Worst Case Scenario (14 page)

Chapter Nineteen

“Well,” Gallagher said as he examined the open and empty SafeHome LokBox still nestled in Michaelson's kitchen cabinet, “I guess we'll have to pay off on the guarantee.”

“Oh, I don't think it was really a fair test,” Michaelson said. “They obviously had someone keeping an eye on me by the time your safe was delivered. They knew what they were up against and they came prepared.”

“Who's ‘they'?” Gallagher asked.

“I'm still working on that one,” Michaelson said.

It was 1:45 a.m. Marjorie was tending a pot of coffee. Michaelson was tending a stoveful of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast, for hearing fifteen gunshots and having none of them hit you produces a thoroughly existential disregard for the preoccupations of AMA spoilsports. Michaelson piled hot, cholesterol-laden food onto a platter, which he set on the table in the midst of an eclectic array of knives, forks, and plates.

“After you've had a bite,” Michaelson said genially to Gallagher, “why don't you tell me what you found in Ohio?”

Gallagher spent six minutes making eggs and breakfast meat disappear and four describing the fruits of his trip to Wilmot. Michaelson listened, sober and surprised, to a clipped, precise rundown of information he hadn't expected.

“We sent you to Ohio to look for information that doesn't exist,” he said quietly, “and you came back with a key answer we were supposed to be searching for in Washington.”

“Why Deborah Moodie revived her crusade on the Artemus/favoritism issue, you mean?” Gallagher asked.

“Yes.”

“Revived it in early 'ninety-three,” Marjorie said, “which happens to have been during the transition between the outgoing and incoming administrations. Probably not a coincidence.”

“Probably not,” Michaelson agreed wryly. “I suspect that Ms. Moodie was moved to revisit the issue when she learned that Jeffrey Quentin was going to hold a lot of power in the new administration.”

“And why should that have bothered her?” Marjorie asked. “I mean, apart from the reasons that it bothered everyone.”

“We've now reached the stage of informed speculation,” Michaelson said.

“Is that a fancy way of saying you're making it up?” Gallagher asked.

“I'll give you my theory and you be the judge,” Michaelson said.

“Fair enough.”

“Facts first,” Michaelson said. “One: Deborah Moodie and Marian Littlecross served as nurses in the same unit in Vietnam. Two: Jeffrey Quentin some twenty years later caused Littlecross' daughter terrible emotional and psychological pain by using her as a pawn in a congressional campaign. Inference: Ms. Moodie found out about that when Ms. Littlecross turned to her and other old friends for support in her emotional crisis. This isn't some bloodless violation of a subparagraph in a protocol somewhere, like the general's relative getting favored treatment. This is real and immediate pain, inflicted on the daughter of someone who had a special bond with Moodie.”

“I'm with you,” Gallagher said. “If someone had done what Quentin did to the daughter of a guy who served in the same platoon I did, I'd've killed the son of a bitch with my bare hands. Begging your pardon, Ms. Randolph.”

“I've heard the term before,” Marjorie said. “In this context I don't think any other word would quite do.”

“Deborah Moodie apparently didn't view homicide as an option,” Michaelson said, “but she had to be deeply alarmed by the prospect of Jeffrey Quentin holding major power in the government of the United States. And she had to be even more deeply alarmed by something else.”

“I'll bite,” Marjorie said. “What?”

“Her suspicion, or her certain knowledge, that in Jerry Marciniak's quest for power he had worked with Quentin before. The identities of women who undergo abortions are highly confidential. For Quentin's congressional campaign ploy to work, he had to get the names from somewhere. The director of the National Medical Records Compilation, Data Collection and Privacy Concerns Bureau—which is what Marciniak happened to be at a critical point—is a distinctly plausible source.”

“Definitely speculation,” Marjorie said.

