Murder in Foggy Bottom

by Margaret Truman

  Pauling knew he had to act. It appeared that Traxler was about to take Jessica out through that rear door. If he went in the direction of the river, he’d see Pauling’s rental car. Pauling tensed until he saw Traxler open the door and push Jess through it into the night. He left the porch and hugged the side of the cabin until reaching the back corner. A full moon, obscured until now, cast light on the area between the cabin and the river, then was hidden again behind low-moving black clouds. But in that brief moment, Pauling saw that Traxler was prodding Jessica to the riverbank. He stepped away from the cabin and moved in their direction, taking long strides, trying to be silent and swift at once. He hesitated; Traxler had suddenly stopped when he saw the Caprice parked beneath the trees. Jessica continued to walk to the river, creating ten feet between her and Traxler.

  Pauling sprung, feet churning in the mud as he hurtled at Traxler, crouched low, closing the gap, only a second until contact. Traxler saw him but not in time to do anything with his weapon. Pauling’s head rammed into the FBI agent’s stomach, causing the revolver to pop from his hand as he went over backward. Pauling pounced on him and they rolled down a slippery slope to the river, clutching each other, over and over, until a tree stopped them. The jolt caused the Glock to slip from Pauling’s hand and land a few feet away.

  Traxler twisted free of Pauling’s grip and reached for the gun, but Pauling grabbed his wrist. They struggled to their knees. Traxler made another try for the Glock but Pauling drove a fist into his face, felt his nose break. Traxler let out a tortured moan as he got to his feet. Pauling was on all fours, about to get up, when Traxler’s foot smashed into his side, sending him tumbling. Traxler desperately looked for the Glock, saw it, went to his knees and reached for it in the mud, found it, turned and pointed it at Pauling, who was up on his knees facing Traxler, a broad target. Pauling braced for what was sure to come. Jessica appeared from nowhere and flung herself at Traxler. He collapsed beneath the weight of her unexpected attack but held on to the Glock, twisted free, then slipped in the mud, his feet going out from under him and landing on his stomach.

  Jessica jumped on him. So did Pauling, but not before frantically digging into the pocket of his vest and coming out with the ampule of prussic acid. He brought the device up to Traxler’s broken nose and activated the spring. The ampule shattered, releasing its deadly contents— into Jessica’s face.

  She shrieked as the acid entered her nostrils and then fell away from them, rolling on the ground, her fingers at her nose as though she could tear the acid from it.

  Pauling saw what had happened. He brought his fist back and pounded it against the side of Traxler’s skull, again and again, pounding him until he was limp. He jumped to his feet, ran to where Jessica lay on the ground, pulled the vial of nitro from his vest pocket, held it beneath Jessica’s nose, snapped it in two, and shouted, “Breathe, Jess. Breathe, damn it!”

  She looked up at him with frightened eyes as the prussic acid began to act on her heart, constricting the arteries, shutting off blood supply. But the nitro took effect. Her hands, which had been clutched against the pain in her chest, relaxed, and her breathing became less labored.

  “You okay?” Pauling asked.

  “I think so.”

  Pauling got up and returned to where Traxler was beginning to recover from the pummeling he’d received. He picked up the Glock, grabbed Traxler by the front of his shirt, and pulled him to his feet.

  “Let’s get inside,” Pauling said as the rain began to come down hard again. He shoved Traxler down into a chair, brought the stool and aeronautical charts from the kitchen, and sat in front of him.

  “So here’s the infamous Scope,” Pauling said, “FBI undercover hotshot. You don’t look so hot to me, buddy.”

  Traxler glared at him.

  “He told me what happened, Max,” Jessica said from where she stood behind him. “He said—”

  Pauling cut her off. “These charts, Traxler. Boise, San Jose, and Westchester, where the three planes were shot down.”

  Still no response.

  Pauling waved the fourth chart in front of his face. “Tell me about this one,” he said.

  Traxler wiped a rivulet of blood from beneath his nose and managed a grin. “Who the hell are you, anyway?” he asked.

