Executive Order (Reeder and Rogers Thriller)

by Max Allan Collins

  The nearly handsome man with the dark hair and wire-frame glasses said to her lightly, “We have to stop meeting like this.”

  Reeder pushed the first-floor button as Rogers said, “I was just telling my friend here that no matter where we go, it seems you’re already there.”

  The doors whispered shut.

  Unperturbed, the drone said, “Life’s just full of odd coincidences, isn’t it, Agent Rogers?”

  Reeder hit the STOP button and the elevator did a little shake and braked. A real alarm bell began to ring now, muffled.

  Rogers said, “You seem to know me. Who the hell are you?”

  The drone shrugged; his smile couldn’t have been more pleasant. “For now, my name’s unimportant. I’m sure, Agent Rogers, that with a little effort, you’ll soon know.”

  Reeder came over and grabbed the drone by the arm, crowding him in the small space. “She asked you a question. Who the hell are you?”

  The drone, not at all intimidated, said, “Violence won’t do you any good in this situation, Mr. Reeder.”

  The alarm bell rang on.

  Reeder let go of the man’s sleeve. “Who are you working for?”

  “The American people, of course.”

  Reeder grabbed the drone’s arm again. “Listen to me, you son of a bitch . . .”

  With surprising ease, the drone plucked Reeder’s hand off and flipped it away. His voice came back with a new, menacing edge: “No, Mr. Reeder. You listen to me.”

  On and on, it rang.

  “. . . I’m listening.”

  “Walk away from your investigation, if you want your life back. That is, if you want that life to be a safe one for you and yours.”

  Reeder backhanded him.

  Briefly, something vile flickered on the drone’s face, then his pleasant expression returned as he dug a handkerchief out to touch the blood at one corner of his mouth.

  The alarm bell did not let up.

  The drone’s eyes were on Reeder but he was speaking to her now: “Agent Rogers, I believe I have good news for you. I have it on good authority that an Assistant Directorship will be opening up soon. Could well be yours . . . if you and your friend here can find something constructive to do . . . such as: nothing.”

  The drone punched the button that released the elevator and they started down again.

  The alarm bell ceased.

  “Not interested,” Rogers said, soft but firm.

  “Sorry to hear that,” the drone said. “A wrong decision can get a person into trouble. The wrong outlook can even get a person killed.”

  Reeder grabbed the drone’s Men’s Wearhouse jacket by its lapels, and shoved him against an elevator wall.

  Though he was clearly rattled, the drone said calmly, “Agent Rogers is the one at real risk here. You, Mr. Reeder, are a public figure. An American hero, and eliminating you would draw an unfortunate amount of attention. That would be less a concern for, say, your wife and daughter. They can’t stay in hiding forever, unless you three are prepared to live in exile.”

  Letting go of the drone, Reeder backed away, visibly shaken in a way Rogers had never observed in him before.

  The doors swished open and the drone knifed through a group waiting for an elevator that had taken a terribly long time to arrive.

  Soon Rogers and Reeder were outside in the sunshine, but gloom nonetheless shrouded them.

  “Did that really just happen?” she asked.

  “That was a very real and serious threat, Patti, made by someone not afraid to carry it out, if need be.”

  They tucked themselves against the outer wall of the building; the sidewalk butted almost up to the building here.

  She asked, “Is he who we’re after, do you think?”

  Reeder shook his head. “We’re looking for more than one rogue player, and your GAO pal seems more a messenger.”

  She was flushed. “I don’t care if Briar is the Director of the Secret Service, I’ll put him in custody and haul his ass to the Hoover Building into an interview room and—”

  “No.”

  “. . . No?”

  “We take a frontal approach like that, we’ll be lucky to be alive tomorrow. And if that prick knows my wife and daughter are in hiding, he just might learn where.”

  “You’re not suggesting we walk away?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  “Then . . . ?”

  “We go to ground.”

  Rogers frowned. “But I need my task force to get anywhere on this thing, and access to my resources at the Bureau, and—”

  “Where did you first see our GAO friend?”

