If he had salvaged the money, there might be a reason for going on with mis thing, but now … now he knew he’d better make a deal while he still held some cards. But just once, just for a minute maybe, he’d like to have that fucking Stafford at the end of a gun barrel. Even if Tangent had been planning to double-cross him all long, Wendell Carson might have pulled it off if Stafford hadn’t tipped off the Army.
And then it came to him: Maybe there was a way to get back at Stafford, like contact the feds and tell them he’d give the cylinder back in return for consideration in court, but he would give it only to Stafford. And then when he had Stafford, do what? Shoot him? That might feel good, but it wouldn’t help his own situation. Suppose, just suppose, he could implicate Stafford? Tell the FBI, for instance, that Stafford had found out about the cylinder and then tried to horn in on the deaclass="underline" He’d keep quiet about the weapon in return for a share of the money, which was why Stafford had been there when the Army team first showed up: He’d been protecting his interests. That’s how he had known what the cylinder looked like: He’d forced Carson to tell him. Stafford the dirty cop. From what Tangent had said, Stafford already had problems within DCIS. If he, already had enemies, Stafford could be well and truly fucked up.
He paced the room, thinking hard, sensing a weakness in his plan.
Calling the cops — would that work? No. The moment he called, they’d trace the call and come gunning.
They were focused on the cylinder; Wendell Carson was a secondary target.
Then he had an even better idea: Contact Stafford, not the feds. Tell him he’d turn over the cylinder in return for some consideration. And once everyone was focused on Stafford, then implicate his interfering ass. Tell the feds Stafford had the money. It almost didn’t matter what he told them, because they were probably pissed off at Stafford anyway.
Yes, by God, that would work. Wendell Carson was going down the tubes anyway, but this way, he could take that bastard with him. For free.
Forget Tangent: He was” already in the shatter. But what sweet revenge it would be to tar Stafford. The government would hound Stafford for the rest of his life, looking for that money, with IRS audits every year, twice a year, while Wendell Carson raked leaves at Club Fed. Yes!
But first, he had to find Stafford. He went out to the truck, retrieved his briefcase, and extracted his phone list. Yes, there it was: the number for the DCIS office in Smyrna. There was no phone in the cabin, and he didn’t want to use the cell phone yet, or the cabin manager’s office phone, not with that long-eared creep standing there. The manager had said the nearest town was Graniteville. He’d have to risk using the truck; the spray-paint job had been pretty effective on the serial numbers, but it wouldn’t fool an alerted cop. He could go to Graniteville, find a pay phone at a minimart, invent some telephone identity, maybe pose as someone from Washington, and call the Smyrna office. Then what?
He sat down. Damn it. His headache was getting worse, not better, and all this plotting and scheming wasn’t helping. Where would Stafford be after that fire? He should be’ at the DCIS regional office down there in Smyrna. There’d be a big-deal investigation in progress, and probably some degree of chaos at the DCIS office. So do what? Get him up here into the mountains? Make him come.where, to the cabin? To the nearest town, Graniteville? He knew nothing about Graniteville, other than that name was still tickling some memory.
And would Stafford come alone? Or would he say anything Carson wanted to hear, and then bring the whole world with him? Including those terrifying Army people?
He went over to the bathroom and washed his face with ice-cold water, trying to wake up, trying to bring some clarity to his thinking. The bandage across his shoulders felt tight and just a little bit hot. Tune was running out. If Wendell Carson was going to pull this off, he’d better get on with it, because if they found him before he made his move, he would have zero options left. He dried his face, pushed the cylinder down into the slush in the cooler, and went out to his truck.
48
Carrothers sat there in open disbelief when Sparks had finished explaining everything he knew. “A psychic?” he said. “You’re asking me to believe that a psychic told Stafford about this thing? A teenage girl? Who cannot speak? Jesus Christ, Sparks.”
Ray Sparks threw up his hands. “You did ask, General. I’m only telling you what he told me. You figure out some other way that Stafford could know about your so-called hypothetical weapon, and I, for one, am more than ready to sign on. But that’s what he told me. That’s why he’s in Graniteville. That’s why he isn’t here to talk to you.” “And there’s a woman involved in this?” asked Agent Kiesling.
“The woman who runs this orphanage, school, whatever it is. I don’t know how much she knows about this problem you’re chasing here, but he did tell me she interprets for the girl.”
“Where are they, exactly?”
“At a place called the Willow Grove Home. It’s a combined group home and special school. An orphanage, basically.”
“Are the woman and Stafford involved with each other?” Kiesling asked.
“Don’t know. His wife left him last year. They might be involved with each either, or he may just be trying to protect her. She’s apparently scared to death of a government witch-hunt and the media exposure that would follow, especially on the psychic angle. Stafford’s afraid Carson might come after them, because he told Carson about Graniteville, that day after the airport deal.”
Carrothers thought about that. “Psychics. Next you’re going to tell me she’s on contract to the CIA.”
“Yeah, right, remember that goat rope?”
Kiesling said with some relish.
“Where the Agency spent a gazillion bucks trying to get psychics to read spies’ minds, then got their asses handed to ‘em when the media and Congress found out? Embarrassed the shit out of them.”
“They should have been embarrassed,” Carrothers said, getting up to refill his coffee cup. “Psychics, mind probes; the Shadow knows … what utter bullshit.”
Kiesling began to pace around the room. “I know I’m the newbie to this case, General, but I’ll tell you what I’m beginning to think. I think this Mr. Stafford may have had an ulterior motive going here. You said Tangent put a million in cash on the table?”
“Now wait a fucking minute,” Sparks spluttered.
“Hold on, Mr. Sparks,” Carrothers said, sensing where the FBI agent was going to go with this. “So?”
“I made some calls while we were waiting. My sources tell me this guy’s down here in Atlanta because he’s on his own agency’s shit list — no offense, Mr. Sparks. His wife had just dumped him, his career’s down the tubes, and he’s lost the use of one arm. Every time he looks up, he sees the rim of the toilet bowl swirling past his face. And all of a sudden he knows an awful lot about your hypothetical problem, General. One of the ways that could happen is if he and this Carson guy made some kind of deal.”
“No way,” Sparks said immediately. “Dave Stafford is a maverick, but he’s no bent cop. Look, if he was involved in this, why in the hell would he have told me jack shit? Huh? You explain that, Kiesling!”
“In case it went wrong, Sparks. He was covering his ass. He was a civil servant, just like the rest of us. Gimme a fuckin’ break here: Which one of us ever does anything without first covering our asses?”
Sparks just glared at him.
“Besides,” Kiesling said, “look how he probably worked it. Suppose he found out about the weapon deal and honied in. Forced Carson to split the money. If the deal went right, he stood to collect five hundred large. If it went south, he could always say he warned you, his boss, about it, but he couched it in such terms that you wouldn’t have believed it in a hundred years. A teenage psychic, for Chrissakes? And now he’s resigned? How fucking convenient.”