundred-pound gorilla, but you’re not. What are you waiting for? I thought you were going to shoot me.”