Electing To Murder (43 page)

“Never heard from?” Wire asked.

“Yeah,” Duffy replied, nodding his head in agreement. “It was as if they disappeared. The pictures you and Detective McRyan provided us on Foche show that he’s had some work done to change his appearance slightly. It looks like some nose and chin work but we’re certain that it’s Foche that you have.”

“How about this Kristoff, he disappeared as well?” Mac asked.

“Yes,” Duffy replied. “Here’s a picture of Kristoff.”

The picture went up on the screen to the right.

“I’ve seen that man!” Mac exclaimed, standing up and marching to the screen displaying Kristoff’s picture. “It’s the eyes. I’ve seen those eyes.”

“Where, Detective?” Director Mitchell asked.

“St. Paul. He was the face in the panel van in St. Paul, outside my family’s pub. He was in the panel van shooting at us. I locked eyes on him for a second or two. That’s him.”

“Foche and Kristoff were still working together then,” Wire said. “The question remains for whom?”

“Let’s go ask Connolly,” Mac suggested.

“On what basis do you go back after Connolly?” Director Mitchell asked.

“Kristoff was Foche’s superior with French Intelligence. He’s probably Foche’s superior now. So he was at McCormick’s place in St. Paul,” Mac said looking at Wire. “You said you could sense Foche’s friends coming when you shot him at Sebastian’s house, right?”

“Yes,” Wire answered. “He was wired for communication and I could hear people approaching.”

“Guaranteed Kristoff was one of them,” Mac stated with conviction. “Then later he’s in that van trying to take us out in front of the pub. He probably took out Checketts and I bet …”

“He’s coming after Connolly next,” Mitchell finished the thought for McRyan.

“That’s right, sir. Connolly knows who’s behind this and it’s this Bishop. Kristoff is working for this Bishop character,” Mac surmised, pacing the room. “We need a pressure point to get Connolly to talk. Wire and I can show Connolly a picture of the man who will kill him. Maybe with a face, he’ll be more willing to cut open a vein and talk.”

The attorney general sat back in his chair and contemplated what McRyan had to say. He looked at his watch, 3:30 p.m. “Let’s give it a shot. I’ll call his lawyer. When do you want to go after Connolly?”

“Sooner the better.”

K
ristoff spent the day walking the neighborhood around the Watergate Complex, familiarizing himself with the streets, the buildings, the alleys, the parking spaces and access to the Metro subway lines. Sipping a coffee on a park bench, he watched the flow of people around the massive apartment and business complex. At a street side café, he had a long lunch, read the
Washington Post
and took in the surroundings. With two bottles of water, he sat on another park bench, read a
Vanity Fair
and conducted his own surveillance of the area. Having completed his recon of the blocks surrounding the Watergate Complex, he parked his Ford Edge on Twenty-Fourth Street near the George Washington University Medical School.

He wasn’t worried about video surveillance given the dark beard he was wearing along with the lightly tinted dark-rimmed glasses. What he was concerned about was alternative ways out of the area and the contingencies he could count on. For two hours he observed the security of the Watergate East complex, assessing the quality of the security personnel in the building and the local police presence. The building security was of good quality, not the rent-a-cop you typically found. The personnel looked like they could handle themselves, particularly if they came as a team. The video surveillance was robust with cameras visible everywhere.

The most interesting development was the presence of the FBI. He noticed it in the afternoon, when two men entered the building wearing pullover sweatshirts with slight bulges in their backs. Kristoff got up to follow the two men, who were admitted to the building by security without having to use a key card. The two men went up to the eighth floor. Kristoff observed them enter an apartment just down the hall from Connolly’s.

That little tidbit of information locked his plan in.

After he returned from conducting his reconnaissance, he wiped down the condominium and packed his small overnight bag for when he climbed back up. Once he was done with Connolly, he would walk three blocks to his car and simply drive to Reagan National and take his flight to Paris. From there he would disappear, this time for good. This was his last kill for his boss.

