Cyclops One af-1

by Jim DeFelice

  Everybody looked at Fisher.

  “Anybody mind if I smoke in here?” he asked.

  Chapter 8

  Bonham knew he had convinced Howe that Fisher was crazy, but that didn’t completely eliminate the FBI agent as a threat. Before going to bed, he sent another E-mail to Megan emphasizing the importance of carrying out the dismantling program and in the morning picked up where he had left off in his campaign to reassure himself that the others weren’t stepping around him. Bonham decided he could use Fisher to his advantage and discreetly mentioned the FBI agent’s visit during several phone calls. He also decided he would have it out personally with Segrest, and so arranged to have lunch with him. Segrest suggested a Chinese restaurant well out of town; Bonham didn’t particularly care for Chinese food but he decided to go there anyway, since the setting would give them freer rein to talk.

  At twelve-thirty in the afternoon he left his office and drove farther out into rural Virginia, passing green hills divided into horse paddocks by thick, flat rails of white pine. If he hadn’t been following the directions carefully, he would have missed the turn, and if he hadn’t known about the restaurant, he never would have seen it. It was an old farmhouse marked only by a small wooden sign near the driveway.

  Inside, the two-hundred-year-old structure had been gutted and given a sophisticated sheen. Wide chestnut planks with thick varnish greeted him in the foyer, along with a very short and thin Asian-American who bent nearly to the waist. The man led him into a large room whose far wall was now old brick; spotlights played on the empty fireplace, and two waiters stood in the corners, though there were no other guests at the small tables.

  Bonham told him he was waiting for someone and opted for water rather than a drink.

  Eric Hovanek walked in a few minutes later, towering over his host as he was shown to the table.

  “Where’s Segrest?” demanded Bonham.

  “Relax, General. Something came up.” Hovanek ordered a martini. “They don’t have menus,” he told Bonham. “You can ask for anything you want or just let them feed you.”

  “Why isn’t Segrest here?” Bonham thought of leaving: Hovanek was just a sophisticated gofer, a former stockbroker whom Segrest had befriended. After a short stint as Segrest’s personal “moneyman,” he had taken on the role of clone, sitting on boards and attending meetings the wealthy young bastard was too lazy to attend.

  “Something came up. You said the meeting was important, and so he sent me instead of canceling at the last minute.”

  Hovanek’s cell phone rang before he could say anything, and Bonham found himself staring at the thick layers of cloth on the table, which alternated between white and mauve. The host soon returned with Hovanek’s martini; Bonham asked for a Glenfiddich. Hovanek was still on the phone when a young waiter appeared with a dish of pickled sprouts.

  “Cash flow problems,” said Hovanek, his voice shaded toward an apology after he snapped the phone closed. He pointed to the sprouts.

  The waiter appeared with a plate of noodles slathered in sesame sauce and topped by a row of shrimp and cucumbers.

  “This is to get us in the mood,” said Hovanek. He took his chopsticks and sampled the food. “Excellent.”

  “I want to talk about the FBI agent, Fisher,” said Bonham.

  “Why?”

  The host appeared with the Scotch. Hovanek told the man to go ahead and feed them with whatever the chef decided they should have.

  “You worry too much, General,” said Hovanek. “Everything is fine. You yourself are doing well. I heard your name mentioned for assistant defense secretary the other day.”

  “Fisher wants them to watch the tests for a laser,” said Bonham.

  “Is that a fact?” Hovanek was neither surprised nor, from what Bonham could see, concerned in the least.

  “All right,” said Bonham. He pushed his seat away from the table. “Make sure everyone knows. My way or no way.”

  “General, you haven’t eaten. You really should.” Hovanek smiled up at him. “Mr. Young will think you don’t like his food.”

