“No.” Her throat was raw and tight. “I guess I don’t.”
“I didn’t think so.” He gestured toward the tent, glowing in the darkness. “Come on. I’ll walk you back.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes. I do.”
She didn’t argue. They walked through the field, side by side, separated by cold air and unspoken words. He left her at the entrance to the tent. “Aren’t you coming in?” she said.
He shook his head. In the light, he looked like he had at Ellen Bain’s fatal accident. Weary and sad and older than his years. “My coat’s in the inn. I’m going to go home. Good night.”
She watched him cross the plush yard. Mount the terrace. Disappear through the inn’s French doors. She was strong. She could let him go.
She couldn’t stop the voice in her head, though.
There you are.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27
When they went for Opperman, they let Russ tag along. It wasn’t his arrest-in the ten days since he had called in Ellen Bain’s evidence, the Army CID, the FBI, and the Treasury Department and the GAO had all jumped on board. He was low man on that totem pole. The army guys were respectful, and the Feds were polite, but every investigator and agent he met let him know-subtly or baldly-that this case and this collar were way out of his league. He just smiled and let his Cossayuharie accent thicken until Tony Usher, who was on the prosecution team, said, “Cut it out, goddammit. You sound like you’re auditioning for the lead in Li’l Abner .”
Waiting in an unmarked government vehicle outside the Algonquin Waters Spa and Resort, it was worth it. They could have called him a traffic crossing guard and asked him to fetch the coffee, and it would have been worth it.
“You ready?” Tony put on sunglasses against the early morning sunshine.
Russ checked his gun and reholstered it. “Oh, yeah.”
Tony looked at his watch. “The MPs should be pulling Wyler McNabb in just about now.” He glanced over the seat to the CID investigator waiting with them. “And Arlene Seelye.”
The radio crackled. “Hotel team, this is Square One.” An anonymous van held the FBI control team, which would be coordinating the raids on BWI Opperman’s Plattsburgh matériel depot as well as their offices in Baltimore. “We are good to go.”
Russ, Tony, and the CID investigator got out. Throughout the parking lot, car doors slammed as agents and accountants and lawyers and evidence techs finally made their move. Bellhops stared and guests scrambled out of the way of the entrance and then the team was inside, barked commands echoing off the paneled walls, a rumble of feet as they spread out to the offices, the computer room, the registration desk, locking down all communication, seizing every workstation, evidence-wrapping every file cabinet.
Russ caught a glimpse of the manager, her mouth open, as he led the arrest team toward the stairs. “Two flights up here, then stairs on either end the rest of the way up,” he reminded them. “One elevator for the guests, one for the employees.”
The FBI agent in charge, a short, curly-haired woman who looked way too young for her position, nodded. “You four, secure the elevators, Lofland and Born, with me.” She gestured toward the stairs. “You can wait here if you want, Chief.”
“I can manage it,” he said dryly. They ran up the stairs, one flight, two, three, until they reached the top floor and Opperman’s personal suite. They flanked the door, two on each side. Russ had just enough time to wonder who was bringing the battering ram when the teeny-bopper agent pulled out a magnetized card and sliced it through the keyslot. She swung the door open and she and her partner stormed in, shouting, “Federal agents! Stand up and place your hands on your head!” The other agent was right behind them, and then Russ. It wasn’t his collar. It didn’t matter. They would get the credit, but he got to watch John Opperman slowly rise to his feet, his face twisted in shock and fear. He got to watch Opperman’s eyes darting from side to side, looking for a way out, looking for some flunky to make it all go away. He got to watch the moment when Opperman spotted him, his eyes narrowing, the fear on his face curdling into hatred.
“Gotcha,” Russ mouthed.
They held the CEO in his four-room apartment as the GAO and Defense accountants ransacked the place, loading banker’s boxes with papers and external drives and a laptop. Downstairs, and in Plattsburgh and Baltimore, the same evidence hunt was going on.
Opperman lawyered up immediately, and the first suit arrived before they had even moved downstairs. The second and third got there while the first was still haranguing the agent in charge. Russ was impressed. BWI must have hot-and-cold running attorneys, to get them out to this remote corner of New York State so fast.
When the techs had wrung the rooms dry, the agent in charge announced they were taking Mr. Opperman to Albany to process him. The lawyers stopped their arguments and requests and comments, conferred in whispers with the CEO for half a minute, then disappeared through the suite’s door.
“Rats leaving the ship?” Russ said under his breath.
The agent snorted. “I wish. By the time we get off the Northway, there’ll be six of ’em waiting for us.” She glanced up at Russ. “Would you like to help us escort the detainee to our transport, Chief?”
Russ guessed that was his reward for not stroking out during the run upstairs. “Yes, ma’am, I would.”
All traces of Opperman’s earlier rage and terror were gone. Walking to the elevator between Russ and the agent in charge, two FBI guys looming behind him, the CEO might have been strolling with some low-mid-management employees. He made the handcuffs look like a fashion accessory.
The three FBI agents packed the rear of the elevator, leaving Russ and Opperman staring at their own hazy reflections in the bronze doors. Opperman smiled at himself. “I’ll be back here by tonight, you know.”
Russ pasted a similar pleasant expression on his face. “I don’t think so.”
Opperman’s smile thinned. “Do you seriously think you’ve taken me down, Chief Van Alstyne?”
Russ shook his head. “No. I think Ellen Bain and Tally McNabb took you down. I’m just here to witness it.”
“Two tragic deaths, which have nothing to do with me.”
“The CID’s arrested Arlene Seelye, and Wyler McNabb is in army custody right now. I don’t know about her, but he doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’s going to go down with the ship. My guess is, he’s going to talk like a little girl at a slumber party.”
“A disgruntled employee.” Opperman’s expression was bland. “I have access to the top legal talent in the country. They’re going to tie these spurious charges into so many knots, you’ll be retired to a trailer park in Gainesville before you see me inside a courtroom.” The elevator chimed and the doors opened. They stepped out into the lobby. “You’re a little man in a little town who has to go hat in hand before your aldermen to beg for the bullets in your gun and the paper in your copier. You have no idea of the power money can bring to bear, Chief Van Alstyne. None at all.”
He had to take a walk around the hotel to clear his head after depositing Opperman in the FBI’s car. When he finally went back inside, he found Tony conferring with Amy Nguyen, the Washington County ADA, and a federal prosecutor up from the capital. They fell silent as he approached. The Fed excused himself to rejoin his colleagues.
“What?” Russ glanced from face to face. Tony was grim. Amy looked apologetic. “Okay, what’s the bad news?”
“John Opperman’s lawyers have already opened negotiations,” Tony said.