by A. C. Fuller
Cole held up the small black bag. “If it doesn’t work?”
“Let’s not go there yet.”
“The man I saw was on the top floor. I think I’ll be able to tell which room when I’m inside.”
Warren gave a look she read as Really?
“Got any better ideas?” she asked.
He shook his head.
Cole pointed at the elevator panel as they entered. “Damn.” Instead of taking them onto the floors where the rooms were, the only options were the other parking garage floors and the hotel lobby.
“I was worried about that,” Warren said.
“When we get to the lobby, follow me.”
“Maybe you should go up alone.”
Cole tapped the “L” button. “No. I need you up there. Like it or not, you’re in this now. That story in The Post, the piece about us...if you were trying to stay on the periphery, it’s too late.”
The elevator stopped to pick up a man dragging two large suitcases. He got on and pressed “L” even though it was already illuminated. Cole eyed Warren as the elevator ascended, trying not to make eye contact with the man, who seemed to be staring at her.
When they reached the lobby, she hung back as the man exited. “So?” she asked Warren, grabbing his forearm. “You in?”
He met her eyes and offered a single, firm nod. She looped her arm through the crook of his elbow and put on a smile. Guiding him confidently through the lobby, she nodded at the front desk manager and waved a credit card in his general direction as though showing her hotel keycard. He nodded back, pretending to recognize her. She’d read once that “People see what you tell them to see.” It was usually true.
Inside the elevator, Cole opened her phone to a series of screenshots she’d taken from the video. When they reached the top floor, she navigated the hallway to the section of rooms facing northeast, the only ones with windows facing the Watergate. She stopped before a row of three doors—rooms 2010, 2012, and 2014. “Which one do you think?”
Warren looked nervously up and down the empty hallway. “You mean you don’t know?”
“I said I knew about where it would be located.” She glanced at the screenshot again, then closed her eyes, imagining the internal geography of the building they’d walked through and comparing it to the view from the exterior. “The one on the left, 2010,” she said, handing Warren the black bag. “That’s the year Matt and I moved to New York. Maybe it’s lucky.”
Warren pulled the keycard device from the black bag. Cole held her breath as he slid the single plastic card into the slot. The lock clicked and flashed green.
It worked.
Exhaling, Cole turned the door handle and pushed slowly.
“What the hell!” A man’s voice, surprised and angry. “Who’s there?”
She pulled the door shut quickly.
“Housekeeping at night?” he called. “What the hell?”
“Sorry!” Cole called through the door, trying on a terrible European accent. “We thought you’d checked out.”
“Jesus!”
“Sorry,” she called again, moving to the center door, 2012. Then, to Warren, “Better be this one.”
Warren moved next to her. “Think he’ll call the front desk?”
“Hope not.”
There was a “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging on the doorknob of room 2012. Cole tapped the door gently. No answer. “Try it,” she said.
He slid the card in and, again, it worked. Slowly, Cole pushed the door open only a crack. “Housekeeping,” she called quietly.
No answer.
She opened it another crack. The room was dark.
Stepping in, she held the door open for Warren to follow. “Hello?”
No response. Empty.
They stood in the entryway, a bathroom to the left and a closet to the right. The entryway led into a large room, with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked across the Potomac and, to the east, the Watergate Hotel.
By the window, a rolling office chair sat neatly under a desk. To the right, another small closet and an armoire of faux-wood. All in all, it was a typical hotel room. She stepped past the threshold that divided the entryway from the main space, then froze.
The bed was neatly made, a paisley bedspread smooth across the top. On the bedspread sat a rifle.
Warren bumped into her when she stopped suddenly. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t. Touch. Anything.”
19
Together, they took in the weapon.
It sat on tripod legs, facing the window, as though ready to take out another target across the river. Matte black, it was larger than she imagined. Long, with a large scope and a thick barrel that grew even thicker at the end. Actually, it wasn’t that the barrel grew thicker. It seemed to be some sort of attachment.
Warren leaned in, careful not to touch the bed. “Custom fifty cal suppressor. Won’t silence the weapon, but it’ll dampen the sound.”
She took out her phone and snapped a picture, then walked around the bed and snapped more from every angle.
“There likely aren’t any identification markings,” Warren said, inspecting the rifle. “They would have shaved off any serial numbers, but this is one of the nine custom jobs. I’m sure of it.”
“There’s something about the room,” Cole said, stowing her phone and looking around. “It’s too clean.”
Warren walked along the wall beside the bed, moving his head from the floor to the ceiling methodically with each step. He went into the bathroom and knelt over the tub, inspecting the drain. Using a piece of toilet paper, he pulled the drain stopper out of the sink. “No hairs. Everything smells faintly of bleach. This guy was a pro.”
Exiting the bathroom, he used his elbow to open the closet, inspected it, then continued around the perimeter of the room to the windows. He knelt and, again using his elbow, cracked a low window that opened outward on a hinge. It opened only a few inches before stopping. A safety feature. Next Warren lay flat on his belly and scooched back, extending his left arm outward and cocking his right elbow back. The shooting position. He pivoted his head and the angle of the invisible rifle to the right, then back to the left. “Holy shit.”
