Stone Cold

by David Baldacci

  “Did it mention the name on the grave marker?”

  “Someone named John Carr,” Milton said. “Is that a problem?”

  Stone didn’t bother to answer. He clicked off.

  After all these years John Carr had suddenly come back to life. Ironically, Stone had never felt more dead than he did right now.

  Why now? What had happened? The truth struck him as he slowly walked back through the cemetery gates and sat down on his front porch.

  He’d been set up.

  If John Carr was no longer dead, then the person killing old members of Triple Six would now add him back onto his list of targets.

  I’m bait, Stone said to himself. They’re going to use me to flush the killer. And if he murders me before they catch him, who cares. And even if I do manage to survive? It won’t be for very long. All John Carr would be now was an embarrassment to the government. His own country would have many reasons to want him dead and not a single one that Stone could think of to keep him alive. It was absolutely brilliant in its simplicity. His death warrant had been signed.

  And there was only one man who would’ve been capable of thinking it all up, Stone knew.

  Carter Gray! He is alive.

  He packed a small bag, locked up the cottage and fled through the woods behind the cemetery.

  Harry Finn was carefully balancing a butter knife on a table where he was sitting so the knife was standing up on edge. It was harder than it looked, yet Finn could accomplish it every time and within a few seconds. He did this whenever he was unsure of something. He was seeking balance. If he could do it with the knife, he could do it with his life. At least that was his thinking. It was never that easy in reality.

  “Harry?”

  He looked up into the face of one of his team members. They had been discussing the Capitol building project over lunch at their office.

  “Did you get a chance to review the ventilation plans?” the woman asked.

  He nodded. They’d gotten the documentation through an ingenious tactical combination that involved breaking into the van of the architect hired to work on the Capitol Visitor Center. From that they copied necessary information and then used that to phone freak their way to many details of the new construction.

  “The plans indicated that it will hook into the Capitol building, but I need to confirm that. We’re going tonight, in fact, to do it. And it should be accessible from the delivery tunnel, but I’m going to verify that too.” He looked at the man sitting next to him, who was going over a set of drawings and specs. “How about the transport?”

  “All done.” The man laid out the details to Finn.

  Finn glanced down at the ID badge he’d earlier stolen from the SUV. This one badge had gotten him a lot of mileage. With the embedded encryption he could simply change out the surface information—photo, name, etcetera—and the badge would get him into myriad places, none of which he should have access to. He’d heard the government was beginning to discover this flaw in their security system, but Congress moved with glacial speed when it came to things like that. Finn figured they’d have the problem worked out by the time he was drawing Social Security. And even that might be optimistic.

  The meeting adjourned and he went to his office and worked for the rest of the day. Later, he changed into a Capitol police uniform, doctored his badge and headed to D.C. that night, where he met up with a buddy, similarly dressed. There were sixteen hundred officers on the Capitol police force to guard roughly one square mile of land. It was a ratio any other city would have killed for. Congress liked to feel safe, and it did control the purse strings.

  And yet all that money had not made the folks much safer, thought Finn as he and his colleague strolled around the grounds of the Capitol that night. In fact, he was going to prove the truth of that statement tonight.

  They made their way to the construction site of the visitor center and went in, pretending to make rounds. Work here went on 24/7, so he and his buddy jawed with some of the construction workers and then moved along. They passed a fellow officer, whom they exchanged both pleasantries and gripes with. Finn informed the cop that he’d just transferred over from the U.S. Park Police, where he’d been assigned to the San Francisco area.

  “Housing is cheaper here,” Finn said. “San Fran is off the charts. I actually bought a town house for what I paid for a condo out there.”

  “You’re lucky,” said the other cop. “I was a postal cop down in Arkansas before I moved here about five years ago. I’m still living in a three-bedroom apartment in Manassas that I can barely afford, and I’ve got four kids.”

  Finn and his friend headed on and finally arrived at the spot that was the only reason they’d come here tonight.

  It was right where the plans indicated it would be. Ready access from the tunnel, and by the look of things it was already operational. That would make their task easier. Finn picked the lock of one door and they slipped inside it. He studied the instrument boxes on the wall and then snapped several pictures of the flow schematic. Next he drew a diagram of the area on a notepad, listing all access doors, halls and checkpoints they’d passed. Then they made their way through a series of hallways and into a small HVAC room. The ventilation return was in the ceiling. The opening was too narrow for Finn to get through, but his partner was smaller. Finn gave him a boost and the fellow disappeared into the ductwork. Thirty minutes later he was back.

