“That Domestic Counterintelligence Board that Bellhouser was being so coy about?”
“Right. Best we can tell, there isn’t any such board. Nobody in our chain of command can put a line on it, and the question’s been asked at the director’s level at headquarters.”
“Son of a bitch,” Janet said.
“That means Bellhouser and Foster had their own agenda. That business about a bomb cell was bullshit.”
“Except, as things turned out, it wasn’t exactly bullshit, was it? As the aTF found out the hard way. But here’s the thing: My boss says AD Marhand was personally involved in Kreiss’s termination. What he can’t find out is what that was really all about. The Office of Professional Responsibility has the files, and they’re not only all sealed but physically over at Main Justice. Now, tell me something. You think Kreiss had a part in that bombing?”
“Absolutely not,” she said.
“Kreiss was not involved in that bombing.
He was up in Washington hunting that McGarand guy because of what he did to Lynn.”
Farnsworth considered that and then nodded.
“Yeah, I buy that.”
“Okay. Now, that Agency woman—let me tell you about that piece of work.” She began with Misty’s appearing in her house, then told him what had happened at the hospital and her breaking through the roadblock on the way to Micah’s. When she said that they were aTF people, Farnsworth interrupted her.
“We’ve had no report of that,” he said.
“And their SAC would have been in my office with his hair on fire if they thought one of my people did that. They shot at your car?”
“Yes, they did. That’s how Lynn was wounded. Then that damned woman came over the hill.” She told him how she had driven the woman off the road and then made it to Micah’s, and then she described the cave expedition that followed. He was shaking his head in amazement when she was done.
“You think those people were all killed down there?” he asked.
“In the lake?”
“Don’t know,” she said.
“But it got real quiet when the stalactites stopped falling. No dogs, no more lights or voices. I don’t know how many men there were back there. But we were not pursued after that.”
“Son of a bitch,” Farnsworth muttered.
“This just doesn’t sound right.
We’d have been avalanched with calls if the aTF thought they were chasing one of our agents and there was shooting.”
“Maybe we’re making assumptions,” she said.
“Maybe this wasn’t aTF
Maybe that damned woman just said it was, to throw some shit in the game.”
“You’re assuming they were her people?”
“I’m beginning to think so.”
Farnsworth got up and paced around the kitchen. One of the agents stepped in through the back door and reported all was secure outside.
Farnsworth acknowledged and the man stepped back out. Farnsworth asked Billy to crank up a fresh pot of coffee and get it to the men outside. Billy signed off from the communications terminal and started hunting for coffee makings. The agent, whom Janet knew only slightly, had nodded politely to her before he’d stepped back outside. Back in the fold, she thought.
“Now I know we need to pick up Edwin Kreiss,” Farnsworth said finally.
“I mean, headquarters wants his ass for what he did to those two agents, and local law wants him for the jared McGarand thing. I think we need to bring him in for his own protection. Damn, I think I got snookered here.”
“That woman knew all along that it would be damned difficult to trap Kreiss. Once Lynn was recovered, though, she saw her opportunity. She came after his daughter, knowing Kreiss would come in to protect Lynn.”
“Right, right, I can see that.”
“Once she knew that Kreiss had been picked up in Washington, just before the bombing, she backed off, left us alone at Micah’s. Until, of course, she found out that Kreiss had managed to escape.”
“Which means she has a source inside the Bureau,” Farnsworth said.
“I’ve been making reports up my chain of command since this shit started.
Maybe the leak’s in Richmond.”
“Well, then,” she said. “we have to move. We need to get Lynn to a safer place, and we need to find Kreiss. Actually, I think I know how to do that.”
“How?”
“Let me talk to Micah. Do you have one of your cards? He’s still outside?”
“You going to take those with you?” he asked, indicating the credentials and the Sig. When she hesitated, he added, “How ‘bout if I say I’m sorry?”
She smiled wearily.
“This wasn’t you, boss. This is something slimy and corrupt oozing back out of the ground in Washington. You need to get Lynn to tell you what she knows about her father’s termination.”
Then she picked up the credentials and the gun, her badges of office. He passed her one of his cards, and she went outside.
Micah was sitting in the front seat of one of the Bureau cars, his hat on his lap, his face a mask of shame. Janet opened the driver’s door and got in.
Seeing his expression, she said immediately, “You did the right thing.”
“Not in my book, I didn’t,” he said.
“Your car’s over there.” He wouldn’t look at her. Without the mountain man hat on his head, he looked old and much diminished.
“Look, Mr. Wall. First, you saved Lynn and me from some seriously bad people. Second, nobody in this country can fight the government anymore, not if they decide to come after you the way Mr. Farnsworth said they would. Everyone knows that.”
“Ain’t everyone up here knows that,” he said.
She sighed and then she saw a way to let him save face.
“I didn’t tell you the whole truth, Mr. Wall. Look.”
He looked over at her, and she showed him her credentials.
“I’m the government, too, Mr. Wall. I’m one of them. You didn’t betray anyone.”
His chin rose slightly, and his face cleared.
“I was assigned to protect Lynn Kreiss,” she continued.
“And that’s what I did. With your help. But now we must get in contact with her father. The last he knew, you had
Lynn, so we think he’s going to call.”
He started to shake his head.
“He ain’t told me nothin’,” he said.
“And
I ain’t gonna—” “No, no,” she interrupted.
“We’re not asking you to turn him in to us.
But you must tell him that we have Lynn now, and that I said she’s safe with us. I need him to contact me. Not anyone else. Just me.” She turned Farnsworth’s card over and wrote her home phone number on the back of it.
“Here’s my number.”
“What about them revenuers in the cave?” he asked, taking the card.
“Wasn’t they gov’mint?”
Janet got out of the car.
“What people in the cave, Mr. Wall?” She looked at him for a moment to make sure he understood, and then she went back into Kreiss’s cabin.
“I don’t think he knows where Kreiss is,” she told Farnsworth.
“But I think he’ll put Kreiss in touch with us. For Lynn’s sake.”
“Good,” Farnsworth said.
“We’ll be safer in Roanoke, I think. Get the girl up and let’s get the hell out of these mountains.”
“Why don’t I take her to my place? Micah has my car right over there.
We both need some sleep.”
Farnsworth thought about it.
“Okay,” he said.
“And I’ll put some agents on your house. Then I think we’re going to have to call in the aTF people in the morning; we’ve got to sort this out.”
“Get them to explain the bullet holes in my car, for starters,” Janet said.