The Sentinel (21 page)

"Do you know something that I don't?" Garrison asked.

"There are a lot of things in the air right now. Pete. Until we get them ironed out, it's going to be somewhat confusing. I suggest you tell the complete truth."

"Someone just tried to kill me and I am being treated as a suspect. I deserve an explanation."

"My orders are that you be interviewed concerning possible sabotage and other crimes."

"You consider me a suspect?"

"Yes. Now, if you'll excuse me."

Wintergreen moved away and began conferring in whispers with two police detectives.

Beatty frisked Garrison.

"Get in the car," Flanagan said.

****

CHAPTER 18

"WHERE ARE WE going?" Garrison asked.

He was sitting in the backseat of Flanagan's Mercury with Beatty as Flanagan turned off Connecticut Avenue.

Flanagan cleared his throat. "Eight-Two-Nine."

"Why a safe house?"

"That's our choice."

"What the hell is this all about?"

"We can talk when we get there."

"Oh, am I bothering you?" Garrison asked.

Flanagan and Beatty exchanged a glance. Surely they wouldn't be treating him like this unless they had some evidence against him. Something was up. Something big.

In Georgetown, Flanagan turned off Wisconsin Avenue onto Westboro Avenue, and veered into the driveway of a two-story, Georgian-style house with high columns, an attached garage, and a towering oak tree in the middle of the front lawn. It was a quiet neighborhood: a suburban cul-de-sac lined with rose-red brick-front dwellings. Though there was no address plate on the house, Garrison knew the address: 829 Westboro. He'd once spent three days there debriefing an Iraqi defector about a terrorist plan to bomb the President during a dedication ceremony at the Washington Monument.

In the dining room, the musty smell and the spiderwebs against the baseboards stimulated Garrison's memory. He wondered if anyone had so much as vacuumed the place since he'd last been there. The house was one of three Secret Service safe houses in Washington, D.C., all leased, single-family homes in quiet, middle-class neighborhoods where foreign intelligence agents or terrorist spies would be readily detected if they tried to surveil. The safe houses were used for debriefing intelligence sources and, occasionally, to hide some foreign dignitary whose life was in jeopardy. When the Secret Service received specific, credible information about a threat to a protectee, the security plan often included what was known as a "Veil" operation: making it appear the protectee was residing in a particular hotel when, in actuality, he was ensconced in a safe-house. Agents actually stood post at the empty hotel room as if the protectee were there. "Veil operations," as they were known in Secret Service lingo, were popular with the agents assigned to protect the empty hotel room. Other than the one agent posted at the door to make it appear like the dignitary was present, they could play poker all day without supervision.

"I'll open some windows," Beatty said. He left the room, and there was the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. Flanagan sat across the table from Garrison. Opening his briefcase, he took out a clear-plastic, laminated three-by-five card and read:

"Special Agent Pete Garrison, Secret Service Badge Number 961, be advised that you are the subject of an official investigation concerning the attempted assassination of the President of the United States. Any refusal on your part to answer questions will be deemed a violation of a direct order given you by the Director of the U.S. Secret Service and will result in the immediate termination of your federal employment. Do you understand what I have just read to you?"

Garrison nodded.

"I didn't hear you," Flanagan said.

"Yes. I understand my rights."

Garrison assumed what he was saying was being recorded. Beatty had gone upstairs to the listening post in the second-floor bedroom where he could monitor the sound and video recorders that were installed in every room. Garrison knew the microphones and "pinhole" video cameras hidden in the walls were invisible to all except trained technicians.

"You know the routine," Flanagan said.

"You're talking to a fellow agent, Flanagan. What's going on?"

"A post-shooting interview."

"Then why the warning of rights and the recorders?"

"This is a suspect interview."

"What is the charge?"

"Murder and possible sabotage."

"You're out of your mind."

Flanagan opened his briefcase, took out a sheet of paper, and then placed Garrison's gun inside before closing it. He handed the paper to Garrison.

"That is a copy of the Marine One flight manifest."

"And?"

"Read it."

"Okay," he said impatiently. "There were two State Department protocol types and three White House communications technicians in the chopper when I came up. The chopper made two trips. On the first trip the Director was on board with the First Lady, the Man, Junior Sebastian, and two military aides. Would you like me to read off the names?"

"For your flight. Did you see anyone on board who isn't listed there?"

"No."

Let Flanagan ask his questions so he could figure what the hell was going on, Garrison thought. Flanagan sat back in his chair.

"Did you notice anything unusual during the flight?"

"No."