  “Somebody who’d enjoy putting a hole in the middle of your head,” Pauling said. “This Pittsburgh chart, is that where the fourth missile is going to be used?” He took Traxler’s lack of a reply to be affirmative. “When?” he asked. “These handwritten numbers on the charts— dates? The number on the Pittsburgh chart is today’s date. Is it being used today, tonight?”

  This time, when Traxler didn’t say anything, Pauling grabbed his face and squeezed hard, pressing the heel of his hand against the FBI agent’s nose. He put all the fury and loss and sadness of Bill Lerner’s death, the woman at the Jasper ranch, the victims of the plane crash, even the slain Russian into his grip. Traxler whined from the excruciating pain and slipped down in the chair. Pauling stood, yanked him up to a sitting position, and brought his face within inches. “When?” he repeated with vengeance. “Tonight?”

  Traxler’s nod was almost imperceptible.

  Pauling stepped back and asked Jessica, “There a phone here?”

  She shrugged, started to look for one. “No,” she said from the far end of the room.

  “You have a cell phone?” Pauling asked Traxler.

  “Go to hell.”

  Pauling brought the back of his hand against the side of Traxler’s face. “Where’s the nearest phone, Traxler?”

  Silence.

  Pauling handed the Glock to Jessica: “Keep it on him, Jess, and don’t be afraid; if he moves, use it.” He went to the kitchen and rummaged through several drawers, coming up with a roll of gray duct tape. He returned to the main room, shoved Traxler against a wall, and taped his hands behind him. “Let’s go,” he said.

  They exited through the rear door and went to Pauling’s rented Caprice. Traxler was stuffed into the backseat, and Pauling used more tape to secure his ankles and mouth. Jessica, still holding the Glock, got in the front passenger seat while Pauling backed out from beneath the trees, clipping the sideview mirror against one and knocking it off. “Going to be an expensive rental,” he grumbled, coming forward again, then going into reverse and clearing the obstacle. He could barely see, but he managed to reach the road in front of the cabin.

  45

  That Same Night

  Pittsburgh

  “Your flight’s ready to board, Senator Jackson,” the VIP lounge’s hostess said.

  “Great,” he said. “Thanks.”

  Roseann saw Jackson and his aide stand, and put her book in her carry-on bag. Jackson waved for Roseann to join them, and they left the lounge and went to the boarding gate. Airline ramp personnel held large golf umbrellas with the airline’s insignia on them over the passengers as they crossed the tarmac and went up the short flight of stairs into the twin-engine turboprop. Jackson asked if he could sit next to Roseann. She couldn’t refuse, although she hoped he wouldn’t ask more questions about Joe. She was afraid she’d say something that would get him in trouble.

  “Welcome aboard, ladies and gentlemen,” the captain said in a deep Southern accent through the intercom. “Sorry for the delay tonight but the weather hasn’t been very cooperative. But we’ll be on our way in a few minutes and get you good folks back to Washington in short order. Just settle back, kick off your shoes, make sure those seat belts are nice and snug, and we’ll get goin’.”

  Roseann and Jackson smiled at the captain’s down-home safety announcement. One of two flight attendants came down the narrow aisle to make sure seat belts were fastened, and took her seat next to the other attendant in preparation for departure.

  They taxied to the end of the active runway. Roseann looked out the window and saw flashing lights on what appeared to be emergency vehicles. What’s that all about? she wondered, her natural fear of flying
kicking in. Senator Jackson saw it, too, and leaned across her to get a better view.

  The captain’s voice was heard again: “Ah, ladies and gentlemen, seems like we’re goin’ to have us another short delay. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “What’s wrong?” an elderly woman behind them asked.

  “I don’t think we’ll ever get off the ground,” a man said in a disgruntled, booming voice.

  Jackson stopped a flight attendant. “Is there a mechanical problem?” he asked.

  She ignored his question and entered the cockpit.

  More lights could be seen outside the plane, and then the sound of helicopters was heard. They passed directly over the aircraft, powerful floodlights turning the area into daylight.

