The 500: A Novel (20 page)

Rain began to drum on the deck.

“Keep your eye on the girl, very closely,” Henry went on. “If she manages to get near Twenty-Three we’ll have to move things up and take him immediately. Think through some options. It won’t be quite so cut-and-dried, but there’s always a way.”

“I will,” Marcus said.

“I’m freezing,” Henry said. “Come on.”

I heard a door open, and then the bark of a dog getting louder and closer. Christ. All that good work to break in here, and then I’m sniffed out by Henry’s wife’s corgi.

I sprinted to the gate and then waded through underbrush back to my car. The rain pouring over me helped clear my head. Irin wasn’t working for Marcus after all. She was a meddler like me, and apparently had made more progress than I had, though at least Davies and Marcus hadn’t caught on that I was digging into Rado’s case on my own. Irin and I were both playing catch-up in a game whose stakes we didn’t understand. My bosses had spoken in vague terms only about what might happen to the man from the wiretap, to Irin. They could have been talking about buying someone off, or more blackmail, but it was getting harder and harder to ignore the possibility that crimes far worse were being contemplated.

Already twenty minutes late for dinner, I changed into some clothes I had in the Jeep that had been destined for the dry cleaner’s. I still had a strong hint of terror sweat from breaking into Henry’s place. When I showed up at the restaurant, I wasn’t exactly looking my best.

Annie gave me a where-the-fuck-have-you-been face. Ever since I’d jetted down to Colombia with Davies, she’d been keenly interested in what exactly I was up to with the big boss. I’d catch her eyeing my open e-mail, glancing at my phone when it rang, idly chatting me up for hints about what I was working on. She’d been one of Henry’s star pupils, and I imagined that behind her curiosity lay a touch of envy, maybe even a sense of being threatened by my rise at Davies Group. After all, only so many could make partner.

At least, I hoped that’s why she was so curious—she was still close with Henry and sometimes I wondered if he ever used all that one-on-one time with her to draw her out and find out what I was up to. That seemed paranoid—the idea that maybe, intentionally or not, she was helping Davies keep tabs on me—but I certainly wasn’t going to tell her I’d been spying on the bosses.

I blamed the Jeep for my lateness.

“You and that car,” she said.

We were at this really authentic Szechuan place; Tuck had insisted we try the
ma la,
which I was told translated roughly as “numb tongue.” It wasn’t just spicy. It tasted like pain and smelled like death. I did my best to appear to eat it as I fantasized about spaghetti and meatballs and checked in on the GPS trackers on my smartphone under the table.

Irin’s car was parked as usual in the garage near her house on Prospect Street. Marcus cruised back through Georgetown that evening. Nothing too extraordinary. But now, at 8:30 p.m. on a school night, he was heading south of the Capitol.

Dinner was over. Annie was giving me her I’m-going-to-be-asleep-in-fifteen-minutes look, and I was dying to find out what was going down in Southeast DC, toward the Navy Yard, the last place you’d expect to find a guy like Marcus. The only problem was that we were right around the corner from my house, so it would be tough for me to blow off Annie.

I lifted up my phone. “Oh God. I promised Eric Walker I’d stop by his house and play a few hands.”

“Maybe we should just curl up and watch a movie,” Annie said, which I knew by now meant her conking out after the opening credits.

“I would. But it’s work stuff. Some freshman senators I should get to know. Why don’t you come? It might be handy. A few of the guys oversee Homeland Security—”

Annie had a couple cases related to DHS, but I knew she was heading home for the night. It was a bluff.

“You go, hon. Should I head back to my place?”

“You can stay at mine.”

“Okay,” she said.

I walked her to the door and said I’d be back soon. The temperature had dropped. The rain had turned to sleet.

I’d been watching those trackers—two little bull’s-eyes on my map—for so long, I had to see if they were up to something. Marcus had headed to the riverfront near the Navy Yard. The area had long been one of the seediest parts of DC, full of empty warehouses, grungy punk clubs, and bathhouses. They tore most of it down to make room for the new Nationals stadium and for condos. But the gentrification plan had tanked with the economy. Now it was a no-man’s-land of vacant lots, empty parking garages, and massive decommissioned navy hangars with all the windows shattered. Not the kind of place you’d pick for a high-end business meeting. More of a concrete-shoes ambience.

