[Matthew Richter 01.0] In Sheep's Clothing

by L. D Beyer

  “I want you to leave the shopping center and drive back to the airport. Keep the phone line open.”

  Richter let several cars pass before he pulled out and followed. Several minutes later, Monahan stopped at a traffic light. Richter was three cars back.

  “Pull into the restaurant on your right. Keep the line open.” With a second phone, Richter punched the speed dial button. Daniels answered immediately. “We’re here.”

  Monahan parked, and Richter pulled in three spaces away. Daniels exited the restaurant, spotted Richter’s car, and walked over. Richter climbed out, scanned the parking lot again, and then approached Monahan’s car, his Secret Service credentials open in his hand.

  Richter climbed in the back. Monahan looked in the rearview mirror and nodded.

  Richter nodded back. “Are you armed?”

  “No. I followed your instructions.”

  “Are your men still on the plane?”

  “Yes. Guarding Reed.”

  He studied Monahan in the mirror. He was nervous, which was understandable, but he kept his hands on the steering wheel. That was smart.

  “What’s the plan, Agent Richter?”

  “We’re going to take a drive and have a chat. Based on how that goes, I’ll tell you what our next steps are.”

  ____

  An hour later, they pulled into the RV Park. With Richter directing, Monahan drove up to the lone RV at the end of the row. He parked and watched as a scruffy young man wearing a fanny pack stepped out of the motor home. The man disappeared around the car then reappeared in Monahan’s side view mirror. Another car parked two spaces away and a slightly overweight, older man stepped out. He too wore a fanny pack.

  He caught Richter’s eyes in the mirror.

  “It would be a mistake to underestimate them, Mr. Monahan.”

  Monahan nodded.

  “Let’s go.”

  Monahan climbed out and allowed Richter to search him, not that he had much choice. Then, he was led up the steps, escorted inside, and told to sit at the table. He took a deep breath. He had been preparing himself for this moment since the phone call with Bill Daniels last night. He was both excited and nervous.

  Richter stood behind him. “We’re ready.”

  Monahan’s eyes went wide as the president stepped out of the rear bedroom.

  ____

  Frustrated, Rumson stood. Minutes later, flanked by the Secret Service, he climbed into the limo. He was still living in the Naval Observatory, having decided that it wouldn’t look good if he forced Kendall’s family to move out of the White House. Not yet anyway. As the motorcade pulled through the White House gate, he stared out the window at the lights of Washington. He hadn’t heard back from Jane yet. He would have to call her when he got home.

  The challenge was that there was a nation to run. He had security briefings, Cabinet meetings, phone calls with foreign leaders, meetings with congressman and staffers and governors, and a myriad of other responsibilities that he had to focus on throughout the day. The crash investigation, while still the number one priority, only occupied a portion of his time. And on top of all of that, Jane and her people had to find Kendall. What the bomb on the plane had failed to do, they now had to do themselves. Kendall had to be shoved back into whatever hole he had crawled out of, along with whoever was helping him. Rumson had to put all of this behind him, and he had to do it soon.

  One of the signs of a leader, he knew, was how well he dealt with setbacks, with crisis, with problems that suddenly arose and threatened to unravel carefully crafted plans. He again considered calling his CIA contact, but, once more, decided against it. While things looked dire at the moment, he had faith in Jane. She was resourceful. She would find a way to resolve this. She had never let him down.

  ____

  “Hi, Pat.”

  Monahan tried to stand, but Richter pushed him back down.

  “Mr. President…Sir? I’m at a loss for words.”

  The president sat across from him. “You understand the gravity of the situation I’m in, don’t you?”

  “I do, sir.”

  The president’s eyes narrowed as he studied the federal agent for a moment. “Are you here to help me, Mr. Monahan?”

  Monahan grimaced. “Yes. Of course, sir.”