"Would it be possible for someone who was a passenger on the flight you were on to plant a bomb?"

"Anything is possible."

"Who do you think planted the bomb in Marine One?"

"I have no idea."

"Dangerous people in those right-wing extremist groups. Wouldn't you say?"

"What are you getting at?" Garrison said.

Flanagan stared at him. "The Aryan Disciples."

"Why don't you forget the roundabout questions and just come out with it.
What about the Aryan Disciples?"

"Someone just tried to kill you. I wonder why."

"Are you telling me you have information that the Aryan Disciples sent Alexander to kill me? Is that what you are saying?"

"The Disciples have vowed to kill the President, Garrison. If they wanted to plant a bomb in his chopper, they'd need an insider to help them, wouldn't you say?"

Garrison straightened his chair. He felt like the world was swirling out of control, as if the room itself was off-kilter, like some sleazy, county fair fun house.

"Let me get this straight. Are you trying to connect me to the chopper bombing?"

"I'm just asking questions."

"Other than the fact that I am a trained explosive ordnance technician, what leads you to believe that I had anything to do with the bombing?"

"I'm not here to answer questions. Just ask them."

"Then ask away and let's get this over with because you are on a major, wild-goose chase and you are wasting my time."

Flanagan formed his mouth into a sideways smile. "Has any terrorist organization approached you and asked for favors?"

Garrison swallowed the anger bubbling up in him. "No."

Flanagan exhaled loudly. "No need to take things personal. Other than as part of your official duties as a U.S. Secret Service agent, have you had any contact with the Aryan Disciples?"

"No."

Flanagan stood, adjusted his trousers, and walked to the door. Tilting his head toward the stairs, he shouted.

"Dwight, come down here!"

Who the hell is Dwight?
Garrison heard footsteps descending the stairs.

The man who'd followed Garrison from the Sperling Finance Building - the man who'd knocked him out in the parking garage-walked into the room smoking a cigar. Instead of the NASHVILLE T-shirt, he was wearing a charcoal-gray business suit. Garrison felt like he'd just been tossed off a boat into the Arctic Sea.

"Garrison, meet FBI Special Agent Dwight Catherwood," Flanagan said.

Holding the cigar between his teeth, Catherwood reached inside his suit jacket, took out a black leather folder, and opened it to display a gold FBI badge with picture-card identification.

"Sorry about having to down you."

"Try it sometime when I'm not looking the other way."

Catherwood puffed the cigar and shoved his badge back into his pocket.

"Thanks, Dwight," Flanagan said. "I'll give you a call later."

Catherwood walked out of the room. Moments later, there was the sound of the front door opening, then closing. Flanagan tapped his pen on the table.

"What were you doing at the Sperling Finance Building?"

Garrison knew his choices were limited. He could say he'd been at the Sperling Finance Building conducting an unofficial investigation for someone on the White House staff. But experience told him that an answer involving a partial truth would lead inevitably to other, more probing questions that would eventually unravel the lie. The other alternative was to reveal his interlude with Eleanor and his desire to keep their affair secret as the reasons he'd been at the Sperling Finance Building.

To do so would violate his scruples and destroy both Eleanor's reputation and his Secret Service career. The course was clear. FBI or not, he was innocent and the investigation would surely clear him. He told himself that no matter how unusual it might seem to others that he had been at the Sperling Finance Building, there was nothing else that would tend to incriminate him. In the end, after the investigation was completed, Flanagan and everyone else would see that they had made fools of themselves by considering him a suspect.

"Having coffee."

"Took you quite a while to answer that."

"So what? Next question."

Flanagan took a paper from his briefcase and studied it for a moment, then thumbed to the second page.

"This FBI report shows that you were in the coffee shop for over two hours. Do you often sit in a coffee shop that long?"

"I don't know."

"When people get involved in things they shouldn't, sometimes they have bad luck - like when some little old lady who is looking out the window happens to see a bank robber climbing into his getaway car and writes down the license number. It's the luck of the draw - sheer misfortune. That's what happened to you. Hell, you had no way of knowing that the FBI had been staking out the Aryan Disciples' front office in the Sperling Finance Building. Its called Mountain Escrow Incorporated, and the coffee shop next door to it is where the deals are done. For payoffs, they send someone into the coffee shop to leave an envelope on the table. You walked into an FBI stakeout."

Garrison's throat felt dry. "Being in a building where terrorists rent an office isn't evidence of anything. And in case it may have slipped your mind, I just killed an Aryan Disciples hit man. Do you think
killing
them is evidence of
being in
with them?"