by Stuart Woods
He took off and climbed to seven hundred feet and headed for the Potomac River, then he flew down the river to the bay, then turned and headed for open water. He descended to a hundred feet, turned on the autopilot, and set the altitude hold, then he flew a good ten miles offshore. When he had reached that distance, he undid the passenger seat belt, dropped the two jacks overboard, and let them pull Lauren’s body out of the airplane and down into the sea. Then he reversed his course and, finally, turned toward Manassas Airport.
TODD BACON DROVE ERRATICALLY away from Clinton Field, panting for breath and sweating profusely, his car weaving along the roadway. He prayed that there was no cop in the neighborhood, for he would surely be stopped for drunk driving.
As he put distance between himself and the airport, his breathing and pulse returned to something like normal, but he reckoned his blood pressure was still high. The feeling of panic was somewhere in his chest, just deep enough to allow him to drive the car normally.
He reached his home in Virginia, a new town house development, and got the car into the garage, where he sat for snormallyeveral minutes, taking deep breaths and trying to calm down. Finally, he dragged himself into the house, got out of his clothes, and fell, naked and exhausted, onto the bed.
Images of Lauren Cade’s exploding head still fired in his brain, but gradually they went away, and he fell into a deep sleep.
53
While Stone and Holly stood and stared at Shelley’s handbag, Dino walked over to it and began rummaging inside. Finally, exasperated, he took hold of the bag, turned it upside down, and emptied the contents onto the desktop.
Stone and Holly walked over and gazed at the jumbled heap of the bag’s contents. Holly poked around with a finger and came up with a lighted cell phone, the source of the music. “This was missing from the scene of Fair Sutherlin’s murder, remember?”
“I remember,” Stone said, “but look at this.” He picked up a second cell phone, then, rummaging through the pile, came up with four others. “One of these is Shelley’s,” he said, “and I’d be willing to bet a large sum that the others belong to Mimi Kendrick, Milly Hart, Charlotte Kirby, and Muffy Brandon.”
“Souvenirs,” Dino said. “Serial killers often take souvenirs from their victims.”
“So I made a mistake,” Shelley said from the bedroom doorway.
The others turned to look and found her pointing a 9mm semiautomatic handgun at them, FBI combat-style.
“One little mistake,” Shelley repeated. She seemed to tighten her grip on the weapon.
“Shelley, are you going to kill us all to cover yourself?” Stone asked. “That won’t work. People saw you enter the hotel. You’re well known by now to the staff. You can’t kill everybody.”
Shelley thought about it. “Dino,” she said, “I want you to do exactly as I say.”
“That depends on what you say, Shelley,” Dino replied.
“I want you to pick up my bag and hold it open, and, Stone, I want you to rake everything on the desktop into the bag. And don’t either of you try to use a weapon or I will have to kill you all.”
Dino shrugged, picked up the bag, and held it open. Stone raked the pile of junk, including all the cell phones, into the bag.
“Now what?” Dino asked.
“Bring it over here and set it on the floor three feet in front of me,” Shelley said.
Dino did as she directed.
Shelley, keeping her pistol pointed at them, picked up her handbag and backed over to the door. She set it down, opened the door, then picked up the bag and backed out of the suite, letting the door slam behind her.
Dino produced his own weapon and started for the door.
“Let her go, Dino,” Stone said. “We can’t have a gunfight in the hotel.” He got out his cell phone, looked up a number in his frequently called list, and pressed it. He waited for a moment. “This is Stone Barrington. I met with Deputy Director Smith this morning. I want to speak to him immediately. This is an extreme emergency. I’ll hold while you find him.” Stone covered the phone with his hand. “Let’s let the FBI deal with this,” he said.
“We should call the DCPD, too,” Dino r Seminded him.
“Let Kerry do that. His word will carry more weight.”
Dino walked to the terrace door and opened it. Hot D.C. air flooded into the room, as did noise from the traffic below.