  “At Fisk’s office.” She looked at him agape. “Oh, come on, Joe—you’re not saying Fisk may be compromised!”

  “The Director of the Secret Service seems to be. And Fisk is just an Assistant Director.”

  “She gave me full support on this investigation!”

  He just sent her one of those frustratingly bland looks. “How better to keep an eye on you and your people?”

  Government employees trouped by on the sidewalk in either direction. Employees of a government that Rogers could no longer trust . . .

  She said, her voice sounding as small as a child’s, “What do we do?”

  His response seemed a non sequitur. “You care about Kevin.”

  “What? Yes! Of course.”

  “Then we need to get him somewhere safe. You make him vulnerable, and he makes you the same.”

  She willed herself to say calm. “Okay, so we get Kevin somewhere safe. What about us?”

  “The same. Off the grid. Way off. We’ll pull Miggie in, too, so he can work his computer magic and help us get the identity of our GAO buddy. That son of a bitch is our way inside to whoever’s behind all this.”

  “What about the rest of the team?”

  “For now, they stay on the job. We’ll pull them off at some point, and get them to ground, too . . . but for now they make a show of continuing the Yellich investigation, only they won’t get anywhere that they share. Otherwise, anything they come up with, anything they accomplish, could be known by the rogue group.”

  Soon, with Reeder at the wheel of his Prius, Rogers kept an eye out for a tail. After last night, the agent who lost his flag pin would not likely still be on the job, but someone else obviously could be. Right now they were going south on Ninth Street NW.

  “We need somewhere to work from,” Reeder said, “a shadow HQ for an investigation of a shadow government. And we have to stay in the city, because that’s where the enemy is.”

  “We need a safe house,” she said.

  “Yes. And that’s where we’re going.”

  He drove up the ramp for I-395 and headed east. They rode in silence for a while—she would let him think, even as her own mind was spinning. When he merged onto I-695, she finally asked, “Not the Navy Yard?”

  “Not the Navy Yard. Too many security cameras. Someplace better.”

  He parked on Ninth Street SE, with greenery to their right as he got out of the car and so did she.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Near where we’re going. But it’s best we walk.”

  They skirted Virginia Avenue Park, then turned back down Tenth toward the Navy Yard and into a sketchy area where they passed a vacant lot between two brick buildings. The one on the corner of M Street, a tailor and pawnshop below, had a fire escape up to the floor above.

  Reeder took the ’scape, surprising her a little, and she followed him to a landing where awaited a steel door with an overhead security camera . . . and a doorbell. As if the bell weren’t there, Reeder pounded on the steel.

  In a moment, a voice came over a speaker: “Closed for bidness.”

  “I got after-hours money, DeMarcus.”

  “Who that with you?”

  She said, “Special Agent Rogers.”

  The voice said, “You shittin’ me, Reeder? You bring Five Oh to my door?”

  “Five Oh is
city, DeMarcus. My friend here is federal, but she isn’t DEA or ATF, so don’t sweat it.”

  “Go away, man. I don’t know you no more.”

  “Ten thousand dollars.”

  The speaker fell silent.

  Then: “Fifteen.”

  “DeMarcus, you don’t even know what I’m buying yet.”

  “I know you brung a fed around.”

  “I need two minutes. We come to terms and I got ten K for you.”

  “Like you got that much on you.”

  Rogers goggled at Reeder as he withdrew a major wad of cash from his pocket like Bugs Bunny producing an anvil from somewhere. He held up the wad with one hand and the fingers of the other riffled through bills.

  The door opened. Half-opened, anyway.

  The skinny African American guy who peered suspiciously out at them looked to be in his early twenties; he wore Georgetown University gear, though she doubted somehow that he was enrolled.

  “Patti,” Reeder said, “this is my friend DeMarcus. DeMarcus, this is my friend Patti. You can call her Agent Rogers. Be nice. She’s armed.”

