K Street

by M. A. Lawson

  Fang opened the envelope and examined the document it contained: a single sheet of white paper with an incomprehensible string of letters, numbers, and strange symbols. At least it was incomprehensible to him; it would mean something, he assumed, to whoever had asked for the information. He walked to the nearest bathroom, tearing the document into pieces as he went, and flushed it down the toilet. There was no need to keep it because people in China already had the original.

  He poured a glass of orange juice and walked out to the patio behind his town house, a lovely little brick patio surrounded by plants and flowers. Gardeners from the embassy maintained it because the house belonged to the People’s Republic. He took a seat under an umbrella that provided some relief from the July sun and lit a cigarette.

  So. Was there anything else he needed to do to protect Winston?

  Regarding the e-mail that Winston had sent, he believed he’d done everything that could be done. He’d prevented Prescott from seeing the attachment, and Parker had assured him that Prescott would never be able to find the original e-mail in the NSA’s computers. He would have to accept that, because there wasn’t anything he could do about it if Parker was wrong.

  He did need to get Lin Mai out of the country. It was possible that only the late James Parker, because he’d intercepted the e-mail, knew that she was a Chinese intelligence officer—but Fang couldn’t take that chance. Lin Mai had to go. He had no idea what would happen to the other spies she’d been running, but that wasn’t his problem. Someone in China would assign them a new controller.

  But what about Winston? If he was arrested, the Chinese would lose a valuable asset, but Winston didn’t pose a danger to Chinese intelligence. The only person Winston knew in the intelligence apparatus was Lin Mai—and Lin Mai would soon be out of the picture. In any case, Winston’s fate would ultimately be decided by people back in China, but Fang would recommend that they leave him in place, assign him another handler, and hope for the best.

  The only loose end that he could see was Callahan. It would really be best if Callahan died, just in case he’d opened the envelope.

  He called the nurse. “Little sister,” he said, “how is our patient?”

  “He is in terrible shape,” she said, sounding concerned for Callahan. “After the surgery, he developed pneumonia and then an infection. He’s on a respirator and being given antibiotics.”

  This was very good news. “Is he conscious?”

  “No. He may never regain consciousness.”

  “Have more people been to see him?”

  “Not that I know of, and like I said, he can’t talk. But now there is a very large man who sits outside his room. He appears to be guarding him.”

  “I see,” Fang said. “Is this man a policeman?”

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t wear a uniform.”

  “Is he armed?”

  “I didn’t see a weapon on him, but he wears a jacket.”

  “Very well. Keep careful watch on Mr. Callahan’s condition and call me immediately if he appears to be recovering. Oh, how do your parents like their new washer and dryer?”

  “They are very happy with them,” the nurse said, but she didn’t sound happy. She sounded like she was weeping again. Some people were impossible to please.

  Fang thought for a moment about hiring Jamal Howard to kill Callahan, then decided he would wait since it sounded like Callahan might die from infection or pneumonia. The other thing that occurred to him was that even if Callahan had seen the attachment, it wouldn’t mean anything to him, and unless he had a photographic memory, he probably wouldn’t be able to remember what he saw. For now he’d leave Callahan alone and let nature take its course.

  Satisfied there was nothing more he needed to do, Fang called the Chinese ambassador’s secretary and said he needed to meet with her boss. It was time to tell the ambassador where things stood. As he was driving to the embassy, he remembered the woman who had visited Callahan in the hospital, the one claiming to be his daughter. He suspected the woman might be the security guard, Kay Hamilton, who’d killed Otis’s man. But since the nurse had said that Callahan had been unconscious when the woman visited him, he didn’t see how she posed a threat. He wouldn’t worry about her.

  • • •

  DAO YUNYI, ambassador of the People’s Republic of China, listened in silence as Fang Zhou gave his report. Dao prided himself on his self-control; he was a master at concealing his feelings. He was sixty-seven years old and had served as the ambassador to the United Kingdom before being assigned to the most prized post in the Chinese diplomatic corps. He had been educated at Oxford and spoke English well—though not as well as Fang.