The GPS said that Marcus’s car was right on the waterfront. Maybe he’d cruised down here to watch the river go by, be alone with his thoughts, listen to “Cat’s in the Cradle.” But not likely. Hard by the 295 bridge and Buzzard Point, this was a better spot to get carjacked than inspired.

A bitter April wind whipped curtains of frozen rain over the Potomac. I followed the tracker, growing more doubtful by the second. It led me along the river by the Navy Yard. I moved closer to the bull’s-eye on my map and checked the surroundings, and it looked like Marcus was on the end of one of the docks. I scanned it, but saw nothing. Satellites don’t lie, though, so, after looking around to make sure I wasn’t being followed, I began walking down the dock, keeping to the shadows.

A little red light flashed faster and faster as I got closer to the bull’s-eye. It’s a handy feature, at least until you’re skulking along in the dark on a deserted pier. Then that red eye, blinking faster and faster until it’s almost glaring solid red, can start to feel a little sinister.

I stood on the bull’s-eye, the end of the pier. It was freezing. Marcus’s car sure as hell wasn’t around. Did he find the tracker in the wheel well? Throw it in the Potomac, and have it wash up here? That didn’t make sense based on the path it had taken.

A shadow moved at the far end of the dock. You could barely see it. Then it shifted again.

I had a second thought. This was the perfect place for Marcus to plant it himself, to find whoever was following him and trap him. So much for the digital future. If that was true, I’d cornered myself.

The movement was slow but unmistakable once I knew where to look. A silhouette cut across the yellow cones shining down from the sodium lights.

No exit. William Marcus bearing down on me like a Horseman of the Apocalypse. And there was no way I could lie my way out of this. I tried out a few stories in my head, but Marcus would see right through them. How could you possibly explain planting a tracking bug on your boss? Hiding outside his house? Stalking him?

No. It would be game-over for Mike Ford. At the least, the high times Davies Group had afforded would be gone. No medallions of Shenandoah veal with new potatoes at the Inn at Little Washington. And worse, my bosses had enough dirt to bury me for campaign-finance violations alone; they wouldn’t even have to get into the meth-house business. Back to jail, the charade over, truly my father’s son.

As I listened to the boards creak in the dark, closer and closer, I began to worry less and less about material things and more about Marcus’s leathery hands. I mean, he wouldn’t kill me, right? But what the fuck did I know about the habits of a guy who’d spent the 1980s strangling Sandinistas?

In any case, I couldn’t risk getting caught. All of my options were bad. I didn’t like the looks of the water either as it capped white ten feet below me. But I knew, however hellish the ride, I could make it to the next dock. One good thing about the navy: you learn to plunk yourself in all kinds of briny and haul ass without making too much noise.

A flashlight beam cut across the dock, and I jumped into the black. The main concern when you drop into icy water is that you’ll gasp, breathe in a lungful, and go down like a fluke anchor. I managed to avoid that, though the cold shocked my body and I immediately started breathing all crazy and dropped about forty IQ points. If you don’t kill yourself freaking out, you’ve got about fifteen minutes in arctic water far colder than this, so however much I felt like I was dying, I knew I had plenty of time. The light was scanning the water in long arcs, so I swam beneath the dock, a little cave of barnacles and foul-smelling green moss. I worked my way back under Marcus, cracking my head every now and then on a beam or a lag bolt.

I could hear him overhead. His light fanned through the cracks in the boards above me. As he came closer, I ducked under the surface, then swam beneath him.

I almost wished he’d been ranting and shouting threats. That cold efficient silence scared me more than anything else.

I made it back to the bulkhead, where the dock began, and sidestroked, the sleet stinging my ear, to the next dock, about fifty meters. I hauled myself out and tried to sprint to my car, but the best I could manage was a numb stumble. His light flashed over me in the dark and lit me up, but by now it was far-off and faint.

