Last Man Standing

47

Web was now getting worried. Claire had not called back, and he had phoned the hotel but gotten no answer. He called her house and there was no answer there either. Her office hadn’t seen her; she had no patients scheduled because it was her normal day off. Maybe she had just gone out for a drive along the Blue Ridge or something, he thought. She hadn’t mentioned a trip to him, and even if she had gone, why didn’t she answer her cell phone? Every professional instinct he had was telling him something was wrong.

He left Romano at East Winds and drove to the hotel. It was not the sort of place where anyone would necessarily note the coming and going of guests, but Web figured he’d try. However, the staff that possibly would have seen her come in the previous evening was not on duty yet. And no one he talked to remembered anyone resembling Claire coming through the lobby the day before. Her car wasn’t in the parking lot either. He drove to her house, found a back window open and crawled through. Web went through her house thoroughly but found nothing that could tell him where she might have gone. He did find a book with her daughter’s phone number and address in it. She went to school in California, so it wasn’t like Claire could have popped in to see her for the day. Web contemplated calling the daughter, but a call from the FBI might throw the girl into needless hysterics if it turned out nothing was wrong. He left and went to Claire’s office. O’Bannon was not in, but another person who worked there was. She hadn’t talked to Claire and didn’t know where she might be.

“Three strikes and you’re out,” muttered Web.

He went downstairs to the security desk, flashed his badge and asked if anything unusual had happened the previous night. The rental cop snapped to attention at the sight of the FBI shield and flipped through the notes left by the night shift. Web had gone through the security check before when he had come to see Claire because guests had to sign in, but he didn’t recognize this guard. They probably rotated them throughout lots of buildings.

“Yeah, the log shows a call from Dr. Daniels at twelve-thirty A.M.

She said the lights had gone out in her office and the guard informed her that all electrical systems were a go and that it might be her circuit breaker and asked if she needed assistance.” The young man read this all in a stilted yet quavering voice probably not all that far removed from puberty. “She replied in the negative and that was all.” He looked up from the paper. “You want me to do anything?”

The kid’s big eyes were just begging Web to send him into action. The guy was armed and probably shouldn’t have been, Web noted.

“I know you keep a record of visitors entering and leaving the building. I just signed in on my way in.”

“That’s right.”

Web waited patiently for a few seconds, but the kid just wasn’t getting it.

“Can I see the register?” Web finally said.

The fellow almost jumped out of his chair. Web had noted that the kid had checked out his face and might have recognized him from all the TV stuff lately. He was probably thinking that Web was half insane and needed to be humored at all costs if one wanted to avoid a violent death. And right now Web was perfectly fine with that perception.

“Yes, sir.”

He pulled the book out and Web quickly searched through the pages. There had been lots of guests during business hours the day before, but they ended at six o’clock. He looked at the guard.

“What about after hours? What’s the sign-in procedure?” “Well, it’s a keycard system and the doors automatically lock at six. If you want to get in after six, a tenant has to call down and let security know, and when the guest gets here we call up and the tenant has to come down and get the person when they show up. Or the guest may use the exterior phone, identify themselves and who they’re here to see. We call up, and the tenant comes down. If the tenant doesn’t answer or isn’t expecting the visitor, they don’t come in, that’s the rule. There are some government offices in here and such. I think maybe something to do with the Pentagon, even,” he added, with a small measure of pride. “It’s a very secure facility.”

“I’m sure,” said Web absently as he continued to study the pages. “This place have an underground garage?” Web had always parked out front.

“Yes, sir, but it’s on a keycard system twenty-four hours a day, tenants only.”

Web made a mental note to check and see if Claire’s Volvo was there. “So tenants can come and go through the garage elevator and bypass security?”

“That’s right, but tenants only.”

“Regular lift gate on the garage?”

The guard nodded.

“How about someone slipping into the garage without a car? Can they take the elevator up without a keycard?”

“Not after hours.”

“But how about during business hours?” persisted Web.

“Um, that might be possible,” said the guard in a small voice, as though Web’s observation had just blown his whole professional life.

“Right. Look, is there any way I can talk to the guy who was on duty last night, the one who spoke with Claire?”

“Tommy Gaines. He’s a friend of mine; we actually joined up at the same time, right out of high school. He’s working the ten-tosix shift.” He grinned. “Tommy’s probably home dead asleep.”

“Call him,” said Web in a tone that made the kid grab the phone and start dialing.

Tommy was reached and Web took the phone and identified himself. He could hear the sleepy Gaines become instantly alert. “How can I help you?”

Web explained what he was looking for. “I take it you didn’t see Claire Daniels leave?”

