Liars & Thieves (7 page)

I had been the unexpected glitch, the witness who sees too much and doesn’t drop dead on command.

It seemed logical to assume that one of the killers must have given the license plate number from my car to that someone in the agency or the FBI, and that person had decided to frame me. Or permanently shut me up.

Or, more than likely, do both. If you’ve murdered eight or ten people to hide guilty secrets, what’s one or two more?

Sitting in an FBI office in Staunton jabbering into a tape recorder didn’t appeal to me much, not while there were still bad guys running around with silenced MP-5s.

I put the cell phone back in my pocket and went back to the pay phones. My next call was to my lock shop partner, Willie the Wire. I dialed his cell number and got him on the third ring.

“Hey, man, I need some help.”

“I’ve been telling you that for years and you still haven’t been to see a shrink.”

“A woman ripped off my wheels. I don’t want to call the cops, but I want the Mercedes back. Don’t you have a friend who works for Lojack?” Lojack was an antitheft system that allowed the police to locate stolen cars. I had had a Lojack beacon installed in my car when I acquired it.

“Yeah. Been a while since I talked to him, so I don’t know if he’s still working there.”

“Give him a call, will ya? Tell him I need to find the car and don’t want the police notified. A lover’s spat. See if he can turn on the beacon and get a location.”

“Ain’t nobody love you, Carmellini.”

“A lot you know. I’ve got hot women stashed in cities and towns, villages and farms, all across the length and breath of this great land.”

“Right! Washington, you think?”

“Somewhere in the suburbs, I’ll bet. Her name is Kelly Erlanger.” I spelled it for him. “The spelling is just a guess. See if she’s in the telephone book.”

“Okay.”

“One more thing. Today sorta went sour. The FBI is looking for me. If they show up at the shop we haven’t had this conversation and you have no idea where I am.”

A low, dry chuckle. “What the hell you been into now, Tommy?”

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you. As you know, I live a quiet, holy life, studying the scriptures and praying. My cell phone is off. I’ll call you this evening from a pay phone.”

“Luck, fella.”

My cell phone felt heavy in my pocket. I had it off so the feds couldn’t use the cellular network to locate it, once they figured out who I was and learned my cell phone number. Once the phone was turned on, it only took a few seconds for the phone to log on to the network, and then they would have me. With the power switch off, the telephone should be unable to talk to a network if queried. Theoretically. But with the techno-wizards marching bravely on to God knows where, who the hell knew? I ditched the phone in the trash can by the main entrance of Wal-Mart.

Now to get to Washington. There was a car dealership a few hundred yards from where I stood, so I walked over and inquired about renting a car.

An hour later I was on the way to Washington in a four-year-old sedan with seventy grand on the odometer that a local entrepreneur brought to the front door of the dealership. The only cool thing about the car was the bumper sticker: FREE THE FRENCH— whack Chirac!

Thank heavens the wipers worked—the misty drizzle had turned to rain again.

What a crummy day!

The miles flew by as I zipped north on 1-81. Before I knew it, I was at the turnoff for 1-66, which would take me into Washington’s western suburbs. A few miles later I got off the interstate at the Front Royal exit and went south about a hundred yards to the McDonald’s. There was a pay phone on a low mount beside the parking lot. Although the telephone book attached to it with a woven wire was ripped to shreds, I got a dial tone when I lifted the receiver. I went into the McDonald’s and traded a five-dollar bill for more quarters.

Willie answered on the second ring.

“Hey, pal. It’s me.”

“They were here. Three of them came in about a half hour ago. Said you were wanted on a material witness warrant.”

“FBI?”

“Yeah. They wanted to search, but I wouldn’t let ‘em. They’ll probably be back with a warrant in a little while.”

There was nothing in the shop that I didn’t want the law to see, so that news didn’t worry me.

“What about the woman, Kelly Erlanger?”

“She’s got an unlisted number.” He read me the number and address. “Better hope the car is there. My friend at Lojack is out sick. I called his house, and his old lady says the son of a bitch is shacked up someplace or on a roaring drunk—she hasn’t seen him in two days.”

