Power Play (An FBI Thriller)

by Catherine Coulter

  Potwin strolled over as he wiped his hands on a paper towel. He looked at the message. “You must have written a really good story to merit this little gem. The guy’s rancor made it all the way to the men’s room. Good job, Black.” He started to stroll out, whistling, but then he stopped, turned slowly. “It’s got a strange feel to it, Perry. You want I should talk to some of my detective buddies at Metro?”

  And here she’d turned him down for a dinner date three months before. “Thanks, Tommy, but I’ll take care of it.”

  He cocked his head to one side. “I’m sorry about all the trouble your mom’s been having.” He gave her a small wave and left.

  Alone again, she looked closely at the words and felt a punch of fear. No way was this about her Tebow story.

  But she’d hardly stuck her oar in at all about her mom. She surfed a wave of cold anger and wanted to strike out, but at whom? Someone was trying to keep her out of her mom’s business? Yeah, right, like this moronic message on a men’s room wall would do that. Why, then?

  Her cell rang, an old-fashioned ringtone that made everyone under thirty look her way.

  “Yo, Perry. My boss wants to speak to you. Only you this time, you by yourself, without your mom.”

  It was Davis. “Why on earth would Agent Savich want to see me again? I told him everything I knew this morning. I’m on salary here, Davis, I got things to do, a dozen calls to make, scoops to, well, scoop, a byline to write. Unlike you, I’m in a cutthroat business. Have him call me.” Then she realized she really needed to see him.

  “Wait, I’ll be there. You’re not going to believe what’s happened.”

  She said nothing more and had the pleasure of listening to his indrawn breath and a lovely sputter. “What? Are you all right? Come on, Perry, what happened?”

  “Tell you when I see you.”

  She’d gotten him. Even with the threat of the graffiti stuck in her throat, she smiled briefly.

  “All right, get your butt to the Hoover Building now. Third floor—everyone knows where the CAU unit is.” And the jerk hung up on her.

  Perry shrugged into her leather jacket, slipped her cell into her pocket, and said to Leon, her assistant, and also Alonzo’s assistant, “Gotta go. Back in an hour,” and she was out of there.

  Forty-five minutes later, she was sitting in Special Agent Dillon Savich’s office in the CAU on the third floor of the Hoover Building.

  “—and it was block-printed in big red Magic Marker. That’s it, all that was written. Why would someone come into the men’s room on my floor in the Washington Post building and write nonsense like that?”

  Savich said, “They could be sure whatever they wrote in the men’s room would get all over the workplace, and they didn’t need to risk getting close to your work area to deliver the message. I assume everyone in the sports section knows all about your mother’s troubles?”

  “I think everyone in the known world knows about them.”

  “Nah,” Davis said. “Everyone in the known world knows about your report on Tebow. Your mom’s small potatoes in comparison.” In the next moment, he was dead serious. “I don’t like this. The feel of those words, it isn’t good.”

  Perry said, “You’re right about that. That message really creeps me out.”

  Savich said, “I’ll send some agents over there to see if we can lift any fingerprints, ask the staff if they saw anything unusual.”

  Wonderful. Bennett’s going to love this. “Let me give my boss a heads-up, okay, so he doesn’t freak?”

  She and Savich made their calls together. Bennett had already heard about the message above the urinal in the men’s room. He didn’t blow a fit when she told him the FBI were on their way to 15th Street NW to the Post building, he remained quiet, and that worried her maybe more.

  Savich rose. “Perry, I’d wanted to ask you more follow-up questions, but that can wait. This graffiti at the Post is more important now. Go back to work and check in with the FBI agents there, all right?”

  Savich, Sherlock, and Davis sat in the CAU conference room, waiting. Savich looked down at his Mickey Mouse watch. “Nicholas Drummond should be here any minute now—at least, he’d better be, since his former boss, Superintendent Hamish Penderley of Scotland Yard, is calling in about nine minutes.” He added to Davis, “Drummond’s an agent-in-training at Quantico. As luck would have it, his family and the McCallums go way back, according to Penderley, and that’s one of the reasons he believes Nicholas could assist us.”

