Call to Treason (2004)

by Clancy, Tom - Op Center 11

  “You’re saying that someone was here within the hour,” McCaskey said. He did not like the sound of that.

  “It seems so,” Maria said.

  “It could have been a housekeeper.”

  “I don’t smell any cleaning agent,” Maria said.

  “There’s pineapple smell—”

  “An air freshener,” Maria said, pointing back at the bathroom. “I saw it earlier when we looked in the bedroom.”

  Damn, she is good, McCaskey thought. But that still did not convince him. It was still a big leap from a few damp spots on the floor to someone having been here in the last hour. McCaskey looked up. The ice dispenser in the freezer door was directly overhead. He ran his gloved finger along the inside of the plastic lip. “It’s moist. The stains could have come from dripping condensation.”

  “That is possible,” Maria agreed. “It is also possible that Ms. Lockley is being framed.”

  The realization was like a punch in McCaskey’s gut. If it were true, it meant something else as well. Something that became clear when they heard movement in the hallway.

  They had been set up.

  FORTY-TWO

  San Diego, California Wednesday, 11:53 A.M.

  It had been a two hour flight from Salt Lake City. Kat did not talk to Rodgers the entire time. He was not surprised, but he was inconvenienced. If she were innocent of wrongdoing, they should be talking about who might be involved. Instead, she just worked on her laptop and shut him out.

  Rodgers checked his cell phone voice mail as soon as they deplaned. There was a long message from McCaskey. It was not very encouraging. McCaskey’s urgency was underscored by the fact that he was not being circumspect, even though this was an open line.

  “Mike, we found dye from what we believe to be the dress in Kat’s ice dispenser,” McCaskey said quickly. “We believe that someone was here in the last hour, perhaps to remove the dress. If they didn’t, Kat may have packed it in her luggage. You have to find out. Tell her what happened here. Make her tell you what she knows. If she really knows nothing, someone may be framing her. Meanwhile, we’ve been baited and bagged. I can hear the police in the corridor. They are waiting for the superintendent to let them in. If we’ve been picked off, that means the attack on Op-Center was almost certainly tied to this case. Three men have died so far because of this. Don’t underestimate these people. I’m going to leave Paul a message in the Tank. If you find out anything, coordinate through him. Take care, buddy.”

  Rodgers had stopped walking without realizing it. He stood near the gate as passengers rushed past him, as the world moved around him, as events unfolded that affected him. Yet he felt as though he were not a part of any of it. He put the phone away and looked around for Kat. She was well ahead of him. There was only one exit from Terminal One, and he rushed to catch up with her. They walked past the security checkpoint together.

  “We really have to talk,” Rodgers said.

  “I know.”

  “No. You don’t.”

  “This is not a good fit,” she said.

  “I agree. Where I come from, we follow the laws of the land.”

  She rolled her eyes. “That mantra is getting tired.”

  “How about a shot of caffeine, then,” he said. “Either you were involved in a couple of murders or someone may be trying to pin them on you.”

  “Yeah. Op-Center.”

  “No!” Rodgers exclaimed. “Just listen to this.”

  “To what? Another one of your convoluted theories?”

  “No!” Rodgers said. He pulled out his cell phone as they reached the baggage area. While they waited beside the nearest of the three carousels, Rodgers accessed McCaskey’s message. He handed her the phone. With an expression that was more contemptuous than interested, she listened to the message. When it was finished, she fired Rodgers a look.

  “Your people entered my apartment?” she said with a voice like sharp steel. “Did you know this was going down?”

  “I thought they might,” he admitted.

  Kat smiled tightly. “That’s worse,” she said. “Much worse. The fact that you knew and didn’t tell me.”

  “We can deal with that later,” Rodgers said.

  She shook her head. “You and I have nothing to deal with at all,” she said. The steel had superheated and turned molten. “I will take this entire matter up with our attorneys back East.” She turned away.

  “That is not going to work,” Rodgers said, grabbing her arm.

  She yanked it away. “If I get loud, airport security won’t give a red hot damn about your rank, General.”

