The second perimeter

by Mike Lawson

  “And a Grey Goose martini, up, with a twist,” Emma said.

  “Will that be a whole martini or half a martini, ma’am?” the waiter said.

  Emma’s eyes flashed at the waiter but when she saw the small smile curving his lips, she smiled back. “You got me,” Emma said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” the waiter said and turned to DeMarco. “And you, sir, what would you like?”

  After their drinks arrived, Emma said, “This doesn’t feel right.”

  “What do you mean?” DeMarco said.

  “Killing Norton and Mulherin. Why now? It’s the timing that bothers me,” Emma said. “Killing those guys the day after we questioned Mulherin draws attention to them. It puts a spotlight on the whole operation and it’s going to make the navy and the Bureau dig harder to find out what they were doing. And that’s the last thing a good control would want.

  “I mean,” Emma said, “why didn’t they wait a while? We didn’t have anything definite on them. Hell, you and I were the only ones who even believed they were spying— until this happened.”

  “I don’t know,” DeMarco said. “We scared Mulherin pretty good. So maybe it’s just like you told him when we ran that bluff: whoever’s running this thing realizes he’s finished here and he’s closing down the operation. Carmody’s probably dead, too.”

  Phil Carmody had disappeared. After DeMarco and Emma had visited the Coast Guard, they went to Carmody’s home and office, but couldn’t find him. Emma alerted the FBI and asked them to start looking for Carmody and was curtly informed that the Bureau was already on the hunt, thank you very much, and that they didn’t need any advice from a couple of civilians. God help them, DeMarco thought, if the Feebies found out what he and Emma had done to spook Mulherin.

  Emma shrugged in response to DeMarco’s comment about Carmody being dead. “Maybe he is,” she said, “but I doubt it. Carmody would be a lot harder to kill than the pirates.”

  They sat in silence until their dinners arrived. The blackened halibut was really good. DeMarco wondered if they’d give him the recipe. As they ate, they talked briefly about what to do about the homeless guy, “Cowboy” Conran, who had been arrested for killing Dave Whitfield. The DNA tests had been completed on the knife found in the bum’s backpack and Whitfield’s DNA had been on the blade, giving the Bremerton cops the last bit of evidence that they needed to nail the poor schizo bastard. It still bothered Emma that Whitfield had been knifed while facing his opponent. “No way,” she said, “would a guy as perpetually on edge as Whitfield let Conran get that close to him. A friend or a woman I could understand, but not some guy who smells like the inside of a tennis shoe.”

  “That FBI agent, the lady, she—”

  “You mean the agent who looks like your ex?” Emma said.

  DeMarco ignored that. “She was looking at one of Whitfield’s neighbors,” he said. “Maybe she’s on the right track.”

  “No,” Emma said. “We’re on the right track. But if we can’t prove that somebody associated with Carmody killed Whitfield, Conran could be convicted.” She paused then added, “Although I suppose Mulherin and Norton getting blown into the afterlife and Carmody disappearing will cast some doubt on the prosecutor’s case.”

  “Yeah, right,” DeMarco said. “I’m sure the United States Navy is going to tell some public defender that Conran’s best defense is the embarrassing possibility that one of their shipyards was penetrated by a bunch of spies.”

  Emma muttered, “So young and so cynical,” then checked her watch and turned to look in the direction of the front door. And at that moment Bill Smith walked in.

  After Smith had been introduced to DeMarco— just a name, no title— Smith flagged down a waiter. “Irish coffee,” he said to the waiter, “with lots of whipped cream.”

  The waiter stared a moment at Smith, studying his face, before saying, “Yes, sir.” The waiter turned to get Smith’s drink, then turned back and opened his mouth to speak.

  “Don’t you dare say it,” Smith said. “Just bring me the drink.”

  “Yes, sir,” the waiter said. DeMarco saw the waiter talking to the bartender, pointing a finger at Smith. Both men started laughing.

  “I thought you weren’t helping us anymore,” DeMarco said.

  “That changed when Mulherin and Norton went to that great fishing hole in the sky,” Smith said. “Now everybody’s helping you. And I’ve got some news for you guys: Carmody was stopped by the highway patrol south of Eugene, Oregon, an hour ago.”

  “You’re kidding,” Emma said. “A cop caught Carmody?”

  “I said the highway patrol stopped him. They didn’t catch him.”

  25

  Carmody had been going ninety miles an hour. Occasionally he’d push the speed up to a hundred. He passed a dozen cars. He tailgated the cars before he passed them, he honked as he passed, and after he passed, he would swerve his vehicle over the lane markers, doing his best impression of a drunk behind the wheel.

  Finally it happened. Behind him, almost half a mile back, he could see blue-and-red lights flashing. Thank God for cell phones. He slowed down to allow the highway patrolman to catch up to him but he didn’t stop; he wanted to be closer to a freeway exit. The officer turned on his siren when Carmody didn’t pull over immediately, and when Carmody still kept going, he pulled up next to Carmody’s car and made an irate motion for him to get off the highway. Carmody looked ahead. The next exit was only a quarter mile away, so he applied his brakes and stopped his car on the shoulder of the highway.

