Fear No Evil

Chapter 4

Tenth Avenue in Southwest DC goes under L’Enfant Plaza with a turnoff for monthly permit and public parking. The deceased, a big blonde in her late thirties with a gunshot wound to the head, was sitting upright in a corner of the third level of monthly permit parking.

A crude sign that said TRAITOR was hung around her neck.

“Someone had to have seen her get put here,” I said. “Cameras, anyway.”

Sampson nodded. “Maybe we will make our flight tomorrow morning.”

Valerie Jackson, a Metro patrol officer, met us at a band of yellow tape she’d strung around the crime scene. The spy museum’s director had discovered the victim when he arrived shortly after dawn.

“She has a CIA ID?” Sampson asked.

“Photo and everything. It’s still on her lap. Catherine Hingham of the CIA.”

We put on blue shoe covers and latex gloves before crossing to the deceased, who was dressed like a suburban mom out for a lunch date after yoga class. We saw how nasty the exit wound was, but we both noted how little blood there was around and behind her.

“She was moved here,” Sampson said.

“I was just going to say the same thing,” I said. “She was shot elsewhere, cleaned up a little, and put here as a message.”

“To who?”

“Other traitors?”

We saw two black Suburbans drive in and park.

“Who the hell let them in?” Officer Jackson said, moving toward the cars. Six men and women in black windbreakers emerged. One guy with slicked-back blond hair and an attitude came straight to the yellow tape and ducked under it. When Officer Jackson tried to cut him off, he flashed an ID and kept coming.

“Dean Weaver, Detectives,” he said. “Central Intelligence Agency.”

“CIA?” Sampson said, pulling himself up to his full six foot nine inches and getting in the man’s way.

“Good — you can hear, and you understand English,” Weaver said, holding up his identification. “We’ll be taking over the investigation from here. I want any and all evidence left in situ. And I ask that you kindly leave.”

I shook my head. “Not a chance. Federal law prohibits the CIA from running investigations in the United States, so I’ll have to ask you to leave my crime scene.”

“And who are you?”

“Dr. Alex Cross, investigative consultant to Metro PD and the FBI. And if you don’t leave, I’ll be calling my liaison, Supervising Special Agent Ned Mahoney, who I’m sure would be glad to explain how the law works domestically.”

The CIA officer looked ready to pop his cork but he kept it under control. “Catherine Hingham is — was — one of ours, Dr. Cross,” he said with clenched fists. “Can I please at least identify her?”

“After you explain how you found out so fast,” I said.

“I... can’t say. It’s... complicated.”

Sampson smiled. “Must happen like that a lot in the spy business.”

The CIA officer sighed. “You have no idea.”

“Let him look, John,” I said, and Sampson let Weaver walk a few more feet forward until he could see the body.

Weaver’s shoulders slumped and he stood there glumly for several minutes, looking at her. “That’s Catherine,” he said when he turned around. “And I don’t care what that sign says. She was no traitor.”

“Thank you,” Sampson said. “But again, we’re going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Don’t you want to know about her?” Weaver asked.

“I thought you guys never talk about what you do.”

“We don’t, usually. This is different.”