My Spy (32 page)

He took the phone, planning how to put the best spin on what had just happened.

“McKade, is that you?”

Sam moved outside so he wouldn't wake Annie. “Right here, sir.”

“What the hell's going on there?” the older man barked. “First I hear about problems with fire alarms and overflowing hot tubs, and now there's an attack on Ms. O'Toole. Has there been an infiltration at the resort?”

“No, sir. The attack was unrelated to my presence here. The man in question appears to have a personal grudge against Ms. O'Toole.”

“She's not hurt, is she?”

“Some bruises and a nasty cut. But she's tough.”

“The bastard should be keelhauled.” The admiral cleared his throat. “No one has discovered your presence there, I hope.”

Only because Annie had been smart and resourceful. He'd been a witless fool to leave his wallet.

And Annie had paid for his mistake.

Sam took a sharp breath. “No one, sir. I understand the staff are taking bets as to whether I'm Harrison Ford or Brad Pitt, in physical training for a new movie.”

“She handles them, does she?”

“She's not saying.”

“Closemouthed. That's good. McKade, I'm taking a lot of heat for keeping a lid on this thing, and you might have to move at short notice. I've done everything possible to plug the usual sources here, so if anyone talks, it's at your end.”

Sam hoped it was true, but he also knew that the military's bureaucracy could be a big, unfriendly place. “I'll keep that in mind, sir.”

A chair creaked. Sam had a sudden image of Admiral Howe in a cozy study, surrounded by pictures of his family and all the presidents he'd served under. Sam realized that he'd been a guest in that study on a number of occasions. He stiffened at another memory.

A quiet afternoon. A muddy free-for-all on a huge lawn that stretched down to a sleepy river. He remembered cheering, the smell of burning leaves and cigar smoke. Sam's eyes narrowed as he pictured the admiral hunched over an antique desk, puffing on his third cigar of the night, leaving the room veiled in smoke.

Then suddenly there was more.

“McKade, you still there?”

Sam gripped the phone, willing the blurred images to slide into focus.

He heard shouting and laughter. The sound of crunching leaves. Then wild cheering.

“McKade? What's going on?”

Sam was sweating now, his pulse fast and hammering. “I'm remembering something. Mud, sir. Cheering. It feels like fall. Maybe.” Sam dug for answers. He prayed and sweated and searched through the shattered debris that was his memory.

Nothing. Another wall.

“I can't see. It might have to do with the number sixteen, sir, but I don't know why.” Sam laughed grimly. “And this makes me sound like a kook.”

“I want to hear about anything you remember, no matter how small.” The admiral cleared his throat. “I'll run it past the people here and see if anything clicks. What about the accident?”

“Noise. Screaming.” Sam looked out the big window at the blackness of the sea. “Pain.”

The admiral's chair creaked. “McKade, I'm going to give this to you straight. There's a lot riding on this and some key people here are pushing for medical intervention.”

“I'm not following you, sir.”

“
Drugs
, damn it. Pentothal or worse. I've been fighting this, but I can only hold out so long. I thought you should know,” he said gruffly.

So now they wanted to reach inside his head and pick through the shattered fragments of his memory. Sam bit down a wave of fury. “I appreciate the notice, sir. I'll let you know as soon as anything else surfaces.”

“I know you will. If all else fails, I'll simply take off for my annual Alaskan hunting trip a little early. Let them try to catch me in the middle of Kodiak bear country.”

Sam smiled. It was good to have a power player watching his six o'clock.

“I'd better go before my wife catches me with another cigar. She swears she's going to banish me to the guesthouse if I don't cut down and my son's almost as difficult. Amanda's been asking after you, by the way. She pesters me for news every day since that damned television extravaganza. I told her you were in Bethesda, recuperating. We sent you flowers, and you answered with a cordial note, by the way.”

Sam grinned. “I did, did I?”

“Short but to the point. Peter says hello, too.”

“Peter?”

“My older son. He got a promotion last week.”

“Congratulations, sir. You must be very proud.” Sam frowned. As hard as he tried, he couldn't summon up a memory of any of the Howe family, but he remembered their big house and the cool grass near the river.

He heard a car horn at the other end of the wire.

“I'd better go. Peter is determined to chauffeur me to another doctor. Something about my eyes. Why can't they let a man grow old in peace?”

Sam heard another blast of the car horn. “Give 'em hell, sir.”

“Count on it.”

Izzy was standing at the door when Sam put down the phone. “Good news or bad?” he asked.

“I remembered something.” Sam frowned. “
Almost
remembered, at least. It had something to do with the number sixteen. The admiral's people are checking it out.”

“Anything else I can do to help?”

Sam rubbed his neck. “A week in Tahiti would be pleasant.”

“Not in the budget, ace.”

“Then I guess I'll just sit here and watch Annie sleep.”

Izzy grinned. “Almost as relaxing as Tahiti. She's damned brave, you know.”

“I know,” Sam said tightly.

“Good.” Izzy nodded and headed to the door. “If you need me, I'll be out in the courtyard keeping an eye on anything that moves.”

R
USH
HOUR
ON
A THURSDAY
AFTERNOON.

Washington's Old Post Office complex, now converted to 35 upscale shops and an impressive food court, was packed. Two medical conventions were in town and their ranks were well represented in the airy Romanesque building on the corner of Eleventh Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. A class of fourth graders from a local District of Columbia school was holding an art exhibition on the plaza level and a trio of young jazz musicians entertained shoppers at the entrance to the food court.

Good targets
, he thought.

He clicked off the shots and imagined the immediate chaos. The scenarios were satisfying. He'd have his escape routes if he needed them.