  * * *

  Bonham drove around for a while, trying to seperate his distaste for Hovanek from what the lackey had said. He hadn’t actually said anything meaningful, Bonham finally decided, but whether that meant Segrest really was up to something or not, he couldn’t tell. Exhausted and finally hungry, Bonham pulled off at a McDonald’s around three to get something to eat. It was the last place anyone would look for him, but as soon as he stepped through the doors and approached the overlit front counter, he felt comfortable, a teenager again slipping away from high school to grab a burger after school.

  Bonham ordered a Big Mac Meal, declined the super-size option, and walked with his tray to the back. He started to grab for a newspaper along the way, then thought better of it. He needed a break from everything for at least a few minutes more. He was getting too paranoid to function.

  A young father was fussing over his four-year-old son in the next booth, dabbing his chin with a napkin. Bonham gave the guy a smile, watching the pair as he ate. The kid was reasonably cute, and the father was attentive; they would have made a decent commercial as they walked out the door hand in hand.

  It was a bit pathetic that a grown man had to play baby-sitter in the middle of the day, Bonham thought. But what the hell.

  The food put him in a better mood. Bonham listened to an old Johnny Cash CD on the way back to his office. Once there, he whipped through some paperwork BS and returned a few phone calls, including a backgrounder for a Washington Post reporter, who traded a bit of gossip about one of the senators on the Intelligence Committee. The bad taste of Hovanek gradually washed away, and by the time he walked into his condo a little after eight, Bonham was in an expansive mood. The Red Sox were on the tube: They had a 3–0 lead over Baltimore. Bonham jacked up the volume and pulled off his jacket and tie, walking to the bathroom. As he turned on the light, something moved behind him. Before he could react, the back portion of his skull seemed to implode.

  Chapter 9

  Fisher hated murder scenes, not because he didn’t like looking at dead bodies, but because the forensics people went ape shit if you disturbed something, which in their eyes you did simply by breathing in the air. Poke your head inside wearing anything less than a hermetically sealed body bootie, and they ran out to their vans to plunge pins into their voodoo dolls.

  Fisher put little stock in voodoo, and cared even less who he pissed off, but he did nonetheless strain to put himself on his best behavior, since getting a report without the usual red tape depended on it. The crime scene guys — state police, though he wouldn’t hold that against them — working Bonham’s condo were relatively low key, once he put out his cigarette. Still, they said flat out they wouldn’t let him in the bathroom where Bonham had died until they finished their work there; at the rate they were going, that seemed likely to happen sometime next winter.

  Fisher contented himself with booting the general’s computer in the den, examining its browser and E-mail programs for anything of note.

  The history folder was completely clean, and Fisher couldn’t find anything in the trash folder, either. Bonham obviously had an industrial-strength scrubber program loaded. Fisher looked over the program list; there were two different baseball games, but otherwise nothing that didn’t come stock on the machine, a relatively new Dell.

  “What are you doing?” demanded one of the investigators as she walked in behind him.

  “What the FBI always does,” said Fisher, keying up the hidden directories. “Screwing up the crime scene.”

  “Well, I’m glad you admit it.”

  “Got a scrubber program in here I can’t find. Probably want to send it over to our lab.” Fisher leaned away from the machine, pointing to the screen.

  “Who exactly are you?” asked the woman detective.

  “Andy Fisher, FBI.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Oh.” Fisher lea
ned back from his chair. “One of the uniform guys figured out who Bonham was and called us, and for some inexplicable reason the person who got the call actually knew how to follow the right procedure and tell me about it. Lightning has to strike somewhere, as improbable as it sounds.”

  “You’re a wiseass.”

  “Yeah, actually, the guys in the field office are usually pretty sharp. It’s when you get to headquarters that you get the lobotomy.”

  “I’m Susan Doar,” said the woman, holding her hand out to him. She was in her mid-thirties, with just enough of a cynical smile to hint that this wasn’t her first murder case, nor the first time she’d dealt with the FBI.

  “Andy Fisher. Mind if I smoke?”

  “You can’t smoke in here.”

