Stone shook his head. “No. The fire was probably set by an accomplice of the killer. They must’ve known that there was surveillance going on inside that house. The fire was a distraction, giving them an opportunity to get in the house, kill Behan and escape.”
“Pretty clever,” Caleb commented.
Stone said, “I’m going downtown to see Reuben.”
“Won’t they ask for ID or something, Oliver?” Milton pointed out.
“They can ask, but the last time I checked, not having any wasn’t a crime.”
“I bet Susan can get you an ID,” Milton suggested. “She had FBI credentials that looked like the real thing.”
Caleb said, “Where is our intrepid colleague?”
“She had other plans,” Stone answered.
Jerry Bagger sat in his office with a look of defeat rare in the man. Photos of Annabelle and Leo had been discreetly circulated to every corner of the con world, and no one had come forward to offer an ID. It wasn’t surprising considering there was not one single clear shot of her or her grunt. It was like they knew exactly where the surveillance cameras were posted. And though his people had done their best to forestall it, news of the con against Bagger had leaked out in bits and pieces, which was probably worse than the truth all being revealed, since it allowed ample room for speculation. In sum, the casino king was a laughingstock. That only fueled his desire to find the pair and run them through a buzz saw while he videotaped their last horrendous moments on earth.
Their rooms had been gone over, and not a single print had been found. Any drinking glasses that the woman and her sidekick touched had long since been cleaned. The cell phone she’d thrown against the wall had gone in the Dumpster and was now resting in the landfill of whatever state Jersey shipped its garbage to. The four-day window had dried up their trail. Bagger put his head in his hands. And he’d been the one to suggest the extended time frame. He had, in effect, conned himself.
And that was the bitch’s plan all along. She gave me just enough rope to hang myself.
He rose and went over to the wall of windows. He’d prided himself on being able to sniff out scams long before they had a chance to do him any harm. However, the fact was this was the first con perpetrated on him directly; all others had been focused on his casino. Those were short cons, aimed at relieving money from his craps, blackjack and roulette tables. This had been a long con orchestrated by a woman who knew exactly what she was doing, and used every asset she had, including that old reliable, sex.
Yet she had been so damn convincing. He went through her spiel over and over in his mind. She had turned the tap on and off at just the right interval. She had him convinced that she was a spy working for the government. And these days, with all the crap the feds were involved in, it was hard not to believe even the most outrageous stories.
He gazed out the window, and his mind went back to that telephone call, the one where she wanted to meet after ferreting out his security detail following her. He’d lied that he was already gone from the office, heading out of town. She’d told him point-blank that he was still in his office. That one comment had made him believe that she was legit, that the spooks were really watching him. Watching him!
He stared across the street at the hotel. It reached twenty-three stories off the Boardwalk, identical to his building. The line of windows there looked right into his office. Son of a bitch! That was it! He screamed for his security chief.
After a bit of hassle and tough questioning and finally a call to Reuben’s lawyer, Oliver Stone was allowed in to see his friend in his cell. When the door clanged shut behind him, Stone jumped slightly. He had been imprisoned before, though not in an American facility. No, that wasn’t right, he corrected himself. His recent torture had certainly been by fellow Americans on U.S. soil.
Assuming that the room was being monitored, Stone and Reuben talked in low voices using few words. And Stone started tapping his feet on the concrete floor.
Reuben caught on to what he was doing. “Think the sound will mess up their electronic eavesdropping?” he whispered, his look skeptical.
“Not really, but it’ll make me feel better.”
Reuben smiled and started tap-dancing too. “The fire?” he muttered.
“Yes, I know,” Stone said. “You okay?”
“Just a knock in the head. My lawyer’s going to use that as a defense.”
“Prints on the gun?”
“Accidental touch.”
“Caleb explained things to the police. You were there guarding the books.” Reuben nodded. “Anything else?”
The other man shook his head. “Other than the peep show. Never saw it coming.”
“Following through, just so you know.”
“Connected?”
Stone gave a barely perceptible nod. “Need anything?”
“Yeah, Johnnie Cochran. Too bad he’s in the big courtroom in the sky.” He paused. “Susan?”
Stone hesitated. “Busy.”
As Stone left the building later, he noted that two men — obviously police — were following at a discreet distance.
“I’ll let you hang with me but just for a little while,” he muttered to himself. He was already thinking about the next person he needed to talk to.
Chapter 45
Roger Seagraves read the news story off his computer screen at work. The murder suspect had been identified as Reuben Rhodes. Former military and DIA with a drinking problem who’d burned just about every bridge he had over the years. He worked at a loading dock in D.C. and lived in basically a shack in the outer reaches of northern Virginia. The guy was a walking time bomb, the story had clearly implied. And this hater of war had killed a man who’d made a fortune from providing the deadly toys all armies needed to fight. It really was too good to be true.
When Seagraves first saw the big man entering the house through the back door, he didn’t know what to make of it. A burglar, he thought at first, yet the house alarm hadn’t gone off, and the man came out early the next morning with nothing in his hands. When he returned the following night, Seagraves knew he had a golden opportunity to put a very nice buffer between him and the police.
He pulled his hours for the government and then punched off the federal clock. Now the time was his alone. Seagraves had another little pickup to do. It wouldn’t be as pleasant as his sack time with the lady from NSA, but business couldn’t always be like that. It was important to keep his sources happy and functioning and, at the same time, ensure that no suspicion was falling on them. It was fortunate that with his position at CIA he had informal access to some of the investigations going on regarding domestic spy rings. While it was true that the FBI also played a large role in such matters, and he had few contacts there, it was still an asset to know which persons his agency had deemed “of interest.”
It was a testament to his skill that the arrow had never pointed his way. It seemed the CIA couldn’t believe that one of its former assassins would ever go into business on his own. Did they really think that was how the world worked? If so, he sincerely feared for his country’s safety if its premier intelligence agency could be so easily hoodwinked. Yet then there was Aldrich Ames, after all. But Seagraves was far different than that spy.
Seagraves had killed people under orders from his government. Thus, normal rules of engagement — to wit, law and order — did not apply to him. He was like a professional athlete, able to get away with much because of what he could bring on the field. Yet the traits that made them so formidable on the court or gridiron also made them dangerously aggressive off it. If Seagraves could get away with killing all those years, he felt there was nothing he couldn’t do. And even when he pulled a trigger for a living, he never really felt like he was working for someone else. It was his ass out there, whether in the Middle or Far East or any other place he was directed to go and snuff out a life. He was a loner, his psychological profile had confirmed that, and was one reason he’d been recruited as an assassin in the first place.