“Stone? It’s Kerry Smith. What’s wrong?”
“Listen to me carefully, Kerry: it’s not over. Charlotte Kirby was not the March Hare. The March Hare is Shelley Bach.”
There was a brief silence. “Tell me this is a joke.”
“It is not a joke. We’ve just found the cell phones of the five murdered women in Shelley’s handbag. She pointed a gun at us, then took her bag and left our suite at the Hay-Adams.”
“She’s headed down Sixteenth Street,” Dino called from the terrace. “Her car is a silver SUV, a BMW, I think.”
Stone repeated that information to Kerry Smith. “She’s armed and dangerous, Kerry, and we have no idea where she’s headed.”
“Can you back this up with evidence, Stone?” Kerry asked.
“The evidence is in her handbag,” Stone replied, “and Dino Bacchetti, Holly Barker, and I can testify to that.”
“How many phones were in the bag?”
“Six, in all. One must have been Shelley’s. We called Fair Sutherlin’s phone, and Shelley’s bag began to ring.”
“How about the other four? Can you swear that they belong to the other victims?”
“No, that’s just our assumption. You’d do well to capture that bag, as well as Shelley.”
“All right, I’ll issue the orders immediately. You three stay there. I’m going to send some agents to talk to you.”
“We’ll be right here,” Stone said, and hung up. He put the phone into its holster, went to the bar, and poured himself a stiff bourbon. “Anybody else?”
“Me,” Dino said.
“Me,” Holly said.
Stone poured the drinks, and they all sat down.
Dino was the first to speak. “I’ve been sleeping with a serial murderer since we arrived in this town,” he said.
“Do you know,” Stone said, “that in all our investigating and checking, we never checked the whereabouts of Shelley at the times of the various murders? Not once?”
“When she got called to go to the White House, after Mrs. Kendrick’s murder, she was already at the White House,” Dino said.
“It never occurred to me,” Holly said. “She was the FBI’s lead investigator on all the murders. If she hadn’t hung on to those phones, nobody could ever have made even one of the charges stick.”
“So, she was just one of Brix Kendrick’s conquests,” Dino said.
Stone nodded. “She eliminated Mimi from Kendrick’s life. That makes sense-she wanted him to herself. Then, when he didn’t play that way, she started taking revenge.”
“And she was right among us the whole time,” Dino added. “She knew every detail of our investigation from day one.”
Holly took a swig of her scotch. “And now I’m going to have to call the first lady and director of my agency a">
“That we got it wrong twice,” Stone said. “At our dinner with the Lees, when we told them Charlotte Kirby was the killer, and, of course, now.”
“We’re going to look like assholes,” Dino said. “Amend that: we are assholes.”
“You’re not going to get an argument from me,” Stone said.
Holly said nothing.
Stone got up and started toward the bedroom.
“Where are you going?” Dino said. “The FBI will be here in a minute.”
“I’m going to pack,” Stone said. “Then I’m going to answer their questions for as long as it takes. Then I’m going to get the hell out of D.C.”
Dino got up and started toward his bedroom. “Good idea,” he shouted over his shoulder.
“Fellas,” Holly called
out, “this may take longer than you think.”
54
Stone answered the doorbell, and special agent Dave King stepped inside and introduced his partner, Special Agent Ann Potter.
“Now,” King said, “tell me what the hell is going on here.”
“Dave,” Stone said, “do you remember that when we visited the crime scene at Fair Sutherlin’s apartment, Shelley Bach asked if you had found her cell phone?”
“Yes, I do,” King said. “We had not found it.”
“That’s because it was in Shelley’s handbag at that moment. She had taken it on an earlier visit that afternoon, after she murdered Ms. Sutherlin.”
“Are you completely nuts?” King asked.
“Listen to me, Dave: Holly had the CIA do a search for the Sutherlin cell phone, and it was at this hotel. She had them call the number, and we heard it go off. It was in Shelley’s handbag.”