  “Everybody says that.” Fisher got up. “Seriously, we want the computer. If you send it to the Secret Service or, God forbid, the NSA, you’ll never find out what’s on it. Those guys are close to unbribable.”

  “Someone from the Defense Department is on his way over,” said Doar.

  “They’re not so bad,” said Fisher. “Except they tend to lose stuff. I think they actually end up using it for target practice.”

  “I’ll use my own lab, thanks,” said Doar.

  “You got a time of death?”

  “Autopsy hasn’t been done.”

  “I never trusted those doctor types.”

  “Neighbor heard the TV blaring last night about eleven, called over to complain, banged on the door, got worried,” said Doar.

  “Nosy-neighbor type?”

  “I think he was pissed off because he couldn’t get to sleep,” said Doar. “Left a nasty message. Then maybe he felt guilty.”

  “How did our hero die?” asked Fisher.

  “Hit the back of his head in the bathroom. Slipped getting out of the tub.”

  “Can I take a look?”

  “If they’re done with the pictures. He’s not wearing anything.”

  “I knew there was some reason I came.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  The downstairs bathroom was bigger than Fisher’s apartment. The general lay sprawled faceup on the floor, a trickle of blood coming from his ear. He seemed to have slipped coming out of the whirlpool bath, smacked his head on the side of the marble wall where the bath was recessed, then pirouetted down and smacked the back of his head again.

  “We took hair and some skin off the wall,” said Doar pointing. “Probably open and shut.”

  “Bathrooms are very dangerous places,” said Fisher.

  “Yeah.”

  Fisher knelt near the door. The scene was laid out perfectly, the distances precise, soap in the bottom of the tub, water almost but not quite turned off, a towel pulled cock-eyed off the corner of the rack as if Bonham had started to grab for it.

  He rose and went back into the den. They’d hit the mute on the TV, but otherwise had left it on, just as they’d found it. Fisher looked around, re-creating the scene from the other night when he and Howe had come over, comparing it to now. Bonham had thrown his jacket down, as though he’d just come in.

  “Was he drinking?” Fisher asked.

  “It’s not obvious,” said the investigator. “No glass or anything.”

  Fisher walked back to the bathroom. There was a small TV in the corner. It was off.

  “What?” asked Doar as he started to leave.

  “Open and shut,” said Fisher.

  Chapter 10

  Howe heard about Bonham’s death just as he was suiting up to fly out to Alaska. The lieutenant who brought the information had it third- or fourthhand and couldn’t add anything beyond the simple fact that the general had died in an accident.

  Howe didn’t know what to feel or even think. Away from Fisher, he’d started to doubt the FBI agent’s theory, though he couldn’t really dismiss it. He nodded to the lieutenant, then continued getting ready; he had to be in Alaska by nightfall to help prepare the monitoring mission. He went out to the planes with Timmy feeling a little numb; he could focus on the plane and his job well enough, but could only manage a grunt or two as his wingman made his usual jokes about anything and everything.

  They were finished with the preflights and about to strap in when a Humvee flew around the corner and nearly crashed into one of the small tractors standing on the apron. The lieutenant who had told Howe about Bonham jumped from the truck, running toward the planes and waving his arms like a madman. Howe leaned over the side of the aircraft; the lieutenant spotted him and began gesturing madly that he should come down. He produced a cell phone from his pocket, holding it up toward Howe.

  “FBI wants you,” said the lieutenant when he reached the tarmac.

  “FBI?” asked Howe as he took the phone. “Fisher?”

  “Last time I checked,” answered the agent.

  “This better be important.”

  “Tell me something: How big a sports fan was Bonham?”

  Chapter 11

  “The whole idea of offshore banks, Andy, is that they make it almost impossible to get access.”

  “Yeah, but not for you, Betty.” Fisher fed another cigarette into the forensic accountant’s fat fingers.

  Betty lit the new cigarette off the one in her other hand. “You’re right about that condo. Worth a hell of a lot more than he said. But the transactions are there to back up the price.”

