The President's Henchman (34 page)

Welborn used his own academic record as a point of comparison. He’d graduated in the top 10 percent of his class, and he knew it was by no means certain that anyone would ever address him as General Yates. Maybe if he’d been able to spend his pre-desk-jockey years as a fighter pilot, he’d have had a chance. The USAF did love its fighter jocks. But as a gumshoe for the OSI? He didn’t see it happening.

Unless the president served two terms and kept him working out of the White House. Then he might conceivably become a general, and a very young one. But he’d be a blatant political beneficiary, and his brother officers would view him with contempt.

He turned his thoughts back to the colonel … and he couldn’t forget the threat Carina had shared with him. She’d better rise in rank faster than the cadets who blamed her for the deaths of their friends, the rapists.

He put that together with the president’s speculation that the colonel had been sleeping with General Altman. If that was so, it seemed unlikely he’d have been the first superior officer with whom Carina had traded sexual favors for career advancement. Verifying this notion might be as simple as checking whether anybody else in her intelligence unit at the Pentagon held a similar class rank. If not, how did the powers that be explain her presence in an elite unit?

Not that they’d tell him. Even if the president ordered them to explain themselves, the really bright people, the top one-percenters who belonged there, would concoct some plausible fiction.

The whole situation depressed him. Carina Linberg must have started out as an all-American girl who’d only wanted to serve her country in the Air Force. She couldn’t have guessed where that ambition would lead her. Fighting off sexual predators at the academy. Prostituting herself to stay a jump ahead of those same predators. Or maybe just to make a good career move. Go Air Force. Fly high.

There was a knock at his office door. He looked up and saw Kira.

“You want to give me a ride home?” she asked. “Or should I just take my car and leave you to fend for yourself?”

He was at a loss to answer. Kira saw he was not himself and, stepping out of character, took pity on him.

“Come on, let’s go,” she said. “I’ll make dinner for you.”

“You can cook?” he asked, surprised.

“Of course, I can. But you’re right. We’ll order in.”

They ate Thai takeout and went to bed.

Neither one of them would be able to remember later who’d made the first move or if either of them had even said anything about sex. They’d simply eaten their stir-fried chicken with ginger, and their fried dried curry of pork, and drunk their Singha beer, two bottles for her, three for him, and wound up in bed, as if they’d known each other long enough, intimately enough, for such a segue to be automatic.

They went at each other for what seemed like eternity and was, in fact, hours. Gently, vigorously, manically, flesh was exercised, and demons of longing were exorcised. A final kiss on bruised lips, and they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

Waking with the summer sunrise, they looked at each other.

“You haven’t been diagnosed with anything terminal, have you?” Kira asked.

“No.”

“Or anything contagious?”

“No.”

“Good. Then maybe we have a future.”

She got up to use the bathroom, pulling the comforter around her shoulders and striding off like a princess on her way to be crowned queen. She closed the door, so he didn’t have to listen to Her Highness pee.

Welborn gathered the top sheet around him and snuggled back into the pillows for more sleep. That idea vanished in the next instant when he twisted around and sat bolt upright. A series of questions had suddenly filled his brain.

Who had he seen driving west on Route 50 yesterday?

Captain Dexter Cowan in his unmissable Dodge Viper.

Had he thought Cowan had been out to visit Carina Linberg?

Yes … but he hadn’t gotten the impression of any recent visitors from the colonel.

What branch of the service was Cowan in?

The Navy.

And if you traveled farther east than Landover on Route 50, you came to?

Annapolis. And the Naval Academy.

And what crime had happened recently in Annapolis that concerned him?

The theft of his car.

Had Cowan ever seen Welborn’s car before it was stolen?

Yes, when they’d run together at the C & O Canal National Historic Park.

If Cowan had stolen Welborn’s car, what help would he have needed?

Somebody to drive his car while he drove Welborn’s.

Where might he find such help?

