COPS SPIES & PI'S: The Four Novel Box Set

by David Wind

Steven nodded. “When you first told me about Grange.”

  “The Service recruited us at the same time. We both seemed to have an aptitude for the work.”

  “And Ellie?”

  Carla smiled softly, her voice lightened. “She joined about five years after me. She was a computer expert, codes and stuff. The agency primarily used her in the organized crime division under Treasury.”

  “I still have trouble accepting her as a secret service agent.”

  “A damned good one. And she loved you Steven. She was going to resign.”

  The thought of Ellie’s future weighed heavily on him. “Now she’ll have no choice.”

  “Not necessarily. We look after our own. We have to. We’re the forgotten agency. All anyone thinks we do is bodyguard politicians. But we’re much more.”

  “So I’m learning.”

  “We work with Treasury on drug and counterfeiting operations. We handle territorial espionage operations as well. And we’re autonomous.” Carla yawned, surprise registered in her eyes. “I don’t believe how tired I am.”

  “It’s been a long day,” Steven stated.

  “Too long,” Carla agreed. “I’m going to take a shower.”

  “Want me to order from room service?”

  Carla shook her head. “No. We don’t want any more people than necessary to see us.” She was right. He chastised himself for not having thought of the same thing. “Take your shower.”

  Carla came out fifteen minutes later, with a towel wrapped around her head, and wearing the short terry bathrobe she’d taken from her apartment.

  “How are you feeling now?”

  Carla smiled. “Fine...Steven, thank you.”

  He waved away her thanks. “Get some sleep.”

  “In a little while. I’ll watch some TV first.” After Carla turned it on, and the screen came to life with Liza Minnelli fighting with Dudley Moore, she went to the bed and lay down.

  Steven took his shower. When he came out, Carla was asleep. She was breathing gently; the lines of tension that had been on her face were gone.

  He covered her, and a new emotion formed—admiration, and pity. She’d chosen a hard life.

  Steven went to the small desk, sat, and stared out the window. And Ellie? Was she like Carla? He didn’t know what Ellie was like any longer. She wasn’t the same woman she had been a week ago. At least not in his mind.

  He made himself focus on the situation. Savak. He was supposed to call Arnie. Should he take the risk? What if they’d tapped Savak’s phone? It was a chance he would have to take. He needed to talk with his friend.

  He picked up the phone and dialed Savak’s apartment. At the sound of his friend’s voice, he relaxed a little.

  “Yes, I’m fine,” he replied to Savak’s first question.

  “The feds have been in the office all day. But so far, the investigation is being contained in the Bureau.”

  “Someone’s trying to kill me, Arnie. They tried this morning, and again tonight.”

  There was silence for several seconds. “Are you sure?” Savak asked.

  Steven thought about the people Anton had mowed down with the car. Then he thought about Grange. “Oh, yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Who, Steven?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “We?”

  “Carla and I,” he said.

  “You’ve got Ellie’s sister with you. Are you crazy?” Savak half shouted.

  He wanted to explain to Savak who Carla was, as well as the actual events of the past day, but decided not to risk it in case Savak’s phone was tapped. “What was I supposed to do? She was with me last night. When Blayne tried to arrest me, she helped me to get away.”

  “Then you really didn’t have a choice. Look,” Savak added quickly, “I need time to get things straightened out. Jesus, I’ve spent most of the day going from one judge to another, and then fighting through the chain of command at Justice. Steven, I’m up against a double-edged sword. I’m trying to get them to back off and at the same time, keep Pritman’s name clear. Until I get this worked out, you have to stay in hiding. We can’t take the chance that what’s happening will become public knowledge.”

  “I know, for Pritman’s sake,” he said, trying to keep the rancor from his voice. He paused, debating whether to warn Arnie about what he had learned. He realized there was no choice. “Arnie, keep an eye out. There’s a spy in the office. A Soviet mole.”

