“So, for the third damn time, Dillon, what do you want to do?” Claire said.
Dillon walked over to the window and stared down at the street below. There was some sort of security drill in progress, or at least he thought it was a drill. A group of men in SWAT gear had surrounded a delivery van and were aiming their weapons at it. But maybe it wasn’t a drill. These were dangerous times.
“About Charles Bradford, I don’t know,” Dillon said. “I need some time to think about that. What I want to do right now is figure out who directed the hit against Russo. If we can identify that man we may be able to use him against Bradford.”
“That’s what I was planning to do with DeMarco,” Claire said.
“Yes. Mr. DeMarco,” Dillon said. He paused a moment, then added, “Here’s what I want you to do, Claire. Make a copy of that recording but then modify it, just a bit. I want…”
When he finished speaking, Claire said, “I’m not too sure how smart this is, Dillon.”
“Nor am I, my dear, nor am I.”
28
“Mr. DeMarco, this is Anthony McGuire. Uh, Paul’s friend.”
“Yeah?” DeMarco said. “What can I do for you?” The last thing he was in the mood for was dealing with McGuire.
“Well, I remembered something,” McGuire said. “Something that may-uh, tell you where Paul hid whatever he hid.”
Claire patted the impersonator on the shoulder. “Good job,” she said. “You got that perfect. I particularly liked the little catch in your voice when you said Paul.”
“Uh, thanks,” the impersonator said. Claire Whiting scared the hell out of him.
“Now go work on the DeMarco voice some more. I don’t think we’re gonna need it now, but I want you to be ready, which you’re not quite yet.”
DeMarco was seated in a pew near the stained-glass window depicting St. John of God. McGuire had called him while a guy from Home Depot was installing his new back door, but after the guy finished he decided to go to the church, because the contractor he’d called to give him an estimate on the cost to repair his kitchen couldn’t come until tomorrow. The reason he’d asked the contractor to give him an estimate was because the insurance company claims adjuster was offering to settle for about one half of what DeMarco figured it would take to make things right.
McGuire had said that Paul always made a big deal out of the St. John of God window because St. John was the patron saint of nurses and Paul, being a nurse, always mentioned it whenever he and McGuire attended mass together. McGuire wasn’t sure Paul had hidden anything near the window, but he said that might be a good place for DeMarco to look.
DeMarco had yet to approach the window, however, because there was an old woman at the front of the church, in a pew by herself, fingering rosary beads. She seemed absorbed in her prayers and probably wouldn’t notice if he searched near the window, but he thought he’d wait awhile, hoping she’d leave pretty soon.
While he waited, he closed his eyes, clasped his hands together, and prayed to God to bring down a plague upon his insurance company, like the plagues He’d brought down upon the pharaoh when the pharaoh refused to let Moses and his people go. DeMarco wanted locusts to eat his insurance agent. He wanted the agent’s office to be set upon by lice, frogs, and flies. Slaying the firstborn son of every executive in the company might be going too far, but maybe their dogs and cats could all get fleas.
In his opinion, insurance companies were like guys who welch on bets. In fact, that’s exactly what insurance was: a bet between a homeowner and the company. The homeowner was betting that one day his house might burn down, and the insurance company was betting it wouldn’t. The homeowner then put his money into the kitty by paying premiums for twenty years, and the insurance company used the money to invest in things that made them rich. Or richer. Then, if the house does burn down, the insurance company, in spite of all the money it’s made, refuses to honor the bet. And that’s what his insurance company was now doing by trying to get him to settle for half the money it was going to take to repair his kitchen. And when they finally did pay, they’d raise his rates.
Thank, God. Finally, the old woman was finished praying. He watched as she genuflected and crossed herself about a dozen times, then walked up the main aisle of the church. She gave DeMarco a little smile as she walked by him, which he returned, then he looked down at his lap, trying to look like a pious man saying his prayers, which, in a way, he had been doing.
As soon as he heard the church door close, he hustled over to the window. He could see a ledge below the window but was too short to reach it. Shit. He opened the door to one of the confessionals and got the chair the priest used. He took the chair over to the window, climbed up on it, and there it was: an envelope.
The only thing in the envelope was a dinky digital recorder.
Sitting in the operations room, Claire watched on a large plasma screen as DeMarco pulled his car off the Memorial Parkway and into a parking lot where people could look across the Potomac at the District. From this particular vista, DeMarco had a good view of the Lincoln Memorial, the Kennedy Center, and the dome of the Capitol shimmering in the distance-although Claire doubted DeMarco was thinking about the view.
Through three different bugs-one in DeMarco’s car, one in his cell phone, and one in his belt-Claire listened as DeMarco played Martin Breed’s recording. The sound quality was excellent and when DeMarco muttered, “You gotta be shittin’ me,” Claire felt like she was sitting right next to him.
Claire had sent her technicians out of the room while DeMarco played the recording. Dillon had told her that he didn’t want anyone but him and her-and DeMarco-to know about the things Martin Breed had done for Charles Bradford. Claire still didn’t think it was smart giving the recording to DeMarco, even one that had been doctored, but Dillon had overruled her objections. Once DeMarco listened to the recording, he would know almost as much as they did-and that was dangerous.
But the oddest thing about Dillon’s plan-if you could call it a plan-was that he didn’t appear to have an endgame. He said he hadn’t decided what to do with the information on the recording, whether to use it to destroy Bradford or simply force him to resign, as Breed had planned. It was very unlike Dillon not to have thought things completely through.
Then another thought occurred to her: maybe Dillon did have an endgame and he just wasn’t telling her what it was.
What in the hell was he supposed to do with this thing? DeMarco wondered, looking down at the small recorder resting in the palm of his hand. He knew it was his imagination, but the damn recorder actually felt hot, like it was going to burn right through his flesh.
He was only sure of two things-neither of which he could prove. First, he was sure Paul had been killed because of what he’d just heard, and second, Paul had wanted to get the recording to that reporter, Hansen. But other than those two things, he was completely confused.
He assumed the man who had made the recording was General Breed. That made sense, considering the things he claimed to have done for this guy Charles, but Breed never identified himself on the recording nor did he ever state Charles’s last name or the last name of this guy Thomas, who he’d obviously made the recording for. He found it odd that their last names weren’t mentioned, but even worse, it made the recording almost useless in terms of evidence. The other thing he didn’t understand was why Paul decided to give the recording to a reporter instead of Thomas, whoever the hell Thomas was. He didn’t know. He didn’t know shit.
Well, he did know one thing: the damn recording was a political A-bomb and way, way too big for him to handle. He needed to give it to somebody who had the clout to deal with it. But who? Normally, he would have given it to the FBI, but he was afraid to do that because he didn’t trust Hopper. He did know someone personally at the Bureau, a woman he’d once dated, and he knew he could trust her but he didn’t feel comfortable taking this to her. He hadn’t seen her in three years.