  “Something’s going on,” Jackson said to Roseann.

  What they couldn’t see, or know, was that an army of FBI special agents, state police, and ATF officers had converged on a clearing a mile from the end of the runway and captured a man with a SAM missile on his shoulder that he was about to launch at the next departing flight.

  “Well, folks, we’re cleared now for takeoff,” said the captain.

  “It’s about time,” the passenger with the loud voice said.

  The plane lifted off and they were Washington-bound.

  It wasn’t until they’d landed that Roseann Blackburn and the senior senator from Pennsylvania learned that the FBI’s raid on the Freedom Alliance’s headquarters in Plattsburgh, New York, had revealed a plan to use a fourth missile smuggled in from Russia to down a civilian airliner in Pittsburgh that night, the man wielding the deadly weapon a member of a Pennsylvania right-wing hate group loosely affiliated with the Freedom Alliance group. The information was relayed to Senator Jackson and those with him by an aide who’d come to the airport to pick him up.

  Roseann’s legs went to jelly when she heard. Jackson offered to have her driven home, but she declined the offer and called her apartment.

  “Hey, babe,” he said, “were you on that flight from Pittsburgh?”

  “Yes, I was,” she said, starting to cry.

  “Easy, Rosie,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “The airport.”

  “Here?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You sit tight, grab a drink. I’ll head out right now, be there in no time.”

  As she sat waiting for him, a Brandy Alexander in front of her, she looked up at the TV suspended behind the bar. Russell Templeton was giving a new statement just outside the Pittsburgh airport: “A tragedy has been averted this evening by swift action taken by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. Information received this afternoon from a white-supremacist group in upstate New York led us this evening to converge on a position near the Pittsburgh airport, where . . .”

  Roseann shuddered and closed her eyes. When she opened them, Joe was at her side. She grabbed him and hugged hard, tears flowing, body shaking.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” he said, taking a stool next to her. “Everything’s okay now. Aristotle’s here.”

  46

  A Year Later

  Albuquerque, New Mexico

  Max Pauling glanced out the window of his condominium at the sound of a plane taking off. The condo overlooked the private airport where he’d been teaching flying for the past four months. He’d been reading after having taught two students that morning, and dozing.

  Jessica came through the door carrying the mail. “For you,” she said, handing him a letter. “From London.”

  He opened the envelope and removed the neatly typed single sheet of paper.

  My dear Max,

  I suppose you’ve been wondering whatever happened to me, although that might represent wishful thinking on my part. I’ve left Russia and have settled here in London. The change is dramatic, of course, but was necessary. I’ve achieved a position with an international bank, and have found quite a nice flat in an area known as Mayfair, a very fancy area although my flat is rather spartan, better reflecting my Russian experience.

  I’m sure you think of Bill often, as do I. His death was unnecessary, but in this day and age, particularly in Russia, one can never be sure of anything. I think of Hesse when I think of Bill: “Strange to wander in the mist, each is alone. No tree knows his neighbor. Each is alone.” That’s so true, isn’t it, Max? We are so painfully alone, from the beginning to the end.

  Bill always said he was doing it for me, for us, but I suspect as with most things we do, he did it for himself. Very nasty people he involved himself with. Very nasty, indeed.

  I worry that you might think poorly of me because of the way Bill died. I pray that isn’t true, and I hope that one day when you come to London, you will be kind enough to call and say hello. I obtained your new address from someone at your State Department, who was kind enough to pass it along.

  I won’t bore you any longer, Max. I simply hope that all goes well for you and that you are happy.

  Fondly, Elena

  “Who’s it from?” Jessica asked from the bedroom.

  “Bill Lerner’s lady in Moscow. She’s living in London now. A good woman.”

  The phone rang.

  “Hello?” Jessica said.

  “Jess, it’s Annabel Reed-Smith in Washington.”

  “Annabel, how are you?”

  “Just fine.”

  “And Mac?”

  “Tip-top. Still working, officially and unofficially, still partly nuts, partly wonderful. Catching you at a bad time?”