  Steven heard his friend’s breathing change. When Savak spoke, his words were laced with sadness. “Don’t do this to me, Steven. Please, don’t start the conspiracy shit again.”

  “It’s fact, Arnie. There’s a spy on our staff.”

  “That’s not possible. Steven, we know everyone on the staff.”

  “Take my word for it.”

  “Goddamn it, Steven.” Savak exploded. “Don’t fuck me around. If there is a spy, I have to know who it is. It will help me get you out of this.”

  “I don’t know who, yet. If I knew, I would be there, not here. I will find out. And there’s something else,” he added quickly. “You’ve got to concentrate on the Entente proposal. Get Pritman to move up the schedule. He has to make the committee understand how strong a position we’ll have for the elections. After he meets with them, get him to announce. It has to be done before any of this breaks.”

  “It’s scheduled for next Friday.”

  Steven had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to hold out until then. “Move it up.”

  “What if he needs you for the proposal, to fix things, to help him?”

  Steven closed his eyes for a moment. Then he leaned over the table and stared down at a Nightlife In Pittsburgh magazine with a smiling blond on the cover. Steven knew Arnie’s plea wasn’t for Pritman. It was for Arnie, it was for their friendship. “It’s finished Arnie. I can’t do anything else. It’s ready, and it’s good. And Arnie, I did what everyone asked; I mailed my resignation this morning.”

  There was a long pause before Savak spoke again, his voice thick. “I—take care of yourself, please. And call me whenever you need. Steven, I’m going to fix this mess. I promise.”

  Not this time, Steven thought, he knew the only person who would get him out of this was himself. “Goodbye, Arnie.”

  He hung up and looked at Carla. She hadn’t changed position. He wondered how Grange was doing. Then he remembered Grange’s words about his being the key.

  “How?” he asked himself aloud.

  Why didn’t Ellie trust me? He put himself in Ellie’s position, and then the answer came. She couldn’t tell me because she was afraid the mole was someone close to me.

  He thought back to the day he’d given her the ring, and replayed her promise they would be married. Strangely, he found his memory to be a reaffirmation of her love for him, and that she would have told him about herself.

  Why Lake Pompton? The section of the lake they’d found her in was very deep, and the area rarely used during the winter. Could the reason be it was chosen because of the underground spring that kept the ice thinner there, so it would be easier to put a car through it?

  Yes, he told himself, it was the perfect place to dispose of a body—if the car hadn’t been hung up on the roots. But because she wasn’t in the car, her body would have eventually been found.

  If the mole’s plans had gone as intended, he would have been the prime suspect when someone discovered Ellie’s body in the spring. He remembered telling Banacek how Ellie’s attacker had made a mistake in not leaving Ellie in the car. But he’d been wrong. It wasn’t a mistake: It was part of the mole’s plan from the beginning. The mistake had been in not making sure the car had gone under the water.

  The method of torture was one he was familiar with—one easily attributed to his past. The method of her torture was the final proof.

  His perception of the reasoning behind Ellie’s tragedy changed. Nothing about Ellie’s intended death had been the spur-of-the-moment happening he had first thought. He
was positive Ellie’s involvement was because the mole had caught her spying on him. The accident and setting up the frame on Steven was set up for the spring. Only, the police found Ellie alive, which changed the long-range effect of the plan. Once the frame-up had been set into motion, and even though it was five months early, there had been no reason to alter it.

  However, and in complete opposition to the elaborate staging of Ellie’s death, the murder of Londrigan and Lomack was a spur of-the-moment plan. The two men would have proven Steven did not try to kill Ellie, which was the reason they had been taken out.

  The most important question lingered. What had Ellie discovered that had almost cost her her life? And by whom?

  She had been tortured. No one would have taken the chance of moving her at that point. It would be too risky. A small traffic violation and it was over.

  Where had she been?

  When the answer came, he knew he was right. Greyton! She must have been there all along.

  Steven picked up the phone and called Banacek. As soon as the sheriff came on the line, he identified himself and said, “We may be able to find out who tried to kill Ellie. I need the names of all the owners of the vacation homes at Lake Pompton. Can you do that for me?”

