Pretenses (16 page)

My cell rang. “Agent Perry.”

“Good work, Agent Perry,” I heard Coco Nimburu say in Cantonese.

I looked at Kelly and mouthed, “It's her.”

“Mr. Wise was truly lucky today. If he had not bent over to set his suitcase down, he would be explaining his sins to God right now.” Coco laughed. “I was about to try again, but you were in the way. I need you alive.”

“Am I supposed to thank you?”

“You should. It would be so easy to take you out. Or maybe the pretty blonde. Kelly is her name, isn't it? I could have taken her, too, but I didn't.”

I looked at my best friend. I was scared for her. Coco was right. She could have killed us all and still gotten away. Airport security would have been no match for her.

“What do you want?” I said forcefully. “I've got him now. You might as well stop the killing. He knows who your client is. And he's agreed to tell us everything,” I bluffed.

Coco laughed. “You're not a very good liar, Phoenix. If that were so, you wouldn't have to say it. And I know Attorney Wise wouldn't violate attorney-client privilege.”

“Then what is it you want? Why did you call?”

“Just thought you should know: Cynthia Charles is dead.”

“Who is Cynthia Charles?”

“Ask Mr. Wise. In the meantime, send the coroner over to 6119 Pikes Peak Boulevard. There's a stiff over there getting ripe. Ciao.”

I hit the end button on the cell and turned to Sterling. He looked worried. “Is she all right? Is Cynthia okay?”

“I'm sorry to tell you, but she's dead.”

“Oh no, not Cynthia, too!”

“Who was she? A girlfriend?”

“Kinda. We've known each other since my days at the Air Force Academy.”

“Did you tell her anything about your client?”

“No. Nothing at all.”

“The rich woman must think you did or could have.”

“If that's true, you better get some people to Manhattan and Chicago. I have girlfriends there also—Crystal James in Chicago and Chase Davenport in Manhattan.”

“Would you be willing to call Winston and make an appointment with your client?” Kelly asked.

“Are you kidding? Why the fuck would I do some dumb shit like that? There's a high-priced assassin out there trying to kill me. She's already killed my assistant, the Warren family, and a bunch of FBI agents. You muthafuckas can't even protect yourselves. How in the hell are you going to protect me? The goddamned assassin is calling the FBI and telling you who's dead. And you want me to stick my neck into the guillotine? You must be outta your goddamned mind.”

Sterling had a point. We couldn't protect him by ourselves. We needed an army for that task.

“Let me ask you something, Agent Perry,” Sterling continued. “Why is she calling you? And for that matter, how did she get your phone number? I trust you didn't give it to her, right? So that must mean someone in the FBI is giving her information. And knowing my client, it's someone at the top. Tell me you've figured that much out. That way, I might have a chance to get out of this airport in one piece.”

I ignored the insult. Sterling could still tell us some things we didn't know about his client. “Why would you say that it's somebody at the top?”

“Because that's how I met her. She had a dossier on my whole family. I sat in her limo, and she read my entire history to me. That's how she knew about Cynthia. She knows about Chase and Crystal, too. Please, put some people on them before it's too late.”

Sterling gave us the addresses of the women, and Kelly made calls to the
Manhattan and Chicago field offices. Beating Coco to Sterling Wise was a huge coup for Kelly and me. I was finally starting to believe we could solve this thing.

“Now that I've done something for you, Sterling, do something for me. Make the call to Winston Keyes. I'll do everything in my power to protect you.”

“Yeah, like you protected the Warrens?”

“I wasn't there for that,” I said, pleading my case. Truth be told, I couldn't have done much better than Ford and Flynn. “What chance do you have on your own?”

“I won't be on my own. I'll visit my brother in the Caymans. He and his wife can protect me better than the FBI can. Plus, she's a good cook. Makes all kinds of Vietnamese dishes.”

Suddenly, I remembered what Coco had said about the couple at my father's funeral, a black man and a Vietnamese woman. “I think your brother was at my father's funeral. How would your brother know my father?”

