As he drove on, Jackson thought briefly of how he would deal with LuAnn Tyler and her new ally, Riggs. Her disloyalty was now firmly established and there would be no more reprieves. He would focus his undivided attention on that matter shortly. But first he had something else to take care of.
Jackson entered Donovan’s apartment, closed the door, and took a moment to survey the premises. He was still wearing the dead man’s face. Thus, even if he had been spotted, it was of no concern to him. Donovan’s body had been incinerated, but Jackson had a limited amount of time to complete his search of the late reporter’s apartment. A journalist kept records, and those records were what Jackson had come for. Very soon the housekeeper would discover Bobbie Jo Reynolds’s body and would call the police. Their search would very quickly, largely through Jackson’s efforts, lead to Thomas Donovan.
He searched the apartment rapidly but methodically and soon found what he was looking for. He stacked the record boxes in the middle of the small foyer. They were the same ones Donovan had kept at the cottage in Charlottesville, filled with the results of his investigation into the lottery. Next he logged on to Donovan’s computer and did a search of the hard drive. Thankfully, Donovan had not bothered to employ any passwords. The hard drive was clear. He probably kept everything on disk for portability. He looked at the back of the computer and then behind the desk. No phone modem. Just to be sure, Jackson again checked the icon screen. No computer services like America Online were present. Thus there was no e-mail to search. How old-fashioned of Donovan, he thought. Next he checked a stack of floppies in the desk drawer and piled them all in one of the boxes. He would look at them later.
He was preparing to leave when he noted the phone answering machine in the living room. The red light was blinking. He went over to the phone and hit the playback button. The first three messages were innocuous. The voice on the fourth message made Jackson jerk around and bend his head low to catch every single word.
Alicia Crane sounded nervous and scared. Where were you, Thomas, she implored. You haven’t called. What you were working on was too dangerous. Please, please call me, the message said.
Jackson rewound the tape and listened to Alicia’s voice again. He hit another button on the machine. Finally, he picked up the boxes and left the apartment.
Chapter forty-nine
LuAnn looked at the Lincoln Memorial as she drove the Honda over the Memorial Bridge. The water of the Potomac River was dark and choppy. Flecks of white foam appeared but then quickly dissipated. It was the morning rush hour and the traffic over the bridge was heavy. They had spent one night in a motel near Fredericksburg while they decided what to do. Then they had driven to the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and spent the night at a motel near Arlington. Riggs had made some phone calls and visited a couple of retail establishments preparing for the events that would take place the next day. Then they had sat in the motel room eating while Riggs had gone over the plan, the details of which LuAnn quickly memorized. With that completed they had turned out the lights. One slept while the other kept watch. That was the plan at least. However, neither one got much rest. Finally, they both sat up, one curled around the other. Under any other circumstances they would have probably made love. As it was they spent the night looking out the window onto the dark street, listening for any sound that might herald another wave of danger.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” LuAnn said as they drove along.
“Hey, you said you trusted me.”
“I do. I do trust you.”
“LuAnn, I know what I’m doing. There are two things I know: how to build things, and how the Bureau works. This is the way to do it. The only way that makes sense. You run, they’ll eventually find you.”
“I got away before,” she said confidently.
“You had some help and a better head start. You’d never get out of the country now. So if you can’t run, you do the reverse, you go right at them, take the offensive.”
LuAnn focused on the traffic at the same time she was thinking intently about what they were about to do. What she was about to do. The only man she had ever absolutely trusted was Charlie. And that complete trust had not come quickly, it had been built and then cemented over a ten-year period. She had only known Riggs for a very short time. And yet he had earned her trust, even in a matter of days. His actions reached her far more deeply than any words he could try to tempt her with.
“Aren’t you nervous?” she asked. “I mean you don’t really know what you’re going to be walking into.”
He grinned at her. “That’s the really great part, isn’t it?”
“You’re a crazy man, Matthew Riggs, you really are. All I want in my life is a little predictability, a semblance of tranquillity, of normalcy even, and you’re salivating over walking along the edge of the cliff.”
“It’s all in how you look at it.” He looked out the window. “Here we are.” He pointed to an open spot on the curb and she pulled over and parked. Riggs got out and then poked his head back in. “You remember the plan?”
LuAnn nodded. “Going over everything last night helped. I can find it with no trouble.”
“Good, see you soon.”
As Riggs walked down the street to the pay phone, LuAnn looked up at the large, ugly building. The J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING was stenciled on its facade. Home of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. These people were looking for her everywhere and here she was parked ten feet from their damned headquarters. She shivered and put on her sunglasses. Putting the car in gear, she tried to keep her nerves in check. She hoped to hell the man really knew what he was doing.
Riggs made the phone call. The man on the other end was understandably excited. Within a few minutes Riggs was inside the Hoover Building and being escorted by an armed guard to his destination.
The conference room he was deposited in was large but sparsely furnished. He passed by the chairs gathered around the small table, and remained standing waiting for them to arrive. He took a deep breath and almost cracked a smile. He had come home, in a manner of speaking. He scanned the room for any hidden cameras, and saw nothing obvious, which meant the room was probably under both audio and video surveillance.
He swung around when the door opened and two men dressed in white shirts and similar ties entered.
George Masters extended his hand. He was large, nearly bald, but his figure was trim. Lou Berman sported a severe crew cut and a grim demeanor.
“It’s been a long time, Dan.”
Riggs shook his hand. “It’s Matt now. Dan’s dead, remember, George?”
George Masters cleared his throat, looked nervously around, and motioned Riggs to sit down at the nicked-up table. After they were all seated, George Masters inclined his head toward the other man. “Lou Berman, he’s heading up the investigation we discussed over the phone.” Berman nodded curtly at Riggs.
Masters looked at Berman. “Dan” — Masters paused, correcting himself — “Matt was one of the best damned undercover agents we ever had.”
“Sacrificed a lot in the name of justice, didn’t I, George?” Riggs eyed him evenly.
“You want a cigarette?” Masters asked. “If I remember correctly, you were a smoker.”
“Gave it up, too dangerous.” He looked over at Berman. “George here will tell you I stayed in the ball game one inning too many. Right, George? Sort of against my will, though.”
“That was all a long time ago.”
“Funny, it still seems like yesterday to me.”