“Two days,” Willie said, surveying the stuff.
“Get busy, dude.”
“Go spy something, Carmellini.”
Back at Langley, I headed for the Liaison Office. The Company liaises with everybody, Congress, every federal agency, police departments …
Zoe Kerry was waiting for me. “Where have you been?” she demanded.
“It’s a secret. If I told you, I’d—”
“Let’s go.” She marched out of the office, and I trailed along behind her.
She had an agency sedan, a relatively new one that rode nice. I was thinking some more about trading cars when she asked, “Was that bullshit about waiting for a court date?”
“I’ll prove my innocence. You’ll see.”
“Bullshit.”
“It takes practice to be a good liar, so I work at it. I rarely tell the truth if a lie will serve.”
“Gimme a break.”
“That was the truth, by the way.”
“Just keep your mouth shut today. Okay? Don’t get in my way.”
“I’ll be a fly on the wall.”
There was a conference about Mario Tomazic’s death in the Hoover Building. Lots of conferences this day in that building, I supposed, since the FBI director, Maxwell, had just got spectacularly murdered. Yet if they were in a frenzy, it didn’t show much. The special agent in charge of the Tomazic investigation, a woman named Betty Lehman, chaired our meeting. It consisted of reports about various lines of inquiry and a spirited back-and-forth about how many agents should be put on what.
When Lehman thought she had it all, she said, “People, so far you haven’t given me any evidence that Tomazic’s death was anything but an accident. There is a very real limit on how many assets, for how long, we can devote to this unless someone somewhere gets something that points to murder. Something. Anything.”
From the Hoover Building we went over to look at what was left of Reinicke’s apartment building. Kerry’s phone rang repeatedly, and she did a lot of listening. We found a place to park, then walked four blocks to the building. It was a mess. Looked as if a bomb had gone off in one corner, seven or eight stories up. The entire exterior walls of two apartments were gone, along with windows and glass and all the furniture from the small balconies. The exterior was extensively fire-blackened. Lots of windows missing. Crews of men were nailing up plywood, probably to preserve the scene for investigators.
Kerry led me to an unmarked van parked near the building. Right beside it were two vans from the fire department. Police cars were scattered around, and we had to step over some flaked-out fire hoses. Debris all over the parking lot. Some of the cars still there had been damaged by falling objects.
Inside the van we met the FBI guy, who was seated across a small metal desk from a senior fire guy, who wore a uniform. Kerry and I had to stand. She introduced me to both men.
“What is the CIA doing here?” the FBI guy asked, looking at me. I had to break my promise to Kerry.
“Liaisoning,” I said.
“That is what Ms. Kerry is doing. She’ll tell you everything we want passed along.”
“I can go outside, if you like, then pump her after we leave.”
“Fucking spooks,” he grumped. “Like we have secrets. Listen all you want.”
So I stayed. I got his name so I could put him on my Christmas card list.
“Definitely a gas explosion,” the fire official said. “What triggered it, we don’t know. We hope to find out within a couple of days.”
They yammered some more, talked about how the gas lines were routed, about the building’s maintenance records, emergency repairs and so on. No one offered us coffee.
When Kerry’s cell phone began ringing again, she glanced at the number and went outside to answer it. I followed her. I wandered away a bit so as not to be seen eavesdropping, but I listened hard. Stuff about the investigation into Tomazic’s enemies. Apparently he had stepped on some toes on the way up in the army. I knew he also had a strained relationship with a son who had had serious drug problems in the past. Part of the conversation, I gathered, was a follow-up on the son’s whereabouts and current drug usage. I kinda doubted that a doper could manage to drown someone without being seen by neighbors, but what the hey. The experts were looking under every pebble.
As we walked back toward the car, Kerry asked what I thought.
“If Tomazic was murdered,” I said, “it was by a pro. No one saw anyone, there are no traces of anyone’s presence, except that piece of plastic under the boat, and no weapon was used. It would have had to be a swimmer with scuba gear.”
“Yes. And Reinicke?”
“Not enough information. Gas lines occasionally leak, and houses and apartments occasionally blow up when they do. Usually the occupants smell the stuff, though. Wonder why none of the survivors said they smelled gas?”
“Maybe some of the victims smelled it but didn’t have time to get out.”
“If this one was murder, too, the people doing it are very good. If they are the same ones.”
“Lots of ifs,” she said.
“If it was murder, the killer or killers are callous bastards. Seven dead, three badly burned.”
She gave me a hard look. “Yes,” she agreed.
We ate lunch at a McDonald’s. She tried to pump me a little, and I didn’t give her much. I told her how many years I had been with the agency, that I was from California originally and lived in an apartment house in Virginia.
I asked her a few questions, equally innocuous. She opened up a bit. She was from Ohio, went to Ohio State, had been in the FBI for ten years.
“So those shootings…”
“I don’t want to talk about them.”
“I understand.”
Zoe worked on her salad a bit, then said, “Killing someone, even an asshole who is trying to kill you … It’s like playing God.”
I nodded sympathetically. Her delivery had changed, both the tone and the way she delivered her words. I finished my first Quarter Pounder, took a sip of coffee, then unwrapped the second burger while I eyed her. The muscles in the side of her neck were tighter. Her eyes were fixed on me, as if she were trying consciously not to lose eye contact.
“Post-traumatic stress, they said. I thought about quitting the agency, but they talked me into giving it a while. Took me off major crime investigations. Sent me over to your outfit. Said maybe time would help.”
“Is it?”
“I don’t know.” Zoe Kerry thought about that for a while. “I don’t know if I can face another dangerous situation. I just don’t know.”
That was the high point of the day. We stopped by the Hoover Building again, visited the lab and looked at the piece of diver’s faceplate, if that was what it was, chatted up the scientists, then rode back to Langley.
As she parked the car I picked up her clutch purse, then handed it to her as she got out. She went somewhere, presumably to the Liaison Office, and I rode elevators and strolled corridors to the director’s suite. Grafton had someone in there. They left after ten minutes, and Jennifer Suslowski admitted me to the stronghold.
“Thought I’d better report in person.”
“Okay. What does the FBI think?”
“God only knows. But I had a little tête-à-tête with Zoe Kerry over lunch. She says she doesn’t know if she can face another dangerous situation.”
“Okay.”
“She was lying. All the tells were there. It was fiction. PTS my ass. That broad could pull the trigger on anybody and wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep over it.”