The Firefly

7

On his way back to Washington on Sunday, Swamp put a call in to Lucy VanMetre. "This thing of yours is bothering me," she said. "I gave it the Washington Post test, and it failed."

"Ah," he said. So, she had written down the bald facts as they might be reported in the capital's newspaper after some disaster. A litany of what PRU had known, with the clarity of perfect hindsight, of course, and what they'd done about it. Which at this stage of events was nothing. "So you're having the same problem with it that I am."

"Not quite — you're still free to work it. I have this inauguration monster on my back, and it's growing apace."

"You're right. My threat, if it is a threat, is still weeks away."

"Plus, I've signed out a memo saying to ignore it. Now I'm not so sure."

"Want it back?" Swamp asked.

She laughed. "What will that cost?"

"An open mind, and some help if I can surface some real evidence."

"Let's have dinner. My treat. The Queen Bee, say in an hour?"

"They'll be open on a Sunday?"

The Vietnamese restaurant was nearly full, but Swamp saw that Lucy had a table for four all by herself in a front corner, proof that she was a regular. She was dressed in a gray wool suit, a single strand of pearls at her throat. She raised one hand to attract his attention and he joined her at the table. He'd forgotten how blue her eyes were, and the pearls seemed to reflect the color of her hair. Unfamiliar with Vietnamese cuisine, he let her order for the both of them, got a glass of wine, and sat back in his chair. "So how goes the big deal?"

She sighed. "Like a giant whirlpool. Except people are trying to jump in instead of out. Hallory's going crazy. We're all going crazy. I may go back tonight."

He shook his head. "I remember that syndrome," he said. "Where you feel the whole thing will fall apart if you're not on it twenty-four/seven. It's an illusion."

"Illusion? I don't know about that. When I don't go in, things happen. Bad things."

"The solution to that is intensive training of your supervisory agents. They do their job and a little bit of yours; you get to step back, see where the serious holes are."

She smiled. "My problem is the sheer scale of what we're going to do. Like lock down the entire Capitol Hill area — Metro, city streets, airspace, every house within gunshot range of the Capitol. Everything within three blocks. And then, of course, the detailed work. There's the parade, for instance. Three hours of potential shooters walking right in front of the new president. Many of them military units or drill teams carrying rifles. Each of which has to be inspected. And physically plugged."

"Anwar Sadat got it that way," he said, remembering the video of that chaotic assassination. The first course arrived, and by mutual agreement, they put business aside to enjoy the food, which was as colorful as the names on the menu. When they were finished, Swamp walked her through the summary report he had worked on all afternoon for his boss. She was quiet, stirring her coffee when he was finished.

"The crux of it is that we believe some guy who'd been at that clinic for treatment started the fire that killed everyone except Ms. Wall. And he's been after her ever since, and last night it looks like he sent in a woman to finish the job."

"Has there been any improvement?"

"My contact in the D.C. police says she surfaced once but has gone back down again. Basically, no change."

"And you have a name for this subject?"

"We've made a tenuous connection between that clinic patient and a known, albeit low-level, German terrorist associate. And we've connected that same patient to statements recorded under residual anesthetic about bombing the Capitol during the speech to the joint session."

"Connected how?"

"Logical assumption?"

"That good," she said, a faint hint of sarcasm in her voice.

Swamp shrugged. "Well, I did say it was tenuous. I think I've admitted all along that we are basing this more on conjecture than evidence."

"All right, now what?" she asked.

"Now we pray that Wall can give us an up-close description of this unknown female subject in Garrison Gap. Something better than 'pretty woman with a nice rack.' We're leading the press into thinking Wall is dead or almost so, hoping to deflect any further attempts on her life. Much as I hate the idea, I'm beginning to think my original idea — a total screen of all the record fragments from that clinic — is going to be necessary after all. We must get his description."

Lucy rubbed her temples. She looked tired and not quite as perfectly composed as the last time he'd seen her. "And when exactly is this speech?" she asked.

"February fifteenth, which is the only plus factor in this equation."

"Next steps?" she asked.

"Brief McNamara as soon as I can get on his calendar. And the District cops are going to interview the salesmen at a Chevy dealership across from Steve's Vintage Motors, the garage from which Wall took off. It's a long shot." He told her about the Suburban and the fact that a man with a German-sounding accent had come into the Steve's, inquiring about Wall's car.

"Description on him?"

"Useless. Airhead witness. We may get lucky at the dealership. If he was there."

When the waiter came to clear the table, Lucy slipped him a credit card. "All very tenuous indeed, Mr. Morgan," she said. "Hallory would transfer an agent out of PRU for cotton candy like this."

Swamp sighed. "I guess it's just systemic. Always say no, make the agent batter his way to yes, as they say in the Bureau."

Lucy shrugged. "I play the cards I get, Mr. Morgan. I suspect you did, too."

"For a while, until I became a DAD. At which point, I thought it might be time to make a difference."

"And you were a DAD for how long?"

He laughed. "Twenty-two months and seven days, but who's counting? You think I got stuck in the system's throat?"

"That's one version."

He looked away for a moment. One version? That was exactly what had happened. He nodded finally. "At that level, deputy assistant director, you're expected to be a total team player. They took a chance, promoting me. I tended to go into the terrier mode, just like Hallory said."

"And?"

"And some of the barons who had voted no on my promotion sent some really thorny issues my way. I ran with them in my own front-line style, and then stepped in some political traps."

"They let you do yourself in, you mean?"

"When you run with the wolves, don't ever trip," Swamp said. "I tripped."

"That might explain some of Hallory's antagonism," she said. "I think it's the messenger more than this firefly that's got him worried."

"Doesn't want to get any on him, huh?" he asked.

"Doesn't want to trip," she said. "So, next steps?"

