Official Privilege

by P. T. Deutermann

  There was another pause while Grace and Dan digested this theory.

  “Well, if that’s true,” Grace said, “it means this g_uy Ward made the first phone call. Why didn’t he just give you a name? And how did you get Ward’s name?”

  “That’s two questions. Question one: That isn’t how it’s done in this town. You want to get somebody in trouble in Washington, you launch an interesting question, not an accusation. You make an accusation, the accusee denies it, it’s over. You ask a question, somebody besides the accusee gets into the game of answering.

  Much more effective. Second question: We backtraced the phone number to Ward and the address on Capitol Hill. I’ve also spoken to a friend in our Frauds Division. He’s got a stakeout going on another matter up near the Capitol building. I’ve asked him to shift some assets over to Ward’s street, just a couple of hours each night, for the next three nights, see if we get a reaction. If this guy Ward is a player, he’ll tumble to the stakeout, and then maybe we can spook him into doing something.”

  “Like what?” Dan asked.

  “Shit, I don’t know. Something. Way I see it, something’s come unglued among those involved with the Hardin killing. Probably because someone found the body. But we got what looks like the players starting to snipe at one another. We got jackshit for evidence that there was even a crime in Elizabeth’s death, and similarly jackshit for leads in her brother’s death. So when you got nothin’, you shake the bushes, see what scuttles out, right? Hell, I’m open to any bright ideas. Anyone?”

  Grace didn’t know what to say, and Dan was silent on his end.

  “Okay, then, that’s where I’m at, too. I’m going to target this guy, run the standard traps, see what else we can come up with. I’m doing that on my own hook, remember—I was kind of told to drop this thing. Getting tips in helps, but …”

  “Is there anything you’d like us to do?” asked Grace.

  “Or, actually, me to do? You and Dan are in similar boats.”

  “No,” Vann said emphatically. “Not until I know lots more about this guy Malachi Ward. Again, if he’s what I think he is, he’s not somebody you want to meet; some of these guys play very rough. Commander, you get any feedback from your end, let me know, okay?”

  “You got it, Captain.”

  “All right. That’s it for now. And, folks, I appreciate the help. I think you’ve both figured out that this is more personal than official business for me right now, okay? I just want you to know I really appreciate it. Be cool. And lock your doors.”

  on friday noon, Malachi sat in his kitchen, staring down the hallway.

  Two days. He had called the captain’s contact number Wednesday afternoon, and there had been no reply. The captain had said they were going to break off communications unless something important came up.

  Malachi had nothing important to report, but he had wanted to see if the captain would call back.

  Two days of silence had confirmed that his little phone call from the Metro Center had probably had the desired effect. But the question now was, What were they up to? He got up again and walked around the ground floor of the house, checking the deserted noonday street through the curtained windows, looking for anything different. His antennae were prickling, but that was only natural. He’d thrown some shit in the game, and now there was a reaction, or at least what looked like one. The captain wasn’t returning his calls. There was probably some heat building up in the Navy, and the captain didn’t want to be in touch with his hired hand just now. He went back to the kitchen and eyed the whiskey bottle.

  Nope, not now. His head still hurt from what he had done Wednesday night, and that was thirty-six hours ago. If there was something stirring, he couldn’t afford to be screwed up. Might have to move here; might have to move fast. He suddenly felt an irresistible, instinctive urge to get out of the house. He got up and checked the locks all around, then went out the back door to the garage, carrying his windbreaker and a pair of dark glasses. Walk or drive? Walk. In a city, a car was a trap.

  On foot, he could disappear into any alley, building, backyard, or, best yet, into any Metro station. He squeezed between the F-250 and the garage wall and peered through the line of dirty windowpanes across the electric garage door. Looked like an alley. Maybe he was being stupid, panicking over a phone that didn’t ring, getting the d. t.’s from too much Harper. Maybe.

