“They gave you each a permanent parking pass. I got a few perks myself on the job. Who knows about this?”
“The late Gabriel Sloan. How long should we sleep?”
“Make it two hours.”
“Okay.” She set the dashboard alarm. “I’ll take the back. That seat you’re in reclines. Try not to snore.”
He grinned at her, and it felt good. “Same back at you.”
Sleep didn’t take him immediately, possibly because of the catnaps he’d caught on the ride. He worked out a tentative plan to get in to see Nicky Blount, and wondered if he was too geared up to fall asleep again, and then did.
When the dash alarm buzzed, Reeder quickly leaned over and shut it off. He rubbed his face, his neck. He hadn’t realized how exhausted he was. Standing post all those years had taught him to survive on little or no sleep. But he was older now.
Rogers was still deep asleep, and snoring a little, but gently. He decided to let her sleep a while, then got out of the car and called Miggie.
Mig, Nichols, and their sullen charge were at the cabin and fine.
“But I’m still keeping an eye on various e-mails,” Miggie said, “including, and especially, Fisk’s. The Bureau has finding us high on its priority list, and the AD has other agencies in on it now.”
Reeder gave up a wry chuckle. “So we’re wanted dead or alive.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far...”
“I would. The more agencies she brings in, the more infiltrated ranks we’re dealing with. Listen, I need some names.”
“Any names in particular?”
“Just those of the Secret Service agents assigned to Nicky Blount today.”
Silence followed, with just crackle enough to say the connection hadn’t been broken. Getting Secret Service assignments was no small task, even for a hacker of Miggie’s magnitude. Reeder was asking a lot.
Then Mig’s voice returned: “Get back to you.”
Reeder made another call. He was wrapping it up when Rogers exited the rear of the Dodge, yawning, stretching, saying, “What the heck time is it?”
“Almost nine,” he said. “I shut the alarm off to let you sleep in.”
“So I got two hours and twenty minutes instead of just two hours. You’re a prince, Joe. Talk to Miggie yet?”
He told her about their conversation.
Smoothing her clothes, Rogers looked around the parking facility and said, “We better get out of here. Even on Saturday, people are coming already.”
“We need to leave this car here,” he said. “It’ll be hot by now.”
“And, what, walk to Nicky Blount’s?”
“I’ve taken care of that. Let’s find a place for breakfast. Need to kill a little time, and I could eat.”
“I could, too,” she admitted.
They found a nearby hotel restaurant to have breakfast and he explained that a fresh and secure car would be delivered to them within the hour. Told her he had a friend with a used car lot who did business with ABC Security, and would drop off a nondescript vehicle.
“Trust this guy?” she asked.
They were in a booth, both drinking coffee.
“My people cleared him, couple years ago, when he was falsely linked to a chop shop. Remember last year when I sneaked Chris Bryson’s widow and son out of town? That’s where I got the car for them.”
The vehicle, dropped at a corner Reeder had designated, proved to be a Buick Regal, nice enough but a good ten years old. He had her drive again. They’d gone less than a block when she asked, “You think these Secret Service agents could be Alliance?”
“I’ve already tangled with one SS agent, so as much as it makes me sick, we have to think that way. Doing otherwise might be suicidal. Minimally, I need to know who we’re dealing with.”
They were taking a second pass past Nicky Blount’s two-story red-brick Cape Cod, its flat yard bulging with impeccably trimmed bushes, when Miggie called back.
“Agents on duty are Chad Holmberg and Ronald Parker,” Mig said. “Their shift goes to noon, so should be no surprises.”
“Ronald Parker, huh?”
“That’s right — know him?”
“Stood post with Ron, back in the day. Could be a break. Know anything about Holmberg?”
“Spotless record. Came on a couple years ago.”
“Thanks, Miggie. How’s your happy mountain home?”
“It’s got everything but a ski lift. Our guest keeps complaining to the management, though.”
“His hair will grow back someday.”
Miggie was laughing a little as Reeder clicked off.
Rogers pulled around the corner and parked on Cummings Lane.
She leaned on the wheel and gave him a furrowed-brow look. “Only two agents?”
“It’s the Secretary of Agriculture, Patti.”
Shaking her head, she said, “But there’s some kind of conspiracy going on and—”
“Who knows that?”
“Us. The conspirators.”
“Bingo.”
Her eyebrows lifted and lowered. “Do we have anything particular in mind? I could knock at the front door and ask if they’ve seen my missing dog.”
“Before I knew Ron Parker was on the job, I was thinking we’d go in the back way with our guns out and try not to shoot anybody. Killing a federal agent is a hard one to walk back.”
“That was your plan?”
“I didn’t say I was proud of it, but sudden and swift has its merits. I doubt Nicky is leaving the house for work much less play — they’ll have him on lockdown till the Camp David meet is over and everybody’s home.”
“So how does this Ron Parker fit in?”
“That’s the new plan.”
“What is?”
“He’s a smoker.”
He explained what he had in mind.
“That’s not a plan, Joe. You could easily wind up behind bars or dead.”
“But you’ll still be on the outside, and can link up with Mig, Lucas, Wade, and Nichols, and go on with the fight.”
“I don’t like it. Not one little bit.”
But she got out of the car with him, and took a walk around the block, checking to see if any agents they didn’t know about were posted or on patrol, and watching for anybody not resembling well-off suburban parents or kids. Finally they cut between two houses. All the backyards on the block were connected, with plenty of trees to pause behind, and no fences.
They moved through the shadows of the well-shaded, country club — tended backyards until they were in back of the Cape Cod, finding an American beech whose thick trunk was plenty for them to stand behind. The beech and the expanding reach of its considerable branches, grasping the sky, took up much of the space back here. White steps went up to a back porch at right, next to which was a concrete patio with a glass table with central umbrella, six chairs, and a gas grill. For now the yard was deserted. Kids were playing two doors down, yelping and squealing.
Reeder had the anonymous nine in his waistband, and another tucked similarly in back. Rogers had her hand on the butt of her holstered Glock.
They waited. Ten minutes. Twenty. Now and then, Rogers glanced at him, but he didn’t bother returning it. His eyes stayed on those back porch steps and the little landing.
Secret Service agent Ron Parker, his short blond hair going white at the temples, his blankly average features a blank slate, stepped out from the porch onto the landing and casually shook out a cigarette from a pack already in hand. His eyes traveled, but nothing watchdog-like was in it — just a boring morning with only some sunshine to recommend it. Parker blocked the light breeze with his left hand while he lit the smoke with his right.
Reeder gave Rogers a glance that said a dozen things, but mostly to stay out of sight, then stepped from behind the beech, his arms spread away from his body, hands raised just slightly.