“No, I figured she just went out through the garage like she always does. I worked the day shift there for a year and so I knew who she was. She was a real nice lady.”

“She’s not dead yet, son,” said Web.

“No, sir, I didn’t mean that.”

“It says she called you at twelve-thirty last night. Did she often work that late?”

“Well, I wouldn’t necessarily know that, since she didn’t have to come and go through the front lobby.”

“I understand that; I was trying to find out if you had ever seen her here that late before.”

“No, I hadn’t.”

“Did she sound strange when she called?”

“She sounded scared, but I guess if the lights went out on me I would be too, and she was a woman by herself and all.”

“Right.” Web knew female FBI, Secret Service and DEA agents who could bite young Mr. Gaines in half and never break a sweat. “Did she say that she was all by herself?”

“What? Well, actually, come to think of it, no, she didn’t. But I sort of got that impression because she called down and all.”

“And the lights down here were fine?”

“Yep. And I could see some of the other buildings out the front. The lights were all right there too. That’s why I told her the breaker might have popped. See, this building is set up that each unit has control boxes for their space. That way if one office is doing renovation or has to cut the power for some reason, it doesn’t affect the rest of the building. There is a main power switch for the whole building, but that’s locked up and the building engineer has the key.”

“And you told her you’d come up, but she said that was all right and she said she’d check the circuit breaker box herself.”

“That’s right.”

“And you didn’t hear anything else from her?”

“That’s right.”

Web thought for a moment. The lights were working in Claire’s office now. But it might be worth another check.

“Oh, Agent London,” Gaines said. “Now that I think about it, about twenty minutes after Claire called I did notice something.”

Web tensed. “What? And give it to me exactly as you remember it, Tommy.”

“Well, an elevator started up. That can only happen after hours if somebody has a keycard and activates it.”

“Where did the elevator originate?”

“From the garage, heading up. I could see it on the floor indicator. It was on P2 and then was coming back up. I was doing rounds and got a clear view of it.”

The other guard piped up to Web, “Maybe that was Claire Daniels leaving.”

Web shook his head. “Most elevators, especially after hours, are programmed to return to the lobby level. If Claire had hit the button for the elevator, it would have originated from the lobby, not the garage level.”

“Oh, that’s right,” said the crestfallen kid.

Tommy Gaines obviously had heard this exchange and said, “I guess I was thinking it was Ms. Daniels too, because she had called so recently, and I was thinking the lights going out had freaked her out and she had decided to go on home. But you’re right about the elevators. The car must have been called from someone on the P2 level and I happened to pass by it when it was heading back up and got it in my head that Ms. Daniels had called it up.”

Web said, “But did you see where it stopped at? If I remember correctly, the office where she works takes up most of that floor.”

“No, I just kept making my rounds. So I didn’t see that or when it came back down either. But whoever it was didn’t come out the lobby, I would have seen them.” He added, “Sorry, that’s all I know.”

“No, that’s okay, Tommy, you’ve helped me a lot.” He looked at the kid at the desk. “And you too.”

As Web hit the elevator button and headed back up, he had a lot to think about. Either it was coincidental that somebody had gone up about twenty minutes after Claire called down, perhaps just another tenant burning the midnight oil, or something else was going on. Under the circumstances, Web just had to assume it was the latter.

When Web got to Claire’s offices, he asked the same woman who had helped him before if he could see the electrical closet.

“It’s over there, I think,” she said uncertainly.

“Thanks.”

“Do you think something’s happened to Claire?” the woman asked nervously.

“I’m sure she’s fine.”

Web went to the closet and found it locked. He looked around, but the woman had gone back into her office. He pulled out his little picklock kit and soon had the closet open. He looked around. The first thing that struck him was that something had been pulled out of the wall. There was a clear gap on the power board and wire insulation and other bits of debris were on the floor. Web had no idea whether it had been done recently or long ago. He hoped it hadn’t happened last night. As he swung his head around, his experienced eyes picked up what Claire’s had missed: the wireless button trip on the inside of the doorjamb, similar to those installed in homes that would trigger an alarm if the door was opened and the contacts broken. Web had seen lots of these devices but never on an electrical closet in an office building. He walked to the front door of the office and opened it. There was no trip button there; in fact, he saw no security panel at all. Why have a security system on your electrical closet and not your office? A cold sense of dread hit Web as he looked at all the closed doors of this space. Claire had told him that a great number of FBI agents, spouses and other law enforcement types sought professional help here. A lot of intimate, confidential information was being revealed behind those portals.