  Sherlock said, “Nicholas is very punctual, he should be here in about—”

  Both Sherlock and Savich grinned when they saw a big man striding through the unit, wearing a blue shirt and khakis—the Academy uniform—a bomber jacket, and boots, his focus entirely on Savich through the glass in the conference room. Davis thought the guy looked like a pirate: cocky walk, swarthy coloring, and eyes as dark as Savich’s. He knew to his gut there was a brawler lurking beneath that smooth exterior. Hmmm. And the man waltzed into the conference room, all smiles, handshakes, and a big hug for Sherlock. Savich said to Davis, “This is Nicholas Drummond, the first Brit in the FBI. Nicholas, this is Agent Davis Sullivan.”

  The two men shook hands. Davis said, “But if you’re English, then how—”

  Sherlock said, “His mother is American.”

  Savich studied him for a moment. “You’re still walking so I guess they’re easing off in the training.”

  Nicholas rubbed his back. “Well, just barely.”

  Savich nodded to a chair. “Sit down, Nicholas.”

  Nicholas sat next to Sherlock. “Do you know they’re still talking at Quantico about your taking Savich down in that Hogan’s Alley exercise when you were at the Academy?”

  Sherlock grinned over her shoulder at Dillon. “My best memory is the rip I left in his trousers showing off his blue boxer shorts.”

  Savich said, “Yeah, well, I remember you ending up flat on your back in Mrs. Shaw’s petunias.”

  “We all have our own special memories.” She patted Nicholas’s arm. “How’s it going at Quantico?”

  “No worries. Lots of good people. Mrs. Shaw tells us all she’s been at Quantico since Hogan’s Alley was built and everyone is inclined to believe her.”

  Davis said, “I know who you are—you brought back the Koh-i-Noor diamond, didn’t you?”

  Nicholas nodded. “Special Agent Mike Caine of the New York Field Office was front and center, as were Savich and Sherlock here. Actually, lots of folks were involved in the recovery of the diamond.”

  He spoke in a cool, upper-class Brit accent that never failed to charm Sherlock. She felt she could wallow in those lovely sounds and wrap herself in them, like a big warm spa robe.

  Nicholas turned to Davis, a man his own age; he read the powerful intelligence in his eyes. “Are you the Agent Sullivan I have heard about?”

  Davis looked wary. “No, not me. Maybe.”

  “They say you slipped into the martial arts instructor’s bedroom and put a tranquilized rooster under his bed. And when the rooster woke up and sang out at dawn, he nearly had a heart attack—the instructor, not the rooster. You’re that Sullivan, right?”

  Davis said without pause, “Nah, I had nothing to do with that stunt. That was another Sullivan, some clown they sent to the Anchorage Field Office.”

  Savich said to Davis, “Until recently, Nicholas worked at Scotland Yard under Superintendent Penderley, whose call I am expecting”—his cell phone rang, and he put it on speaker—“and here he is.

  “Superintendent Penderley, thank you for calling. Let me say again I’m pleased to be working with you. As I told you yesterday, we have very few avenues of investigation open to us here in Washington, despite the recent attack on Ambassador Black here, since the major leads in these crimes are under your jurisdiction in England. Believe me, we are grateful for your assistance. At your suggestion, I’ve invited Nicholas Drummond to join us. You’re on speakerphone, if you don’t mi
nd.”

  “Certainly not, Agent Savich,” said an imperious old voice Nicholas knew very well. “Nicholas, I trust you’re acquitting yourself well at Quantico with the Yanks?”

  Nicholas said, “Sir, every day it is my goal not to shame Her Majesty.”

  “Good, good. Now, Agent Savich, let me start by assuring you that Scotland Yard has been front and center in investigating the death of George McCallum, Viscount Lockenby. We do not take the unexplained death of a peer lightly, despite all the scandal mongering about him and Ambassador Black. She will tell you herself that Her Majesty’s government assigned a special detail to protect her from the moment she reported the attempt on her own life, in addition to the protection provided by the Diplomatic Security Service. It would not have done to allow a United States ambassador to be murdered on British soil. Perhaps that is why whoever is behind these attacks waited until she left Britain to try again.” A small pause, then, “I have reviewed both cases. First, as for the report Mrs. Black made about the car that nearly ran her over a cliff near Canterbury, naturally, it was treated seriously by the local constabulary, despite there being no actual evidence of any such attack except for the very common brand of tire tracks that could or could not be relevant. I personally sent an inspector to Canterbury to reexamine the scene. My inspector was unable to find any other evidence, and thus, there is nothing more we can do.”