  Dao did not like Fang. He thought the man was arrogant and disrespectful. He also didn’t like that Fang had affairs with American women, affairs he claimed were necessary to develop connections. Unfortunately, even though Fang was listed as a member of the embassy’s staff, Fang didn’t work for Dao; he worked for the intelligence apparatus in China. Fang was only telling him what he’d done because he was obligated to keep him informed.

  Dao didn’t necessarily disagree with the actions Fang had taken to save the valuable asset at Zytek Systems, but it infuriated him that Fang had not bothered to include him in any of the decisions he’d made. He also thought Fang had been dangerously reckless using American thugs to steal the safe, but he had to concede that it had been necessary for Fang to work quickly.

  Fang completed his report and bowed his head respectfully—although Dao could see the mockery in the gesture. The only good news, as far as Dao Yunyi was concerned, was that if Fang’s plan fell apart, only Fang would be blamed. Dao would make sure of this.

  14

  DAY 3—10 A.M.

  Otis was in his shop, sanding the right front fender on a 1965 Ford Thunderbird. The body of the vehicle wasn’t in bad shape, but he figured he’d probably spend about three hundred hours sanding before he put on the first coat of primer. The engine would have to be rebuilt, maybe the tranny, too. And the previous owner had put a lot of aftermarket shit on the car that he’d have to replace with original equipment that he’d have to scour the country to find. He figured it would take him seven or eight months to fully restore the Thunderbird, and estimated he would put at least ten grand into it, but when he was done, he’d be able to sell it for sixty or seventy.

  He restored cars mainly because he enjoyed it and because he could work for himself. He’d never liked having a boss. He also did it so he could show a legitimate income to the IRS or the FBI. Right now, though, he was working on the car to avoid doing something he knew he had to do: talk to Ray Brown’s sister, Shirley.

  Otis knew Shirley would be out of her mind with grief—she probably went berserk when the cops had given her the news about Ray—and she’d blame him for her brother’s death. He’d told himself that he hadn’t gone to see her because the cops would start looking into him if they saw him, but the real reason he hadn’t gone was because he wasn’t ready to face Shirley’s wrath.

  Otis had never known siblings closer than Ray and Shirley. He knew their mom had abandoned them when they were little and they never did discover who their father was. They’d been raised in one shitty foster home after another, sometimes together, sometimes apart. And they’d both been seriously fucked up: molested, raped, and battered. By the time they were old enough to be on their own, they were so messed up that neither of them ever had a normal relationship. But they told each other everything—and that was a problem: Otis had no doubt that Ray had told crazy Shirley that he was working with him the day he died.

  The only good thing he could tell Shirley was that, since Quinn had been killed, she’d get five hundred grand instead of the four hundred Ray had originally expected. But Shirley wouldn’t care about the money; the only thing she’d care about was that Ray was dead.

  Otis heard the side door to t
he shop bang against the wall and he thought that one of his kids had flung it open. But it wasn’t one of his kids.

  “You son of a bitch!” Shirley Brown screamed. “You motherfucking son of a—”

  Then she was coming at him, and along the way she scooped up a fourteen-inch crescent wrench off the workbench. She swung it at his head and would have caved in his skull, but he ducked under her arm and wrapped his arms around her. She tried to break his grip and knee him in the balls. Fortunately, she missed and hit his thigh, then she quit fighting him and started sobbing.

  Otis’s wife, Ginnie, was now coming through the door. Shirley must have barged right past her, screaming and scaring the hell out of the kids. While he was clutching Shirley, he looked at his wife and made a head gesture telling her to go back in the house. Ginnie stood there for a minute, then the fear and anger faded from her face and she just looked sad—sad for Shirley. Ginnie had a good heart.

