Murder on the Metro

by Margaret Truman

  Lia’s gaze went to a neat array of bullets that she recognized as the very modified 5.56-millimeter ordnance that had been used in the drone attack in Caesarea.

  “Colonel,” the head of Mossad called out, directing Lia’s attention to a wall papered with drawings and schematics.

  She took a flashlight from his grasp and studied the drawings closer, fixing on one featuring the very drones he’d designed, and perhaps even constructed, in this very room, following the precise parameters of these blueprints. She realized the stacks of aluminum she’d spotted not far from the modified ammunition must have been used to manufacture the custom housings of the weapons to make them light enough for the drones to carry. All of the walls were papered with such plans, making Lia shudder at the thought of how many lives had been lost as a result of the work performed in this cramped and cluttered house of death.

  The flashlight beam held on another drawing, which looked fresher than the others. The paper was still radiant white, without any of the yellowing bubbling from collected moisture, or streaks of grime that marred the plans that had been here longer. Of course, a man of al-Bis’s experience and prowess never should have left them here, a kind of shrine to his murderous achievements, but she supposed that was the point, and she imagined him reveling in the sight of them as an art lover might while standing before a Picasso or a van Gogh. Al-Bis likely fancied himself an artist of a different ilk, and since he never got to enjoy for himself the final tapestries drawn in blood, feasting on the sight of his creations was the next best thing. Destroying them would be tantamount to destroying the objects they presaged; it would be sacrilegious in his mind, showing disregard for the glory the acts had brought him. They were the next best thing, in other words, to photographs of the aftermaths of the attacks to which he was party.

  “What are these?” Lia asked, beam held on a portion of the drawing’s contents: a pair of objects drawn to scale but lacking enough detail to identify.

  “We’re not sure yet,” Baruch replied. “So far, we’ve found nothing here that matches anything like this.”

  “We need to find out,” Lia told him, “and fast…”

  With that, she shined her flashlight on the next drawing over, detailed schematics etched upon similarly fresh paper, no more than a month old.

  “Because that’s a suicide vest,” Lia continued, “and someone must be planning to strap it on.”

  CHAPTER

  19

  WASHINGTON, DC

  What happened to your face?” Kendra Rendine asked him, as Brixton joined her at the table at Ellē, where they’d made plans to meet for breakfast before he left for New York.

  “Welcoming committee when I got back from New York last night,” Brixton told her.

  Ellē was a combination café, restaurant, and bar that also housed a wholesale bakery called the Paisley Fig on Mount Pleasant Street NW, four blocks from the Columbia Heights Metro station where Brixton had gotten off. It offered counter as opposed to table service, which meant they wouldn’t be subjected to any interruptions from a waitstaff. Rendine had chosen a seat in clear view of the window, so she could watch for his approach down the redbrick-colored sidewalk that was actually finished in a gritty, as opposed to stamped, surface that kept the pavement from getting too slick when wet or icy.

  “Let’s change seats.”

  “Why?”

  Brixton pointed to his face.

  “You’re worried they’re not finished, that maybe they followed you here?” Rendine asked him.

  “No, Kendra. I’m worried they followed you.”

  * * *

  They switched to a table that had just been cleared, inside a separate, glassed-in seating area away from the storefront and counter display. The table was propped up against a glass partition, and Brixton positioned himself to watch the entrance so he could keep an eye peeled in that direction. They made sure to order, so as not to stand out, and to enjoy the offerings of this relatively off-the-beaten-DC-path establishment, where few government types were known or seen. Rendine ordered granola and coconut yogurt. Brixton was tempted to try the house specialty, salmon on toast, but his stomach felt a bit queasy from an uneasy sleep following last night’s attempted kidnapping, which had ended very badly for the kidnapper. He ordered a bagel and a large coffee that was classified as mild.

  Brixton hadn’t wanted to involve any kind of police the night before. The further attention it would draw to him had to be avoided at all costs, along with his complicity in the death of the man he’d originally known as Detective Rogers, in the aftermath of the Metro bombing. So he called in an anonymous tip to DC Metro police, after bringing up a security app that would block any recognition of his phone or his location at the time.

  Brixton told the story from the beginning, his visit to the professor and his pigeons on a New York City rooftop the previous day. He summed up the professor’s conclusions as succinctly as possible.

  “A weaponized stent?” Rendine posed, not quite sounding like she bought it. “Your friend was speaking hypothetically, right?”

  “He’s more of an associate than a friend. And something you should know about men like the professor: when they speak ‘hypothetically,’ it’s usually about something they’ve employed themselves at some point, or have heard of someone else who did. There’s not a lot of space between theory and fact, in other words.”

  “You’re saying it’s been done.”

  “I think that’s a safe assumption, yes.”

  “I’ve gone over Vice President Davenport’s autopsy results with a fine-tooth comb. There’s no mention of anything amiss or awry with her stents.”