  “Like we thought, Harry, goes right into the Capitol.” The man gave Finn a detailed description of the route he’d just taken, and Finn drew it out on paper.

  They slipped back outside, walked away from the Capitol and turned down a street toward the Hart Senate Building. His partner went to the right and Finn to the left. He passed alongside the building, where nine stories up sat Roger Simpson’s office. As Finn counted across the windows to the one he knew was the Alabama senator’s digs, he pointed his finger at the window and said, “Boom.”

  He couldn’t wait.

  He reached his car and drove off. Turning on the radio to the local news station, he heard the announcer talking about a grave being dug up at Arlington National Cemetery that morning. As yet no one knew why.

  “John Carr,” the radio said. “That’s the name of the soldier whose grave was dug up.”

  “John Carr,” Finn repeated in a voice brimming with disbelief. Surely his omniscient mother would have heard this news by now.

  And he started to wonder if his nightmare would ever end.

  CHAPTER 58

  ALEX FORD SAT AT HOME worrying. He had been trying to reach Stone but the man wasn’t answering his phone. The story about the grave being dug up at Arlington was not front-page news but it had people talking. Alex didn’t know what had been found in that coffin. He knew, however, that it wasn’t the body of John Carr. He had learned much about Stone’s past when they both had nearly died at a place called Murder Mountain not too far from Washington. And yet Alex felt that there was a part of Oliver Stone/John Carr that neither he nor anyone else would ever know.

  He tried to reach Stone by phone one more time, and then his own phone started ringing. He answered. It was the man himself.

  “Oliver, what the hell is going on?”

  “Not a lot of time to talk, Alex. You heard about the grave?”

  “Yes.”

  “It was Carter Gray’s doing.”

  “But he’s—”

  “No, he’s not. He’s alive and trying to set me up for a series of murders related to my past.”

  “Oliver, what the—”

  “Just listen! I can take care of myself. Reuben and Milton are laying low. So is Caleb. But I need you to do me a favor.”

  “What is it?”

  “My friend, Susan Hunter. You remember her?”

  “Tall, leggy, with a fast mouth.”

  “She’s in trouble and I offered to help her, but I can’t now. Will you step in for me?”

  “Is she the reason we got called out last ni
ght?”

  “That was my fault, not hers. But if you do help her you have to promise me something.”

  “What?” Alex said warily.

  “Her past is not exactly perfect. But she’s a good person with good motives. Don’t dig too deep there.”

  “Oliver, if she’s a criminal—”

  “Alex, you and I have been through a lot together. I would trust this woman with my life. I hope that means something to you.”

  Alex sat back and let out a deep breath. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Go to my cottage. On the desk are some notes. They will help you to understand the situation better. I’ll give you Susan’s phone number. You can contact her and tell her that I asked you to help.”

  “This is really important to you, isn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t be asking this big of a favor if it weren’t.”

  “Okay, Oliver, I’ll do it.”

  “I appreciate it, Alex, more than you’ll ever know.”

  “Are you sure I can’t help you?”

  “No. This is something I have to handle on my own.”

  Alex drove to Stone’s cottage. It looked empty, yet he still pulled his gun before unlocking the door, using a key Stone had once given him. It didn’t take long for him to see that no one was there. Following Stone’s instructions, he sat down at the desk and started going over the papers there, all in Stone’s precise handwriting.

  There were names: Jerry Bagger, Annabelle Conroy with a circle around it, Paddy Conroy, Tammy Conroy and someone named Anthony Wallace. There were notes about Stone’s recent trip to Maine, along with some lines detailing conversations with Reuben, Milton and Caleb. And apparently Milton and Reuben had been to Atlantic City, to the Pompeii Casino.

  Bagger’s place.

  Alex stuffed the notes in his pocket, rose and stretched out his lean six-foot-three-inch frame, massaging the muscles in his neck with his hand. He’d broken his neck in an accident years ago while on presidential protection detail and the surgically installed metal there sometimes gave him fits. Next step was to contact this Susan Hunter, if that was really her name, which, after seeing these notes, he was pretty certain wasn’t the case.

  The next instant he froze. Someone was coming. He slid over next to the bathroom door and waited.

  The intruder came in, went immediately over to the desk and seemed to be very upset that nothing was there.

  Alex stepped out and put his gun against the person’s head.

  True to her unflappable nature, Annabelle Conroy didn’t scream, but she did say, “I hope to hell you have the safety on.”

