Founders' Keeper (A David and Martin Yerxa Thriller - Book 1)

by Ed Markham

  This time, when Martin went over, David heard his father groan as he landed.

  “You all right?” he asked through the fence slats.

  “Just give me the ram,” Martin said, pain present in his voice now.

  David handed it over and joined his father a second later on the other side of the fence. They were now behind 513. The patio was empty save for a coiled length of garden hose. The afternoon sun was still stifled behind high-hanging clouds, and the muted light gave the naked patio cement a sickly appearance, like spoiled milk.

  David looked at his father and saw Martin was wincing and leaning against the fence. “What happened?” he asked.

  “I’m fine. Twisted my knee a bit.”

  David took the ram from him. “Can you move all right?”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  They walked to the back door of the house. Martin was limping, but David didn’t say anything more about it. He knocked twice and his father announced loudly that they were with the FBI.

  There was no answer.

  David pressed his ear to the door. He heard nothing. After pausing for a few seconds, he tried the knob. When the door didn’t open, he gripped the small battering ram in both of his hands and placed its flat face against the door.

  Martin drew his weapon—the same Smith and Wesson semi-auto he’d used to shoot Edith Vereen. The Bureau hadn’t issued the gun since the late eighties, but Martin and some of the older agents preferred it to the newer issue Glocks and Sig Sauers.

  When David looked at the drawn weapon in his father’s hands, Martin said, “Expect the unexpected, respect the unknown. Now break down that goddamn door.”

  Chapter 35

  DAVID SWUNG THE ram back and then forward in two smooth arcs.

  The door splintered open and he stepped to the side as Martin moved quickly into the house with his pistol pointed at the floor, limping as he went. David laid down the ram, pulled his own Sig Sauer P226, and followed his father into the house.

  It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the semi-darkness.

  He was standing in a white-tiled kitchen. The countertops and shelves were bare and the room was bereft of furniture or appointments. The air had a bleach-y, scrubbed-clean aroma that reminded David of his forensic team’s meticulously disinfected labs, though there was also an underlying, musty odor he couldn’t place.

  They stepped cautiously out of the light of the kitchen and through a dining room that was windowless and empty. David could see a trail of footsteps in the dust on the dining room floor leading directly from the front hallway to the kitchen, as though whoever lived in the house hadn’t used the space as anything but a throughway.

  He followed his father down the hallway, which passed alongside the house’s staircase. A door was built into the wall below the stairs, but Martin bypassed this. As they moved toward the front of the house, the light from the kitchen faded and it became difficult to see. Neither man spoke.

  When he reached the front room of the house, which was likewise empty, Martin stopped abruptly.

  “Got something?” David whispered. He moved forward to stand beside his father, but Martin stuck out an arm to prevent him from walking any farther.

  David looked at Martin and followed the older man’s eyes to the front door.

  At first he could see nothing in the dim light. Then he noticed the tubular chunks of orange putty strapped to the edge of the door near the knob and deadbolt. Several wires ran from the putty to a device someone had screwed into the wall. More wires ran down to the floor, where four bricks of the material rested in twin stacks. A yellow light on the device blinked every few seconds, and beeped faintly each time it did so.

  All the air went out of David’s chest. “Looks like semtex,” he said flatly.

  Martin put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. They both stood together for a few seconds, staring at the explosives, then Martin slipped his sidearm back into its holster. “There’s no one here,” he said. “You don’t arm something like that if you’re going to stick around.”

  David walked to the device and bent down to examine it. He stood away from it almost immediately. “There’s a timer on this,” he said as he withdrew his cell phone from his pocket.

  “Jesus,” Martin said, taking a step-back. “How much time?”

  “Forty-eight minutes.” He checked his watch as he held the phone to his ear. “That takes us twenty minutes past the start of Goodman’s rally.”

