The President's Assassin (23 page)

Townsend said, “All right. In my view, the evidence against Calhoun Barnes was problematic and the case was flimsy. There were no living—at least no sensible—witnesses. There was no other physical evidence except the three canceled checks, and the personal word of Phillip Fineberg, who insisted he didn’t witness the exchanges and only learned of them recently.”

Asserting my lawyerliness I said, “To admit otherwise would make him a party to the crime.” I then suggested, “I have the impression, sir, that you didn’t trust Justice Fineberg.”

“I did not. It was obvious he was carrying a bitter hatred toward Barnes. So I was...disturbed by his allegations.”

“And about his motives?”

“In fact, yes. His initial claims were all over the map. Affairs with paralegals in their old firm, overbilling clients, and so on. It has been my experience with background checks, particularly for high-level positions, that some people use them as an opportunity to pursue private vendettas.”

“So you thought Fineberg was trying to assassinate Barnes?”

“Well, only later did he assert that Barnes had bribed these three judges. I found that suspicious.” He looked at our faces and added, “It makes sense now, but not then. Nor would he tell me how he came into possession of the checks, which created certain problems from a legal standpoint. There was the obvious chain of custody issues...but I suppose it was his motive that I questioned. So this was what I reported to the President.”

Mrs. Hooper insisted, “There was enough there...Look, people, this is Washington. Reality check. Barnes was a big boy. He was warned he’d better be whistle-clean. Well...he wasn’t.”

We all guessed there had been an argument in front of the President, and Mrs. Hooper had argued for the safer course, to immediately throw Barnes to the sharks. But at this stage it didn’t matter whether Calhoun Barnes oozed with corruption or had the soul of a saint, though we now knew the latter was out of the question. What mattered—all that mattered—as Jennie knew, was who else had been involved in the decision, who else might be on Jason’s list, and who might need a heavy dose of special protection.

Townsend of course appreciated this point and said to Jennie, “So I think for your short list, you should include me, Mrs. Hooper, the Attorney General, the White House legal adviser, and Meade Everhill. Also, check your office records and see which agents were involved in the investigation.”

Jennie nodded.

Thinking two steps ahead, Phyllis said to Townsend, “Mark, should we still be concerned about the bounty issue?”

Interestingly, he turned to Jennie, who said, “We can’t rule it out. We’ve confirmed that Barnes was informed of the bounty the morning after we discovered it. He had at least forty-eight hours to apply before the Internet site was shut down.”

I said, “But he’s acting out of rage, not greed. Right?”

“That’s true. But why not kill two birds with one stone?” She added, “Also, consider the possibility that he recruited his co-conspirators using the bounty. They’re probably mercenaries, and this would certainly explain where he got at least the promise of money.” She smiled at Phyllis and added, “I’m sorry. The Agency’s not out of this thing yet.”

Charles Wardell of the Secret Service announced, “I have to make some calls. The President and Attorney General are already apprised. But I didn’t know about Clyde Burns—the legal adviser—or Everhill. Somebody better...check on them.”

It was now 5:30
A.M
. and we all wondered if the grim reaper had not already checked on Everhill and Burns. We’d been completely behind the curve, and it was a relief to play a little catch-up. In fact, the mood in the room had begun to shift, and everybody thought we might even be getting a step ahead of Jason: We knew why and we knew who. What could go wrong?

Again, I had this ominous foreboding that I—that all of us—were overlooking something important.

Wardell stepped out of the room to make his calls. Moving to the next order of business, Townsend turned to George and asked, “Where are we regarding the military munitions?”

George replied, “The lab reported back. Traces of Composition A5 were found on Fineberg’s corpse. That’s the same propellant used in the Bouncing Betty mine, and apparently, it’s a distinctive trace. We’re still waiting for confirmation about the antitank weapon.” He paused a moment, then said, “We’re assuming the weapons were stolen. Procedurally, the military has to report all domestic weapons and munitions thefts and losses to us. So we’ve accessed those files going back six months.”

George paused again to look at the faces around the table. Like many self-important types, he had a lot of irritating habits, but we had to endure this moment of I-know-something-you-don’t before he informed us, “There have been a total of sixty-eight reported cases of theft and loss over this six-month period. So I ordered our people to screen all unclosed cases that included the theft or loss of both Light Antitank Weapons and Bouncing Betty mines.”