  “Chances are they weren’t checked that closely, but they should still be in secure storage someplace, maybe even under Secret Service auspices. That means we could do a deeper dive and analysis into them.”

  Brixton could see Rendine making a mental note of that.

  “But we’ll want it done by someone you’re certain you can trust,” he resumed. “We need to keep the circle on this as tight as we possibly can.”

  She looked at his face again. “Because it’s already widened too much?”

  “I was getting to that. The man who assaulted me was the same fake cop who interrogated me on the Metro platform after the bombing. But we didn’t pick up on that discussion. He wanted to know about you: what you knew, what you’d shared with me, what I’d learned in New York.”

  Rendine returned her spoon to her bowl of yogurt. “Wait a minute…”

  Brixton let her fit the pieces together for herself.

  “This man was on the platform in the immediate aftermath of the bombing.”

  He nodded. “That’s right.”

  “But last night he was asking about me—what I knew about the vice president’s death, presumably.”

  “Also right. And you know what that means, Agent.”

  Rendine leaned forward, elbows straddling her bowl of granola and coconut yogurt. “There has to be a connection between the Metro bombing and the potential murder of Vice President Davenport.”

  “Bingo,” said Brixton.

  CHAPTER

  20

  WASHINGTON, DC

  Rendine leaned back, and Brixton gave her all the time she needed to process the same conclusion he’d reached himself the night before, losing hours of sleep.

  In the ensuing moments, he found himself thinking about his grandson and how pitifully little time he’d been spending with the boy. He was almost thirteen years old now, playing Little League baseball after a season of Pop Warner football in the fall and church league basketball through the winter. His surviving daughter and son-in-law didn’t live in the Washington, DC, area, but he’d made unconscionably little effort to take time out of his schedule, something he never would have imagined happening, after Janet’s tragic death five years ago. He always seemed to be too busy, always on this case or that, and loath to let any client down, especially those who were referred to
him by Mackensie Smith or someone else in the firm.

  What had he been thinking?

  Brixton watched Rendine narrow her gaze on him. “You really shot out the ceiling?”

  He nodded. “Six, maybe seven bullets.”

  “Unconventional.”

  “Hey, it worked, didn’t it?”

  “Your attacker didn’t say anything else that might help us?”

  He shook his head. “Like I said, his interest lay in what you were up to, what we’d discussed.”

  “The man used those words?”

  “I don’t remember his exact words. He wanted to know what you knew, what you had told me, along with who I’d met with in New York.”

  “So he knew you’d been there.”

  “He was waiting for me on the platform in Union Station when I got back.”

  “Are you sure about that, Robert?” Rendine asked him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe he was on the train. Maybe he was following you all day.”

  Brixton felt a cold chill at that potential reality. He needed to warn the professor to be on his guard. Maybe he should warn Flo Combes as well.

  “Either way,” Rendine picked up, “they’re monitoring your movements. That means they could be listening in on your phone calls, might have even wired your apartment. Can you have it swept?”

  “I know some people,” Brixton told her, leaving it there.

  “Because I can’t be of any direct help. We’ve got to keep our connection as dark as we can.”

  “That’s why I suggested we change tables.”

  Rendine sighed, used a spoon to further mix in her granola with her yogurt. “This kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen for real. You’re talking to someone who still believes that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone.”

  “We’ve both got our work cut out for us, Kendra. Can you put together a list of all medical personnel at Walter Reed who were part of the team who installed the stents in the vice president?”

  “I ran detailed backgrounds on them in advance, and I’m sure I still have those.”

  “Can you follow up with them? Subtly.”

  “I can follow up with them. I’m not sure how subtle I can be.”

  “How many are we talking about?”

  “I was in the room myself, Robert, in full scrubs. I remember the interventional cardiologist who performed the actual procedure assisted by a pair of catheterization lab nurses, a video technician, and an anesthesiologist.”

  “The vice president was under?”

  “Not entirely. It was IV sedation, a small combined drug cocktail of fentanyl and valium. Normally a tech can perform that part of the process, but since it was the vice president, we had an actual anesthesiologist. But not all of them would have come into contact with the stents themselves. Following that chain will involve several more people not present in the operating room.”

  Brixton weighed what Rendine was saying. “Who actually prepped and delivered the stents?”

  “Another tech, a woman. As I recall, the stents were packaged, to keep them completely sterile until opened. Each of the three was packaged separately.”

  “They must have been inspected prior to being implanted, right?”

  “By who, Robert? For what?” Rendine asked, an edge of frustration creeping into her voice.

  “I wasn’t criticizing you, Kendra.”

  “You don’t have to. I was criticizing me, just like I’ve been doing since the night Stephanie Davenport died. You’ve just given me more reason to.”

