“Tired and sick, and sick and tired. I’d bitch about it, but then I’d be another one of those old farts who sits around and bitches all day.”
“I hear you, I hear you. How long you been out now?”
“Six years.”
“Do those golden handcuffs fit as nice as they say?”
“It seems like you ought to be finding out pretty soon yourself.”
“Yeah. Unless Emma decides to go to graduate school, in which case I’m in for a few more years,” the man said. “How’s your boy doing?”
“He’s good. Not married, so no grandkids on the horizon.”
“So he’s good-looking and smart. Never could figure out how you were involved in making him.”
“Takes after his mother,” Carl said. “She was a heck of a woman.”
“I know. I know,” the man said, having heard that from Carl Storm before and wanting to change the subject. “Hey, I was thinking about you the other day. Remember Malibu Marv?”
“Of course.” He was one of Carl Storm’s old collars.
The guy laughed. “So apparently they let the son of a bitch out after twenty years. He had found Jesus, had given his life to God, was turning over a new leaf — all that shit the parole board loves. He went back to the bank where you popped him all those years ago, set up on the street corner, and started preaching there five days a week. With the donations he got, he set up a storefront church that was doing real well. A few hundred people coming a week. A real success story — until they nailed Marv stealing from the tithes.”
“Yeah, that’s Marv…,” Carl said, chuckling. “At least he’ll know his way around at San Quentin.”
“Too true, too true. Hey, I still owe you for Tucson. Don’t think I’ve forgotten that.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yeah, I do. I think I’ll always owe you for Tucson. You saved my ass, Carl.”
Carl just grunted. This was another thing about old FBI agents: They never forgot. And just as it was important for Carl Storm to establish that the debt had been forgiven, it was just as important for the other man to insist that it had not been. It was still owed. What was about to come was another form of payment.
“Anyhow, I got something on that name you’re snooping around about. I might be able to put you in touch with someone who has information about something called ‘Operation Wafer.’ ”
“Operation Wafer. Jesus, the names these guys come up with. What’s that?”
“Something being put together by the boys in White Collar in New Jersey. I don’t know any of the details, just that it involves embezzlement and the guy you’re asking about. I don’t have the details, but apparently it’s big, and getting bigger all the time. What’s that kid of yours up to, anyhow?”
“Beats me,” Carl said, only somewhat honestly. “I’m just trying to make sure he doesn’t get in any more trouble than he’s already in.”
“Well, anyhow, you’ll get a phone call in a day or two. I’ll put you in touch with the guy heading the investigation. Can you sit tight that long?”
“No problem,” Carl said. “Thanks for the call.”
They hung up. Carl Storm stared at the wall for a second, wishing he wouldn’t worry, knowing that was an impossible order.
Fathers worry about their children. No matter how old the child gets.
CHAPTER 20
Somewhere over Decatur, Champaign, or perhaps Columbus
mong the many great things about being Derrick Storm, one was that he had friends with their own airplanes that they didn’t mind loaning out on occasion.
Among the many great things about private air travel, one was that no one insisted you turn off your cell phone and all portable electronic devices the moment the plane doors closed.
Among the many great things about satellite phones, one was that they worked at thirty-seven thousand feet.
As his borrowed Gulf Stream IV reached cruising altitude, Storm placed a call to Ling Xi Bang, who had been on the ground in Washington for several hours by that point.
“Good afternoon,” he said pleasantly. “How did the meet go?” Storm had arranged for Xi Bang to rendezvous with one of his sources. After she’d uttered a password, he’d provided her with a Senate staff ID card, a Virginia driver’s license, and a credit card. They contained her picture and the name Jenny Chang. He’d also given her a small pouch that included what he called “a pill and a powder,” then provided a briefing on what those drugs would accomplish for her.
“Went fine,” Xi Bang said. “Nice password, by the way. Are you sure you don’t have some kind of legume fetish?”
The password had been “soybean.”
“At least it’s a healthy obsession,” he said.
“Where are you right now?”
Storm leaned out the window. “I don’t know. That might be Bloomington, Illinois. Or maybe Bloomington, Indiana. But from this height every city in the Midwest looks the same. There’s a reason they call this flyover country, you know. Where are you?”
“In Washington.”
“I know that. I mean where are you, specifically?”
“Specifically, I’m sitting on a bench at the northeast corner of the National Mall. I was thinking about going to the Air and Space Museum and seeing if I could seduce one of the male tour guides into giving me your country’s aerospace secrets.”
“You probably won’t even have to sleep with the guy. Just offer him some freeze-dried ice cream and he’s yours. You’ll learn everything you ever wanted to know about Apollo 11. Just be warned: There’s no gas left in the tank, so don’t think you can use it to get ahead in the space race.”
“Yeah, you know we won that one, right? We Communists put a man up in space while you capitalists were still messing around with sending monkeys up there.”
“Yes, but think of how much fun the monkeys had.”
She laughed. Storm liked the sound of it.
“So I’ve got you set up with Senator Whitmer at eight o’clock to night,” Storm said. “His staff should be gone by then. He thinks he’s going to have an important, one-on-one, face-to-face meeting with Dianne Feinstein. But at the last second ‘Senator Feinstein’s office’ is going to call and cancel. That’s when you’ll move in.”
“Got it.”
“From there, just work your magic. We need to know who wanted that appropriations rider and/or who the mysterious donor behind the Alabama Future Fund is. Although, more than likely, it’s the same person.”
“Right.”
“Good.” Storm paused for a second, then said: “Now what are you wearing?”
“Are we really going to play that game? Come on. I’m in public.”
“No, no, I mean it. What are you wearing? Or, rather, maybe I should say: What is Jenny Chang wearing?”
“Same thing I wore yesterday, unfortunately. You may recall I didn’t exactly have time to pack when I left Paris.”
Storm flashed back to the last outfit he had seen Xi Bang in. It was lovely, but… the pants made her legs something of a well-kept secret. And the turtleneck?
“Yeah, that’s not going to work for Jenny Chang. She needs something a little more… youthful. Something that announces innocence, a lack of sophistication, and, above all else, availability. You said you’re on the northeast corner of the mall? Near the American History Museum?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, start walking north. I know a place.”
Xi Bang followed his instructions, which Storm didn’t mind admitting he enjoyed. It was like having his very own remote control girl spy. Talk about the most awesome toy ever.
Storm proceeded to guide her from the Mall to a mall. It was a store that specialized in making sixteen-year-old girls look and feel like twenty-five-year-olds, even if the only people they fooled were themselves — and old men who could no longer tell the difference. Which is what made it perfect for what Storm had in mind.