“Yeah?” Joe demanded before Smoky could speak.
“Uh … I was just inside the place.” The big blond jerk hooked a thumb in the direction of the cottage. “There’s, like, all kinds of valuables in there. Furniture and TVs and clothes. It doesn’t make sense. You sure about this?”
“Yes, I’m sure about this. The guy first hired Ambrose’s outfit to do this job; but they got hung up somewhere else this week. So we got lucky and inherited it. The guy came out here himself yesterday, in his fancy Beemer, and he showed me exactly what we were supposed to do.” He tapped a wad of papers sticking out of his coat pocket. “Here’s the signed work order, and all the demo permits and paperwork that Ambrose already arranged with the city.”
“But—”
Joe cut him off.
“Listen: This is about a divorce. All that shit in there belongs to his ex. She moved out on him and his kids for some other dude, and she abandoned it all. Now the sight of the house and her stuff makes him sick. He can’t stand the idea of sorting through it. So he’s paying us time-and-a-half to bring it all down before noon … Hey, I see what you’re thinking—and no, you can’t take away any of that stuff. I asked him, and he made that clear. He said he’d be out here checking on our progress this morning. So he could show up any time, and I don’t want him finding that crap in your car. Got that? Now stop second-guessing me, and get your ass to work.”
He watched Smoky skulk off toward the dozer. Worthless piece of shit. Only here because of his uncle.
He flipped the spent butt into the lake. Well, he’d be damned if he’d let the punk take his job. He just needed to impress Russo more. He’d start this morning, by making sure he did everything out here exactly the way the guy’s work order said.
The excavator began to rumble toward the cottage, its arm rising.
Then afterward, he’d ask the owner to put in a good word for him with Russo. That would carry a lot of weight. After all, the owner was the boss of the goddamn EPA.
Diane Baer signed for the overnight package, then looked up and smiled at the delivery man.
“Thanks, Tom. It’s nice to see you again. I see you got a nice tan. I hope you and your wife enjoyed the cruise.”
“Sure did,” Tom answered. “Thanks for recommending that line. The food and service was everything you said it would be. We liked St. John’s especially … Well, gotta run. Probably see you again tomorrow.”
“I hope so. Take care.”
The brown-paper-wrapped package, bearing the words “URGENT/PERSONAL,” was addressed to Mr. Sloan. The return address said “A. CONN,” with the address of the Senate Office Building. It was all handwritten in green ink.
She was surprised at the informality; no official stamps and labels. But she knew the senator was a friend of Mr. Sloan. She remembered him from his recent visit here, with all those other people. It had been such a big deal, and everyone was so excited when he walked in. He even took time to shake hands with her, then all the rest of the staff. Such a friendly man. You could see why he was so successful in politics. It had been an exciting day for them all.
The mood in the office today was anything but. It had been bad the past few weeks, but yesterday it had gotten much worse. She didn’t understand much about markets or follow the news much, but everybody in the office was whispering about how the stock price had collapsed in one day to just a quarter of its value—how the company was now in danger.
That scared her. She had enjoyed her job as Mr. Sloan’s executive assistant for over a year. Sure, he could be tough and grouchy, but he had given her a big Christmas bonus. She was fifty-two now and divorced. Still a long way from retirement, and the recession made the job market terrible. She’d worried all night about what she would do if she lost this job.
Her usual routine was to open all of Mr. Sloan’s mail and packages for him. She picked up a letter opener and pried it under the tape at the end of the box. Then stopped.
The label said “URGENT/PERSONAL.” And it was from a senator. Maybe nobody else except Mr. Sloan was supposed to see this, whatever it was.
She had not seen him come in this morning; he had arrived before anyone else and had remained in his office with the door closed. He left a sticky note on her desk to intercept all incoming calls and take messages.
She put down the letter opener and picked up the package. It felt fairly heavy in her hands. She felt torn. On the one hand, he seemed to want privacy; but maybe he was expecting this. It was clearly private and important.
