Home Goes The Warrior (26 page)

The morning went by uneventfully. At about ten o’clock, he asked Tim Connors if he would step outside with him. Tim looked quizzical, but agreed. When they were outside, Lee turned to him. “Tim, last night you said that you wanted to help. I need to have you witness something now, and please don’t ask any questions. I can say that your instincts are almost correct about me, but that’s all I can say. The clearance level of all of this is far above anything that we know, so don’t ask anything because I can’t tell you anything. Can you deal with that?”

Tim didn’t hesitate. “Yup. What’cha need me to witness?”

“Follow me.” Lee walked to his car and opened the passenger door. He’d brought a small plastic bag for the bullet. Now he got out his pocketknife and started cutting into the side panel around where
the bullet had entered. At first, he didn’t find anything, but then he realized that it had probably dropped from the entry point, so he made a long slit from the entry point down to the car floor. Sure enough, he felt it at the end of his fingers as he probed the slit. Pulling back, he turned to Tim who was watching this procedure with a curious expression on his face.

“Tim, if you would. Please reach into the side panel where I’ve cut it and feel around. You should feel a small, hard piece of loose metal in there. See if you can get it and put it into this plastic bag.” He moved out of the way so Tim could get into the car.

Soon Tim was backing out of the car, looking at the object in his hand. “A 30-caliber slug. Looks like the ones I used when I was hunting back home.” He looked up at Lee, commenting, “Man, you’re into some shit. I won’t ask any questions, but I do want to help.”

“Thanks, Tim. But for now, just put the slug in the bag and tape the bag shut.” He handed Tim a roll of masking tape.

When Tim had done as asked, Lee took out a ball point pen. “Here, sign over the tape so a person could tell if it were opened. You’re now a witness to the fact that this was taken from where you found it. Oh, yeah, date it, will you? And write the time on it.”

Tim finished writing and handed the bag to Lee. “Lieutenant, when you were cutting into the upholstery, I noticed that you were wearing an ankle holster. I’m not asking anything, but would you mind if I brought some protection and kept it in my desk out of sight? I have a couple of pistols at home, and I’m pretty handy with them.”

Lee had to think about that. He knew that Navy regulations didn’t tolerate firearms on the base. But it would be good to know someone else would be armed if worst came to worst. “Tim, I can’t officially authorize anything like that. But if it were kept out of sight, it might not be the worst idea in the world. Just be careful.”

“You got it, sir. Just call me when you need me.” Lee noticed that he said “when,” not “if”. He nodded at Tim and said, “Thank you.” Then, as he turned to go back into the office, he spotted Big Billy, still sitting in his car nearby. He smiled. He didn’t feel totally outnumbered any more.

He resolved to call Tony tonight from the BOQ and thank him for the help. Somehow, he didn’t think it would be a good call to make from his government office’s official telephone.

The rest of the work day passed quietly. Lee made arrangements to meet an FBI agent at the front gate after working hours so he could turn over the rifle slug. Then he had a quiet frozen dinner in his BOQ room before settling in to make some calls.

The Skimmers were all on time for the meeting. Marie had already set out the normal pitchers of iced tea, and the group poured a round of tea while they waited for Rick to finish a telephone call and come to the table. When he hung up, he called the meeting to order, announcing that this was a special meeting and the reading of the past minutes was waived. Then he got to the business of the day.

“My friends, I am sure that by now you all know that two of our people are in FBI custody. I doubt very much if they have said anything incriminating, but we are now much more likely to be exposed, so we need to develop a plan of action.” He looked around the table.

Something wasn’t right!

The man to his immediate left had dozed off. So had another man farther down the table. Suddenly the person on his right stood, grasped his throat, started to turn around, and fell face-first to the floor. As Rick stared at the group around him, all of them either went to sleep or fell over. He stood up in confusion.

Only Marie was still awake, and now she was standing with a chrome-plated pistol in her hand. It was pointed at him!

“I’ve waited years for this, you degenerate son of a bitch.” Her voice was calm and pitched so low he had to strain to hear it. “We gave you a chance to be something, but all you could think of was your dick. Every time you’ve touched me, I’ve sworn that I would get even. Now it’s payback time, asshole. This is for every time you ever touched me or any other woman without our permission.”

With that she fired once, hitting him just above the point where his pants legs came together. He screamed and gasped simultaneously, a choking, muffled confusion of sounds. He sagged to a sitting position on the floor, holding his groin with one hand and the table with the other. He was staring wildly at the people around him, looking for help, but they all seemed to be silently sleeping.

Marie laughed merrily at his confusion. “They’re all dead, you idiot. I gave them an easy way out because they weren’t bad people. But I’m going to watch you die slowly, and I’m going to thoroughly enjoy it.”

He tried to cry out, opening his mouth to shout. But she was too fast for him. She hit him in the mouth, hard, with the gun butt. Then she skipped back, out of the range of his arms. His mouth spouted blood and he spat wildly, several white teeth decorating the red stream.

“Don’t try that again, asshole.”

Calmly Marie went about her preparations, keeping an eye on Rick to make sure he wasn’t moving. But he seemed paralyzed by fear. He just sat there, softly moaning and staring at her as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.

Marie gathered the few files that remained on her desk and placed them on a small table beside the door. Then, almost as an afterthought, she went back to her desk and picked up a small, decorative lamp that burned scented oils. She placed it on the small table beside the files and turned up the wick so that it was burning brightly.

