Fear itself

5

“Abruzzi. Have a seat.”

For a man with no real power base left, and just over two months to go before retirement, Deputy Director Steven P. McDougal had himself one sweet office, thought Linda, doing her best to minimize her exhausted drop-foot shuffle as she crossed the expanse of the blue-gray carpet with the FBI logo in the middle and eased herself down into the handsome yellow wing chair set squarely in front of McDougal’s aircraft carrier of a desk.

On the far side of the flight deck, McDougal, in shirtsleeves and a gorgeous blue shot-silk necktie, was canted back in his leather executive chair with his legs crossed casually at the ankle, reading a newspaper. “How are you feeling?” he asked without looking up.

Once upon a time that would have been mere conversation; now Linda felt she had to sell the answer. “Fine, sir,” she said firmly. “Just fine.”

The deputy director glanced at Linda for the first time, lowering his chin and peering over the half-glasses he wore balanced on the end of his patrician nose. “Pool tells me you’re settling in nicely.”

“Settled, sir-I’m settled.”

“Catch that spy yet?”

Linda thought she saw a glint of amusement in those cool gray alpha-male eyes. “Yes, sir, I believe so.”

He folded the newspaper smartly in half and handed it across the desk. It was the San Francisco Chronicle, Saturday, October 23.FBI FOILS KIDNAP ATTEMPT, screamed the banner headline,SERIAL KILLER IN BERKELEY? and ELECTRONICS HEIR SOUGHT were the sub-heads, and straddling the fold was a captioned photograph of Pender, beret comically askew, right arm in an air-cast and sling, being helped out of an ambulance. “Recognize anybody?”

Linda raced through the article (Simon Childs, heir to the Childs Electronics fortune…brief struggle…authorities believe more victims…) until she found what she was looking for: fractured arm…treated and released-Pender was okay. She was more relieved than she would have expected, considering she’d only met the big galoot twice in her life. “I guess he had a hunch,” she said.

“And it nearly got him killed,” McDougal snapped. “He was lucky. So were we-as you may be aware, lately the Bureau hasn’t exactly been getting the kind of press it once enjoyed. The director called me from home this morning-he said this is the first article in any newspaper in over a month that mentions the FBI without also including the words Waco or bungled.”

“First rate,” replied Linda, though it seemed to her that the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ought to have something better to do with his time.

“There’s a problem, though.”

Linda waited; then she realized that McDougal wanted her to state the nature of the problem. “Childs is still at large.”

“Which is where Liaison Support comes in. You’re on point-you’ll be coordinating the investigation. I want you on it from now until Mr. Simon Childs is either dead or in custody. Because if he starts killing people again, this thing can go south fast, and we’ll lose all the ground we’ve gained.”

“Not to mention all the people he kills will be, like, dead,” said Linda.

McDougal lowered his chin again and peered at her over the rim of his reading glasses for what seemed like an eternity. “Know who you remind me of?” he asked eventually.

“No, sir.”

“Pender-you remind me of Pender.”

“Thank you, sir, I-”

“He’s a major pain in the ass, too. Which is another reason I want you working this case-to keep him off it. When it comes to serial killers, Pender’s like nature-he abhors a vacuum.”

“I understand.”

Linda started to hand the newspaper back; McDougal gave her a little keep-it wave. “Tell Ed it’s for his scrapbook. And one more thing…” He reached under the desk and came up with a handsome blackthorn walking stick with an ivory handle and a ferrule of thin, beaten gold. “This is his-I gave it to him in seventy-five, that time he took a bullet for me. He loaned it back to me last year, when I had my old football knee replaced. I haven’t used it in months, though-would you give it back to him, thank him for me?”

“Sure,” said Linda, taking the cane. It was both lighter and stronger than it looked, and the ivory grip was delicately mottled, like mutton-fat jade. “I didn’t know Pender’d been shot.”

“It’s a good story-you ought to get him to tell it to you sometime. If he offers to show you his scar, though, I’d respectfully decline.”

Linda, stubborn to the end, deliberately avoided using the cane when she pushed herself up from her chair after McDougal dismissed her, or taking advantage of it as she left the office, but on her way back to the car she found herself leaning more and more heavily on it. And although it was a little too tall for her, it made enough of a difference-she felt so much more stable, and was better able to clear the ground with her toes-that when she reached the DOJ-AOB, she didn’t think twice about using it on the short walk to the first elevator, or the long walk from the second elevator to her office.

By then it was a done deal-Linda was hooked. The first time she tried to make it to the ladies’ room unaided, she had to go back for the cane-walking without it now felt like tottering along a tightrope in a high wind-and by the end of the day, Linda and her cane were inseparable.

Which, Linda realized belatedly, was probably why McDougal had given it to her in the first place. Still, she couldn’t help thinking that Pender and/or Dolitz might have had something to do with it as well. Sneaky bastards that they were.