Dead End

Fifteen

But for the fact that there was no facial resemblance – which didn’t alter Parnell’s immediate impression – the two men confronting him in the FBI’s Washington field office could have been twins. They were both of the same indeterminate height and build and wore their mousy hair short and neatly parted to the left. The spectacles were rimless, the style minimal, their faces unlined by apparent worry or concentration. They didn’t smile, either. The suits were grey, the faint check difficult to detect, the ties matching but subdued red. Parnell guessed the identical pins in their lapels represented a college fraternity. Howard Dingley, his seniority marked by his being behind the uncluttered desk, wore a signet ring on the little finger of his left hand. His partner, David Benton, didn’t. Instead a copper rheumatism-preventing bracelet protruded slightly from beneath the left arm of his double-cuffed shirt.

Dingley said: ‘We’ve got ourselves a very high-profile investigation here, Mr Parnell – high-profile because of what was attempted against you after Ms Lang’s murder. You any idea how lucky you were that Ms Lang made that call?’

‘No, I don’t suppose I have, not fully,’ admitted Parnell. ‘I’m still trying to understand what the hell’s going on.’ There was the familiar buzz-saw sound to Ms.

‘That’s what we’re trying to do. Have to do,’ said Benton.

‘And why you’re the key to everything,’ said Dingley.

Predictably the accents matched, clipped, in-a-hurry East Coast, which Parnell believed he could already isolate – guess at least – from the more leisurely Midwest or West Coast. ‘That’s why I’m here, to do all – everything – I can do to help.’

‘That’s what we wanted to hear,’ said Benton. ‘Tell us about AF209.’

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ said Parnell. ‘I don’t know what it was doing in Rebecca’s bag. Her job was to liaise with Dubette’s overseas subsidiaries. There are a lot. It has to be something to do with that: a flight on which a shipment came in.’

‘A particular flight which both your GCHQ and our National Security Agency picked up while listening to suspected terrorist chatter,’ said Dingley. ‘As well as French security. Which was why it was cancelled four times.’

‘I know. I can’t help you,’ said Parnell.

‘How do you know?’ seized Benton.

‘It was stated in court, when I was released.’

‘What’s your take on it?’ demanded Benton. ‘Your arrest – the way Metro DC police behaved?’

‘You mean, what do I think?’

Dingley nodded.

‘I don’t know,’ stumbled Parnell, awkwardly. ‘I mean, I know what happened, but I don’t know how or why.’

‘Tell us about Ms Lang,’ said Benton.

It came as a shock to Parnell to realize how very little he actually did know about Rebecca. ‘We met at Dubette. Started seeing each other. A relationship began. Her father was American, her mother Italian. Both dead now…’ He stopped, in full recollection. ‘In a car crash. As far as I know, her only relation is an uncle, who owns Giorgio’s Pizzeria on Wisconsin. It’s called Giorgio’s. His name is Giorgio Falcone. She was a graduate of Georgetown University, here in DC. Worked at Johns Hopkins before joining Dubette. She was attached to the division co-ordinating their overseas subsidiary’s laboratories.’

The two FBI agents looked at him, waiting.

‘Yes?’ prompted Dingley.

‘That’s about it,’ said Parnell.

Benton frowned. ‘I thought you were getting married?’

‘We’d decided to live together. I guess with the eventual intention of getting married.’

‘But you hadn’t learned a lot about each other?’ said Dingley.

‘That’s what people live together for, isn’t it? To learn about each other,’ said Parnell. He wasn’t sounding very intelligent, Parnell realized – forthcoming even. Before there could be any further questions, Parnell said: ‘I have thought about things… about that Sunday.’

‘We’d like to hear about it,’ urged Benton.

It began in a disorganized rush but Parnell stopped, correcting his chronology and his calculation of how he and Rebecca must have been under surveillance throughout their visit to Chesapeake. Towards the end of the account, Dingley began nodding in agreement.

Benton said: ‘That’s how we’ve got it figured. And why you’re the key.’

They weren’t making notes, so Parnell assumed the conversation was being recorded, although there was no obvious apparatus.

‘What about Ms Lang’s friends?’ asked Dingley.

‘I never met any.’

‘Not a one?’ demanded Benton, disbelievingly.

‘No,’ said Parnell, knowing how empty it sounded. ‘She didn’t… I don’t know… it never came up.’

‘You’re telling us that Ms Lang didn’t have a single friend, apart from you?’

‘I’m telling you that she never introduced me to anyone. It was a new relationship.’

‘Old enough for you to decide to move in together,’ challenged Dingley.

‘There hadn’t been a chance to meet any of her friends. I work a lot. We were down to about one day a week, mostly a Sunday.’