She walked it over to Mr. Sloan’s office and rapped lightly at his door.
“Yes?” The voice, an impatient growl.
She entered. His swivel chair was turned away from her; he was looking out at the Washington skyline under a bleak sky.
“Excuse me, Mr. Sloan. A package from Senator Conn just arrived. It’s marked urgent and personal, so I didn’t want to open it.”
He swung around. She was shocked at his appearance. His gray tie was askew, his thinning gray hair mussed, his long face gray, too. It was drawn and he looked as if he hadn’t slept.
“What? From Conn?” He blinked a couple of times. “What the hell could he be sending me? … All right. Just put it on the desk.”
She did so, straightened, and ventured: “Is everything all right, sir?”
His head was down, staring at the package. Only his eyes moved up to look at her. They were bloodshot.
“No. Everything is not all right … I need to be by myself today, Diane. Just close the door on the way out.”
“Yes sir.”
She retreated, closing the door softly behind her.
Oh God. It was as bad as she had feared.
The desks around hers were empty now, and she heard laughter from the lunchroom down the hall. She glanced at the wall clock. Just after noon. Then she remembered: It was Shirley’s birthday. Morrie had brought in a small cake. Maybe this was the last time anyone would celebrate anything around here.
She entered the room and everyone looked up from the table and the candlelit cake. She forced a smile at Shirley.
“Sorry I’m late to the par—”
The blast behind her rocked the building and knocked her to the floor.
“I can’t believe this!” Emmalee shrieked at him. “Goddammit, Ash! You’re telling me we’ve lost everything?”
Conn sat on the sofa of the living room, bent over his knees, his throbbing skull braced in his hands as she hovered above him, howling like a goddamned banshee.
“Not everything!” he snapped. “The investments, all right, yes. Robin says they’re pretty much gone. Even if EPA goes ahead and imposes the moratorium now, she says she can’t see how CarboNot can recover. Sloan’s not even taking our calls right now.” He looked up. “But we still have my salary. This place, and the place in Florida, they’re worth a lot. And the parcels we scooped up in the Allegheny Forest—those can be resold.”
“But we’ve lost, what? Like, five million or something?”
He looked up at her and shouted, “Yes! About five million or something! Sorry, but you’ll just have to cut back on your facelifts and New York shopping safaris until we bounce back from this!”
“How are we supposed to bounce back from this?” She grabbed the copy of the Inquirer off the coffee table and threw it at him. It hit his chest and scattered onto the floor. He jumped to his feet, stormed up to her. She took a step back.
“Listen to me! That bastard has nothing on me! Not a goddamned thing! It’s all innuendo and speculation! Our Capital Resources money was in your name, and the CarboNot stock is in the blind trust. Those investments made perfect sense, and Robin is going to cover for us. That’s why it’s all going to blow over.”
She blinked at him. Wanting to believe, he could tell.
He began pacing the Oriental carpet, trying to calm down.
“Look. Take it easy. As long as I keep Trammel happy, he’ll keep the other campaign donors on board. I talked to h
im last night. He’s not happy, of course, but he told me we’re still fine. Stu and I are going to issue a statement late this afternoon. We’ll probably hold a presser in a few—”
He felt his cell buzzing in his pants pocket, where he’d dumped it after he’d come home from the morning floor vote. He pawed for it, then saw the name.
“Yeah, Gavin …” He listened. Then felt everything drain from his body.
“Ash … what’s wrong?” Her voice, anxious, somewhere in the distance behind him.
He shuddered. He spun around, looking for the TV remote. Spotted it on an end table. Rushed there, grabbed it, hit the power button for the big screen in the corner. The image came on.
