Power Play (An FBI Thriller)

by Catherine Coulter

  Davis knew he should have kept his mouth shut. It would be hard enough to keep control of the press coverage as it was. He was a regular Don Quixote sometimes, trying to right wrongs in a world that too often didn’t care who was right and who was wrong. “Yes, I am, and yes, she really is. Mr. Hooley was knifed trying to protect her.”

  Nurse Chambers nodded briskly. “Then we should get her out of the emergency room, I think. We have a small surgical waiting room that’s very private and out of the way. She’ll be safe there. If you would ask the ladies to follow me, I’ll alert security.” Davis stared after her as she walked smartly toward the telephone on the counter.

  Nurse Chambers took them to a small green room on the third floor with a half-dozen green tweed chairs and a single stingy window that overlooked the parking lot. “I’ll have coffee and rolls brought up, all right? And I’ll come see you when I have any news on Mr. Hooley. Mrs. Black, I’ll bring you something to put over your pajamas.”

  Twenty minutes later, after two detectives from Metro had left for the house, Savich and Sherlock walked into the room, their eyes on Natalie, on the soaked-through dried blood on her white lab coat. “Are you all right?” Savich asked her.

  “Yes, yes. Thank you both for coming.” She stopped, drew a deep breath. “I already told Perry and Davis and the two detectives who were here, but I’ll tell you, too. Before Hooley blacked out, he told me the man had an odd gait, like one leg was shorter than the other. That was all he could tell me before he passed out. “I-I thought he was gone, that he was dead. There was so much blood.” She shuddered. “I think he wanted to tell me something else, but he couldn’t.” She raised her hands. “It’s still right there, Hooley’s blood under my fingernails. He can’t die, he just can’t.” Her breath hitched, and she lowered her face, looking down at her sneakers. Perry squeezed her hand. “Hooley will make it, Mom. You know how tough he is. Yes, he’ll make it,” and Perry prayed as hard as she’d ever prayed in her life.

  Connie Mendez walked in, fiddling with the buttons on the white tech coat she was wearing over her pink pajamas, pajamas like Natalie’s, also covered with Hooley’s blood. Natalie went to her immediately, hugged her. “How is he, Connie?”

  “They let me stay near him until they wheeled him into the OR. He was awake again, Natalie, and he smiled at me. Then they locked me out and gave me this jacket and showed me to a bathroom to clean up.

  “I called Luis at the house and spoke to Detective Fisher from Metro, Agent Savich. He wants to speak to you about the crime scene tomorrow. He said he put an APB out for the wounded man, alerted the local hospitals. I don’t think there’s much chance he’ll show up at one, though.”

  Savich said, “Natalie, would you please go outside for a moment, I want to have Connie tell me exactly what happened. Then I want you to tell me. That way, we should get everything.”

  Natalie pulled the lab coat around her. “I’ll go to the nurses’ station, see if they can tell me how the surgery is going.” Savich waited until she was out of the room, then said to Connie, “Tell me exactly what happened, Connie.”

  Connie drew a deep breath, gathering herself. “Okay, they shot at each other at nearly the same moment, and Hooley hit him, in the side, I think. He staggered back and threw the knife, right into Hooley’s chest. The bullet didn’t slow the guy. He got up that rope and over the wall as I was firing at him. I was still too far away. No, that’s an excuse. I missed, I got in two shots, and I missed him. Me, who used to live at the firing range.”

  Sherlock said matter-of-factly, “You know as well as I do what an adrenaline rush can do to your aim, and a moving target who can fire back at you. You’re never close enough, especially in the dark. We’ve all missed, Connie.” Sherlock lightly laid her hand on her arm. She felt the rippling flesh from the adrenaline rush.

  Connie slowly nodded. “But still—let me get on with it. By the time the gates opened enough for me to squeeze through, all I saw were the taillights of a car as it sped away. Even wounded, even with that uneven gait Hooley said he had, he was fast. I can’t tell you the make of the car, the license, anything. He was too far away and it was too dark.

