Wall of Night

38

The cover-up — a term that Latham reluctantly decided applied to what he and Holystone were doing — went relatively smoothly.

In the aftermath of the running gun battle with the Zis, he’d sat on his stairway, staring at the body of Grandpa Zi. In death, the man hadn’t looked the least bit dangerous.

Cahil had arrived twenty minutes later, taken the Zis’ keys and left. He called fifteen minutes later. “Found it, Charlie. About a quarter mile away. I’ve got the registration; the name looks bogus, but the address looks genuine. This thing has been sanitized. The plates looked altered and all the VIN tags are missing. I’m going through it once more, then head over to the address.”

“Thanks, Bear.”

“No problem. You okay?”

“A little shaky.”

“You’ve got a right to be. Talk to you later.”

Latham called Dutcher and filled him in. “Cahil’s going to check the address.”

“Okay,” Dutcher said. “Two things: Which cell phone are you using?”

“One of yours.”

“Good. Once you and Paul have your stories straight, use your home phone to call the police. What’re you going to tell them?”

“I was out late, came home, and was attacked by unknown assailants. I killed one of them and my partner killed the other. I’ll have to tell Harry a little more than that, but he’ll back me.”

Within the hour, the house was buzzing with activity as crime-scene specialists, a homicide detective from the Montgomery County sheriff’s office, and the medical examiner went about their work. Owens sat with Latham as the inspector interviewed him. “So you and your partner were doing … what?” asked the inspector. “Having a beer, right?”

“Right.”

“At Finnegan’s in Chevy Chase?”

“Right.”

“You get a call from your neighbor about a leak and hurry home. Your partner follows to see if he can help, you pull into the garage and … ”

For the third time, Latham took him through the confrontation.

“You have no idea who these people are?”

“No.”

As the lie came off his lips, Latham felt a twinge of guilt, but he suppressed it: This was his case; these people had invaded his house, tried to kill him — and would have killed his family had they been here. This case belonged to him.

The inspector asked a few more questions, then left to supervise the CS team.

Once alone, Owens asked, “Is this them, Charlie?”

Latham nodded. “I’m pretty sure. We were calling them Grandpa and Grandpa Zi. Harry, they were hunting for me — maybe Bonnie and the kids, too.”

“You must have struck a nerve. Is your story going to hold up?”

“Bonnie and Paul are clear and Finnegan’s is always busy. My worry is the press. If the Guoanbu gets wind of this, they’ll shut down whatever they’ve got cooking.”

“I’ll talk to the sheriff and the ME. I’ll tell them we think it might have something to do with a former case of yours and we need time to dig into it. They’ll probably identify them only as ‘unidentified intruders.’”

“Good.”

“Let’s say you’re right and these two killed the Bakers … have you figured out why?”

“How much do you want to know?”

“Just tell me if you’re getting close. I can keep running interference, but not for much longer.”

“We’re getting close, Harry. Real close.”

It was nearly dawn when everyone finished their work and left. The ME was the last to go, wheeling the sheet-covered body of Grandpa Zi out the front door. Randall arrived a few minutes later.

As Latham got into the car, he asked Randall, “How is she?”

“Alive, but just barely. Her brain’s mush, Charlie.”

Latham could hear the anguish in Paul’s voice. This was only the second time he’d fired his weapon outside the range; the last time had been the previous year during a raid of a terrorist safe house. The difference was, this had been a woman — an old woman, at that.

He squeezed Randall’s shoulder. “She would have killed me, Paul. Bonnie and the kids, too, if they’d been here — just like the Bakers.”

“Yeah, I guess. But, God, she’s just—”

“Listen: Old lady or not, she was a killer, plain and simple.”

Randall swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay, where to?”

“Holystone.”

Dutcher and the others were waiting in the conference room. The first tinges of sunlight were filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Oaken sat before a computer perched at the edge of the table. Everyone stood clustered behind him.

Dutcher looked up as Latham walked in. “How’d it go?”

“I think we’re okay. They’ll want to talk to me again, but Harry’s going to cover me.” He nodded at the computer. “From the Zis’ house?”

Cahil nodded. “Walt’s trying to break their security program.”

A thought flashed into Latham’s head. “Walt, stop.”

“What?”

“Tell me about the program.” Oaken did so. “Sounds like the same setup Baker’s computer had,” Charlie said.

“You broke it?”

“One of our tech people did. Lemme make some calls.”

Latham called Whulford at home, who got dressed, drove to the Hoover Building, and looked up James Washington’s phone number. It was five-fifteen when Latham made the call.

A groggy voice answered. “Yeah, hello.”

“James, this is Charlie Latham. I don’t know if you remember me—”

“Yes, sir, of course. What can I do for you?”

“Sorry about the time, but I need your expertise. The hitch is, you can’t tell anybody about it.”

“Is this about your daughter? Something to do with that?”

“Yes.”

“Then we never talked. What’s up?”

“I’ve run into another version of the security program you broke for me. Can you help?”

“No problem.”

“Here, I’ll give you to the guy you’ll be talking through it.”

Thirty minutes later, it was done. The contents of the Zis’ hard drive was transferred to Oaken’s hard drive. Oaken pulled up the new directory on the screen. “Not much here …” he said, scanning the file names. “Hold on … what’s this?”

“What?” Dutcher asked.

“This folder’s got about twenty gigabytes of ASF files in it.”

“Which means?”

“ASF is a video format.” Oaken clicked open the folder. “This could be something. Dates, times, locations … Looks like they go back six or seven years. When were the Bakers killed?”

Latham told him.

“Jesus, that’s the label on this file.”

Dutcher leaned closer. “Let’s see it.”

The on-screen counter told them the video was forty minutes long, but after only five minutes, they’d seen enough. “Shut it off, Walt,” Dutcher whispered. “My God.”

“Why would they tape it?” Cahil murmured. “What possible use could it be?”

“We’ll never know,” Latham said. “He’s dead, and if she survives, she’ll likely be a vegetable.”

Dutcher said, “What else, Walt?”

“There’s a couple dozen files. None look more than a few minutes long. You guys go grab some breakfast; I’ll sort through them.”

Twenty minutes later Oaken called them back into his office. “I started from most recent and worked my way backward. They taped a lot of meetings with Baker. They always used the same setup: Grandma Zi did the face-to-face stuff, Grandpa Zi taping. But take a look at this one … ” Oaken double-clicked on a file. The screen filled with snow, then turned into a shot of a parking ramp at night.

“That looks like a metrorail platform,” Latham said.

“My guess, too,” Oaken replied. “Shot from ground level, out a car window. Take a look at the person meeting Grandma Zi.”

The camera zoomed in on the platform until they could make out two figures standing at the railing. The dull yellow light from the streetlamps illuminated their faces. After a few moments, the camera zoomed in.

“There’s no sound?” Cahil asked.

“No. They probably deleted it. More deniability that way.”

“Okay, that’s Grandma Zi. I can’t make out the other person.”

“Wait … here it comes … ”

The other face, this one belonging to a man in his early sixties, swam into focus.

“Name that face, anyone?” Oaken asked.

“I can,” said Dutcher. “Howard Bousikaris, chief of staff to President Phillip Martin.”

Before anyone could react, Oaken’s phone rang. He answered it, then handed it to Dutcher, who listened, then hung up and turned to Tanner. “Mason. He wants to see us. Walt, you’d better come, too. How long will it take to transfer all the Zis’ files to a laptop?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Do it.”

Tanner asked, “What’s going on, Leland?”

“They just deciphered Soong’s message.”