“Make the calls, Madam Chairwoman,” Allender said. “There has to be more to this than a vengeful son.”
Greer put her hands up in fists. “I don’t need this shit right now,” she groaned. “We’re going into an election year. For once I’ve got a fight on my hands. And, a roll call in five minutes.”
“Madam Chairwoman,” Rebecca said. “Here’s a chance to root out a scandal at the CIA. Take the lead. Rotten apple, exposed by Martine Greer, defender of Democracy. National news. Keeping the people safe. Think about it.”
Greer stared at her between her fingers for a long, appraising moment. “Want a job, sweetie?” she asked, finally.
* * *
A half hour later, they sat in the food court at Union Station, having had an expensive but pretty good breakfast. Allender thought they must have made an odd pair, he with the weird glasses and she too pretty to be sitting with him. The waitress brought the bill, which Allender paid.
“Think she’ll do it?” Rebecca asked, once the waitress had left.
“Her first question was instructive,” he replied. “‘How does this affect me?’ That’s what will guide her. Your comment at the end there was right on the mark, though.”
“And yet,” she said. “An election is coming. Everybody’s goosey about upsetting any applecarts. McGill has to be counting on that.”
“There’s something else,” he said. “This morning, when I spotted Greer going down into the parking garage? She wasn’t alone. There was this really pretty Chinese woman with her in the front seat. You see any Chinese women there in the office?”
“No-o, but, so what? Carpool? How many thousands of people work on Capitol Hill now? I don’t—”
“Martine told me that someone in her home district has started a rumor that she’s a closeted homosexual. She told me that’s not true, but she’s worried because her district is family-values, church, guns to the max.”
“Oh, c’mon, sir. Two women riding in a car means they’re flaming dykes? You can’t be serious.”
Allender didn’t say anything for a long moment. It wasn’t the homosexual angle that was bothering him, he realized. It was the fact that the woman had been Chinese. Since he’d come back on quasi-active duty, there’d been an awful lot of Chinese in his life.
Instinctively he began to scan the concourse, which was teeming with tourists headed for the tracks concourse or the Metro, and daily commuters headed the other way out into the city. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, except perhaps a familiar face. Rebecca noticed.
“Sir?” she asked. “Do we have a problem?”
“Tell you what,” he said softly. “You get up and leave. Go to the restroom area, but cut back so that you can keep me in sight. And turn off your phone.”
“Should I call my team first?”
“Not yet,” he said. “I may be imagining things, but my Spidey sense tells me we’re being watched, and possibly by more than one watcher. You packing?”
“Always,” she said.
“Good. I’m not authorized to be carrying, but I happen to have a little Ruger LCR .38 with me. Sorry to alarm you, but go through the motions. You see me make a signal to one of the waiters, come back. You see me take my glasses off, get the hell out of here and call for backup.”
“Gee, you sure know how to show a girl a good time,” she said.
“Remember our ‘date’ the other night? They prefer doing that shit in a quiet place, but they’re not above shooting up the whole concourse.”
“Sir: Who the fuck is ‘they’?”
“Chinese operatives,” he said, looking harder now. “Collateral casualties in their country helps solve their overpopulation problem.”
She took a minute, casually gathering her phone and a small purse, pretending to say good-bye while she powered down her phone. Then she left the café and headed for the doors to the Metro escalators. Allender pretended to relax and finish his coffee, while he continued to scan the tourists and the natives for anyone who seemed interested in Rebecca. He turned his own phone off as inconspicuously as he could. He was about to relax when he saw two people, not just one, move rather quickly, and it looked like they were trying to keep Rebecca in sight. One of them was a young, fit black man dressed in a brown UPS uniform, while the other was a Chinese woman decked out in loose-fitting running gear. The woman was talking frantically on her cell phone as she hastened after Rebecca. As Allender watched, the two nearly collided trying to get through the door to the actual ticketing concourse.