‘You have dangerous chemicals out at Dubette?’ asked Benton.

‘I’m not attached to the chemical division, but yes, I’d expect there to be dangerous chemicals on the premises.’

‘Ricin? Sarin? Stuff like that?’ pressed Dingley.

‘They’re chemical-weapons agents, with no therapeutic value. I doubt anything like that would be there.’

‘Let me tell you how my mind’s working,’ invited Dingley. ‘A terrorist group discover there’s an aeroplane shipping route, between Paris and Washington. They make a contact, get tipped off in advance when there’s a shipment of something toxic – something that could have the same effect as a chemical weapon if it got loose. They put a bomb on the plane, timed to go off just before landing here in Washington DC. Bang! We got another nine-eleven, but this time we got a chemical fallout, as well as maybe four hundred people blown out the sky. How’s that sound?’

‘It sounds horrifying. It also sounds like you’re suggesting that Rebecca was the source, which is absolute and utter nonsense. She never had any terrorist associations.’

‘How do you know?’ said Benton. ‘You never met a single one of her friends, according to what you’ve told us.’

‘What I’ve told you is the truth. I’m also telling you you’re going about things the wrong way to try to link Rebecca into any sort of terrorist association.’

‘Ms Lang gets rammed into a gorge and is killed. You come pretty damned close to getting charged with it. What had you, the two of you, done to make someone want to fit you up like that?’ asked Benton.

‘Nothing!’ insisted Parnell. ‘I know it sounds ridiculous but I can’t think of anything sufficient for someone to want to kill Rebecca and get me accused of doing it.’

‘You’re right, Mr Parnell,’ agreed Dingley. ‘It does sound ridiculous.’

They didn’t believe him: thought he was holding something back, decided Parnell. Less hurriedly than he’d recounted his realization of how they must have been watched, Parnell told the two doubting agents about Rebecca’s Sunday confession of her previous relationship and the pregnancy termination, almost without pause continuing with her persistent curiosity at being bypassed with something involving Dubette’s French ancillaries, with Dwight Newton’s odd misunderstanding in mind as he talked.

The two men facing him remained expressionless. Benton said: ‘You think there’s a significance there somewhere?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Parnell, regretting the exasperation the moment he spoke. ‘You asked me to tell you anything that might help, and that’s what I’m trying to do. I know how empty, how unhelpful, it all sounds.’

‘We know you’re under a lot of strain, Mr Parnell,’ said Dingley. ‘And that you’ve lost someone very close. We’re just trying to build a picture.’

‘And I know I’m not doing a lot to help,’ apologized Parnell.

‘You got any lead to the man with whom Ms Lang had the previous relationship?’ asked Dingley.

Parnell shook his head. ‘Her uncle thinks his name was Alan and that he lived in the DC area. It was about two years ago.’ He hesitated. ‘I wouldn’t imagine her uncle knows anything about the termination.’

‘We know how to be discreet,’ said Benton.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You asked the uncle about this man then?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘After the court discharged me.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m trying to find out what’s going on, just as you are!’

‘It’s our job to find out what’s going on: that’s what we’re trained for,’ said Benton. ‘We don’t want you playing amateur detective, Mr Parnell. Apart from that being dangerous, you might foul things up for us, which would mean no one will ever find out what’s going on.’

‘Dangerous?’ isolated Parnell.

‘Someone’s already been killed!’ said Dingley, letting his exasperation show now. ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that, having failed to put you in the frame for it, whoever murdered Ms Lang might make a move on you?’

‘No. No, it hadn’t,’ admitted Parnell, incredulously. ‘My lawyer… no, it doesn’t matter…’

‘Everything matters,’ said Benton. ‘What about your lawyer?’

‘He told me to be careful not to give the Metro police any excuse to come at me again… driving, stuff like that. But I never thought beyond that, to there being some physical danger from anywhere else.’

‘Think about it now. And take your lawyer’s advice,’ said Benton.

‘But most of all take ours,’ added Dingley. ‘Let us do the investigating.’

‘That’s all I did, tried to find out about the other man.’

‘Which we’ll now do,’ said Dingley.

‘If someone did make a move against me, it could help, couldn’t it? If they made mistakes, I mean.’

The silence seemed to last a long time before Dingley said: ‘And if they didn’t make a mistake and managed to kill you, it maybe wouldn’t help us at all and certainly wouldn’t help you.’

‘You weren’t thinking like a bad movie script, setting yourself up as an intentional target, were you, Mr Parnell?’ said the other FBI man.

‘No!’ denied the scientist, honestly. ‘I was thinking that if something happened… if I thought something happened… something occurred I thought was odd… I could tell you.’

‘You do that,’ pressed Dingley. ‘You tell us, don’t go off on your own.’