He then proceeded in laborious detail to describe this cross-examination, which was a curious waste of everybody’s time, especially as it was George who had reminded the rest of us that we were running against the clock here. I began to wonder if he was running scared. Clearly, Jennie was the star of this show, and George was becoming like the supporting actor who speaks his lines a little too loud and overacts his limited scenes. Eventually, he wrapped it up, saying, “In the end, we found three possibilities. But unfortunately, our friends in the military don’t work the same hours we do, so I haven’t yet been able to question the Army’s CID, that is, the Criminal Investigation Division.”

Townsend looked a little exasperated. After a moment he asked George, “Did you make an official request to CID?”

“I...yes. I spoke with a night duty officer over in the Pentagon. A major named—”

“When? What time?”

“Uh...about two hours ago.”

It suddenly became real quiet.

Phyllis looked at me and asked, “Sean, is there a better way to handle this?”

I avoided George’s eyes and replied, truthfully, “CID does maintain a duty officer in the Pentagon. But CID headquarters is located at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. We should call Major General Daniel Tingle, the CID commander.”

Phyllis looked at George, then at Townsend. She suggested, “Mark, it might be advisable to use Drummond on this.”

Townsend looked at me. “You ever work with CID?”

I nodded.

“Then do it.” He added, but I think not for my benefit, “Do I need to remind everybody that every hour lost can be counted in lives? We cannot...be sitting around...with our thumbs up our—”

“Up our noses,” Phyllis helpfully interjected. “And you’re absolutely right.”

“I think I should go with Drummond,” Jennie suggested.

Townsend looked at us both and asked, “Why are you still sitting here?”

And we weren’t.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

W
E TOOK THE SAME HELICOPTER
,
THOUGH THE PILOTS HAD CHANGED OUT
while we were in the building. The new pilot jocularly informed us he was named Jimbo, the flight time to Fort Belvoir would be approximately twenty-five minutes, so we should sit back and enjoy the ride. A stewardess would be making the rounds after takeoff, offering a selection of fine wines, snacks, and reading materials.

I grabbed Jennie’s gun and shot him. Just kidding.

About two minutes after takeoff, Jennie’s cell phone went off. She answered, “Margold,” then listened for a minute. “Yeah, good. Hold on.” To me, she said, “It’s Chuck Wardell. Meade Everhill was found at home, in bed, unharmed. They’re moving him to FBI headquarters.” She returned to her conversation with Wardell, and they began chatting about the protection screen being set up around Townsend.

It was a little odd that Wardell had called Jennie. But in chaotic situations, people migrate toward competence, and through good luck, good timing, and, if I say so myself, a bit of deductive brilliance, Jennie and I were the heroes of the hour. I reminded myself that nothing has a shorter half-life than a hero.

I whipped out my cell, called the Pentagon switch, and asked the operator to put me through to the CID duty officer. She did and he answered, “Major Robbins. CID.”

I identified myself and informed him I worked for the Director of the FBI, which was partly true and certainly more impressive than the whole truth. I said, “You’ve already gotten a request for assistance regarding some lost and stolen munitions. Right?”

“About two hours ago. An agent...uh, hold on”—he apparently checked his duty log—“Meany...George Meany, asked for assistance. He gave me a list of the purported thefts. I already faxed requests for assistance to the CID offices in the locations where the thefts occurred.”

“He explained this was high priority?”

“Yes. I categorized them high priority.”

“Well...explain what that means.”

“It’s SOP to code our requests. High priority means the receiving stations have seventy-two hours to respond.”

“Seventy-two?...Is there a higher priority?”

“Of course. Urgent. You have twelve hours to respond.”

The Army invented the word “procedures,” and Major Robbins had done what he was asked, in a manner both timely and efficient—given his half-assed knowledge of what was going on here.

I didn’t want to overwhelm Major Robbins with the facts, so I explained, “Perhaps Meany failed to emphasize the importance of this. So listen closely. We are dealing with a
...huge...fucking...emergency
here. Somebody’s trying to murder the President with those weapons. If this President dies, his Vice President is going to hunt down whoever failed to stop it and play croquet with their balls on the Rose Garden lawn. Major, do you understand?”