From a friend, say one who worked at the Naval Academy.

“Welborn, are you all right? Welborn?”

Kira was back. She still had the comforter around her shoulders, but those were the only points of interest it covered. He pulled her down on top of him, producing a cry of surprise from Kira. But once the shock of his impetuosity had passed, she joined in the spirit of the moment. After they finished, he clasped her to him, their hearts beating fiercely against each other.

“Do you still hate me?” Kira asked.

“More than ever,” Welborn told her. He rolled them over so he could look down into her eyes. “I really want you to believe that.”

It took only a second for Kira to accuse him. “You
do
have a terminal disease.”

“Well, maybe.” He flopped over onto his back so they lay side by side.

Kira levered herself up onto one arm and glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean? Tell me. Tell me right now.”

Welborn recounted his visit with Colonel Linberg.

“What’s that got to do with us?” Kira asked. She was taking him at his word that he had bypassed Carina Linberg’s bedroom.

“I was trying to provoke one of two things: a confession from the colonel or a reaction from … well, I didn’t know who at the time, but I’m pretty sure I do now.”

He told her of his suspicions regarding Captain Dexter Cowan.

“He killed Mrs. Altman? Why would he do that?”

“So far it looks like money, and the promise of more.”

He told her Cowan was the guy who owned a Viper, and the captain had promised Arlene Cowan a generous divorce settlement.

Kira said, “So if you’re right, what kind of reaction do you think you’ll get from him?”

Before answering, Welborn fetched and booted up Kira’s laptop. He looked up Dexter Cowan’s yearbook information from the Naval Academy. The guy had graduated in the
bottom
quartile of his class. Jeez! Who’d
he
have to sleep with — other than Carina Linberg — to get his slot in military intelligence? Was he the guy they sent out for late-night pizza or what?

On the other hand, old Dex had been the captain of the Academy’s fencing team, and was further described as a “master of all edged weapons.” Great.

Welborn looked at Kira, and said, “I think I might get a pointed reaction. And my terminal disease might be curiosity.”

The Secret Service hadn’t arrested Laurel Rembert the prior afternoon, but with her permission, they’d looked through all her business files. As a result, they learned the value of all the product endorsements of every major sports star in town, as well as what those jocks got paid for each motivational speech they gave. While the numbers were staggering, great fodder for watercooler conversations, they found absolutely no documentary evidence connecting Ms. Rembert with Damon Todd.

After an hour or so of softening her up by the other agents, SAC Celsus Crogher had joined the investigative effort and come right out and asked Ms. Rembert: “Do you know a man named Damon Todd?”

“Who?” Ms. Rembert replied with doe-eyed innocence.

“Would you be willing to take a lie-detector test?”

“Sure, if that’ll help.”

The Secret Service men looked at one another. The woman seemed perfectly innocent. Except for a couple of things. When Crogher asked, “Who referred you to Chana Lochlan?” she replied, “I don’t remember.”

Laurel Rembert had a diploma from Wellesley hanging on her office wall. Her files were in impeccable order. She was a well-educated, well-organized, successful Washington professional woman … and she couldn’t remember who’d made a referral?

The gods of networking would not be amused.

“May we look at your BlackBerry?” Crogher asked, seeing it on her desk.

“Absolutely.”

She handed it right over and told him her password. No mention of Damon Todd was to be found in the electronic data keeper. No mention of a regular boyfriend either. That didn’t seem right to Crogher, either. A relatively young, quite attractive, high-earning white-collar woman? She should have been planning the merger with or acquisition of an equally bankable male. Or female, if her tastes ran that way.

“You’re not seeing anyone socially on a regular basis, Ms. Rembert?” Crogher asked.

“I’m far too busy for that,” she answered. “Maybe someday.”

That was the other big problem, as far as Crogher was concerned. The woman was much too cooperative. Anything they wanted to know was okay with her. Business matters that should have been held as strictly confidential, go right ahead and take a look. A nosy personal question, it didn’t ruffle her feathers one little bit.

