“Unlike the rest, both of these men paid cash,” the agent continued. “One guy signed in as ‘R. Lasher’ at a cheap motel about ten miles east. The other guy registered in the Hampton Inn right off 66 near Front Royal, under the name ‘B.J. Stoddard.’ We ran both names through the databases. Nothing.”
“Annie-did you want to say something?”
Garrett, looking at her; he must have seen her react. Everyone else turned to her.
“I-I’m not sure. Something in what Agent Sully said. But I can’t put my finger on it… Let me think about it.”
“Maybe these were just guys cheating on their wives,” the FBI boss interjected. “Maybe not. We’re interviewing the hotel night staffs to see if we can get useful descriptions or leads.”
The meeting didn’t last long after that. After agreeing on an action plan and defining responsibilities, everyone got up and began to filter out.
Garrett caught up with Annie. “Let’s talk,” he said.
*
In his spacious seventh-floor office, they sat in big club chairs around a small mahogany coffee table, sipping from water bottles they’d brought back from the conference room. She detected the faint aroma of cigarettes-a Langley no-no.
“This stinks,” Garrett said eventually, staring at the carpet.
“Sure does,” she said, suppressing a smile.
“I don’t mean Muller selling us out. Or even getting whacked before he talked to us. I mean, how he was killed. It doesn’t add up.” He glanced up at her. “Look-would you rat me out if I smoked?”
She laughed and shook her head.
“Thanks.” He went to his desk, fetched a blockish, battery-operated ventilation gadget from a drawer, got it purring, set it on the coffee table. Then fired up one of his Luckies. The smoke drifted toward the contraption. He looked at her. “A toymaker buddy down in DS amp;T put this thing together for me.”
“Nice to know the right people.”
He sat back. “Let’s start with the gun.”
“What about it?”
“The Barrett 99 is American manufacture. So is the. 416 ammo. More significantly, that cartridge is uniquely suitable for very-long-distance sniping-I think even better than the. 50 caliber.” He flicked a look at her. “Don’t ask me how I know this.”
“I won’t. But what’s the significance?”
“One: The Barrett isn’t the Kremlin’s sniper weapon of choice. It’s only been around three years-not enough time for the Russkies to become really proficient with it, anyway. They train their people on the Dragunov SVD and the SV-98. Good enough weapons out to about six hundred meters or so. But our shooter nailed Muller through the face at twice that distance.”
He inhaled, leaned forward, blew a stream of smoke toward his humming little machine.
“Two: Russian snipers also tend to operate in teams, not as lone shooters. Almost everybody else does these days, too. The idea of a lone-wolf sniper, especially on an op this important, bothers me.
“Three: There’s the business of knowing where we’d be taking Muller. Annie, let me tell you, we’ve worked damned hard to keep the Linden site secret. Only a few people in the Agency, top people, and a handful of case officers and interrogators, knew about it. If Muller did find out about it and told Moscow its location, then it isn’t logical that he showed no hesitation about going there. Knowing they’d want to silence him, wouldn’t he have insisted on going someplace else?”
“Makes sense.”
“So we can probably rule that out. Four, and finally: I have to disagree with The Boss. I just can’t imagine our people could have been tailed transporting Muller there, not without picking up the surveillance.”
“You’re right. OS protective teams are just too good for that.” She paused a moment. “So then, exactly what are you saying?”
He leaned forward, tapped some ashes into a navy-blue Agency mug.
“I’m not entirely sure. Except that this just doesn’t smell like a Russian hit.”
She put down her water bottle. “Then who?”
“Damned if I know. Because the only other possibilities I can think of are insane. And scarier. Such as: Maybe there’s another mole here who tipped off the Russians about where Muller was being held. Or, even crazier: Maybe the hitter himself is somebody inside Langley. Maybe somebody from the Special Activities Division, who might have turned-”
She smacked her forehead. “I just remembered.”
“What?”
“Something that FBI guy, Sully, said. Remember those guest names from the hotels? A man registered as ‘R. Lasher,’ another guy as ‘B.J. Stoddard’?”
“What about them?”
“That second name. Grant, do you read thrillers?”
He scowled. “Little lady, I live thrillers. Why would I need to read them?”
“Well, I do. Love them, actually. And one of my favorite series is about this guy from Arkansas, named Billy Joe Stoddard.”
“Okay. B.J. Stoddard-Billy Joe Stoddard. I see it. But so what?”
She leaned forward, hands on knees, holding his eyes.
“Billy Joe Stoddard is a former American military sniper.”
He stared back at her. “Jesus Christ.”
*
Garrett draped his suit jacket across the back of his desk chair, then called the cafeteria to send up a fresh pot of coffee and chicken salad sandwiches. After these were delivered, the pair ate in silence. Beyond the window, flesh-colored clouds faded to gray, as if life were bleeding from the sky. He didn’t bother to turn on the office lamps. They sat in the gathering gloom as Garrett torched his way non-stop through the last of his Luckies. The periodic flare of his lighter cut deeper fissures into his stony features.
For an hour they discussed meanings, possibilities, ramifications. They didn’t like their conclusions.
“This is certainly going to blow away the task force at tomorrow’s meeting,” she said at last.
“Not so fast.”
The aging spymaster mashed out his last glowing butt in the mug, got up, moved to the window. He stood there, hands clasped behind his back, a dark gray silhouette against the lighter gray rectangle. He stared out past the parking lot, out somewhere into the shadow world surrounding the sprawling complex.
“Annie, we agree that we may have another mole. Somebody high enough in the pecking order here to know that we took Muller to Linden. Maybe somebody with the clout to send out someone else, maybe an SAD guy, to hit him. That would mean somebody right here on the seventh floor, right?”
“I suppose so.”
He turned to face her. “So, do you want to alert this person that we’re looking for him?”
She hadn’t thought of that. She shook her head.
“If we’re going to nail him, we can’t go through normal channels.”
She nodded. After a moment, she stood. Walked over to face him.
“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t want to alert him. I want to be the one to find him.”
“Oh?” The lights from the parking lot revealed a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.
“Look, sir. I did what you said. I slept on it. And I’d like to accept that transfer offer and work for you.” She hesitated, then added: “But only if my job is to hunt that son of a bitch, sir.”
He looked down at her and, incredibly, actually smiled again.
“Grant. Call me Grant.”
SIX
Washington, D.C.
Monday, September 1, 1:25 p.m.
“ Hell-o, Mr. Hunter!”
The pretty receptionist sang out the greeting as he entered the suite and approached her desk.
“And to you, Danika.” He had to smile back, in spite of his foul mood.
She pushed her lips into a playful pout. “I was thinking you forgot the address here. What’s it been? Two weeks?”
“I’ve been out of town. On assignment.” A half-truth.
She rubbed her chin, mock-serious, appraising him. “Now, that’s a bold fashion statement. Shades are nice, though.”
Hunter removed his Oakley sunglasses and followed her gaze down to his reversible windbreaker. He now wore it garish-orange-side out, the side with the snarling black panther leaping across his chest. He’d meant it to be a point of focus, a distraction. It seemed to be working.