Shit happens.
Bradford knew something similar had happened with Levy’s operation. John Levy was a careful man, a man who thought things through. He had worked for Bradford for a long time and had always performed admirably under the most difficult conditions. So even before Levy gave him the details, Bradford was sure that whatever had gone wrong had been totally out of Levy’s control-an act of God, if you will. As it turned out, he was right.
“A drunk hit the ambulance I had staged for moving the bodies,” Levy said. “It was a… a total fluke.”
“Why didn’t you have the ambulance right at the scene?” Bradford said.
“I thought it might stand out and somebody might remember it. And it was only two blocks away, less than a minute away. But this drunk? He takes a corner going about sixty and hits the ambulance head on. The drunk was killed, a woman with him is in critical condition, and my man was injured.”
“What sort of injuries?”
“Internal injuries and major head trauma. He’s in a coma. I have someone inside the hospital, and if he comes out of the coma I’ll be called immediately. I’ll make sure he doesn’t talk to anyone, but it may take a few days to get him out of the hospital because-”
Bradford interrupted him. “John, you know what’s at stake here. This man poses a significant risk. He may talk and not even realize he’s talking. I know he’s a good man, but-”
Bradford stopped speaking and just stared at Levy. Finally, Levy said, “Yes, sir. I–I understand.”
Bradford could see the fate of the driver bothered Levy-and this was understandable. Levy wasn’t a demonstrative man, but neither was he without compassion. Nor was Charles Bradford. Nonetheless, and as Bradford had said, Levy knew that the life of a single man couldn’t be allowed to compromise everything they were doing.
John Levy was tall and broad-shouldered and had a marathon runner’s physique: no excess fat, long ropy muscles. His hands were huge and his wrists were the size of two by fours. Levy had the most powerful-looking wrists Bradford had ever seen. He wore his dark hair short and his face was long and somber with sunken cheeks and dark circles under deep-set, morose brown eyes. He looked like a man who rarely slept and never smiled; Bradford sometimes visualized him in a Franciscan monk’s brown cowl, the hood covering his head, shadowing his face. But Levy wasn’t religious, at least not in the conventional sense. What he was, above all else, was a patriot.
“Does the driver have a family?” Bradford asked.
Levy shook his head. “No wife or children. His mother and father are in Kansas. Farm people.”
Salt of the earth, Bradford thought.
“Have him die somewhere overseas, in combat,” Bradford said. “I don’t want his parents to think their son was wasted in a senseless traffic accident.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the rest of your team?” Bradford asked.
“They’re already on their way out of the country.”
“Good. And the two men who stumbled upon the scene?”
A second act of God, those two men showing up near the Iwo Jima Memorial at that time of night.
“I had Hopper interview them,” Levy said. “They didn’t see anything. They don’t know anything. They’re not a problem.”
“Good,” Bradford said. He said nothing more for a moment as he analyzed everything Levy had told him. “I think the only thing I’m concerned about was bringing in Hopper too fast. Taking the case away from Arlington and giving it to Hopper was the right thing to do, but it might have been better if you had delayed that a bit.”
“I didn’t know what those two men had seen at the time,” Levy said. “And since I had to leave Russo’s body, I didn’t want to give the Arlington cops time to study the wound or do an autopsy and figure out what type of ordinance was used.”
“I understand,” Bradford said. “It was a judgment call. And you certainly made the right choice regarding which body to leave.”
“I think so,” Levy said. “Russo didn’t have a lover, and his parents are dead. Nobody will really push for a solution. I’ve told Hopper to say he was most likely dealing drugs and, with Russo being a nurse, the people who matter will buy the story.”
Bradford nodded. It appeared as if Levy had thought of everything. There were some risks-in any military operation there were always risks-but not large ones.
“All right, John,” Bradford said. “Keep me posted.”
“Yes, sir,” Levy said.
Bradford noticed Levy started to raise his right hand to salute but then stopped himself. Old habits die hard-and it was good they did. John Levy would always be a soldier, with or without a uniform.
Bradford stood, hands clasped behind his back, looking out a window. In the distance he could see a portion of Arlington National Cemetery: a rolling green hill and row after row of white headstones. He loved the view from his office and took pride in the fact that one day his body would be interred at Arlington, his grave marked only by a simple white stone marker. That was all he wanted-no grand tomb, just the same stone that marked the graves of his fallen comrades.
He could also see Levy standing on the sidewalk talking to someone on his cell phone. He was most likely checking on the young man in the coma. He was probably wishing the driver would simply die, and then he wouldn’t have to execute the order he’d been given. But Bradford had no doubt that Levy would follow the order.
He was so lucky to have a man like John. The people of this country, blissful in their ignorance, had no idea how much their survival depended on men like him.
And Martin.
Ah, Martin, I miss you so.
There was a rap on his office door. Bradford turned and saw one of his secretaries standing timidly in the doorway.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, General, but your meeting with the Secretary of Defense begins in two minutes.”
6
“Dillon, I’ll see your five and raise you five,” Harry Cramer said.
“Harry,” Dillon said, “are you sure you want to do that? The odds of you making your straight are less than sixteen percent.”
“Maybe you’ve lost track of the cards,” Harry said. “We all know you hired that young lady to distract us, but you’ve been paying more attention to her than anyone else at the table.”
The bartender Dillon had hired to serve the poker players was indeed a distraction. She was a six-foot-tall, twenty-seven-year-old brunette with lavender eyes and exquisite proportions.
“Harry, I’m shocked you’d suggest such a thing,” Dillon said. “I hired her because she makes a perfect martini and can pour with either hand. Ambidextrous bartenders are hard to find.”
Marge Fielder boomed out a laugh. Marge was the only woman player present. The other attendees of the monthly game held at Dillon’s home on the Maryland shore were: Harold Cramer, a federal judge who served on the D.C. Court of Appeals; Paul Winfield, special assistant counsel to the Chairman of the Federal Reserve; Stephen Demming, deputy to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy at the Pentagon; Clyde Simmer, assistant to the Solicitor General at the Department of Justice; and Dillon Crane, deputy to the deputy director of the National Security Agency. Marge Fielder worked at the State Department and her title was Undersecretary for Political Affairs-making her the third highest ranking official in the department.
The six poker players had four things in common. They were all in their late fifties or early sixties and incredibly bright; no one player had any particular advantage over the others. Second, they were absurdly wealthy. Five of the six were heirs to obscene amounts of money willed to them by their ancestors. The exception was Stephen Demming, who had married money and then his wife had been kind enough to die and leave it all to him.