by Gene Riehl
She nodded. “I can access TV footage … and there are a few other tricks I’ve come up with over the years.” She paused. “What’s she look like?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, it’s just rumor.”
“So we’ve got the stolen art and the secret squeeze. Anything else?”
“One more thing, yes. I need to find a link between Global Panoptic and a holding company called Evans Medical. They own hospitals all around the country, a couple of them here in the District.”
Eleanor DeWitt stared at him for a moment. He could read the question in her intelligent eyes, but knew he was safe. She’d been far too well trained to ask.
“You’ve tried?” she asked instead. “You’ve already tried on this?”
“I’m not good enough to try.” He glanced over his shoulder toward her computer room. “Not like you are, I mean.”
“And you can’t—for whatever reason—provide a file number to the bureau computer people. So they can do this for you.”
“Not this time.”
She looked past him, out the window behind where he was sitting on the couch. After a long moment she swung her head back to him.
“This man, this Franklin.” She paused. “Is there any chance he’s not the Thomas Franklin I’m thinking of? That Global Panoptic isn’t the Global Panoptic Corporation?”
“None.”
Again she paused, but this time she didn’t look out the window. This time, her clear brown eyes were riveted on his.
“Am I going to regret this, Puller? Is this going to turn out badly?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Doesn’t everything?”
FORTY-TWO
“Tell me,” Sung Kim said to Franklin, as they sat in matching armchairs in his office at Battle Valley Farm. “Calm down and tell me exactly what Roger Carmody told you.”
“It doesn’t make any difference what he said, Mary Anne. That’s the point. Just the fact that Monk went to Carmody says it all.”
Of course it does, Sung Kim thought. Monk was trying to spook Franklin, and if she weren’t careful, that’s exactly what was going to happen.
“Monk doesn’t know anything,” she told him. “I told you before … and it’s the same thing this time. If he had evidence he’d be at the U.S. attorney’s office, getting ready to go to the grand jury for an indictment.”
“How can we know he hasn’t done that already?”
“Have you gotten a target letter? You’re not just Joe Sixpack, Thomas. The government isn’t about to go after you without letting you know.” It was standard practice for federal prosecutors all over the country.
Franklin shook his head. “But Monk just started. How long will it be before I do get one? Before they do name me as a target?”
Sung Kim looked away, over his shoulder at the bookcase on the wall. There was no good way to ease into this, but she had to prepare him.
“What would you be willing to do to make him go away?” she said.
“Go away? Why would Monk …” Franklin stared at her. “Christ, you’re talking about an FBI agent. You’re talking about murdering an FBI agent.”
He rose from his chair and moved to the unlit fireplace, where he turned to face her again. “How the hell did we ever let it come to this, Mary Anne?”
He paused.
“We had such a good thing going … such a good arrangement. You got my money to set up your flower business, I get your … I get the pleasure of your company whenever you’re here at the farm. It couldn’t have been better, but it was a mistake to get involved with you with the paintings. I knew better, but after you brought me the first one, I just let myself believe it would work out.”
He came back and stood in front of her.
“Now you want to kill an FBI agent.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m even talking about this.”
Sung Kim hardened her tone. “Is it easier for you to believe that Monk will just go away?”
Franklin sat. “He doesn’t work alone. Stopping him isn’t going to stop the FBI.”
Sung Kim nodded, but that wasn’t her problem. Killing Monk wouldn’t stop the bureau for long, but she only needed a few more days. A few more days to keep Franklin from discovering the real reason they’d been together for the past three and a half years. And to implicate him so deeply she could use him forever. Or as long it pleased her to do so.
“Trust me,” she told him. “Monk came to you alone the other day, and that isn’t the way the bureau works … not with someone as potentially dangerous to an agent’s career as you. He should have had a partner with him, someone to counter anything you might later have complained about. The fact that he came alone means he’s working alone.” Sung Kim shook her head. “As long as the bureau believes his … his removal … is an accident, there’s a good chance our problem will gradually fade away.”
