K Street

by M. A. Lawson

  But after Afghanistan, Kay began to suspect that Callahan had lied to her about working for the president. She met with her friend Barb to talk about her concern, and Barb surprised her by saying that no president—and certainly not Bush or Obama—would take the risk of running a group like Callahan’s. (Which rather irritated Kay, that Barb hadn’t told her this before she accepted the job with Callahan.)

  Barb said that Callahan was most likely working with some rogue group connected to the intelligence community. That is, someone with ties to the CIA, the NSA, the DIA, or maybe Homeland Security. That would explain—as Kay had observed many times—why Callahan seemed to have such ready access to classified information. It would also explain how Callahan received the funds needed to run his operations: The money was being funneled to him through the massive secret coffers of the intelligence community. But when Kay demanded that Callahan tell her the complete truth about the Group, the stubborn bastard refused—and that’s why Kay had decided to quit. She wasn’t going to continue to put her life at risk when she couldn’t trust the man she worked for.

  But now whoever was running Callahan had a major problem. A safe had been stolen and its contents could possibly endanger national security. There was also a team of D.C. cops and forensic weenies rummaging through Callahan’s offices, and who knew what they might stumble across? But most important, someone had tried to kill Callahan. Kay was not going to quit until she found out who tried to kill him and why.

  • • •

  KAY FELT A FINGER poke her shoulder. It was the nurse with the kind face who’d told her that Callahan was in surgery.

  “I’m sorry to wake you, honey,” the nurse said, “but I thought you’d want to know that your dad just got out of surgery.” Kay looked at her watch; it was almost six a.m. Callahan had been in surgery for over ten hours.

  “Thank God,” Kay said. “Is he going to be all right?”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s really too early to say. He made it through the surgery okay, and for the time being he’s stable, but we’re going to have to watch him closely.”

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “No. He’s in the recovery room right now and still unconscious. We’ll move him into ICU in about an hour, but I doubt he’ll be able to talk. You can at least go in and hold his hand for a bit, then you’ll have to leave so he can rest. Oh, and the people in the business office want to see you. They need his insurance information.”

  “Yeah, sure,” Kay said. She had no idea who insured Callahan or if he even had insurance. She wasn’t going anywhere near the business office.

  Kay found the hospital cafeteria and had a breakfast of fake scrambled eggs and sausages made out of vegetables that tasted only vaguely like real sausages. The breakfast was advertised as “heart-healthy.” She was glad it was good for her heart because her taste buds certainly didn’t like it.

  She checked her watch. Only half an hour had passed since she’d spoken to the nurse, and she imagined Callahan would still be out cold. To kill some time, she left the hospital and walked around the block, stopping at a Starbucks for an apple fritter loaded with fat and cholesterol.

  She went back to the hospital and up to the floor where the intensive care unit was located. She lied to the nurses at the nursing station, saying again that she was Callahan’s daughter and just wanted to sit with her dad for a while. “Because, you know,” she said, “I was told he might not make it.” Kay had always found that nurses, in general, were the nicest people on the planet. They naturally sympathized with her and told her it was okay for her to see her “dad.”

  Bandages covered Callahan’s gray-haired chest. Fluids were flowing into him, a tube fed oxygen to his nose, and he was connected to a machine monitoring his vital signs. He looked like a man on the verge of death—and Callahan hadn’t been particularly healthy looking before he’d been shot. He was overweight and pale because he rarely ventured out into the sun. He smoked and the only exercise he got was doing one-arm curls: lifting tumblers filled with alcohol to his lips.

  But Kay needed him awake; she needed some answers.

  She walked to the side of the bed and said, “Callahan.” He didn’t stir. She prodded his shoulder gently and again said, “Callahan.” Nothing. Not knowing what else to do, she sat down in the visitor’s chair. She’d wait a while and see if he came to.

  An hour later, Kay sensed a change in the way he was breathing and went to stand by the bed. “Callahan,” she said. “Can you hear me?”