Smoke pouring from the top of the familiar glass building in Arlington … tilted spikes of fire ladders rising around it, directing arcs of water into the windows … the news chyron at the bottom of the screen …
SUSPECTED BOMB BLAST AT CARBONOT HEADQUARTERS
He stood there, staring numbly, faintly aware of the voice of some offscreen reporter babbling … faintly aware of Emmalee making noises somewhere nearby … faintly aware of another voice repeating “Excuse me, sir … excuse me, Senator …”
He turned. Barry, the security guy. Peeking in through the half-open front door. Holding a brown box.
“Excuse me, sorry to disturb you, sir,” he said. “But I just intercepted the mailman down at the end of the drive. He had this special delivery package. I signed for it for you.” He glanced down at it. “It says it’s from ‘D. Sloan’ at CarboNot, and it’s marked urgent. So I—”
Conn’s legs went soft. He stumbled backward, hands raised before him, waving him back.
“No! For God’s sake, don’t bring that damned thing in here! Take it outside, far away from the house! Then call 911!”
THIRTY-TWO
He heard the burner chirp outside the shower, where he’d left it on the sink. He debated whether to let it go. It had to be Wonk. She wouldn’t call him now, of course.
At the third chirp he opened the shower door and, dripping, stepped out onto the mat. Just to make sure.
Her.
He scooped up the phone, almost dropping it from his wet fingers.
“Annie …”
“Please tell me that wasn’t you!” Her voice was shaky.
He sighed. “So my little adventure last night has made the news.”
“Little adventure! Dylan! Do you call cold-blooded murder an adventure?”
He saw his reflection, naked and ghostly through the steam-covered surface of the bathroom mirror … and the shock on his face.
“Murder? What in hell are you talking about?”
“I know how much you hate those people,” she continued. “But to send a bomb to an office filled with innocent people—”
“Slow down! What bomb?”
There was silence for a moment.
“Dylan … Please be honest with me, now. No lies. You were going out last night. On an op. You told me you were going to bring them all down. And today it’s all over the news. All your acts of sabotage. Lockwood’s boat and Trammel’s plane blown up. Weaver’s house torn down. But now—my God, Dylan! CarboNot bombed, Sloan killed, a bomb mailed to Conn’s house—”
“Hold on! CarboNot was bombed? And Conn, too?”
“Are … you saying you had nothing to do with that?”
He sat down on the edge of the bathtub. He gripped the phone tightly. His kept his voice tight, too.
“Annie, please listen to me. I promised I would never again lie to you. I’m not lying to you now. Here is exactly what I’ve done so far. Yes, I tore down Capital Resources myself, last Saturday night. I did some online hacking and planted some bugs in their various offices, to find out information about them all. I used some of that intel in my newspaper articles, to cause CarboNot’s stock to crash. I also cancelled insurance policies on Lockwood’s boat, Trammel’s plane, and Weaver’s summer home. I hired a demolition crew to go tear down Weaver’s house this morning. And yes—I did go out last night, to destroy Lockwood’s boat and Trammel’s plane. But after that, I came right back here to the apartment and went to bed. I’ve been here sleeping until fifteen minutes ago … And that’s it.” He paused. “Annie that is all. I am not lying to you.”
She was quiet a moment. Her voice was quaking when she spoke again.
“I couldn’t really bring myself to believe it. I couldn’t believe you could do anything like bombing an office. Grant says you have a ‘code’ about this sort of thing. You’ve killed killers. But not—”
“And he’s right. I have never harmed or risked innocent lives. I would never kill common thieves or politicians, either—only if they were directly involved in murder themselves.”
Another moment passed.
“Dylan … I’m so sorry for doubting—”
“No! No, Annie, what else could you think, after what you saw laid out on my floor last night? … So a bomb went off at CarboNot. And Sloan is dead?”
“Yes. It happened just within the past hour.”
“Was anyone else hurt?”
“No. Only him. He’d just received a package in the mail, and apparently it went off inside his office. But Cronin says the bomb sent to Conn’s home was intercepted in time.”
He straightened. “Cronin?”
“He just called me. He’s really upset. He demanded to know where you were. I said I didn’t know. But when he told me what happened, I was shocked. I said I’d try to find you. He said to tell you that he wants to see you right away. Are you at the house?”
