Capital Crimes

57

KINNEY AND SIX OF HIS SWAT team gathered around the campfire; he had sent the Explorer back to the ferry terminal for the rest of them.

“Okay, here’s where we are,” he said. “Buddy is in the house, rummaging around, cooking dinner. All seems normal. We’re going to wait until he settles in for the night, then we’re going to take him.” His cell phone rang, and he opened it. “Jack.”

“I’ve got the rest of the team,” a voice said, “and we’re on the way back from the ferry terminal. Where do you want them?”

“Drive past the house and up the little hill and around the bend. When you’re out of sight of the house, let them out and tell them to take up positions on the north side. Use no lights. They have night vision, after all. Tell them it will be at least a couple of hours before we go in.” He looked up at the rest of the SWAT team, gathered around the fire. “All of you listen to this.” He spoke into the phone again. “This will be a quiet entry through the front door. Pick the lock. If he has an alarm system, you’ll have thirty seconds before it goes off, so make the most of them. No flashlights inside, just your night-vision goggles. Locate and subdue Buddy. Do not fire unless he fires first. When he’s down, frisked, and cuffed, call me, and we’ll take him home. I’ll be in touch.” He closed the phone.

TED FINISHED HIS STEAK while watching CNN.

“Word from the FBI is that they are now watching I-95 north and south of Washington, D.C., for an RV driven by Theodore Fay, known as the right-wing shooter. With the death of Speaker of the House Eft Efton, the number of his victims has risen to five, four fatalities. We’ll keep you posted on the manhunt as news comes in.”

Ted sat back in his recliner and heaved a deep sigh of relief. He had pulled it off. Now all he had to do was enjoy his retirement. He had prepared well, buying this house more than sixteen years before, and the hangar at about the same time. If he had learned anything at the Agency it was that preparation was nearly everything. He had fooled them and the FBI from day one, stealing materials from Tech Services and building identities that could be penetrated only by accident. He still had three left, should he need them, but he didn’t expect to. He was now hunkered down in his Maine island cottage with everything he needed to live-and the airplane, if he needed to escape. He had, he believed, thought of everything.

He began to grow sleepy; he had, after all, been up since three-thirty that morning, and it had been a tense day. He went over the events of the day once more, to be sure he had not forgotten something, some threat, however small. He was confident that he had not.

He washed his dishes, turned off the TV and the kitchen light, went to his bedroom, and began unpacking the bags he had brought. Everything had been bought in Maine, much of it from the L.L. Bean catalogue. He put his things away, and as he opened a cupboard to stow some wool shirts he came upon an instrument he had nearly forgotten.

That first summer so many years ago, he had staked out a perimeter about seventy-five yards from the house, trenching the soil and laying wire for a triangulating sensor system. In an emergency, he could switch on the system and, on a small cathode ray tube, see any spot where the perimeter had been breached and track any living thing bigger than a cat as it approached the house. For the fun of it, he switched it on; maybe he would spot a deer coming his way. The unit warmed up, and the screen came up blank of intruders.

TO THE NORTH of the house, the SWAT team leader watched as the kitchen lights went off, and the bedroom light came on. He called Jack. “Looks like Buddy is turning in,” he said. “He’s left the kitchen and gone to the bedroom.”

“I can confirm that from our ears,” Kinney replied. “We hear him moving around the bedroom now, apparently unpacking. Let’s move a couple of men up now on each side of the house for eyeball surveillance. We’ll wait an hour after the bedroom lights go off and we hear deep breathing.”

“Roger that.”

TED LOOKED AGAIN at the CRT and still saw a blank screen. He left the cupboard door open, turned down the bed, and got out a pair of flannel pajamas from a drawer. As he began to unbutton his shirt, he heard a soft beep from the cupboard; he looked at the CRT and saw a blip on the north side of the house. A deer, he thought, or maybe a raccoon; he continued to unbutton his shirt. Then the instrument beeped again. This time the blip was on the south side of the house. Was he being surrounded by deer? Both blips remained absolutely stationary, but they were still there. Was somebody watching the house? Was somebody, maybe, listening? He switched on the bedside radio, which was already tuned to Bay Radio, which played the old, big band music he loved. He moved quietly around the room, putting a few things into a small duffel, things he might need.

SMITH TOOK the headphones off. “He’s playing music,” he said to Kinney.

“Music?”

“Big band stuff, fairly loudly.”

“There’s a radio station up here that plays big band,” an agent said. “I had it earlier on my Walkman.”

“Maybe it helps him sleep,” Smith said.

“Maybe it’s to cover up other noise,” Kinney replied.

“Hang on, I just heard a toilet flush,” Smith said. “He just sat on the bed, too. The springs squeaked.”

Kinney’s cell phone rang. “Jack here.”

“The bedroom light went off. The house is dark.”

“Right, we hear him in bed, but there’s radio music playing, so we can’t hear his breathing. Check back in an hour if there’s no change.”

THE MUSIC STOPPED, and an announcer spoke. “We now pause for a test of the national alert system,” he said. “We’ll return to Bay Radio in sixty seconds.” Ted reached out and turned up the radio. A glance at the CRT across the room showed two more blips moving in. Now.

SMITH PULLED OFF the earphones again. “The radio is playing that national alert test that drives everybody crazy. I can’t even listen.”

“It only lasts one minute,” Kinney said.

Smith looked at his watch and waited. Finally, he listened again. “We’re back to music, but it’s louder than before. Why would he turn up the radio as he was going to bed?”

Kinney winced. “He’s on to us. We have to go in right now.” He pressed a button on his cell phone, and the SWAT team leader answered. “We have to go in right now. Position your people to enter in sixty seconds from my mark. Ready… mark!” Kinney snapped the phone shut and punched a button on his wrist chronograph, starting the second hand.

“Everybody in position; we go in one minute.”