“Shit!” Web ran to Claire’s office. The door was locked. He picked it and went in. He saw the flashlight on the floor and was about to search her desk when he happened to look up and saw the smoke detector dangling there. He reached for it and drew back as his FBI training took over. Potential crime scene, fingerprints; don’t contaminate the evidence. He called Bates, explained the situation to him and the FBI put out an APB on Claire; and Bates and a tech team showed up thirty minutes later.

Within three hours the entire office had been meticulously gone over and the people questioned. Web was sitting out in the waiting room the whole time. Bates came out, looking pale.

“I don’t believe this, Web, I really don’t.”

“The smoke detectors were listening devices, weren’t they?” Bates nodded. “And video. Pinhole cameras.”

“PLC technology?”

Bates nodded again. “Like the spooks use. Sophisticated stuff.” “Well, I guess we just found our leak.”

Bates looked down at a list he held. “I guess, you look at it singly, and it’s like an agent here, a spouse there, no big deal. But we checked uptown, where they keep records on this because the Bureau’s insurance foots the bill. Can you believe that almost two hundred agents, spouses and other personnel connected with the Bureau are patients here? I’m talking people at the bottom all the way to people at the top. And who knows how many at other agencies like DEA, Secret Service, Capitol Police?”

“Well, going to shrinks wasn’t real popular with agents before this. Now I guess you can just kiss it good-bye.”

“O’Bannon had high-level clearances. Ex-Army, worked in-house at the Bureau as a counselor, solid as a rock. Or so we thought.”

“An ocean of intelligence.” Web just shook his head. “Debbie Riner, Angie Romano and others. Guys aren’t supposed to really talk to their wives about work, but it happens. I mean, everybody’s human.”

“That must be how they knew you guys were hitting the place that night and even which team was going to be where. It was a planned assault, lots of lead time. One of the guys could have told the missus and she lets it slip to O’Bannon and, bam, the bugs pick it up.” Bates covered his face with his hand. “Damn, how do I tell Debbie Riner she might have helped kill her husband?”

“You don’t, Perce. You don’t,” Web said firmly.

“But if I don’t, she’ll find out from some source. And, God, think of the blackmail potential. How do we know that hasn’t happened already?”

“Face it, Perce, this is an octopus with tentacles that never stops growing.” Web looked around the office. “All personnel accounted for here?”

“All except Claire Daniels.”

“And O’Bannon?”

Bates sat down. “It looks like he was definitely involved. His files have been cleared out. We checked his house. That’s been cleared out too. We’ve got APBs out, but if this all went down last night, he’s got a big head start. By private plane he could already be out of the country.” Bates rubbed his head. “This is a nightmare. Do you know what will happen when the media gets hold of this? The Bureau’s credibility will be wrecked.”

“Well, if we can nail the people behind this, we might be able to get some of it back.”

“O’Bannon’s not sticking around for us to come and arrest him, Web.”

“I’m not talking about O’Bannon.”

“Who, then?”

“First of all, let me ask you a question that’ll probably make you wanta take a swing at me, but I need a straight answer if I’m going to be able to help you.”

“Ask it, Web.”

“Is there any possibility that O’Bannon was working with the Bureau to bug the offices so management would know what the foot soldiers’ problems were?”

“That crossed my mind, actually. And the answer is no. Thing is, there are some real higher-ups who come here too, it’s not just rank-and-filers. And I’m talking the kind of heavyweights—and their wives, by the way—who could bring down just about everybody at the Bureau if that sort of crap was going on.”

“Okay, then let’s assume that O’Bannon orchestrated this whole intelligence-gathering scheme. Why? Not for kicks. For profit. It always comes down to the bucks. He sells information to lots of different people and law enforcement operations everywhere get blown as a result. And maybe somebody bought info from O’Bannon to execute the hit on Charlie. Like you said, he could have gotten details from one of the wives he was seeing as a patient. Whoever’s behind that, I want them.”

“Well, I thought we did know. The Frees. We already nailed them.”

“Oh, you really think so?”

“Don’t you?”

“It seems to fit, almost too perfectly. Do we have any more information about what might have happened to Claire?”

“Yeah, and it’s not good. Less than half an hour after the lights went out in Claire’s office, O’Bannon arrived at the garage. He used his keycard to get in and that gave us both his identity and the time of entry.”

Web nodded and his spirits fell even more. “She trips the alarm, O’Bannon probably had a remote unit at his house and got the signal. He hightails it over here.”

“And finds Claire.” “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, Web.”

Web drove back to East Winds, as depressed as he’d ever been in his life. As bad as things looked for the Bureau right now, he didn’t even care. All he cared about was finding Claire alive.

Romano was cleaning one of his pistols and looked over when Web came up the stairs of the carriage house. “Man, you look bummed.”

Web sat down across from him.