  Savich said, “Very well. Tell us, sir, about your investigation into George McCallum’s death.”

  “As you know, our people decided to resolve the issue with a ruling of accidental death, to spare the family a verdict of suicide. The determination was made after the autopsy. Now that you have informed us of the new attempt on Mrs. Black’s life in the United States, we are revisiting the case. I’ve assigned two of my best people. They will conduct further interviews with his family, friends, and business associates; review his recent correspondence and emails, the scene of his death, and his autopsy results again. The usual, Agent Savich.”

  “And the email that supposedly led to McCallum’s death?” Savich asked.

  “Yes. Interesting news there. The email purportedly sent by Mrs. Black to Viscount Lockenby from her personal account was in fact sent from the Agatha Christie Cyber Café on Shaftesbury Avenue. Anyone with her password could have managed it. We are well equipped with street cameras in Central London, but thousands of people pass by there every day, and we have no clue who to look for, since we showed Mrs. Black’s photo as well as all her embassy staff to all the staff at the café, and no one recognized any of the photos. I fear that is a dead end.” Penderley paused for a moment, then added, “However, the fact that the email wasn’t sent from Mrs. Black’s own laptop and was instead sent anonymously from a cyber café gives more credence to her assertion that the viscount was murdered, that something bigger was afoot here. That said, I will continue the McCallum investigation.

  “Now, that email was forwarded from the same café, again anonymously, to Frederick Stickle at The Sun, along with links to articles about Mrs. Black and the viscount’s engagement, as if a newsperson at The Sun could fail to identify the George and Natalie of the email after the headlines they had run about him.

  “The photograph of Viscount Lockenby’s son, William Charles, garbed and armed as a purported jihadist, was sent anonymously to Charlotte Tewks at The Mirror as a simple color printout from an inkjet printer. That, too, was clever, because a digital image might have contained tags identifying the camera or the service and account used to upload it. Ms. Tewks showed my inspectors the accompanying note pasted together from newsprint stating William’s name, the GPS coordinates, and the date of the photo. The picture was quite clear enough to identify William Charles McCallum. Tewks said she could hardly have taken the chance of getting hauled into the Old Bailey for printing something so inflammatory if she was in doubt it was true. The viscount never denied it.”

  “Sir,” Nicholas said, “do you know where exactly the picture was taken?”

  “Northeast of Aleppo in Syria several weeks ago, in an area of rebel strength. We confirmed that William used his British passport to travel from Hamburg to Ankara, Turkey, about eight months ago. However, there has been no sign of him since, until now, with the photograph. It seems he has joined hundreds of other Europeans who have taken up the fight against the Assad regime. One hopes he has chosen to fight with the democratic coalition government and not Al-Nusra or the other radicals. But Syria is in chaos, and we don’t have the assets on the ground to find him, nor any legal reason to do so. If he is fighting, he may well be dead now. The casualties have been horrendous.

  “That is all we know, Agent Savich. I will, naturally, alert you to anything new we discover, and I will rely on you to share any information you develop with us promptly.”

  “Yes, of course, Superintendent. You have been most helpful, sir, thank you,” Savich said.

  “Drummond, give your family my best.”

  “I will, sir, and thank you.”

  “Good luck with the Yanks.”

  Nicholas was grinning as Savich punched off his cell.

  Savich said, “What I told Penderley about having little to offer him is unfortunately true. Have you had a chance to speak again with your father, Nick?”