  “You won’t do that,” Rodgers said. “The papers will want to know what it was all about. I’ll tell them.”

  She relaxed her body but not her expression. The carousel started to turn behind her. “What do you want?”

  “I need to convince them of your innocence.”

  “Them or yourself?”

  “Both,” he said.

  “Since my word is not good enough, what gets me an acquittal?”

  “First, what happened to the Groveburn bag?” he asked.

  “I left it at the office for Lucy.”

  “Why? The night you had it, you told me your Nikes were in it.”

  “They were,” Kat said. “I also told you it contained a gift. Lucy wanted me to hold it so her boyfriend didn’t find it. They live together.”

  Rodgers could not remember if she said it contained a gift. Maybe she had. “Is it still at the office?”

  “I’m in San Diego,” Kat said. “How the hell would I know?”

  “You can call,” Rodgers said.

  “Right now.”

  “Yeah.”

  Kat’s jawline tightened as she took out her cell phone. She called the senator’s receptionist and asked about the bag. A moment later, she hung up.

  “Lucy came by for it shortly before nine this morning,” Kat said.

  “After you left the apartment,” Rodgers said. “She could have put it inside.”

  “Right. She just flew in the window like Peter Pan,” Kat said. “Was there anything else?”

  “Yes. When we get to the hotel, I want to be there when you empty your luggage,” Rodgers said.

  “Boy, you’re pushing this.”

  “Sorry. I need to know that the dress is not here.”

  “I could have put it somewhere else, like a safe-deposit box.”

  “If necessary, we’ll get to that later.”

  “And when you don’t find anything anywhere, Op-Center will come up with some other idiotic notion to implicate me,” she said. “The admiral is right. Your people are good at that.”

  That was it. Now she had gone too far. “Our people? You don’t know us at all, Kat,” Rodgers said. “We’re good Americans, part of Senator Orr’s America. We have died so people like you can shoot off your mouth. I asked for your help before, and you didn’t want to give it. So, yes. We went behind your back. We found a problem, and I presented it to you. And by the way, it looks like someone ratted out ‘my people.’ The police apparently followed them into your apartment.”

  “Do you think the police were watching them?” Kat asked.

  “Doubtful,” Rodgers said. “They know McCaskey is former FBI and that he might have spotted a tail. More than likely they were watching your place.”

  “Why? How would they have known?”

  “I’m guessing that whoever may have put the dress in your freezer, then removed it, tipped them off. Presumably, that someone is Lucy.”

  “So Lucy O’Connor picked the bag up, put the dress in the ice compartment so it would stain the ice, then removed it,” Kat said. “Just so your guy would find the dye and blame me.”

  “It looks that way,” Rodgers said.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Luggage started sliding down the ramp. Kat turned to the carousel. Her indignation was gone, replaced by introspection. Rodgers stepped beside h
er.

  “You really are puzzled by all this,” Rodgers said.

  “Puzzled, angry, distracted, and trying to get a bead on who is playing who,” Kat said. “I know someone is.”

  “That’s true. And accepting that there is a problem here is a start.”

  “I’ve known Lucy for years,” she said. “I cannot believe she would do this. Hell, I looked in that bag. There was a gift, all wrapped up.”

  “To make sure you wouldn’t open it,” Rodgers said.

  “Maybe.”

  Kat reached for her luggage. Rodgers helped her with both bags. His own followed quickly. They went to the taxi stand and stood under a cloudless, rich blue sky. A cool wind blew from the harbor. Rodgers looked toward it. He saw the statue of Charles Lindbergh that stood outside the terminal. It was ironic: a bronze statue of an aviator, and it was free of birds. The world surely was out of kilter.

