Martie made the rounds, pacing, barking, exhorting, trying to keep morale up and his system functioning. It was hopeless and he knew it. The only prayer of finding Jack or Perry was the Department of Defense. It had the full and remorseless resources of the federal government to pursue Jack wherever he led them.
No matter how smart Jack was, it was just a matter of time. He would be found.
Jack, at that moment, was running hard and fast. Sweat was dripping off his head. His shirt was soaked, his breath coming out in heavy gusts. Ten minutes before he had kicked up the treadmill to seven miles per hour, a final sprint before he finished his habitual morning exercise.
He had entered the apartment in the early hours of the morning, before CG’s manhunt gained traction. The day he’d ditched TFAC’s watchers, he took the train to New York, then jumped in the rental car and headed south, right back to D.C. Using a false name and paying with a fistful of cash, he had checked into a Best Western on the city outskirts, watched the news, slept off and on, and waited.
At three that morning, he ditched the rental at a local vendor and dropped the keys in a night box. Nobody saw him. He walked two blocks to a dark street corner where he was met by a friend who drove him here. The tall apartment complex was directly across the street from CG’s headquarters, and the apartment was located on the twelfth floor with a commanding view of everything that happened street side. It had been rented under a false name almost a year before. The day before Jack made his dash for freedom, a friend had restocked it with enough fresh food and supplies to last a month, if need be.
The apartment was large, with three bedrooms, two of which now were filled with stacked boxes, all carefully labeled and organized.
Jack switched off the treadmill and, grabbing a towel to wipe off his sweat, walked to the big console by the window. The curtains and shades were drawn tight. All lights in the living room had been disconnected months before to minimize any chance of a silhouette in the window. He sat at the big console and played with the dials for a few minutes before he found something interesting to listen to.
A team of four men under Jack’s employ had manned this console around the clock for over seven months now. They sat, eating, smoking countless cigarettes, sipping coffee by the gallon, listening, recording, filtering, and discarding the rubbish. They preserved only what was worth listening to. Not only the bedrooms, but a storage container three blocks away were loaded with tapes, the plentiful fruits of this long and exhausting effort.
Jack turned up the volume and listened attentively to the distinctive voice of Mitch Walters conversing with Phil Jackson. They were chatting in Mitch’s office, according to the console light. Walters had a hard, deep voice, but it sounded hoarse and raspy, the result of little sleep and too much yelling and hollering at his beleaguered employees. Jackson’s voice was unchanged, flat, insinuating, condescending. The feed was crystal clear; Jack could have been seated in the office. He closed his eyes and could almost picture them-Walters behind his big desk with his feet up, perhaps hefting a paperweight in his beefy hand, Jackson lounging in a chair, studying the CEO with his mean, slitty eyes.
“Sufficient evidence is still the problem,” Jackson was saying, not nicely.
“How many times are you gonna tell me that? I’m working on it.”
“Then work faster. Wiley could be found at any minute. You better have something good and legally compelling when he turns up.”
“You said yourself Wiley won’t be a problem. His old pal Wallerman will bury his credibility. He ripped off an old lady, then murdered her. Anything he says will be neutralized by his ugly past.” A brief pause, then, “He was a crook then, he’s still a rotten crook. Nobody believes a murderer.”
“You’re not listening, idiot.”
Jack could picture Walters’s face flushing with anger. His fists would be clenched, his shoulders bunched, his broad, pugnacious face puckered and red.
Jackson said very slowly, very deliberately, “You need to give me something I can work with. You, Bellweather, and Haggar get together and concoct your story. Wiley conned us, and here’s how. Got it? Details, Walters, plenty of details, all believable. The three of you rehearse until you sound like a barbershop quartet. And it would certainly be nice if you produced a little paper or even a tape that backs you up. Fabricate it, if necessary. Understand?”
“All right. I got it.”
Jack could hear the sound of a chair being pushed back.
“You better,” Jackson said, a parting shot. “You’ll only get one chance.”
28
Mia slipped out of the office late that afternoon for what she told Nicky was a long-overdue dental appointment. A molar had been aching for a month; she couldn’t sleep and she’d put it off too long already.
Harvey Crintz was lurking nearby, about ten doors down the hallway, where he had an excellent view of the locked entrance to DCIS’s Pentagon office. He’d been there for hours, gulping coffee, chatting on his cell, watching and waiting.
Mia had stepped out a few times, but only to pick up food or hit the ladies’ room, because she returned within minutes.
Crintz had been called two days before by somebody in an outfit called TFAC, who claimed that Harvey had been referred by some mutual friends over at the Capitol Group. At first Harvey had turned white and gagged. Fearful that CG had ratted him out about his cash-for-inside-tips game, he claimed he had never heard of the Capitol Group, never heard of these friends. Deny, deny, deny. They must’ve confused his name for somebody else, he insisted and nearly hung up.
When the words “one hundred thousand dollars” somehow found their way into the conversation, Harvey’s memory improved and his listening turned razor-sharp. It was only a small favor, after all, the voice told him; nothing more serious or dangerous than what he’d done dozens of times in the past. As a member in good standing of the Inspector General’s office, it wouldn’t be at all unusual for Crintz to visit the DCIS office. And should he happen to, say, browse for a moment around Mia Jenson’s desk, and maybe, perhaps, by chance, find something interesting and relevant to her vendetta against CG, maybe he could find a way to smuggle it out.
Crintz lost a lot of sleep the previous two days as he considered and debated the offer. The pros and cons rattled around his brain. This was more than he’d ever been asked to do, but technically only slightly more. No, on second thought, a little inside information was one thing; this was burglary and the punishment was much more severe. It was also one hundred grand, though. A hundred thousand dollars! His to do whatever he wanted with, his to spend, his to waste however he wished. The Mercury Sable in his driveway was old and tired, the paint was peeling, and he could hear the transmission grinding to death; he’d love to replace it with something fancier, say a racing green Jaguar, and the decision was made. Mia was about to buy him a car.
Crintz waited five full minutes until it was clear that Mia’s absence was something more than a bathroom stop. He walked quickly to the door and pushed the buzzer. A voice came over the intercom and he knew it was an assistant. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Crintz with the IG’s office, here to see Andy Kasprisan,” he said into the speaker, identifying an agent he knew who worked in the office.
There was an irritating buzzing noise as the thick door unlocked and he quickly pushed it open. The assistant’s desk was directly in front of the door, and he made sure to give her a good long glance at the Pentagon badge attached to his shirtfront as he passed. “Thanks,” he told her.
“He’s way in the back,” she mumbled, then pushed her nose into some papers on her blotter.