by David Bishop
“That’d shut them both down immediately, Frank added. “The Fed and the Court. And all the killing would be done before—”
“Before security could be enhanced,” Colin said, to finish the thought.
“Exactly,” Frank said. “I don’t need to call for these officials to stand down. I could send one communiqué with my demands, threatening to kill any replacements.”
Both Frank and Colin, who had tag teamed the theory, threw Millet self-satisfied looks.
“And,” Nora added, “I’d be out of the country before Jack McCall has been appointed to catch me.”
Rachel, who had sat quietly nodding her head like a bobble doll, said, “We know LW is intelligent. If he had a militia and he didn’t do it that way, he’d have to be a fool. LW is a lone wolf, whatever the hell the initials stand for.”
“Anybody?” Jack asked.
No one spoke.
“Okay, we continue to treat LW as a lone wolf until we have a reason to think otherwise. And when and if we have a reason, it will be our reason and not something LW puts out.”
It was nearly midnight when LW grabbed a pair of scissors and a flashlight, and left his home. Despite the hour, he knew where he had to go before he could sleep. Thirty minutes later, he was kneeling beside his father’s gravestone.
“I thought you’d like to know that we’ve eliminated seven aristocrats and forced one to resign. That’s eight down and eight remaining. The other casualties were necessary to dial up the terror. The protection around the aristocrats has increased. If they don’t start resigning soon, I’ll kick up the terror by adding in some of their grand kiddies.”
He set the lighted flashlight on the ground and began using the scissors to clip the unruly blades of grass that were assaulting the base of his father’s grave marker. His previous hand pulling of the rebellious strands had left a clumpy look. Mom had always kept the house neat for Dad.
Before he left, he stooped, struck a match and cremated the fake identification of George Marks, the assassin of Fed Governor Harry Capone.
Your birthday’s coming soon, Father. I have something special planned. A surprise.
CHAPTER 37
LW has Wall Street in a free fall, the Dow has dropped over 400 points since his first killing.
—CNBC
It had been another early morning followed by a long day, and Jack saw fatigue on the faces of his squad. Colin had dark circles under his eyes. Rachel’s hair had the look that came from trading styling time for a few extra minutes in bed. Only Millet, who always looked disheveled, looked normal—normal for Millet.
As for himself, when Jack felt exhausted, the lines in his face that had developed from a lifetime of laughter and sorrow, deepened. His sexy neighbor, Janet Parker, had once told him that lines on a man’s face added character, while on a woman they were simply wrinkles.
Millet and Rachel continued to work their passenger lists while Colin brought his timeline current to include the Capone killing and the place from which LW had sent his most recent communiqué. The logistics still supported the thesis that this was a one-man operation.
It was after seven, and Jack stood at their paper graveyard, challenging himself to figure another way to configure the victim’s pictures to suggest a different chain of thought.
Rachel came over to tell him that Frank and Nora were on their way back from Texas. “They landed at Bolling,” she said. “They’re on the George Washington Parkway right now.”
“Shit,” Millet said, “they just left late last night.”
“I didn’t even know they’d gone,” said Colin. “I walked out last night with Nora. I thought she went home.”
“Frank called me last night,” Jack explained. “He suggested they fly to Dallas so they could be at Capone’s house first thing this morning.”
Thirty minutes later, Frank and Nora were reporting on their trip to Dallas.
“Capone was taken out by a rifle shot from about five hundred yards,” Nora said. “For obvious reasons no initials were carved in his forehead, but we found no reason to conclude other than what we did yesterday: LW shot Capone.”
“Did you find anybody who saw anything?” Jack asked.
“We spoke to a Mr. and Mrs. Converse,” Frank told them. “The Converses live in a house across the street from the back side of the hill from which Capone had been shot. They saw a man coming down the hill carrying what looked like a blanket.”
“We separated Mr. and Mrs. Converse,” Nora added. “Each of their descriptions agreed with what we had from our earlier witnesses.”
“Bingo,” Rachel said. “He’s a loner.”
“Not to change the subject,” asked Frank, “but what’s happening at the Harrelson house?”
“Forensics called from the bureau,” Jack said. “They’ve finished, and found nothing. Another dead end. The observation team remains in place watching both the chief justice’s home and the Harrelson house in the hope that LW returns.”
“Let’s not get off Dallas just yet,” Colin protested. “Did the guy who was carrying the blanket walk off or drive? What about the make of the car?”
“He drove away, all right,” Frank said. “But neither Mr. nor Mrs. Converse are car buffs. They could only remember that it was a darkcolor, not new, but not more than a few years old. Mr. Converse thought it was a coupe.”
Colin scowled. “Great. That narrows it to only a couple million cars in Dallas. Did the agents at Capone’s see anything?”
Frank shook his head. But before he could open his mouth, Nora interrupted. “One more thing,” she said, grinning. “Both the Converses said the man coming down off the hill wore . . . anybody?”
“A red baseball cap!” the team chorused.
“Bingo!” Both Frank and Nora said at once.