  Since the cop had been chasing him for at least ten minutes, Carmody figured that the officer had had ample time to get his license plate number and radio in to see if the car was stolen or if the driver had any outstanding warrants. The cop would have his name and so would the people in the highway patrol’s communication center.

  The officer exited his vehicle, slamming the door. He was pissed. Carmody opened his door and the cop yelled, “Sir, stay in your vehicle. Do not get out. And put your hands on the steering wheel.”

  “Wha…?” Carmody said, and stepped out of his car.

  “Sir! Get back in your vehicle. Now.” The cop placed his hand on his service weapon but didn’t unholster the gun.

  Carmody took a step toward the cop, then fell to one side as if he’d lost his balance, then leaned against the side of his car, rocking unsteadily. He muttered “Dizzy,” and closed his eyes.

  “Sir, walk to the front of your vehicle and put your hands on the hood.” The cop looked behind him. He was probably afraid that if Carmody tried to walk he’d end up in the middle of the highway and get hit. But Carmody didn’t move. He just continued to lean against his car, his eyes closed, swaying, feigning a drunk on the verge of passing out.

  He heard the cop mutter, “Shit.”

  The cop was now close enough to touch Carmody. He reached out and took hold of Carmody’s upper arm, intending to walk Carmody to the front of his vehicle so neither of them would get run over. But when he touched Carmody, Carmody pivoted on his left foot and drove his fist into the cop’s solar plexus. The cop grunted in pain and bent over, and when he did, Carmody struck the back of his neck with the side of his right hand.

  Carmody reached down and felt the pulse in the cop’s throat. It was strong and the cop was young and looked like he was in good shape. He shouldn’t be out for more than a couple of minutes. Carmody grabbed the man’s wrists and dragged him between the two cars so the cop’s body was hidden by his patrol car. Carmody started to leave, then it occurred to him that if somebody hit the cop’s car from the rear, the cop could get hurt. He went back and pulled the unconscious man to the side of the road, positioning him four or five feet from his patrol car.

  Carmody got back into his vehicle and took the exit just ahead of him. Five minutes later he found a small shopping mall and parked his car next to another vehicle that was a good distance from the stores and other cars. He took a screwdriver out of his glove compartment and in tw
o minutes, switched license plates with the vehicle he had parked next to.

  26

  Emma and DeMarco sat in a small conference room in the FBI’s temporary headquarters in Bremerton. In the conference room with them were the two FBI agents who had originally been assigned to Dave Whitfield’s murder. Diane Carlucci was one of those agents. The other agent, the agent in charge, was a young man named Darren Thayer. Thayer was probably in his thirties, but with his wide-eyed, unlined face he could have passed for a college senior. To make matters worse, he had a cowlick, freckles, and protruding ears. DeMarco just knew that his fellow agents called him Kid or Opie, and no matter how smart and how brave Darren Thayer was, his looks would condemn him to being treated like a rookie for half his career.

  DeMarco had asked the FBI for an update on their efforts to capture Carmody. Thayer knew that DeMarco and Emma had no authority to ask him to do anything, yet at the same time he knew they had clout back in D.C. And since Thayer wasn’t making any progress on the case anyway, he figured why not talk to them, they might help him. It was rare to find an FBI agent willing to talk to outsiders, much less one willing to admit that he needed help. DeMarco knew that just like his youthful face, Darren Thayer would eventually outgrow these good habits.

  Thayer was saying, “Carmody used an ATM in Winnemucca, Nevada, yesterday, one with a surveillance camera. Twelve hours later, he checked into a motel in Buffalo, Wyoming, using one of his credit cards. We got in touch with the locals there and asked them to detain him, but by the time they got to the motel, he’d split. They said it didn’t even look like he’d used the room.”

  “And I suppose you have no idea where he’s going or what he’s driving,” DeMarco said.

  “No,” Thayer said. “He abandoned his own car in Nevada after he used the ATM. We don’t know what he’s using for transportation.”

  “Do you have an atlas here?” Emma asked Thayer. “A Rand Mc-Nally. A U.S. road atlas.”

  “I’ll get one,” Diane Carlucci said.

  DeMarco, dog that he was, watched Diane’s butt as she walked over to a nearby desk. Nice butt. When Diane turned back with the atlas in her hand, she gave DeMarco a little wink and a smile. Nice smile. Emma had accused DeMarco of asking for the meeting just because he wanted to see Diane again. DeMarco, naturally, pretended to be offended that Emma would think he’d act so unprofessionally.

  Emma took the atlas from Diane, opened it to a page that showed the entire country, and studied it for a couple of minutes. “Carmody’s moving in a circle,” she said. “South to Oregon, east into Nevada, then north to Buffalo, Wyoming. It almost looks like he’s looping back here. But why in the hell would he be using his credit cards and bank machines? He has to know we can use those things to locate him.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t have any other source of money,” Thayer said.