  Callahan’s eyes opened slowly. Kay could actually see the pain in his eyes. He was really hurting. “Can you tell me anything about what happened? Why did those guys take your safe?”

  Callahan’s lips moved but no sound came out. There was a sink in the room but Kay was afraid to give him water because he might start choking. And for all she knew, maybe he wasn’t supposed to be given fluids orally. She went over to the sink and wetted a paper towel and pressed the damp towel gently against his lips.

  “Callahan, give me something. Anything.”

  Again his lips moved and this time he croaked, “Press.”

  “Press?” Kay said. “What do you mean? The press knows something? Don’t talk to the press?”

  His lips moved again, barely opening and closing, and he said, “Press. Cot.”

  “Prescott? A person named Prescott?” Kay said.

  “Olivia.” This was followed by a long pause—Callahan was battling the pain—then he said, “N.”

  “Olivia Prescott?” Kay said. “Olivia N. Prescott?”

  But Callahan was gone. He wasn’t dead, but he was either asleep or in a coma. She poked his shoulder a couple more times, and when he didn’t respond, she gave his hand a light squeeze and said, “God be with you, Callahan.”

  She said this knowing it was extremely unlikely that God and Thomas Callahan were on speaking terms.

  5

  DAY 2—7 A.M.

  Kay didn’t know what Callahan had been trying to tell her. She didn’t know if he meant Prescott, Olivia N., and “N” was Prescott’s middle initial, or if Callahan had said “N” as the beginning of another word. Or maybe he didn’t say “N” at all; the way he’d been slurring his words it was impossible for her to be sure.

  She wondered if Prescott could be Callahan’s girlfriend or one of his ex-wives. He had four ex-wives. Callahan, at the age of sixty, wasn’t all that physically appealing, but he was charming and likeable and seemed to have no problem attracting women. Why they didn’t stay married to him, as near as Kay could tell, was that he would fall in love with the next Mrs. Callahan while still married to the current Mrs. Callahan. It seemed unlikely, however, that Callahan had given her the name of an old flame because he wanted the woman at his bedside as he lay dying.

  The other thought that occurred to her was that maybe Callahan had been trying to tell her that Prescott was the person responsible for the attack. The guys with the MAC-10s had been guys—at least Kay didn’t think any of them were women—but that didn’t exclude the possibility that a woman was their boss. Then she thought, no. If Callahan had known that someone—Prescott or anyone else—might attack his office and kill his people, he would have been prepared for it and would have dealt with the threat.

  The last possibility—and the one that Kay thought most likely—was that Prescott was a person who would have answers, a person who would know why Callahan had been shot and why his safe had been stolen.

  • • •

  KAY RETURNED TO HER APARTMENT, poured a Coke for the caffeine, and booted up her laptop. There was only one thing she could think to do to find Prescott on her own: She did an Internet search using one of those people-finder search engines.

  She was surprised to learn that, in the entire United States of America, only seven Olivia or O. Prescotts were listed. Sometimes, it was a good thing no one could protect their privacy.


  Five of the seven Prescotts were located in Lake Placid, Florida; Schenectady, New York; Las Vegas, Nevada; Greenville, Texas (wherever the hell that was); and Hurst, Texas (wherever the hell that was). The sixth Prescott lived in Indio, California, and her name was Olivia M. Prescott, making Kay wonder if Callahan had said “M,” not “N.” But it was the seventh Olivia Prescott who interested Kay. The seventh Prescott lived in Laurel, Maryland, which was only twenty-five miles from D.C., practically in Callahan’s backyard. And Laurel, Maryland, was located even closer to another place: Fort Meade—home to the National Security Agency.

  And maybe that’s what Callahan had been trying to say: Olivia Prescott, NSA.