Frank said, “The Dallas FBI office is trying to trace the Tango and the Winchester shell case. They had both been wiped clean. The Dallas Police Department and the FBI are coordinating an effort to check the retail stores hoping to find a clerk who sold a boom box with a remote control. A buyer with a different description would suggest LW has some kind of help.”
“What’s been going on here?” Nora asked, taking off her earrings.
Pointing his water bottle at Millet, Jack said, “Update us on your lists.”
“Rachel and I are walking on his shadow,” Millet began. “Ain’t that a cool way of saying it? I heard that last night watching one of those old movies you dig so much, Jackman.”
“Millet. The lists.”
“Okay. Okay. Lighten up. We’ve shaved the passenger lists for the Oregon and Cleveland killings down to six and eight.”
He passed a copy to each of them. “Those passengers made this list based on two things: The height, weight, and age details we found for these passengers generally fit the sketchy details we’ve gotten from the witnesses, and we have been unable to confirm their whereabouts at the times of the killings. The names with asterisks appear to be phonies.”
Colin glanced up, “Any names on both lists?”
“No, but each list has one passenger we suspect is bogus.”
Colin pointed, “These two? Kimble in Oregon and Campbell flying into Cleveland?”
“Way to go, Superfly,” Millet said. “I just told you the phonies are the ones with the asterisks!”
Jack turned to Nora, “Call that reservations woman you spoke to at the resort on the Oregon coast. Find out if she recognizes the name John Kimble.”
Colin and Millet watched Nora as she walked to her desk, her jacket draped back over one shoulder. Jack cleared his throat loudly to recapture their attention.
While Nora made the call, Jack had Colin call Rex Smith to report the twelve remaining names, including the times for establishing their whereabouts. Also the two phony names to see if the bureau could scare up anything that would establish those two were real people.
“We’ve got a winner,” Nora declared hustling back to join the oth
ers. “Peggy Fallow says that a John Kimble called her a couple of times. Kimble told her he lived in Southern California and wanted the honeymoon cottage the same days the Breens had it reser—”
“Yeah,” said Colin, “sure, he wanted to confirm the Breens had arrived.”
“You got that right,” Nora said. “This Kimble told Peggy Fallow he’d come to see the honeymoon cottage, but he never showed. She has no phone number for him. She’d chalked him up to just another sales lead that petered out. She promised not to repeat our conversation to anyone.”
“That gives us three aliases,” Rachel said. “Barry Jones rents the house across from Chief Justice Evans, John Kimble in Oregon where Mr. and Mrs. Breen were killed, and Robert Campbell in Cleveland when the hit was made on Taylor and his family.”
“Let’s not get too proud of ourselves just yet,” Jack cautioned. “This only means something if we can parlay these aliases into one real man. Colin, have Rex Smith check California and Oregon for a marriage license or a wedding announcement for a John Kimble to marry anyone. This could be a coincidence and Kimble could be legit.”
Jack looked into the bleary eyes of each member of his team.
“We’re creeping up on this guy. We’ve got to suck it up and stay in our full-court press.”
There was no need to go into any detail about what might happen if they didn’t. They all knew. He could see it in their faces, and he was also aware that in the end, everything depended on him.
A little after six, Rex Smith stormed through the door and joined the others at the table. “Turns out the forensic guys did find something at the Harrelson house,” he said. “LW had applied a heat-generating chemical around the jambs of the front and back doors. When we opened the door, we disturbed it. He could have only seen that stuff through an infrared scope.”
“The army developed that scope for our special forces,” Colin explained. “The planners called it FLIR for forward-looking infrared. It’s part of the equipment package being developed for the digital soldier of the future.”
Rex frowned. “Do you want me to shut down the stakeout of the Harrelson house? We could always—”
Jack interrupted him. “What’s the current status?”
“We’ve applied new chemical to try and make it look like it did before,” Rex answered. “With the cooperation of a second neighbor we’ve established sight lines to the areas LW would need to be positioned to check that chemical using a FLIR scope. Given his trip to Dallas, LW may have been too busy to recheck the Harrelson house since we found it.”
“Stay with it. Give him no avenue of escape.”
“That’s how it is now.”
“Good work, Rex. We were about to call Director Hampton. Colin’s got the details on another assignment I’d like you to ramrod. It’ll require the help of some FBI research people for a few hours.”
“Already approved. My orders are that you’re my only assignment. I have high-priority access to whatever resources I might need to carry out your orders.”
It occurred to Jack that having the president as your blocking back certainly opened the holes. It also eliminated all the excuses if he didn’t get the ball into the end zone.
Colin and Rex headed for the sitting area in the middle of the room.
“Rachel,” Jack said, “get with the folks down the hall. We need to contact every shooting range within a hundred miles of Dallas, and two hundred miles of D.C. It takes lots of practice to hit the back of a man’s head at five hundred yards. Have each range give us a list of all their members. If they keep a list of their nonmember shooters, we want that as well.”
“How far back?”
“We need current memberships and a list of members who have dropped out within the past ten years. Do the same for nonmembers. We’ll pick up the lists. See Rex for manpower. Get those lists combined into one master list broken down into subcategories: members, former members, and nonmembers. Show names and the dates each used the range. Group them by years. I want full names, not just first initials. LW should be somewhere on those lists.”
