“Jesus, man, he’s gonna rip your heart out.”
“You reckon? Just make the call.”
I broke the connection, my palms damp with sweat. Sounding tough on the phone was all very well. Now I had to work out a way to get Larry Thomson away from his bodyguards on his turf. Killing him would be easier, but that would mean sacrificing myself, and I had reasons to live now that Karen and the child she was carrying were safe. I needed to bring Thomson in if I was to have any chance of clearing my name. There was only one thing in my favor. He would be enraged by the news of his twin sister’s death. Unless he had a heart colder than the thickest glacier in Antarctica, that meant he’d be desperate to nail me. And desperation, as my friend Dave used to say, caused people to take their eye off the ball. Then again, Gwen Bonhoff was at large. She would be gunning for me, too, given that I’d shot her brother. If she showed up at the meet with Thomson, it really would be the O.K. Corral all over again.
Peter Sebastian was standing by Clem Simmons’s hospital bed. There were machines beeping and numerous tubes coming out of the detective, and he was conscious. Gerard Pinker was not; he was in intensive care.
“So you’re saying it was Matt Wells who shot this Irma Rothmann, as well as Dana Maltravers?” the FBI man asked, trying to keep the disbelief from his face.
“Yeah,” Simmons croaked. “Had to be. And the boy Randy. I don’t know what happened to his sister, Gwen.”
“There’s no sign of her. Randy’s in surgery.”
“How about Maltravers?”
“Took a bullet to the chest, but she’ll live.”
“You know your princess is dirty?”
Sebastian frowned. “So I’m beginning to understand. The twins, Randy and Gwen, you think they did the occult murders?”
Clem Simmons coughed and then winced. “Seems a distinct possibility.”
“What about Matt Wells’s prints at the scenes?”
“Think about it.”
After a few moments, the FBI man’s eyes widened. “Dana?”
“Who else?”
A stern-looking nurse bustled into the room. “You’ll have to leave now, sir. We’re going to do a CAT scan.”
“About time,” the detective said, with a slow grin.
The nurse’s expression slackened. “There’s been a run on the machines this evening. So much for law and order in this city.”
Sebastian leaned closer. “One more thing, Detective. Larry Thomson. Are you sure about him?”
Clem nodded, his eyes closing. “Oh, yeah. Woodbridge Holdings is a hotbed of fuckin’ Nazi…” Suddenly his head slumped to the side and one of the monitors sounded a continuous alarm.
Peter Sebastian was pushed out of the way by a doctor and watched as Clem Simmons’s bed was wheeled out of the room, nurses pulling the monitors alongside. Turning the pages of his notes, he shook his head. Karen Oaten had returned safely, but all hell had broken out. And the cherry on the cake was that Matt Wells hadn’t been the occult killer after all.
The FBI man heard the sound of his career crashing all around him. He needed to do some major ass-covering, both on his own account and on that of his secondary employers, the CIA-they would be very unhappy if the Agency’s protection of Nazi doctors was made public after all this time. Fortunately, Dana Maltravers would be the perfect scapegoat.
I had done what I could to prepare my stash of weapons when Lister called.
“Anacostia Marina, 7:30 a.m.,” he said. “If you look at a map, it’s northeast of the John Philip Sousa Bridge-a couple of miles before the Anacostia River meets the Potomac. He’s got this big black-and-silver motherfucker of a cabin cruiser. It’s called the Isolde. Oh, and he’s coming alone.”
“Yeah, right.” I grabbed my D.C. map and spotted the place.
“That’s what he told me, man.”
“All right, Gordy. Did you tell him about his sister?”
“Yeah.”
“How did he take it?”
“He didn’t start yelling and screaming, if that’s what you mean.”
“Cool as a cucumber, eh?”
“More like icy as the berg that gutted the Titanic. I gotta go, man.”
“You’re tainted goods with your employer, Gordy,” I said, unwilling to let him off the hook. “New Mexico might just be far enough.”
“Bullshit. Larry knows I’m okay.”
“Or maybe South America,” I continued. “There’s no shortage of Nazis there.”
“Hey, haven’t you noticed? There are Nazis everywhere. Get over it.”
He cut the connection. He’d said that Thomson knew he was okay. I would remember that. I still wasn’t convinced that Gordy Lister was in the clear over Joe’s death.
I looked at my watch. I had just over two hours. That should be enough time to reconnoiter the location and make the kind of preparations that I’d learned from Dave Cummings. I had the feeling Thomson might screw up-unless his trap was already in place. I put my weapons into a handyman’s bag and went down to reception. The guy wasn’t impressed when I asked him for some resealable plastic food bags from the kitchen, but a couple of twenties cheered him up. I put the bags in my pocket and went out onto the street. Round the corner, I picked up a cab.
The driver dropped me on the Anacostia side of the bridge. It was still dark and there weren’t many lights in the strip of parkland below. I went down and walked along the bank until I was opposite the marina. I couldn’t see any sign of a large cabin cruiser, which suited me fine. Squatting by a bush, I put a loaded Glock 17 into a plastic bag, sealed it and then slipped it into another bag. Then I took off my shirt and, using the roll of insulating tape that had been part of my tool kit, I strapped the bagged pistol onto my chest. After removing a long strip, I put the insulating tape into another bag and sealed it. That bag, I also lashed to my chest. Then I stripped to my boxer shorts and attached the sheathed combat knife to my belt, before putting the latter round my waist. I could have walked across the bridge and taken my chances with whatever kind of security there was at the marina, but I wasn’t going to risk being caught-at least, not before I’d given myself a fighting chance. I took a deep breath and lowered myself into the water. I wasn’t the greatest of swimmers, but I was in reasonable shape. The problem was going to be the water temperature.
And, I realized after I’d taken a few strokes, the current. I’d not considered that. Fortunately the river wasn’t much more than a hundred and fifty yards wide, though I must have swum a lot more than that and my feet and hands were tingling in the cold. I made it to one of the wooden piers and looked around. There were enough lights for me to see that the pier I was at was the only one with clear space at the end. That was where Thomson would have to moor his cruiser. I clambered up the stanchions, breathing heavily and stood on the one beneath the end of the pier, the wind chilling me even more. With fumbling fingers, I managed to cut strips of tape and attach the bagged pistol to the underside so it was within reach if I lay on the decking above. Now all I had to do was swim back.
Because I was tired and cold, that proved to be a much harder job. At one point I thought I was going to be swept down to the Potomac, but somehow I kept going, flailing my arms and legs. I heaved myself out and used hotel towels to dry myself. Then I got back into my clothes and put on my watch. I had plenty of time to get dressed, making sure there was no dampness in my hair. I put Clem’s service revolver in my pocket-Thomson would no doubt expect me to be armed. I would hand it over with fake reluctance when he searched me.
I started walking around to get myself fully warmed up. During that time, I considered the name chosen for the boat, presumably by Larry Thomson-maybe his sister had her say, too. Tristan and Isolde were mythical doomed lovers and the Nazis’ favorite composer, Richard Wagner, had written an opera about them. It struck me that Thomson was taking a chance using a name that pointed so directly to his German roots. Maybe he was so arrogant that he thought he could get away with anything because he’d taken on a new identity. Then again, it was a fact that all sorts of people who maybe should have known better attended performances of Wagner’s work and openly proclaimed their admiration for it.