Power Play (An FBI Thriller)

by Catherine Coulter

  “Not very adult of you, Perry.”

  “I know, but I was very careful, and there wasn’t a problem. And now we’re both surrounded by State Department agents and Luis.”

  Especially Luis, Natalie thought. He could probably handcuff the two DS agents together and walk away whistling. She nodded. “They’ve been my shadows. The woman agent even comes into public bathrooms with me. Arliss took an earlier flight, told me something had come up she had to see to. She didn’t say what new world problem had jumped out from under the rug at her.”

  Perry knew what the problem was, but she kept still. Her mother didn’t need any more to deal with at the moment. As for Davis, the jackass, when he showed up here, and she knew he would as soon as he could, she was going to hang him out to dry. She said, “Any word on William?”

  Natalie shook her head. “No one’s told me.”

  “I’d really like to catch up with him and maybe break his legs.”

  Natalie cupped her daughter’s face between her hands. “You sound like your father. Do you remember he used to say things like that when he was angry? As a joke, really. As for me, I want to know why he’s doing this. Let’s get some tea.”

  Luis came into the kitchen a few minutes later. “Mrs. Black, Agents Savich and Sherlock are here. They’re in the living room, talking with the DS agents.”

  “I think hot tea is in order,” Natalie said.

  “Where’s Davis?” she asked, the moment she stepped into the living room.

  “He’ll be here shortly,” Savich said. He accepted a cup of the strong, rich black tea.

  Sherlock said, “He’s not happy, Perry. Agent Gregory called him. No, I don’t want explanations; you can give them to Davis.”

  Savich said, “Natalie, I’m very sorry about the attack on Perry last night. Believe me, we’re working hard on it.”

  Sherlock said, “You were magnificent, Natalie, the interviews, your speech at the UN. Please, don’t worry. Perry’s here now for the duration and you’re both well protected.”

  Natalie sat forward, her own teacup on her knee. “I got the impression from Arliss—a fleeting look she gave me—that her hurrying back here might have something to do with me. Do you know anything about that?”

  She was sharp, Sherlock thought, and smiled. “Davis and Agent Hammersmith interviewed Day Abbott at his office about the shooting last night. Evidently, he wasn’t pleased and called his mother. That’s why she came back earlier, I think, to call us into her office and introduce us to her attorneys.”

  Savich said, “I think Davis might be with Agent Gregory, discussing your escape.”

  Sherlock said, “Not very bright of you, Perry, to duck out on him.”

  “I texted both Agent Gregory and Davis. They know I’m fine.”

  Savich walked up to her, got in her face. “Listen to me, Perry, and take my words to heart. You will wear Davis like a coat. The last thing your mother needs is to have to worry more about your safety. Don’t you understand she’s already worried enough?”

  Perry looked stricken, he saw it. Good. “We need to go to the office. Stay put.” They nodded to Natalie and the DS agents and left.

  As they heard the Porsche engine rev, Perry said to her mother, “His voice was perfectly nice, but I felt like a kid in the principal’s office. I knew if I argued, I wouldn’t like what happened next.” She sighed. “I guess he’s right. I don’t want you to worry about me, Mom. Actually, I was upset at Davis—”

  A metal-grinding punk-rock song blasted out of Perry’s cell phone. Perry pulled it out of her leather jacket pocket and yelled into the phone, “Davis, you moron. You put ‘See No Evil’ on my cell? No, not important. I’m here with Mom and Luis and two DS agents. I’m fine, Mom’s fine. You get your butt here, Davis. I want to talk to you.”

  Luis, open the damned gate or I’m driving my Jeep right through it!”

  “Good luck with that,” Luis answered through the intercom, and hit the gate button on the control pad outside the living room. Davis drove past the DS agent standing in the driveway with only a nod.

  A minute later, they heard Davis say a few words to the DS agent in the foyer before he burst into the room. He looked ready to explode with righteous anger, but at the sight of Natalie and Luis together with Perry, all of them looking at him, he calmed himself. He nodded to Natalie, to Luis, walked up to Perry, looked her in the eye and said, “Agent Gregory was guarding you at the Post and the next thing he knows, you’re gone, vanished, like some schoolkid sneaking out for a smoke.

