“Oliver, you’re right, I’m not sure I would have recognized you,” he said, gazing at his friend’s altered appearance.
“It actually feels good.” Stone eyed one of the security cameras. “This place seems very well guarded.”
“It has to be. The collection is priceless, the only one like it in the world. The safeguards they go through to make sure nothing is lost, you wouldn’t believe it. If a book gets misplaced, no one leaves until it’s found. The person who buys the books for the collection can’t access the database and alter the descriptions in the catalog, and the person who accesses the database can’t purchase books.”
“Because otherwise a person could buy a book for the collection and make it ‘disappear’ on the database, and then take the book and sell it and no one the wiser?”
“Exactly. My goodness, what a morning it’s been!” Caleb exclaimed. “A very elderly gentleman came in, not a scholar known to anyone here, just someone off the street. And he wanted to see a William Blake. A William Blake! ‘Any William Blake will do,’ he said. Well, that was a red flag right there. You might as well have asked to see our Mormon Bible, for all the sirens that set off. No one gets to see a Blake without senior-level approval, and that is not frequently given, I can tell you.”
“Blake is rare?” Stone said.
“Rare doesn’t even begin to describe the situation with Blake. Godlike perhaps.”
“So what did you do?”
“When we talked to him a little further, we discovered that he was quite probably descended from one of Blake’s siblings. So we brought out some of his illuminated works, his engravings, you know. He wasn’t allowed to touch them, of course, because very few people know how to handle old books. But this episode had a nice ending. The gentleman was quite overwhelmed by the entire experience. In fact, I thought he might start weeping. But many of our volumes are things of beauty. I think that’s why I love working here.”
All of this came thundering out in the fashion of a man passionately engaged with his work and eager to spread this enthusiasm to others.
Caleb and Stone took a staff elevator to the lower level, where they walked through the tunnels that connected the Jefferson, Adams and Madison Buildings of the Library of Congress complex, arriving at the cafeteria in the lower level of the Madison. They purchased lunch there and carried it outside, where they ate on a picnic table set up on the Madison’s raised frontage that looked out on Independence Avenue. The massive Jefferson Building was on the other side of the street, and just beyond that was the U.S. Capitol.
“Not a bad view,” Stone commented.
“I’m afraid it gets taken for granted by most.”
Stone finished his sandwich and then leaned toward his friend.
“Patrick Johnson?”
“I looked him up in the government database but found nothing. I don’t have the security clearances to make a really thorough probe. You thought he might be with the Secret Service because of that pin you found. If so, that’s out of my league. Law enforcement and librarians don’t share the same databases, I’m afraid.”
“There’s a new development. That Secret Service agent I’m friendly with, Alex Ford? He came by to visit me last night at my tent.”
“Last night! Do you think there’s a connection?”
“I don’t see how there can be, since he came by before the murder even happened. But it is troubling.”
There was a buzzing sound, and Caleb pulled out his cell phone and answered it. His features became very animated as he listened. When he clicked off, he said, “That was Milton. He was able to hack into the Secret Service’s database.”
Stone’s eyes widened. “He was able to do that! Already?”
“Milton can do anything with a computer, Oliver. He could make a fortune doing illegal things on the Internet. Three years ago he hacked into the Pentagon because he said he wanted to make sure they weren’t planning on nuking one of our own cities and blaming it on terrorists as an excuse for an all-out war against Islam.”
“That certainly sounds like something Milton would think of. What did he find?”
“Johnson worked as a data management supervisor at NIC.”
“NIC? Carter Gray.”
“Exactly.”
Stone rose. “I want you to call Reuben and Milton and tell them to be ready to go out tonight. And we’ll need your car. You can pick me up at the usual spot. We’ll meet Reuben at Milton’s house. It’s closest to where we’re going.”
“And where is that?”
“Bethesda. To the late Patrick Johnson’s home.”
“But, Oliver, the police will be there. It’s a murder investigation.”
“No,” Stone corrected. “It’s a homicide investigation right now with the police no doubt leaning toward suicide. But if the police are there, we might be able to pick up some valuable information. Oh, and, Caleb, bring Goff.”
As his friend walked off, a puzzled Caleb stared after him. Goff was Caleb’s dog! However, Caleb was well acquainted with his friend’s odd requests. He threw his trash away in a garbage can and headed back to his world of rare books.
CHAPTER
20
AS SOON AS TYLER REINKE AND Warren Peters left Roosevelt Island, they headed directly back to NIC. They dropped the “suicide” note off to have it compared against samples of Patrick Johnson’s handwriting and to have it checked for fingerprints. They instructed the labs that there might be useful latent fingerprints on the paper that would rule out suicide. That’s what they said, but not, of course, what the NIC men intended. If any of the witnesses last night had touched the note and they were on a database somewhere, Peters and Reinke would have a golden opportunity to tie up the loose ends.
After that, they drove to Georgetown, parked their car and began walking toward the riverbank.
“They haven’t come forward,” Peters said. “We’d know if they had.”
“Which might give us some breathing room,” Reinke replied.
“How much do you think they saw?”
“Let’s just go with worst-case scenario and assume they saw enough to pick us out of a police lineup.”
Peters thought for a bit. “All right, let’s also go with the theory that they haven’t told the police what they saw because they were on the island doing something illegal, or else they’re scared to for some other reason.”
“You were in the bow of the inflatable; how good a look did you get?”
“It was so damn foggy I didn’t see much of them. If I had, they wouldn’t be a problem.”
“Boat they were in?”
“Old and wooden and long enough to accommodate at least four.”
“Is that how many you saw?”
“Only two, maybe three. I’m not really certain. I might have winged one of them. I thought I heard somebody cry out. One was an old guy. I remember seeing a whitish beard. Pretty crappy clothes.”
“Homeless?”
“Maybe. Yeah, that could be it.”
“Now we’ve got the police, FBI and Secret Service to worry about.”
“We knew that going in,” Peters replied. “A homicide gets investigated.”
“But the original plan didn’t take into account eyewitnesses. What’s your take on this Ford character?”
“He’s no kid, so he probably knows how to hedge with the best of them. We’ll find out more on him and his partner later. I’m more worried about the Bureau.”
When they reached the riverbank, Reinke said, “We know they were headed this way. I made a preliminary recon of the riverbank earlier this morning and didn’t find it, but the boat has to be here. I’ll go north, you go south. Call if you spot anything.”