Roarke ignored the comment. Instead, he reached for the door handle. “After you.”
The two men walked up the stairs to the fourth floor without another word. When they entered Meyerson’s apartment, Roarke saw that three of Bessolo’s squad were busy working: their second day. Two were cataloguing personal items and a third was at the computer. Roarke assumed they’d already downloaded the computer’s entire memory. Now they were drilling deeper into the details.
“What have you found?” he asked the man on the computer.
The FBI agent looked at Roarke, and then to his supervisor.
“You probably want to see this.” Roarke dug into his pocket and produced his Secret Service ED.
Mark Gimbrone examined the card. It wasn’t enough. He turned to Bessolo for approval. He got the condescending no he expected.
“Okay then, what if I just quietly watch. I don’t get in the way. You don’t get a phone call. Mind if I just look over your puppy’s shoulder then?” Roarke asked Bessolo. “Promise, I won’t disturb him.”
This time, Bessolo shrugged and said, “Look, don’t talk.”
“Thank you,” Roarke answered as impolitely as possible.
Gimbrone went from one program to the next, scanning the in- and out-boxes, the recently deleted messages, and web searches. After ten minutes, Roarke pulled up a chair to get more comfortable. His host seemed to skip a number of things that Roarke showed interest in. The third time it happened, he tapped the screen.
“Mind if we spend a little bit of time on that?”
The FBI man snorted and clicked off the screen.
Roarke leaned forward and whispered in his ear. “You don’t know me, do you?”
Without looking, Gimbrone nodded no.
“I didn’t think so. A lot of what I do doesn’t get public notice.”
Gimbrone’s ears perked up. He swiveled his chair around.
“I’m Taylor’s boy. The one who gets to go anywhere and do anything. You might have heard about some of my assignments. None of which, of course, ever happened.”
Recognition spread over Gimbrone’s face. Libya. The Capitol. The man who saved Taylor. The man who stopped Lodge. They all came to mind.
“So, may I please take a look,” Roarke continued in a whisper. “Quiet as a mouse, just like I promised.”
There was no longer any question. He returned to the computer and typed in the command that brought the e-mails back to life. The FBI agent extended his palm, inviting Roarke to examine it closer.
Roarke patted his back in thanks as he read the first e-mail address, the time and date, and a completely incriminating message.
“Holy shit,” Roarke said, suddenly making a friend.
Gimbrone agreed. “And there’s more. Info on pending bills, military intel, travel schedules for the president and the veep. All a bit obtuse, but recognizable.”
“How many are there?”
“Six,” the FBI agent volunteered.
“All to the same recipient?”
“Every single one. From the first ‘how do you do’ to the last, just a day before she left for California.”
Roarke looked around the room. Bessolo’s team was tagging and bagging items. He recognized Beth Thomas. She’d be another good one to befriend. No doubt she was analyzing pictures, dinner receipts, and phone logs; the process could go on for weeks. Meanwhile, the story would take on a momentum all of its own, and even though Vice President Taylor had no hand in Meyerson’s hiring, he’d undoubtedly feel the heat.
Roarke wanted to help, but he wasn’t sure how. As he craned around Gimbrone, the word bungled nagged at him again. Why? he wondered.
His thought was interrupted by the vibration of the cell phone in his sports coat pocket. A 617 number. Not Katie’s.
“Hi, Scott. Catch you at a bad time?” It was Katie.
“In the middle of some stuff.” He backed up two steps and turned to the side for a degree of privacy. “Where are you?
“Out.” There was some nervousness in her voice. “But if you’re busy we can talk later.”
Roarke noted the undercurrent. “Is everything all right?”
She hesitated, then answered. “I guess so.”
Roarke hadn’t heard concern in Katie’s voice, even veiled concern, in months. “Need to talk?”
“It can wait.”
There is something. “You can do better than that. What’s up?” He was sure he heard traffic noise. “Where are you calling from?”
“Outside. From a phone at Faneuil Hall. Can you believe it?”
“What about your cell?”
She didn’t answer the question. “Look,” she said instead. “You’re busy. It’s just a question. It can wait.”
Roarke rubbed his chin with his free hand. They hadn’t been together for a while. Maybe he could hop a flight later in the day.
“Hey, you, I can be through in a bit. Wanna play this weekend?”
“Do I!” she exclaimed. “Really?”
“If you want me.”
“In every possible way.” She rushed to the next question. “How soon?”
Roarke continued to chat with his cell in his left hand. Since he didn’t want to take his ear off the phone to check his watch, he simply stepped forward to the computer screen. Windows displayed the time on the extreme lower-right corner.
“…Two fifteen. I could be on the four-thirty. Meet you at our usual for drinks, say at…”
He stopped in mid-sentence, peering closer to the screen. The time. He looked at his watch, then the screen again. Two fifteen. He reached forward to tap the screen, wanting Gimbrone to see what he just noticed. But the agent pushed Roarke’s hand aside, not allowing his finger to touch the liquid crystal monitor. The minute flipped to 2:16.
“At?” Katie asked. “Oh, hello? At?”
After the long pause, Roarke continued, but his focus completely shifted. “Sorry. Gotta get back to you,” he said abruptly forgetting her concern. “There’s something I have to look into.”
The president’s secretary cleared Robert Mulligan right in again. Not wanting to waste any time, Mulligan removed a folder from his briefcase the moment he stepped into the Oval Office.
“Mr. President.”
“Bob.”
The pleasantries were over.
“I take it you have more?”
“Yes. We found a request for a meeting in one e-mail. A time. A date. A place.”
“Spare me the guessing. Where?” Henry Lamden demanded.
“Los Angeles, Mr. President. Around the time Meyerson was killed. That could be why she carried lipstick on her run.”
“What?”
“To put a message in for a dead-drop.”
“Have you found any reply from a handler?”
“Online, no. But considering she was sending messages out on her PC, I’m not surprised. However, we did find some tape stuck under a park bench near where she was killed. It was right where another jogger reported seeing her sit down the day before.”
Neither man had taken a seat. Mulligan passed the folder to the president, but Lamden didn’t open it. Instead, he went to his desk and held up the morning Post.
“You want to tell me how the story got out, Bob?”
Mulligan knew this was coming.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“You don’t know.”
“No, sir.”
“You better find out.”
The director already had a team scrutinizing phone logs in and out of the bureau, but he decided that it would be better to agree now. Lamden had every right to be upset. Only the FBI knew about Meyerson’s correspondence.
“While I have your undivided attention, Bob…”
“Yes, sir?”
“How the hell did you clear this woman for office?” the president demanded. “No background checks? No hint of a personal political vendetta? Resentment? Nothing showed up?”