  “All I’m sure about is that it was a man. He was dressed all in black, even a black ski mask. The rope he used to climb over the wall was still on the ground where he left it. I was too worried about Hooley to secure it. Natalie and I waited together with him until the ambulance arrived. Both of us kept yammering at him, but he never woke up.

  “Luis—Luis Alvarez—he’s the other bodyguard, and Mrs. Black’s driver, stayed behind with the police. I told him about the rope. Maybe we can trace—something.”

  Savich said, “Davis, will you get Natalie? I’ve got some questions for her. Connie, thank you.”

  When Natalie walked back into the waiting room, Savich said, “You okay, Natalie?”

  She sat down and Perry moved to sit beside her. “Yes, I’m together again.”

  Savich said, “Tell me about the alarm system. I assume the intruder managed to turn off the alarm?”

  Natalie was getting herself together. Now she was furious. Look at her, falling apart like an idiot heroine in a gothic novel. She straightened, said in a clear, strong voice, “As you know, windows on upper levels with no external access usually aren’t alarmed, but Brundage was thorough. Since I like fresh air all year around, he had a different alarm installed specifically for our bedroom, set to go off only if the window was pushed up higher than twelve inches, which it never was.”

  Savich said, “So this guy figured once he’d turned off the house alarm, he was home free.”

  Natalie nodded. “He had no way of knowing about the separate window alarm. It’s powered from my bedroom.”

  Perry said, “The question is, how did the guy disable the house alarm?”

  Davis said, “Anyone with enough experience and the general specifications could disarm the system. Just as someone gave your own alarm code to Carlos, Perry, the person behind all this could have also given the intruder the alarm code to Natalie’s house alarm.”

  Davis sat quietly, his hands clasped between his legs, his coffee untouched at his elbow as he listened as Savich asked Natalie to run through it all again from the moment she awoke to the arrival of the ambulance.

  He looked over at Natalie, who was rubbing her arms, staring down at the faded green squiggles on the carpet beneath her sneakers, splattered red and black, still unlaced. She could have tripped and fallen on her face. But she hadn’t. He admired her greatly in that moment.

  Everyone had done the right thing, including Natalie, waiting to trap the intruder. Hooley and Mendez had been fast, but still it hadn’t been enough. He hated that the person to pay was Hooley.

  Davis realized he was beat. He looked over at Perry, who was now quietly talking to her mother, her hand on her mother’s shoulder. He saw the dark shadows beneath her eyes, saw the strain.

  At last Savich said, “We’ve got enough to go on with this guy to search through AFIS—a young man with a noticeable odd gait, in good physical shape. Best of all, Hooley shot him. Maybe we’ll get lucky with one of the ERs in the area. He sounds like a killer for hire, and if he is, it’s very possible he’ll be in the system. I’ll get this all to Ben Raven. We’ll have a lot of cops looking for him.”

  Nurse Chambers appeared in the doorway. She looked serious, as if she was ready to give her condolences. Then she stepped aside. “This is Dr. Proctor, everyone.”

  An older man walked into the room. He was perfectly bald and very short, enough to make Davis wonder if he stood on a block while operating. He looked at the clock on the wall out of habit. Davis looked with him. It was exactly 3:00 a.m. He had on a fresh white coat over fresh scrubs—no trace of Hooley’s blood on him now. He said in a very deep voice for someone so short, “Mr. Hooley is in recovery and doing well, and if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll stay that way. He’s a young man, and strong. But I have to say it was a close thing
; that knife did a lot of damage. We’ll try to extubate him soon, and we’ll have to watch him very carefully for any signs of bleeding. Are any of you his family?”

  Natalie started. His family. She had no clue about Hooley’s family. They’d met so recently they’d never spoken of siblings or parents. She said, “None of us are related by blood, but I suppose you could call us his family. I will find out—”

  Connie said, “He has a sister who lives in Denver with her husband and three children. I’ll find her phone number and call her.”

  Dr. Proctor nodded. “Yes, it’s best she be here. And I don’t mean to alarm you, but if he is religious, I think it wise that his pastor be notified. I understand many of you are FBI?”

  Savich said, “That’s right. This is Mrs. Natalie Black, and Mr. Hooley is her bodyguard. How long before you’re confident he’ll survive?”