He’d screwed up by telling her to turn her phone off. He’d been worried about tracking, but now he couldn’t warn her. He’d just have to hope she’d see them and react.
Then his phone rang.
WTF? he asked himself. I just turned that thing off. He picked it up and accepted the call, which had no caller ID.
“Preston Allender, what are you doing at Union fucking Station?” asked Carson McGill.
“Breakfast?” Allender responded, remembering now that he’d been carrying an Agency-issued smart phone. Of course they could turn it back on.
“Where’s your date?” McGill asked. His voice had the tone of a man who’s seriously angry but who’s trying to keep things civil, at least for the moment.
“She’s going potty,” Allender said. “But you know what? I think she’s actually being followed.”
“Just like you are, Preston,” McGill said. “Look up, and to the right.”
Allender looked, found the ceiling camera, and wiggled his fingers in its direction.
“Cute,” McGill said. “Telling Martine Greer that Hank’s actually alive was not cute.”
“But true, yes?” Allender said. “Or did your tissue-sampling people flatline him for you?”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Preston. Stop trying to turn this into some kind of mystery movie. I don’t want Hank dead. I’ve got other fish to fry. You have complicated that, however.”
“Did I tell you that Greer’s consorting with a young Chinese woman?”
“Not news,” McGill retorted. “We were talking about you, Preston. I think you’re becoming a liability.”
“How’s about I resign, then?” Allender said. He was still scanning the crowds in the station, this time looking for a grab team headed his way while he babbled away on his treacherous phone. “You come get all your toys and my secret decoder ring, and I’ll go back to chasing my pretty veneers. It was you who called me, remember? And I think I said: ‘Not interested.’
“But you’re interested now, aren’t you, Preston,” McGill said. “You want to know what game I’m playing at, don’t you.”
“No, not really, Carson,” Allender said. “Break this off now and I’ll subside back into the retirement ooze. You’ll have to explain it to the Hooverites, but this retiree does not give one shit about whatever the fuck you’re up to.”
“I wish I could believe that,” McGill said.
“Why not?” Allender asked. “It’s not like I’ve got a dog in this fight. Speaking of dogs, aren’t you the Deppity Dawg at the Agency now? Your problem is Martine Greer, not me.”
“Go home and wait for my call, Preston,” McGill said. “I need to red-team this problem and see what threat you and your girlfriend pose.”
“Girlfriend?” Allender snorted. “She’s the so-called unlisted Agency liaison officer at the Bureau headquarters. She works out of the director’s office. She’s sure as hell not my girlfriend.”
“That what she told you, Preston?” McGill said, softly. “Go home. I’ll be in touch. Believe me, I will.”
The phone went dead. He looked across the concourse to find his “girlfriend.” She was nowhere in sight, and both the followers had also disappeared through that same door. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. Then he put them back on. If she’d been able to see him, she should be on the move. He scanned the concourse again, but saw only the normal flow of people through the cavernous hall.
He got up and headed for the Metro
entranceway, looking hard for either the young UPS man or the Chinese woman. As he slowed to search the area he became an obstacle in the flow of human traffic, so he stepped to one side of the entranceway and then stopped. Public restrooms were to his left; the double escalators to the Metro underground were on the right. Between them was the hallway that led out to the Amtrak waiting room. He pulled out his phone, which had gone dark again, and pretended to check his messages while standing flat against the wall. He scanned both sides of the hallway, the one with the public restrooms and the other side. Then he saw that there was a utility room of some kind on the opposite side from the restrooms. Lying on the floor at the bottom of the door was what looked a lot like Rebecca’s gold-plated NRA pen.
He checked the ceiling for security cameras and counted four tinted domes on the ceiling within visual range. If those two had managed to capture Rebecca and drag her into a utility room, she might be in real danger. He fingered the LCR in his coat pocket and then realized if he pulled a gun out here there’d be a response force coming on the run. Then he saw the solution: a heavy fire extinguisher mounted on the wall right next to the utility room door. He walked casually over to the door and tried to open it as discreetly as he could without rattling it.