  Maybe not. He went back through the garage and around to the gate in the back fence, slipping on the windbreaker and the glasses. He cracked the back gate and looked out. Nothing. Still looked like an alley, with its collection of trash containers and the line of tilting, weed-bordered wooden fences. Looked perfectly normal.

  He could see down two blocks’ worth of alley in either direction.

  Nothing unusual. The sounds of light traffic from Constitution and East Capitol Street. A trash truck grinding through its urban delicacies somewhere nearby. A dog barking.

  He stepped out and turned towards A Street, went down one more block through its alley, and then left when he got to Constitution, which in his neighborhood was just a two-lane street, albeit one with reversible lane controls for rush hour. He walked up Constitution Avenue toward Capitol Hill and then turned left onto Second Street behind the Supreme Court building. He turned left again onto East Capitol and finally ended up on his own street. There was little traffic in this neighborhood at noon; it was not a kids and moms area, with most of the gentrified town houses being owned or rented by professional associations, independent lobbyists, and staffers on the Hill or at the Library of Congress.

  Only thing moving on Capitol Hill at noon are congressmen and criminals, he thought, sensing a distinction without a difference. And lovers. As he neared his own block, he saw a distinguished-looking older man and a very pretty young woman coming down the other side of the street, so engrossed in each other that Malachi could have been naked, for all they would have noticed. A congressman hard at work, or working on getting hard, he mused as the couple turned down some steps to a basement flat in a town house.

  At the intersection leading into his own block, he crossed the street and walked past his own duplex on the opposite side of the street, looking for anything unusual, strange cars, telephone trucks, vans, any signs of a surveillance. Nothing. Wall-to-wall cars, of course— parking was a constant war up on the Hill. But not a damn thing out of place: The birds were singing, the trees were blooming, the politicians were in rut, the streets were empty, and the captain wasn’t returning his calls.

  He kept walking, down to the end of the block, turned left, then left again into his alley, where he reentered his house via the back gate. He was actually sweating a little. Goddamn booze. Summer coming, hateful summer in Washington, D. C., which was nothing but a damn swamp, anyway.

  That little voice intruded again as he unlocked the kitchen door: Get clear, Malachi; get outta Dodge. This Hardin thing is bad news, definitely not business as usual, and you’re starting to play in a game that’s out of your league.

  That last thought made him pause on the back steps: Up to now, he’d been content to be the hired hand, letting the principals and their EAs call the shots—if things got screwed up, he simply waited for new instructions.

  But making that phone call had been something new: He had made a move all on his own, and now the big guys were meeting behind closed doors.

  He went inside and checked the machine. Ah, the light was blinking. He pressed the play button and listened to the machine record the sound of a telephone being hung up, followed by a dial tone. That was all.

  Somebody doesn’t like answering machines. Or somebody was checking to see if he was in the house. A call like that was often the precursor to a burglary in this city. The difference was that, in Washington, it wasn’t always a crook checking out the house. He canvassed the windows again, but the streets were still empty. But the phone call had solidified a decision he had been kicking around all morning: Arlington.

 
For years, he had kept the essentials prepositioned in the apartment: money, a couple of weapons, clothes, some elementary first-aid stuff, as well as two telephone lines. Okay.

  He’d spend the afternoon sanitizing his side of the house; the duplex next door didn’t need it. He would load the truck up with some odds and ends, some bottles of Harpers mostly, and bail out after dark, after rush hour. He’d have to get an additional parking spot at the Randolph Towers for the truck, but they were always accommodating.

  He began to prowl through the house, examining it from a cop’s point of view, doing a preliminary search.

  He gathered up papers, tax records, his phone logs, mail, checkbooks, laundry slips—all the day-to-day minutiae that would flesh out a police report if they came in to search the place. The longer he worked, the more certain he became that going to ground was the right move. Maybe it was just that he was doing something instead of just sitting around. But the next trick would be to find out what exactly was going on.

  late friday afternoon, Dan was walking down the fifth corridor on his way back from a two-hour long, tailbone paralyzing, brain-desiccating action-officer meeting in JCS. He had stayed conscious only by daydreaming about the pleasure of Grace’s company last night. They had done a movie and pizza, and had enjoyed themselves thoroughly. He was thinking about her when he ran into Yeoman Jackson bopping down the passageway. Jackson stopped him.

