Total Control

by David Baldacci

  "Okay, I'm following you."

  "So if his wife thought he was on that plane, maybe on the initial leg of his getaway run, then that would jibe with her being despondent over the plane crash. She really thinks he's dead."

  "But the money?"

  "Right. If Sidney Archer knew what her husband had done, maybe had even helped him pull it off somehow, she would want to get her hands on the money. It would help get her over her grief, I'm thinking. Then she sees the bag on TV."

  "But what could be in the bag? Not the cash."

  "No, but it could have been something to point her in the direction of the money. Archer was a computer whiz. Maybe the location of a computer file on a floppy where all the info on the money is stored. A Swiss bank account number. An airport locker key card. It could be anything, Ray."

  "Well, we didn't find anything remotely like that."

  "It wouldn't necessarily be in that bag. She saw it on TV and thought she could get her hands on it."

  "So you really think she was in on this thing from the get-go?"

  Sawyer sat back down wearily. "I don't know, Ray. I've got no strong feeling either way on it." That wasn't exactly true, but Sawyer had no desire to discuss certain disturbing thoughts with his partner.

  "So what about the plane crash? How does that tie in?"

  Sawyer's response was abrupt. "Who knows if it does? They could be unrelated. Maybe he paid to have it sabotaged to cover his tracks.

  That's what Frank Hardy thinks happened." Sawyer had stepped over to the window while he was speaking. What he saw on the street outside made him want to end the phone call quickly.

  "Anything else, Ray?"

  "Nope, that's it."

  "Good, because I gotta run." Sawyer hung up the phone, manned the camera himself and started clicking away. Then he stepped back to the window and watched while Paul Brophy, looking searchingly up and down the street, climbed the steps of the LaFitte Guest House and went inside.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The typical noise and merriment usually associated with Jackson Square would have made a stark contrast to the more modest proceedings of the Quarter at 'this time of the morning. Musicians, jugglers and unicyclists, tarot card readers and artists ranging in talent from superb to mediocre competed for the attention and dollars of the few tourists who had braved the inclement weather.

  Sidney Archer walked in front of the triple-steepled St. Louis Cathedral on her way to find food. She was also following her husband's instructions: If he had not contacted her at the hotel by eleven ^.M. she was to go to Jackson Square. The bronze equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, which had lent dignity to the square for the last 140 years, loomed large over her as she made her way to the French Market Place on Decatur Street. She had visited the city several times before, during her college and law school days when she had been young enough to survive Mardis Gras and even to enjoy and participate in its atmosphere of drunken extravagance.

  Minutes later she sat near the riverfront sipping hot coffee and biting unenthusiastically into a fluffy, butter-filled croissant, idly watching the barges and tugs along the mighty Mississippi as they made slow progress toward the enormous bridge in the near distance.

  Within a hundred yards of her, on either side, were positioned teams of FBI agents. Listening equipment discreetly pointed in her direction was capable of capturing virtually every word spoken by or to her.

  For a few minutes Sidney Archer remained alone. She quietly finished her coffee and studied the muscular river with its rain-swollen banks and stiff whitecaps.

  "Three dollars and fifty cents says I can tell you where you got your shoes."

  Sidney collapsed out of her brown study and stared up at the face.

  Behind her the teams of agents slightly stiffened and edged forward.

  They would have surged toward her at full sprint when the man began to approach except that the speaker was short, black and close to seventy. This was not Jason Archer. But it still might be something.

  "What?" She shook her head clear.

  "Your shoes. I know where you got your shoes. Three-fifty if I'm right. A free shine for you if I'm wrong." His snow-white mustache hung over a mouth largely absent of teeth. His clothes were more rags than anything else. She also observed the battered wooden shoe shine kit resting on the bench beside her.

  "I'm sorry. I'm really not interested."

  "Come on, lady. Tell you what, I'll throw in the shine if I'm right, but you still got to come up with the money. What's to lose? You get a great shine for a very reasonable price."

  Sidney was about to refuse him again until she saw the ribs sticking through the worn, gauzy shirt. Her eyes drifted over his own shoes, from which bare and heavily callused toes protruded at several spots. She smiled and reached inside her purse for money.

  "Uh-uh, don't do it that way, lady. Sorry. Got to play the game or we don't do business." There was more than a small reserve of pride in his words. He started to pick up his box.

  "Wait a minute. All right," said Sidney.

  "Okay, you don't think I can tell you where you got your shoes, do you?" he said.

  Sidney Archer shook her head. She had purchased them at an obscure store in southern Maine a little over two years ago. It had since gone out of business. There was no way. "Sorry, but I don't think so," she replied.

  "Well, I'm gonna tell you where you got those shoes." The man paused dramatically and then almost cackled as he pointed down.

