“Lee.”
“Lee’s not here. Lee’s away on TOY somewhere.”
“Lee!”: [“Hush, Sue.
I’m going to have to think about this one.”
Carson had come into his office, even though it was a Saturday morning.
The DRMO, of course, was empty, and his pickup was the only truck out in the lot. He had told his wife that he needed to catch up on some paperwork, but the real reason was that he needed time to think. His latest conversation with Tangent had been nip and tuck.
In retrospect, he had probably done things backward. First he had told Tangent that the Army had come and gone — satisfied, he was pretty sure, that the cylinder had been destroyed in the demil machine. Then he had told him that the DCIS guy, Stafford, had tumbled somehow to why the Army was there, evidently because of something Dillard had told him.
Tangent had been worried about this sudden Army “exercise,” but he’d gone positively hermantile over Stafford’s accusations.
“He knows? He described the item?”
“Pretty close, he did. But look, he has no evidence. Lambry is gone, and I’ll guarantee you Lambry did not know where the cylinder is hidden.
Only what it looked like when he brought it to me.”
“I don’t know, Carson. We may have to dump this thing. What if Lambry’s in hiding somewhere, just waiting to testify? What if they have his ass?”
“Who? The Army? The DCIS? Is that likely? Stafford wouldn’t be running his mouth in my office if they had anything at all. They’d be all over this place waving warrants, and my ass would be in the slammer. They have nothing. Stafford was just trying to spook me, that’s all.”
Tangent thought that one over. “So where the hell is Lambry?”
“Who the hell knows? I think he got scared when Stafford showed up. He’s a hillbilly from Alabama somewhere. We’re not talking math major here, okay? Probably got scared and hightailed it back into the piney woods.
Left the gas on in his house in southeast Atlanta and burned the thing down.”;-:
“I didn’t know that.”
“Well, he did. Day after he failed to show up for work.” It had, of course, been more than one day, but Tangent didn’t need to know that.
“The arson cops came around, but they didn’t think it was arson. No bodies or anything. No insurance policy. He just cleared out.
Unfortunately, he must have leaked something to Dillard, and Dillard was seen talking to Stafford.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. Where’s Stafford now?” “Don’t know. But you said you had some influence up there. You found out his political situation. Why don’t we act on that? The Army’s come and gone; they’re not going to want to hear any noise about any missing CW cylinder. If you can neutralize Stafford quickly, after all that trouble he got in up there in Washington, then we’ll be home free.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?”
“I’m thinking of complaining up my chain of command that Stafford is making wild-ass accusations. I’ll start it with a side bar to the local DCIS office in Atlanta. Make it sound like Stafford’s lost it — you know, become some kind of nutcase. You say you can make things happen up there. You get DCIS headquarters to pull him back to D.C. Get Stafford out of the picture. The Army’s already out of the picture. Like I said, we’re home free. Better yet, we’ll be dealing with an object that isn’t missing.”
“That’s probably going to be harder than it sounds,” Tangent said. “My people have no direct leverage on the DCIS.”
“Well, get some, goddamn it,” Carson said. “Stafford’s the only thing between us and some serious money, right? You said he was on a shit list up there. Pull the string with the people he burned. Didn’t you say he took down a Bureau guy?”
“Yeah, that’s right. The Bureau. There is an angle we can work with the Bureau.”
“Well, all right, then. I guess you have to wait until Monday.”
“No, I don’t. But you let us worry about that. From what I’ve heard about this guy, all it’s going to take is a few words that he’s running wild again, and somebody’ll step on his neck.”
“But it’s Saturday: Nobody—”
“Every department in government law enforcement has a duty officer, Carson. Which is even better: When the duty officer calls, the bosses react first, and then pulse their staffs on Monday.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing. Sit tight. Don’t call DLA. You’re right. This is the way to go. We’ll have this Stafford prick off the boards by Monday.”
“Okay, but then what? Should we sit on things for a week, let the dust settle?”
“I don’t think so. Stafford can be neutralized, but short of somebody shooting him, he can’t be silenced. No, if anything, I think we have to move up the transfer. Our clients are anxious, and we don’t want them to get wind of any shit brewing in DCIS circles. I want you to call me at six p.m. tomorrow, that’s Sunday.” He gave Carson another 800 number and hung up.
Carson thought about all that. So now it was hurry up and wait, while the Washington ballerinas did the monster mash on Stafford. Short of shooting him, Tangent had said. Well, if he gets between me and my money, I may have a go at that option.
He decided to go over to the demil building and make damned sure that no one had messed around with the roller casing. But first he would take a little stroll, make sure that bastard Stafford wasn’t skulking around the warehouses somewhere. He patted his windbreaker pocket as he left his office. His snub-nosed Colt felt reassuringly solid.
23
Stafford had taken a motel room at the Holiday Inn out on 1-20 after having a late breakfast at one of the ubiquitous Waffle Houses. After his meeting with Sparks, he had gone t up to his room in the hotel long enough to pack his stuff, get five hours of sleep, and then hit the interstate west out of Atlanta. It had taken him an hour and a half to get to Oxford, which was the turnoff for Anniston to the north I of the interstate. The motel room would provide a base of {operations with a land-line telephone and a local directory, and he would probably be staying overnight, depending on what shook out from his inquiries at the Army base. As long as he kept his government-issue cell phone off the air, Sparks could not know where he was, which should give him forty-eight hours of breathing room. Until Monday, that is, at which time Ray Sparks would expect him in the DCIS office in Smyrna. He smiled ruefully. What Sparks had actually said was that he expected Stafford in his office this morning, but Stafford had decided to misunderstand.
Forty-eight hours. On a weekend. Not much time.
He made a call to the local newspaper and talked to a harried-sounding female reporter who was about to go out to cover a local charity golf tournament. He identified himself as a freelance writer, gave a false name, and said he was looking for local interest stories in small-town Alabama. He said he’d heard a rumor that there was something big going on at the Army base, something to do with chemical weapons. She laughed and told him that there were always rumors about the CW depot, but the only news came when they made a shipment out west somewhere and the local environmental protestors did their bit along the railroad right-of-way. Because a lot of people in this town were dependent on the base, though, the protests never amounted to much. Otherwise, there was nothing shaking that she knew about, and she said she really had to get a move on. He thanked her and hung up.
He tried the same probe at the local radio stations in Oxford and Anniston, but everyone was out doing something called “remotes” at shopping centers or car dealerships. Nobody had heard about anything out of the ordinary going down at the Army base.