  “Yo. Commander Collins. Captain Summerfield said that the VCNO’s EA is lookin’ for you. But he say you gotta talk to him first, before you go see the man.”

  “Wonderful,” Dan said. He looked at his watch: 4:45.

  There went his river time. “How long ago was this?”

  “Oh, ‘bout half hour, maybe less.”

  “Okay. You shoving off for the day?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s Friday, which means it’s fly day. I’m gone. Say, it true what Colonel Snapper been sayin’?

  That you going’ to Egypt?”

  “Egypt?”

  “Yeah. Colonel Snapper, he hear about you havin’ to go see the VCNO’s main man, he say you getting’ orders to east Egypt. We got bases in Egypt?”

  “No, Jackson. What the colonel is implying is that I’m about to be sent far away for pissing off the VCNO’s EA.”

  Jackson considered this for a few seconds, then shook his head. “He wasn’t implyin’ nothin’,” he declared.

  “He was just flat sayin’ it, you know? Well, I gotta split.

  I’ll see you Monday, you still here.”

  “Thanks a heap, Jackson,” Dan said, but Jackson was already headed down the hall. Dan threaded his way through the departing stream of civil servants as he turned left into the E-ring corridor. After 4:30, it was mostly uniforms left in the building; civil servants had to be paid overtime if they stayed late. He got to Op614 and found the door locked. He punched in the cipher code and went in, where he found the office empty, although not secured for the day. The sign-out board above Jackson’s desk was, as usual, several days out of date.

  He went back to his desk and put the JCS starring papers into his safe.

  There was a yellow message impaled on the pen of his desk set: “See RADM-sel Ran dall when you get back, but talk to 614 first.” The message was initialed by Snapper at time 1620, so this had been written just twenty-five minutes ago. The captain and Snapper must have been called out. Without knowing where they had gone or for how long, he had to decide: Should he wait for Summerfield to get back or answer the summons from Randall?

  The phone rang. He debated answering it. It might be the VCNO’s office, or it might be Summerfield trying to catch him. So what’s it gonna be, Commander, he thought, the lady or the tiger? He picked up the phone.

  “OP-Six-fourteen, Commander Collins speaking, sir.”

  “Commander this is Senior Chief Batzel in the VCNO’s office. Did you get the message that Rear Admiral-select Randall wants to see you, sir?”

  Shit. The tiger. “I just walked back into the office from JCS, Chief. I have the message in my hand.”

  “Yes, sir. Now might be a real good time to respond, Commander.”

  “This gonna be one of those horizon-expanding sessions, Senior Chief?”

  There was a pause on the other end. “Well, sir,” the chief said, as if he were giving the matter great thought, “expanding is probably a good word. But maybe not your horizon. Sir.”

  Dan laughed. “Okay, Senior Chief. I’ll go get my asbestos Skivvies. Tell the EA I’m on my way.”

  “Aye, aye, Commander.”

  Dan hung up the phone and locked up his safe. He checked around the office to make sure there were no egregious security violations in full view, then left a note for Summerfield that he had zigged when he should have zagged. He checked to see that the door was locked behind him and headed up the E-ring. He stopped by the OP-06 front office to see if Summerfield might be there, but the chiefs there had not seen him.

  Captain Manning was not in evidence, and it looked like the DCNO and the ADCNO were also out of the office. He remembered that the DCNO would probably be with the CNO down at the JCS meeting in the Tank.

  A minute later, he walked into the VCNO’s front office.

  The aide was there, but Randall was not in evidence.

  The VCNO’s inner office door was, as usual, closed.

  Dan walked over to the aide’s desk.

  “I’m Commander Collins. I got a message to come see Captain Randall,” he said.