  The line was short, and they were hotel bound within a few minutes. Kat did not speak, and Rodgers did not push her. He would rather have a willing ally than a reluctant one. Five minutes later, they were at the Bay Grand, a mile from the convention center. The lobby was crowded with conventioneers and press. Rodgers and Kat went to the USF registration table and picked up their keys and ID at the VIP station. They were on the same floor, just below Orr’s penthouse. The elevator was packed, and the silence between Rodgers and Kat continued. A young reporter from the Washington Post recognized the general from the coverage of the United Nations attack. Rodgers said he was here in an advisory capacity to Senator Orr. The reporter asked for a comment about the attack on Op-Center. Rodgers said it was abhorrent. He declined to say more. It was fascinating to him how the other conversations in the small carriage winked out as the journalist asked his questions. The delegates did not handle eavesdropping with the slick, multitasking skill of a Washingtonian. A veteran politician or journalist or society kingpin could be at a restaurant or party and not miss a syllable of his own conversation while skimming half a dozen others that might be going on around him. It was not a talent Rodgers had ever admired. He preferred the wide-eyed silence of his fellow passengers.

  Kat turned to him when they reached her door. Rodgers’s room was two doors beyond it.

  “I still think this whole thing is ridiculous. There is some other, very simple explanation,” Kat told Rodgers. “But if you want to go through my luggage, I won’t stop you.”

  “Thanks. But there is something I want more than that,” he replied. “I want your help. I want to find out if anyone on the USF team is behind these crimes.”

  Kat laughed humorlessly. “General, I just said I thought this was ridiculous. Why would I want to be part of it?”

  “You’re already part of it,” he pointed out.

  “Because some former G-man busted into my apartment and found blue ice?” she asked. “Because the police may have been following him and are likely to arrest him? Detective Howell is a friend of our office. He was not happy to see the case turned over to Op-Center.”

  That remark took Rodgers by surprise. “What do you mean, he’s a friend of your office?”

  “The detective admires Senator Orr. He did not approve of the way hearsay had become Op-Center’s marching orders,” she said.

  “Has Howell been promised anything?” Rodgers asked. “Directorship of the FBI, anything like that?”

  “No, though the defense secretary post might be vacant real soon.”

  Rodgers ignored the dig. “Are you sure he has been offered nothing?”

  “Yes. Some people do things out of principle.”

  “In D.C., very few. You happen to be talking to one of the two I know.”

  “Am I?” She inserted the key card in the lock. “The man I’ve gotten to know, General, is suspicious bordering on paranoid. I’m beginning to wonder how you ever passed the Op-Center psych evaluation.”

  “We’re paid to be paranoid,” he replied. “That’s what allows people like you to sleep nights.”

  “I sleep fine,” she said as the green light flashed. She opened the door.

  “How is Howell when he calls? Comfortable? Surreptitious? Vague?”

  “Cautious,” she replied. “That is certainly not uncommon in Washington.”

  “I’m missing something here,” he said. “Some connection. Was Howell in the navy?”

  “I don’t know,” Kat said as she hefted her bags into the room. She turned on the light and held the door open for a moment. Kat had obviously had enough. “Was there something else?” she asked. “You want to frisk me, go through my luggage?”

  “You have anything to hide?” he asked, nodding at the bags.

  “I’m not hiding anything from you right now,” she said contemptuously.

  Rodgers hesitated. Even if he found the dress it wouldn’t prove anything. The luggage was brought to the airport in one van. Someone could have placed it there. “General Rodgers, please call if you need something. Something that has to do with the USF. That is, if you’re still interested in working with us.”

  Rodgers looked at her. Her bright eyes were sad as she shut the door. He started toward his own room. He noted the stairwell was right beside his room with a security camera above it. He wondered if Link had put him here on purpose, so the admiral could watch him.

  Rodgers hoped not. He hoped a lot of things. He hoped he was wrong about Howell. Maybe the Metro Police detective was just sucking up to someone in power. That was prevalent in D.C. But then why would he have been watching McCaskey? Professional jealousy? A turf war? Or maybe he was just watching Kat’s apartment and happened to see McCaskey go in. Howell may have known about the reporter being at the hotel that night.

  Chances were good he would not be able to talk to McCaskey. Instead, Rodgers went to his room, sat on the bed, and entered a stored number on his cell phone. There was only one person he trusted to figure this one out.