“What do you want us to do?” Frank asked.
“You two have flown to Oregon and Cleveland, then last night to Dallas, go home. Sleep. Keep your cell phones close. I’ll let you know if anything pops.”
“We’re okay, Jack.” Frank protested.
“Jack’s right,” Nora told her partner. “We’ll be more productive.” She grabbed Frank’s arm and started him toward the door.
“I’ve got Rex off on his assignment,” Colin said after coming back into the Bullpen and approaching Jack. “What next?”
Jack held up two fingers. “Contact General Crook to find out if it’s feasible to trace the sales of FLIR scopes. It’s military technology so the general should be able to tell us if that trail can be followed. And catch up with Rachel. We also need lists of public figures, college professors, politicians, entertainers, and candidates for national office with a history of railing against the Fed or the Supreme Court.” He held Colin’s forearm while he thought, then added, “Say five or more times. Have the lists grouped according to the number of times each spoke out. I also want a copy of their articles or speeches.”
“Over what period of time?”
“What do you suggest?”
“Well, we’re putting LW’s age at thirty to thirty-five years old,” Colin mused. “Impressionable years for intellectual subject matter start around age ten. Let’s go back thirty years just in case he’s a bit older than we’re thinking.”
“Do it. I want an estimate of how long it will take to develop that list. If more manpower or resources are needed, tell Rachel to get them. If she needs me to pull strings, have her tell me.”
Jack returned to his gray, government-issue chair, leaned back, and stared at the ceiling.
We’re getting closer, you son of a bitch.
CHAPTER 38
LW toys with McCall in a macabre game in
which he sees America’s future as the spoils.
—Mel Carsten, D.C. Talk
Jack gave up on sleep, brewed some coffee, and sat down at his chessboard. His opponent, Harry, had posted his next move. It appeared that Harry was attempting to checkmate Jack’s black king within the next five moves. Jack’s own planned checkmate on Harry could take only four moves. Jack took his next move, and posted it as Nb4 on the Chess Forum.
Before the sun came up, Jack pushed through the door into the Bullpen and found Millet hunched over his computer. For the next several hours the whiz worked in silence except for periodically swearing at one of the cups of hot chocolate that had betrayed him by turning cold.
Jack had chosen Millet in part because of his intellectual tenacity. The man would not stop once a computer project captured his mind.
At five thirty, Jack heard someone come in and looked up to see Rachel. She mumbled good morning, dropped her purse on her desk, and went back out the door, assumedly to check on the round-the-clock development of the lists of shooters and dissidents.
A little after six, the phone rang. Clancy Stafford, the president’s chief of staff, had a deep, rich voice smooth enough to play the lead in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma.
Clancy’s message was simple. “The president wants to see you at four thirty this afternoon.”
“Go right in,” Ms. Gruber said, opening the door. “The president and the others are already inside.”
Others?
President Schroeder’s bloodshot eyes told Jack that he, too, had been putting in long hours. Clancy Stafford and the directors of the four primary federal intelligence agencies, Miller, Hampton, Quartz, and General Crook were seated. The president was already pacing.
NSA Director Quartz, who always dressed to the nines, wore a black suit with gray pinstripes, a gray display hanky peaking from his breast pocket like a cautious mouse about to leave its hole. General Crook looked as if he had skipped the morning trim that usually kept his wiry mustache as precise as
the edge on a bayonet.
The always tight, slick-looking bun in CIA Director Harriet Miller’s hair had more than the usual number of escaped strands.
“Thanks for coming on such short notice, Jack,” the president said. “We need an update. I know about your finding LW’s setup across from the home of Chief Justice Evans. The Supreme Court is being held together by little more than the strength of his personality. His loss may well have shut down the Court in a more profound way than a temporary inability to seat six for the required quorum. Bring it all together for us, Jack.”
“The bottom line, sir, we think we’re close. We don’t yet know LW’s real name. We have a few aliases he has used, but that does little more than confirm we’re on his trail.”
General Crook, his voice dry as beach sand, said, “What supports the view that you’ve cut his trail?”
President Schroeder stopped pacing and stood with his hands clasped behind him.
“We believe LW is operating alone,” Jack said. “No militia. To us, LW means Lone Wolf.” Then he reviewed the physical description they had for LW.
“You’ve just described a good percentage of the men who walk past the White House every day,” Fred Hampton said, after Jack had finished.
“True. Still, it does eliminate other descriptions. Since he killed Capone in Dallas, we’ve added that LW is an accomplished marksman.”
“So you believe his claim of a volunteer recruit is bogus?” Quartz asked, scoffingly. “You see this LW as one man dashing back and forth across the country alone killing officials? I don’t know about the rest of you, but for me that dog don’t hunt.”
“For a long time I shared your hesitance, Director Quartz,” Jack told him. “That’s why, at the start, we assumed the militia existed, but over time our thinking changed. The manner of each assassination required only one person, and Colin Stewart has developed a timeline that allows for one man to have committed all the killings. We’ve found air passengers flying alone under aliases that fit that timeline. We’ve reduced the number of uncleared passengers to a little over a dozen, including those aliases.”