And pigs might one day fly, she could have added. She kept her eyes on him, willing him to believe, knowing he had the most powerful of motives for doing so. She let the silence grow, until he finally broke it.
“What are you going to …?” He shook his head. “I don’t want to know.”
“I have friends who might be able to arrange something.” She leaned forward in her chair. “But you’re going to know, Thomas, there’s no way I can leave you out of it.” She smiled. “You know I can’t let you skate on this, and you know exactly why.”
It was one-thirty the next morning when Sung Kim drove the stolen Ford Explorer up the ramp of the parking lot beneath Union Station and stopped at the pay booth.
“Sorry,” she told the attendant, a young black woman, “but I can’t find my ticket anywhere.”
The attendant pointed at the sign outside the booth. “Gonna have to charge you the all-day rate.”
Sung Kim smiled as she reached into her pocket and pulled out her money clip. She peeled off two twenties and handed them through the window, but the attendant was shaking her head.
“What’s the matter?” Sung Kim asked. “It can’t be more than forty dollars.”
“It’s thirty-two, but that’s not why I’m shaking my head. I can’t believe you’re not yelling at me.”
She turned away for a moment before coming back with the change. Sung Kim waved the money away, and smiled.
“Keep it,” she said. “Gotta be a long night for you in there.”
“Thanks,” the attendant said. “Thank you very much.” She touched a button and the wooden arm lifted out of the way.
The smile disappeared from Sung Kim’s face as she turned right and headed for Logan Circle. When she got to Monk’s apartment building, her eyes swept the area for any sign of the opposition. She saw nothing, no unusual traffic, no parked vehicles that didn’t appear to belong. She reached into the black canvas gym bag on the passenger seat and pulled out a portable police-radio scanner and turned the switch to fully automatic. The scanner began to search for radio traffic up and down the FM spectrum the police and FBI used in the District. She wouldn’t be able to hear their voices—the scanner wasn’t capable of decoding the FBI’s encrypted radios—but she would hear a brief rasp of static, a short burst of carrier wave if someone used a radio of any kind while she was in the area.
Sung Kim found a parking place where she could watch and listen, then settled in to wait.
The last light in the windows of Monk’s building didn’t go out until a few minutes past three.
Even so, Sung Kim drove around the block twice, just to make sure the building security people weren’t outside making their rounds. She saw no one, so she pulled the SUV to the head of the garage ramp, to the keycard reader outside her open window. Reaching into the pocket of her jumpsuit, she pulled out her card keys: the nine plastic master keys that allowed her to penetrate virtually any keycard system in Washington.
The first one didn’t work, nor did the second, third, or fourth. Damn it, Sung Kim thought, nothing was ever easy. The seventh one did the trick. The steel gate l
ifted out of the way and she drove down into the garage. She parked in the first empty space, got out of the Explorer, and stood motionless next to the car until her eyes adjusted to the semidarkness.
The garage stretched away before her, the far wall fifty yards or so from where she stood. Concrete pillars thick as redwoods held up the roof, light fixtures on each of them providing a sort of greenish glow that passed for illumination. The smells were just as gloomy. Grease and oil, rubber tires, lots of wax and polish.
Sung Kim listened for the guards, listened without making a sound for five full minutes, but heard nothing. In her black jumpsuit, she’d be hard to spot in here, but she hadn’t survived this long by taking unnecessary chances. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a black ski mask, fitted it over her head until her nose and mouth were comfortable, then used the giant support pillars for cover as she slipped across the garage to the dark blue Saab-Turbo parked nose first against the wall.
At the Saab, Sung Kim dropped to her knees just behind the left front tire and reminded herself to be careful. The car was alarmed, of course—FBI cars would all be alarmed—and the slightest motion would set it off and bring the guards running. She pulled a penlight from one of the many pockets of her jumpsuit, stuck it between her teeth, then went back into the same pocket for a black metal device the size of a deck of cards. She turned it over until the powerful magnet was facing the car.