She should have been telling them to fuck off. Come back when you’ve got a search warrant and a subpoena, buddy. Crogher felt more comfortable when he met resistance.

But she was only too happy to cooperate. So mindlessly sweet she made Crogher’s teeth ache. Something just wasn’t right, but he couldn’t find it. So he apologized for the intrusion, then sicced Galbreath on her. Galbreath was the best-looking agent who worked for Crogher, a single guy who could talk knowledgably on a wide range of subjects. He possessed a well-rounded personality rare in a man who carried an Uzi to work.

As a gesture of appreciation for her assistance, Crogher told Ms. Rembert, Special Agent Galbreath would be happy to take her to dinner. Instead of telling him to get lost, she didn’t need a pity date, she accepted the offer with a smile.

Galbreath took her to dinner, and they went out for drinks afterward. He reported that he couldn’t get her to acknowledge knowing a Damon Todd. But she did say she was sure she could get him upwards of a hundred speaking engagements per year once he retired from government service. Corporate executives loved to hear tales of high drama from former federal agents.

Damon Todd retrieved all this information from Laurel shortly after Galbreath had dropped her at home. The Secret Service agent had been sufficiently decent, or disciplined, not to try to worm his way into Laurel’s bed. Debriefing Laurel and reassuring her that she’d handled the situation flawlessly, then bedding her himself, had taken Todd the rest of the night.

He’d sent Laurel to Chana’s house after deciding it would be foolish simply to show up at her door himself. He knew for a fact that Professor Lochlan had gone to visit his daughter. Who knew what other parties might be lurking about? The Secret Service, as it turned out.

Reflecting on the situation that morning, he was well pleased with Laurel. He could have implanted in her a combative response to questioning, but that would have dragged things out. Added to the intensity of official inquiry. Todd had decided that sunny cooperation was better; it worked more smoothly with Laurel’s naturally friendly disposition as well.

There were, of course, different situations and different personalities where other approaches would produce the optimal results. But he was sure, given the right working environment and a reasonable budget, that he could interrogation-proof any subject who was willing to work with him.

Why couldn’t the CIA see that? Where was that blockhead Cheveyo?

Of even greater importance, where was Chana?

Laurel had told him that when she looked through Chana’s window she’d gotten the distinct impression that no one was home. Had Eamon Lochlan taken her somewhere?

If so, why? The unsettling answer, of course, was that Daddy had come to his little girl’s rescue as he had when she’d suffered her breakdown at UCLA. But that implied that Chana’s crafted personality as Nan was continuing its deterioration. Understandable, perhaps, in that she still had questioned her desire to continue her life as Nan during their last session.

Then her damn father had to barge in before Todd and Chana could settle on a new persona. Todd considered whether Eamon Lochlan would take his daughter back to Ohio as he had the last time. He didn’t think so. The professor had recently severed all his ties to that part of his life. Professor Lochlan’s fiancée had told Todd that they would be married and on their way to Europe within a month. Would he have to look for Chana abroad or —

Or had Professor Lochlan found out that James J. McGill had been mucking around in his daughter’s life? Todd doubted that Chana would have told her father about that; it just didn’t feel right to him. On the other hand, once you hired a snoop, as Chana had, you had to expect a large circle of snooping to ensue. It was easy for Todd to think that McGill could have injected himself into Chana’s family dynamics, learned their history, even interviewed Eamon Lochlan.

If he’d done the latter in person, gone to Gambier, he could be much too close to learning details about Todd’s own life. Before now, Todd had thought he needed to kill McGill. Now, he
wanted
to do it. He remembered the most likely means of access to McGill’s office from the night he had cased the building on P Street.

Before he did anything else, though, he had to do a session in the mirror. Self-hypnosis. He didn’t want to get caught short. If things went badly, he had to make sure he was interrogation-proof, too.