Locked.
He then dismounted the fire extinguisher, waited for some people to get by him in the hallway, lifted it above his head and brought it down as hard as he could on the doorknob, which snapped right off. A woman passing behind him yelped in surprise.
The door swung open to reveal three concrete walls covered with fire main valves, riser piping, and hose racks. Rebecca was sitting on the floor with her hands behind her head, while the Chinese woman stood in front of her with a handgun. When the door opened she didn’t hesitate, turning and firing at Allender as he stepped through the door. The bullet hit the fire extinguisher instead, which spouted a cloud of white powder and CO2 into the Chinese woman’s face. She dropped her gun to protect her eyes but not before Allender had fired back, hitting the woman in the upper thigh. She screamed and then darted past Allender and out into the concourse, where people backed hurriedly away from the chaos in the utility room and the sound of gunfire.
Allender bent down to check on Rebecca, whose own firearm had been kicked under a hot-water radiator at the back of the room.
“I’m okay, but glad to see you,” Rebecca said, trying to stand up but failing to get traction on the powder covered floor. “Where’d she go?”
They both heard a lot of thudding feet as the station’s security response team ran past the utility room and down toward the track gates. Everyone else in the vicinity was either crouched down on the floor or trying to back through the doors leading to the main concourse. Allender helped Rebecca up, retrieved her weapon, and then pretended to assist her out of the utility room and over toward the Metro escalators. He pulled his Agency credentials wallet out and flashed it the huddling figures in the hallway, shouting,”Federal officers, don’t move and stay down.” No one challenged them as they made it to the top of the escalator, but as they stepped onto the sliding treads there was a double purple flash from the direction of the train-track gates, followed by the muted sounds of several people screaming.
They didn’t stick around to watch but trotted down the escalator just in time to scan their fare cards and board a Metro train. It was going in the wrong direction for Allender’s purposes, but it was leaving Union Station, which was just as useful right then. He stuffed his LCR and her weapon into his coat pockets as they boarded. A minute later the train slid out of the station and into the darkness of the tunnels. Rebecca sat next to him on the train, trying to discreetly slap the extinguisher powder off her arms and clothes. She was breathing hard but had kept her composure. She started to tell him what had happened but he put a finger to his lips.
They went two stations along the route, got out, did an up-and-over to the westbound track, and then took the next train to Metro Center, where they were able to transfer to one going to Dupont Circle. They hurried back to the town house. Allender sent Rebecca upstairs to get cleaned up and then went to find a Scotch. He, too, had white powder on his trousers and even on his hands, but didn’t notice as he sank down into an armchair. That was when he started to shake.
I’m too old for this shit, he told himself.
TWENTY
An hour after they’d made it back, Rebecca reappeared in the tower study. Her clothes still showed faint traces of powder, but she’d been able to shower and generally recover from her experience in the utility room.
“Feeling better?” he asked as she plopped down on the sofa.
“Much,” she said. “You look a little pale around the edges.”
“Not trained for that shit,” he said. “My hands can still feel that bullet hitting the extinguisher.”
She nodded. “Training helps, but your instincts were spot-on. Thank you. I think we’re even.”
Hardly, he thought, but couldn’t think of anything clever to say.
“I need to get back to the Hoover Building, though,” she continued. “May I use the phone? Lost mine in the scuffle.”
“Sure about that?” he asked. “We’re still operating in the mushroom mode here. Did that woman want something specific?”
“She yelled at me in what I assume was Chinese, almost like she expected me to understand what she was saying. You know, like some tourists do—shout, like that’s going to make the locals understand?”
He nodded. “But with gun in hand, right?”
“Yep,” Rebecca said. “Jammed right into my side. Queasy-nine, standard issue in the People’s Liberation Army.”
“MSS, then,” he said. “Interesting that she was operating alone.”