The lights in his condominium unit had been off for an hour. The sun had set in the west and there was no moon. It was dark. The lights in the condo below had been off for at least a half hour. He peered over the edge of the balcony for the condo. Given the unique architecture of the Watergate Complex, the apartment Kristoff was repelling from was slightly cantilevered over the eighth and ninth floors below. He secured a mooring hitch knot to the balcony and once again looked over the edge.

* * *

“Detective McRyan, former Special Agent Wire, you have the green light,” Attorney General Gates said. “Connolly’s attorney will meet you at the Watergate. Connolly is there although the attorney hasn’t been able to reach him yet but he will by the time you get there.”

Mac took the pictures of Kristoff, put them in a manila folder and slid them into his backpack.

“Speck and Berman are going with you,” Mitchell added.

“Fine by me,” Mac answered but then he looked to Agents Speck and Berman, “but follow my lead on this because you’re the ones he’ll make the deal with, not me.”

“Good cop?” Berman asked with eyebrows raised.

“Bad cop,” Wire answered.

* * *

Kristoff pulled his gloves tight and then slowly let the black rope down to the level of Connolly’s balcony. He climbed over the ledge, set his feet against the cement pillars of the balcony and pushed away from the building and repelled down to the ninth floor balcony, landing his feet on the balcony rail. He pushed out slightly and dropped his feet to the balcony floor, setting his feet between the small vertical cement pillars. His feet set on the bottom of the balcony, he leaned down and to his right to check the lighting for Connolly’s apartment. The bedroom was dark and the light towards the living room area was dim but he could see the unmistakable flashing of television light.

Once again he set his feet, exhaled and pushed himself out from the balcony and let the rope slide easily through his hands as he swung underneath the ninth floor balcony and landed lightly on the iron railing for the balcony of Connolly’s condo and then froze. He was sensing for movement inside from Connolly.

There was no movement.

He eased himself down to the balcony floor and listened again. The only movement he noticed was from Connolly’s neighbor to the right where a small party was taking place. From inside Connolly’s condo, he heard a cell phone ringing and then a man answering the phone with a: “Hello?” It was the voice of Heath Connolly.

Kristoff tied the rope around the top of the railing. He pushed his back against the exterior wall of the building and reached for the handle for the sliding glass door for the bedroom. Surprisingly, it slid open.

Kristoff slithered inside.

* * *

“Chase, why would I want to talk to them?”

“Listen, you get to hear what they have to say. It’s better for us to know. They’re coming to you, not making you come in. No press, no cameras, just them and us. It’s worth sitting down and hearing them out.”

Connolly exhaled. “Okay, when?”

“Five minutes,” Chase answered.

“Five minutes?” Connolly exclaimed angrily. “Thanks for the warning.”

“Sorry, couldn’t be avoided. They’re pulling up to the building now. I’ll wait for them in the lobby.”

Connolly sighed. “Okay. Call when you’re in the lobby and I will buzz you up.”

He hung up and threw the cell phone down on the counter. He reached for a drink glass and his bourbon bottle and poured himself a drink. He put the heavy drink glass to his lips and let the liquid flow down his throat, warming his chest.

“Who’s coming in five minutes?”

Connolly spun around to see Kristoff with a gun trained on him, a silencer on the end.

“Th… th…the FBI.”

Kristoff pulled the trigger twice. The two shots to the chest blew Connolly back into the counter and then he fell to the floor, landing on his back. The blood flowed out of his chest and through his white dress shirt. Kristoff took three steps and stood over the political mastermind who looked up at him, his eyes blinking uncontrollably, his mouth wide open, gasping for air.

The killer put the end of the silencer to Connolly’s forehead and squeezed.

Heath Connolly was gone.

The phone began to ring and the display showed the call was coming from the lobby.

Kristoff quickly moved to the bedroom and the sliding door. However, two apartments down to the right were two men on the balcony, lighting cigars. They would not be leaving soon. If he tried to climb back up they would see him. He untied the rope and pulled the end and the mooring knot came loose and the rope fell to him. He quickly wound up the rope and put it in his backpack.

Kristoff quickly assessed the situation.

The FBI was coming up from the lobby and they were also likely down the hall. Connolly’s apartment was third from the end of the building. There was a stairway at the end of the hall.