  “You planned it. You pretended you were working hard on your laptop so he would forget you for a couple of minutes. Gregory likes talking to people. You saw that, and so you waited until he got into it with a crime writer, and when he looked up, you were gone. You made him look like a fool when he had to call it in. You disrupted the CAU, forced me to come out here to find you.” His voice had risen. He wanted to shake her but couldn’t, not with her mother standing six feet away. “You want to tell me your problem?”

  He was right, but that wasn’t the point. “That’s nothing compared to what you did, you jackass.”

  “What I did? What are you talking about?” Davis heard Natalie clear her throat and turned. “Oh, Natalie, sorry to be rude. You were great at the UN. But I gotta tell you, you should give me some help here; your rabbit-brain daughter could use a bit more discipline.”

  “Don’t you dare bring my mother in on this!”

  “All right. Tell me.”

  “You went to see one of my best friends for forever and you accused him of trying to murder me!”

  “You mean Day Abbott? I was doing my job, and this is not the time or place to get into that.” He shot a look at Natalie, who was shaking her head at him. She said, “Tell her why, Davis.”

  “All right. Griffin and I interviewed Day Abbott, and the interview got a bit personal, so his mama, Secretary of State Abbott, called us in on the carpet in her office. It’s over and done with. I didn’t accuse him of murdering anyone. Your best friend was the jackass, not me.”

  Davis looked at the DS agent who had followed him into the living room and at Luis, who were both trying not to be there, and said to Natalie and Perry, “The important thing is that both of you are safe. Agent Gregory’s on his way over. I’m done here, and I’ve got stuff to do,” and he turned around and walked toward the living room door.

  He stopped cold when he heard the ambassador’s iron voice sounding like the nuns in his Catholic grade school. “Listen to me, Davis, you walk out that door and I’ll chase you down and pull out your eyebrows, one at a time.”

  He turned slowly to face her. “Natalie, it was your daughter who decided to play games because she’s angry with me. I got the message. I don’t want her killed on my watch, and that’s what could have happened. She needs an agent she’s willing to work with to protect her. I’m not it.”

  “You don’t know my daughter as well as you think you do, Davis,” Natalie said. “You are definitely that agent. Tell you what, I’ll have Luis handcuff you to Perry and the two of you can fight it out. How does that sound? Think about this, Davis, think carefully, because I don’t mean to lose this argument.”

  Davis couldn’t help it, he smiled at her. “Would you still marry me if I didn’t have any eyebrows?”

  Natalie said, “Marry you, Davis? No, I wouldn’t want my daughter to consider matricide.”

  Natalie’s words bloomed tall and proud in the middle of the silent room. He heard Perry gasp and sputter behind him. Without a word, she clomped out of the living room.

  Perry Black’s condo

  Monday, late afternoon

  There was crime scene tape crisscrossed over her front door, and her shattered windows had been boarded up with plywood.

  “How about we get your stuff packed up in ten minutes?” he said. “I’d like to get out of here and back to your mom’s.”

  “I’m sure glad Dillon and Sherlock are okay.” She unlo
cked the front door and opened it onto a disaster area. Perry felt so mad she wanted to howl with it. “Davis, look at my beautiful living room.” Then she walked through the carnage, saying nothing more. She pulled a duffel bag from the hallway closet and walked into the bedroom.

  Davis looked at the shattered Tiffany lamp on the living room floor. She’d really liked that lamp. He walked to the kitchen, pulled out a garbage bag, and cleaned out the refrigerator. “Eight minutes,” he called out.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m hurrying.”

  “I’m stepping outside for a minute, but don’t run out on me like you did Gregory. Remember, it’s only because your mother threatened me that I’m still here guarding her pea-brained daughter.” He heard her say something but didn’t make out her words because he was already out her back door, dumping her kitchen garbage bag in the trash can. When he walked back into her bedroom, she was standing in the middle of the room, holding a pretty blue sweater. “I can’t think what else to take,” she said, and she looked miserable.