“General Chiang have a daughter?” she asked.
“Not sure,” he replied. “She got really excited when you got up from the table—blasting away on a cell phone while she hurried after you. There was another guy who seemed interested, too—a black man in a UPS uniform. I don’t know if he was with her or someone else, or if he was even involved. And then I discovered that McGill had me up on a ceiling security camera right there at the table.”
“Eyes everywhere, then,” she said. “Probably out front as we speak.”
“McGill scolded me for telling Greer that Hank was not, in fact, dead and gone. Said he needed to red-team the new situation. Told me to go home and stay there. That he’d definitely be in touch.”
Rebecca shook her head. “I need to get to my team and synch up,” she said. “The Union Station cops’re gonna find my phone, so E.T. really needs to call home. You’re welcome to come with me if you think a grab team’s spooling up.”
“I don’t get it,” he said. “I just don’t get it. What the hell is McGill up to?”
Rebecca was on his desk phone by then. She told whomever she was talking to where she was and that she needed a pickup to get her back to the Hoover Building. Then she hung up.
“I’ve got to alert the Bureau to what went down at Union Station,” she said. “Then I think we need to lay actual eyes on Wallace, assuming he really is alive. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to stay put. See what McGill does.”
“I can get you somewhere safe,” she offered. “The Bureau’s good at protecting people.”
“What’s the point?” he sighed. “I’m no operator.”
“You sure looked like one to me when you popped her,” she said. “Especially when you fired that extinguisher.”
“Actually, she did that,” he said. “When she shot at me and hit the extinguisher, instead. And she didn’t hesitate for one instant. I opened that door and she opened fire. If I hadn’t been holding the fire extinguisher chest high she’d have had me.”
“I see,” she said, and then got up and gathered her things. “It’s probably a good idea for you to stay put, then,” she continued. “I’m going to brief the deputy director at the Bureau. I assume McGill will be talking to H
ingham as soon as he gets word of this latest incident. Did you see that flash, by the way?”
“I did,” he said. “That woman I wounded took off down toward the tracks concourse. I wonder if she tangled with a third rail.”
Rebecca made a face and then headed for the front door. Allender went with her. When he opened the door, a government car was waiting out front. “That was fast,” he said.
“They’re nothing if not efficient,” she said with a quick smile, and then she was gone.
He went back to his study, sat down at his desk, and took the protective glasses off. “Eyes everywhere,” she’d said, as he rubbed his. “Probably out front,” she’d said, as if she’d known. He was seriously beginning to wonder about Rebecca Lansing, the “unlisted” Agency liaison officer dispatched from the Hingham’s office. “That what she told you?” McGill had asked. He realized he didn’t know the first thing about Rebecca, other than whatever legend she’d been spinning for him.
On the other hand, she’d certainly saved his ass from the Chiang crew. He could still feel the bits of bone, brain, and blood spraying over his face. But what exactly had brought her and her shooter out into the night and to his house at exactly the right time? As he recalled, she’d kind of brushed it off when he asked her, claiming Yang Yi had warned her. But why her? How would he even know who she was unless he’d asked someone inside the Hoover Building? And, finally, she’d said that that Chinese agent today had wanted something from her and apparently expected her to understand Mandarin. What did that tell him? He hadn’t a clue. Maybe he needed another Scotch. He looked at his watch. Early, but his hands were still trembling. He realized that a lot of his so-called power at the Agency had been utterly useless when someone swung around in front of him and opened fire.
He wondered if he shouldn’t just grab some clothes, his passport, one of his guns, and some emergency cash and then just get in his car and leave town. Nobody would expect him to do that, because they knew that he knew that Washington was one big surveillance grid these days. Silent drones everywhere, cell phone traps across the entire spectrum, every building with a security force on duty twenty-four hours a day. They could track his phone and probably his car. He’d have to get past a zillion surveillance cameras just to get down to one of the river bridges.
Red Swan Page 19
