The Second Perimeter (14 page)

S
mith wasn’t happy about Emma and DeMarco accompanying him in the helicopter, but he didn’t have the energy to argue with Emma anymore. He did make it clear to her that she and DeMarco had to stay in the background when they took Carmody. Emma didn’t protest but Smith knew that meant nothing. Emma would do whatever Emma wanted to do. He wondered again what the hell she had on Mary.
On the trip to Vancouver, Emma sat and brooded. She mentioned again to Smith that none of this was making sense. Carmody shouldn’t have crossed an international border where his ID would be examined and possibly recorded, and he sure as hell shouldn’t have checked into a hotel using a credit card in his own name.
“I’m telling you, Bill,” she said, “this guy isn’t stupid or suicidal. You better be damn careful because this could be some sort of setup.”
“Setup for what, Emma?”
“I don’t know,” she said. And after that she didn’t say a word.
DeMarco was enjoying himself. He didn’t like heights, be it standing on an eight-foot stepladder or looking down from the balcony of a twenty-story building. He didn’t like flying in big passenger planes either, particularly in turbulent skies; if the plane hit some sort of stratospheric speed bump, he’d clutch the armrests in a white-knuckled grip for minutes afterward. But the helicopter was different somehow, more like a ride at an amusement park. He liked traveling just a few thousand feet above the ground, zipping over the landscape, the low altitude seeming to exaggerate the speed.
He wasn’t too sure, though, that he liked that the pilot was female. She was a navy lieutenant, tall and slim like Emma, and pretty in a tomboyish way. She was very formal and professional and seemed completely competent— but he still didn’t like that she was a woman. Sexist? Definitely. Illogical? Clearly. Most women he knew were better drivers than the men he knew; women tended not to be hotdogs when they got behind the wheel of a machine, whether the machine was a car, an airplane, or a golf cart. Still…
It also bothered him that he had to wear a funny little helmet with big ear-guards. He knew he looked goofy in it— he knew this because Smith looked
really
goofy in his. He didn’t know why he had to wear the helmet in the first place; it sure as hell wouldn’t keep him alive if the lady pilot steered the helicopter into a mountain. When he asked Emma the purpose of the headwear, she ignored him. He noticed Emma didn’t look as silly in her helmet; she looked like a cranky Amelia Earhart.
The helicopter dropped them off near the freight terminal at the Vancouver airport. DeMarco thanked the helicopter pilot for the great ride as he was disembarking. She responded with a curt nod and a formal “Thank you, sir,” then she winked at him. Whoa!
Two RCMP cars were waiting for them, and standing near one of the cars was a short man in a blue suit. He had wavy blond hair and an ultra-manly chin. This had to be Dudley, though Smith introduced the man as Chief Superintendent Robert Morton, Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
“He’s still in his room,” Morton said to Smith. “He’s made no calls nor has he received any. He’s just sitting there, reading.”
“You got a camera in his room already?” Smith said.
Morton nodded. “We drilled through the wall of the adjoining room twenty minutes after we located him and put a fiber-optic camera in place.”
They arrived at the Hyatt, took the elevator up to Carmody’s floor, and entered the hotel room adjacent to his. The room was occupied by a SWAT team, four big men wearing body armor and helmets with plastic face shields. Automatic pistols and flash-bang grenades hung from their webbing, and three of them carried short-barreled weapons that looked to DeMarco like sawed-off shotguns. The fourth man was holding a piece of pipe that was about four feet long and three inches in diameter. The pipe had a plate welded to one end and handles welded on top. A door knocker, DeMarco assumed.
Also seated in the room, practically hidden by the SWAT team, was a bald man wearing headphones and looking at a small black-and-white television. DeMarco looked at the screen. Carmody was lying on the bed, reading a paperback.
“What are you men doing here?” Morton said to the SWAT team commander.
“We were told you planned to arrest a spy, sir. We’re here to assist.”
“The man hasn’t committed a crime,” Morton said, “at least not one we’re aware of. All he’s done is cross the border.”
“So you’re not going to arrest him?” the SWAT boss said. He sounded disappointed. He and his guys probably hadn’t kicked down a door in weeks. This was Vancouver, not LA.
Ignoring the SWAT team, Morton turned to the man with the headphones who was monitoring the television. “Have you seen any sign of a weapon, Mr. Taylor?” Morton said.
“No, sir,” Taylor said.
“Thank you, Mr. Taylor,” Morton said. DeMarco loved Morton’s manners.
“So do you want us to get him?” the SWAT commander said.