  A minute later, he was off the phone and both a bomb squad and D.C. Police were en route. “Police will be here in eight minutes to start clearing the neighborhood. Bomb squad will be another fifteen.”

  “Then let’s get a move on,” Martin said. Nodding toward the explosives, he added, “There’s something here worth protecting.”

  David holstered his own firearm and started to move toward the staircase. But before he reached it, he stopped and walked back toward the dining room.

  “I want to make sure there aren’t any surprises underneath those stairs,” he said.

  He walked quickly to the door built into the side of the staircase and pressed his ear to it. He heard nothing. He knew they should wait for the bomb squad, but they didn’t have time for that. He held his breath, looked at his father, and pulled the door open.

  The smell gasped out and repelled him like a strong shove in the chest. He recoiled against the far wall of the hallway and buried his face in the crook of his arm.

  “What is it?” Martin asked, taking a step toward his son and then grimacing as the odor reached him.

  “I don’t know,” David said, coughing. “I don’t recognize it. Not a dead body.”

  He unzipped the pouch in the front of his windbreaker and pulled out a small metal canister. He unscrewed its top and pressed a fingertip into the soft menthol jelly. He swabbed it below each of his nostrils and tossed it to his father.

  The doorway opened on a dark staircase.

  David pulled out his cell phone and turned on its flashlight function. “I don’t want to flip any light switches,” he said.

  Martin nodded and stepped to his son’s side. Staring down into the dark basement, he said, “Into the belly of the beast.”

  Chapter 36

  FROM WHERE SHE stood at the base of the Washington Monument, Lauren could clearly see Philip Goodman’s motorcade as it turned off Constitution Avenue and began making its way along the marked route toward the secure area behind the temporary stage.

  Goodman rode in one of the FBI’s transport SUVs, which was preceded and followed by two more Bureau vehicles as well as half a dozen D.C. Police cruisers.

  All around the motorcade and stretching out on the other side of the monument were throngs of people—tens of thousands packed into the green expanse between the white obelisk and the World War II Memorial, and more still making their way in all the time.

  Lauren could hear a John Philip Sousa march trumpeting from the speakers on either side of the stage, and she saw that many of the spectators were swaying or clapping along with the music. The small area around her was nearly ringed with police officers, FBI agents, and other security personnel.

  Speaker of the House Farnsworth was also present, having arrived just moments before with his own FBI coterie, assigned to keep him from harm’s way. The man heading Farnsworth’s FBI team, Agent Nagy, reported no issues on the way from Farnsworth’s D.C. residence to the event. “Smooth sailing,” he’d told Lauren.

  Where the hell are you, David? she thought now as Goodman’s SUV stopped a few feet from her. She checked her phone again, and saw that she’d missed no calls or texts. Get your ass back here, she thought.

  She looked on as Goodman stepped from his transport vehicle and was greeted by his assistant—a man who had been cleared by security and was introduced to Lauren as Oscar Ramirez. All around them, the fans who could see Goodman began to cheer and call out to him. Lauren scanned the crowd for sudden movements or objects that did
n’t belong, but saw nothing suspicious.

  Goodman’s expression was jubilant, and Lauren looked on as he waved to his fans and made his way toward her and the rear of the stage.

  He looks like the fucking Queen of England, she thought.

  “We’re all set for your entrance, Philip,” she heard Ramirez say to the host. “Everything’s in place and on time.”

  As though on cue, the Sousa march began to fade and the crowd roared with anticipation.

  They’d stressed the importance of getting Goodman on stage as quickly as possible. “I don’t want him on the Mall one damn second longer than he needs to be,” the D.C. Police Captain had said to David and Lauren earlier that morning. “He arrives, does his little dance, and we get him the hell out of here. Him and the speaker.”

  “I agree,” David had said.

  Now Lauren watched as Ramirez handed Goodman a tiny microphone headset attached to a transponder. He fed the microphone’s cord through the back of the host’s jacket and clipped the transponder to his belt. Goodman was so much taller than his assistant that he had to bend at the knees to assist him in this operation.