He already knew where the employee lockers were, of course. He'd committed every detail of the building's structure to memory, down to fire alarms, help desk and restrooms.

His contacts had insisted on that. Everything had to be checked out completely before he tried the key.

Now he sat at the edge of the food court, holding a paper he only pretended to read and a glass of wine he only pretended to sip. He'd circulated through the building for three hours, waiting for the warning sense of faces seen once too often, but there had been none.

He sat holding his wine, reviewing his careful instructions and forcing himself to wait. When the afternoon crowds were at their peak, he folded his paper neatly, tossed his plastic glass into the nearby trash bin, and strolled toward the jazz trio near the stairs.

When he slipped past, brushing them slightly, none of the musicians noticed anything unusual.

By the time they did, it would be too late.

“R
AY,
YOU
HAVE
A
CLEAR
LINE
OF SIGHT
?”

“All clear, Bishop. No one near the lockers. No one near the outside corridor, either.” Crouched inside two specially connected lockers, the federal agent wiped sweat off his neck. “Good thing, too, because this place is as packed as Times Square on New Year's Eve. You know you can rent this place? It'll only set you back twelve large.”

“More than an honest civil servant like me can afford.”

“You sure that intel was solid, sir?” Ray sounded edgy.

“It was solid.” Bishop, the operation head, stood at a French pastry shop. Dressed in a crisp white jacket, he watched every movement on the floor in front of him. He didn't know why their target was so damned important, only that there were others involved, and the others were higher up the food chain. “He'll be here. No more chatter,” he added curtly.

The jazz musicians were swaying, straining to reach that perfect chord while bystanders tossed dollar bills into an open guitar case. There was no need, of course. They had been hired for a substantial fee and tipping was unnecessary.

But some habits die hard.

Bishop saw movement the same second his lapel microphone began to squawk.

Shit.

“Ray, are you clear?”

“All clear, Bishop. What's the—”

“Stand by,” he interrupted curtly. What the hell was a SWAT team doing at the back entrance, loaded for bear? And why the hell hadn't he been notified of a situation in progress under his damned nose?

Interdepartmental rivalry, of course. Sheer bureaucratic incompetence, too. But now he needed
answers
, not incompetence.

“Kelly, report,” he snapped.

“Movement in the loading area. Damned if that's not a SWAT van.” The agent on the roof breathed sharply as if trying to find a better vantage point.

“Stay low, Kelly. Repeat, stay low. I don't want you made for a hostile target.” Bishop was sweating now, aware of the consequences of failure and furious at the thought of hours of careful planning going up in smoke. He fingered the comm unit inside his white jacket and spoke quietly. “Dade, this is Bishop. Patch me through to whoever is running that damned SWAT op.”

“Roger, sir.”

But the connection was interrupted. “Ray, here. We have motion at the stairs. Appears to be one man.” The agent sounded edgier than ever.

“Kelly, notify SWAT team that we are mobile. All officers engage, locker corridor.”

The music suddenly stopped. The bystanders fell into a hush. A dozen black-clad SWAT officers in tactical body armor swarmed through the room, wrestling the musicians to the ground and kicking their instruments aside.

Bishop was on the run.

Why the SWAT team
now?

“Report contact at lockers.” Ray's voice was tight. “Going out.”

Bishop heard the metal door bang open and Ray yelling, “Freeze!”

A
boom
roared through the line. Bishop, already at the mouth of the corridor, grabbed reflexively at his earpiece. “Ray, do you read?”

No answer.

Downstairs the tourists began to scream as they realized a SWAT team had deployed around them with weapons drawn.

Nice move, you bastard. There will be a stampede in here shortly, and you'll blend in, just another face in the crowd.

The screams from the plaza level rang in John Bishop's ears as he caught up with the other team members. Ray was sprawled next to the open locker. The floor was red where he'd fallen. “Suspect is on the run.
I want him alive.”

Bishop's hands wrapped around his service pistol as he sank down beside Carlos Ray's motionless body in its darkening red pool, fighting his grief at the sight of a good man down.

“Report,” he snapped.

His earpiece squawked. “Kelly, sir. I apprehended the target at the service elevators.”

“On the move,” Bishop said curtly. It took him less than thirty seconds to reach the elevators.

Kelly was cuffing a man facedown against the floor.

Bishop nodded to his agent, who pulled the suspect to his feet. He had to fight an urge to take blood for blood.

“I want a lawyer.”

Bishop recognized the man from the delivery van instantly, but gave no sign of it. He motioned to another agent, who read the suspect his rights with harsh, barely controlled anger.

Bishop turned away while the murderer demanded a lawyer again. Bishop was putting it all together now. The SWAT call had been a diversionary tactic, a carefully timed anonymous tip—apparently having to do with the musicians in the food court. Just the sort of thing to set up panic among D.C. law enforcement.

He looked down at Carlos Ray, at the blood soaking his shirt from his head wound, then put away the emotions until he had the luxury of mourning a man he'd considered one of his closest friends. Right now he had a job to do.

This was one interrogation Bishop wanted in on. He wanted
to lean hard, then lean again, and he swore he wouldn't stop until he'd squeezed out every useful piece of information.

Not that it would bring back his friend.

The suspect was still shouting for a lawyer when Bishop motioned to one of his agents. “Take him out the front way.”

“Sir?”

“The front, I said. And don't rush. They'll have someone in place, watching the building.”

Too bad they hadn't gotten any higher up the food chain with this op. Letting the suspect leave the apartment in Virginia had been a calculated plan, but despite all their surveillance, the man had been damned careful never to make contact with his handlers.

The one phone call in the nightclub had come out of the blue. The surveillance team hadn't been able to make a trace in time.