The Third Coincidence (6 page)

chapter 9

“Apparently, Jack McCall was the choice of only one person: President Schroeder.”

—Fox News, June 7

Colin Stewart left Defense Intelligence for the day, and stopped at the Best Way Supermarket. A raven landing on a grocery cart left in front of his parking space. The bird looked right at him, chirped, and flew directly over his head, rising fast until catching a support- ing thermal that allowed the black bird to soar effortlessly. This act by the raven was an ancient Gaelic sign indicating that his life would soon turn in a new direction.

The supermarket’s double doors whooshed open automatically, revealing an attractive woman of about thirty-five tugging a grocery cart free from its row. She wore tight black shorts and had her straw- berry-blonde hair back in a ponytail. She glanced at him and smiled before turning her cart up the first aisle. He saw her again in the pro- duce section and again they exchanged smiles. Later, in the vitamin section, he went up to her.

“Will you please stop following me?”

She placed the palm of her open hand on the chest of her yel- low jersey and blinked innocently. “If anyone is being followed, sir, it is I.” Her laughter gently moved her.

When Colin introduced himself, she extended her hand. “Nora Burke. It’s nice to meet you, Colin Stewart.”

the third coincidence 39

“After we check out, will you join me for a cup of coffee?”

“I’d planned to go home to eat and watch the rest of the Dodgers and Diamondbacks game.” She grinned.

“We do need time to figure out just who’s following whom,” Colin explained. “Join me across the street at the sports bar. I’ll have them put your game on one of their televisions. They also serve food.”

She leaned on the side of his grocery cart and looked at its con- tents. “It appears you eat most of your meals out, Mr. Stewart.”

“The six boxes of cereal gave me away, eh?” They laughed. “Are you ready?”

She released her hair from its ponytail and shook her head. “I still need a few things. I’ll meet you across the street.”

Maybe there was some truth to the old story of the raven.

The sun had climbed just above the horizon when Colin returned to his apartment to shower and change before reporting to the base. Still holding last night’s groceries, the cell phone on his belt rang. He dropped the two bags on the counter, and opened his phone to hear Jack McCall’s voice.

“I need to see you in two hours at the CIA,” Jack said.

Colin flipped a box of cereal in the air, caught it, and put it in the cabinet. “I’ll need to clear it with DOD.”

“Taken care of. The president spoke with General Crook.” “The president?” Colin set two more boxes of cereal on the shelf. “Yep. This time we’re working directly for our commander in

chief. Keep it under your hat. No one else in military intel knows about this yet.”

“What’s up?”

“Let’s plow that ground later. I need to call Millet. We’ll go see him together.”

“Jack?”

“What?”

40 David M. Bishop

“I’m glad we’ll be working together again,” Colin said.

After their adventures in Kuwait, and being along with Jack on the operation in which Jack’s brother, Nick, had been killed, Colin knew that working with Jack meant cliffhanging excitement and plenty of it.

chapter 10

“One minute the story is that McCall will have a small, quick force, then talk circulates about a new heavily staffed department being assembled within the CIA.”

—MSNBC, June 7

“What the hell does he want?” Harry Mandrake demanded after his secretary told him that FBI Director Fred Hampton was on the phone.

“It is true I’ve achieved the high office of secretary to Washing- ton, D.C.’s chief of police,” she replied, “but you don’t figure the FBI director explained his purpose to me, do you, Chief?”

Mandrake admired his secretary’s competence, but she was a wiseacre. “Put him through,” he said before straightening his com- puter keyboard and picking up the phone.

“Chief Mandrake.”

“Good morning, Chief, Fred Hampton here. Can you meet me for coffee? It’s urgent.”

“It always is with you feds. I feel like a cheap date. You only call when you’re already excited. Where?”

“The Bakery Café. Sixth and Indiana. I’m half way there, talking to you on my cell.”

Chief Mandrake removed his coat from a hanger suspended on the coat tree along the side wall, used his off hand to take the swing out of the now unoccupied hanger, and headed out the door of his fifth floor office in the Henry J. Daly building.

42 David M. Bishop

At the café, he found Hampton sitting at a corner table. “Hello, Chief,” Hampton said, his perfunctory smile containing

no joy. “It’s good of you to come on such short notice.”

“Good morning, Fred. I delayed another meeting, so let’s get to it.” Mandrake sat across from Hampton, then took a moment to straighten the plastic spoon on the paper napkin in front of him.

The waiter brought two coffees. The thin Mandrake sipped his black and watched the lumpy Hampton ruin a perfectly good cup of coffee with three packets of make-believe sugar and a generous measure of cream. After a small sip, he added one more packet and another splash of cream.

“Chief, I need you to authorize Frank Wade and Nora Burke to work with a multiagency federal task force being headed by Jack Mc- Call.”

Mandrake stopped his cup before it got to his lips. “So CNN had it right about McCall?”

“We’re not happy that got out.”

A young couple came in and sat two tables from them. Director Hampton lowered his voice. “The president asked me to contact you. Officially, Wade and Burke will still be your homicide detec- tives. Unofficially, they’ll be part of McCall’s team. Any paperwork you feel is needed should be held at your desk, for now. The task force will eventually be acknowledged, but for now we don’t want this perp to think we’re saddled up.”

Mandrake hated it when the feds came waltzing in to tell him what and how, even the director of the FBI. But Mandrake had learned it came with the job; Washington, D.C. had its own proto- cols.