“I don't know,” Sterling said. “What did your father do for a living?”

“We own an investigative firm.”

“That's it. I told my brother about the dossier my client had on the family when I visited him a couple of years ago. He made a call to the States and was faxed information on my client. I assume the person sending him the information was your father or someone at his firm.”

I wondered if that's what Coco meant about my father not being innocent. Did he bring his own untimely death on himself? Coco had said that he knew someone would come to kill him. Were his hands dirty after all? The mystery surrounding this case was beginning to unravel, and I didn't like what I was learning. My dad was one of the good guys. How could he be involved in this sort of thing? He was always a man of integrity and principle. Maybe Coco Nimburu was right. Maybe none of us were innocent.

S
TERLING
W
ISE FLEW
to the Caymans. Before he left, he told us he would be staying at the Renegade Hotel and Casino, which his brother Jericho owned. Kelly and I got back on the Director's jet and flew to Washington. On the way home, we tried to figure out who the inside man in the bureau was. Based on what Sterling had told us, it had to be either St. Clair or Michelson. St. Clair had told Michelson to take us off the case. Michelson, being the sycophant that he was, did whatever St. Clair told him.

Michelson was good at pretending to give orders when, in truth, it was St. Clair all along. The Director liked the appearance of getting along with the troops, but behind closed doors, he was a viper—worse than Michelson. He must have wanted Flynn and Ford in San Francisco, believing Coco would have a better chance with them in charge. I didn't trust either one of them. However, I had a hard time believing that agents were involved. If they were, perhaps that's why they were killed.

If anybody but Agent James had been protecting Keyth and Savannah, I would have been worried. I called the safe house from the jet, just to be sure they were okay. James assured me they were.

The first thing I wanted to do when we got back to the office was view the hotel videotapes. I thought there might be something there. Kelly and I were on our way to the evidence facility when we saw St. Clair. He didn't look happy.

“Perry, McPherson, I wanna see you in my office right now!” St. Clair shouted.

“Sir, we were just about to go over some crucial evidence that might tell us something about the Assassin,” I said.

“Right now, Special Agent Perry,” he barked. His determination to prevent us from going into the evidence facility cinched it for us. What was it that he didn't want us to see? We rode the elevator in silence. St. Clair waited until we got into his office and closed the door.

“What happened in San Francisco?” he demanded.

“You tell me, sir,” I said with rancor. St. Clair looked confused, as if he didn't know what I was talking about. “How is it that the Assassin knew where we were staying? How is it that she knows my cell number?”

“What are you saying? You think someone is feeding her information?” he asked incredulously.

Kelly and I stared at him.

“You two think I'm feeding her information? Me?”

“Either you or Michelson,” I said boldly. “Sir, twelve agents have been killed. The Assassin is good, but she's getting a lot of help. If you're not helping her, it's gotta be Michelson.”

“Well, I assure you it isn't me.”

“Prove it. Let me and Kelly go over the videotapes. There could be something there.”

“You agree with this, Agent McPherson?”

“Yes, sir. One hundred percent.”

“Okay, you two better be right about Michelson. Your jobs are on the line. Check the tapes out, and let me know what you find.”

T
HE EVIDENCE ROOM
was secure. To enter, all personnel had to sign in and out. I looked at the register. Michelson had gone to the evidence room right after we left for San Francisco. That didn't prove anything by itself. He could have gone in there for any number of reasons. But I knew he was the informant. Kelly and I pulled the Hyatt Regency videotapes. We saw the Assassin going in and out of room 1619 wearing several disguises, all of them flawless.

I wanted to see what she did when she left the room the day we chased her. We found the tape and watched her leave the room wearing the De Matteo disguise. She went to the stairs, but there were no cameras in the stairwell. We put in tape after tape of each floor and saw her going into a room on the twentieth floor. I called the Hyatt Regency immediately to find out what name she had used. The room was registered to Debbie Morgan, another Hollywood actress.

