She quickly went through the main points. Bagger killing her mother. The fact that he was now in town. That she had teamed with her father to bring him down. Alex already knew that they’d been kidnapped and almost killed by Bagger’s men. She added, “I don’t have evidence of any of this. Nothing that would stand up in court. But it’s the truth.”
“I believe you. But my cop friends were a little pissed when they showed up to arrest the guys and found no one home.”
“No less pissed than I was.”
“Why is Bagger after you now?”
Annabelle went automatically to lie mode. “He knows I’m trying to nail him for my mom’s murder. He found out I went up to Maine where it happened. He doesn’t want me to find something that could put him away for good.”
Alex sipped his coffee and studied her some more. Either she was the best bullshitter he’d ever run across or what she said was legit. “And so you’re teaming with your old man? How exactly do you propose sticking it to Bagger?”
“My dad’s going to pretend to double-cross me with Bagger. Bagger gets me, I get him to confess, and the cops are there to nail him.”
“That’s your plan?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because it has about a million holes in it, that’s why. And all of them end up with you dead.”
“That’s just the broad concept. It’s all in the details. It’s always in the details.”
“You really think you can make this work?”
“I sort of have a knack for it. My old man’s not that bad either.”
“Uh-huh. I’m going to need a little bit more than that if I’m going to be able to get you the backup you need.”
“I tell you what. We’ll get everything in place, you can take it to your people with a big nice bow, and then you can decide? Then if you say no, I die. That do it for you, big fella?”
“Hey, I’m just trying to be realistic here.”
“No, you’re being a classic bureaucrat. You look at how you can’t do something instead of how you can.”
Alex managed a tight smile. “Actually, the Secret Service is pretty can-do.”
“Good. Show me.”
“Give me a break here. I’m doing you the favor. I’m going out on a really big limb and it’s a long way down.”
Annabelle nervously balled her napkin up. “I know, I’m sorry. It’s just…”
“The good news is the Justice Department really wants something to stick on Bagger. If I can dangle a big enough carrot in front of them, we should be able to get some FBI support. Bagger’s been involved in a lot of questionable stuff. Several murders in fact, but the evidence just wasn’t there.”
“I know of a few more, but without his tripping himself up, nothing you can use.”
“Just so you understand, I’ve only believed about half of what you’ve told me.”
She started to say something but Alex said, “But I’m not going to press it.”
Annabelle eyed him curiously. “Why not?”
“Because Oliver told me not to ask too many questions. He said you were a good person with an imperfect past.”
Annabelle studied him closely. “So who was John Carr?”
“He worked for the U.S. government doing some highly specialized work.”
“He killed people, didn’t he?”
Alex looked around but the place was empty and the girl at the counter was too busy reading about Britney Spears’ latest comeback in People to waste time eavesdropping on them.
“He doesn’t do it anymore. Not unless he has to. Not unless someone’s trying to kill him, or his friends.”
“I saw him kill a man,” Annabelle said. “He did it with a knife. Just a flick of his wrist and the man was dead. But the guy was trying to kill us.” She fiddled with her coffee cup. “Do you have any idea what’s really going on with him?”
“Did you hear about Carter Gray’s house blowing up the other night?”
“Yeah, I read about it.”
“Well, Oliver and Gray go way back, and not in a good way. Oliver was at his house, at Gray’s request, shortly before it blew up. And it was no accident. Oliver had nothing to do with it, but somebody else did. Somebody else who might just have Oliver on his target list.”
“So he’s got someone looking to kill him too?”
“Looks that way. And that’s why he didn’t want to hang around any of us.”
“And I was really upset that he abandoned me.”
“Hey, he called me in. I might only be the JV, but I’ve been known to get a few good punches in from time to time.”
“That stuff I said before about you being a bureaucrat.”
“I believe the exact phrase was classic bureaucrat.”
“Yeah, well, I take it back. I appreciate your help.”
“I need to make a few calls. And then I can help you fill in some of the details now that we have the concept nailed down.”
She returned his grin. “I’ve never met a fed like you before, Alex Ford.”
“That’s okay, you’re a new one in my book too.”
CHAPTER 62
AS THE NIGHT SETTLED IN Oliver Stone knew he was still being followed. Well, now was the time to say good-bye to the shadows. He ran for a cab and gave the driver an address in Alexandria. With deadly men in pursuit of him he was heading to a rare book store.
The taxi dropped him off in front of the shop on Union Street a block from the Potomac River. With the hunters behind him Stone hurried inside, nodding at the owner of the place, Douglas. The man had used to be called simply Doug, and had once sold pornographic comic books out of the trunk of his Cadillac. Yet he harbored a secret passion for rare books and a desire to be rich. That dream had gone unfulfilled until Stone had hooked him up with Caleb. Now Douglas ran a successful high-end rare book store. As part of the bargain Stone was given access to the place at all times, and had a room in the cellar area that he used to store some of his most important possessions. And it also provided something else that Stone was going to use right now.
Stone reached the cellar, unlocked a door and entered the room where an old fireplace sat, long unused. He reached inside the fireplace opening, where next to the damper switch was a small pull cord. He tugged and a door on an old priest’s hole-like chamber swung open. The room was filled with boxes stacked neatly on shelves, well above the flood line.
Stone opened a box and pulled out a journal that he stuffed in his bag. From another box he drew out a set of clothes, including a floppy hat, and changed into them. From a small metal box he took out an object that was more precious to him than all the gold in the world. It was a cell phone. A cell phone with a very special message carefully preserved on the built-in recording device.
When he left he did not reverse his path and go upstairs. He walked down a different passageway, toward the river. He unlocked one more door, passed through, knelt down, pulled on an iron ring that was seated into the floor, yanking hard, and a square of floor came up on hinges. He dropped through, traversed a dark tunnel that smelled of river, dead fish and mold, clambered up a set of rickety stairs, unlocked another door and came out behind a clump of trees. He passed along a footwalk by the river and plopped into a small boat owned by Douglas that was docked at one of the slips.
He engaged the Merc outboard and headed south, his white stern light the only sign of him in the darkness. He ran the boat up on the shore about two miles north of Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home, tying its bow line to a tree. He hoofed it to a gas station and called a cab from a pay phone.
On the ride back to town, Stone read through the journal. These records represented a significant part of his distant past. He had started keeping them almost immediately after he was recruited into the CIA’s Triple Six Division. He had no idea if the CIA still had the division operational and didn’t know if the men who’d attempted to follow him tonight were part of that element. However, he assumed that if they were ordered to kill him they would carry out the task with suitable skill.