“Artemus was already out long before 'ninety-three. There was no reason to start going after him again. But we know that as the prospect of Quentin reaching power loomed, Deborah Moodie launched a desperate effort to revive a charge that might derail Marciniak's career. She must have known that her attempt would almost certainly prove futile. If she went ahead, it had to be because she believed that Marciniak was evil, that allowing him to get the kind of power he could hope for with Quentin's patronage was unacceptable, and that morally she simply had to try to stop him.”

“In early 1993,” Marjorie said thoughtfully, “half this town would have given you five-to-three odds that within eighteen months a federal bureaucrat would be running the entire U.S. health-care system.”

“And Deborah Moodie could plausibly have feared that that bureaucrat would be Jerry Marciniak,” Michaelson said.

“You keep saying ‘could have,'” Gallagher said. “I guess that's why you called it a theory.”

“Well, there are a couple more things we know,” Michaelson said. “We know Ms. Moodie did try to revive the issue. We know that she got squashed. We know that Scott Pilkington knew why she got squashed. And we know that Pilkington's working with Quentin. That much is more than theory.”

“We know another fact, too,” Gallagher said wearily. “We know that the bad guys have the written order now.”

“They, ah, don't, actually,” Michaelson said, with what in anyone else would have been a suggestion of embarrassment at having kept Gallagher in the dark about part of his plans.

“Where is it, then?”

“It's on the back of the writing table over there, in the same envelope as my electric bill.”

“You mean you never put the written order in the safe?” Gallagher demanded.

“Oh, I put it in there initially,” Michaelson assured him. “But once I was sure they were coming after the thing, it seemed silly to leave it in the first place they'd look. So I took it out.”

“So after breaking into your apartment and rifling that lock-box, those jokers have nothing but air to show for it?” Gallagher asked, chortling.

“Not quite nothing,” Michaelson said. “After removing the original order, I stocked the safe with a photocopy, inside a white envelope, and annotated with a brief message.”

“The point of all that being what?” Gallagher asked.

“To find out who killed Sharon Bedford. That's the part of this I actually care about. All this talk about treason is quite soul-stirring, but as Talleyrand pointed out, treason is generally just a question of dates. Sharon Bedford was a human being.”

A few moments of thoughtful silence followed. Then Gallagher spoke.

“I'm slow,” he said quietly. “I'm not quite following how writing a note on a copy of the order gets us to Sharon's killer. Can you sorta run your thinking past me at submedium speed?”

“Sharon Bedford's murder was a Washington crime,” Michaelson said. “It was committed by a Washington killer for a reason that only makes sense in Washington terms. Businessmen and loan sharks kill to conceal crimes, stockbrokers and union officers kill for useful information, husbands and wives and street thugs kill for money. But Sharon Bedford couldn't have been killed by anyone like that, for any of those reasons. If we want to find her killer, we have to focus on Washington players following Washington rules.”

The phone rang. Without getting out of his chair, Michaelson reached back, unhooked the receiver, and brought it to his ear.

“Very funny,” the voice at the other end barked.

“Why, Scott,” Michaelson said. “We were just talking about you.”

Chapter Twenty

Michaelson told Pilkington that they couldn't meet until two o'clock that afternoon. The excuse he offered was that, having politely given Pilkington's burglars until the small hours of the morning to get their work done, he now intended to sleep late, and any conferences would have to be scheduled around his body's demand for rest. While there was something to this, the more important reason for the delay was that before talking to Pilkington, Michaelson and Marjorie each needed to make a phone call.

***

Michaelson's call went to the Moodies' residence. He made it at 7:45 a.m., before either Alex or Deborah would have left for work. They both got on the line, Alex in the kitchen and Deborah in the den.

“Marian Littlecross sends her regards, figuratively speaking,” Michaelson began.

“Thanks, figuratively speaking,” Deborah said. “How did you find her?”

“I found her by having someone read the newspapers. I discovered her connection with you by accident.”

“So?” Deborah said then, after a pause. The syllable was tentative and defensive rather than challenging.

Michaelson explained the part of his theory linking Deborah's revival of the Artemus favoritism issue to a suspicion on her part that Marciniak had helped Quentin and fear of what that might mean once Quentin acquired real power. This took about a minute. Neither of the Moodies interrupted him or asked any questions.

