“The Potomac’s current is deceptively calm,” Alex added. “Not that anyone would want to swim in it these days. When it rains hard, you usually get some sewer overflow.”
“When they built Interstate 66, they were also going to build a spur off it that included a bridge across the river at that point. They were going to call it the Three Sisters Bridge, but there were so many weird construction accidents they finally gave up. Some said it was the ghosts of the nuns.”
“You believe in stuff like that?” Alex asked.
“Stranger things have happened. I mean look at some of the conspiracy theorists in this town. Most are probably crazy, but some of them turn out to be right.”
“I know a guy who falls into the category. His name’s Oliver Stone. The guy’s flat-out brilliant, if a couple paces off the sidewalk of life.”
“Oliver Stone? You’re kidding.”
“Not his real name, of course. I think it’s just his little joke aimed at people who believe he’s a quack. One of the most interesting things about him is he has no past, at least that I can find.” Alex smiled. “Maybe he’s been on the run all these years.”
“Sounds like a man Lucky would like to meet.”
“So does she still throw her underwear at dangerous men?”
“What?” a surprised Kate asked.
“Never mind.” Alex ate a spoonful of ice cream and looked over at Roosevelt Island. Adams followed his gaze.
She finally said, “So would you care to talk about it? Bartenders are great listeners.”
Alex motioned her to join him on a bench near the riverfront.
He said, “Okay, here’s what’s bugging me. The guy swims to the island and shoots himself. Does that sound likely?”
“Well, it was the island where he and his fiancée went on their first date.”
“Right. But why swim to the island? Why not just drive to it or walk? There’s a footbridge that crosses over the parkway and empties right into the parking lot of the island. And so does a bike trail. Then you jump the gate, go over to the island, get stoned and blow your brains out without schlepping through the Potomac. They found his car a good ways upriver, which means it was a long swim, in street clothes and shoes and carrying a pistol in a plastic baggie. It’s not like the guy was Mark Spitz or Michael Phelps.”
“But his prints were on the gun,” Kate retorted.
“Forcing someone’s hand around a gun and pulling the trigger isn’t that easy or smart to do,” Alex conceded. “The last thing you want is to put a gun in somebody’s hand that you’re trying to kill. But what if you got him drunk first?”
Alex pointed to his feet. “And the bottoms of his shoes bothered me.”
“How so?”
“They had dirt on them as you’d expect from walking through the brush, but there wasn’t any dirt on the ground around him. You’d think that some of that red clay would’ve ended up on the stone pavers around him. And his clothes were too clean. If you’d hiked around that island, you’d have twigs and leaves stuck all over your clothes. There was nothing like that on him. And if he had swum to the island, he would’ve had to trek through that bramble to get to the main trail.”
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Kate admitted.
“And the suicide note in his pocket? It was barely damp and the ink hadn’t run.”
“He probably carried it in the same plastic bag he used for the gun.”
“Then why not leave it in the baggie? Why pull it out and put it in a soaking-wet pocket that might cause the ink to run and the message to be lost? And while Johnson was wet when he was found, if he’d really swum all that way I would’ve expected him to be soggier and grimier than we found him. I mean the Potomac can get pretty foul around here.”
“But he was wet.”
“Yeah, but if you wanted it to seem like someone had swum all that way, what would you do?”
Kate thought for a moment. “Dunk him in the water.”
“Right, you’d dunk him in the water. And then there’s motivation. No one I talked to knew anything about Johnson dealing drugs. Hell, his fiancée was so ticked she threatened to sue me for even suggesting it might be true!”
“Like I always said, Secret Service doesn’t miss the details.”
“But come on, it’s not like we’re inherently better than the FBI with this stuff. They should’ve seen it too. I think there’s a lot of pressure from up top to put this to rest the easy way.”
“If someone brought him to the island and they didn’t want to use a car for fear of being seen, what would they do?”
As they were talking, they saw a police boat slowly pass.
Alex and Kate looked at each other and said together, “A boat!”
“That’s not something that’s easy to hide,” Alex said slowly.
Kate looked up and down the waterfront. “I’m game if you are.”
They threw their ice cream containers in the trash and headed down to the water.
It took them a solid hour, but they finally found it when Kate spotted a tip of the bow sticking out from the drainage ditch.
“Good eyes,” Alex complimented.
She slipped off her sandals and Alex his shoes and socks. He rolled up his pants, and they scrambled down there as a couple of passersby watched curiously. Alex ran his gaze over the old wooden rowboat, stopping at one point and putting his face very near the hull. “That looks like a bullet hole.”
“And that could be blood,” Kate said, pointing to a small dark patch near the gunwale.
“Which doesn’t make a lot of sense, unless they killed Johnson in the boat and then took him to the island. It was foggy that night, so I guess it could’ve been done without anyone seeing.”
“So what do you do with all this?” Kate asked.
Alex rose and pondered this. “I’d like to see if the blood matches Patrick Johnson’s or if it’s someone else’s. But if the director finds out I’ve been poking around this case again, I’m going to end up in a brand-new Service outpost in Siberia. That is, if he doesn’t kill me with his bare hands.”
“I can nose around,” Kate offered.
“No. I don’t want you anywhere near this. Some of the thoughts going through my head are downright scary. For now we’ll just have to leave it alone.”
CHAPTER
42
CAPTAIN JACK LOOKED AT THE note that had just been delivered. The message was coded but he’d memorized the key and quickly deciphered it. It was hardly good news:
Gray met with me today. He accessed some files, but I can’t find out which ones because he put an override on. He mentioned the resurrection of the dead to me personally. I discovered he made the same statement to other senior people here. He’s obviously fishing, to see who would jump at the bait. That’s why I sent this by courier. Go ahead with plans. I will hold down this end. Communicate via Charlie One from now on.
The problem with trying to communicate in this day and age was that it was virtually impossible to do so in secret if you used modern technology. Spy satellites were everywhere, and faxes, computers, cell and hard-line phones and e-mails were all potentially monitored. It was no wonder terrorists had resorted to couriers and handwritten messages. Ironic, that modern surveillance technology was driving them all back to the Stone Age. Charlie One was simple to use: coded messages on paper delivered by a trusted messenger, with the paper destroyed after being read.
The Secret Service advance team would be arriving in Brennan very soon. Shortly after that, the president would fly into Pittsburgh on Air Force One, and the most heavily guarded motorcade in history would make its way to Brennan. There they would be confronted by what some would consider a ragtag army of mostly forty-something men and one young woman. Yet Captain Jack would bet on his crew. He took his lighter and burned the letter to ash.