President's assassin

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Jennie and I walked together over to George Meany, who had budged not an inch from the spot where we first observed him. Clearly his mind was going through some kind of self-reflection, and his body was in a frozen trance. He looked at us, blinked a few times, and asked Jennie, "Was that Townsend?"

"Yeah. Not in good shape."

"He's going to need a long vacation," I added. "You should call headquarters and tell the Deputy Director it's his turn at bat."

George looked like he'd rather have the long vacation, but he nodded.

I pointed at the TV crews and said, "In a few minutes, this is going to be a camera farm. Appoint somebody like Butterman to speak to them and spin it as best he can."

The enormity of this thing was finally piercing the density of George's self-pity." I… good idea. Maybe I'll-"

I said, "By the way we have a lead."

"What are you talking about?"

I proceeded to give George a quick rundown about the range thefts at Fort Hood, and he listened intently, with no change in facial expression, and initially, at least, without comment.

When I finished, he rolled it around his brain for a moment. He looked at Jennie and observed, "You accompanied Drummond to the CID headquarters?"

"Yes."

"And you heard about this theft?"

"I did."

"Why didn't you report this lead to me?"

"Because I felt it lacked plausibility."

George stared at her a moment. "That was your professional judgment?"

Before George made a big case out of this, I interrupted to say, "It was a reasonable assessment at that moment. CID's case had big holes and wasn't fleshed out. Had we known Barnes possessed C4 and blasting caps, we obviously would've thought differently."

George looked at me and replied, "By the same token, had we known about this group, we would've known they had C4, and we would've instituted proper precautions. However… you two blinded us to the possibility."

"Joan Townsend was never on our protection list," I pointed out.

"She would've been, had we known."

"Ridiculous."

George ignored me, looked at Jennie, and said, "By noon, I want a statement on my desk. I'm referring this to the review board to decide if you executed your duties competently Understood?"

Needless to say what was going on here wasn't hard to figure out. George needed to throw somebody to the wolves and I had just shoved Jennie in the path.

Jennie informed him, very coolly "I'm formally requesting an extension until five o'clock. It would be poor judgment to interrupt the flow of this investigation over paperwork."

"Fine." Apparently the twofer of sidestepping the blame and burning Jennie put George in a more magnanimous frame of mind.

I said to Jennie, a bit tersely, "Excuse us a moment."

"I'm not going anywhere. I can handle this myself."

To my surprise, George ordered, "Leave us alone."

She looked a little pissed, but George was her superior, as he had just reminded her. We said nothing as she walked off.

George turned to me, shaking his head and smiling. "Looks like you picked the losing team, Drummond. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"This is not working for me, George. If you want my ass, go for it. She stays out of it."

"You're asking for favors now? Well… you're not groveling hard enough."

"George, people are dying. She's trying her best. This is not helping the process."

This seemed to amuse George. He said, "Let me be frank, Drummond. You're making my day. I don't like you, and the thought of getting rid of her and pissing you off… that's sort of irresistible, isn't it?"

"You're a small-minded prick, George."

"And you're out of your league, Drummond. You always were, you just didn't realize it. So let me close with this thought-fuck you." He looked off in the direction of the TV vans and said whimsically, "You know, I'd better go issue a statement myself. You can't trust anybody these days."

I said, "Break a leg… a neck, whatever," and I really meant it. He smiled, and off he went, a little too much bounce in his step, and I gave serious thought to whooping his ass in front of all those cameras.

I found Jennie studying the front of Gold's Gym. At first she was lost in thought, but finally she said, "What a guy"

"Give me your Glock. I'm going to blow his brains out."

"He doesn't have brains."

"Then I'll blow out my brains."

She resisted the urge to tell me I don't have brains either, but only because her cell phone suddenly went crazy.

I moved away from her and watched George gather the cameras around for an impromptu press conference. Despite my feelings toward this guy, he was no idiot, and I was sure he would do a terrifically creative job of putting this incident, and himself, in the best light. Actually George was a pretty good agent-smart, diligent, and even resourceful. His problem was that he always put himself first.

I felt really lousy. I had developed great respect, even affection, for Mark Townsend. I had let him down. As a criminal lawyer I made my living tying pieces of crimes together, but this time I had failed. Failed when it most counted, failed when the stakes weren't guilt or innocence, but survival.

"Sean?"

I turned, and Jennie had walked over and was about a foot away. She lowered her voice and confided, "This is… really strange. The Bureau hotline just got a call."

