Hidden Order: A Thriller (19 page)

The traffic on the George Washington Memorial Parkway was lighter
than usual. Had he left home even a minute later, he had no doubt that he’d be sitting still right now instead of proceeding apace to Reagan National. He allowed himself to believe that somewhere up there, he was being watched out for. Then four miles from the airport, the rain began to fall and right on cue, the traffic slowed to almost a stop.

He decided to suffer the honks and explosion of one-fingered rush hour salutes by driving up the shoulder. In an attempt to at least make himself look somewhat official in his black Chevy Tahoe, he kept flashing his brights. No one bought it. He could hear people honking and, looking in his rearview mirror, he saw the phalanx of left hands with middle fingers extended pop out of one car window after another. The only good part was that nobody seemed to notice him and what he was doing until he’d already passed. In other words, nobody had been able to move halfway onto the shoulder in front of him in a preemptive block.

The world, unfortunately, was filled with people who felt the rules didn’t apply to them. They were folks who felt entitled to do whatever they wanted and Harvath had no doubt that several of them, late for a flight at Reagan National, likely had attempted this same up-the-shoulder maneuver before. What was even more certain was that a vehicle speeding toward the airport disobeying traffic laws was going to be seen by law enforcement as a threat.

Harvath stayed on the shoulder for as long as he could and then, to an almost choreographed opera of additional horns and middle fingers, he muscled his way back into the creeping flow of traffic and over to the far right lane so he could exit. He parked at the Signature Flight Support FBO, checked in, and was escorted out to the Aerion SBJ. The crew was assembled at the bottom of the air-stairs waiting for him and while he was slightly disappointed that the flight attendant wasn’t Natalie, it was probably a blessing in disguise. He needed to focus on the task at hand.

The crew, as one would expect on such an expensive private aircraft, was exceedingly professional. Harvath, while trying his best to be polite, encouraged them to dispense with the formalities and get off the ground as quickly as possible. He needed to be there
yesterday
. They all understood.

With the preflight check already complete and the tower ready to
bump them to the head of the list as soon as they were ready, Harvath was encouraged to take his seat and buckle up, which he did. Less than fifteen minutes later, they were airborne.

The flight to Boston’s Logan airport was faster than any shuttle flight he had ever experienced from D.C. No sooner had they climbed up and out over the Atlantic, than they had passed New York City and were making their descent and landing. The flight attendant had apologized for not being able to offer him anything more than coffee and Dunkin’ Donuts. They hadn’t received much heads up, either, and there’d been no time to alert the airport catering company.

Harvath told her not to worry. While he wasn’t a donut guy, he did enjoy their coffee and had been glad to have at least gotten something in his system. As he scrolled through the information the Old Man had sent to his phone, Anna the flight attendant kept his cup topped off.

When the sleek Supersonic Business Jet landed at Logan, Harvath was as up-to-speed as he expected to be until he reached the crime scene. Carlton had texted that travel into the city had already been arranged. Harvath assumed that meant someone, though likely not as attractive as Sloane Ashby, was going to meet him at the Logan FBO and drive him in.

After opening the main cabin door and lowering the air-stairs, the flight attendant apologized again for the lack of breakfast. She offered Harvath a couple of donuts for the road if he wanted, but he smiled and said, “No thank you,” as he disembarked.

Stepping onto the tarmac, he noticed a clean-cut man in a navy suit standing next to a plain sedan talking on his cell phone.
That must be my ride
.

As his passenger approached, the man pulled the phone away from his ear for a moment and asked, “Harvath?”

Harvath nodded and the man ended his call. After sliding the phone back into his pocket, he extended his hand. “I’m Special Agent Montgomery. Boston field office.”

“Short straw, huh?” he said as they shook hands. “Thanks for coming to pick me up.”

“No problem. I was on my way in to work anyway. Besides, this’ll be the first time I’ve used lights and sirens in Boston. Do you need a pit stop before we get on the road?”

He shook his head. “Good to go.”

Montgomery threw his bag in back, and once Harvath was in the passenger seat and buckled up, the agent activated his lights and siren and raced out of the airport, headed for downtown.

D
espite the crush of morning traffic, they finally arrived at their destination, 630 Washington Street.

Looking up, Harvath wasn’t surprised to see that the body had been removed. A host of gruesome photos taken by passersby was already making the rounds of the Internet. Interestingly enough, many of the amateur photographers had failed to capture the enormous plaque embedded in the building’s redbrick faïade, commemorating the structure’s significance.

Known as the “Liberty Tree” building, it marked the location of a famous elm tree from which an effigy was hung in protest in 1765. The effigy represented Andrew Oliver, the man Mad King George had appointed to carry out the Stamp Act tax on the American colonies, and it drew a very large crowd—the first of its kind in public against the king. It was considered a seminal moment leading up to the Revolutionary War and the men who had hung Oliver in effigy would go on to call themselves the
Sons of Liberty
. Harvath wasn’t surprised at all that this location had been chosen for another symbolic murder.

A Boston PD patrolman was blocking the main entrance. As Harvath
grabbed his bag out of the back, Montgomery stepped up to the officer and flashed his FBI credentials and told him to let Harvath pass. The young FBI agent had already explained he was working another case and was only functioning as his driver.