  “I don’t want to minimize the danger. The knife tip punctured his pericardium and entered his heart muscle. The wound was within a couple of millimeters of being quickly fatal. If he hadn’t gotten to me so quickly he would have died from blood loss. But he did get here and he survived the surgery, and that in itself says a lot about the young man’s strength of will.

  “The biggest risks now are delayed bleeding and infection in his chest or his blood. I don’t expect this to happen, but we’ll know much more by tomorrow. I’ll have you notified when he’s transferred to the ICU and he’s conscious. I suggest all of you go home now and try to get some sleep.”

  Dr. Proctor turned on his heel, paused, turned back. “I recognize you, Mrs. Black. I’m sorry for your recent loss. The nurses told me you and Ms. Mendez saved Mr. Hooley’s life, stayed with him until the paramedics could take over. You both did excellently.”

  Connie said, “Dr. Proctor, someone tried to kill him. He needs to be guarded. Let me stay. I won’t get in anyone’s way. I want to protect him, make sure no one can hurt him again.”

  Dr. Proctor looked at her closely, saw the fear in her eyes, the blotches of blood that had bled through to the white lab coat she was wearing. “Shouldn’t the police be guarding him if there’s really a need?”

  “I’m his partner and a professional bodyguard. It’s my responsibility.” Connie fell silent, simply stared at him. She had no more arguments to make to him.

  Dr. Proctor sighed, looked toward Savich, who nodded. “Very well. You can stay with him, but be ready to move out of the way fast if they need you to, okay?”

  He turned to Nurse Chambers. “Mr. Hooley needs protection.” And, eyes twinkling, he added, “Make it so.”

  Half an hour later, Connie pulled up a chair next to Hooley’s bed, but she didn’t sit down. Not yet. She had to look at him, watch him breathe, even though it was a machine doing the breathing for him. His face was as white as the hospital sheets. With his hair flopped over his forehead, he looked very young, helpless. She lightly laid her fingers on his forearm and she prayed, something she hadn’t done in a long time. Finally, she sat down, leaned her head back against the wall, and because of her training as a Marine, she fell asleep deeply, within a few seconds, knowing she would awaken instantly if someone came into the cubicle.

  Natalie slumped against the seat back of the Beemer aware her daughter was sending her worried looks.

  Finally, when Perry coasted along an empty street, she said, “Knock it off, Perry. I’m fine, it’s poor Hooley—” She broke off, cleared her throat. “Drive to your condo, then I’ll drive myself home.”

  “Nope,” Perry said.

  “What do you mean, ‘nope’?”

  “I don’t want you going back home again tonight. It’s a crime scene, your bedroom probably has techs crawling all over it. There might still be police activity. You don’t need to go through anything else tonight.” She gave her a grin. “Besides, you’re my mother. I love you more than any other soul in the world, so that means you’re coming home with me—no, don’t argue. I’m driving, after all.”

  “You know by now everyone will be gone. No one else is going to come around tonight. Besides, Luis is there to protect me.”

  Perry came to a smooth stop at a red light, wondering why there was a red light operating at 4:00 a.m. She turned to face her mother. “Do you remember when I was a little girl and I’d have a nightmare and crawl in with you and Dad? Well, now it’s you and me and you’ve had a whopper of a nightmare and I’ve got a bed big enough for the both of us. Davis will be sleeping on the sofa. We’ll be safe and sound and I won’t have to worry about either of us. So no more arguments, Mom.”

  After a moment, Natalie said, “My sneakers still aren’t laced up.”

  “You should try Velcro.”

  “Nah, those are old-lady shoes.” Where had that negligent bit of humor come from? She leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.

  They drove through the empty streets, Davis in his Jeep behind them. Natalie said suddenly, “Perry, I remember Arliss was concerned that you and Day were getting too serious about each other.”

  Perry arched an eyebrow at her mother. “Why our being involved would distress Aunt Arliss is beyond me. I told you Day proposed the other night, and, knowing Day, he told her about it. You’d think she’d be cheering for him. I mean, she’s known me forever, which means she’s got to know I’m not a crappy person. Why did you think of this at four o’clock in the morning?”