  "You got them on your feet."

  Sidney joined in his laughter.

  In the background, the two agents holding listening devices couldn't help but smile.

  After performing a mock bow to his audience of one, the old man knelt down in front of Sidney and prepared her shoes for polishing.

  He chatted away amiably while his dexterous hands soon turned her dull black flats to lustrous ebony.

  "Nice quality, lady. Last you a long time if you take care of them.

  Nice ankles to go with them too. That never hurts."

  She smiled at the compliment as he rose and repacked his box.

  Sidney pulled out three dollars and rummaged in her purse for change.

  He looked at her. "That's okay, ma'am, I got plenty of change," he said quickly.

  In response she handed him a five and told him to keep the difference.

  He shook his head. "No way, no sir. Three-fifty was the deal and three-fifty it is."

  Despite her protests, he handed her back a crumpled single and a fifty-cent piece. When her hand closed around the silver, she felt the small piece of paper taped to its underside. Her eyes bulged at him.

  He merely smiled and tipped the brim of his raggedy cap. "Nice doing business with you, ma'am. Remember, take care of those shoes."

  After he moved off, Sidney quickly put the money away in her purse, waited for several minutes and then got up and walked off as casually as she was able.

  She made her way back over to the French Market Place and into the ladies' room. In one of the stalls her quivering hands unfolded the paper. The message was short and in block print. She reread it several times and then promptly flushed it down the toilet.

  Making her way up Dumaine Street toward Bourbon, she paused and opened her purse for a moment. She made a show of briefly checking her watch. She looked around and noted the pay phone attached to a brick building that housed one of the largest bars in the Quarter. She crossed the street, picked up the phone and, calling card in hand, punched in a series of digits. The number she was calling was her private line at Tyler, Stone. She was bewildered, but the piece of paper had told her to do it, and she had no choice but to follow those instructions. The voice that answered after two rings did not belong to anyone at her law firm, nor was it her recorded voice announcing her absence from the office. She could not know that the call had been diverted from her office to another number located nowhere near Washington, D.C. She was now trying to remain calm while Jason Arche
r's voice quietly drifted over the telephone line.

  The police were watching, she was told. She was not to say anything, especially not mention his name. They would have to try again. She was to go home. He would contact her again. The words were spoken in a supremely tired manner; she could almost feel the incredible strain in the timbre. He ended by saying that he loved her. And Amy. And that everything would be worked out. Eventually.

  With a thousand questions assailing her that she was in absolutely no position to ask, Sidney Archer hung up the phone and walked off toward the LaFitte Guest House, deep depression seemingly hitched to every one of her strides. With a supreme effort at self-control, she held her head up and attempted to walk normally.

  It was incredibly important not to reflect in her physical appearance the utter terror she was feeling inside. Her husband's obvious fear of the authorities had undermined her belief that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. Despite her intense joy at knowing he was alive, she wondered at what price that joy had come to her. In this far, she had to keep going.

  The recording machine was clicked off and the telephone receiver was removed from the special receptacle in the machine. Next, Kenneth Scales rewound the digital tape. He hit the start button and listened while Jason Archer's voice once again filled the room. He smiled malevolently, turned off the machine, took out the tape and left the room.

  "He climbed in the window from the galleria," Sawyer was being informed by an agent stationed on a rooftop overlooking Sidney Archer's lodgings. "He's still in there," the agent whispered into his radio. "You want me to pick him up?"

  "No," Sawyer answered, peering out through the blinds onto the street. The surveillance devices installed next door to Sidney's room had told them what Paul Brophy was up to. He was searching her room. Sawyer's earlier thought of an assignation between the two law partners had obviously been way off the mark.

  "He's leaving now. Going out the back way," the agent reported suddenly.

  "Good thing," Sawyer replied as he spotted Sidney Archer coming down the street. After she had reentered the LaFitte Guest House, Sawyer ordered a team of agents to tail a disappointed Paul Brophy, who was walking down Bourbon Street in the other direction.

  Ten minutes later Sawyer was informed that Sidney Archer had placed a call from a pay phone during her morning breakfast walk.

  It had gone to her office. For the next five hours nothing happened.

  Then Sawyer snapped to attention as Sidney Archer walked out of the LaFitte Guest House. A white cab pulled up in front of the building and she got in. The cab quickly pulled away.

  Sawyer hurtled down the stairs and in another minute was riding shotgun in the same black sedan in which he had followed Sidney from the airport. He was not surprised to see the cab swing onto Interstate 10, or pull off at the exit for the airport about half an hour later.

  "She's heading home," Sawyer muttered to no one in particular.

  "She didn't find whatever it was she came here for, that's for sure.