He went to the kitchen. Connolly had a fully stocked liquor cabinet, with several bottles of gin, vodka and whiskey. He took out four bottles and screwed off the caps. Next, he searched the kitchen drawers and found thin dish clothes. From a fifth bottle, he poured Vodka on the towels and stuffed them in the tops of the other bottles to create a wick. Kristoff set one bottle by the door to the hallway and put the other three in his backpack. Then he pulled out another Walther PPK/E and stuffed it in the front of his jeans. The other he held in his right hand, the silencer still on the end.

Kristoff undid the dead bolt. He pulled out his lighter and lit the wick for the first Molotov cocktail.

* * *

“That was Speck,” Agent Cummings reported to Agent Butler, as he looked at the television monitor plugged into the Watergate Security system and the camera focused on Connolly’s front door. “He says they’ll be coming up in about five minutes. We should see them going into Connolly’s condo.”

“Looks like Connolly is opening up already for … them … wait … a …second … what in the hell?”

An arm swung out the door and what looked like a burning bottle was flying down the hallway towards their unit and then there was an explosion. The agents reached for their weapons and opened the door to find the hallway full of smoke and fire.

Cummings jumped into the hallway and looked to his left towards Connolly’s place. He couldn’t see through the smoke and flames which were blazing fifteen feet in front of him. The sprinklers started to go off. Cummings saw a fire alarm on the wall ten feet back. He back stepped, his weapon pointed back towards Connolly’s unit and pulled down the fire alarm. Next to the fire alarm there was a fire extinguisher in a red box.

“Cover me,” Cummings yelled to Butler as he broke open the case for the fire extinguisher.

* * *

The screeching beep tone of the fire alarm pulsated through the lobby of Watergate East as Mac, Wire, Berman and Speck hustled inside. They immediately approached Chase.

“What’s going on?” Berman asked, already on alert.

“I don’t know,” Chase replied, bewildered. “The fire alarm just went off.”

Mac and Wire quickly made their way to the Security Station with Speck, who showed his FBI identification. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve got a fire on eight, in the hallway.”

Mac and Wire jumped over the counter to look at the monitor, the hallway full of smoke.

“Now we’ve got a fire on six as well,” the Security Guard wailed as he pushed the alarm for the Fire Department, “also in the hallway.”

“Evacuate the building,” the security chief ordered.

Mac looked at Wire, “I got a bad feeling,” and then to Berman, who was on her phone, “The guys on the eighth floor monitoring Connolly? Where are they?”

Berman dropped the phone from her ear, “Cummings and Butler are trying to extinguish the fire to get to Connolly’s unit.”

* * *

Kristoff opened the door on the fourth floor and started running down the hallway, all the way towards the other end of the building, away from the stairway that came out in the main lobby. At the end of the hallway, he lit the wick and threw the last of his Molotov cocktails back down the hall and watched the fireball explode. As he closed the door, the stairwell down below started to flood with Watergate residents reacting to the fire alarm and order to evacuate the building. He mixed in with the residents as they made their way down the stairs.

* * *

Cummings and Butler reached the door for Connolly’s unit. Butler covered for Cummings who jumped into the unit, looked to his left and saw feet sticking out by the end of the center island to the kitchen.

“Agent Berman, Connolly is dead, shot in the chest and head.”

* * *

Berman looked to the group, “Connolly is dead.”

“Kristoff,” Wire muttered while Mac grabbed the building diagram off the wall to look at the available exits. Four Washington DC patrol officers came rushing into the lobby. Speck grabbed them and McRyan quickly handed out pictures of Kristoff. “We are looking for this man,” Mac held up a picture. “He is a professional killer and extremely dangerous.” McRyan looked everyone in the eye. “Understand?”

Everyone nodded.

Mac held out the building layout. Groups of two were assigned to all of the exterior exits and four men were assigned to the parking garage. “Grab more men as they come on the scene. Agent Berman and Speck, you have the lobby.”

Mac and Wire started to walk out the front when Mac stopped and went back to the Security Desk. “Show me where the fires are in each of the hallways.”