  “Rear Admiral-select Randall is in conference with the VCNO,” the aide replied without looking up from the staff paper he was marking up.

  “He’ll be with you shortly, Commander.”

  “Thanks a bunch,” Dan said. From the other side of the office, the senior chief rolled his eyes and indicated the lone chair by the front door. Dan sat down to wait, but he had barely crossed his legs when the VCNO’s inner office door opened and Captains Randall and Manning came out. Randall saw Dan and stopped.

  “About time, Collins. Senior Chief, give me the keys to the visiting flag office.”

  The senior chief fished out a set of keys as Dan stood up. Manning was giving him the fish eye but said nothing.

  Randall walked out the front door, across the corridor, and unlocked a plain glass-fronted door across from the VCNO’s office. He went in and turned on the lights, followed by Manning, who indicated over his shoulder that Dan should follow. Dan closed the door behind him and stood in a small vestibule office. Beyond was a much larger office equipped with a desk, a small conference table, a sofa and some chairs, and a bank of telephones on the desk. Dan knew that these offices were used when flag officers were summoned from around the world to come see the senior admirals in Opnav. Randall sat down behind the desk, while Manning stood to one side.

  “Commander Collins,” Randall began in a voice about one decibel below a controlled shout, “I thought I made myself fairly clear the last time we talked about the Hardin case. Now I’m finding out that you don’t listen so well.”

  “Sir?” Dan said. He wanted to see what the beef was before saying anything, especially with the way Ran dall’s face was getting red.

  “Sir, indeed,” Randall yelled. “Goddamnit, why are you still involving yourself in the Hardin investigation?”

  “I’m not, Captain.” With the shades drawn across the windows, the harsh fluorescent lighting made the room look like an interrogation room, despite all the fancy furniture.

  “Oh, but we have reason to believe that you are, Commander,” Randall said, leaning back in the armchair.

  “Admiral Torrance himself told me so. You wouldn’t dispute the word of the vice chief, now would you?” Summerfield. He said he might go see his classmate, Dan thought.

  “I handed the Hardin investigation over to you, Captain,” Dan replied, trying to keep his own voice calm.

  “You purportedly gave it back to NIS. I’ve not been involved in the investigation, per se, since that time. I was asked by t
he Washington D.C. Police to make a recommendation as to what they should do with a tip received on the other Hardin case.”

  “What other Hardin case?” Manning asked, speaking for the first time.

  Randall looked annoyed at the interruption but held his tongue.

  “The lieutenant’s sister,” Dan replied. “She was also a Navy lieutenant, a PAO type. She was killed in a traffic accident in Washington about two weeks before Lieutenant Hardin disappeared. That was two years ago. To my knowledge, it was nothing directly to do with the homicide case.”

  Manning looked at Randall, who was staring at Dan.

  “And what did you tell the D.C. police?” asked Randall.

  “I told them they had to give it to NIS, who has the investigation now.

  Except—”

  “Yes? Except what?” Randall leaned forward, concentrating.

  Dan felt himself beginning to perspire; this man focused on you like a snake.

  “Well, sir, the nature of the tip. It was an anonymous phone call that implied that It. Elizabeth Hardin— that’s the sister—was having an affair or was otherwise involved with an admiral and that their relationship was connected somehow to Lieutenant Hardin’s murder.”

  “And you don’t think that has a bearing on a murder case?” Manning asked.

  “I’m not working on a murder case anymore, Captain,” Dan said innocently. “I have no way of telling if it’s related. Before we handed over the case—”

  ” ‘We’? Who’s we?” Randall interrupted.

  “Miss. Snow, from NIS, and I. We examined the Traffic Bureau report of the hit-and-run accident, but there were no indications it was anything but an accident.”

  “What else did the police ask you to do?”

  “Nothing,” Dan lied. “I told them there was nothing else I could do, that they should hand the tip over to the Navy. I did come back and tell Captain Summer field.”

  “Yes, we know about that,” Randall said, his voice coming down a notch.