Then, walking to a door off the side of the conference room. She opened it, exposing the gas furnace that heated the building. Previously she had turned off the pilot light, so the smell of gas was already apparent in the little heater room. Still watching Rick, she squeezed behind the furnace and placed her foot on the gas connection, where the natural gas fed to the furnace. The connection had already been loosened to the point that it was hanging by just one or two threads. But, instead of unscrewing it, she stomped on it with her foot. The connection broke loose, and the loud hiss of gas escaping could be heard. She smiled and emerged, leaving the door open.

Rick was watching her with pure terror on his countenance. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Those were his last words.

“Bye, asshole.” She shot him in his left eye socket and watched him collapse. Then she turned toward the door. She was starting to smell the gas, even this far from the heater.

She picked up the files from the little table, opened the door, and left the rowhouse for the last time.

Marie drove her car to a parking spot about a block away and stopped. As she patiently waited for the inevitable to happen, she reflected on the efficiency of the little pills that she’d dissolved in the iced tea.
Our KGB friends really do know what they are doing. Glad I’m on their side!

Finally, the old wooden rowhouse exploded, with flames shooting a hundred feet into the evening sky. The shock-wave rocked her car, even this far away.

Well, Marie Novak is gone forever. Long live Marita Novikov.
With a grim smile, Marita put the car in gear and drove on toward Broad Street and the freeway entrance.

“Tony, I do appreciate what you did. It probably saved my life. But I have to admit, it’s a bit difficult to explain to my bosses.” Lee had finally decided that he had to have a conversation with his godfather.

“That’s crap, Lee. They aren’t watching your back, so somebody’s got to do it. Those guys in that shipyard aren’t playing around.”

“I know, Tony. Anyway, I think we have them on the run now. From what I hear, the FBI is getting some good info from the two that Big Billy helped me catch. We should be out of the woods soon.”

“I hope so, but for now I’m going to keep Billy around. He don’t have nothing else to do anyway.”

“Okay. I can’t say that I mind. Somehow it’s comforting to know he’s there these days.” Lee heard a grim chuckle from Tony at that.

“By the way, Tony, somebody took a shot at me with a rifle the other day.”

“What! When and how?”

“In the parking lot at the officer’s club. I think the shot came from a black Mercedes that was about halfway between the main gate and
the ramp where I-95 goes past the Navy yard. He missed by about two inches, but did a hell of a job on my car upholstery.”

“That’s a fairly long shot from there to the parking lot. If I remember right, there’s a bunch of trees and bushes in the way also. No wonder he missed. A rifle, you say?

“Yeah. I got the slug. Looks like a 30-caliber to me.”

“Probably the same gun that got the guy they tried to blame me for. You said it was from a black Mercedes?”

“Yeah, it looked like it. I was having a hard time seeing through the bushes, but it looked like one of those big, four-door Mercedes. It squealed its tires trying to get out of there after the shot.”

Lee heard Tony grunt thoughtfully on the other end of the line. At the same time, he heard the sound of sirens, both outside the BOQ and through the telephone.

“Tony, are you hearing sirens?”

“Yes. A bunch of them. I just saw a fire engine go by heading down Broad Street in your direction.”

“Yeah, must be a big fire. One of the base fire trucks just went screaming out the gate, heading your way.”

“Oh well. Probably no big deal. We’ll read about it in the
Inquirer
tomorrow.” The two chatted idly for a few more minutes before signing off.

Lee’s next call was to Tom Wright, but Tom wasn’t there. He left a message and then dialed Maggie’s number. Her cheerful voice answered, but it was the answering machine, so Lee gave up. Getting out his briefcase, he settled in to read reports, getting a head start on tomorrow’s work.

It was about an hour later that Tom called back. He had nothing to report. “These two seem to be too scared to talk or something. We’ve been working on them for over thirty hours now, and we haven’t gotten any more info than we had yesterday. We’ll keep at it.” Tom sounded exhausted, so Lee thanked him for the call and signed off.

Lee woke early as usual. Putting on his running clothes, he started out again. But this time he ran a new route, going parallel to the base fence in the other direction. Soon he was running past the mothballed Navy ships that sat in the shipyard’s back channel. There was a lot of traffic through here,
since the shipyard workers used the road as a shortcut on their way to work. With all this traffic, he wasn’t particularly worried about another ambush.

On his way back to the BOQ, he stopped at a small stand and bought a newspaper. He folded it up and went to his room for a breakfast of cereal and coffee. As he ate, he idly glanced through the paper for anything about the fire engines that he’d heard the previous night. Finally he found the article he was hunting for and began reading it.

“Oh, my God!” He sat staring at the article, stunned.

FIREFIGHTERS MAKE GRIM DISCOVERY

by

J. Jefferson, Philadelphia Inquirer

The bodies of nine people were found been inside a burning South Philadelphia rowhome yesterday evening. At least one of them had been shot to death, police said. The rowhome exploded, apparently from a gas leak, at approximately 6:38 p.m., causing a four- alarm fire that had firefighters battling to save the neighboring homes. The rowhome in question appears to be a total loss, although quick action by the firefighters stopped the flames before they consumed the entire building. According to a Fire Department spokesman, most of the damage was caused by the initial explosion.