  The president smiled briefly. “Good. There’s one thing we need to clear up first.” He paused, his eyes narrowing again. “Agent Richter is calling the shots. He’s in charge. You and your men will not do anything without his knowledge or approval. Understood?”

  Monahan glanced at Richter then nodded again. “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  The president smiled. “Okay, then. Agent Richter has some questions for you.”

  Richter sat next to Monahan. “Take us through the crash investigation, the evidence you’ve gathered over the last twenty-four hours, everything.”

  Monahan told them about McKay and Mosby, about the body in Laredo and the briefcase, about the cell phone they discovered in the pickup with Mosby’s number and the bank account in Luxembourg.

  Richter and the president exchanged a glance.

  “Do you believe the Mexico angle?” Richter asked.

  Monahan frowned. “I did, but after listening to the phone calls, I’m wondering if all of that was just a plant.” He described the calls they had recorded and told them that they were now monitoring the vice president’s cell phone, but, as of early this evening, there hadn’t been any additional calls made by or to that number. Then he described his interview with Reed.

  “We haven’t picked up the body in Cortez yet,” he said at the end.

  Richter nodded then changed gears. “How quickly can you do a DNA analysis of blood and hair samples?” He explained what he wanted. “I want it witnessed by at least one other agent. This way, no one can allege that the samples came from before the crash or were obtained from the bodies recovered from the crash.”

  Monahan nodded. “We should be able to confirm identity in a day, if I push it.”

  “Push it, Mr. Monahan.”

  ____

  The security guard checked Monahan’s ID.

  “He’s an agent as well,” Monahan said, nodding toward Richter.

  The guard nodded and opened the gate. Monahan drove out onto the tarmac, directly up to the plane. As they pulled up alongside the wing, the stairs descended and two agents climbed down. Richter climbed out of the car and scanned the area. It was shortly before 10:00 p.m. Thankfully, there were no other planes or people about.

  He stopped at the foot of the stairs and nodded to the agents. “He’s inside?”

  The agents nodded back and, with Monahan trailing, Richter bounded up the steps. In the back of the cabin sat a hooded man, his hands and legs cuffed. Two FBI agents stepped out of the way. Ignoring them, Richter walked up to the prisoner. The man appeared to be sleeping. Richter yanked off the hood. Joe Reed blinked several times as his eyes adjusted to the light. When he saw Richter’s face, six inches from his own, his body stiffened and his eyes went wide.

  “You’re going to make another call for me, Reed.”

  ____

  Jane didn’t recognize the number. She hesitated for a second, debating whether to let the call go to voice mail, but on the fourth ring, she answered.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me.”

  She exploded in anger. “Where the hell are you?”

  “We ran into some problems. My partner’s dead.”

  “What? How did that happen?”

  “He had a heart attack. I just left the hospital.”

  “Why didn’t you call me right away?”

  “I couldn’t. My phone’s broken.”

  “You’re a total fuck-up, Reed!”

  “Look. He collapsed and stopped breathing. My phone was on the ground next to me. I called 911 while I was performing CPR. I think one of the paramedics stepped on it. I bought a new phone as soon as I could.”

  She mulled over the implications a
nd her next steps. Reed continued talking.

  “He was dead on arrival. It’s been hectic ever since. I had to talk to the doctors and the police.”

  “How did you identify yourself?”

  “I didn’t use any law enforcement credentials if that’s what you mean.”

  “What about your partner?”

  “I took his creds and gun before the ambulance arrived.”

  Jane digested this. “Okay. Are you still in Durango?”

  “No. Santa Fe. We were following a lead.”

  “Give me your address.”

  Jane jotted it down.

  “Stay where you are. I’ll call you back.”

  She hung up then leaned back, thinking. Something didn’t feel right. That was two days in a row that he’d been out of touch. That was one coincidence too many. She made another call. The phone was answered immediately.

  “I need you to send a man down to Santa Fe. There’s a loose end I need taken care of.”

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Thursday, May 6

  It was three in the morning when Monahan hung up the phone.

