Reeder closed the distance at his evening-stroll pace. As he neared, he couldn’t see past the streetlight reflection on the windshield to get a look at the driver. Since that driver might have a gun aimed at him right now, this was... disconcerting.
But killing Chamberlain by hit-and-run was one thing, and shooting a well-known, government-connected figure like Joe Reeder was something else again. He liked his odds. When he got to the vehicle and could see through the side window, the car was empty.
Damn!
His eyes swiftly scanned the street for any sign of another person — nothing. Where the hell had the guy gone? Nearest place for coffee was several blocks down — should he check that? He scanned the area again, more slowly now — it was as if the world had ended, only an occasional distant honk of a car horn to suggest otherwise.
He walked to the next corner, crossing to his own side of the street, and came cautiously back — where could the tail have gone?
Across the street from the start of his block, Reeder ducked into the shadows of the house there. It wasn’t like you tailed somebody just to park a car, unless...
... a car bomb?
There were car bombs now that could obliterate blocks, and these people were deadly enough for that. But usually they were more surgical — Wooten had taken Yellich out by poison, Wooten himself got liquidated by a sniper’s precise bullet, Chamberlain by hit-and-run. Neat kills, relatively speaking, at least as much as murder is ever “neat.”
So, no — no car bomb.
Had the driver left his vehicle to check in with somebody watching the rear of Reeder’s house?
A possibility. That meant the driver would soon be returning to the Explorer, either to plant himself for surveillance or to vacate the scene. Little attempt, though, had been made to conceal from Reeder that he had been tailed, and would now be subject to surveillance...
Somehow, he needed to get his hands on the driver of that Explorer, and interrogate him. Shake it out of him, or goddamn waterboard him in the townhouse bathtub if that was what it took...
Keeping to the shadows, Reeder crossed to the northwest corner of Thirty-Fourth Street NW and P Street, then turned west on P toward the alley that ran behind the townhouses. Occasionally, as he crept along, he stopped to listen, but heard nothing. Not even a shoe scraping over concrete, not the rustle of clothing nor the rhythm of heavy breathing.
As he turned into the alley, a fist flew from the darkness.
Reeder couldn’t react quite fast enough and it connected high on his cheek, not on his jaw, as he ducked. Even so, the blow turned the inside of his skull into Fourth of July fireworks, and his balance was gone.
The attacker followed up on that advantage, kicking the unsteady Reeder in the ribs, martial arts — style, sending him to the gravel of the alley. His work apparently done, his escape seemingly assured, the attacker headed back toward the sidewalk.
But Reeder withdrew the baton, extended it with a snap, and whapped the guy across the left calf, getting a yelp out of him and sending him face-first onto the sidewalk with a thump.
Reeder rushed the attacker, who flipped onto his back and sent another kick at Reeder, who dodged it — the attacker’s face remaining a smudge in the night, thanks to darkness and movement. A second kick got Reeder in the right forearm and his fingers popped open and the baton jumped out, landing God knew where. Both men scrambled to their feet and Reeder reached behind him for the pistol in his waistband, but the attacker sent out another kick to Reeder’s ribs, doubling him over.
By the time Reeder regained his breath, the man was sprinting away, likely heading back to the Explorer. Reeder gave chase, but his opponent had too big a head start, and Reeder’s ribs were screaming. Reeder caught up only as the Explorer lurched away from the curb and sped off.
A glimpse of the attacker’s face, in the side rearview mirror, didn’t really help much. The license plate had been removed — no help there either.
He caught his breath, rubbed his aching ribs, then looked up and down the block. Not a single porch light had come on, the struggle apparently unnoticed. He went back to the scene of the attack, to retrieve the extending baton. He found it quickly, just down the sidewalk. But he also spotted something else, something small, making a reflective glimmer off a streetlight.
It was a lapel pin of a US flag, a common enough touch on men’s lapels in this town — only this one had a tiny camera. The little high-tech thing had been smashed in the struggle.
But Reeder knew what the lapel-flag camera was. And he knew of only one group of people who wore such a pin.
Agents of the United States Secret Service.
“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
Ten
Rogers said, “The pin could belong to someone who wants you to believe they’re with the Secret Service.”
Reeder, seated next to her, gave Rogers a blank look that somehow conveyed his contempt for that notion.
They were in the outer office of the Director of the United States Secret Service on the ninth floor of its H Street HQ. According to Reeder, he and Jonathon Briar, the first African American to hold the directorship, had been field agents around the same time.
That didn’t seem to be helping as half an hour of waiting turned into an hour. Of course, Reeder hadn’t left the Secret Service under the best of circumstances.
“I’m just saying,” she said, “that some unknown Secret Service agent jumping you isn’t the only possible explanation.”
“You saw the ID number on the back. He might as well have signed it Secret Service.”
Rogers took air in, let it out, then rose and went to the desk, where a brunette guardian of the gates was giving her computer the attention they weren’t getting, and said, “Excuse me?”
The woman looked up, narrow-faced if attractive with scant makeup, her dark gray suit and midnight blouse nice enough for Rogers to wonder how much better the SS must pay than the FBI. The guardian’s eyes, a lighter gray than her apparel, met Rogers’ without a word. That was apparently all the response an FBI agent merited.
“We had an appointment,” Rogers said. “It’s been over an hour.”
“The appointment was made only this morning.”
“You do know who Mr. Reeder is?”
The guardian nodded, about as impressed as a maître d’ at a really expensive restaurant. “Yes, and I told Mr. Reeder earlier, on the phone, that I would do my best to squeeze him in.”
“There’s no one else out here.”
“The Director is in conference.”
Getting that principal’s office feeling again, Rogers nodded and dragged back to her seat.
Five more minutes passed and the Director’s office door opened and a tall male figure emerged — that same GAO drone in wire-frames and a Men’s Wearhouse suit who she’d seen at Fisk’s office. This time Rogers didn’t rate the stranger’s nod of admission that she was a human being. Even the famous Joe Reeder got ignored.
Rogers whispered, “Conference must be over. We have to be next.”
Reeder didn’t give her a nod, either.