‘I’ve already given that undertaking,’ insisted Parnell. ‘So, I need numbers where I can reach you?’

It was Dingley who offered the cards, Benton’s as well as his own. Parnell saw there were cellphone listings as well as the field office land lines. ‘Day or night,’ said Benton.

‘I’d like to keep in touch, hear how things are going,’ said Parnell.

‘You got the numbers,’ said Dingley. ‘We’ll probably need to get back to you when things come up we haven’t covered.’

‘What’s come up so far?’ demanded Parnell.

The two agents exchanged looks. Dingley said: ‘Anything we tell you, we’re telling you. Only you. If it turns up in a newspaper or on television it could wreck the investigation, you understand?’

‘Of course I understand.’

‘We’re concentrating on forensics at the moment,’ said Dingley.

‘And you found what?’ pressed Parnell.

There was a further hesitation from the two men. Parnell said: ‘I told you I understood!’

‘There are some marks, dents, on the rear fender of Ms Lang’s car that our people don’t think were caused by it going over the edge of the gorge,’ disclosed Benton. ‘They think she was hit, shunted, in the back several times…’

‘Being chased, hit and hit again, not knowing who or what it was

…’ imagined Parnell.

‘Something like that,’ agreed Benton.

‘Seat belts!’ broke in Parnell. ‘The police officers told me Rebecca was outside the car when she was found – that she hadn’t been wearing a seat belt. But seat belts were a thing with her. She always wore one: that’s how her parents died, not fastening theirs. Was Rebecca’s broken?’

‘We haven’t been told it was,’ said Dingley. ‘Our forensics guys aren’t helped by everything being moved and collected from the scene

…’ He paused before saying: ‘There’s going to be another autopsy, too. By our pathologists.’

‘The seat belt’s another mystery, to add to all the rest,’ said Benton.

‘Could it be significant?’ asked Parnell.

‘It’s something to flag,’ accepted Benton.

‘I interrupted you,’ apologized the scientist.

‘They’re not happy about the damage to your car, either,’ continued Benton. ‘They don’t think the dents and the paint loss was caused by your car being hit by another vehicle. The damage is too regular. They think it was more likely caused by being hit and scratched by some sort of implement or tool. If another car had been involved, it’s almost inevitable that some of its paint would have been left on yours. There’s absolutely no trace.’

‘Something else,’ remembered Parnell. ‘I got the impression that the police already knew about the damage to my car, before they questioned me. But I hadn’t reported it to Dubette security. During the day, there must be what, three, four hundred cars in the lot. Maybe more. How come they knew about my car, among all the rest?’

‘How indeed?’ echoed Dingley.

‘You discovered the damage on the Thursday?’ queried Benton.

‘Yes.’

‘In the lot?’

‘Yes. When I went to get into the car, to go home.’

‘What time was that?’ took up Dingley.

Parnell shrugged. ‘I can’t be precise. Late. Seven thirty, eight o’clock.’

‘Half-light?’

‘Getting that way. The lot’s lighted, of course.’

‘What about paint on the ground? Anything at all?’

Parnell shook his head, recalling the courtroom examination. ‘I don’t remember seeing any. Looking even. I just thought it was a car-park knock. One of those things.’

‘It was certainly that,’ said Benton. ‘You go through this with the deputies?’

‘Maybe not in quite so much detail,’ said Parnell. ‘You going to talk to them?’

Benton smiled at the question. ‘We’re going to talk to just about as many people as we can. And maybe it was worthwhile letting you in on the preliminary forensic findings after all.’

‘You are going to find out who did it, aren’t you?’ said Parnell.

‘We’re going to try our damnedest,’ promised Dingley.

Parnell felt self-conscious, embarrassed, concentrating upon everyone around him as he left the FBI field office and went into the multi-storey car park to retrieve his car, checking the mirrors before and after driving out, trying to establish whether he was being followed, which he couldn’t. Remembering what one of the Bureau agents had said, Parnell decided it was just like being in a B movie, but tried to convince himself that it was the sort of precaution they were advising, but couldn’t do that either. How long would it have to go on? Until the unknown they were caught, he supposed. What if they weren’t? Howard Dingley’s parting remark hadn’t sounded particularly hopeful. Parnell didn’t think he could maintain the vigilance forever – wasn’t sure he could maintain it even over days or weeks. It was a frightening conclusion, frightening enough for it to stop being embarrassing and become unsettling reality. Parnell tried to check his mirrors all the way to McLean and, with the Dubette building in sight, came close to hitting a suddenly braking car in front because he was studying the reflection of vehicles behind.

