Two male FBI Police officers escorted Richard Basque toward his cell. They were the only two officers in this hallway, the only two he’d encountered all night, so Richard hoped that if something happened to them, it might be a little while before word spread.
Both of them had guns.
Good.
He would be needing a weapon.
Once he had that, it would all be over.
Using the paper clip Vanessa Juliusson had given him, he finished with the lock on his handcuffs when they were halfway to his cell.
76
I was five minutes out from the Blue Whale when Ralph informed me that so far there was no movement at the warehouse.
“No employees. No night watchmen. No lights. Nothing. If Valkyrie was planning to be there tonight, he found a way to shut the place down, keep it cleared out.”
If Valkyrie was going to be paying this place a visit it would make sense for him to clear it out so that no employees would be present to identify him. I took what Ralph said as a good sign.
He went on. “HRT is going to monitor the facility for another fifteen minutes or so, see if any cars drive up, then they’re planning a full breach. Sweep the whole place. Make sure it’s clear.”
“You think we were set up here?” I asked him.
“Well, we confirmed that the semi carrying the counterfeit Calydrole arrived here a couple hours ago. That and the fact that the warehouse is shut down — it looks like someone had inside intel.”
“Any word on who turned him in?”
“I haven’t heard. But if Valkyrie doesn’t show up, whoever called it in is out five million dollars.”
Keith woke up slowly, blearily. The whole world seemed to be moving around him in a blur of colors and waves of time shifting across themselves. He blinked, tried hard to orient himself.
He was in a small room, he couldn’t tell where, but it seemed like it might be in the cabin of a boat. Wherever he was, he was certainly not in a warehouse. He was restrained in a chair.
“Corporal.” Valkyrie was standing stoically in front of him. “Good of you to join us.”
He was still working hard to clear his head. “This is all a mistake, you don’t—”
“You called the Bureau, Keith. That was not a wise move.”
Finally, his vision came into focus and he saw two other men, as well as Vanessa, in the room.
She removed the pruning shears from her purse and handed them to Valkyrie.
“Thank you, dear.”
“Of course.”
But rather than start with the shears, Valkyrie started with his fist.
I met Ralph outside the Blue Whale.
The HRT was taking lead on this, but Doehring was at the command post too, and so were Metro’s SWAT Commander Shaw and his team.
Ralph was shaking his head in frustration. “Still no movement. But HRT decided to wait until nine. I’m not sure why. I guess, since they have all the entrances and exits covered, it doesn’t hurt to wait and see if anyone shows up. Personally, I’m thinking either we were played or Valkyrie got wind of everything and rabbited.”
“So what do you want to do?” I asked. “Wait here or find Corporal Tyree and his lady friend?”
“You got an idea where they might be?”
“I’ve got an idea of where we could start looking.”
Valkyrie watched Keith spit out a glob of blood and wrestle against the ropes to try to find a more comfortable position. But the way he was tied, that wasn’t going to be possible.
“There are some techniques I learned in South Africa. I haven’t used them in a long time. Tonight, I thought you could help me sharpen my skills.”
“Listen, please—”
Valkyrie put his finger up to Keith’s lips. “Shh. I’d rather you handled this with honor, as any Marine would.”
It didn’t take Richard Basque long to find out that Vanessa’s instructions had been accurate after all.
He knew that someone entering the Hoover Building would have to pass through any number of security checkpoints, but once you were in, no one would check an ID or make you pass through security to leave. Once you were in, they’d assume you were supposed to be here. After all, that was what the security measures at the entrance were for.
And that played to Richard’s advantage.
The other day, wearing a police officer’s uniform had served him well, and he was not against using a technique that worked.
He slaughtered the two FBI Police officers, careful to keep blood off of one of the uniforms that he then wore, and, following Vanessa’s instructions, headed for the parking garage.
He needed to kill only one additional agent on the way there, so that wasn’t so bad.
Finding a car he could use wasn’t difficult. He chose one of the FBI Police cruisers with a metal mesh cage separating the front seat from the back.
It would make it easier to transport someone.
It wasn’t ten o’clock yet, wasn’t even nine. He was early. So as soon as he’d left the garage, using the cell phone one of the officers had been carrying, Richard put a call through to the number Vanessa Juliusson had given him to verify the location of where he should go to meet her employer.
77
While he was working on Keith, Valkyrie got word from Richard that he was free.
Valkyrie told him about the change of plans, about meeting on the boat instead of at the warehouse, and then gave his attention once again to the man who’d tried turning him over to the FBI.
Between songs Tessa asked Aiden about the speech.
“So this whole graduation talk deal,” she said, “I mean, I wanted to bail on it, I was going to bail on it, but from the start I could tell you wanted me to do it.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”
He got a text and glanced at his phone. He happened to hold it at an angle that didn’t allow her to see the screen.
“Why?” Tessa asked. “Why did you want me to?”
“I’ve been watching you for a while.” He was staring at his phone. “I thought it’d be cool to date a girl who was smart, who was the best at something.”
“How am I the best at giving a speech?”
He tapped in a response to the text. Only then did he look up at her. “You’re the smartest person in the school, I don’t care who the valedictorian is. I like dating people who are the best at whatever it is they do.”
“Oh.” For a moment Tessa wondered what Tymber was the best at. “I see.”
He slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Come on. Let’s get some punch. I need something to drink.”
Ralph and I had left the warehouse and were in my car on I-395, where I thought we’d be able to get to any quadrant of the city fastest if we needed to. He’d been on the radio with the guys in the Blue Whale and now ended his transmission. “Still nothing at the warehouse. So what are you thinking, Pat?”
“We know one person who could lead us to Alexei.”
“Who’s that?”
“Nikolai Demidenko, his old contact at the GRU.”
“But why would he give up Chekov’s location?”
“Bribes are always a good place to start.”
“The five-million-dollar reward.”
“It would motivate most people. Maybe we could even up it a little if he gives us something that helps us zero in on Alexei tonight.”
“Can we locate Demidenko?”
“The CIA can. From the case files we know—”
“Yeah. They keep tabs on him.”
He put the call through.