  Otis just kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  Shirley Brown looked like a biker chick. She had a thin, angular face that had once been pretty but had turned hard and lupine as she’d aged. Her hair was dark and cut short—or chopped short. She liked to wear sleeveless leather vests—like the one she had on now—tight jeans, and boots. Like her brother, she had lots of tats on her arms, her neck, her lower back, and probably more in places that couldn’t be seen. The funny thing was that Shirley was really domestic. She liked to cook and garden, and she spent most of her free time fixing up her house; she and Ray had remodeled their kitchen themselves, completely gutted it and replaced everything, and Shirley had done at least half the work. She also took care of a couple of her neighbors’ kids sometimes; Otis bet it took quite a while for the soccer moms to trust Shirley with them.

  As he hugged her, Otis could smell the cigarette smoke in her hair and the booze on her breath. The booze was a really bad sign. Shirley had been going to AA for the last two years. The court had made her go after the last time she was arrested, but she stuck with it after that. But she was seriously off the wagon now, and who knows what she might say unintentionally?

  Finally, the sobs slowed down, and he walked her over to a bench and sat next to her, his arm around her shoulder.

  “What happened, Otis?” she said. “Tell me why he died.”

  He told her, and he didn’t try to make excuses. He said they all took the job because the guy was paying them so damn much they couldn’t pass it up. He told her that he hadn’t had time to plan the way he normally did. “But I told all the guys that it was going to be risky and asked if any of them wanted to back out. Nobody did.”

  “Who killed him?” Shirley said. “The cops won’t tell me.”

  “It was a fat guy in his sixties in a fucking office. I never thought for a minute that he’d have a gun. When Ray broke down his door, he was standing off to one side and he shot Ray as soon as he entered. I just never expected—”

  “I want his name, Otis. I’m gonna kill him.”

  “I think I may have already killed him for you, Shirley. Quinn shot a bunch of bullets through the wall after he shot Ray, and at least one of the bullets hit him. Then I shot him again. I put one right in his chest. I heard on the news that they took him to the hospital, but I doubt he’ll make it. He was bleeding like a stuck pig.”

  “Well, you find out if he made it and get me his name.”

  Otis knew the guy’s name, but no way was he going to tell Shirley because she’d go to the hospital and kill Callahan if he wasn’t dead already. So Otis lied. “I will, Shirl, I promise. And if he survives, I’ll take care of him myself and that’s a promise, too. As soon as I get the rest of our money, I’ll give you Ray’s share.”

  “I don’t give a shit about the money!”

  “I know you don’t care about it now, but one of these days you’ll be glad you have it.” Shirley didn’t have a job and was too much of a mental case to hold one down if she found one; he had no idea how she’d support herself now that Ray was dead.

  “Have they released his body to you yet?”

  “No. They . . .”

  And then she started sobbing again. Sobbing so hard she started to hiccup.

  15

  DAY 3—10 A.M.

  The morning after meeting Detective Eagleton at McDonald’s, the first thing Kay did was go to the hospital to check on Callahan. She hoped he’d be able to talk; she wanted to see if he could confirm the things Olivia Prescott had told her. She didn’t necessarily trust Callahan, but she trusted him more than she trusted Prescott. She got off the elevator on the ICU floor and walked past the nurses’ station without stopping. She wasn’t about to ask for permission.

  She saw Henry sitting on a chair outside the door to Callahan’s room. He stood up when he saw her. He was wearing a lightweight jacket and Kay was willing to bet that the .44 Magnum he preferred was holstered under it.

  “How’s he doing?” she asked.

  Henry shook his head and for a minute he couldn’t speak.

  “He’s in bad shape, Kay. He’s got pneumonia and some kind of nasty infection, the kind that’s hard to treat. They’re pumping him full of antibiotics, but from what the nurses are saying, it’s an uphill battle.”

  “Can he talk?”

  “No, he’s on a respirator and he’s unconscious. And you shouldn’t go into his room. He might catch something from you that could infect him even worse.”