  Kay entered NSA and Prescott into Google and came up blank. She then entered just NSA, and there was the NSA’s website, www.nsa.gov, as if it were a normal government organization, like the IRS or the Social Security Administration. On the website was a little box titled: Leadership. Kay figured that if Callahan knew anybody at the NSA, it would be one of the top dogs.

  When she clicked on the Leadership button, however, it showed only two people: a U.S. Army general who was the current director, and his deputy, a sneaky-looking guy—at least Kay thought he looked sneaky—named Paul S. Scranton. And that was it. Of the approximately thirty thousand people employed by the country’s largest, most well-funded, most secretive intelligence service, only two employees were identified on the website.

  She went back to the people-finder engine. An address was given for the Olivia Prescott who lived in Laurel, Maryland, but her phone number was unlisted. Even though she knew she might be wasting her time, the only thing Kay could think to do was go to the address in Laurel. It was a long shot, but a long shot was better than no shot at all.

  But before driving to Laurel, Kay decided to call two people. One of those people was Henry Sill, the Group’s “receptionist.” The other was her lover.

  Because he’d spent twenty years at the CIA, Callahan was a big believer in compartmentalization. This meant that the people who participated in his operations were only told as much as Callahan believed they needed to know. He also compartmentalized the Callahan Group: Those folks who worked the legitimate side didn’t know the folks on the covert side, and not even the folks on the covert side knew who everyone was. Callahan, like the NSA, also didn’t have a directory with a neat alphabetical list of his employees.

  While Kay had been working for Callahan, she’d met a few other people. Sometimes all she was given was a first or a last name and it wasn’t always clear if the name was real or fake. Like Morgan. Kay had worked with him twice—he was one of Callahan’s top operatives—but she had no idea how to contact him.

  One of the people she knew how to contact, however, was Henry Sill. Henry was an ex-Marine. He survived three tours in Iraq without getting so much as a scratch, then came to work for Callahan, and somehow got his left leg blown off below the knee. Kay didn’t know why or how.

  Henry, unlike Kay, actually did provide security for Callahan, and his prosthesis didn’t make him any less lethal. Henry sat at the front desk, armed, and he didn’t allow people into the main office unless he knew who they were or unless Callahan gave him permission. Kay also wanted to know where Henry was yesterday and why he hadn’t been at his post. If Callahan had known that he had something worth killing for in his safe, Henry would definitely have been standing guard.

  • • •

  SHE CALLED HENRY, and the first thing he said was, “Kay, did you hear what happened?”

  “Yeah. I was there.”

  “You were?”

  “I don’t want to talk on the phone, Henry. Where do you live?” Henry didn’t answer.

  “Look,” Kay said, “I don’t want your home address, I just want to know where you are relative to where I am so we can meet at a place that’s convenient for both of us. Right now I’m on Connecticut, a couple of miles from the zoo.”

  “Let’s meet at Dupont Circle,” Henry said. “The Starbucks by the Metro station.”

  “Okay,” Kay said. “How fast can you get there?”

  Henry paused before he said, “Half an hour.”

  Cautious bastard. She wondered if he was lying about how close he was to Dupont Circle so he could get there before her or if he really was half an hour away.

  Henry wasn’t in the Starbucks when Kay arrived. She bet he was outside, lurking, watching to see if she’d been followed and if she was alone. That is, Henry was lurking as well as a six-foot-five, two-hundred-and-thirty-pound black man with a shaved head can lurk. He wasn’t the inconspicuous type. Ten minutes later he walked into the coffee shop. If you didn’t know that one of his legs wasn’t flesh and bone, you’d never guess by the way he walked.

  He took a seat across from her. “Is Callahan alive?” he said.

  “Barely,” Kay said. “He was shot at least twice. They got him to the hospital in time to stabilize him, but I’m not sure he’s going to make it. I went to check on him but he wasn’t conscious.”

  “So what happened?”

  Instead of answering his question, she said, “Where were you yesterday, Henry?”

  “One of my kids had a baseball game.”

  Kay hadn’t known that Henry had children. She didn’t even know if he was married or not.

