Official Privilege

by P. T. Deutermann

  Checking again to see that there were no lights on in the house, he walked down the alley to the garage, fished out a set of keys, unlocked a padlock, and swung back the two graffiti-sprayed wooden doors, whose windows had been long since painted over. Nearly filling the garage was the telephone van. Leaving the doors open, he went around to the back of the van and unlocked the back doors. He extracted a set of coveralls emblazoned with the logo of the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company, took off the windbreaker, and put the coveralls on over his street clothes. He fished a white hard hat out of the van, closed the back doors, and opened up the driver’s side.

  The side doors of the van were painted with C & P logos, and there were three radio antennas on the roof.

  The interior of the van behind the front seat was filled with cabinets and shelves, holding nearly all the tools and equipment of a genuine telephone repair truck. Interspersed among all the legitimate telephone company equipment were some interesting devices for gaining access to houses, a long-range video camera, two handguns, a pair of Army FM radios, a receiving unit and tape recorder for inside bug installations, and a flasher unit like the one he had for his Metro truck. He set up the flasher unit on the roof, plugged it in for a quick op test, and then unplugged it. He started the van, drove out into the alley, and stopped. He got back out, looked around one more time to make sure he was not being watched, and closed and locked the garage doors. He then got back in and headed for Wilson Boulevard, where he turned right and then did a U-turn back onto Clarendon, which took him back down toward Rosslyn.

  He checked the glove compartment as he drove down Clarendon Boulevard and found an envelope with about an eighth of an inch of cash wrapped in a rubber band inside. He smiled. He had acquired the van three years ago from another security consultant, who said that he had acquired it from yet another contractor who had been on the Iran-Contra project, working for persons unspecified. Malachi had paid fifteen thousand dollars cash for it and all the equipment, with the understanding that, from time to time, certain parties whose names would remain anonymous might need to use the van. If these certain parties did use the van, they would leave a rental fee, in cash, in the glove compartment.

  So far, he had collected three envelopes in the past three years.

  The van came complete with telephone company registration, which was good enough to withstand a street side examination. The radio was tuned to the dispatch frequencies of the C & P Operations Center, so it could lend some audio credence if a cop was to stop him.

  Completing the outfit was a clip-on badge with an expert forgery of a C & P telephone company identification, complete with picture, which he attached to his coveralls pocket as he drove. And if all that failed and the van was ever picked up, there were two four-inch diameter PVC pipes buried in the shelving structure.

  They contained rotary motion fuses and enough thermite to seriously disrupt a truly intrusive search.

  His major vulnerability would be if another C & P crew was to stop when Malachi was working a project, but so far, that had never happened. He used the van sparingly, usually at night, and was careful to park it out of sight and off any main streets. But it had been an invaluable base of operations for breakins, surveillance, or monitoring operations, all of which were services he offered to his retainer clients, especially some of the larger lobbying firms. It was amazing how many individuals these people were interested in putting under surveillance, and doubly amazing what some of those surveillances had produced. He had one videotape of a State Department official in drag making out in the front seat of a Fiat with a man from the Hungarian embassy. He had considered sending that one into the “funniest home video” show on the TV.

  Earlier that day, he had made a swing down Prince Street in Old Town and confirmed that the woman’s car was parked out in front of Collins’s house. So he should be clear. He drove down Clarendon Boulevard to the high-rise district of Rosslyn and then worked his way down to Key Bridge, crossed the Potomac, and wound his way up through the still-crowded bar, disco, and pub scene of lower Georgetown to Grace Snow’s street. Two cops parked along M Street actually waved at him as he went by, and he dutifully waved back. By 12:40, he was cruising by her house to confirm that her car was not there. Her house was dark, except for a front porch light. Slowing down, he circled the block and came to the alley he had noticed before. Now he could read the sign; it was named Pomander Walk. He slowed way down and turned into the alley, which was lined with diminutive carriage houses and garages converted to living quarters and apartments. The alley ended in a turnaround area right in the middle of the block between P Street and Volta Place, where there was a garage presently being converted into living quarters.

