Behind him, beyond the glass wall, the door to the Cave crashed open, announcing Boxers’ arrival. “Have we decided who to shoot yet?” he quipped. It was his way of saying good morning.
Jonathan caught him up in a two-minute soliloquy. It doesn’t take long to relay that there’s nothing to tell.
“What about her friends?” Big Guy asked.
“What about them?” Venice replied.
“Well, if her enemies are all accounted for, what about her friends? Maybe they have something to do with this.”
Jonathan scowled. “What are you suggesting?”
Boxers shrugged with one shoulder. “Wasn’t it Sherlock Holmes who said that when the unlikely is all that is left, then it is probably the answer?”
“No,” Venice said. “The quote is that when you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
“Welcome to English class,” Jonathan said. “Big Guy’s larger point is worth looking at.”
“Why would the First Lady’s friends be trying to kill her?” Venice asked.
“Why would she be in a bar meeting with enemies?” Jonathan countered. “Maybe the kidnapping was secondary to a happy meeting with friends.”
“Or maybe friends and relatives of the people she put in jail are looking for revenge,” Venice said.
“Mine is quicker to research,” Jonathan said. “The clock is ticking here.”
“I didn’t know we had a clock.”
“There’s always a clock, Ven. You know that. Mrs. Darmond has been missing for nearly thirty hours now, and still there’s been no word. That’s concerning at multiple levels, and we’re still one hundred percent in the dark. Let’s swing at the easy pitches first, shall we?”
Clearly annoyed that Jonathan had taken Boxers’ side against her, Venice turned back to her keyboard and got lost in the keystrokes.
Boxers capitalized on the silence to ask, “Have you given any thought to the resources we might need if this thing goes hot?”
Jonathan sighed. It was always in the back of his mind, but until there were details to pin on the possibilities, weapons and equipment were hard to specify. “At this point, I think we prepare for the worst,” he said. “The normal complement of small arms, a couple of claymores, some grenades, and GPCs.”
Boxers nodded. He appeared to agree with Jonathan’s assessment. “Okay, then. I’m gonna head down to the armory and start assembling the go bags. I need something to do anyway, and this has the feel of an op where the balloon’s gonna go up fast.”
Jonathan couldn’t disagree.
The armory for the covert side of Security Solutions lay underground in a tunnel that ran the length of the yard and parking lot that separated the firehouse from the basement of Saint Kate’s, and contained enough weaponry to sustain an invasion of Mexico. Jonathan considered it a sanctuary of sorts — a place to relax, enveloped in the aroma of gun oil while smithing weapons to improve their function or merely to erase the signatures of previous operations. For Boxers, the armory was less about the poetry than the practicality, but Jonathan envied his escape.
As Big Guy exited the War Room, Jonathan turned back to Venice, whose face at once showed annoyance and amusement. “What?”
“I hate it when Boxers is right,” she said.
“What’ve you got?”
“One of the guys in the photos you looked at — Albert Banks — lives out in Warrenton, Virginia. I took a look at him because he’s local, and guess where his cell phone was night before last?”
Jonathan felt a tingle of hope in his spine. “Southeast DC?”
Venice smiled. “I can dial it in even closer than that. He was within two hundred feet of the Wild Times Bar.”
When Venice continued to grin, Jonathan knew there was more. She loved savoring her Big Reveals. “You look like you have a gas pain,” Jonathan said.
“Steve Gutowski was in the area, too.”
Another name from the FBI’s list of friendly contacts. “Interesting,” Jonathan said.
“The question is why would her old friends be out to kidnap her?”
An idea bloomed in Jonathan’s head, triggering a smile. “Maybe it was a reunion,” he said. “And the shootings were an attempted three-fer.”
“An attempted what?”
“Three-fer. One more than a two-fer. Revenge times three. If word got out to bad guys that the old friends were out reliving their past lives, what better time to take them all out?”
“That would mean a big leak in the Secret Service. If Boxers’ theory is right, maybe they were there to help her get away from Washington.”
“And the shooting?”
“Random coincidence?” Venice read the expression on her boss’s face for what it was and quickly added, “They do happen, Dig. I know you don’t like to admit that, but sometimes they do.”
It had long been a central underpinning of Jonathan’s life that when two or more unusual events occur simultaneously or in quick succession, they were directly related until proven otherwise. He’d seen too many people get hurt — hell, he’d seen too many wars start — when people ignore the proverbial elephant in the room.
“You said Albert Banks lives in Warrenton?”
Venice spouted off the address, as if Jonathan had memorized every street in the Union. “I’ll upload it to your GPS.” She had already figured out that he was planning to pay a visit.
On his way out the door, he called over his shoulder, “I’ll stay in touch.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but Mr. Banks isn’t in the office today.” The voice coming through the speaker was young and far too chipper.
Jonathan didn’t understand why everyone wanted to sound like a cheerleader these days when they answered the phone. “When do you expect him? I have a very important matter to discuss.”
A pause as papers shuffled in the background. “I don’t see any appointments on his calendar,” Melinda replied. He thought that’s what she’d said her name was. Or maybe Belinda. Just Linda?
“I didn’t make an appointment,” Jonathan said.
“Was he expecting you?”
We’re done with this. “Let’s get back to when you expect him.”
“He won’t be in at all today.” The effervescence in her bubbly voice had dropped by half. “Who’s calling?”
“This is Special Agent Horgan with the FBI.”
Next to him, in the driver’s seat, Boxers fanned the fingers of his right hand and waved from a limp wrist. Hubba hubba.
“Oh, my goodness. Is everything all right?”
Jonathan went Joe Friday on her. “I prefer to be the one asking the questions,” he said.
“Oh, yes. Of course. I’m sorry. He called in sick today.”
“Do you know if he’s at home now?”
“I presume so. Is he in trouble?” All the bubbles were gone now.
“Ma’am, do you know what obstruction of justice is?”
“Excuse me?”
“Obstruction of justice. Ever heard of it?”
“It’s a crime, right?”
“A serious crime,” Jonathan clarified. “It comes complete with serious jail time.”
“Oh my God, is that what Mr. Banks did?”
“No. It’s what you will have done if I arrive at his home and find that he’s not there anymore because you warned him.”
“Oh, Mr. Horgan, I would never—”
“Agent Horgan,” Jonathan corrected. Hey, if you’re going to play a role, commit to it, right? “The very best thing you could do right now would be to pretend that this conversation never happened.”
“Oh, I will, sir. I wouldn’t dream of calling him or warning him. I won’t even tell Mr. Grossman about the call.”