Morton glanced down at the door knocker, then raised his eyes to the SWAT team leader. “No, Sergeant, I don’t want to have to pay the owners of this establishment for a new door. I’m going to knock on Mr. Carmody’s door and tell him that I would appreciate it if he would accompany me to headquarters. Patrolman Janzing will assist me. Your men can stand by and if Mr. Taylor informs you that Carmody has pulled out a machine gun, then you can have your fun. Come along, Janzing.”
DeMarco heard Morton knock on the door to Carmody’s room and watched Carmody’s reaction on the surveillance monitor. Carmody didn’t jerk in surprise or spin his head about looking for a nonexistent back door to the room. He didn’t do anything to indicate he might be a man on the run. He lay there motionless for a moment looking at the door and when Morton knocked a second time, he calmly placed the book he had been reading on the nightstand, rose from the bed, and walked slowly to the door and opened it.
“Yes?” Carmody said to Morton. DeMarco saw him glance over Morton’s head, at Patrolman Janzing who was standing behind Morton. Janzing had his right hand on his holstered gun.
Morton held up his identification. “I’m Chief Superintendent Morton, Mr. Carmody. RCMP. And I would like you to come with me please.”
Carmody stood there silently for a moment. If he was worried at all, DeMarco couldn’t see it.
“Why?” Carmody said.
“Two of your associates have been killed, as I’m sure you know. A Mr. Mulherin and a Mr. Norton. The Americans have asked us to detain you.”
“And if I refuse to go with you?” Carmody said.
“I’m afraid I’d have to insist,” Morton said.
Carmody smiled at Morton’s response; so did DeMarco. “Let me put my shoes on,” Carmody said.
“This just isn’t right,” Emma muttered.

* * *

HEADQUARTERS FOR THE
Royal Canadian Mounted Police for the province of British Columbia is in an unobtrusive six-building complex in a quiet residential area near Queen Elizabeth Park. The largest building is a long, low, sand-colored rectangular box, in appearance not unlike the elementary school directly across the street. DeMarco was guessing, however, that the grade school didn’t have an interrogation room with a one-way mirror.
Emma and DeMarco watched as Carmody was led into the room by a uniformed cop. Smith and Morton were already in the room, seated side by side at a small table. There was an old-fashioned two-reel tape recorder in the middle of the table.
“Please sit down, Mr. Carmody,” Morton said.
Before sitting, Carmody looked slowly around the interrogation room, then looked directly at the mirror and nodded as if acknowledging whoever was on the other side watching.
There was something about Carmody’s attitude that bothered DeMarco. For most citizens, a police interrogation was an unsettling experience and people either acted outraged because they’ve been detained or fearful because they might be incarcerated for something that they had or had not done. But not Carmody. He reminded DeMarco of a man sitting at a low-stakes blackjack table, a guy just killing some time, not particularly caring if he wins or loses. If he was any more relaxed he’d be whistling.
“Mr. Carmody,” Morton said, “we wanted to talk to you because—”
“Can I have a cigarette?” Carmody said.
“No,” Smith said.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Carmody,” Morton said, “but neither Bill nor I smoke. I’ll call out for one of the lads to bring you some cigarettes shortly.”
DeMarco smiled. He really got a kick out of Morton.
“This is Mr. Smith,” Morton said, gesturing toward Smith. “He represents—”
“We were stealing classified information from the shipyard and selling it,” Carmody said to Smith. Carmody had figured out without being told that Smith worked for the U.S. government. “I’ll tell you exactly what we took, how we did it, and I’ll give you my control. In return, I want immunity.”
Carmody made the admission casually— he could have been talking about last night’s box score— and both Smith and Morton sat back in their chairs, momentarily stunned.
“What in the hell is he doing?” Emma said.
“What?” DeMarco said.
They were both whispering, afraid their voices would be heard in the interrogation room.
“Why is he confessing?” Emma hissed. “We don’t have anything solid against him. We don’t have anything at all. What in the hell’s he doing?” Emma said again.
On the other side of the mirror, Smith had recovered from the shock of Carmody’s opening statement and now screamed, “Immunity! You’re out of your mind!”
“I don’t think so,” Carmody said. “If I don’t tell you what we took, the navy will never know how badly it’s been compromised. And if I don’t tell you how we did it, you’ll spend thousands of man-hours trying to figure it out, disrupting the hell out of shipyard operations. So I’ll save the navy lots of time and money by telling you everything. And I’ll give you at least one spy: my control. But I want immunity— and a cigarette.”