“What?”
He stood. “Lay there and take some pictures of that view.”
Cole dropped to her belly and took the position. From the floor, the shooter would have had a perfect angle to the roof of the Watergate. She took a few photos.
“Now pivot to the right,” Warren said.
She did. To her right was another building, slightly lower, maybe three stories below them. It was the rooftop of the Virginia Suites Hotel, where the dead body and the rifle had been found. She snapped a few photos and stood.
Warren pressed both hands to his face, letting out a long sigh. “This had to have been planned for weeks, months. Shooter knew he could kill the VP from here, and he set up some poor schlub to be on the roof next door. Maybe the dead guy was part of the plan, maybe he was a random unlucky victim.” He pressed his face again, sighed, and let his shoulders drop. “Kill the VP, kill the patsy. Your guess was right.”
He looked under the bed, in the garbage can, and in the drawer of the desk. “Guy wasn’t dumb enough to leave a trace.”
“You mean other than the murder weapon?”
He smiled for a half a second, then his face grew dark. Standing over the gun, he said. “You didn’t touch it, did you?”
Cole joined him next to the bed and stared down at the gun. “Of course not.”
“The weapon from the Ambani killing, Wragg’s rifle, still hasn’t been located. And this guy just leaves his here. Why?”
“Quick escape, maybe? I’m guessing he checked in, booked the room for a few extra days, then made the shot, left the weapon, and escaped, leaving the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door. Probably figured that would give him enough time to get out of the country.”
“Maybe. But why leave the weapon? This thing can be taken apart a
nd packed into a bag slung over the shoulder like the one you saw in the video Mazzalano showed you.”
“What are you driving at, Rob?”
“Most killers want to destroy the murder weapon. This one didn’t even bother taking it with him. He left no trace in this room. Bleached it. You can bet there’ll be no traces on the weapon. Combine that with the fact that he went to the trouble of setting another guy up to confuse the investigation for a day or two and…”
Cole saw where he was going. “You think he’s going to kill again. He wanted to make the escape in order to buy himself time. And he left the weapon because he has another, or will get another.”
“Nine rifles, right? Nine cities. You got clear pictures of the weapon?”
“Every angle. Why?”
“Because if we ever run out of money you’ll be able to sell them for hundreds of thousands to TMZ or The National Enquirer. That’s about to become the most famous gun in the world.” Warren stood up straight, as though every inch of him was alert. His eyes were wide. “We need to get the hell out of here. Now.”
20
“Plug in my phone,” Warren said. “It’s about to lose power and we might need it. What’s yours at?”
“Forty percent. I’m good.”
She plugged in his phone as he pulled out of the parking garage. Red and blue lights flashed in front of the hotel. Three police cars were parked in the valet area. Warren turned right, away from the police cars.
“You think they’re here because of the story, the video?”
“It’s possible.”
As she stowed his phone between the seats, Cole noticed it lighting up with a new text. “Who’s Samuel Bacon?”
“Remember? Partner of Norris Ubwe. Dude who helped us with Price’s records. The quiet, chubby one.”
“He just texted you.”
“Swipe it.”
She did, but it was locked. “Face ID?”
“Sorry.” Warren turned.
She squared the phone on his face and it unlocked, then she read the text aloud. “‘Overheard your call with Norris. He won’t help you because he knows we screwed this up. Doesn’t want to get blamed. I can’t stay quiet. It’s not solid, but peeking around the darkest alleys of the dark web, I found evidence that one of the rifles may have been left in D.C. for’”—she slowed as she tried to pronounce the name—“‘Maiale da Tartufo. Two days ago.’” The phone nearly flew from her hand as Warren swerved around a car that had stopped abruptly.
“Maiale da Tartufo?” he asked.
“Who’s that?”
“You don’t want to know.” His eyes were on the mirrors, as they had been much of the last two days. “Keep reading.”
“He says, ‘Dropgang was used to leave it for him in a park near DuPont Circle. Worse, another one was stashed in Miami only yesterday. A wet drop.’”
“Miami?”
“That’s what he wrote. And that’s where the next shooting will be.”
Warren’s eyes darted from the rearview mirror to the road ahead, then back again. He seemed to have stopped listening. “Hold on.”
“What?”
“Hold on to the seat.”
Suddenly, Warren slammed the gas, turned the wheel to the left and then pulled and released the handbrake. The back of the Cougar pitched to the right, fishtailing on a patch of ice. Cole’s head rocked back into the headrest, then shot left, colliding with Warren’s shoulder as he jacked the wheel to pull the Cougar out of the fishtail.
The car straightened. Cole shot a glance through the rear window, but couldn’t make anything out in the darkness. Warren lay into the horn, which screamed an old fashioned, high-pitched wail as he gunned it through an intersection. Cars from left and right slipped and skidded to elude the Cougar. A violent crash erupted from her right and Cole turned to see the aftermath of a rear-end collision in the intersection.
Warren made a sharp right turn.
Cole pressed her feet to the floor, bracing herself. “What the hell?”
“We’re being tailed.”
Cole looked behind her. She didn’t see anything.
“Keep looking. Tell me if a gray Ford Explorer, or maybe it’s a Yukon, appears around the corner.”