  “Why bother?” Banacek asked, his voice cold. “It’s over Morrisy. You screwed it up. We’re finished with games. We found it.”

  “Found what?” Steven asked, stunned by Banacek’s change in attitude.

  “The ring. Just where you left it. It’s always the little things that get you in the long run. Goddamn you, Morrisy, I believed in you!”

  Steven’s mind raced. He knew this was just another piece of the frame, but he had to make Banacek accept that too. “Where did you find it, Sheriff?”

  “You tell me.”

  Steven closed his eyes. He pictured his mother, and then Helene Latham. “On the window sill over the kitchen sink.”

  “At last we get some truth. She must have taken it off to wash the dishes. You never gave her a chance to put it back on.”

  “You’re forgetting something, Sheriff. She didn’t take her ring off—she couldn’t. Remember those gouges on her knuckle? The ring was too small. It was taken off, forcefully, and put on the window sill to tighten the noose around my neck.”

  “But you knew where it would be.”

  “What does your wife do before she does the dishes?”

  “She—”

  Steven cut him off. “Just work that idea over in your mind before you ask for extradition on me. Call those two FBI agents. They searched my house when I was at the hospital. It had to be them: ask them about the ring. And Sheriff, get me that land list.”

  Banacek’s voice was no longer distant, but Steven still sensed the sheriff’s doubt. “Where can I reach you?”

  “You can’t, I’ll reach you. I’ll also have someone call you tomorrow to back up what I’ve told you.”

  “And who will that be?”

  “Ellie’s sister,” he said, and hung up.

  He leaned back, the surge of energy following the shower drained. He looked at his watch. It was two o’clock. He could no longer deny his need for sleep. He went over to the bed and lay down next to Carla.

  He was almost asleep when the elusive tendril of what he had been searching for came out. His eyes snapped open. He stared at the pattern of shadows on the ceiling and had his answer.

  He felt stupid, betrayed by his own inability to have seen the obvious, which was all too obvious now.

  He was the key, as Grange had said. Except, he was far more. Ellie was coincidental. What happened to her had no real bearing on him. Ellie was a fortunate event for the mole, and the mole had used her to his advantage.

  He no longer doubted the mole was either someone in Pritman’s office, or someone close to one of the people there. If Ellie hadn’t discovered the mole, if there had been no Secret Service investigation, Steven would still be in danger.

  That was why Ellie was in Lake Pompton. As he’d thought, they wanted her body found in the spring. Which, Steven realized, was the most important factor. The frame-up wasn’t about what was happening today, what happened yesterday, or even what would happen tomorrow. It had to do with the spring.

  Why? What exactly was supposed to happen in the spring, and why did the mole want him out of the picture then?

  Chapter Twenty-six

  In the private dining room, three floors above Amos Coblehill’s office, Julius Axelrod pushed aside his half-eaten breakfast. His appetite had been declining steadily for months, exactly as the doctors had predicted. However, while his health was out of his hands, Steven Morrisy’s fate wasn’t—not yet.

  Axelrod reached the hospital just before the helicopter brought Grange in. As they prepped Grange for surgery, Axelrod listened to the man’s report.

  The director had stayed at the hospital until Grange was out of surgery and had personally received the surgeon’s report. The bullet in his side had passed though without damaging organs; all but one of the other wounds were relatively minor. The bullet that had done the most serious damage, entered Grange’s thigh, hit the bone, and was then deflected downward shattering his knee.

  The doctors would rebuild the knee, but Paul Grange would never again have the full use of his left leg. His career as a field operative was over.

  Axelrod rubbed a tired hand across his eyes. He looked at his counterpart in the NSA, and picked up from where he’d left off a few minutes before. “Grange will be on limited duty for several months after he leaves the hospital.”

  “At least he’ll be leaving the hospital,” Coblehill said. “Too bad about his knee, though.”