  Natalie’s eyes were closed again. “It popped into my head, I don’t know why. I told Arliss I would tell her today what I was going to do.”

  Perry made a left turn onto Vanderbilt Street. It was quiet, and dark as a pit if not for the streetlights. As she turned her mom’s Beemer into her driveway, she said, “I don’t want you to resign, Mother. It wouldn’t be right; I don’t care what sort of pressure Aunt Arliss lays on your head. Please promise me you won’t let her talk you into it.”

  “I wish it were that simple, Perry, but you know it’s not. Think about Arliss and Thorn—they have an administration to run, an election to win. Maybe my resigning is for the best. I wouldn’t have to live here, not really. Maybe a horse ranch in Montana. I could raise Thoroughbreds, breed and race them. Your father always loved horses. I imagine if he hadn’t died, that’s what we would have done when we retired. What do you think?”

  Perry turned off the engine, faced her mother. “You would be out shooting snakes within a week, you’d be so bored. It’s Dad who wanted to raise horses, not you.”

  “I could live near Big Sky. You love to ski, as do I. We could—”

  Perry leaned over and pulled her mother close. “No, absolutely not. It’s out of the question. Listen to me, you will not resign. You will tell Arliss to try for a little loyalty, okay? You will tell her the FBI will figure out who’s behind this and put a stop to it. You will not get out of Dodge because it would make things easier for Arliss and the president. And what happened tonight, won’t that change everything? No one can doubt someone’s trying to kill you, not after tonight.”

  Natalie felt her daughter’s hair soft against her cheek, smelled the light scent of lemon, felt the strength and determination in that healthy young body. It had been only the two of them for so many years now. Life was so incalculable. Like Brundage, she could be dead tomorrow, from an accident, from a disease, if the killer didn’t succeed. She hugged her daughter closer. Perry was in danger along with her and she couldn’t bear it. She had to bring it to a close, had to. She saw Davis’s Jeep headlights swing in behind them. She said against Perry’s hair, “I was wondering if I do resign if all the attempts against both of us would stop.”

  Perry had wondered the same thing, but only for an instant. She said now, no doubt in her voice, “You know to your gut whoever is behind this wants you destroyed, and that includes your career, your good name, even your life, and”—she paused for a moment—“and me. A very thorough revenge indeed.”

  “Revenge—but why? I can’t think of anyone I possibly hurt so much to bring on this sor
t of—madness.”

  Davis stood outside the Beemer as they talked. He’d checked all around the building, seen no one. He waited for another moment, then opened the door. Slowly, the women separated.

  “No one’s around,” he said matter-of-factly. “Come on, let’s get inside.”

  Ten minutes later, the condo was silent. No one had bothered with an alarm clock.

  The call with news about Hooley woke them up at ten minutes before eight in the morning.

  Washington Memorial Hospital

  Saturday morning

  Connie waited as long as she could manage before she called everyone with the good news. Hooley survived the night. They’d pulled his breathing tube out at the crack of dawn and he was breathing on his own. He was stable, the nurses had said. She repeated every positive word she’d heard.

  She stood over him, lightly tracing her fingers over his still face. His breathing and heart rate were steady, and he seemed comfortable. There was still a clear tube coming out of his chest to draw off fluid, and that had to hurt, but he was on heavy-duty meds and only sort of awake. She really didn’t want him to wake up anytime soon, because she knew he’d be in pain. And sleep healed. He was so strong, she thought, so strong. He would pull through this, he had to.

  But he did wake up. When he opened his eyes, Connie saw first blankness, then confusion, and she said quietly, “Mark, it’s me, Connie. You’re safe, you’re going to be fine. You don’t have to try to talk. Go back to sleep, it’s the best thing for you.”

  He wasn’t quite sure what she’d said, but her face and the sound of her voice so close reassured him. She was smiling, and surely that was a good sign. He didn’t feel much of anything, no pain, and he wasn’t about to test that out by moving. His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton—heavy and thick, with strange blurred thoughts that ricocheted here and there. He blinked, trying to clear his mind; it did, a bit. His mouth was so dry, but he couldn’t say her name, but he tried, a small sound, but it got her attention.