"I'm going to try to get McNamara to authorize the FBI evidence screen himself," Swamp said. "He said he knew somebody, guy who owed him a favor. But he won't do it if PRU formally objects." He remembered what Sheriff McComb had said about doing police work through committees.

"See where you get tomorrow," she said. "See if the nurse can ID her attacker, or if this car thing pans out. You still have time. We don't. We're right down to the wire with our little circus. I'll get one chance to resurrect this thing, and, like you said, I'll need real evidence when I do it."

He nodded as the waiter came back with the charge slip. She was right. They waited until they were outside before continuing. It was dark now, with only the streetlights illuminating the empty streets. The temperature had dropped into the low forties, and they both buttoned their coats. "Okay," he said. "That was useful. I'll be in touch. Thanks for dinner — it was very good. And I was serious about that memo."

She gave him a tired smile. "I wasn't," she said. "The original, the one we kept, has Hallory's signature."

He started to laugh. La Mamba indeed. "I was going to walk back to the Ballston area," he said. "It's only a couple miles. But maybe I should ride with you back to your apartment building or office. Metro stations get spooky at this hour on a weekend."

"Thank you, but I think I can take care of myself," she said, patting her purse. He'd forgotten she was technically a Secret Service agent. "You are the one who needs to be careful," she said. "If you're right and we're all wrong, some powerful people won't thank you for it. You know that, don't you?"

"That's a career perspective talking. I don't have one anymore. And career damage is meaningless compared to what this guy might be planning."

"Agreed, Mr. Morgan. But PRU's just about overwhelmed right now. Your threat isn't the only one we're working, and our threat window is in five days."

"I understand," he said. "I'll try to be patient."

"Not too patient," she said as she turned to walk away. "Forget the record search. Concentrate on tracking this German." She walked down the street toward the Metro station. He watched her go, that golden hair shimmering in the amber streetlight. The January wind blew some trash around his ankles. He saw some of the customers looking his way through the front curtains of the restaurant. One of the men gave him a sympathetic look. Tough luck, buddy, looks like she got away.

He turned in the opposite direction and began walking back to his apartment building.

Heismann sat in darkness in the tiny kitchen of the town house and sipped a beer. The lights were off throughout the house, but the darkness suited him. Enough light came though the windows for him to move about. He could hear the woman next door in her kitchen, clattering some plates in the sink. Tomorrow, he would enter her apartment and begin his preparations. She left for work promptly at eight o'clock, then walked to her job in the Library of Congress. If she owned a car, it wasn't parked in her half of the garage. Perhaps it was parked out front. He'd noticed that some cars appeared to have been parked there for a long time.

He had cut over to Route 50 from Route 7 when he got down to Berryville, Virginia, that morning, in order not to retrace his track of the day before. He had seen the state police car lying in wait for speeders at the foot of the mountain, and he hadn't particularly wanted to see him again, or be seen. He'd lost some time dawdling behind that ancient Land Rover back up in the hills of West Virginia, but then he had made it back to Capitol Hill in under two hours. He'd noticed stacks of yellow sawhorses on some of the major intersections; the city traffic managers were beginning preparations to close down this part of the city. The newspaper had been full of details of all the restrictions, and he had kept all the notices. Not that he needed to move much before the attack, but he certainly would right afterward.

He'd overheard a waitress in the diner where he'd had breakfast that morning talking about the double murders at the Garrison Lodge the night before and the novelty of the killer being a woman. If they were calling it a double murder, then both women were dead, which was a relief. He had heard no news reports about the incident on his car radio, so he had decided to concentrate entirely on the attack. Now that it was dark, he would switch the Suburban and the minivan so that the larger vehicle was out of sight in the garage for a few days. But right now, he needed the woman next door to go to bed. So far, he had seen her, but he didn't think she had seen him.

All things considered, his little foray into the mountains had been well worthwhile. The nurse was finally out of the way. The police were searching for a woman killer. What did the Ammies say? A piece of cake? Yes indeed. But now he had much to do, and not much time to finish it all. It was almost amusing: all this work, all this time, for an attack that would take forty seconds at most. But those were the best kind. Strike like the cobra and then disappear. Watch the instant replay on their television later. The Ammies weren't much at security, but television? That they could do. So well, in fact, that he was going to use a television to ensure the accuracy of the attack.

Connie Wall finally got a real drink of water down, and it felt wonderful, although the steel tube made her front teeth hurt.

"There's someone here to see you," the nurse said. "He's been waiting awhile."

Connie frowned, trying to concentrate through the haze of painkillers. "Who?" she mumbled.

"Detective Cullen? He's a policeman. He came up from Washington when he heard what'd happened. He's been here all day. You mustn't talk too much. Just a few minutes, okay?"

"Um," Connie managed.

Jake came in a minute later and sat down by her bed. He was wearing plastic gloves and had a gauze mask over his nose and the lower parts of his face, which made him look ridiculous in the subdued lighting of the ICU. One of the nurses hovered just outside the curtain surrounding her bed.

"Hey, Connie," he said, reaching for her fingers on the side of the bed. The gloves felt warm. "They treating you okay here?"

She just looked at him, unable to put words together. Cullen. Oh, yeah. Jake Cullen. Right.

"We're looking for the woman who did this to you, Connie. As soon as you're able, we'll come back, talk about what she looks like, and what happened over there at that hotel."

She blinked her eyes, trying to keep his face in focus. Something she needed to tell Jake, but she couldn't make it come. He brushed a lock of her hair gently off her forehead with his other hand and his eyes were smiling at her. She squeezed his fingers and then drifted back off. On the way down to the nice warm place, she remembered what it was she needed to tell him.

It wasn't a woman, Jake.

It was him.

She thought she felt him stroking her fingers. That was nice.