  “I just want to look in on him,” Kay said, and she cracked the door to Callahan’s room. He looked fragile lying there in bed—and she’d never thought of him as fragile. Tubes snaked down from IV bags dripping drugs into his bloodstream. Because of the respirator, she couldn’t see much of his face, just his high forehead and his gray hair. She closed the door.

  “Who’s helping you guard him? You gotta sleep sometime.”

  “A buddy of mine. He’s a vet and a licensed PI. He’s good and I trust him.”

  As they were speaking, a short Asian nurse came down the hall. She nodded at Henry and Kay, put on a mask, and entered Callahan’s room.

  “They won’t let me go in there when they’re working on him.”

  “Just do the best you can, Henry.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I got the names of the men that Callahan and I killed, and I’m following up on them to see if I can get to whoever planned this.”

  “Do you need help?”

  “Not at this point. Call me when Callahan’s able to talk. I really need to know what he knows.”

  • • •

  KAY DIDN’T RETURN TO HER CAR. Instead, she went to the cafeteria. The food may have been inedible, but the coffee was adequate. She would go and see Ray Brown’s sister next. If Brown and his sister were as close as Detective Eagleton had said, Shirley Brown might know who her brother had been working for. The cops hadn’t been able to get anything from her, but maybe Kay could because she had an advantage over the cops: She didn’t have to play by the rules. But she didn’t think that asking nicely for the names of her brother’s accomplices was going to cut it. She wanted some leverage, some way to apply pressure.

  Kay called Eagleton; she woke him up. She suddenly remembered that he worked nights. Too bad.

  “This is the lady you met at McDonald’s,” she said.

  “Yeah, Jesus. What time is it? What do you want?”

  “I need Ray Brown’s Social Security number, DOB, and his current address.”

  “Can’t your own people get that for you?” he said, still under the impression Kay worked for the NSA.

  “Yeah, but since there are probably ten thousand Ray Browns living on the Eastern seaboard, I figured you can get it faster.”

  “Yeah, all right. I’ll have to call the office. Give me ten minutes.”

  Twenty minutes later, he called her back and gave her the
information. He concluded with, “Try to remember that I work swing shift the next time you want to talk to me.”

  • • •

  KAY USED HER PHONE to look up the general number for the NSA. Prescott had refused to give her a private phone number, so what else could she do?

  She told the NSA operator that she needed to speak to Olivia Prescott. The operator asked, “And may I say who you are, ma’am, and what this is in regard to?”

  “Sure,” Kay said. “My name is Kay Hamilton. I work for Thomas Callahan and I just wanted to tell Ms. Prescott that Mr. Callahan’s still alive.”

  A long minute later, Prescott screamed into the phone, “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Hey, I asked you to give me a number and you wouldn’t. I need you to do something for me.”

  “I am not going to discuss anything on a telephone.”

  “Olivia, the only people monitoring this call work for you. Tell them to stop.”

  “Now you listen to me—” Then Kay heard Prescott take in a deep breath to calm herself. “Where are you?”

  “At the hospital. I was checking on Callahan.”

  “Oh,” Prescott said. Then, sounding almost human, she asked, “How is he?”

  “Not good. He got pneumonia and some kind of bad infection after the surgery. He’s unconscious, on a respirator, and they’re pumping antibiotics into him.”

  “I see. Anyway—”

  “Anyway?” Kay said. “That’s all you have to say?”

  Prescott ignored the jibe. “Where exactly in the hospital are you?”

  “The cafeteria.”

  “Stay there. A man will meet you in an hour to give you a phone that’s more secure than the one you’re using. After you have the phone, call me. My number will be in the contacts list.”

  “All right,” Kay said.

  • • •

  PRESCOTT HUNG UP and made another call. “Brookes, I want one of your people to take one of the new cell phones to a woman at George Washington University Hospital. She’ll be waiting in the cafeteria. She’s tall, blond, and very good looking. Her name is Hamilton.”