Lying on her back, she used her heels to push herself underneath, then angled her head toward the rear of the car. She snaked her arm upward—careful not to touch any of the pipes and hoses—until she located the throttle linkage where it came through the firewall from the accelerator pedal. Very gently she brushed the surface of the firewall with her fingertips to make sure of a clean fit for the magnet, then snugged the magnet against the steel. She didn’t have to worry about it falling off. A mechanic would need a crowbar to get rid of it.
Next she unfolded a three-inch arm attached to the same device, clamped it to the throttle linkage, reached into her pocket for a three-eighths end-wrench and tightened the clamp until the device was rigidly fixed to the linkage. Then she went to work on the electrical connection. Careful, Sung Kim told herself once again. Modifying the car’s wiring—no matter how slightly—increased the danger from the alarm tenfold.
She located the alternator where it was attached to the left side of the engine, and the wire running from the alternator to the engine block. She took a breath and let it out slowly, then raised her slender chromium penknife and cut into the insulation around the wire. She felt the blade snick against the wire and held her breath. The alarm stayed silent. She stripped a half inch of insulation from the wire. Back into her pocket, she pulled out a two-foot length of insulated wire that matched the other wire perfectly. She attached one end of the new wire to her throttle device, the other end to the bare spot she’d scraped on the alternator wire. She used gaffer’s tape to insulate the connection, then sat back to breathe. Now the throttle device had its own power source.
She inspected every inch of her work, then ran a test.
She tripped a recessed switch on the top side of the device, and a pinpoint of red light began to blink. The electrical connection was working perfectly. From her breast pocket, she withdrew a radio transmitter the size of a cigarette lighter, on its front side a toggle switch. She kept her eyes on the throttle linkage, then used a fingernail to move the switch to the ON position. With a metallic clank, the arm attached to the linkage shoved the throttle all the way forward toward the engine and locked it there. Sung Kim couldn’t help smiling. The Saab-Turbo was quicker than most cars already. With its throttle jammed wide open like this, it would be like a runaway bullet. She switched the transmitter off, reached up and hit the reset button on the throttle device. The linkage fell back into normal position, and once again the tiny light began to blink.
Satisfied, Sung Kim made sure she had all her tools, then dug her heels into the floor to pull herself from under the car. She wasn’t halfway out when she heard footsteps. She wriggled back underneath and lay motionless. The footsteps got louder, and a moment later she saw a pair of feet stop a few yards from where she lay. Cheap black shoes. One of the guards, she realized, and a moment later the man’s voice as he used his radio confirmed it.
“Hey, Al,” the voice said. “Where the hell are you? Can we get this thing done already?”
Sung Kim held herself perfectly still. In the silence of the garage, she had no trouble hearing the response over the guard’s radio.
“Jesus, Burt, take a pill or something. These cars aren’t going anywhere, for Christ’s sake … We’ve got plenty of time.”
Damn it, she thought. They were about to do a walk-through. A couple minutes more and she’d have been out of here. She considered her options.
She could stay where she was and hope their routine check of the parked vehicles was as careless as everything else rent cops did. Or she could slip away now, in the gloom, before Al showed up to help his partner. It only took her a second to reject the first option. No matter how slipshod, they might accidentally spot her. Lying under the car like this she was helpless. Under here she’d have no room to fight. She felt her muscles began to swell as she slid out from under the car.
She spotted Burt a dozen yards to her left. She moved in the other direction, darting from pillar to pillar—eyes and ears on full alert for the least sign of the other guard—as she made her way toward the pedestrian door at the other end of the garage. She could slip out the door and get away. There was nothing in the Explorer that would lead the cops to her. Moments later she was at the door, reaching for the knob, when the door swung open. Sung Kim leaped straight backward as she saw him. The guard was every bit as shocked as she was. He fumbled for the gun in the holster on his belt, finally managed to get it out and aim it directly at her chest. His eyes widened as he took in her black jumpsuit, and the ski mask covering her face.