  “You’ve got enough warm stuff?”

  She nodded.

  “Then come on, time’s up. If you need more, we can always come back.”

  She grabbed her duffel bag strap and put it over her shoulder and walked past him. She said, “My Kimber’s already at Mom’s. I’ll borrow her laptop until I can replace mine. Hey, wait up. You need another Band-Aid, the jungle leopard is peeling off.” She dropped her duffel and disappeared into the bathroom. She peeled off the old one and patted down the new one. “There, you’ve got a monkey now. It suits you better than the leopard,” and she left him to haul her duffel bag out the front door. They hadn’t spoken about what Natalie had said; he knew very well it wasn’t entirely a joke. They both knew it.

  He saw one of her black sneakers on the floor beneath an old leather chair with a bullet hole in it that looked like a find at Goodwill from her college days—the chair, not the sneakers. He took one last look around. In her kitchen he saw the two washed cups in the drainer near the sink, one for each of them. In the bathroom he saw a black bra hanging over the shower rod along with a pair of abbreviated black panties he’d give just about anything not to have seen, and he remembered her rubbing her foot two nights ago when he’d heard a crash from the bedroom and rushed in, Glock at the ready, to see her on her back on the floor, dressed in red boxers and a red sports bra and nothing else, one leg raised and bent toward her.

  He’d slipped his Glock back into the clip at his waist. “What’d you do? What’s wrong?”

  “I hit my foot against the dresser doing leg lifts,” she said. “Nothing’s broken. But, hey, you came flying in here to save me. That was fast.” She sounded pleased with herself. “The fact is, I was watching TV with the sound off because it’s usually annoying, and not paying attention. Entirely my fault, like everything else.”

  He remembered telling her he liked the boxers and bra, the red looked good against her skin, and if she was finished rubbing her foot, it was time to go to bed.

  Yeah, he liked that memory.

  He heard the Jeep’s door slam. He followed her out, locked the door behind him, and replaced the crime scene tape.

  He was at the end of the block when she said, “Day told me you’d been a horse’s ass.”

  “Yeah, well, you can’t dump that entirely on my head. What I mean is I could have been more professional, I’ll admit that, but he was the one who started dishing out the insults.” He sounded, even to himself, like a kid in the schoolyard.

  “Insults? Don’t you think you might have scared him? Two FBI agents bursting into his office with no warning? That must have been a huge shock. Listen, Day’s a really nice guy, he’d never—”

  “He told me I couldn’t afford to take you to Cannes on a cop’s salary. He said when he was making love to you in Cannes he’d think of me.”

  Day had said that? She didn’t want to deal with that right now. She said, “Day told me you were trying to intimidate him, that you threatened to take him down to the Hoover Building.”

  “Day thinks I’ve been trying to separate the two of you all week. He’s looking forward to the time when neither of you will ever have to see me again.”

  “Why did you go see Day in the first place? I mean, you know as well as I do that he wouldn’t have anything to do with hurting me. For heaven’s sake, Davis, he thinks he’s in love with me.”

  “Well, don’t flatter yourself, he’ll probably get over it.” He paused for a moment. “You’re not going to marry the guy, are you?”

  “Do you want me to get my Kimber at Mom’s and shoot off your earlobe?”

  “Leave my eyebrows and earlobes out of this. Using my interview with Day Abbott as an excuse to ditch Agent Gregory doesn’t fly. I’m surprised you didn’t choke trying to pawn it off on me.”

  “How many times do I have to apologize?”

  “You might consider saying it like you actually mean it and saying it to Agent Gregory. I gotta tell you, he was relieved to hand you off back to me this evening.”

  “He accepted my apology!”

  “Not really. He’s a nice guy, too.” He shot her a look, sighed. “Okay, he tried to shove fatherly advice down your throat, didn’t he?”