Smith was silent for a moment as he studied Carmody. “Has it occurred to you, Carmody,” he said, “that we just might
make
you talk? Defendants’ rights, when it comes to national security, have changed in the last few years.”
Carmody nodded his head. “Yeah, I suppose you could do that. But you’re working against a time limit here, even if you don’t know it, and I think a lot of time will have passed before you make me talk. I’ve also contacted a lawyer— an ACLU bitch whose blood boils whenever she hears the words ‘Patriot Act.’ I’ve told her that if she doesn’t hear from me every twenty-four hours, she’s to go to the press and tell them how an American citizen— a decorated veteran— has been disappeared by his own government.”
“He’s lying,” Emma muttered.
“You’re lying,” Smith said.
Carmody shrugged.
“Who are you working for?” Smith said.
“Immunity?” Carmody said.
“Maybe,” Smith said. “But first I want to know who you’re working for.”
“The North Koreans. And that’s all you get until I get what I want.”

T
he senior FBI guy was big— offensive-tackle big— and he was mad. His name was Glen Harris. He was six six, two fifty when he watched his diet, and had hands big enough to palm a basketball. His brown hair was a Bureau-approved length, his mustache neatly trimmed, and his jaw was clenched so tight that he was having a hard time speaking.
In the room with Harris were Diane Carlucci and Darren Thayer, the two young FBI agents who had been in Bremerton; Richard Miller, head of shipyard security; and two NCIS agents— the same two who had been at the briefing the Bremerton chief of police had held after apprehending Dave Whitfield’s supposed killer. Also present were Bill Smith, Emma, DeMarco, and Chief Superintendent Morton of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. It was a large crowd and they were all seated around an oval-shaped table in one of the RCMP’s conference rooms.
“You know goddamn good and well, Smith,” Harris was saying, “that you have no jurisdiction in this thing. The DIA doesn’t arrest spies, particularly spies operating in the United States. You should have called us the minute you had a lead on Carmody, and you damn well know it.”
“Time was of the essence,” Smith said.
“Bullshit!” Harris screamed. “All it would have taken was a damn phone call. This whole thing’s an organizational cluster fuck and I’m tired of it. Like you guys, what in the hell do you think you’re doing here?” he said, pointing at the NCIS agents.
“What do you mean, what are we doing here?” one of the NCIS agents said. “We’re talking about navy security. We have to know—”
“But you have no jurisdiction at this point. Have you got that?”
“Yeah,” the NCIS guy said, “but—”
“And you,” Harris said, pointing at Emma, “you’re retired, for Christ’s sake.” Emma gave him back a blank stare. “And you,” he said, now pointing at DeMarco, “as near as I can tell you’re some kinda political gunslinger. Nobody can figure out what you do or who you work for. I called Washington and told ’em I wanted both your asses shipped out of here, ASAP, and the next thing I know the Speaker of the House is talking to the director. The Speaker! I don’t know why you people have so much pull, but I’m telling you that from this point forward, this is a Bureau operation. Have you all got that?”
Diane Carlucci was sitting off to Harris’s right as he ranted, eyes downcast, trying not to make eye contact with DeMarco— and trying not to smile.
“Calm down, Glen, before you have a stroke,” Smith said. “We all agree it’s your show from here on in. Okay?”
But Harris wasn’t through. “This is the kinda shit the 9-11 Commission was trying to put a stop to. Federal agencies stepping all over each other, not sharin’ information, grandstanding to get the credit. And Jesus Christ, Smith, immunity! You didn’t have the authority to promise him immunity.”
Smith shrugged. “I told him we’d give him immunity to get him to talk. And you’re right, I don’t have the authority. So later on if you decide not to give him immunity, you can tell him that.”
Harris started to respond, then thought about what Smith had said. “Yeah, maybe so,” he muttered. But he wasn’t through yet. “And why can’t we move this guy back to the States?” Harris asked Morton.
“You can if you wish, Mr. Harris,” Morton said calmly. “It makes no difference to me. But I will point out that Mr. Carmody said that if he was extradited, he might be less forthcoming.”
Harris shook his head. “Jesus, what a mess.”
No one in the room responded. “Okay,” Harris said after a moment. “I’m gonna bring this guy in and have him give us a statement. I could kick all of you out of the room but you’d just go call your bosses and bitch, so I’m gonna let you sit in on this. For the moment.
I’ll ask the questions, and you will all sit there and be quiet. Are we clear?”
Everybody nodded— except Emma.