  When his microphone was in place, Goodman glanced in Lauren’s direction and their eyes met. He squinted at her for a moment as though he couldn’t immediately place her, and then his expression tightened. The smile that had turned up the corners of his mouth as he waved to his fans wavered, and he looked away from her, as though the sight of her reminded him that his life was in danger.

  “You’re all ready to go here, Philip,” she heard Ramirez say. “If something happens with the wireless mike, remember there’s a backup handheld on a stand on the left side of the stage.”

  Goodman nodded and smiled at his assistant.

  “You’ll be great,” Ramirez said. “This is your moment.”

  “My moment,” Goodman repeated. He patted his assistant on the shoulder, then took a few brisk steps toward the back of the stage where Speaker of the House Farnsworth stood watching alongside his FBI security detail.

  Lauren could see Farnsworth was sweating from the heat; his thinning hair was matted to the top of his head.

  The host and the speaker shook hands and exchanged terse greetings and taut smiles.

  No love lost between these two, Lauren thought.

  As the show’s makeup artists dabbed the sweat from Goodman’s brow and applied a few pats of concealer, she heard the airy sounds of piccolos playing the opening notes of Yankee Doodle. She knew from the schedule and planning documents they’d received from Goodman’s staff that there were five players on stage, each dressed in Revolutionary-era soldier’s attire.

  The sounds of the crowd’s cheers grew louder at the change in music, and then quieted as they listened to the humble tune.

  Lauren watched as the host took a moment to glance up at the monument, which towered directly above him. Then he stepped onto the staircase that led to the stage.

  The live piccolo players were joined by a pre-recorded accompaniment of brass instruments. As the recording built in strength and volume, the piccolo players marched off the stage and the crowd’s enthusiasm again began to build. The final note was a triumphant, orchestral blast. As his television program’s theme song burst to life from the loudspeakers and the audience erupted, Goodman walked up the staircase and then out of Lauren’s view.

  “Hello, America!” she heard him shout to his audience. His deep voice elicited a momentous cheer. “And happy birthday to the most important document in our nation’s history! In the world’s history!”

  Where the hell are you, David? Lauren thought again.

  Chapter 37

  THE BASEMENT AIR was thick and hot as David and Martin descended the creaking staircase.

  David bent down as he walked, trying to get a glimpse of the subterranean space. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he saw the room opened up toward the rear of the house. A fuse box hung on the wall in front of him. Its metal door was open, exposing neat rows of circuit breakers.

  “One of the breakers is switched off,” Martin observed from behind him.

  David nodded, and the motion sent small blasts of menthol into his nostrils. A hint of foulness mingled with the minty aroma, like the base notes of a cheap wine. He turned away from the fuse box and peered around the basement. It appeared to span the entire width of the house and half its length. Against one wall stood a rectangular workbench cluttered with items; boxes and a few planks of wood were stacked on either side of the table, along with two sawhorses. Beyond the table, a refrigerator sat silently against the back wall.

  “What do you want to bet that old refrigerator is the source of our smell?” Martin said. “I don’t hear it running. It was probably working too hard in this heat and blew a fuse.”

  Without answering, David walked to the table and extended his phone light over it. The workspace was littered with flat, rectangular blocks of something gray, along with an X-Acto knife, a small scale, draftsman’s pencils, and various measuring instruments. Someone had attached a hand-drawn schematic to the wall above the table. David thought it looked like some sort of electrical design plan.

  He watched as his father picked up one of the rectangular blocks. “Feels like lead,” Martin said before setting it down and turning his attention to the schematic on the wall.

  “For the device on the door upstairs?” David asked, nodding toward the drawing.

  Martin squinted at the sketch. “This section maybe,” he said as he pointed at the top half of the plan. His hand moved to the lower half and he said, “But this looks like something else to me.” He paused and shook his head. “I don’t know. These old eyes can’t make out much of anything in this damn light.”