  He grunted an unimpressed laugh. “What you wanna buy?” he asked.

  “Oh,” Reeder said innocently, “did you want to deal right out here in the open? On your doorstep?”

  Their host scowled and waved them inside, stepping aside for them.

  The place was a loft, with an office area just inside, a metal desk with computer off to the right and a warehouse of goods to the left—three tall rows of shelves arranged by product: bags of weed, handguns, and cell phones. Beyond was a modern kitchen, like something from a Home Depot showroom, and to the left a spacious home theater area with overstuffed black-leather chairs and a couch facing a massive flat-screen, below which a low-riding doorless cabinet held electronics gear, two massive black speakers bookending the big screen. Down on the M Street end was an elaborate wall mural of classic rap and hip hop, interrupted by two doors—bathroom and bedroom, probably.

  The place reeked of weed. A door in the mural opened and a beautiful young naked black girl with a retro ’fro leaned there and called out sleepily, “Come back to bed, Markie—your baby’s lonely.”

  DeMarcus shrugged at them. “Don’t mind Sheila.”

  Reeder was looking in Sheila’s direction; he didn’t seem to mind one bit.

  “Bidness!” DeMarcus called back, and Sheila’s sigh could be heard all through the loft before she shut herself poutily back in.

  They remained near the door in the office area as DeMarcus asked, “So, Joe. What you wanna buy?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nada?”

  “Not a thing. I want to rent something.”

  “What the hell you wanna rent?”

  “This loft.”

  And Reeder handed the wad of bills toward DeMarcus.

  “Like hell,” their host said, his brow wrinkled. Maybe he was closer to thirty, she thought. “I got a bidness to run.”

  “That’s why this fistful of money isn’t really ten grand.”

  “If it ain’t ten grand, then get you white asses outa my crib.”

  “It’s fifty.”

  “Say what?”

  “It’s fifty K, DeMarcus. You old enough to remember when somebody won something, and a guy showed up with a giant damn check for them? Well, nobody uses checks anymore. You’ll just have to settle for cash. Here. Count it.”

  DeMarcus, looking a little dazed, took the wad and counted. It was hundred dollar bills. Presumably five hundred of them.

  Reeder waited until DeMarcus’s nod indicated the tally was right.

  Reeder said, “There’s a string attached.”

  Their host scowled again. “Would be.”

  “You have to use that to take little Sheila someplace exotic for a week. Belize maybe. Nassau’s nice. When you come back, I’ll have another fifty for you.”

  DeMarcus thumbed through the bills; he looked stunned. “A hundred K to rent the place for a week.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What for?”

  “Why, are you afraid we might do something illegal? DeMarcus, the green rents the place and comes with no explanations. You have a passport?”

  “Yeah, but, uh . . .”

  “How about Sheila baby? She have a passport?”

  “Yeah, we did Cancun last year.”

  “Long-term relationship, huh? That’s good, DeMarcus. That’s healthy.”

  “Reeder, I gotta know—”

  “That’s not healthy. One week, the out-of-country dream spot of your choice.”

  “When?”

  “Now.”

  “Now?”

  “Well . . . soon as you’ve packed, and broken it to Sheila. She’s not going to mind.”

  “But I . . . man, I got a damn bidness to run.”

  “Why, do you generally pull down a hundred K in a week? You send out word to your customer base, e-mail or text or whatever, that you’ll be away for a week. Anybody comes around, we won’t answer the door.”

  “Maybe . . . maybe I should go pack now.”

  “No maybe about it.”

  DeMarcus started off, then turned and said, “I don’t really wanna know any more than this?”

  “That’s right, you don’t.”

  DeMarcus headed for Sheila’s door at the other end of the loft, but Reeder’s voice stopped him. “Consider part of that hundred K payment for any burner phones I might need. If I take any weapons, we can settle up later.”

  “You can have up to five nines,” DeMarcus called back, “on the house,” and then slipped in the bedroom.

  Their host and his lady friend had flown in an hour, but the weed smell remained. Rogers found some Febreze under the kitchen sink and got rid of it as best she could.