Harvath thanked him for the ride as the patrolman said, “Fourth floor,” and waved him inside.

Harvath rode the elevator upstairs and stepped out into a hive of activity. There were crime scene technicians, uniformed police officers, detectives, and FBI agents. They all had short hair, and while the FBI agents were all trim and in good shape, the cops looked like cops everywhere and represented a wide range of physical fitness levels.

The patrolman downstairs had already radioed up to the officer controlling the inner perimeter of the crime scene and had told him to let Harvath pass. The officer directed Harvath down the hall to where a pair of technicians, who had ostensibly photographed everything, was beginning to disassemble a very odd contraption. There were old-fashioned wooden pulleys, hooks, and lengths of rough, fibrous rope that looked like they were twisted from hemp.

“Can you hold off for a second please, fellas?” he asked the CSTs. “I’d like to take a look at all this.”

“Just what this investigation needs,” one of them said derisively, “another Fed.”

“You picking up the overtime?” his colleague asked.

Apparently, there wasn’t a lot of love lost between the Boston PD and the FBI. Harvath wasn’t surprised. The Boston Homicide Unit had some excellent detectives, but overall a terrible and unfortunately long-standing record when it came to their ability to actually solve murders. On multiple cases, the FBI had been forced to come in and bat cleanup. It was a source of embarrassment for the city and they had been working hard to turn things around. Nevertheless, it didn’t excuse the attitude Harvath was getting.

“No, I’m not picking up your overtime,” he replied. “In fact, I’d be happy to recommend you both for a permanent vacation.”

“And just who the hell are you anyway?” the first CST demanded.

“Wyatt Earp,” Harvath replied, shooting him a very serious,
don’t-fuck-with-me look that backed the man down. Smiling, he suggested, “Why don’t you two take a break and get a cup of coffee? I’ll only be a few minutes.”

“Fine by me, pal,” the short-tempered tech said as he stopped what he was working on, stood up, and gestured for his partner to follow.

Harvath was glad to be able to have a few minutes to work in peace. Stepping back, he took the entire contraption in piece by piece.

From an engineering standpoint, it was ingenious. Everything had been assembled facing the broken window. The ropes and pulleys were suspended from the sprinkler pipes and helped balance a polished plank of wood atop a modified fulcrum. The plank actually comprised three pieces of wood fitted together, which likely had made it easier to transport. Holes were drilled on each side to accommodate the ropes.

At first, Harvath had thought that all of the water had come from a broken sprinkler pipe. The problem was that only the floor was wet. No other surface areas were—not the desks, not the file cabinets, not even the windowsills.

Looking around, he noticed the large plastic industrial garbage can on wheels again. Originally, he hadn’t paid much attention to it, figuring the can belonged to a cleaning crew or something. Now his interest was piqued.

Removing his flashlight, he walked over to the can and shined some light inside. It was streaked with moisture and there was a small puddle of what looked to be water in the bottom. There was also something else.

Returning his flashlight to his pocket, he bent down and examined the exterior of the can. Near the very bottom, he found it. It appeared that the can had been filled with water, but that someone had drilled a hole at the bottom to let the water out.
Why?

Harvath stood and went back over to the plank and reexamined everything. That’s when it hit him. The killer, or killers, had probably left long before Herman Penning was even dead.

It was all making sense now and what he had originally seen as ingenious was quickly reaching the brilliance level.

The sixty-year-old man had been fitted with a noose and was then placed onto the plank, which would function like a chute. When the appointed
moment arrived, the chute tipped forward and gravity jettisoned the father of two and grandfather of four through the window. The man then fell, but only until he reached the literal end of his rope, at which point his neck was snapped.

Judging by the size of the garbage can and how much water it could hold, it had functioned like a timer. Secured to the plank, it would have acted as a counterbalance, holding it horizontal for as long as its weight was greater than the victim’s. As soon as that ratio changed, gravity would take over.

After taking several pictures of everything, Harvath grabbed a chair in order to better examine the pulleys. He’d only been up on it for a few moments when he heard a throat being cleared behind him.

He turned around to see a man and a woman, shields on their belts and their hands very near their weapons.

“Agent Wyatt Earp, is it?” the woman said. “I’m Detective Annie Oakley and this is my partner, Buffalo Bill. Why don’t you step down. We’d like to have a word with you, please.”

“
A
nnie Oakley” turned out to be Boston Police Homicide Detective Lara Cordero. Her partner’s name sounded like Sabatelli or Sabatano, but Harvath didn’t catch it. He wasn’t really paying attention at that point. He was trying to not appear as if he was staring at Cordero while he was, in fact, staring at Cordero.

She was a very exotic-looking woman and quite attractive—a knockout, actually. If Harvath had to guess, he would have pegged her as maybe Spanish with something else. It was hard to discern. She was in her early thirties, tall, tan, and took
very
good care of herself. She had green eyes and long brown hair that was streaked blond by the sun.

Harvath introduced himself and presented each of them with a crisp white business card embossed with his company’s name and a phone number, nothing else.

“So you’re the kidnap and ransom specialist,” said Cordero. “I wasn’t aware that the kidnappers had made any demands.”