  David passed the worktable and lifted one of the wood planks away from the wall. It was surprisingly light. “Balsa,” he said. He looked at the sawhorses, recalling the pillory constructed for the murder of Mitchell Cosgrove. He replaced the wood and moved quickly on toward the refrigerator. He moved his phone’s flashlight beam along its handle and door. “I don’t see any wires,” he said.

  Although the menthol salve was doing its job, the air around the refrigerator was heavy with putrescence. He could taste it on the back of his tongue like the residue of cough syrup.

  “Open her up,” Martin said.

  David obliged.

  For a moment, the smell overwhelmed him. He turned away from the refrigerator and felt his stomach roll. He could almost feel the odor on his face and neck, suffocating him with its rank. His mouth had filled with bile, but he spat it out on the floor of the basement and swallowed his urge to vomit. He could hear his father clearing his throat at his side.

  After a few seconds, he was able to turn back toward the refrigerator. He was surprised to find it nearly empty. On one shelf lay three Ziploc bags filled with a semi-solid, milky gray substance. Two of the bags had burst, and their contents had leaked down onto the refrigerator’s lower shelves. The third bag had expanded like a gas-filled balloon. On the uppermost shelf sat four syringes, aligned neatly and capped.

  “What do you think that is?” David asked, nodding toward the Ziploc bags.

  Martin peered into the refrigerator. “Something fishy,” he said, and pointed at the bag that hadn’t broken. “That looks like a fish head to me. Or what’s left of one.”

  “Rotten fugu,” David said. He handed his phone to his father to hold and pulled a latex glove and a plastic baggie from the front pocket of his FBI pullover. He picked up one of the syringes and slipped it into the bag, which he tucked back into his pocket.

  “What for?” Martin said.

  “If something goes wrong while the bomb disposal techs are here, I want to make sure we’ve collected some of this evidence.” He stepped away from the refrigerator and took the schematic down from the wall.

  Taking the phone flashlight back from his father, he moved to the corner of the basement to examine two large foam coolers. The lids of both were still
in place, and he had to bend down to read the writing on their packaging. The labels were a jumble of Eastern-language symbols except for two characters: B-1. When David saw them, he pulled back reflexively.

  “Semtex,” he said. He reached forward and shifted each container. “They’re empty.”

  “That’s a hell of a lot more explosive material than we saw strapped to the front door,” Martin said. “Where’s the rest?”

  A sharp beeping cut through the basement stillness. David flinched, and then realized his cell phone was ringing. He saw the call was from Quantico.

  Omar was breathless and nearly shouting. “Listen David, I just got a call from our people in Georgia. They turned up some misplaced adoption records on Goodman. It turns out his birth parents were killed in a car accident when he was eight, and he was adopted six months later. That’s why we couldn’t find a birth certificate for him.”

  “Go on,” David said. He thought he knew what Omar was about to tell him,

  “Goodman’s new parents changed his name. He was born Philip Leviticus Harney.”

  David turned to his father and started to speak, but Omar interrupted him.

  “That’s not all, David. We found a video on Facebook from some kind of student club gathering near the UVA library last August. You’re not going to believe this.”

  Chapter 38

  NOW THAT GOODMAN was on stage, Lauren joined the head of the SEMU team and his people, who were clustered at a bank of monitors that allowed them to keep an eye on the event’s proceedings.

  Staring at the monitors, Lauren could see the host as well as every section of the audience within seventy-five yards of the stage. Most of the spectators were cheering and applauding and shouting Goodman’s name. Young children sat on their parents’ shoulders, waving American Flags.

  She watched as Goodman strode briskly from one side of the stage to the other, pumping his fists enthusiastically and smiling out at the crowd. “I’m so pleased you’re all here to celebrate with me,” he shouted. “It’s going to be a very special afternoon!”