Parks looked up from the counting and shot him a grin. It didn’t do much for Antus, who looked as if he was ready to bolt at any moment. But Hailey stood next to him waiting for exactly such a move.
Rudolph’s cell phone chirped, and he stepped out into the corridor to answer it. “Rudolph.”
“Sir, this is George Keane, night duty officer. I’m holding an urgent call for you. It’s a young woman who says she talked to you earlier about the Croft investigation.”
“Do you have a trace on it?”
“She’s calling from a pay phone in front of the convention center on H Street.”
“All right, patch me over and then roll whoever’s available. I want her picked up.”
“Yes, sir.”
The call was switched. “This is Fred Rudolph.”
“I called you before,” an obviously distraught woman said. “I’m ready to talk to you now. I need your help. I think.”
Jack Hailey came out of the conference room, and Rudolph held up a hand for him to stay.
“We’d very much like to help you. Can you tell me your name?”
Rudolph could hear traffic noises from the other end. He put a hand over the pickup. “Handle the situation here, Jack. Something’s come up. I’ve got to go.”
“Not yet,” the woman said. “They killed Tony Croft and I think maybe Sandy knows something about it.”
That got Rudolph’s attention. “Sandy who?” he asked, cautiously, as he sprinted down the corridor to the elevators. “Can you tell me at least that much?”
The woman hesitated. “Sandy Patterson. She was the one who got me together with Tony.”
Rudolph could scarcely believe his luck, and he had to work hard to keep his voice calm. The elevator came and he took it.
“Have you talked to her tonight?”
“A little while ago. She told me to stay put and she’d come get me. But I don’t know.”
“Are you still there, where you called her from?”
“No. I’m across the street.”
“Where was she when you called her?”
“I don’t know. I used her cell phone number. She could be anywhere. Home, maybe. Or at work. I don’t know.”
“There isn’t much I can do for you unless I know who you are? Can you tell me that?”
The woman hesitated again.
The elevator reached the ground floor and Rudolph raced across the lobby.
“My name is Judith Kline.”
“Okay, Judith, if you’re somewhere in the city I can reach you in a few minutes.”
“I took pictures. I got one of the guy Tony met with. He was coming out of the hotel right after Tony died, and he was carrying something. Looked like a big manila envelope.”
“Was it the Chinese gentleman you told me about?” Rudolph got his car started, shot out of the parking lot and headed down Massachusetts Avenue, traffic still heavy despite the fact it was after midnight.
“Yeah, same guy,” Judith Kline said. “I don’t want to turn out like everybody else in this town. I can’t handle that.”
“What do you mean?” Rudolph asked. He needed to keep her on the line and calm until his people got to her.
“Tony kept talking about the White House. But he was weird about it. Didn’t make any sense.”
“What didn’t make any sense, Judith?” Rudolph asked. He could hear sirens in the distance, and for a moment he couldn’t tell if he was hearing them through his open car window or over the phone. He decided he was hearing the sirens on the phone. “Did he talk about his job? About the President?”
Judith Kline heard the sirens too, and she was distracted. She said something that Rudolph couldn’t quite make out.
“Judith?” Rudolph said.
“He kept saying it wasn’t that White House.”
“I don’t understand.” The sirens were a lot closer now, and Rudolph, who was only a few blocks from the convention center, was hearing them through his open window too. If there hadn’t been any on-duty agents to send, Keane might have asked Metro police to pick her up.
“You traced my call!” she cried. “You sent the fucking cops.”
“Judith!” Rudolph shouted. “Listen to me. I want to help you.”
The sirens were much louder now, and the closer to the convention center he got, the heavier traffic became.
“Judith!” Rudolph shouted again, but she was gone.
They were going to lose her, and it was his fault because he had not explained the situation to Keane. Stupid.
He was about to toss his cell phone down when he heard a woman scream, the squeal of tires and a second later a horrific thump and the crash of breaking glass, then more sirens.
Louise Horn was operating on cigarettes, coffee and adrenaline when Major Wight called her a few minutes after 2:30 A.M. He sounded excited.
“Anything new on Natsushio?”
“Nothing in the past four hours,” she said.
“I have a new course line for you. That burst transmission from the sub has finally been decrypted and translated. Submarine Flotilla Headquarters Yokosuka has ordered her to make best possible speed for Tanegashima Island.”
“The space center?” Louise asked, surprised.
“They have a launch coming up in a couple of days, and I’m told it’s SOP to station a couple of MSDF ships just off-shore for rescue operations.”
“But a submarine?” Louise asked in wonder. “That submarine?”
“We’re going to need confirmation ASAP, so I want as many people as you can spare on it. If the Natsushio shows up anywhere along that track it’ll be to communicate with Yokosuka. I want to know about it.”
“What’s going on, Bert?”
“Wish the hell I knew. But it’s starting to get interesting out there.”
“That it is.”
McGarvey met Fred Rudolph at a roadside café just off the George Washington Parkway near CIA Headquarters at 7:30 A.M. When Rudolph called he’d been mysterious, except that the meeting couldn’t wait and he preferred that it be held on neutral ground. The place was busy and therefore anonymous.
“This is getting completely out of hand, and I’m going to have to make some tough decisions today,” Rudolph said. It was obvious he hadn’t slept last night. His suit was rumpled, and his eyes were red. He looked done in.
“How’d the raid on Far East’s offices go?” McGarvey asked. “Did you find something?”
Rudolph laughed, and glanced at the four men in the booth across from them. “Joseph Lee was funneling money not only to the White House, but to nine senators and twice that many representatives. We found cash, payment records and lobby points. We’re still working on that, but on the surface it looks as if Lee was representing the Japanese. Specifically the Ministry for International Trade and Industry.” MITI was as close to a Japanese central intelligence agency or intelligence clearinghouse as any governmental bureau in Tokyo. Their stated goal was the domination by Japanese business, and therefore political interests, in the eastern hemisphere.
The fact wasn’t surprising to McGarvey, only the extent of it. “Have you turned that over to Sam Blair yet?”
Rudolph shook his head. “That’s one of the decisions I have to make. Because once I do, it’ll leak to the media and all hell will break loose. After everything else that’s happened, Congress will almost certainly start impeachment hearings.” He rubbed his eyes. “Christ, what a mess.”
“Did you pick up Sandy Patterson?”
“We have a warrant for her arrest, but she’s disappeared, and that’s not the half of it. Apparently she was the one who introduced Tony Croft to the call girl. Her name is — or was — Judith Kline. She’s dead. Run over by a taxi in front of the convention center last night.” Rudolph looked beseechingly at McGarvey. “I had her on the phone, and she panicked. An accident.”