I looked at her and a smile broke on my face. "You definitely have a temper. I hope you don't have a grudge against Big Business or the banking system?"
She finally grinned. "Of course I do. Who doesn't?"
Chapter Fifty-Two
I spent the next couple of hours at the hospital with Jannie. She told me again that she was going to be a doctor and she sounded ready to take her med boards. She took delight in using words like pilocytic astrocytoma (her tumor), prothrombin (a plasma protein used in the clotting of blood), and contrast material (dye used in the CAT scan she'd had just that morning).
"I'm back," Jannie finally announced, 'and the new and improved model is better than ever."
"Maybe you better go into public relations, or the advertising field when you grow up," I teased her. "Work for J Walter Thompson or Young and Rubicam in New York."
She puckered her mouth and looked as if she'd just bitten into a lemon. "Dr. Janelle Cross. Remember where you heard it first."
"Don't worry," I told her, "I won't forget any of this."
Around one o'clock I went over to the Crisis Center at the FBI field office on Fourth. After the meeting with Pollett and Bums, I knew we'd be working late. A conference room had been commandeered on the third floor. More than a hundred agents were working out of there. Also, about sixty detectives from DC and the surrounding areas.
We had a few more suspects up on the walls now. They were all bank robbers with the skills and experience to pull off big jobs. I studied the list and made notes on a few of them.
Mitchell Brand was a suspect in several unsolved robberies in and around DC. Stephen Schnurmacher was the person behind at least two successful bank heists in the Philadelphia area. Jimmy Doud was a bartender in Boston who'd never been caught but who had robbed dozens of banks up in New England. Victor Kenyon had been concentrating his efforts in central Florida. They all did banks, and they hadn't been caught yet. They were smart, and good at what they did. But were they masterminds?
Everything about the long session on Fourth Avenue was intense, and intensely frustrating. I made some calls about the suspects, particularly Mitchell Brand, since he worked out of DC. It was nearly eleven-thirty when I looked at my watch for the first time all night.
Betsey Cavalierre and I hadn't gotten the chance to talk since I'd arrived that afternoon. I drifted her way to say goodnight before I left the building. She was still going at it. She was talking to a couple of agents but gestured for me to wait.
Finally, she walked over. She still managed to look fresh and alert, and I wondered how she did it.
"Metro has a couple of leads on Mitchell Brand," I told her. "He's violent enough to be involved in something like this."
Suddenly, she yawned," Longest day of my life. Whew! How's Jannie doing?" she asked. I was surprised and also pleased by the question.
"Oh, she's doing good, great actually. Hopefully, she'll come home soon. She wants to be a doctor now."
"Alex," she said, 'let's go have a drink. This is a shot in the dark, but I get the feeling that you need to talk to somebody. Why don't you talk to me?"
I must admit, the offer completely caught me off guard. I stammered out a response. "I'd like to, but not tonight. I have to go home. Rain check?"
"Sure, I understand. It's okay. Rain check," she said, but not before a look of hurt had passed over her face.
I never expected that from Agent Betsey Cavalierre. She had shown concern about my family. And she was vulnerable.
Chapter Fifty-Three
This was the place, the time, the opportunity. The Renaissance Mayflower Hotel on Connecticut Avenue near Seventeenth.
It was busy as ever that morning, busy and important-looking. The Mayflower had been the site of every presidential inaugural ball since Calvin Coolidge. The hotel had been completely renovated in 1992, with architects and historians working together to restore it to its earlier grandeur. It was a popular place for corporate conferences and board-of-directors meetings. That was how the Mastermind had come to choose it.
A blue-and-gold chartered tour bus had been waiting in front of the Mayflower since a little before nine. It was scheduled to leave at nine-thirty and would be making scheduled stops at the Kennedy Center, the White House, the Lincoln and Vietnam Memorials, the Smithsonian Institution and other favorite tourist spots around Washington. The bus company was called Washington On Wheels. The corporate group on board was from the Metro Hartford Insurance Company.
Sixteen women and two children were on the bus when the driver, Joseph Denyeau, finally shut the door at nine-forty. "All aboard for various museums, historic sites, and lunch," he announced into his microphone.
A corporate assistant named Mary Jordan stood up in front and addressed the group. Jordan was in her early thirties, attractive and likable, supremely efficient. She was courteous to the important women on the bus, without fawning over them or sounding obsequious. Her nickname at Metro Hartford was' Merry Mary."
"You all know the itinerary for this morning," she said. Then she
smiled brilliantly. "But maybe we should scrap the whole plan and go drinking. Just kidding," she added quickly.
"Boo," said one wife, 'that sounds like fun, Mary. Let's go to a real drinking bar. Where does Teddy Kennedy go for his morning wake-up shot?" Up and down the aisle everyone laughed.
The tour bus proceeded down the driveway of the hotel at a leisurely pace, then turned on to Connecticut Avenue. A few minutes later, the bus turned on to Oliver, which was a residential street. It was a shortcut drivers often took from the Mayflower.
A dark blue Chevy van backed out of a driveway about halfway down the block. The van's driver obviously didn't see the bus, but the bus driver saw the Chevy. He braked smoothly and stopped in the middle of the street.
The driver of the van wouldn't move even after Joe Denyeau sounded his horn. Denyeau figured that the man must be fed up with all the trucks and buses that used the side street as a shortcut. What other reason could there be for the guy to just sit there, staring angrily at him?
Two masked men suddenly appeared from behind a high hedge. One of them stepped directly in front of the tour bus; the other thrust an automatic weapon inside the open window, inches from the driver's head.