She trained her eyes on the corner and, as Warren slowed at a stop sign, a large SUV pulled around it. “I can’t make out the color in this light, but yeah, an SUV. Police?”
“I don’t think so. I think it’s Mazzalano.”
“What?”
Warren eyed the mirror. “Or his guys, more likely.”
Cole looked back. The SUV kept pace with them, about a block behind.
“Think about it,” Warren explained. “Mazzalano easily could have set himself up as the hero who tracked down Wragg’s storage unit. That alone might launch his corrupt ass from lieutenant to captain. He hasn’t. Why?”
“Because he’s involved. The gun thing. He gave protection to whatever crew arranged for the delivery of the guns.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“You think he sent someone after us—”
Warren veered right suddenly to merge onto the George Washington Parkway toward the Arlington National Cemetery. His eyes moved again to the mirror. “I think he sent that SUV after us. Either to make sure we don’t have any evidence about his connection to Wragg, or to put us down.”
It made sense. Cole believed Mazzalano had never given Wragg’s hair sample to the DNA lab. And being the man who located Wragg’s secret lair would have been the biggest win of his career. The only reason he wouldn’t have made it public was because he was somehow involved. “Why aren’t they approaching us, then? Why’d they let us get into the hotel and come out?”
“Maybe they only grabbed our tail as we came out.”
Cole’s head was swimming. “That doesn’t make sense. The only way they could have known we were at the hotel was by following us. And if they’d followed us, why would they have let us spend time inside? Plus, you said you were sure we weren’t tailed from New Jersey. How the hell could they even know we’re in D.C? That article only came out an hour ago.”
A quarter mile ahead, a sea of red brake lights appeared in the darkness. “Shit,” Warren said.
“There.” Cole pointed at an exit and Warren slammed on the gas, swerving between two cars.
“We’re lucky these roads have been plowed,” Warren said. “But if we get onto unplowed side streets, this thing isn’t going to be able to outmaneuver the gray behemoth behind us.”
At the bottom of the exit ramp, Warren took a soft right past a gas station and a couple fast food restaurants. Cole watched through the back window, struggling to differentiate the cars and trucks in the shifting headlights behind them. For a moment, it appeared they’d lost the SUV. But when Warren turned onto a wide road heading west, traffic thinned and the SUV reappeared.
“Where are we going?” Cole asked. “I thought you’d want to stay on the large roads.”
“Gonna try heading into Arlington, into the town. Maybe lose them in an underground lot. They’re not even trying to hide that they’re following us anymore, which worries me.”
They traveled west for a few blocks, the SUV still comfortably behind them, then stopped at a light. Ahead, only brake lights. The intersection was stopped up with cars. Eyes on the mirrors, studying the doors of the SUV behind them, they sat as the light changed from red to green, then back to red. No cars moved. They sat through the light again. No movement. And again.
Warren jumped out of the car briefly, looked to the distance, then hopped back in. “Road is closed.” Again, he trained his eyes on the SUV.
Cole took in a breath, and held it. She spun around on her knees, looking through the low back window of the Cougar. The top of the SUV was visible about six cars back. “What do we do?”
Warren didn’t respond. He stashed his phone in his pocket and contorted his large, muscular body to put his leather jacket on. She turned back to the SUV
and her heart tightened. The passenger door was open. A man got out, lit from behind by the headlights of the car behind him. He was large, maybe Warren’s size, and he was coming for them. “Warren, he—”
“I see him. We have to go. Now.”
21
Cole followed Warren through the intersection, walking briskly and catching him only once looking back longingly at his abandoned Cougar. He favored his right leg, but he picked up the pace as they turned onto a side street. She needed to jog to catch up.
The man was only a hundred yards back, but he was alone. The driver had stayed with the SUV. “Where are we going?” she asked.
“We’re only a quarter mile from Arlington National Cemetery.”
“Isn’t it closed?”
Ignoring the question, he picked up the pace. At the end of the block, traffic was stalled on another large road.
“C’mon,” Warren said. “He’s waiting for us to get out of public view. Doesn’t want a scene.”
Cole followed across the intersection onto a dark side street. “Then why are we turning here?”
“Because I think we can disappear if we reach the cemetery. If he was sent by Mazzalano, he’s likely a rogue NYPD cop. If he’s got a badge, your average Joe is going to help them, not us. If we stay visible, we’re vulnerable. We have to disappear.” He glanced back again, then said, “Let’s go. You lead.”
He gave Cole a gentle shove and jogged beside her. She picked up the pace, running as fast as she could, not looking back.
They reached the intersection of Arlington Blvd. A steady stream of cars passed, shooting salt and mushy snow toward them. They waited for a break in traffic, then bolted. A car blared its horn, another braked hard and swerved across a lane. Pausing at a divider, Cole looked back. The man was closer now—only twenty yards from the road.
The traffic thinned and they broke into an all-out sprint, crossing a large field, perfectly blanketed by virgin snow. Warren stayed behind her, occasionally stepping up to subtly correct her direction. He seemed to know where he wanted to go. They crossed a small side street, then another that jutted out at an odd angle.