“I screwed up, Paulie.”

“Hell, it’s not the first time.” Romano smiled, but Web obviously wasn’t in the mood. Romano put down the gun and looked at his friend. “So talk to me.”

“Claire Daniels.”

“Your shrink.”

“My psychiatrist.” He paused and then added, “And my friend. Some guys threatened her but then let her go. They’re connected with my case, so she was put in danger because of me. She comes to me for help, and what do I do? I don’t help.”

“Did you offer her protection?”

“Yes, but she didn’t want to take it. She thought the threat wasn’t real; she made it sound very logical. Now it turns out this O’Bannon guy she worked with was bugging all the psychiatrists’ offices and getting information from patients during sessions. Lots of those patients were people who worked at the Bureau. And folks connected to them,” he added. He didn’t know if Romano was aware that Angie was seeing O’Bannon. And if he didn’t know, Web did not want to be the one to tell him. “Then he’s probably been selling the info to the highest bidder to use in knocking out law enforcement operations all over the place.”

“Holy shit! Do you think Claire was in on it?”

“No! It looks like she stumbled on the truth and now she’s disappeared.”

“Maybe she’s hiding out.”

“She would’ve called.” Web’s hands balled to fists. “Damn, I’m an idiot for not putting her on around-the-clock protection. Now it’s too late.”

“Don’t be so sure. From the little I saw of her, she can take care of herself. On the drive to the farm, I was talking to her some, and the lady is sharp.”

“You mean you were trying to get some free psychiatric advice.”

“I wasn’t looking for any, but hey, everybody’s got problems, okay? Talking to Claire, she made me see some things. Take me and Angie.”

Web stared at him with great interest, if only to get his mind off Claire’s plight for a few moments. “Okay, what about you and Angie?”

Romano looked vastly uncomfortable now that he had raised the subject. “She doesn’t want me to do HRT anymore. She’s tired of me being gone all the time. I guess no big surprise there.” He added quietly, “And the boys are getting older and they deserve a father who’s around more than a month out of every year.”

“Is that what she said?”

Romano looked away, “No, that’s what I said.”

“So you really thinking of hanging up your .45s?”

Romano shot him a glance. “Don’t you ever think about it?” Web sat back. “I talked to Debbie Riner recently and she said more or less the same thing about Teddy. But it’s different for me, I don’t have a wife or kids, Paulie.”

Romano hunched forward. “See, the things is, in the last eight years I’ve missed four Christmases, both my boys’ First Communions, every damn Halloween, a couple of Thanksgivings and my son Robbie being born! And on top of that I can’t tell you how many birthdays, baseball games and soccer matches, special stuff like that. Hell, it’s like my boys are surprised when I’m home, Web, not when I’m gone, because me gone is like normal to them.”

He touched the spot near his belly button. “And that hit I took last night? Got a nasty bruise and it hurt like hell for a while, but what if it had been an inch lower, or two feet higher and through my head? I’m gone. But you know what? It wouldn’t have been that much different than when I was alive, at least for Angie and the boys. And then what happens? Angie’s gonna get remarried, you know that, and the boys will maybe get a real dad and forget all about Paul Romano even being their old man. I’d take a damn Barrett round in the head over that, Web, I really would. Every time I think about it—shit!”

Web could actually see wetness in Romano’s eyes, and the sight of one of the toughest men he had ever known being brought to his knees over love for his family hit Web harder than even Francis Westbrook ever could. Romano quickly looked away and swiped at his face.

Web gripped Romano’s shoulder. “That’s not going to happen, Paulie; you’re a good dad. Your kids would never forget you.” As soon as he said this, it struck Web. He had forgotten his father, totally and completely. A birthday party, six years old. Claire had said Web and his old man were having a really good time. Until the cops showed up. “And you’re doing good for your country too, don’t forget that,” he added. “Nobody gives a damn about serving their country anymore. Everybody just complains about how rotten it is without doing anything to make it better. But man, the second they need you, you better be there.”

“Yeah, serving my country. And wiping out a bunch of hick kids and old farts who couldn’t hit the Statue of Liberty from three feet away with a bazooka.”

Web sat back and said nothing because he had nothing more to say on that subject.

Romano looked up at him. “Claire will turn up, Web, and who knows, maybe you and her can be more than friends. Get a real life.”

“You don’t think it’s too late?” It all sounded impossible to achieve.

“Hell, if it ain’t too late for me, it sure ain’t too late for you,” said Romano.

Web didn’t think he sounded too confident and the men looked miserably at each other.

Web stood. “You know, Paulie, both of us are in sorry-ass shape. And you know what else?”

“What?”

“Now I’m really looking forward to this party tonight.”