“What the hell?” he said. “Who the h …?” He advanced toward her. “Back up!” he ordered. “Put your hands on your head and get away from the door!”
She lifted her hands to her head and took three steps backward as he spoke into the radio clipped to his lapel. “Hey, Burt! Goddammit, Burt, get over here quick! I got a perp at the pedestrian door.”
Sung Kim sighed. How much easier it would be if they just let her walk … how much less trouble for all three of them. She thought about trying to con them, telling them she was just a girlfriend, just trying to sneak away before the guy’s wife showed up, but the ski mask was the problem. Rent cops weren’t too swift, but they weren’t completely stupid.
“Easy, Al,” she told him, “I don’t want any trouble.”
He stared at her, reacting to his name, and she saw the briefest moment of uncertainty. “How do you know my name? Are you trying to tell me you’re a—”
Suddenly Burt showed up, running out of the shadows with his own pistol in hand. Al turned to look at him and Sung Kim edged closer to them. Still too far away, but better.
“Hi, Burt,” she said, and when he glanced at Al she slid another half step closer. “I wondered if you were working with Al tonight.”
Al spoke without taking his eyes off her. “Jeez, Burt, she knows our names.”
Burt snorted. “She’s been listening to us talk to each other on the radio. Of course she knows our fucking names.”
Burt turned to her, and now his tone was different. A lot harder, hard enough to match the dead stare in his eyes. She recognized the look. A cop. A real cop, making a couple of extra bucks on the side. She forgot about Al for the moment. It was Burt she had to watch.
“Don’t even think about running,” Burt told her. “We’re going to hook you up and call M.P.D.” He widened his stance and trained his black automatic pistol on her midsection. “Cuff her, Al,” he said. “And take that fuckin’ mask off her head.”
“Don’t do that, Al,” she told him. “You really don’t want to
do that.”
Burt grunted. “You been watchin’ too many bad movies, sweetie. In the real world you don’t get to take your secret identity to jail.”
She shrugged, then dropped her arms behind her back so Al could cuff her. Her shoulders slumped, her head hanging, for all the world just another car-prowl loser ready to go back to jail. Al holstered his weapon and approached, then stepped around behind her and yanked the hood from her head. She stared Burt in the face, ignoring the gun in his hand. He wouldn’t fire his weapon while Al was standing directly behind her, directly in the path of the bullet that would go right through her.
“Left arm back,” Al ordered from behind her. “Palm out.”
Sung Kim did so, but in the same movement she spun, hurled her leg in a round sweep that kicked Al’s legs away and left the guard suspended for an instant in the air before he fell like a cut tree to the concrete. She dived sideways and came up with her own weapon in hand. She depressed the Taser’s firing switch and twin wires leapt toward the frozen Burt. The steel points slammed into his chest with a clearly audible thud. She held the switch firm. Burt stiffened. His eyes rolled back, his body began to jerk, before he pitched forward onto his face.
She dropped the Taser—without a fresh cartridge it was useless—and whirled to face Al, who was back on his feet, snatching at the gun in his holster. She flipped her right leg and kicked him in the face. Blood exploded from his shattered nose as he fell straight backward and lay motionless.
She turned to Burt, still twisting and moaning on the floor. She stepped to him, jerked the darts out of his chest, grabbed the Taser off the floor and stuffed the weapon and the wiring back into her pocket. She stood for a moment, her breathing already back to normal as she considered her position. They’d seen her face. She’d warned them, but they wouldn’t listen. Why did people do this to themselves?
She knelt at the side of Burt’s head and pulled the chromium penknife from her jumpsuit pocket, the same one she’d used to expose the wire underneath the car. She unfolded the blade. It was only three inches long, but that was plenty. She set the point of the blade directly into the canal of the guard’s right ear and used the flat edge of her hand to drive the blade directly into his brain. He sighed and went limp. She hurried to Al and repeated the procedure, then scooped up her ski mask and stared at the bodies. Now she had a problem. They couldn’t be left here or there’d be cops all over the place when they were discovered.