  “So if the professor’s theory on the means of the vice president’s murder is correct, it figures the stents were tampered with prior to being packaged and delivered to the operating room, by parties currently unknown.”

  Rendine nodded. “It couldn’t have been done by any of the surgical staff present. I was watching every motion they made, and there’s also a recording of the entire procedure I intend to watch in slow motion to see if I might have missed something.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t,” Brixton told her. “We should also make up a list of everyone who knew the vice president was going in for this procedure.”

  “Makes sense,” Rendine said, nodding again, “since whoever set all this in motion had to know the when and where of the procedure’s scheduling.”

  “And how about a detailed itinerary of what Davenport had been doing in the hours or days after you came to believe something was wrong?”

  “You mean, after her meeting with the president, which would take us back over five weeks now. I can have that itinerary broken down by hours.”

  “Were you there with her at the White House?”

  “I accompanied her, yes, but wasn’t present for the meeting itself. It was their normal working Wednesday lunch. Nothing out of the ordinary at all, except for the fact they hadn’t had one in a while.”

  “Until the vice president emerged from it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you have no idea what was discussed?”

  Rendine shook her head. “None, whatsoever. But I do know someone from the White House had called to try and cancel the lunch, but the message was never relayed to the vice president.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “I never asked. I’m wondering now if Davenport did get the message about the cancellation but ignored it and showed up anyway. And she emerged from the meeting shaken, and not just because lunch was never served.”

  “She didn’t mention anything?”

  “She didn’t volunteer anything, and you’ve been at this long enough to know the drill, Robert. We never ask such questions of the persons we’re protecting.”

  “But you’re sure she emerged from the meeting unsettled, something clearly bothering her.”

  Rendine nodded. “I picked it up from her mannerisms and general sense of anxiety. Spend enough time with a person in this kind of relationship, where you’re responsible for their very lives, and you learn to read them better than a CT scan. I wouldn’t have paid nearly as much attention if it hadn’t persisted, even worsened, over the next month, right up to her death.”

  “Is it possible Davenport told someone else what was bothering her?”

  “Without me knowing?”

  “Without you knowing,” Brixton confirmed.

  “Of course, Robert. The vice president doesn’t need to keep the Secret Service in the loop on all her communications, only the in-person meetings.”

  “Was there any follow-up communication between her and the president in those weeks that followed?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, no, at least not in person. I can’t speak as to phone calls.”

  “Then I guess we both have our homework laid out,” Brixton said, remembering the bagel he’d slathered cream cheese on but hadn’t taken a bite of yet. Nor had he managed even a sip of his coffee.

  Neither had Rendine, though she continued to play with her granola and yogurt, poking at it with a spoon. “Mine’s obvious, but what’s yours?”

  “Finding out who the man on that trolley platform last night really is and who he was working for.”

  CHAPTER

  21

  WASHINGTON, DC

  Sorry for the disruption, Robert,” Mackensie Smith said, rising from behind his desk and skirting boxes to greet Brixton after Smith’s assistant had sent him in.

  “It’s me who’s sorry, Mac, for disrupting your day further by showing up without an appointment.” Brixton said, laying a garment bag he’d carried in with him over the back of the same chair he plopped himself into.

  Smith scoffed at him. “Since when do you need an appointment?”

  “Since I no longer work here.”

  “Neither will I in less than a week,” Smith said, sweeping his gaze about the boxes scattered through the office for a moving process that had only just begun. “As you can see.”

  The disruption he’d spoken of moments before was rooted in the fact that most of
the other lawyers and office personnel, on this floor of the firm’s offices anyway, were packing up their offices as well. Brixton heard phones ringing unanswered and dodged several people toting boxes of either personal items or work product of the firm Mackensie Smith had founded and was in the process of dissolving. He imagined that the partners would reap a sizable payout from the firm’s profit-sharing agreement, something Mac had decided to forego in favor of dividing up his share to provide generous severance packages for the firm’s clerical personnel and first- and second-year associates, who otherwise wouldn’t have qualified for one.

  Which, Brixton thought, includes me.

  It felt like a handout, which made him feel guilty. Worse, he felt embarrassed by the fact that he wasn’t in a position to turn it down.

  “Do you mind if I shut the door, Mac?” Brixton asked the man who’d been his employer and remained his best friend.

  “Not at all,” Smith replied, although it didn’t sound that way, given that he’d long made it a practice never to close his door and encouraged the lawyers of the firm to do the same.

  Brixton had to move some boxes to get the door closed.

  “What’s wrong, Robert?” Smith asked him. “You’ve got that look.”

  “In this case, it’s the look of someone who was attacked last night.”

  “Which explains that nasty bruise on your face. I thought you were going to tell me you walked into a door.”

  “I might have, under normal circumstances.”

  “Being mugged hardly qualifies there.”

  “Are you my lawyer?” Brixton asked him.

  “I’m your friend.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”