“No, the apartment. But I’ll be at the house later tonight. Did you tell him about it?”
“I didn’t. I just said I would call you.”
He nodded to himself. “Okay … Annie, those other bombs, to CarboNot and Conn. You know who that had to be.”
“Boggs?”
“Who else? I don’t know why, though. But Cronin undoubtedly thinks I’m responsible.” He sighed. “I didn’t expect things to get this messy.”
“Violence usually does, Dylan. That’s what I was trying to tell you. You start down that path, and you can’t control where it will lead you.”
He had no answer to that.
“Would you call Cronin for me? I don’t want to do it from my burner. Let him know I’m at the apartment. He knows where it is; he spent enough time out here on stakeouts last fall. Tell him I’ll be expecting him.”
“Dylan … I—”
“Shhhh. You don’t have to say anything more. I’m glad you called. And …”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad that, deep down, you knew that I could never do such a thing.”
“I’m glad, too. Dylan … be careful.”
He couldn’t resist. “You aren’t worrying about me, are you?”
“Not anymore.”
She ended the call.
He stood. Caught himself in the mirror again.
Smiling again.
They were rolling up Route 270, well past Gaithersburg, Maryland, and well ahead of the evening rush traffic. Beside him in the cab, Zak leaned forward to catch every word of the latest reports from WTOP, the D.C. news station. He was smiling.
It was nice to see him happy again, after what happened with Dawn.
“We’re doing it, Rusty,” he said at a commercial break. “CarboNot is finished, now. And we stopped Silva—which probably means we’ve stopped fracking.”
“It’s not ‘us.’ It’s you, Zak. You did this.”
“No, my friend. I couldn’t have done it alone.” His voice fell. “You’re the only person I’ve been able to trust, all these years.”
Rusty tried to cheer him up. “Who woulda thought that just the two of us could pull off something like stopping fracking?”
That teased a small smile on Zak’s face. “We may have. But we can’t be quite certain of that yet. We have to make sure that Adair can’t continue, not even if the sell-outs at the EPA give him the green lig
ht. And we must not only stop him; we have to make an example of him—so that no other company will want to proceed. Not if they know they’ll be subject to environmental justice.”
“Man, Zak! This is so cool. We’re beating them all.”
“Not ‘all.’ And not quite yet.” Zak was brooding again. His mood was like he was on a rollercoaster. “There’s still that reporter. Hunter. There’s no telling how much he knows about us; he only hinted about it in his latest article. He could point the cops in our direction. He’s a loose end.”
He fell silent. After a minute, Rusty probed.
“So, what are we gonna do about him?”
Zak cocked his head around. A yellow smile broke through his bushy brown beard. Again, just like that, he looked almost back to his old self.
“Reading his articles gave me an idea, Rusty. So I started putting together something special at the camp. It’s in my bag in the back. It needs just a few finishing touches.”
“Yeah? I can’t wait to see it.”
Zak got serious all of a sudden.
“This may be our last battle, Rusty, at least until things cool off. I still don’t think that they know this is our doing. But just to be safe, we’ll go to ground again. I have some old friends outside Vegas. After tonight, I think we should head out there. We’ll take back roads. It’s safer that way and we’ll see more of the country.”
“That’ll be great, Zak. Nothing’s holding us here, now.”
Zak’s smile vanished.
Shit. Wrong thing to say.
“No. Nothing at all,” Zak said, his lips pressed thin. A few seconds later his expression brightened again. “If I can finish putting together that item when we get to Adair’s, I’ll try to contact Hunter. Perhaps invite him to the party.”
Rusty laughed. “Get us a ‘two-fer,’ huh?”
Zak laughed, too. “That’s the idea. A ‘two-fer.’”
“Come on in,” Hunter said, opening the door wide and stepping back.
BAD DEEDS: A Dylan Hunter Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers) Page 30