  Keeping the engine quiet, he pulled the van into the turnaround area, backed it up against the scaffolding on an almost-complete brick wall, and shut it down. Putting on his hard hat, he turned on the interior light, rolled down the driver’s side window, turned up the dispatch radio vojume a little, and listened for a couple of minutes while he pretended to scribble something on a clipboard. All the windows of the houses along Pomander were dark, although almost every house had a porch or security light shining into the alley itself. Mala chi sniffed contemptuously at all the lights: To anyone looking into the alley, all those lights shining at one another had the effect of throwing the lower portions of all the houses into deep shadow.

  He had a cover story all set: There was a telephone pole at the very back of the turnaround area, right next to the green wooden gate and the brick wall that, by his calculations, bounded Miss. Snow’s backyard. Her address was 2135 P Street. The green plastic trash receptacle right next to the gate had the number 2135 painted on it. For the first ten minutes or so, he would open the back doors of the truck, turn on the lights in the back of the van, and lay out some equipment. He would take some test equipment over to the amplifier box at the base of the pole and pretend to analyze some kind of a problem. He had to do that long enough to convince anyone who had gotten up to see who was out there that he was legitimate and that he was going to be out there for a while. He wanted any watchers to get bored and go back to bed. There was no sign that anyone was watching, but Malachi had to assume that there was at least one little old lady who was even now peeking out her window at him. He did not want a cop car coming back in here to check him out. If someone did come out to talk to him, he had some electronics mumbo jumbo ready about a sector circuit fault, and he would say that he’d eventually have to climb the pole to find it.

  After twenty minutes of pretending to chase down the sector circuit problem, he put on a climbing harness at the back of the truck, strapped some side spikes to his boots, clipped a satchel of equipment to the harness, and went up the pole. He had done this more than once during surveillance operations, and he knew it was no big deal once you reached the installed climbing spikes about ten feet off the ground. He clung to the pole for about five minutes in front of an equipment panel, casually examining the windows that fronted the turnaround area for faces or other signs of movement.

  From his vantage point, he could also see into the windows of the houses behind the line of brick walls surrounding the turnaround area.

  Everything seemed pretty normal, and there were no dogs, thank God.

  Taking one last look around, he descended the pole to the top of the wall, stepped out onto the wall, and then dropped behind it into the backyard of 2135 P Street.

  He immediately undipped the satchel and dropped it behind the gate, then opened the alley gate and walked back to the truck. If anyone was watching, the drop into the yard would have been suspicious, but not if he came right back out. They’d think the problem must be in that house or yard. He made two more trips through the gate, reappearing each time within a minute. On the first trip, he left a second satchel. On the second trip, a bag of tools went into the yard. He then returned to the front seat of the van and pretended to talk on the radio before getting back out and going back
through the gate, this time leaving it ajar behind him.

  Now he had to move fast. Clutching the three bags, he trotted up to the back door and checked for alarm systems, finding none. Leaving the bags on the porch, he went around to the side of the house and examined the telephone line where it came down from the overhead wire insulator.

  Normal wire, no signs of anti-intrusion cladding; no disturbance pads on the window glass.

  From the back porch, he could see into what looked like the kitchen pantry, but there were no red LED lights. He opened the equipment bag and took out a pair of thin leather gloves and a roll of duct tape. The back door had a window divided into six panes. He bent over the back door and taped over the small square of glass nearest the lock, then broke it with his fist. He extracted the sheet of tape with the shards of glass stuck to it and put it in the bag. Reaching through the broken window, he opened the dead bolt and let himself into the house. He found himself in the pantry, with the kitchen three feet away. He paused to listen, but the house felt empty. He looked back out into the yard, but all was quiet out there, too.