  He lowered his gun and stepped back. Annabelle was dressed in a short skirt, sandals and a jean jacket; her long blonde hair was tied back in a ponytail and partially covered under a ball cap. She took off her sunglasses and stared up at the tall federal agent.

  “You’re Secret Service, right?”

  He nodded. “Alex Ford. And I know you, you’re—”

  “Unemployed.” She looked around. “He’s not here?”

  Alex was staring at the small hook-shaped scar under Annabelle’s right eye. He caught himself and said, “No, he’s not.”

  “Any idea where he might be?”

  “Not really.”

  “Good-bye then.”

  As she headed to the door, Alex said sharply, “Annabelle!”

  She jerked around.

  Alex smiled. “Annabelle Conroy, pleased to meet you. Let me guess, father is Paddy, mother or maybe sister’s name is Tammy?” He pulled out the notes from his pocket. “And it seemed you might have been looking for these.”

  She eyed the papers and said, “I thought Oliver was more discreet than that.”

  “He is. I figured it out on my own.”

  “Good for you. Well, I guess I’ll be leaving.”

  “You want me to tell Oliver anything in case I see him?” Alex asked.

  “No. I don’t think I have anything to say to him. Not anymore, anyway.”

  “But you came to see him?”

  “So? Why are you here?” she said.

  “Because I’m his friend and I’m worried about him.”

  “He can take care of himself.”

  “Any idea why he disappeared?” Alex asked, though he knew the answer.

  “It’s because they dug up a grave at Arlington Cemetery. His grave, apparently.” She watched Alex closely, presumably to see how he would react to this. “Did I pass your little test?”

  He nodded. “Oliver must really trust you if he told you about that.”

  “Let’s put it this way: I thought he did trust me, but it turns out he didn’t.”

  “I heard Bagger can be pretty ruthless.”

  If she was startled by this Annabelle didn’t show it. “What’s a Bagger? You mean like at a grocery store?”

  He handed her one of his cards. “Oliver called me and told me to help you while he was otherwise engaged.”

  This news did startle her. “He asked you to help me?”

  “He insisted on it, in fact.”

  “And you do what he tells you to?” she said.

  “He said he’d trust you with his life. There aren’t many people he says that about. I happen to be one of them. We tend to look out for each other.”

  She hesitated, before slipping the card in her purse. “Thanks.”

  Alex watched in silence as she walked back to her car.

  CHAPTER 59

  CAMP DAVID, though it was often used as a working retreat, was also a place that allowed the president of the United States to get away from the stresses of the most impossible job on earth. The White House Press Office had issued a notice to journalists covering the president that this weekend was only for the president and his family. That was a lie, or at least a subterfuge, as statements issued by the press office sometimes were. The president was receiving a visitor, a very special visitor, and complete secrecy was necessary.

  “Thank you, Mr. President, for seeing me so swiftly,” Carter Gray said as he sat down across from the man in his private office at the camp. As much as Gray had come to enjoy his bunker life, there was something to be said for venturing aboveground every once in a while.

  “I’m just glad you’re all right,” the president said. “A very narrow escape for you.”

  “Well, I can’t say it was the first time, but I hope it is the last. And I appreciate the latitude you’ve given me, on an unofficial basis of course, to pursue this matter.”

  “I could sense its urgency when we spoke by phone. But I’d like a fuller understanding.”

  “Of course.” Gray gave the president a thumbnail history of Lesya, the treachery of Rayfield Solomon and the recent murders of the Triple Sixes. “And now we come to the last member of that unit, John Carr.”

  “The fellow who they dug up at Arlington? I’ve been briefed on that.”

  “Yes, well, that coffin did not hold the remains of John Carr.”

  “Who was it, then?”

  “Not important, sir. What is critical is that John Carr escaped thirty years ago.”

  “Escaped? Was he a prisoner?”

  “No, a traitor. He worked for us, but we had cause to terminate his association with CIA because of his actions.”

  “Terminate? Why not just prosecute him?”

  “There were extenuating circumstances, sir. A public trial would not have been in the best interests of this country. So we had to take matters in our hands. Duly authorized of course by your predecessor.”

  The president sat back and fingered his teacup. “Different times back then, I suppose. Dirty business.”

  “Yes sir. That sort of thing is no longer done, of course,” Gray said quickly. “However, the termination attempt failed. And now I think it’s come back to haunt us.”

  “How so?”

  “It seems clear that the man behind the deaths of the three former CIA agents is Carr.”