  “Well, yes, and he didn’t let up. This afternoon in the newsroom, it was too much. I couldn’t take it anymore, that’s all—and you’re trying to get me on the defensive again, when you were the ass with poor Day this morning. What did Aunt Arliss do to you?”

  “She started out like she was going to tear out our tonsils, but then she backed off. Why, I don’t know. Maybe she saw reason.”

  She sighed. “I wish Day hadn’t called her. He had to know it would cause trouble. And you better watch out for my mother, too.” She sighed again. “I shouldn’t have gotten upset with her. She doesn’t need that. She’s got to be on her way to see Hooley at the hospital by now. Can we stop there on the way home?”

  Lazy Elf Motel

  Morganville, Virginia

  Late Monday afternoon

  When the whispering call from the manager of the Lazy Elf Motel came to Savich in the CAU that Blessed Backman was there, Savich and Sherlock were in the Porsche within two minutes, siren blaring, headed for Morganville, Virginia.

  They found the Lazy Elf Motel on the edge of a middle-class residential section, on the seedy side, painted a pale yellow. There were half a dozen cars parked in the parking area. The E in Elf was blinking on and off. The manager wasn’t in the office. Together, they approached room 217, the end room on the second level, pressing against the dirty plaster of the outside wall. When they reached the door, Savich leaned in, listened.

  He didn’t hear a thing. He turned quickly and shook his head at the Morganville officer who was standing on the far side of the motel parking lot. He wasn’t surprised, but he still felt a punch of disappointment. Blessed was gone. He whispered to Sherlock at his elbow, “I don’t hear anyone. He’s not here.”

  She shook her head. “You know the drill, play it safe.” She nodded to the door.

  Savich reared back and kicked the door in. “FBI, freeze!” The old door slammed back against the wall.

  They went in high-low, fanning their Glocks, but there wasn’t anyone in the tatty old room.

  An ancient cathode tube TV stood drunkenly on the edge of a dresser as if someone had brushed against it and hadn’t cared if it crashed to the floor. Three dresser drawers were all lopsided, shoved in carelessly. The small table beside the bed had one ashtray on it holding three butts. Sherlock scooped them into a small evidence bag. There was no sign of luggage.

  As Savich went through the drawers, Sherlock checked the bathroom. Empty, two threadbare towels tossed on the floor, a squeezed tube of toothpaste on the ledge of a chipped porcelain bowl. She shook her head as she walked back into the room.

  The bed was unmade; a used towel lay wrinkled on the floor. When she leaned down to pick it up, she saw something beneath the bed. She dropped to her k
nees and pulled out a camel wool coat. She rose, frowning. “It’s Blessed’s. Why would Blessed leave his coat?”

  They heard a cell phone ring from the neighboring room.

  Savich grabbed her around the waist and ran back through the open doorway, nearly threw her against the motel wall beside the open door, and flattened himself against her, his hands covering her head. There was an instant of silence, and then a huge blast shook the wall. A ball of orange flame exploded out the open doorway, shattered the wooden railing behind them and spurted down and out like a water hose directly onto an old Chevy in the parking lot below them. Pieces of the bed frame and the antenna from the TV flew out the door with the flames, struck what was left of the burning wooden railing and fell onto the walkway and the empty parking lot next to the burning Chevy below them. Smoke curled into the air from the doorway, black, oily, smelling like Hell itself.

  They breathed in, but it was hot and the smoke burned their lungs. Savich looked down at her, made certain she was all right. He lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek, so thankful for a moment he didn’t speak. His ears were ringing; he imagined hers were, too. “We’re okay,” he said. “Thank the Good Lord this wall is concrete block.” Savich hit 911, relayed their location and reported the fire even though he knew the cops below them would already be calling for a fire truck themselves. He was on the phone when the yells and screams started and half a dozen people, some in their underwear, came bursting out of their rooms. A fire alarm went off.

  Savich yelled, “FBI. The explosion is over and you’re safe. But there’s a fire. Leave your rooms and wait for the fire department. We’ll be coming to speak to each of you as soon as we can.”