  Using a burner phone from DeMarcus’s seemingly endless supply, Reeder rented a car to be delivered to a restaurant on L Street a couple of blocks north.

  “We’ll walk over there together,” he said to her.

  They were each in an overstuffed black-leather chair.

  Rogers shook her head. “No need. Hey, you may have forgotten, but I’m a trained FBI agent. Me with your famous face is way too conspicuous.”

  He reluctantly agreed.

  “When the car gets there,” he said, “you drop the driver off at the rental agency, then go to Miggie’s, pick him up, and have him bring as much gear as he can carry.”

  “Mig’ll work from here?”

  Reeder nodded. “No one’s going to look for him at this address. We’ll keep the rest of the task force out on the street while we get things done here.”

  “Mig should bring some clothes, too, I assume.”

  “Unless he’s into Redskins and Georgetown threads, ’cause probably that’s all DeMarcus has. We’ll get some of your things when we pick Kevin up. I can cover my needs from some neighborhood bodega and the tailor downstairs.”

  “You can wash what you have on, too. This place has everything. It’s the damn Batcave with burner phones.”

  Reeder gave her half a smile. “DeMarcus is a smart cookie, as we ancient types say. He stays under the radar, and in the ten years I’ve known him, never served a day inside.”

  “Why d’you never bust him?”

  “His crimes aren’t federal. Anyway, he’s a resource. Like the CIA guys say, an asset . . . You better get going, Patti. That rental’s due in fifteen minutes. Oh, and grab one of those nine millimeters of Marcus’s on your way out.”

  “Come on, Joe—I already have my service weapon.”

  “Yeah. And it can be traced.”

  “The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.”

  Woodrow Wilson, twenty-eighth President of the United States of America. Served 1913–1921. President during World War I, only President to be interred within Washington, DC, at the Na
tional Cathedral.

  ELEVEN

  Anne Nichols, going up in her apartment building’s elevator, knew she owed her mother a phone call. Despite the fresh look of her light blue silk blouse and black flared slacks, the African American FBI agent was dead tired, and wanted nothing more than to get inside her apartment, maybe take a detour to the shower, then crawl between the sheets ASAP.

  Nichols and her mother, a Chicago policewoman, usually talked at least once a week. But it had been almost two weeks now, and she was feeling guilty.

  For almost a decade, she and her mom had been each other’s entire immediate family—her daddy, a CTA bus driver, came home one night and fell asleep in his recliner, never to wake up again. And her older brother, Trevon, died in Iraq. His framed Purple Heart was still on Mom’s mantle.

  So Nichols felt a responsibility to keep in touch, however busy she might be, and the Special Situations Task Force had been plenty busy over this past year. Still, she knew that her mom wouldn’t shame her for not calling, and would rarely call herself, for fear of intruding.

  When Anne had gone straight from law school to the FBI, after her mother had assumed her daughter would go into private practice, Mrs. Nichols had understood without need of discussion that her “baby girl” wanted to be a cop like her momma.

  Nichols had the long, slender frame of her father, and a prettiness that her stocky, rather blunt-featured mother lacked. But both women knew they were more alike than not.

  On the fifth floor, Nichols walked quickly to her apartment, beckoned by the thought of a hot shower and cool bed sheets. She was just getting her keys from her purse when she noticed the edge of light under her door.

  Her tiredness evaporated and she was on the alert—she never left the lights on. Never.

  This was a security building, with a doorman on duty much of the day and a keypad in the lobby. Not an impregnable fortress by any means, but anyone who’d been able to get in here, and into her apartment, was likely a professional criminal . . . or a federal agent.

  And considering the rogue element in government that Rogers had warned them about, Nichols could not assume the best about another fed.

  She dropped the keys back in her shoulder-strap purse, withdrawing a small automatic with one hand, and the burner phone she’d been given with the other. Tempted as she was to deal with this herself, the wiser move would be to call Rogers for backup.