“Uh...got it.”

“I’m in a helicopter, fifteen minutes out from Belvoir. During that fifteen minutes, you will call Major General Tingle. You will tell him to meet me in his office. You will tell him to have transportation meet me in the Post Exchange parking lot. You will tell him to round up whatever experts on these cases he needs. Got that?”

“Got all that.”

“Repeat it back to me,” and he did, word for word.

I pulled a pen out of my pocket. “Give me the case numbers of the thefts Meany gave you.”

He did that, too, and I jotted them down on my palm. I thanked Major Robbins and punched off.

Jennie said to me, “You were pretty rough on that poor guy.”

“Nonsense. Soldier talk.”

“Define soldier talk.”

“A simple statement of mission, basic steps to accomplish said mission, and the pain I will cause you if you fail.”

She shook her head.

“Look, what if I had been all nice and polite? And what if he got it all wrong? Then I’d feel really bad.”

She shrugged. “Well, you can’t really blame George. To outsiders, the Army is a very foreign world.”

“Exactly. That’s why he should’ve called me and asked for help.”

“Maybe if you had a more positive and nurturing relationship with George, he would have.”

I was about to toss Agent Margold from the helicopter when I saw she was laughing.

For the remainder of the flight, she briefed me on the unfolding plan to use Director Townsend as a decoy to lure Jason Barnes out into the open. The concept, as I understood it, was to encase Townsend in three tons of body armor and have him move around in public all day, flanked and followed by a screen of handpicked agents, armed to the teeth with guns, bad attitudes, and Jason Barnes’s photo. It sounded well put together, it probably was well put together, and try as I might, I thought of no more than ten things that could go completely wrong. But that wasn’t my problem.

Two military police humvees with flashing blue lights awaited us on the tarmac when we set down. I regarded this as a good omen. I thanked Jimbo the pilot for not crashing, and informed him the in-flight movie sucked. He laughed.

Five minutes later we pulled up to the entrance of the headquarters of the United States Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A CID officer in mufti awaited us. He escorted us swiftly inside, and down a hallway, and up a stairwell, then down another hall to the door of Major General Daniel Tingle, führer of the Army’s equivalent of the Gestapo.

Understand that as a military lawyer, I worked with lots of criminal investigators, and when it comes to flatfoots, in my professional view, none are better. Most CID foot soldiers are former enlisted MPs promoted to the rank of warrant officer, a sort of halfway station between sergeants and commissioned officers, which affords them the best of both worlds. They are accorded the full privileges and respect of an officer, just none of the bullshit. They can go to the NCO club—where the liquor’s cheaperthe officers’ club, where young lieutenants’ wives are usually cuter, lonelier, and more gullible. In general, CID types tend to be highly intelligent, arrogant, sneaky, diligent, treacherous, and disrespectful.

Essentially they are detectives, though, unlike their civilian counterparts, CID agents are highly trained in
all
arts and aspects of criminology and criminality, from interrogations through forensics, from rapes through murder, and with rare exceptions, they handle the A to Z of whatever case they’re assigned.

Often their work takes them undercover. Arriving incognito, they report into a unit, they work hard to fit in, they create friendships and build strong bonds of trust, and then they bust everybody who farted outside the commode. It is this part of their duties, I think, that makes them beloved to the rest of the Army.

Guys and gals like this need strong adult supervision, and that odious task falls upon a corps of commissioned military police officers. General Tingle was the current top sneak, a guy the rest of the Army’s generals try hard to get along with because he has the dirt on everybody.

So we entered the office where General Tingle was seated behind his desk, and he stayed seated behind his desk. On his left flank stood a large, heavyset black officer in battle dress uniform, the crossed pistols of an MP on one collar, the spread eagle of a full colonel on the other collar, and a nametag that read Johnson. On the general’s right flank stood two middle-aged men in civilian clothes; from their sneaky faces, presumably both were senior agents. General Tingle, I noted, was attired in pale gray Army sweats, and although mostly bald, his few surviving strands were disheveled, nor had he shaved, nor was he smiling. Obviously he had been dragged out of bed, and from his expression he seemed to be pondering
why
, and by
whom.