  Not unless Jason Archer turned himself into the invisible man." The veteran FBI man slumped back in his seat as a new and particularly troubling revelation crossed his mind. "She's on to us."

  The driver jerked his head in Sawyer's direction. "No way, Lee."

  "She sure as hell is," Sawyer insisted. "She flies all the way down here, hangs out, then makes a phone call and now she's on her way back home."

  "I know she didn't spot our cover teams."

  "I didn't say she did. Her husband and whoever else is involved in this did. They tipped her and she's going home."

  "But we checked. The phone call was to her office."

  Sawyer shook his head impatiently. "Phone calls can be diverted."

  "But how did she know to call? Something prearranged?"

  "Who knows? She only had that run-in with the shoe shine guy.

  You're sure?"

  "That's it. Played the usual tourist scare on her and then shined her shoes. He was a street person, clearly enough. Gave her her change and that was it."

  Sawyer abruptly eyed the man. "Change?"

  "Yeah, it was a three-fifty shine. She gave him a five. He gave her a buck-fifty back. Wouldn't take her tip."

  Sawyer gripped the dashboard, leaving indentations on the smooth surface. "Damn, that was it."

  The driver looked bewildered. "He only gave her the change back. I got a clear look through my lens. We heard every word they said."

  "Let me guess. He gave her a fifty-cent piece instead of two quarters, right?"

  The man gaped. "How'd you know that?"

  Sawyer sighed. "How many street people you know who would refuse a buck-fifty tip and then happen to have a fifty-cent piece all ready to give as change? And doesn't it strike you as odd in the first place that it was three-fifty for the shine as opposed to three or four bucks? Why three-fifty?"

  "So you gotta make change." The driver sounded depressed now that the truth was dawning on him.

  "Message taped to the coin." Sawyer stared glumly ahead at the rear of Sidney Archer's cab. "Pick up our generous shoe shine man.

  Just maybe he can manage a description of whoever hired him."

  Sawyer wasn't holding our much hope on that one.

  The cars sailed toward the airport. Sawyer endured the short ride in silence, staring out the window at brightly painted jets roaring overhead. An hour later he boarded a private FBI jet for the trip back to Washington. Sidney's nonstop flight had already left. No FBI agents boarded her plane. Sawyer and his men had reviewed the passenger manifest and diligently watched every person board the aircraft. Jason Archer was not among them. Nothing could occur on the flight back, they were confident. They didn't want to tip their hand even more to an already alerted Sidney. They would pick up her trail at National Airport.

  The private jet carrying Sawyer and several other FBI agents accelerated down the runway and lifted off into the dark sky over New Orleans. Sawyer began to wonder what the hell had just happened.

  Why the trip in the first place? It just didn't make any sense. Then his mouth dropped open. The muck had suddenly become just a shade clearer. But he had also made a mistake, maybe a big one.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Sidney Archer sipped her coffee while the beverage cart made its way down the rest of the aisle. She was reaching to pick at the sandwich on her tray when the blue markings on the paper napkin caught her eye. She focused on the writing, a jolt went through her, and she almost spilled her coffee.

  The FBI are not on the plane. We need to talk.

  The napkin was on the right side of her tray and her gaze automatically swerved in that direction. For a moment she couldn't even think. Then recognition slowly came to her. The man was casually drinking his soda while munching on his meal. Thinning reddish blond hair gave way to a long, clean-shaven face that had more than its share of worry lines. The man looked mid-forties and was dressed in chino pants and a white shirt. A six-footer, he had his long legs partly stuck out into the aisle. He finally put down the soda, patted his mouth with a napkin and turned to her.

  "You've been following me," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "In Charlottesville."

  "I'm afraid that's not the only place. Actually, I've kept you under surveillance since shortly after the plane crash."

  Sidney's hand flew to the attendant button.

  "I wouldn't do that."

  Her hand stopped, millimeters from summoning assistance.

  "Why not?" she coldly asked.

  "Because I'm here to help you find your husband," he said simply.

  She finally managed to answer him, her wariness evident. "My husband is dead."

  "I'm not the FBI, and I'm not trying to entrap you. However, I can't prove a negative, so I won't even try. What I will do is give you a telephone number where you can reach me day or night." He handed her a small white card with a Virginia telephone number on it. Otherwise it was blank.

  Sidney looked a
t the card. "Why should I call you? I don't even know who you are or what you're doing. Only that you've been following me. That does not win you confidence points in my book," she said angrily as her fear receded. He couldn't be a threat to her on a crowded plane.

  The man shrugged. "I don't have a good answer to that. But I know your husband isn't dead and you know it too." He paused; Sidney Archer stared at him, unable to say anything. "Although you have no reason to believe me, I'm here to help you, and Jason, if it's not too late."