A bakery employee headed toward them with a tray of donuts. Mandrake waved him off while asking Director Hampton, “When?” “Have them meet McCall for lunch at noon at LaBamba’s. The

backroom’s ours. Ask for the Harkness table.”

“By noon?” Mandrake exclaimed. “Without any official records?

That’s pretty fast.”

the third coincidence 43

Hampton grinned. “Hey, they don’t call you Mandrake the Magician for nothing.”

“Yeah, right, you owe me, Fred.”

“You know my door’s always open to the D.C. chief of police.” “Yeah, right, you owe me, Fred.”

“You’re repeating yourself, Chief, and you’ve got another meet- ing, remember?”

Mandrake grunted, gulped the last of his coffee, and used his napkin to wipe the lip of the cup. After refolding the napkin and re- placing the spoon at its center, he dropped a five dollar bill on the table and walked out, cast in the late-morning shadow of the rotund FBI Director.

It was just like the feds, Mandrake thought. Director Hampton had asked for the meeting, taken his two best detectives, and stuck him with paying for the coffee.

Jack and Colin pulled up in front of the home of Millet Yorke, a modest one-story house east of Marion Park, shoehorned into a mixed cluster of painted and natural brick homes. Both sides of the porch cover sagged, giving the entry the look of a pouting mouth.

“Holy Shit!” Millet’s voice reached out to them at the curb. “You never know what the dogs will leave on your stoop. How the hell are you two?” Before they stepped onto the porch, Yorke, who was wear- ing a striped shirt and plaid Bermudas, asked, “Is this visit about the deaths of the two Supremes and the big-money guy?”

Jack grinned.

The heels on Millet’s untied brown chukka boots slapped the floor as he led his visitors inside.

Millet’s place looked as if everything had been left where Millet had last finished with it, including a pair of his Jockeys balled up on the cushion next to Jack. Millet himself looked unshaven and di- sheveled, with wisps of unruly hair that caught the light at odd angles. “Whoever’s doing these killings,” Colin said, “must be a mad-

man. He’s literally attacking the United States government.”

44 David M. Bishop

“In the dark ages,” Millet interjected, “the mad ones were con- sidered the special children of God.”

Colin rolled his eyes. “When do we start, Jack?”

“We’ll meet at four this afternoon at the CIA. Millet, you’ll get all the computer goodies you’ll need and—”

”No fucking way, Jack. I ain’t going into that den of death.”

So nothing had changed, Jack told himself. As usual Millet pre- ferred working at home where he could get loud and vulgar when- ever he wished, and dress however he wanted. Hell, he did that anyway or so it seemed.

“I know you prefer to work here at your own place,” Jack said, “and I usually go along with that. But this time I need more than your computer. I need your mind in the entire process.”

“Jackman, you know I love ya, but my privacy’s important. It’s gonna cost you—big time. Double the usual?”

“It’s great working with you two again,” Jack said. “Back at ya, boss,” Colin replied.

Millet just shook his head. “We still got more negotiating to do. I’ll come to the meeting at four to hear more, but for now, I’m in just today.”

Jack knew that Millet loved his country, just perhaps not as much as his privacy.

“Anything I can do until four?” Colin asked.

“Reach your best military intel sources here and abroad,” Jack told him. “Operatives at the grass roots, find out what they’ve heard. What they suspect. Keep it under the radar.”

“What about me?” Millet pleaded. “Don’t leave me out.”

Jack knew then that Millet was just playing hard to get. “Start your computer digging.”

Millet grinned. “I’m on it.”

“Millet. The president has authorized top-secret clearance for you.”

“Well, super dickie do.” Millet dug his finger into his ear. “Don’t that beat all? Me with a secret clearance.”

the third coincidence 45

Jack frowned. “The president hesitated because you’re not a government employee and have never had clearance at any level. I assured him you were essential and no risk.”

“I feel like a kid with the key to the candy store,” Millet said.

If you embarrass me on this,” Jack said, “I’ll parachute your sorry ass onto
The Island of Dr. Moreau
.” After Millet smiled, Jack said, “This is not a challenge for you to prove the president wrong.”

“Maybe just a little,” Millet said with his eyebrows raised. “It’s good for them politicos to get brought down a notch or two from time to time.

Jack fixed Millet with a stare and spoke firmly. “I’m not fooling here. I had to speak up to get you that clearance.”

“Jesus Christ. . . . Okay! . . . scouts’ honor.”

A little of Millet’s eccentricities went a long way. He was a royal pain, but the man had delivered the goods in the past. Jack was hop- ing he could do it again.

chapter 11

. . . from this point I beheld the grandest and most pleasing prospects which my eyes ever surveyed, in my front a boundless Ocean; . . . a most romantic appearance.

—William Clark, January 08, 1806, Original Journal of Captains William Clark and Meriwether Lewis

He stood ankle deep in the ocean, the legs of his pants rolled up above his knees. The sea speaking loudly enough to be the voices of all who had died within her. He looked down as the ebb tore the wet sand from around his heels, dragging it across his bare feet. He hated the look of his second toe being longer than his big toe.

A hundred yards out into the surf, boulders, some as tall as three- story buildings, defied the violence of each crashing wave. He pic- tured himself as one of those boulders standing strong against the forces of evil.

Before leaving his house, Jack opened the chess forum on the Internet. Two days ago he’d received his opponent Harry’s latest move: a castling of his white king to the king side, posted as 0–0. His opponent would not likely move his king again in the next few moves as the piece was under no immediate threat. So, Jack used his move to position his black knight and posted that move: Nba6, in the English algebraic no- tation system used in the U.S. Chess Federation tournament.