“It's a theory,” he said, “and a rather speculative theory at that. I'm talking to Scott Pilkington in about six hours and I need you to confirm the theory, if it's right, before I do.”

A heavy silence lasting ten to fifteen painful seconds followed. Finally Deborah Moodie spoke.

“I don't feel I can discuss this with you,” she said, her voice distant and her words a trifle clipped.

“I understand,” Michaelson said, having just received the confirmation he needed. “Then perhaps you can tell me something a bit more specific about bufotenine than Pilkington shared with me when he discussed the results of Ms. Bedford's autopsy.”

The tone of Deborah's voice as she answered suggested that it was a vast relief to have the conversation shift from a personal to a professional plane.

“I'm not an expert or anything, but I can give you a broad outline,” she said. “It's a fairly well-known poison, derived from frog-gland secretions or something like that.”

“Fatal if ingested orally, even if it doesn't get into the bloodstream?” Michaelson asked.

“Should be. I think it can be absorbed in fatal dosages even through mucous membranes, without being swallowed at all.”

“Thank you,” Michaelson said. Again.

***

Marjorie's call went to Hilda Ashley, a career civil servant who had recently found a niche as administrative assistant to the deputy head of the State Department's Management Information Services Bureau, or MIS. A relatively new office, MIS had yet to win even grudging respect from veteran foreign service officers. Some crusty FSOs had acquired the habit of summoning MIS operatives by telling their secretaries to “call Nerd Central and tell them to send up a propeller-head.”

Hilda Ashley was quite ambitious by civil service standards, had thin skin and a long memory, and spent just under a thousand dollars a year on books. Marjorie called her a few minutes after 10:30 a.m., when she was sure that Ashley would be back from her morning coffee break.

“Hilda,” she said, “I'm calling because I have one last autographed copy of
Ties That Bind
by Warren Adler left, and it might sell at any moment.”

“Thank you, but I've already read it.”

“I remember selling you your copy,” Marjorie said. “I wanted to let you know about this autographed one because a mischievous soul who swore me to secrecy suggested that the MIS Bureau might want to give a copy as a gift to one or more deserving FSOs.”

This was a lie but a safe one, given the interest of MIS in general and Hilda Ashley in particular in subtly embarrassing any number of foreign service officers. Would one or two of those gents, to Ashley's knowledge, find it disconcertingly suggestive to be presented with a mystery novel set in Washington, featuring a woman who acts out sadomasochistic fantasies with a high-government official? That was one of the world's safer bets.

“The idea does have a certain appeal, at that,” Ashley said. “I'll keep it in mind.”

“Actually,” Marjorie said, “Richard is popping over to see Scott Pilkington this afternoon around two, and I'm meeting him there so that we can go on to a late lunch afterward. If you like, I could leave the book with you on sort of a consignment basis. If you and your chums at MIS like the idea, you can pass the hat and send me a check when you get around to it. If you don't think it's worth the trouble, I'll just pick the book back up the next time I'm in the neighborhood.”

“I don't see how I can turn that down,” Ashley said. “I'll see you when you get here.”

***

Marjorie and Michaelson reached the State Department several minutes early. Getting beyond the ground-floor guard station at the State Department requires a pass for a specific location. Visitors don't wander the halls seeking chance acquaintances and familiar faces. Accordingly, Marjorie waited with Michaelson in a comfortable secretarial area outside Pilkington's office. Pilkington's secretary left word with Ashley's that Marjorie was there, on the off chance that Ashley might want to drop by.

She did. Before she did, Kenneth Lytton Denzell passed through the area and spoke for a few moments with Pilkington's secretary.

Marjorie suspected that this wasn't happenstance. Kenneth Lytton Denzell was Assistant Secretary of State for International Policy Issues. He was a political appointee, with a tenure at the State Department directly proportional to the residence of the current incumbent at the White House. Marjorie had expected Denzell to hear from Hilda Ashley who Pilkington's visitors this afternoon would be, and apparently he had. She now expected Jeffrey Quentin to hear the same thing from Denzell.