  “I told Callahan I wanted to leave early,” Henry said, “and he said go ahead. He said there wasn’t anything going on—I guess he meant that he didn’t have some operation underway—and that I didn’t need to be there. I left at four. If I hadn’t . . .”

  He didn’t finish the sentence, but she could tell he was sick with remorse and guilt, thinking that he could have prevented Callahan from getting shot if he had been there.

  “So what happened, Kay?”

  Kay told him how four masked men had battered down the doors, shot David Norton and another man she didn’t know, and ripped the safe out of Callahan’s wall. She concluded by saying, “Callahan killed one of them before they shot him. I arrived just as they were leaving, and I killed one, too.”

  Before Henry could ask another question, she said, “How many people were there when you left?”

  “Five. Norton, Phil Klein, Kathy Matthews, and Stew Unger. And Callahan, of course.”

  “The only one I know is Norton,” Kay said. “What do Klein and Unger look like?”

  “Unger is tall, almost as tall as me. And in good shape. He rides a bike to work.”

  “Then the other guy they killed must have been Klein. The man I saw wasn’t in any better shape than Callahan. What did these people do?”

  “They all worked the straight side. Matthews is a lawyer, like Norton. Klein’s an accountant. I don’t know what Unger does; he spends a lot of time on the Hill and overseas.”

  “The break-in happened around seven,” Kay said. “Unger and Matthews must have left before then or they’d probably be dead, too. Do you have any idea why someone would want Callahan’s safe?”

  “No. I know he kept cash in it, but I don’t know how much or how anyone else would know.”

  “I don’t think this was about the cash,” Kay said. “This is about something else. Do you have any idea who Callahan really works for, Henry?”

  “What do you mean?” Henry said, acting as if the question shocked him. “He works for the president. You know that.”

  “I think Callahan lied about that. I’ve thought that for some time. But someone was working with him, and I think it was someone in the intelligence community.”

  “Why would Callahan lie?”

  Kay almost said: Come on, Henry. Callahan lied about everything. Instead, she said, “He lied because he’s trying to conceal and protect whoever his real boss is. And if you have any idea who that person could be, you need to tell me. I need to know in order to find out why Callahan was shot.”

  “He worke
d for the president,” Henry stubbornly said—and Kay could see she wasn’t going to shake his faith in Callahan.

  “Did anything unusual happen yesterday before you left?” Kay asked. “Anything out of the ordinary?”

  “No. The office was really quiet, and a bunch of folks are on leave since it’s July. And like I already told you, I’m pretty sure Callahan didn’t have any sort of operation going on.” Henry paused. “Well, there was one thing. A woman came to see him.”

  Kay immediately thought that Henry was about to tell her that the woman was the mysterious Olivia Prescott. But instead he said, “Her name was Sally Ann Danzinger. She showed up unexpectedly and said she wanted to see Callahan. She’s some sort of political activist.”

  “What kind of activist?”

  “Left-wing. Anything the Democrats favor. Environmental stuff, pro choice, minimum wage. That sort of thing. When she came to see him, I had her show me her ID then looked her up online. But I don’t know why she came to see him, and she was only there a couple of minutes, and Callahan didn’t say anything to me about her after she left.”

  “Huh,” Kay said. She couldn’t imagine why a liberal political activist would come to see Callahan unless maybe it was to complain about something the straight side of the Callahan Group was doing.

  “Have you ever heard the name Olivia Prescott, Henry?”

  “No. Who is she?”

  “She’s . . . Aw, never mind. It’s not important.”

  Before Henry could ask more questions about Prescott, Kay said, “You need to call everyone you know who works for Callahan—you know a lot more of his people than I do—and tell them to stay away from K Street. We don’t want to give the cops a bunch of people to question until we know what’s going on. Even the people on the cover side. They’ve seen people like me coming and going. And they’re not stupid. I’m sure at least some of them suspect that Callahan was playing another game.”