  The other man of principle Rodgers knew.

  FORTY-THREE

  Washington, D.C. Wednesday, 3:44 P.M.

  Bob Herbert was delighted to hear from Mike Rodgers. It was the only familiar aspect in a suddenly surreal situation, and for a moment, just a heartbeat, it sounded and felt like old times.

  “How am I?” Herbert said in response to Rodgers’s question. “I’m sitting in the parking lot, breathing non- machine-filtered air, which I happen to prefer to that dry, metallic-tasting crud in the Tank, working on a laptop I borrowed from—get this—the head cook in the Andrews commissary cafeteria. I had to create my own files between the Tuesday lunch menu and the recipe for Brigadier General Chrysler’s favorite pie. Which is cherry, if you were wondering. My calls are being routed to a cell phone belonging to Jason Shuffler in accounting. He was parked outside the hit zone, and it was in his car. A bonus to being a peon.”

  Herbert was rambling, and he knew it. But it had been a long, rough day with no time to vent. Under the best of circumstances there was no one he felt completely comfortable with other than Mike or Darrell, and Darrell was not available. So Mike got the first big hit. Herbert took a short breath to calm himself, sucked his self-styled debriefing back down, and went to the above-the-fold news.

  “Meanwhile, the cops have Darrell and Maria at the precinct,” Herbert told Rodgers. “They were arrested for breaking and entering.”

  “I heard.”

  “Darrell made his one call to Paul, who shipped Lowell over there to get him out. Paul briefed me. Anything new out there?”

  “My sixth sense is tingling,” Rodgers said. “I need to know more about Detective Robert Howell.”

  “Funny you should ask.”

  “Why?” Rodgers asked.

  “I happen to have his dossier on the computer,” Herbert said. “I was looking for something in his background, something we might use to help get Darrell and Maria out of the cooler.”

  “What possible tie could he have to Link or the senator?”

  “Maybe he’s just a senate groupie,” Herb
ert suggested.

  “That’s what Kat said,” Rodgers told him.

  “But you don’t believe her because—?”

  “She said it.”

  “Great. But do you have a better reason?” Herbert asked.

  “No. Like I said, just a feeling.”

  “Okay,” Herbert said. He adjusted the screen so it was angled away from the sun. “The detective is not married, he did not come from Texas, he has a record that would make Baden-Powell jealous. He served in the coast guard and—”

  “Not married,” Rodgers said. “Is he divorced?”

  “No.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “There’s nothing in the file,” Herbert said.

  “Shit,” Rodgers said.

  “What?” Herbert asked.

  “I wonder if it could be blackmail.”

  Herbert scowled. “That’s a pretty big leap.”

  “I’ve been told I make a lot of those,” Rodgers said. “Is there anything in the dossier that is listed as eyes only?”

  “No.”

  “So it may not be part of his civilian record. Can you get Howell’s military records? If I go through channels, it will take days.”

  “I can probably go through Andrews—”

  “That will take time,” Rodgers said. “We don’t have that.”

  “—or I can ask Matt,” Herbert replied. “He’s working on getting things running downstairs.”

  “Please do,” Rodgers said. “This is important.”

  “I’m all over it, like ugly on an ape,” the intelligence chief told him. “I’ll call you back.”

  “Thanks.”

  Like ugly on an ape? Herbert thought as he clicked off and called downstairs to the Tank. Either he was severely overtired or the fresh air was doing funny things to his head.

  Herbert asked Bugs Benet to send Matt Stoll up to parking spot 710. Stoll was upstairs in five minutes. He was grateful for the fresh air.

  “The smell of fried copper wire is still pretty thick down in the sulfur pit,” the portly scientist complained.

  Stoll accessed the United States Coast Guard secure personnel files in ten minutes. Shortly after that, he pulled up an eyes-only file for Lieutenant Robert Howell. It was from 1989, a formal report by a hearing officer regarding an incident on the newly commissioned cutter Orcas stationed in Coos Bay, Oregon.