  “Have to be offshore accounts.”

  “I need account numbers. At least banks.”

  “They’re not on the computer, not according to the state police lab guys. I sent Bartolomo over to help them.”

  “Oh, that was smart.”

  “Hey, for a computer geek, he’s almost human,” said Fisher. “I had this other brainstorm while I was talking to him.”

  “Spare me.”

  “He says you can track whether inquiries are made on bank accounts from ATMs and phones and things, because their networks log all the contacts.”

  “What’s the point?”

  “Well, see, if the four people who were supposed to have died in Cyclops One aren’t dead, then they’re probably checking their bank accounts. We just look at the statements, right?”

  “I don’t know if we can come up with those kinds of records,” said Betty. “Besides, not everybody’s as paranoid about their money as you, Andy.”

  “I’m not paranoid about money.”

  “Excuse me.Cheap was the word I was looking for. You have the companies laid out.” Betty suddenly put on her motherly voice, the one she usually used before telling Fisher to hit the road. “Put some pressure on the officers and board members, things will start to open up.”

  “Or maybe a few more people will slip in their bathrooms,” said Fisher. He rose.

  “We’ll do what we can,” she told him. “No promises.”

  “Thanks, babe. Get ahold of me if you think of something else, okay? I’m counting on you to break this sucker open.”

  “Where you going?”

  “Alaska. I hear it’s almost warm this time of year.”

  * * *

  Fisher got about halfway to Dulles Airport when he realized he was being followed. It was the sort of break you couldn’t pray for, but the agent managed to contain his glee, unholstering his revolver — the two hideaways were small automatics — and putting it on his lap. He got off the highway and drove a bit farther; when he was sure he hadn’t succumbed to wishful thinking, he started hunting for a bank. Finally he spotted one on the wrong side of the highway; he veered across traffic and pulled into the ATM lane around the back.

  His pursuer was obviously driving his own car, because rather than chancing the traffic he drove down the road, turned, and then came back, pulling in front as if he intended to use a teller inside. Fisher, about three vehicles from the machine, jumped out of his car, cell phone in one hand, gun in the other.

  He had to dial with his finger through the trigger guard. Doar picked up on the second ring.

  “L
isten, Doar, this is Andy Fisher, FBI.”

  “Mr. Fisher—”

  “I have your murder suspect in view, parking lot of FirstWay Bank out here in Taylorville.”

  “Murder suspect? Who?”

  “Bonham was a Boston Red Sox nut. If he was having a bath, he would have had the TV on in the bathroom and probably been drinking a Scotch. And don’t buy the justifiable-homicide play.”

  “But—”

  “Gotta go.”

  Fisher threw himself down maybe a half of a half of a half-second before the bullet hit the side of the bank where he’d been peering through the window toward the front. The next three shots chipped the sidewalk, sending chips ricocheting everywhere but not actually hitting him. He rolled to his feet, gun in hand, but whoever had fired at him had already retreated. Fisher scooped up his phone and gave a little wave at an old lady staring at him from her car.

  Doar was gasping on the other end of the line.

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” said Fisher. He walked over to the wall, looking to see if he could find a bullet. “I’m thinking the idea was more to get my attention than to hit me, but they wouldn’t have cried about that, either.”

  Fisher walked over to where the gunman had fired from, stooping down to see if he could find any shells. He could hear sirens in the distance.

  “Tell me why Bonham is a homicide,” said Doar.

  “I told you, he didn’t have the Red Sox on in the bathroom,” Fisher told her. “I checked: They were on national TV that night until after midnight because the game went fifteen innings. I have a plate number I need you to run. You might want to tell the uniform guys about it too.”

  “But—”

  “Yeah, a pro wouldn’t have been so inept, so the idea is probably just to divert attention for a while. Shame, though: Nobody’s really tried to kill me in must be at least six months, and that was just my boss.”