Denzell had been gone about two minutes when Pilkington emerged from his office, shook hands warmly with Michaelson and Marjorie, graciously invited Michaelson into his office, and pointedly did not include Marjorie in the invitation. Marjorie sat back down in the waiting area and opened a book—not, as it happened,
Ties That Bind
, which she'd already read.

***

“So,” Pilkington said, “you have it.”

“Obviously. And the next time someone tries to take it away from me, it's going straight to the
Washington Post
.”

“Any doubt about its authenticity?”

“None.”

“Name your price,” Pilkington said, a frown of distaste at the uncharacteristically direct words spoiling his face for a moment.

“The head of Sharon Bedford's murderer, on a silver platter. Let me hasten to add that I'm speaking metaphorically.”

“I'll interpret your metaphor as comprehending something consistent with due process of law. The fact remains that I don't know who Sharon Bedford's murderer is.”

“Neither do I,” Michaelson said.

“Then how am I supposed to deliver?”

“I've given that matter considerable thought,” Michaelson said. “I've come up with an easy way and a hard way.”

“I suppose the easy way involves bugging the telephones and eavesdropping electronically on the offices of one or more government officials,” Pilkington sighed.

“Yes.”

“That would be a felony.”

“You view that as a decisive objection, I take it?” Michaelson asked.

“I do.”

“I suppose I should be a bit miffed that quibbles like that didn't prove so inhibiting when the issue was a black-bag operation targeting my apartment.”

“That was
not
a black-bag operation,” Pilkington interjected quickly. “That was a one-hundred-percent legal search carried out pursuant to a warrant based on duly attested probable cause to believe that evidence of violation of federal statutes governing dissemination of classified documents would be discovered.”

“I don't suppose the magistrate who signed that warrant has formed the impression that he has a direct shot at the next Supreme Court vacancy, has he?”

“Not my department,” Pilkington said. “I handle the policy end of things.”

“At any rate,” Michaelson said, “that leaves the hard way.”

“Describe it to me.”

Michaelson did.

“I hate it,” Pilkington said when Michaelson had finished.

“I'm not crazy about it myself.”

“I can't go along with it. The risks are too great. The game isn't worth the candle.”

“You don't have any choice but to go along with it,” Michaelson said. “If you slam the door in my face, leaks, hints, winks, and nudges about the coup d'état order start forty-five minutes after I leave your office.”

“Regrettable but, bottom line, I can live with that,” Pilkington said.

“Please don't interrupt me in the middle of my threat,” Michaelson said. “You see, while Marjorie Randolph and I were cooling our heels outside your office, Kenneth Denzell passed through.”

“What a stunning coincidence,” Pilkington said. He looked as if he'd just sipped from a glass of Mouton Cadet '83 with which some perverse sommelier had mixed Diet Coke.

“Quentin will get Denzell's report, and when the leaks start, Quentin will conclude that you're putting the information out, using me as a cat's paw. He'll assume that instead of trying to get the document from me, as you've been truthfully telling him you're doing, you in fact passed the document to me, using Marjorie as a cutout—you know, left a photocopy on your secretary's desk where Marjorie could see it while you and I were in here chatting, that kind of thing.”

“I am familiar with the term ‘cutout,'” Pilkington said frostily.

“Anyhow,” Michaelson concluded with an eloquent shrug, “you've been running for him all this time because he looked like the best bet you had, but all your efforts go down the drain if I decide to go to the scribblers. The only way to keep Quentin from thinking that you're double-crossing him is to double-cross him.”

Wrapping his right hand around his chin, Pilkington studied the lower left quadrant of his desk intently for nearly a minute. Then he looked back up and met Michaelson's gaze.

“I dislike this intensely,” he said.

“Yes. Well, it's a filthy job, but someone has to do it, don't they?”