“How’d you come up with Kelly’s address?”

“Got a friend’s wife who works at the telephone company.”

Willie’s circle of friends and acquaintances never ceased to amaze me. “Where in hell did you meet all these people?”

“I met this woman’s old man in the joint, which is where you’re gonna wind up if you ain’t real careful.”

“I’ve heard that song before. Can even hum it.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re into today, Tommy, but these were heavy federal dudes on a mission, not desk jockeys doin’ some damn background investigation. I figure they’ll have a tap on this line within an hour.”

“Thanks, Willie. I’ll be talking to you.”

Oh, boy. If the FBI was a bit quicker than Willie estimated, they now had Kelly’s number and home address.

I needed money. I figured that the FBI would take a few hours to freeze my bank accounts, so I had better get some walking-around money fast. The convenience store next to McDonald’s had an ATM sign on its pole, so I went in and tagged it for three hundred from my checking account. I also bought a Coke and a bag of jerky.

Rolling toward Washington, I tried to put everything in perspective.

The FBI! How did they get into this mess so quick?

Why did Kelly Erlanger steal my car and jackrabbit?

Who wanted all those people at the safe house dead? Russians, probably. If Erlanger was telling the truth, of course the Russians wanted their ex-archivist dead and the file copies destroyed. But those shooters this morning weren’t Russians—I would bet my life on that.

***

Mikhail Goncharov found the cabin by the river well after sunset, just before the onset of total darkness. He was staggering along beside a creek when he came to the culvert and the road. Beyond the road was a river.

He was desperately cold, his clothes sodden from the rain, so cold he was near the point of collapse.

He wasn’t thinking anymore, just walking, trying to stay upright.

Standing on the road as the last of the twilight faded, he couldn’t even see which way the river was flowing. Didn’t matter, really. Upriver or down, there was really no difference. Without conscious thought he turned right because he was right-handed and walked along the road.

Goncharov hadn’t gone far when he found a road leading off to his right, away from the river. He followed it. A hundred yards along he found a cabin. There were no lights, no car in the parking area.

Summoning the last of his strength, he climbed the three steps to the porch, tried the door. Locked. With a padlock.

The mind of the archivist began to work again. If he didn’t get shelter and warmth, he would die of exposure tonight.

There was a woodpile beside the cabin. He used a billet of wood as a hammer on the padlock. He ran splinters into his hand, but after an eternity of pounding the hasp tore loose from the wooden door.

Feeling his way around inside the cabin, he found a bed with blankets, one of which he wrapped around him. Further exploration revealed an iron stove in the middle of the single room. Fumbling in the dark, he found matches, newspapers, and wood.

Somehow he managed to get a fire going in the stove, then fed in wood until the stove would hold no more. As the stove crackled and popped and warmth spread in the darkness, Mikhail Goncharov pulled the blanket tightly around him and sank into the nearest chair.

He couldn’t sleep. The scenes ran back and forth through his mind — fire, shots, blood, his wife’s face frozen in death, faces from his past, the files, the fear … the terror!

***

Under the overcast the night became very dark. The rain stopped, finally. Occasionally cars and trucks drenched my windshield with road spray, so I kept busy fiddling with the wipers while I tried to figure out what in hell I should do next.

I didn’t like being in this predicament. Sure, before I got blackmailed into joining the CIA I spent a few years outwitting the law, but I was always meticulously prepared before I made my first move. I had never been a fugitive.

Funny how a man’s life goes. If my partner in that big diamond heist hadn’t got busted and finked on me, I might still be in the business. I will never forget the day that a CIA recruiter buttonholed me after class and suggested we have lunch in the student cafeteria. I was only a month away from graduating from Stanford Law School. She asked about my postgraduation plans, sounded so innocent. After I finished blowing air she remarked that a prosecution for stealing the Peabody diamond from the Museum of Natural History in Washington might give any law firm interested in me food for thought. Naturally, as the conversation progressed, the CIA became my number-one job choice.