  Nicholas nodded. “And to my grandfather as well. He and Everard Stewart McCallum, the future Viscount Lockenby, attended Eton together, then Oxford back before the war. From that point on, the families became close. My father and grandfather were both well aware of the distress George, the current Viscount Lockenby, has felt concerning his son, William Charles, ever since William was forced to leave Oxford some years ago. He never spoke of his son after that, and my father said he didn’t pry, he knew it was too painful.

  “My family was delighted for the viscount when he announced his engagement to Mrs. Black. My father already knew her well through his contacts at the Home Office and embassy gatherings. They all quite liked her, especially my mum, who said she was exactly the firecracker the viscount needed in his life, high praise indeed.

  “I was surprised to hear something from my father that Mrs. Black may not be aware of. He got a call from McCallum about a week before he died, asking his advice. You see, the viscount had received some death threats, block-printed, without postmarks. They were amateurish, complete with misspellings. Regardless, my father strongly advised him to bring in Scotland Yard, but his lordship decided against it. He didn’t wish to upset Mrs. Black further, or his family, or bring on more attention from the press.”

  Davis sat forward. “So George McCallum ignored the threats?”

  Nicholas nodded. “My grandfather believes, of course, that George McCallum’s death and the attempt on the ambassador’s life in England are connected. Oh, yes, he never doubted her story about the attack on the A2 for an instant, said she wasn’t the sort to raise a ruckus to cover any malfeasance. He and my father both believe it’s possible George McCallum’s son, William Charles—Billy—is responsible for his death, which puts him in the center of a bigger storm. They cannot fathom the motive, but there is no one else they can think of if George’s death was intentional.”

  Davis said, “To murder his own father—and if William Charles did kill his father, why would he try to shift the blame to Mrs. Black? Don’t jihadists pride themselves on taking credit? And then he attacked her as well?”

  Nicholas paused for a moment, threading a pen between his fingers. “I really can’t see it myself, even though the times I saw Billy when we were both teenagers—and self-absorbed as only teenagers can be—I could tell he was troubled, at odds with his family, scorned their attitudes and their opinions. He was unhappy and sullen. I do remember the viscount trying to bring him into family gatherings, but he would have none of it. But again, I didn’t pay much attention, since that is normal for a teenage boy.”

  Sherlock said, “Did he ever show any interest in joining a terrorist group when he was young?”

  “No
t that I recall, but to be honest, I only saw him maybe a half-dozen times before he went to Oxford, then he was sent down, and then he was gone. I do remember he had a fine mind.

  “The Billy I knew, despite his unhappiness, doesn’t seem to be the type to kill his own father.” Nicholas shrugged. “This is my father’s and grandfather’s opinion, though.”

  Sherlock’s cell must have vibrated because she pulled it out of her pocket, checked the readout, looked confused for a moment, then got up and left the conference room. Davis saw her stop beside another agent’s desk, speak to him, and then leave the unit. He saw Dillon stare after her.

  What was that all about?

  Savich said, “Since your dad’s in the middle of things, Nicholas, keep in touch with him for us.”

  “Yes, certainly.” Nicholas checked his watch. “I’ve got exactly forty-nine minutes to get back to Quantico before they lock me in Hogan’s Alley’s jail.” He rose and shook hands with Davis, nodded toward Savich. “Call me if I can be useful. I’ll keep in touch with Scotland Yard.”

  Savich said, “Friday night, Nicholas. Don’t forget you’re coming over to our place for dinner.”

  “I hear from Dr. Hicks that your lasagna is about the best in Washington.”

  “My dog, Astro, certainly thinks so. When it comes to food, that mutt is fast. You’ll have to judge for yourself.”

  Davis was at his desk when he saw Sherlock back in Savich’s office, their heads together. There was a look on Savich’s face he’d never seen before. This wasn’t about Natalie Black, but what? He looked over at the newest agent in the unit, Griffin Hammersmith, a recent transfer from the San Francisco Field Office, and nodded toward Savich and Sherlock. “You know what’s going on in there, Griff?”

  Griffin said, “No clue, but I’m wondering what’s got them so worked up.”

  Good, Davis thought, he wasn’t the only one flapping in the wind. He said, “I gotta go. See what you can find out.” Davis shrugged into his jacket and took off to see about Perry at the Post.