“Shelley was here?”
“She was. She was in the bathroom when the phone rang. We emptied out her bag, and there were six phones in it. We believe one was Shelley’s and the others belonged to the five women.”
“You don’t know that,” King said.
“She came out of the bathroom with a gun in her hand, took the bag, and left.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“Holly,” Stone said, “can you put traces on the other four cell phones, and on Shelley’s, as well?”
“I’ve got Shelley’s number,” Dino said.
“I’ve got Milly Hart’s,” Stone said. “Don’t bother with the Kendrick phone. She’s been dead for a year. Can you get the numbers for Brandon and Kirby?”
“Of course,” Holly said. “I’ll be right back.” She went into the bedroom to use the phone.
King spoke again. “You’re telling me that an assistant director of the FBI is a serial killer?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you, Dave. Are your people looking for Shelley yet?”
“That’s my call, and I’m not convinced,” King said.
Stone looked at his watch. “She could already be out of the District,” he said. “How long are you going to wait?”
Holly came back into the room. “My people are on it.” She went to Stone’s computer and logged on to the CIA mainframe. “Well, well, look at this,” she said, pushing back from the laptop so the others could see.
Stone and King walked to the computer and watched.
Holly pointed. “We’ve got Sutherlin’s, Kirby’s, and Shelley’s phones at the same point, across the river in Arlington, headed south.”
“They’re all in the same handbag, Dave, and pretty soon Shelley is going to realize that, and she’ll get rid of the phones. You need to catch her while they’re in her possession.”
King stared at the moving display for a moment, then he took out his own phone and made a call. “This is Dave King,” he said. “I want every agent in D.C. and northern Virginia looking for Assistant Director Shelley Bach on a charge of murder. She’s in a silver BMW SUV, in Arlington right now, headed south. When she’s apprehended, it’s very important that you confiscate her handbag immediately. Alert local PDs in the area, as well. Call me immediately when she has been apprehended.” He looked at Stone. “You better be right about this.”
“You better be right about it, too,” Stone said, “or she’ll be gone.”
Holly spoke up. “Uh-oh,” she said.
“What?” Stone asked.
“The cell phones are splitting up. Shelley’s still moving, but the other two have stopped. She’s ditched them.” Holly zoomed in and got a street address.
King got back on the phone. “There are at least two cell phones that have been discarded near this address.” He recited the street and number. “I want every trash can and dumpster near there searched, and when found, the phones are to be treated as evidence.”
They all watched the screen, and a moment later, Shelley’s phone disappeared from it.
“Now she’s ditched her own phone,” Holly said, “or removed the SIM card. Shelley Bach is now wild in the country.”
“Oh, shit,” Dave King said.
“She’s going to ditch her car, too,” Stone said, “if she’s thinking clearly.”
“She is,” Holly said. “She’s over the panic now-ditching the phones shows us that.”
Dino spoke up. “Let’s hope she’s winging it,” he said, “because if she has a plan, we’re fucked.”
“What kind of plan?” Dave King asked.
“Does she have a country place?” Dino asked. “Does she own another car?”
King got back on his phone and started issuing orders again.
“She’s had time to think about this,” Holly said. “If she’s really smart, and I think she is, she has a plan. She has a bolt-hole, and maybe another car, too, not registered in her name. Dave, you should find out who her friends are. If I’m wrong about the bolt-hole, she might go to someone for help.”
King nodded, still talking on the phone.
It was nearly midnight before Dave King and his partner left the suite. There had beenAv>
no further sign of Shelley Bach.
Shortly after he left, the phone rang, and Stone picked it up.
“Hello?”
“This is the White House operator,” a woman’s voice said. “Will you speak to the president?”
“Of course,” Stone said. He heard a click.
“Stone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please put Dino on an extension.”
“Yes, sir. Dino, pick up the bedroom phone. Holly, get the other one. Mr. President, we’re all here.”