  He figured he had about ten minutes’ stay time in the house. Keeping all the lights off, he made a fast walking tour, using the light from the streetlights out front. He inspected the front and back, upstairs and downstairs, noting the layout of the rooms, where the telephones were, verifying that there were no alarm-system control panels. He moved a small bookcase aside and opened the door to the basement steps, although he did not go down. The stairway was cluttered and obviously not used.

  He took in the tasteful furniture, the thick rugs, and the polished floors. Using a tiny black Maglite, he searched the kitchen for the key rack, finally finding what looked like the spare house key, which he tested in the front and back door locks. He pocketed this key and what looked like the key to the back gate.

  Retrieving the second equipment bag, he went back upstairs to what looked like a spare bedroom, which was being used mostly for storage.

  Getting down on his hands and knees, he shone the flashlight around the baseboards until he found a phone jack. From the bag, he extracted a small white box that had a male telephone connector sticking out of the center. He snapped the connector into the phone jack, felt with his fingernail for a dip switch, and moved the switch. Then he placed two cardboard boxes of what felt like books in front of the wall jack, retrieved the bag, and left the room.

  He stopped in the study area and, again using the tiny flashlight, scanned the paperwork scattered all over the table, taking care to keep the light shielded from the windows. There was a picture of a distinguished looking older man in what looked like a doctor’s coat, and another picture of a very impressive town house.

  The answering machine’s red light was blinking, but he had learned not to touch answering machines after one demanded a code and then sent an alarm signal to a monitoring company when he couldn’t produce the code.

  He touched none of the papers, but he looked through everything that was faceup, which is where he found the notepad with his name on it. He stopped breathing for a moment, but there it was: Malachi Ward, followed by the abbreviation Capt. and the word Army. There were some mostly illegible notes and some doodles on the page, and below them was the word invisible, underlined, followed by the words credit system. But it was the final line of three words that got his immediate attention: Captain. Target. Ward.

  Son of a bitch! he muttered out loud, then quickly looked around as if to see if anyone had heard him. He looked at his watch and then snapped the light off. He went back to the kitchen and checked the backyard windows, but there was still nothing moving. Time to go.

  He went to the pantry and retrieved the third bag, which made a gurgling noise when he picked it up. He placed it on the basement stairway among all the clutter.

  Then he walked out the back door and all the way to the van, where he went through the talk-on the-radio drill. Then he returned to the back door. He knelt down, opened a bag, and took out a measuring tape and a screwdriver-sized wood pry. He pried off the four segments of molding of the broken window and quickly measured the broken pane. Then he went back out to the truck in the alley. He slid into the front seat and pretended once more to talk on the radio for the benefit of any spectators, then returned to the back porch, where he opened the bag containing a taped bundle of windowpanes of various sizes. He fished in it for a pane of approximately the right size. None of the glass was new, so there would be no bright shiny pane among all the older ones.

  Working by the light of the streetlight from the alley, he found one that was pretty close, cut it to size with a glass cutter and wide-mouthed pliers, and installed it with four glass points, using a rubber-tipped screwdriver to set the points. Then he used a tack hammer to renail the molding. He rubbed the edges with a swipe of dust from the pantry shelves so that it would blend right in.

  He put the tools back, made sure he still had the keys, and then closed and locked the back door. He was feeling pretty good now, his breathing strong and deep, and adrenaline running through him like the whiskey did, amplified by a slow fuse of fury in his stomach at what he’d found on that notepad. Captain. Target. Ward. Trust your instincts, Monroney always said. And his instincts had been right the fuck on. Except that now he knew about it. Forewarned, Brother Malachi was not going to be some sitting duck behind the wire. Brother Malachi was going to be out there, beyond the perimeter, in the weeds, ass in the grass, on the move. He had the key, he knew the layout, knew where the phone systems were, and had everything he would need already stashed in the house.