Now I was legit as a postal clerk, right smack-dab in the middle of the great American middle class, accoutered with credit cards, debts, a savings account, and a green paycheck every month. Yet on this miserable wet July night, this loyal, paper-pushing government employee was dodging the law as if he had never been persuaded to add his name to the civil service payroll. Ah, me . . .

I didn’t have a map of northern Virginia in the car, so I stopped at a convenience store in Manassas and purchased one. Thirty minutes later I was cruising a subdivision in Burke, Virginia, looking for my car.

There it sat, red and dirty, in the driveway of Erlanger’s house.

I drove past and looked the neighborhood over. It was a newer suburb, with twisty streets with cutesy names that were all deadends and small two-story houses painted earth tones. Judging from the size of the decorator trees, the subdivision was perhaps three years old. Every house had a garage and driveway—no cars parked on the street. Lots of streetlights, fenced backyards for dogs and tots.

If the FBI was also onto Erlanger, they were here, somewhere, watching and waiting for me. Even if they hadn’t yet learned that she had survived the massacre that morning, if they had the telephone line to the lock shop tapped, they were here or on their way.

I didn’t see anyone in any of the cars.

They might be waiting in Erlanger’s house.

Only one way to find out. I parked in her driveway beside my car. The MP-5 was just visible behind the seat of the old Mercedes. The driver’s door was locked.

But not the passenger door!

The electric door lock was broken, had been for months—the passenger door had to be locked manually. Obviously Erlanger hadn’t checked the passenger door after she pushed the button.

I kept a spare key in a magnetic box under the driver’s seat. I was sorely tempted to jump in the Benz and boogie. With the key in hand, I stood beside the car for a few seconds thinking about it.

Kelly Erlanger was a ditz—stealing my car proved that. The last thing I wanted to do was play white knight to some dingdong airhead who thought I might be a hit man.

I could always call the guy in Staunton and tell him where his heap was, mail him the key.

Of course, the guys who smacked all those people this morning were still running around loose, and the people who sent them were going to get aggravated at me before too long.

The light was on in Erlanger’s living room. I saw no heads looking out. The daffy broad was probably calling the damned cops.

I muttered a four-letter word that I thought summarized the situation and transferred the submachine gun to the rental heap. My clothes and some burglary tools were in the trunk of the Benz, so I transferred them, too. God knew when I’d see this heap again—and the Benz was completely paid for. I spotted my emergency roll of duct tape, pocketed that. I closed the Benz’s trunk, made sure it latched, then selected a pick as I walked up to her front door.

I could hear something going on in there—music or a voice.

Five dollars against a doughnut she was talking to the 911 operator.

I twisted the knob on her door, made sure it was locked, then inserted the pick.

The thought occurred to me that I was going to be in big, big trouble if she had a gun. She had struck me as a politically correct academic, which meant feminist, pro-life, anti-gun, and all the rest of the chorus, but what the hell, these days you never knew. Maybe she carried a shooter in her purse just in case. Please God, don’t let her shoot me!

I raked the pick while maintaining pressure on the knob. I felt one of the tumblers go up. I raked the pick savagely, releasing and reapplying subtle pressure to the knob, trying to make all the tumblers pop up at once and catch them there.

After six or eight rakes, the door opened. Yes!

She was on the phone, staring at me wild-eyed, screaming, “He’s coming through the door now!” I must have been a fearsome sight—it had been a long day and I had seen too many dead people, some of whom I killed myself.

I bounded across the room and popped her once on the jaw before she had time to rabbit. She went down like a sack of potatoes.

The suitcase full of paper was right there on the floor by the coffee table. She had been going through the contents when I showed up.

I shoved everything into the suitcase and tried to close it. Had to put it on the floor and use a knee on it to get the latches snapped. Then I threw her over my shoulder. Out on the porch I put the suitcase down and closed the door until it latched. I must not have been thinking too clearly, because I took the time to wipe off the doorknob. As if they didn’t know who I was.

The suitcase went in the trunk of the heap. She went in the passenger seat.