He reached the pharmacogenomics division – still an object of attention as he walked the windowed corridors – disorientated, knowing it would be difficult to keep his mind undividedly upon the priority work in which he’d decided to involve himself. Initially, however, he didn’t try. He shook his head against Kathy Richardson’s gesture that she had some messages, and securely closed against interruption the office door he recalled telling the staff would always remain open. He dialled Barry Jackson’s office number. Parnell was connected immediately.

‘I just got back from an FBI interview. I don’t think I did very well.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were going? Ask me to come along?’

‘It didn’t occur to me. Didn’t think it was necessary.’

‘Why don’t you think it went very well?’

‘I couldn’t tell them anything!’

‘Of course you couldn’t.’

‘It sounded like… oh, I don’t know what it sounded like, as if I could even have been hiding something.’

‘I should have come with you.’

‘You’re probably right. But wouldn’t it have appeared that I did have something to hide, needing my lawyer beside me?’

‘Representation’s your legal right. We’ve already proved in a court that you’re not involved.’

‘In murder. They’re concentrating on terrorism! They said they’ll probably need to speak to me again.’

‘Next time I’ll come along.’

‘They said something else, too. That I might be in physical danger. Not from the Metro DC police, although they agreed with your warning. From whoever killed Rebecca. They told me to be careful.’

‘Sounds like good advice.’

‘You agree with them, that it’s a possibility.’

‘Of course it’s a possibility. I would have thought that was obvious.’

‘It hasn’t been, until now. It’s not a very comforting thought.’

‘It’s not intended to be. It’s intended to be advice you should take.’

‘I’m trying.’

‘Don’t stop. And don’t try going alone any more. Talk to me. That’s what eventually you’re going to pay a lot of money for.’

Parnell was conscious of Kathy Richardson through the glassed separation, intently watching for him to replace the telephone, so he turned the movement into a welcoming gesture, opening his closed door to admit her.

The woman said at once: ‘Dwight Newton wanted to see you, the moment you got back…’ She offered a strong, sealed manila envelope. ‘And this came from Dr Spacey.’

Parnell weighed the choices as well as physically testing the envelope, and decided upon the vice president first. On his way further into the Spider’s Web, he thought he should have telephoned ahead but continued on anyway. He was admitted immediately, to a reception in distinct contrast to the previous day. The white-coated man remained hunched forward over his desk and said at once: ‘You didn’t tell me you were going to the FBI!’

‘When we spoke, I didn’t know I was.’

‘I should have known! Been told! Dubette are being dissected in the media, in connection with it all. I should have known.’

‘It was my oversight. I’m sorry.’

‘What was it all about?’

‘They wanted to interview me, obviously.’

‘Someone from Dubette should have been with you.’

‘I don’t think so, Dwight, do you?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘The lawyer you chose for me would have railroaded me into God knows what sort of situation if I’d let him represent me. If I’m accompanied for any further meetings, it’ll be by the man who got me freed, on the spot.’

‘Rebecca Lang’s tape would have been found,’ insisted the other man.

‘Not by me. Or a court official.’

Newton coloured. ‘So, how was it? The interview, I mean.’

‘Still very preliminary. There wasn’t a lot I could tell them.’

‘What was said about Dubette?’

‘Nothing, specifically. As I said, everything was preliminary.’

‘They got any leads?’

Parnell looked steadily at the other man for several moments. ‘Preliminary,’ he repeated, for the third time. ‘No leads, no nothing. Just mystery.’ The greatest of all was when and how – and by whom – will an attempt be made to kill me, he thought, and wished he hadn’t, because he was back into a B-movie mindset.

‘Your people working on the flu request?’ abruptly switched Newton.

‘The current samples were only due today. I haven’t yet had time to check if they’ve arrived. I’m going to head it up, with three others.’

‘I want everyone involved,’ insisted Newton. ‘And I want to be kept in the closest touch. About everything.’

‘I hear the message,’ said Parnell. It would be difficult not to, so often had it been repeated.

Back in his office, the door secured again, Parnell sat for several moments gazing down at Barbara Spacey’s sealed report, wondering if the man he had just left had read it before their confrontation, confused by Newton’s pendulum mood swings. Impatiently Parnell tore open the envelope, not expecting the brevity of the woman’s assessment. In Barbara Spacey’s opinion the events to which he had been subjected had profoundly affected him psychologically. He was making every effort, much of it subconsciously, to suppress any obvious reaction, but would be overly worried by the reaction of others towards him. She was unsure of the true depths of his feelings towards Rebecca Lang and believed Parnell felt, although he might be unable to identify the reason, a deep sense of guilt. There was a marked absence of the overconfidence that she had commented upon in her first report. She wanted another interview in the near future.

She might, thought Parnell. He didn’t.