  He walked quickly through the garden to the back gate, where he tested the gate key while still in the shadows of the backyard. It was a latch lock on the inside and a key lock on the outside. Bingo. He went through the gate, closed it, and walked casually to the truck: No utility workmen ever walked fast. He did the talk-on-the-radio drama one last time and then took his time wrapping things up, pretending to check the box at the base of the pole one more time with a repairman’s handset cradled on his shoulder before closing up the truck and driving out of Po-faggoty Walk.

  He started feeling really good as he headed down Volta toward Wisconsin Avenue. He had been right about all that “relax” shit from the captain, right about the surveillance, and right about their being another player. So now she’s probably on a weekend with her pretty-boy officer friend, he mused. A little forty-eight before she gets down to business.

  She’d be back, probably Sunday night. So would he. Then we’ll find out who’s the fucking target, missy. See, I’ve been down your spider hole, Miss. Snow. You’re good-looking and you’ve got money, Miss. Snow, but you sure as shit are no pro, Miss. Snow. Hell, it even had rhythm. He was actually looking forward to it. He smiled a feral smile in the darkness.

  dan drove grace back to Old Town in midafternoon after a late rising at the Ashby Inn and an indulgence in the Ashby’s lush Sunday brunch. They had tried to walk off some of the damage by doing an hour’s worth of window-shopping in Middleburg on the way back, but it had still been a battle to stay awake through the rolling green countryside. From Middleburg, Dan took Route 50 through Aldie before settling reluctantly into the traffic of the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington.

  Dan opted for the GW Parkway rather than the Beltway to get back to Old Town, and the scenic Sunday-afternoon descent along the Potomac palisades provided a perfect cap to a perfect weekend. They did not speak very much as he drove down along the river; instead, they held hands across the front seat of the Suburban.

  Grace did not come in when they got to his house on Prince Street. She gave him a quick kiss and then moved the BMW out to make room for the Suburban before driving away with a wave. Dan went in to change to casual clothes and do last week’s laundry. He was considering a stint on the river to make amends for the weekend’s gluttony when the phone rang. It was Grace.

  “There’s a message from Captain Vann.”

  Dan’s heart sank a l
ittle. The Hardin case had not even crossed his mind since Saturday morning. She picked up on his silence.

  “I know,” she said. “It’s like welcome back to the world, isn’t it? But he’s set us up to talk to Mrs. Hardin —tonight. Both of us, he said. In District Heights, wherever that is. I think it’s Maryland.”

  “Well, sort of,” Dan said. “It’s kind of an extension of Southeast Washington.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, that’s Injun country. We better take my Suburban.”

  “Then you’ll go?”

  “I think we have to. We asked him to set this up. And you’re not going into District Heights at night by yourself, that’s for damn sure. What time?”

  “At seven-thirty. I have the address, and it’s in the street-map book.

  It doesn’t look complicated.”

  He thought about it for a moment. District Heights.

  He realized that he had never even been into the southeastern part of Washington, that area between the actual District line in Anacostia and the Capitol Beltway. “And Vann will be there, right?” he asked.

  “Yes. Look, after what happened Friday, I can—”

  “To hell with them,” Dan interrupted. “I’m getting suspicious about those guys. I sort of understood the political play when this all started, but now that there’s a flag officer involved, there seem to be an awful lot of drawbridges going up all of a sudden. If Elizabeth Hardin confided in her mother, we may actually learn something pretty interesting.”

  “If she’ll really talk to us.”

  “Yeah. Big if. I’ll be over there in an hour.”

  malachi had queried the line monitor in Snow’s house three times that Sunday afternoon. He had a set routine to query the monitor: As soon as the phone started to ring, he would press the pound key. This activated the monitor, which would swallow the ring signal so that the target phone would remain silent. After the second ring signal went out, Malachi punched in a three-digit code, at which point the monitor would respond: one beep for nothing on the tap, two beeps if there was. If the box had something, Malachi would enter a different three-digit code, at which time the monitor would play back what it had on the tape. On the second try, he intercepted Vann’s call to her machine.