  “The plane arrived back in Washington two hours ago. Reed is now in a safe house. My men are guarding him.”

  Richter nodded.

  “We have a problem. He’s demanding a lawyer. We arrested him at the storage locker, read him his Miranda rights. He hasn’t been processed or formally charged. This is going to get sticky. I need to speak to a U.S. Attorney.”

  Richter ignored the veiled request. “What about the wire taps? What’s the status?”

  “The tap on Rumson’s phone’s in place. So far, there’s been only one call, and that was to the woman, to ‘Jane.’ We’ve compared the voice with known voice records for the vice president. It’s him.”

  The door to the motor home opened and Peggy stepped out. Richter lowered the window.

  “I made coffee for you guys.”

  Richter took the two mugs. “Thanks, Peggy.”

  After she went back inside, Monahan continued. “One problem is that they have not specifically mentioned the president or the bombing.” Monahan flipped on the map light and handed Richter a yellow legal pad. “This is a transcript.”

  Richter read for a moment. “…‘Put every resource you have on this. You need to find him pretty damn quick. And you need to end this!’…That sounds pretty damned incriminating to me.”

  “It does, but I would like to hear him mention the president’s name.”

  Richter flipped off the map light and rubbed his eyes. “Yeah, but we might not get that chance.”

  “I know. Separately, you know that Jane has dispatched another team to look for you. Again, she never mentioned the president by name or even title, so we have no direct evidence tying her back to the bombing. She’s getting nervous though. Shortly after Reed called her, she instructed her second team to locate him. I suspect that she now sees him as a liability. Either way, I think we need to consider locating her and picking her up for questioning. I’ll need to get more resources to do that.”

  Richter was silent for a minute. His first priority was to protect the president and get him back to Washington safely. And with Monahan, his men and the plane, they could do that. But they couldn’t just walk back into the White House, could they? And didn’t he have an obligation to uncover how widespread this conspiracy was? To make sure those behind it paid the price?

  “We need to set up a sting operation. We need to get Rumson to admit that he’s behind this. If we pick Jane up, can we get her to wear a wire?”

  Monahan shook his head. “She’s likely to refuse, but on the chance she agrees, she’s going to want a deal. We would have to get the U.S. Attorney involved. We can’t cut plea deals on our own. I think that’s the same thing Reed is now thinking.”

  Richter rubbed his eyes again. “Shit.”

  “Agent Richter,” Monahan paused, “Matthew…what you’ve done is nothing short of amazing. You got him off the plane. You kept him alive in the wilderness, in the middle of a blizzard. My initial reaction was that you were crazy for not turning yourself in to the search and rescue teams. But, with what you knew at the time and what we know now, I can see why you didn’t. Your instincts were right. You survived a run-in with Agent Mosby and another one with Reed. I know that you’re not only focused on protecting him, you want to hold these bastards accountable as well.” Monahan took a breath and shifted in his seat. “Look. I know you don’t trust anyone. You don’t even trust me. Not completely. I get that. But let me help you. Once we get the president back to Washington…I assume that’s what you’re planning on doing when the plane returns…what’s your next step?”

  Richter stared back but said nothing.

  Monahan continued: “If you haven’t figured that out yet at least let me give you a couple of options.”

  In the darkness, Richter studied Monahan’s eyes. After a long moment, he finally nodded.

  ____

  With seven people, the motor home was crowded, but no one complained. Monahan was sitting at the kitchen table, facing the president and Richter. Derek and Jack were perched in the driver’s and front passenger’s captain’s chairs, which had been turned backwards and now faced into the living area. Bill and Peggy sat on the couch.

  “The plane is due to arrive in two and a half hours.” Monahan checked his watch. “A little after seven thirty. We need to decide who’s coming and who’s staying.”

  “Everybody’s coming with us.”

  Everyone turned toward Richter.

  “I know we haven’t discussed this yet, but if you stay here, you’ll need to be placed into protective custody. There are still people after us, and we’ve put you all in danger.”