  “No, but I will be leaving in a few minutes. I’ve joined a bird-watching group here in Albuquerque and we’re going up into the mountains this afternoon . . .”

  Her voice faded into the background as Pauling picked up the book he’d been reading, The Vipers, a nonfiction account of the FBI’s deadly mistaken assault on the Jasper Project in Blaine, Washington, and the role played by an undercover FBI agent, Skip Traxler, in this tragic episode in American history.

  He turned the book over in his hands. Looking up at him was a photograph of the author, Joseph Potamos, whose brief bio read: “Veteran print journalist with The Washington Post, now a political reporter for CNN, Mr. Potamos lives in Washington with his wife, Roseann, a professional pianist, and their mixed-breed dog, Jumper.”

  He placed the book on the table, closed his eyes, and allowed his thoughts to wander along the lines of Joe’s story. The reporter was good, had gotten most of the story, but not all.

  Traxler had been indicted for providing false information to a government agency, and for the kidnapping of his former wife. He was awaiting trial.

  The surviving members of the Jasper Project had filed a massive civil lawsuit against the FBI and related agencies for the assault on the Jasper ranch.

  A Senate hearing on the event had uncovered the FBI’s attempts to cover up what had really happened at the Jasper ranch. Director Russell Templeton, while maintaining his innocence of any knowledge of the cover-up, retired.

  Retired.

  Pauling, too, had walked away, along with Jessica, who’d decided to move with him to New Mexico and give their relationship a serious try. He’d had to promise that his days working undercover were behind him, and he meant it—when he said it. It wasn’t as hard as he thought it would be, although it hadn’t been that long since he walked away from life on the edge. As far as Jessica was concerned, going up each day with student pilots in a small, single-engine plane should be danger enough. Maybe so.

  His reverie was interrupted by a kiss on the forehead.

  “I have to go,” Jessica said.

  “Yeah, I know. Be careful, huh? You don’t know these mountains. Might be snakes.”

  “Wouldn’t be anything new. Plenty of them in Washington—and elsewhere. Odd birds, too.”

  He laughed gently, brought her head down with his hand, and their lips met.

  “Annabel and Mac send their best.”

  “That’s nice. Great pair. He’s a top-drawer lawyer— and occasional undercove
r man himself. She’s a beauty, and brainy.” He sighed. “Know what I wish?”

  “What?”

  “I wish we’d been the ones to blow the whistle on that guy with the missile in Pittsburgh. Kind of a wasted exercise, wasn’t it, driving like a madman in the rain looking for a phone when the Bureau already had the info from those wackos in Plattsburgh?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “No, I suppose it doesn’t. There’ll be more.”

  “More what?”

  “Terrorism by domestic groups. That they were able to work together the way they did—Idaho, California, New York, Pennsylvania, even Canada—doesn’t bode well.”

  “I don’t want to think about it, Max. I just want to think about peaceful things, like birds, the mountains, the clean air and blue sky . . .”

  “I know. Go. Soak it up.”

  “I will.”

  She started to leave, paused at the door, and looked back. He’d closed his eyes again, and she wondered what dreams he would have this day. She knew the sort of reckless life he’d led was a powerful narcotic, not easily conquered. Like the alcoholic, you took it a day at a time, hoping tomorrow wouldn’t provide temptations too powerful to ignore. And like the alcoholic’s care-giver, you did what you could to offer an attractive alternative to the addiction.

  She blew him a silent kiss.

  He opened his eyes and smiled, then waved her from the room.

  Also by Margaret Truman

  FIRST LADIES

  BESS W. TRUMAN

  SOUVENIR

  WOMEN OF COURAGE

  HARRY S TRUMAN

  LETTERS FROM FATHER: THE TRUMAN FAMILY’S

  PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCES

  WHERE THE BUCK STOPS

  WHITE HOUSE PETS

  IN THE CAPITAL CRIMES SERIES

  MURDER AT THE WATERGATE

  MURDER IN THE HOUSE

  MURDER AT THE NATIONAL GALLERY