Because his house was made of white-painted brick, there didn’t appear to be any structural damage. The bricks near his back door were all blackened, but they could be repainted. The only thing that had been destroyed by the fire was his back door, which was made of wood, but his door wasn’t the big problem. The big problem was the damn firemen had sprayed down the door with a hose that pumped about eighteen thousand gallons a minute and the water pressure had blown out the door’s window, turning his kitchen floor into a small lake with soot floating on top. His stove, which was directly in line with his door, looked as if it had been hit by a tsunami, and everything on the kitchen counter near his stove-his coffeepot, his toaster, and a never-been-used Cuisinart given to him by his mother-had been blown off the counter. He wondered if there was water in the electrical outlets and if the linoleum floor was going to curl up and have to be replaced.
But what good would it do to bitch to the fireman about all this?
After the firemen left, DeMarco stood on his back porch looking morosely into his kitchen. He was going to have to spend the day mopping up the room and figuring out what else had been damaged. He’d also have to get a piece of plywood to nail over the opening where his back door had once been until he could get a new door. And then he’d have to call up his insurance company and have a giant fight with them to force them to honor all the false promises they made when they sold him his homeowners policy.
The last thing on his mind was whatever Paul Russo had hidden at St. James.
Claire was going to have someone search the church before DeMarco had a chance to do so, but she doubted-now that she’d calmed down somewhat-that anything was hidden there. Since Russo had met with the reporter, it seemed logical that if he had some sort of document to show him, he would have brought it with him the night he met Hansen at the Iwo Jima Memorial-and whoever had killed Russo now had the document. But maybe not. Maybe Russo was afraid of being killed before he met with Hansen so he left the document-or whatever it was-in the church for the reporter to retrieve. Or maybe he took the original of whatever he had hidden and left a copy in the church as a backup. She didn’t know. All she knew was that there was a remote possibility something was hidden in the church and she had to search it before DeMarco did and before DeMarco called up somebody-like the FBI-and told the FBI what McGuire had said.
The good news was she’d know if DeMarco made a call. Right now her technicians were laughing as they listened to him curse as he cleaned up his kitchen.
She picked up her phone. “Where’s Alice?” she said, to the agent who answered.
“Don’t you remember?” the guy said. “She’s running all around Northern Virginia.”
Claire had forgotten. She’d told a technician to hack into Virginia law enforcement computers to identify shady garages and wrecking yards where the reporter’s Volkswagen might have been taken after he was killed, and Alice was now checking out those places. Claire figured Alice would be wasting her time but if they could get some physical evidence regarding Hansen’s disappearance it could prove useful.
But since Alice wasn’t available, who could she use? She wished Alberta was still with them; she still couldn’t believe Alberta was dead. “How ’bout Sylvia?” she asked.
“She’s in New York. Her mother-”
“Oh, that’s right,” Claire said. Christ, she was losing her mind.
“Hey, I can search the church if you want,” the guy said.
Claire’s lips drooped with scorn. Yeah, right. Men can’t find anything. She was going to have to search the church herself.
“No. Your job,” she said, “is to make sure DeMarco doesn’t go to the church anytime today or tonight. If he heads in that direction, stop him.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Hell, I don’t care. Use your damn head. Ram him with your car if you have to. Hit him hard enough they have to tow his car away.”
“With my car?” the agent said, realizing Claire was serious. “How ’bout I get a car from the pool?”
“And what? Hit him with a government vehicle that can be traced back to this agency?”
“But what about my insurance rates?” the agent said.
Claire was thinking about who she’d take with her to search the church when Henry, the technician who shared the cubicle with Gilbert, walked into her office.
“What is it?” she snapped. Henry was a whiner, constantly bitching about something, and she wasn’t in the mood to deal with him right now.
He handed her a manila folder. She opened it and began to flip through the documents. As she flipped, a small smile appeared, and the more she flipped, the wider the smile became. She closed the folder and looked up at Henry who was still standing before her desk, shuffling his feet, hoping Claire was not displeased. She was not.
“You did good, Henry,” Claire said.
Henry exhaled in relief.
On the cover of the folder were the words AARON TYLER DREXLER.
It was time to remove a thorn from Dillon’s paw.
Claire removed her ID badge and walked into Drexler’s temporary office without knocking.
“Who are you?” Drexler asked, frowning at her.
Claire noticed his eyes were bloodshot and he needed a shave, and she wondered if he’d worked through the night.
“Oh,” Drexler then said, answering his own question, “you must be the gal that putz Dillon was supposed to send over to give me a hand with some of this crap. I’m telling you, honey, this is the most fucked-up, disorganized operation I’ve ever seen. It’s no wonder you people couldn’t stop nine/eleven.”
Claire sat down, unasked, in the only other chair in the room.
“To answer your question, Aaron, I’m not the gal sent to help you. I’m the gal who’s been sent to straighten your ass out.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Who are you?”
“I’m a messenger, Aaron. And the message is: Go home. Go back to whoever sent you and tell them you couldn’t find whatever they sent you here to find.”
“Who the hell do you think…” Pointing a finger at Claire’s face, he said, “Now you listen to me, lady. I was sent here by the attorney general and I’m not leaving until I-”
Claire slapped a file folder on Drexler’s desk, the sound like a bomb exploding.
“What’s that?” Drexler said.
“That’s the end of life as you know it, Aaron.”
“What are you-”
“When the bottom fell out of the market in 2008, you lost almost a half a million dollars.”
“So what? Everybody lost money during that time.”
“That’s true, but everybody didn’t do what you did to recover their losses. At the time your portfolio turned to dust, you were a member of the Pentagon’s legal staff assisting the Justice Department in their case against Ames Incorporated, and-”
“Again, so what?”
Ames Inc. was a company that had received a multimillion-dollar contract to design and install improved body armor on army personnel carriers, and a whistleblower informed the Pentagon that Ames was screwing its Uncle Sammy. Ames was charging for work that had not been performed, for overtime that had not been worked, for materials that had not been used, and anything else they could think of to increase their profit margin. The Justice Department had a strong case against a colonel at the Pentagon and a couple of executives at Ames, but Justice also wanted to nail Burton Ames, the company’s founder and CEO-a man reportedly worth three billion dollars who owned multiple mansions, a private jet, and a yacht the size of a light cruiser.
Burton, naturally, claimed he had no idea what his executives were doing with regard to the Pentagon contract; he just wasn’t a hands-on manager. Bullshit, the federal prosecutor said. Unfortunately, the case against Burton Ames was complex and hardly a slam-dunk but the prosecutor felt, if he presented his evidence clearly and cleverly, he could convince a jury to put greedy Burton in a cell for a few years. However, when the prosecutor got to court it became apparent that Burton’s lawyers knew his strategy and every weakness in his case. Burton Ames walked out of the courtroom smiling, and the prosecutor ended up with egg all over his face.