  “Yes,” Axelrod agreed. “Perhaps it’s timely. Grange’s potential is far and above that of a field agent.”

  Coblehill motioned the lone steward for more coffee. “Are you still of the opinion that Grange’s most propitious use of the situation was in letting Morrisy and Statler run, even in light of what happened to the other four men?”

  “Categorically,” Axelrod replied. “Amos, it wasn’t the mole who took out Witt and Jamison and their backups, it was Anton. Just in case you missed the irony of it, it was Morrisy, not our people, who took out Anton and his colleague. And that, with luck, leaves our mole without any backup.”

  Axelrod paused when the steward refilled their coffee cups. When the man walked out of earshot, he continued. “Whoever our mole is, he has a thorough working knowledge of our security apparatus and operations. Grange witnessed it last night; and, by our allowing Morrisy to control the scenario, we have a damn good chance of pulling the mole into the open. Morrisy’s way will be spontaneous, without pattern.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Pittsburgh, the Lexon hotel. We have a five-man spotting team on them.”

  <><><>

  Steven and Carla were, up, dressed, and had ordered breakfast by seven. Steven chose a rear table affording a view of everyone coming into the hotel’s coffee shop. Although uneasy being out in public, he had to know if anyone had made them yet.

  “I guess I was wrong,” Carla said, putting her coffee cup down.

  “About?”

  “You. You haven’t forgotten much since Vietnam. There hasn’t been a person coming in here that you missed.”

  “Natural caution,” Steven said easily. “I want to see the faces. Just in case we see them again, later.”

  Carla took another sip of coffee. As she lowered the cup, she asked, “What did you do in Nam?”

  “Desk work for the most part—screening intelligence reports. Occasionally I went into the field.”

  “As an operative?”

  Steven mulled at the question. “I was trained as a full field agent. I went through the regular Military Intelligence training, and then some special CIA schools.”

  Carla’s head bobbed once. “That’s what Paul meant last night, about your training.”

  Steven shrugged without elaborating.

&nbs
p; “What made you go into law?”

  “Jack Rittenban. He lived two houses down from me,” he said as the waitress arrived with their food. When she left, he spread marmalade on his toast, took a bite and swallowed. “He was a funny man, tall and gawky. His clothing always hung loosely and he used to stoop over to talk to most people. He was a warm and kind man. We walked our dogs together, in the evenings. He would tell me what it was like to be a lawyer, and how important it was to be able to help people.” Steven smiled at the warm memories of his youth. Jack Rittenban had been, in many ways, Steven’s surrogate father. In high school and during the summers, Steven worked in Mr. Rittenban’s office. He’d even done a little clerking for him, in his senior year.

  Steven shook his head, glanced around the restaurant, and took another bite of toast. “When we got home, after Nam, things were hard. It was a bad time for anyone who’d been over there. I needed to do something, something I could still believe in. I could believe in law, the way Jack Rittenban practiced it.”

  “Did Savak and Latham feel that way too?” she asked, scooping out a grapefruit section.

  “Dirty is how we felt. I remember the first time we met, after our discharges. It was in Greyton. We went to a local joint and did our best to get drunk.”

  “Was that when you and Savak decided to get involved in politics?”

  “No,” Steven said, breaking the yoke of an egg with the toast. He studied the broken yoke for a moment, watching the orange yellow yoke spread in channels before looking up at Carla. “Politics came later. Arnie went back to school for his masters’ degree in political science. He wanted—still wants—to change the way we were trained to think about war, as well as how we deal with other countries.”

  “I’m surprised Latham didn’t join you two as well.”

  “Only because you don’t know him. Chuck was never political. After Nam he was even less. He loathed what happened there and here as well. He couldn’t understand how the people at home could be so callous to the ones who’d fought in Southeast Asia. I’m not sure he’d ever thought about becoming a doctor until after Nam.

  “Within months of coming home, Chuck decided to go into medicine. He graduated college, and went on to medical school.”