  “Maybe,” Emma said, “but Phil Carmody is a very bright guy, Agent Thayer. So if this very bright guy didn’t have credit cards under a false name why didn’t he just go to his bank before he fled Bremerton and get all the cash he had in his account? And why did he go out of his way to punch a highway patrolman, an action that he must have known would be broadcast to every cop shop in the tristate area? There’s something odd going on here. It’s like every ten or twelve hours Carmody is letting us know right where he is— or where he was— and all the law enforcement guys go swarming to that spot and by then he’s gone, of course.”

  Emma looked at the map again. “I’ll bet you the next sighting of him will be in western Montana, northern Idaho, or eastern Washington. I’m sure he’s coming back this way.”

  “But why?” Diane Carlucci said. DeMarco could tell that Diane was impressed by Emma.

  “I don’t know,” Emma said. “I don’t know what the hell he’s doing.”

  “I have an idea,” DeMarco said. He’d been silent up until this point. Catching spies wasn’t his normal line of work.

  “What?” Emma said.

  “He’s creating a diversion.”

  “Ah,” Emma said, understanding immediately.

  “A diversion?” Thayer said, not being as quick as Emma.

  “Yeah,” DeMarco said. “There could be something else going on, maybe right here in Bremerton, right under our noses. You guys— the FBI, the cops, navy security— right now, you’re all focused on Carmody, trying to figure out what he did at the shipyard, trying to catch him, trying to guess where he’s gonna go next. It’s like magic, Thayer: while you’re watching the right hand, the left hand’s doing the trick.”

  “Who’s the left hand?” Thayer said.

  “Carmody’s boss, his control,” Emma said.

  “But what’s the trick?” Thayer said.

  27

  She hated sex.

  It hadn’t always been this way. There had been a time when she had lived for it, when she could hardly wait to have him inside her. But he was gone and this man— the man lying on her— was not him and those days were long past. Now sex was nothing more than a tool of her trade— a repulsive, degrading, sweaty tool. But an effective tool.

  She could tell the man was almost finished. Fortunately he was fairly quick, and at his age, he could usually only manage to perform once during their brief, clandestine encounters. She stroked his back mechanically and managed a few moans of feigned passion. She needed to keep him enraptured just a few days longer. Finally she heard him grunt in release. Thank God. He murmured a few things into her ear, things she didn’t hear, things she didn’t care about. She let him breathe heavily for a moment then pushed up gently to let him know she wanted him off her. He was considerate if nothing else, and he rolled off her body.

  As he went through the predictable litany of how good it had been, how he had never known anyone like her, she rose from the bed. She looked down at him, smiled in a way she hoped seemed affectionate, and ruffled his hair like he was a puppy. As she turned toward the bathroom to wash him from her, the smile vanished and her face became the unemotional mask it usually was. From the bed she heard him say, “Walk slower. Please. You have the most beautiful ass I’ve ever seen.” She gave her butt a little shake, feeling stupid as she did so, and entered the bathroom and closed the door.

  Inside the bathroom, she stood naked, her hands on the sink, and looked into the mirror. Her short, spiky hair looked particularly wild as the man had been running his soft hands through it for the last half hour. She stared at the face in the mirror and black, empty eyes looked back at her.

  She couldn’t do this work any longer. She just couldn’t. But if she was successful, if she could carry out her plan, she would not have to. She could become one of those in charge. She could be the one who assigned beautiful women to fuck for their country. But to gain such power her plan had to work. Because of the woman named Emma, she had been forced to terminate the shipyard operation sooner than she had wanted. The operation hadn’t been a total success but neither had it been a complete failure. At least she didn’t think so; she could only hope that her superiors saw it that way as well.

  But it was the man lying on the bed in the other room who really mattered. What Washburn could do and what he knew was more important than everything Carmody had taken from the shipyard— and Washburn was firmly under her control.

  Soon she’d move into the final phase, the phase that only she and Carmody knew about, the phase of the plan she had hidden from her superiors. And Carmody, as she had expected, was doing what he’d been told and doing it well. She didn’t need sex to control Carmody.

  She nodded to the face in the mirror. Yes, it was all going per plan and in the end she’d have everything she desired.

  * * *

  SHE TOOK a shower and by the time she finished, Washburn was fully dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed. She left the bathroom wearing only a towel. She could tell by the expression on Washburn’s face that he was once again having second thoughts. He did this every time they met, and every time she had to convince
him again that if he wanted to be with her— forever, she’d said— he must follow through with his promise.

  Her country was building up its submarine fleet. They’d recently acquired four Kilo-class nuclear submarines from the Russians and they had started to construct some diesel-electric boats, boats that were incredibly quiet, so quiet that they might be able to avoid the American submarines that patrolled continuously off their shores.

  The great advantage the Americans had over the world’s other navies was silence: American submarines were so quiet they could not be readily detected by enemy sonar. At the same time, the Americans’ ability to find and track other submarines was superior to everyone else’s. Her navy wanted the same advantage: they wanted quiet, undetectable submarines and they wanted the technology to locate the enemy’s boats.