“It wasn’t going to be like this,” she said, her voice an unsteady whisper. She looked back out the front window.
McCaskey climbed onto the step. He reached past her and turned off the ignition. With fire engines screaming behind him, it was difficult to hear. He leaned close. “What was not going to be like this?” he asked.
“They told me I would get exclusives,” Lucy said. “That’s all I wanted.”
“Who said that?”
She did not appear to hear. “They said I was putting him to sleep. They said that was what they wanted. They wanted me to mess up his room, make it look as if he had partied hard. They said he would be discredited.”
“Wilson, you mean,” McCaskey said.
Lucy did not answer. McCaskey turned her face gently toward him. “You gave William Wilson the injection.”
“Yes.”
“So you would have exclusive access to stories?”
She looked into his eyes. “They told me he wouldn’t be hurt. Not like Meyers.”
“Who is Meyers?” McCaskey asked.
“Richard Meyers. He was my boyfriend. We were on the beach three years ago in Corpus Christi. I gave him a speedball. He died.”
“They knew about this?” McCaskey asked.
“I ran.”
“They found out?” McCaskey asked.
“Yes.”
“So there was blackmail,” McCaskey asked.
Lucy nodded once.
The young woman, a junkie, had been in Texas. Someone must have found out and kept that information for future use. For blackmail. These guys must have been building their plan, their operation, for some time. “What about Mr. Lawless?”
“I did that, too,” Lucy replied. “I had to. They said they would turn me in if I didn’t. And then I had to put the dress in Kat’s apartment.” Lucy started to cry. “I didn’t want to hurt Kat. I like her.”
“Who told you to do all that?” McCaskey asked.
“She told me I would have to write only good things about them or I would go to prison for murder,” Lucy said. “I got stuck. I didn’t know how to get out.”
“Lucy, who did you speak with? Admiral Link? Senator Orr? Someone who works for one of them?”
“A woman.”
“Do you know which woman?”
“No,” Lucy said.
“What number did she call?”
“My cell phone,” Lucy said.
“Okay,” McCaskey said. “Now I want you to stay here. Someone will come for you. You have to believe I’m going to try to help you, all right?”
“All right,” she said blankly.
McCaskey gave her a reassuring pat on the back of her tense hand. Then he stepped back onto the highway. The police were making their way through traffic. Maria was standing there. Behind her, the airbag of the car had inflated.
“Nice move,” he said. “Are you hurt?”
“No. You?”
“No.”
McCaskey kissed his wife on the forehead and reached for his cell phone. It was gone. Poor Bob was probably mad with concern and madder with confusion. McCaskey hurried ahead. He needed to get a phone so he could call the intelligence chief. He showed one of the police officers his Op-Center ID. The man loaned him his phone. McCaskey said he would return it later.
McCaskey did not call Bob Herbert’s phone because the line was probably still open. Instead, he called the Tank. Bugs Benet answered. He asked Hood’s assistant to have Herbert find out who called Lucy O’Connor’s cell phone within a half hour of the murder of William Wilson.
“Will do,” Bugs said. “How can we reach you?”
“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Keep an ear to the ground for Mike.” McCaskey wasn’t being heroic, just practical. He had a feeling that whether he was about to resign or not, Mike Rodgers was the one who would have to carry this ball in for the touchdown.
FIFTY
Inevitably, out of chaos comes order. The only two questions are when and at what cost?
Chaos evolved quickly in the hotel lobby, as it always does. One convention-goer carried it to three who carried it to nine. When chaos spreads, Mike Rodgers knew that the most important thing was not to try to contain it. Security had called the police, and reinforcements were on the way. Their presence would emphasize what was already an extraordinary situation and remove whatever remained of normalcy. That would merely put the same amount of tumult in a more confined space. And chaos tended to leap whatever firebreaks were placed around it. The task at hand was to eliminate the cause, not to contain the result.
The cause was shock about the apparent abduction of Admiral Kenneth Link and uncertainty about who did it or why. Mike Rodgers wanted to get on the problem right away. And not just to help eliminate the panic. Apparently, this was related to whatever the hell had started in Washington just four days ago.
Rodgers walked over to a relatively quiet corner near the magazine stand. He called the office of General Jack Breen at Pendleton. Breen said it was good to hear from his old friend.
“Where are you?” the marine general asked.
“San Diego,” Rodgers replied.
“San Diego? I hear there’s noise in that area. Yours?”
“Indirectly,” Rodgers said. “Jack, I need air recon ASAP. Something with eyes and teeth. We believe Admiral Kenneth Link has been kidnapped from the hotel here.”
“Details?”
“He was in a limo, that’s all I know. I don’t know what kind. I wouldn’t trust anyone to give me the right information anyway,” Rodgers said.
“I’m requisitioning an Apache on the e-command link as we speak,” Breen said. “Do you think there will be a ransom request or is this a GAT?”
GAT was grab and terminate. It was a military adaptation of the Mafia acronym SAW, snatch and whack.
“I don’t know, which is why we need to try to find the limo,” Rodgers said. “Can they pick me up somewhere around here?”
“Roof of the convention center, ten minutes,” Breen said. “What kind of manpower do you need?”
“Full suit?”
That was thirteen men. Breen said he would provide that.
“Perfect,” Rodgers said. “I’ll be there.”
“We’ll plan to cover the routes east,” Breen said. “The police will have plenty of resources deployed north along 405 headed up to Los Angeles and south to Mexico,” Breen said. “I doubt kidnappers would want to get into the traffic or border check along that corridor anyway.”
“Agreed,” Rodgers said as his phone beeped. That meant there was an incoming call. “General, I’ll see your boys in ten.” Rodgers jogged from the lobby as he switched to the other call. “Yes?”
“Mike, it’s Darrell.”
“Have you got something?” Rodgers asked.
“Yes. It sounds like you’re running.”
“I am,” Rodgers told him. “I’m organizing recon. It seems Admiral Link was just kidnapped.”
“He was? That’s surprising.”
“Why?”
“Because we just busted Lucy O’Connor,” McCaskey told him. “She confessed to giving those men the injections. Within a half hour of the first, she received a call from Admiral Link’s office phone.”
“Who did Lucy talk to?”
“She doesn’t know,” McCaskey said. “Only that it was a woman.”