  “Bill, Peggy,” the president interrupted, “I’m sorry, but Agent Richter’s right. We can’t leave you behind unless Mr. Monahan can provide for your security.”

  Bill laughed. “Mr. Monahan would have to arrest me to keep me from coming.”

  The president smiled and turned to Peggy.

  “I’m coming as well.” She pointed her thumb at Bill. “I’m not going to let him have all the fun.”

  “And I know Jack and Derek are with us all the way. Right, guys?”

  Derek, half asleep, gave a thumbs-up. Jack smiled.

  ____

  Jane wrestled with calling her uncle. The news wasn’t good. There was no sign of Reed in Santa Fe. Her instinct told her it was a false lead. The question was, why? Why would Reed mislead her? Why had he been out of contact over the last two days? His excuses, while plausible, had started to smell bad.

  The other troubling fact was that they had lost any trail of President Kendall and Agent Richter. There had been no new information, no leads since the stolen car had been discovered in Durango several days ago. It was a guess on her part that the stolen cars were connected to the president and Richter. Between the dump truck, the cars, the switched plates, and the ATM, she could plot their path on a map. While it was conceivable that it was a series of coincidences, she didn’t like coincidences.

  So, she came back to the question of Reed. The only explanation that made sense was that he had been picked up by the police and coerced into providing her with misleading information. The question, then, was by who? Certainly not the local police in Durango or Santa Fe or wherever he really was. More likely it was the Secret Service or the FBI. If this was the case, she reasoned, then they were probably trying to track her down. And if Reed had called her, besides trying to mislead her, could he have been trying to set her up? Could they have been monitoring the call? She found that possibility very disturbing.

  The other question she had to answer was how? How had the Secret Service or the FBI—or whoever had Reed—how had they found him in the first place? From the reports and updates her uncle had given her, and from her own sources, she knew the investigators were under tremendous pressure to find the president’s body. The current theory was that the president and Rich
ter and a handful of other passengers had either been sucked through an engine as the plane came apart or incinerated in the inferno when the plane crashed. From everything she had heard and read, those two theories were plausible.

  Consequently, there was no reason for the investigators to suspect that the president and Richter were alive. Unless, she realized, they too had questioned the stolen truck in Elk City and the trail of stolen cars that led to Durango. That didn’t make sense, though. Why would they concern themselves with a handful of stolen cars? They would be preoccupied with the crash, not with a rash of auto thefts. Especially when they didn’t believe there were any survivors.

  And then it dawned on her.

  ____

  The plane landed in Manassas, Virginia, shortly before one in the afternoon and taxied to the private terminal where eight black Chevy Suburbans were waiting. Once the plane stopped, the Suburbans drove up. After the stairs were lowered, two agents jumped out of each vehicle and quickly formed two lines extending from the stairs to the second Suburban. Monahan descended, and after conferring with agents on the ground, signaled to an agent on the plane. The agent escorted the prisoner, hands cuffed, head bowed, and face hidden by a sweatshirt hood, down the steps to the waiting vehicle. Then a second agent escorted another prisoner to the same Suburban. The doors were slammed shut and, as if choreographed, the line of Suburbans pulled forward twenty feet.

  Four more prisoners were escorted down the steps, one after another, and loaded into the SUVs.

  ____

  Jane walked out of Walmart with two new cell phones. Her old phone was in a trash dumpster several miles away. In the trunk of her car, she had two suitcases and a duffle bag with everything she needed. Everything else she had left in the apartment. She had prepaid the six month lease three months ago. It would be a while before anyone noticed she was missing.

  She was still unsure what to do, which, she realized in a moment of self-reflection, was very uncharacteristic. She would run and hide, that much was certain. Working as she had for a private security firm, she had availed herself of some of the shadier services they had occasionally offered some of their clients. A new identity and a place to hide wouldn’t be a problem.