A fence separated the two docks. That bought me a little time. Once I got to the Jeep, I headed out and brought it up to about fifty miles an hour on the surface roads, and I made it to 395. I had the heat blasting like an open oven. It was only twenty minutes to my house, but I didn’t get back for forty, since I was constantly taking sharp detours and double-checking at every turn to make sure that Marcus wasn’t following me.

I ran inside the house, threw my clothes into the washing machine in the laundry room, and went straight for a twenty-minute steaming-hot shower. My hands were still shaking so badly from the cold I could barely twist the knobs. The only thing keeping me going was the prospect of sliding under a thick comforter and lying next to Annie.

I slipped into the dark bedroom and eased into bed. When I put my hand out to feel her waist, I just hit mattress. She was gone.

I found her downstairs. Actually, she found me. She was sitting on the couch with a cup of tea, waiting. She had watched me as I came down the stairs. Her eyes hinted at tears earlier, but now she was strictly business.

“Are you fucking someone else?” she asked in an oddly calm voice.

My brain seized up. I’d been smiling at her, still just happy to see her after such a shitty night. But any relief quickly disappeared.

“What?” I said. “No.”

She lifted one of the profile pictures of Irin I’d printed out.

“You’re always late, making up excuses. You come home, get rid of your clothes, and head straight for the shower. You think I’m stupid? I know what that means.”

“It’s for work,” I said. “Her father is Rado Dragović.”

“Don’t give me that. A twenty-year-old party girl is what, lobbying the Pentagon? I looked her up and a million searches came up on your laptop. Are you stalking this girl?”

“Hon, you know networking is part of the job. I’m checking up on her for a case, and I promised Walker I’d meet with him tonight—”

“Just shut up,” she said. “Walker’s at the House right now for the budget vote. Stop lying to me. It’s disgusting.”

She stood and marched to the front door. I chased after her, stammering, wearing only my boxers. Once again I was freezing my ass off, but now I was half naked on my front porch. I realized that the truth would be much harder for her to believe than any bullshit I came up with, but I didn’t want to lie to her again.

“Hon. I can explain. It was work; I lied because I didn’t want to get you involved. It’s about our bosses, about Davies. Please. Come back inside.”

“You want me to trust you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Then trust me. You more than anyone know how this town works, Mike. You can’t take without giving. Tell me what’s going on.”

“I’ll show you.” I walked her back into the hallway near the kitchen, and lifted my clothes out of the washing machine.

“That smells like a bilge,” she said, and wrinkled her nose. I guess she was expecting the odor of another woman’s perfume or the scent of sex.

“I lied to you. I never should have. I’m sorry. Truly. I certainly wasn’t fucking anybody reeking like that.”

“Just tell me what’s happening.”

I chose my words carefully. Why trouble her if the whole thing was just me chasing shadows? And why involve her if there was real danger?

“I was worried that some unethical stuff was happening in a deal I was part of. So I had to double-check a few things. And, because I’m a moron, in the course of sneaking around I fell into some disgusting water and nearly froze to death.”

She considered this for a minute.

“That’s too ridiculous an alibi to invent.” She scrutinized me for a second. “You fell in the water?”

“Yeah. The Anacostia. It was freezing,” I said. “I’ve had a really rough night. I’m so goddamned sorry.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“I know I’m probably just being paranoid, and I didn’t want to get you mixed up in it. It was stupid and I’m done.”

“Did you tell Marcus or Henry?”

“No. And please keep this between us. I was sort of doing this on my own and I could get in big trouble if they found out. All right?”

“You should tell them,” she said. “They’ll know what to do.”

Annie was a gunner, like me. Work was everything, and she was close with Davies. Hell, it was Davies who had thrown Annie and me together in the first place. I didn’t want to think about what she would do if it came down to a choice between him and me.

“I know,” I said. “But can we just keep this to ourselves? I checked it out, there was nothing to it, and I could get in trouble for going off the reservation. You won’t mention it to anyone, will you?”

I could tell she was getting wary again.

“No,” she said, finally.

“You swear?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. I’ll never lie to you again. You have a right to be angry. Take your time. I can give you a ride home if you like, but I hope you can forgive me and stay.”

She stared me down and let me suffer for another minute.

“No,” she said. “Let’s just go to bed.”