"About what?"

"They-listen to this-they want a deal."

"They?"

She pointed at the still smoking Crown Vic. "Them"

I pointed at the TV vans. "Word's out, Jennie. A lot of people and groups will be lining up to claim credit."

"Tell me about it. The hotline's logged hundreds of calls." After a moment she added, "But the caller said that June Lacy got a bullet in the throat. Also that Merrill Benedict was wearing a brown checked suit when the rocket tore through his car."

That detail about Lacy had not been released to the press, nor, for that matter, had Benedict's sartorial selection as he was blown in half been regarded as news fit to print. But tapes of Merrill Benedict's final press conference were being replayed constantly on the tube-a befitting testimonial to a world-class bullshitter-so what he wore that day was public knowledge. And certainly enough people were in the know about what happened in the Hawk's house that it would be foolish to rule out a leak, or even an insider trying to exploit a bad situation. I commented, "Not strong enough."

"No? Well, how about this? The caller also mentioned he was willing to forgo the chance for a hundred million in exchange for a sure fifty million. Sean, this is a very interesting development. The caller said he would call back in one hour."

"Don't expect it to pan out."

"Well, here's another thing I should mention. The caller insisted he would only deal with you, or with me. He knew our names. The ops officer thought it sounded legitimate and gave him our cell numbers."

I sort of stared at her a moment.

She said, "I know, I know. It could imply an inside source." She quickly added, "But more likely Barnes had his mother's house watched, or she somehow found a way to communicate with her son after we left."

I shook my head. "One hour."

"He's running us silly."

She was right. Jason Barnes was so far ahead of us he knew where we were going before we knew where we'd been.

But this development was a bit beyond our pay grade, and where we needed to be at that moment was no longer here but with the rest of the task force. We walked back to Jennie's car and departed.

As we were driving a fresh thought hit me, and I used my cell to call General Tingle's office. His secretary answered, I identified myself and told her to break into whatever meeting he was in.

Twenty seconds later, Tingle's voice said, "Jesus, I hope you're not calling to inform me Joan Townsend was blown up with C4."

Apparently his TV was on. I tried to think up a good zinger, but I wasn't really in the mood, nor would he be in another moment. I said, "It was. Though the FBI lab hasn't yet discovered its provenance."

I heard a quiet curse on the other end. Eventually, he concluded the obvious. "Tanner was right."

"Probably. About the source of the munitions anyway The rest remains speculative."

But it didn't need to stay speculative, and I quickly went over what Tingle and his command needed to accomplish. Basically, the plan was to screen Tanner's list of insider suspects, and the question was: Where were those five employees at that moment? Tingle heard me out and mumbled, "Outside shot."

"And do you have an inside shot to offer? You need to do this, General. You left toys in the sandbox, and it's time to get them back."

Tingle did not enjoy my metaphor, but got the point and assured me he could get an answer fairly quickly. I gave him my cell number.

Jennie glanced at me and said, "That's cunning. I never even considered that thread."

"Had we followed that thread a few hours ago, that would've been cunning."

"Stop looking backward."

I replied, "Look, about George, I'm sorry I gave him the perfect shot at your ass."

She did not contradict me, but she did say, "The only important thing at this moment is stopping Jason Barnes." After another moment she observed, "He's playing mind games with us, Sean. He's very good at it."

I knew exactly what she meant, but I wanted to hear her thoughts on the matter. "Explain that."

"He knows how we work and how the bureaucracy functions. These quick, unexpected hammer blows are meant to keep us off balance and at each other's throats. He's aware of our individual and institutional propensity to cover our own asses."

True enough. Still, it was strange, I thought, how shrewdly Barnes was playing his hand. I said to Jennie, "I really underestimated this clown. Nothing in his background suggests this level of deviousness."

She squeezed my arm. "With a father like his, he grew up hiding his feelings and disguising his strengths and weaknesses. This is a remarkably conflicted individual, religious yet murderous, a servant of the government who's now out to destroy that government, a man sworn to protect the same President he now vows to kill. Jason Barnes is a severely fractured personality. When he looks in the mirror, I doubt he recognizes himself."

Jennie called the ops center, informed the duty officer we were en route, and ordered an emergency all-hands call for a very important meeting.

I commented, "Can I get out of this blamefest-I mean, meeting?"

"No." She looked at her watch and punched the gas.

I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Once again, a nagging intuition was telling me something was very wrong.