“Good.”
“I’m on the phone, too,” Kate Lee said.
“I’ve heard from Kerry Smith what’s going on,” the president said.
“We’ve been brought fully up to date,” Kate interjected.
“We both want to thank you for sticking with this until it was resolved,” the president said. “At least, it will be when Shelley Bach is caught.”
“Dino and I jumped to conclusions the last time we all spoke,” Stone said, “and I want to apologize for that.”
“We’ve known Shelley Bach for some years,” the president said, “and of course we’re shocked. The media have already got wind of this, and the press office here is getting calls. I wanted you to know that. I’d appreciate it if you’d refer any questions to Kerry Smith. They’re stunned over there, but it’s their case now, and they should be seen to be handling it.”
“We will refer questions to the FBI with pleasure, Mr. President, and we’ll be out of here tomorrow morning.”
“Have a good flight back, then, and if you’re in Washington again before we’re done here, come and have dinner with us.”
“We’d like that, Mr. President.”
“Good night to you all,” the president said.
“Good night,” Kate echoed. “And, Holly, come and see me first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Holly said, but they had already hung up.
Dino and Holly came into the living room.
“I don’t know about you two,” Stone said, “but I’m exhausted.”
“Then come to bed,” Holly said, heading for the bedroom.
“I guess I’m sleeping alone tonight,” Dino said.
55
Teddy set down his cessna at Manassas airport well after midnight, then taxied to the FBO, which was dark. Everything, including the tower, was closed.
He went to the luggage compartment, got out a case, took the things he needed, then put the case back and locked the compartment. He removed the passenger door from the rear seat and rehung it on the airframe, then locked the airplane.
He went to the FBO door and inspected it for alarm sensors, then he shone a very bright flashlight around the walls, looking for an alarm box. Finding none, he took a set of lockpicks from his pocket and made quick work of opening the door. Inside, he went to
the rental car desk and checked the keys hanginb="2em">
He unlocked the rear door of the FBO from the inside and stepped into the parking lot, then he unlocked a Toyota Camry, got in, and started it. A moment later he was on his way to an apartment development a fifteen-minute drive from CIA headquarters.
It was easy enough to find, since there was a large sign at the untended gate offering two- and four-bedroom town houses for rent, furnished or unfurnished. He parked two doors down from Todd Bacon’s house, slipped plastic booties on over his shoes, and, using his flashlight sparingly, walked between the two nearest houses to what would be backyards when the landscaping was developed. The ground was dry. He checked the two houses as he moved along, looking for signs of alarm systems, but he saw none. Bacon’s house would be alarmed only if he had installed the system himself, and he was unlikely to have done that for a rental.
Teddy circumnavigated Bacon’s house, figured out where the ground-floor master bedroom was, then decided that the best way in was the front door. He slipped out of his shoes and booties on the lawn next to the front walk and continued in his stocking feet. On the front porch, he stopped and prepared the materials he had brought with him. The moon gave him all the light he needed.
He donned latex gloves and picked the front door lock easily-it was right out of a hardware store-and let himself into the front hall, silently closing the door behind him. He stopped in the entrance hall for a full minute, listening for signs of life in the house. A faint snore came from the direction of the master bedroom, down the hallway. He walked slowly down the hall, the silenced gun held out in front of him, took a quick look through the open bedroom door, then jerked his head back and reviewed what he had seen.
Todd Bacon lay on his back, on the left side of the bed, snoring with each breath. The bedroom was flooded with moonlight. Teddy removed the small plastic hypodermic from his shirt pocket, uncapped it, put the cap into his trousers pocket, then clenched the instrument in his teeth. He walked softly into the bedroom, around the bed, and stopped next to the sleeping man. He took the hypodermic from his mouth, bent over until his lips were near Bacon’s ear, then poked the silencer hard against his temple. “Freeze!” he said. “Not a move, not an eyelash.”
