“Is he here at the moment?”
“Yup.”
“You wouldn’t care to give me the nod when he comes out, would you?”
“What you going to do?”
“Just see where he goes,” I replied. That seemed to disappoint the guard. There was a large concrete plant holder at the side of the steps that I concealed myself behind. Then I sent Joe a text, asking him to run a check on this Larry Thomson.
About an hour later, a group of people came out of the elevator and walked toward the exit. They all nodded politely to the guard, especially the man at the rear. He was tall and fair-haired, with a prominent nose and probably in his late fifties. He was carrying a black leather briefcase and had the bearing of a leader. I looked over at the security guard. He briefly extended a finger at the tall guy’s back as he headed down the steps.
I followed at about twenty paces’ distance and soon realized that Thomson was heading for the metro station I’d come from-the others had all respectfully wished him goodnight and dispersed. I went inside and loitered on the Glenmont platform, then got on the same train that he did and followed him off it at Metro Central. He exited the station and headed north. I’d been thinking about asking him straight out whether the NANR had an armed wing in Maine, but my bravado had dwindled away. Now I was more interested in where he was going. Then I saw we were on the street I’d scoped earlier. As Larry Thomson approached the Woodbridge Holdings building, I started to walk faster and was only about five yards behind him when he turned up the steps. I whipped out my cell phone and managed to take a photo of him without being noticed either by him or the security man who opened the door for him. I saw Thomson go toward a bank of elevators inside as I walked on nonchalantly.
At the next corner, I stopped and sent the photo to Joe, telling him of the link I’d just established between the North American National Revival and Woodbridge Holdings. I was hoping he’d manage to dig the dirt on the tall man. Meanwhile, I’d be subjecting my memory to another bout of the third degree.
Chief Owen was standing outside the apartment building in Lincoln Park, flanked by Clem Simmons and Gerard Pinker. He was looking at the pavement rather than at Peter Sebastian.
“No, there’s no chance of this being a Metro P.D. case,” the FBI man said firmly. “The pair of weapons and the presence of the drawings clearly link it to the series we’ve already taken over.”
Owen raised his eyes briefly. “What about the floater, then? You haven’t tied that to the other murders. I heard the vic was a farmer from Iowa.”
“Actually, we’re not sure he’s connected, but we’re holding on to him for the time being.” He eyed the detectives wearily. “Haven’t you got enough cases of your own to investigate?”
“What about Matt Wells?” Clem Simmons asked, ignoring Pinker’s immediate alarm.
“Our people have found fingerprints that we expect to be his,” Dana Maltravers said. “We haven’t had any sighting of him. You?”
Simmons shrugged. “We aren’t in missing persons, Special Agent.”
“He’s a murder suspect,” Sebastian put in.
“He’s a murder suspect in cases we’ve been excluded from,” Rodney Owen said.
“Is that the level of cooperation we can expect from you, Chief?” Sebastian demanded. “Because if it is, I’ll be on the phone to your superiors right away.”
Owen gave him a haughty stare. “Cooperation is a two-way street.” He looked at his detectives. “Besides, we haven’t got anything to pass on, have we?”
Simmons and Pinker shook their heads.
The group broke up, the detectives heading for their cars.
“Nicely done, Clem,” Pinker said in a low voice.
Chief Owen looked over his shoulder. “I hope you men have been fully open with the Bureau,” he said, a smile appearing at the corners of his mouth. “No, I don’t want to hear about it. Just get the job done.” He got into his Buick and drove off.
“What job’s that, Clem?” Pinker asked as they got into his partner’s car.
“Don’t ask me,” Simmons replied. “Besides, we’ve got cases of our own to investigate.”
Joe Greenbaum was at his desk, his desktop and laptop computers in operation. There was a large bottle of Pepsi on one side of the keyboards and an almost empty box of doughnuts on the other. He hummed tunelessly as his fingers rattled the keys rapidly, his eyes jumping from one screen to the other. He hadn’t succeeded in finding another image of Larry Thomson yet, but he’d gathered other information.
Earlier he had taken a look at Gavin Burdett’s BlackBerry. He’d tried to make sense of the limey banker’s diary, but the guy seemed to keep names and places in his head-there were only times listed for each day. He was certainly having plenty of meetings, though the pages were blank four days from now.
One of Joe’s failings was that he frequently got distracted by what he was working on. That was why he’d had a camera installed outside his apartment, showing not only the vicinity of his door but also the stairway all the way down to the ground floor. He’d also had pressure pads inserted under the first three steps that led to his floor. These things were meant to give him time to call the cops. He’d been attacked by a businessman’s thugs a couple of years back, and he didn’t intend spending another month in hospital.
Those precautions were why the faint sound of scratching on the apartment’s steel-lined door took Joe completely by surprise. He looked at the screens showing the landing and staircase. They had gone blank. He immediately grabbed the phone; no dial tone. By the time he’d located his cell and started pressing buttons, it was too late. There was a dull crump and smoke billowed in from the shattered door. Joe slid beneath his desk, catching his broad shoulders in the narrow space.
“Please, Mr. Greenbaum, do get up.”
Joe was amazed on two counts-the voice was cultured and it was female.
“We’re not going to shoot you. At least, not to death.”
Joe pulled his Colt Anaconda from its holster under the desk. He leaned forward and loosed off three shots. It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t yet sent the information he’d just gathered to his secure server.
“Not even close,” came the woman’s voice-she sounded very young. “Have a pleasant evening, sir.”
Joe heard another voice in the background, this one deeper-a man’s. Then there was movement toward the door.
After a short time, the reporter crawled backward from under the desk and got to his feet, holding his weapon in a two-handed grip. Then he saw the black box by the door, a red light flashing on its side. He grabbed the data stick from his computer and rushed to the rear window. After he’d opened it, he hardly had time to breathe before his life was blown to fragments.
I spent an hour in a different cafe in central D.C. There were no references to Larry Thomson on any sites apart from the North American National Revival’s. I went through what there was for Woodbridge Holdings, aware that Joe would have done so, too, by now, but maybe something would jog my memory about the camp. All I found were endless details about the company’s interests, none of which pointed directly to the depths of the Maine wilderness.
A little bleary-eyed, I decided to give Joe a call and see how he was getting on. A voice said the subscriber had turned off the cell-I sent him a text in case he turned it on again soon. After ten minutes I grew impatient. I left the cafe, found a pay phone and called his landline. Again, unobtainable. I began to get a bad feeling. Joe had said he would stay at his computers until he found something. He hadn’t been intending to go out and, besides, it was nearly midnight. I hailed a passing cab and told him a street behind Joe’s place. I didn’t have to risk using the front entrance-I could approach via the yards, as we’d done a couple of nights back.
I heard the sirens as soon as I got out of the cab. Jesus, what had happened? I jumped a low fence and ran across the unkempt gardens. As I got nearer to my friend’s building, the smell of hot dust became more intense. I could see a cloud of smoke and steam in the air ahead. Shit, what had I got Joe into? It was only when I saw the firemen in the yard behind Joe’s apartment that I stopped and took cover. They were directing hoses at the windows on the second floor. In their shouts the word bomb came up more than once.