We continued viewing the tapes, hoping to spot Michelson. We saw him enter the hotel after he chewed us out and took us off the case. From there, he took the elevator up to the sixteenth floor and went to room 1619. Then Michelson, Flynn, and Ford came out of 1619 and walked to the elevator. Michelson got on and the tape ran out. The tape of the lobby showed Michelson getting off the elevator two hours later. We searched for other tapes that might have shown us where he went, but those tapes were missing. It didn't matter though. We had enough to bring him in for questioning.

I called Michelson's secretary. “Where's Assistant Director Michelson now?” I asked.

“He called in sick,” she said.

I thought it best not to say anything to St. Clair until we knew something for sure. Kelly and I went over to Michelson's house. We knocked on the door, and it swung open. With our weapons drawn, we entered cautiously. The house was frighteningly quiet. We searched the first floor, then went upstairs. Somehow, I knew Michelson was dead. It made sense. Coco was thorough. If he was in on the murders as I suspected, he had to be eliminated to protect the client. I opened the bedroom door and saw Michelson. He was naked and tied to the bed, and his neck had been snapped. Coco had left me another note in Cantonese:

Too late again, Phoenix. You can relax for a while. I am looking for the Rapist as promised. It won't be hard to find him. As I said, everything you need to know is right in front of you. I am an honest woman, and I keep my word. I will find him and kill him. In the meantime, take the time to smell the roses. You only have one life to live. Live it to the fullest.

See you soon,

Coco

T
HE DEATH
of Michelson was a big blow to the investigation. I called agent James and had him move my family to another house. For all I knew, Michelson had told Coco where they were. He was the link and perhaps our best chance at finding the mystery woman. At least the leak was plugged.

St. Clair decided to cover up Michelson's involvement with the Assassin, and I agreed with the decision. The bureau couldn't take another black eye right now.

For all its faults, the bureau was the nation's best crime fighting unit. I believed in what Hoover had tried to build.

Sure we had some bad apples in the bureau and some trouble in the crime lab, and a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy to deal with, but overall, we were an excellent organization, with excellent agents doing the best we could. I wasn't going to allow the fall of Michelson to tarnish the bureau. The bureau would survive his treachery and go on fighting crime.

Kelly wanted to have Sterling call Winston, but I disagreed. Calling him now would give them the advantage. We would end up tipping our hand, and we still wouldn't know what was going on. Instead, I suggested that we go back to the beginning. The bureau had done a background investigation on Judge Taylor for her nomination. I thought that would be the best place to start. I pulled her file to see if there was anything in there that would give me a clue to who she was and what she knew about the mystery woman.

Judge Taylor was the younger of two sisters. Adrienne was the elder. Her maiden name was Jefferson. She had grown up in Harlem. Then she went to Penn State University on an academic scholarship. After graduating from law school, she went on to become a civil rights attorney. In 1975, she moved to Washington, where she met and married Webster Taylor. Webster had built quite a reputation as a defense lawyer, one of the country's best. They had three children and moved to Alexandria in 1982. Five years later, she became a Fourth Circuit Court judge.

Senator Martha Blevins' story was similar to Judge Taylor's. She, too, was the younger of two siblings. Her maiden name was Bellamy, and she had grown up in privileged circumstances in Wilmington, Delaware, one of the richest communities in America. Her older brother, Jason, now deceased, had inherited the family businesses and created others.

There wasn't much in the files on either of the two women. I felt even more frustrated, and I kept thinking, I'm missing something here. Kelly and I read and reread their files, but found nothing helpful. I was ready to go home, but no one was there. I didn't dare go to the safe house, just in case Coco was lying. I didn't think she was, but can you really trust someone who kills people for money? I certainly don't.

F
ATHER
R
EYNOLDS
came out of St. Mary's Cathedral at 6:00 p.m. and walked across the courtyard to the house the church provided for him. He had been busy at the church all day, catching up on his paperwork. Coco was waiting for him in the living room of the rectory. She was sitting in the priest's reading chair with her legs crossed.