“Last week one day we drove to this huge, gated mansion in Potomac Falls and he went in alone. When he came back out, he was raving about this guy that lived there. How rich he was. How paranoid. How he had this fully stocked bunker under the house, waiting for the end of the world.
“Williams has been… in some kind of fission mode. Yesterday, he took personal time for the whole afternoon.”
“Yesterday afternoon… all right,” Livvy said. “Did you get the address on the mansion?”
“Yeah,” Agnew said. “How dumb does he think I am? Does he just not care?”
Livvy thought for a few moments. “Maybe, just maybe… Look, I know this is hard to understand. It’s possible that he doesn’t care, that he may want to get challenged, to get caught. He’s no fool, either, and he may have intended to slip you useful information.
“Sometimes out of anger or desperation or just plain dissatisfaction people get wrapped up in things they regret. They lose their way, and don’t know how to get back. A mid-life crisis, it used to be called. Now we have all kinds of additional issues and labels for them, but I suspect they’re still the same sort of thing.”
She pulled herself out of the booth and stood there, looking down at him.
“Personally, no matter what a person does or doesn’t do, I believe in redemption. I doubt that it’s ever too late to change things and be again that person you want to see in the mirror in the morning.”
“592 McCarthy Court. I never heard a name,” Agnew said.
“If it makes you feel any better, I knew it, I just needed confirmation,” Livvy said. “You saved me from a lot of worry about a costly mistake. Thanks.”
She started to take a step towards the door, and Agnew touched her wrist. “It’s a fortress,” he said.
Livvy smiled at him, and gave him another reassuring half-truth, “Young man, I’ve dealt with fortresses before.”
After Bedford left, Chris got up and moved slowly around the room, checking for anything that might prove useful. As long as he stood up straight, he found moving tolerable, but it still took him over two hours to find and destroy eight tiny acueyes. He could only hope they were the only visuals that covered the room.
The door and the lock were, as far as he could tell, impregnable, and the walls were solid concrete and probably very thick. He thought that, knowing Bedford, there might be a hidden back exit somewhere, with a tunnel to some other safe room, but he couldn’t find it. He did find some knives in the kitchen. He also found some ready-to-eat meals in a pantry, and helped himself to some delicious seafood pasta and two glasses of excellent Chablis.
Livvy sent her sixth request for a response to his ear comu. Since he had no access to a transmitter, all he could do was appreciate the subtle message it sent: she had nothing new to worry about other than the fact that he was not responding, and she knew enough not to send any important information. It was good to hear her voice.
He had little to do except think, and few of his thoughts were comforting. If he were alone on the case, it would be over for him, at least for now. But he had a partner, and he had to think about what that meant. He wasn’t a training officer, but that didn’t absolve him from giving Livvy the essentials of LLE work. He had thoroughly discussed the case with Livvy, and tried to give her a few basics along the way, but there was a lot he had neglected.
Did Livvy know by now that if the Chief followed his own strict policy, she was left to working the case alone? Chris understood and respected the policy, and had preferred working cases alone, for that matter, but Livvy was an LLE rookie. He had faith that Livvy would continue to work energetically, but that meant that his inattention yesterday, which had landed him here, was likely to get her killed.
It was no excuse that they had been thrown almost immediately into this complicated case with the concomitant distraction of becoming targets for assassination.
Did she know she could trust Meg and the Chief, and not trust Williams, who was almost certainly Bedford’s LLE ally?
She was a quick study; she’d understand by now how important it was to avoid media attention. That was probably Bedford’s biggest advantage, knowing from Williams that LLE shunned publicity so completely that the sad truth was that if he succeeded with his plan, unless someone very persistent found some incontrovertible evidence and refused to bury it, he wouldn’t be challenged, at least legally. Jesse would take Bedford’s place and die; John would get Jesse’s allotment. Jesse’s parents would be dead and everyone else in his life could be replaced. No one, other than a few people in LLE and Paula Bedford, would suspect. The scandal would be buried with Jesse.
On the other hand, odds were good that he could count on Williams to minimize to Bedford the threat Livvy represented. Williams might also let Bedford understand that Chris could be held indefinitely without significant LLE retaliation, and emphasize to Bedford how important it was to figure out how Chris had found Bedford’s connection to Josephson. That might keep Bedford from killing him outright.
He kicked the guilt around a while longer and then set it aside as unproductive. Later, if there was a later, he could re-explore it and what it meant to him.
By 10 pm he was tired of mentally running through the same pointless scenarios. A small, private war. For now, it was all on Livvy.
He had another glass of Chablis while he set a chair loaded with some cooking equipment leaning against the sliding door. Sometimes, primitive traps were the most reliable. Even if he had missed an acueye or two and they knew he was sleeping, no one could come in without creating a racket. Then he went back to the bed, carefully lowered himself until he was flat on his back, and stared at the ceiling. He might as well sleep, if he could.
Chp. 14 Tactics (Friday night)
When Livvy called Bruno Morelli’s home code a woman answered. Chris had mentioned, after they were introduced, that Bruno had been happily married for over sixty years. Cara, that was her name.
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” the pleasant female voice answered when Livvy asked to speak to him. “You do realize that it’s 2230?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Livvy said. “Unfortunately I still need to speak to him. It’s important. Urgent really.”
“But not quite an emergency yet, and you’re counting on Bruno to help prevent one.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Whom may I say is calling?”
“Livvy Hutchins. I’m Chris McGregor’s new partner.”
“Ah, yes. Well, my dear, I’m quite sure Bruno will talk to you,” the voice said, then, in a muffled shout, “Bruno. It’s Chris’ Botticelli Venus.”
“How is Chris?” the voice asked, back on the comu.
“Currently missing.”
“Hmm, and how long has that been going on?”
“Over 28 hours now.”
“I see,” the voice said, and then again, muffled. “Bruno, you might as well get dressed and take the call in the car.
“Hang on. He was in the laver, but if you give him another moment, he’ll be in the car, and you can explain it to him while he’s on his way.”
Twenty minutes later Livvy was in Bruno’s office in the Special Tactical unit. She’d told him as much as she could over the comu while he was on his way. Given the blanket order from the Chief, that wasn’t much. In the end, he knew little more than what she’d told Cara: Chris was missing and hadn’t responded to communication for over 28 hours, and that she and Chris had been working on a major case that had given Livvy reason to be worried.
“Look, I know how LLE works. I’ve been supplying McGregor with bags of tricks for almost 60 years, and never asked a question I didn’t need answered to do the job. But you are one little… “ Bruno said, frowning briefly and then giving her an apologetic smile, “… woman, and most of the guys LLE goes after have plenty of resources, which means brigades of lethally-armed muscle-bound security lugs.”