Ultimate Betrayal (30 page)

The Secret Service trains its agents to notice—and act on—anything out of the ordinary, no matter how inconsequential. Finch spoke into her lapel mic as she moved quickly toward the front desk. “I have a possible situation. Everyone hold position while I check this out.”

The desk clerk had gone through a door behind the counter area. Finch pounded the bell on the counter. This brought the clerk back out.

“You don’t need to break the bell, ma’am. I was only a few feet away.”

Finch flashed her identification. “That man who just left here. You handed him something. What was it? Who was he?”

“First of all,” the clerk said disdainfully, “I gave him a passkey. And second, I should not have to tell you who the man is since he’s a member of your own security team.”

Finch felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. She reached over the counter, grabbed the clerk by the front of his jacket, and jerked him close. “Listen to me; I’ve got no time for your bullshit. Tell me what that man told you. Now!”

The clerk talked so fast Finch had to slow him down.

Pass key. Security. Intruder in the stairwell. Offices. Finch had heard enough. She raced across the lobby toward the Mezzanine stairs. At the same time, she spoke into her mic: “Possible intruder on the Mezzanine level.” She heard other agents running after her as she took the stairs two at a time.

Finch reached the Mezzanine and turned right into the hallway. The man she’d seen had just come out of one of the offices.

“Hold it right there, mister,” Finch ordered.

The man stopped, slowly turned around, and faced Finch, who approached with her pistol down by her right thigh.

Finch sized up the intruder and instinctively knew he was no ordinary second-story man. While she walked to within five feet of the guy, she heard her backup crew reach the top of the stairs behind him. She focused all of her attention on the intruder. “U.S. Secret Service,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Look, I can try to blow smoke at you, but that would only waste your time and piss you off. So I’ll give it to you straight. I’m a private detective.” He slowly took his ID out of his shirt pocket and handed it to the agent.

“Scott Dundee,” Finch read aloud.

“Yeah, that’s right. I got this client who suspects his wife has been messing around. He gave me a couple of names of guys who might be playing hide-the-salami with the wife. One of the names is this guy Hal Norris.” Dundee jabbed a thumb in the direction of the office door. “I figured if I could get into his office and check his appointment book, his desk drawers, maybe I could find something incriminating.”

“Assume the position,” Finch ordered.

When Dundee put his hands against the wall, Finch kicked his feet apart.

Dundee blurted a noise somewhere between a grunt and a scream. When Finch found a flash drive in Dundee’s pocket she stuck it under Dundee’s nose. “What the hell is this?”

“It’s blank. It’s nothing.”

Finch turned the drive over and looked at each of the edges. There was no label on it.

After she scrutinized the man’s ID again, Finch slipped it and the flash drive into her jacket pocket and asked, “Why’d you tell the desk clerk you’re with the security detail here at the hotel? Impersonating a federal officer is a crime.”

“I know that was kind of lame,” Dundee responded, “but I got this bad back and I got to use every shortcut I can find to get the job done. I’m sorry if I upset you. I sure didn’t mean to.”

Finch waved at two backup agents, then faced Dundee again. “Okay, Mr. Dundee, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll have two of our agents drive you home. They’ll search your place and then you’ll go with them to your office. I assume you’ll agree to a search of both locations without the need for a search warrant?”

Dundee nodded.

“If they find anything that makes them the least bit suspicious, they’ll haul your ass downtown and will, I assure you, make your life a nightmare. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Finch beckoned one of the agents over and handed him Dundee’s ID and the flash drive. “Check out Jim Rockford here. Go to his home and office. You find anything that bothers you, lock him up and interrogate him hard. If everything looks all right, give him back his stuff and turn him loose.”

Dundee and the two Secret Service agents reached the bottom of the stairs and crossed the lobby toward the hotel doors just as Leo Brill walked out of the lounge. Brill gave no sign of recognition. He let them reach the doors and descend the steps to the sidewalk and then followed. Through the doors, he saw Dundee loaded into the back seat of one of the black Suburbans.

What in hell do I do now? Brill thought.

A wave of nausea hit Brill while he watched the big black vehicle pull away from the curb. If Dundee had switched the flash drives, Brill would be in good shape. He knew Dundee wouldn’t tell the Feds a thing, so Cataldo’s plan would go off without a hitch. But if the flash drives had not been switched, the plan would be dead in the water. Like Brill.

CHAPTER 49

With the heads-of-state tied up in conference meetings all day, Bishop had squired several of his intelligence agency counterparts on a tour of the Statue of Liberty.

The tour terminated at 3:45 p.m., after which Bishop returned to his room at The Plaza. Although he didn’t believe there was a God, he hedged his bets and prayed that David Hood was already dead. With Paladin on his trail, the man doesn’t have a prayer, he thought. He spent an hour-and-a-half on the telephone on CIA business and then thought about contingency plans for taking care of Hood. Afterward, he watched television news. At 6:30, he showered, shaved, and dressed for the State dinner. He admired himself in the room’s full-length mirror. Even at his age, he believed, he could still turn an eye or two.

“Rolf Bishop,” he said to his image, “you’ve come a long way.”

But then a bubble of bile hit the back of his throat. Fucking David Hood, he thought.

David once again reminded himself he had to control his emotions to be effective. Pent-up sorrow and anxiety, excitement, and anger had combined to make him a nervous wreck. It was the waiting that was so difficult. He now knew without a doubt Rolf Bishop was responsible for Carmela’s, Heather’s, and Kyle’s murders, and he was confident he understood the motive: Bishop’s drug sales to the New York Mafia had earned the man tens of millions of dollars. That money had allowed him to buy political influence. But he couldn’t take the chance one of the men in the Special Logistical Support Detachment had been aware of his smuggling operation. So the bastard had killed all of the survivors except David.

David’s greatest source of anxiety was the pending plan Joey Cataldo had shared with him. But there was nothing he could do about it until later this evening, after the State Dinner. So he sat for a couple of minutes, paced for a couple of minutes, sat again, paced again.

As David had told Cataldo, if Manny Segal could track them down at
Casa Sogna
, then they had no idea who else might know their location. Cataldo had spirited them out of his estate in the wee hours of the morning in the back of a van. Now David, Peter, Jennifer, and Dennis, were cooped up in an apartment above one of Cataldo’s restaurants near 3
rd
Avenue and 42
nd
Street.

Out of sheer desperation for something to do, David suggested they review the plan for that evening, and the others readily agreed.

“Anything to get you to sit down and stay down,” Ramsey said.

They once again went over the plan, step-by-step. He knew they would need luck for it to succeed, but he was convinced, if all went well, Rolf Bishop’s reputation would be finished forever.

At 7:30 p.m. sharp, a liveried waiter on The Plaza Hotel’s staff walked through the corridor outside the ballrooms and lightly struck a small three-plate xylophone, the signal for the start of the cocktail hour.

Bishop felt ecstatic. His presentation yesterday had been extremely well-received. He’d interacted well with the chiefs of some of the world’s most sophisticated intelligence agencies. He noted there was a general feeling of accomplishment over the work completed at the conference and everyone seemed to be in a jovial mood. He basked in the glow of his own importance. People he met wanted to talk about him, about his career, his new position, his priorities. He couldn’t help but feel bloated with self-importance, surrounded as he was by the world’s elite who complimented him at every turn.

The guests entered the Grand Ballroom at 8:15. Bishop guessed the decorations and table settings impressed even the most jaded attendee. The centerpieces on the tables were three-foot-tall fluted vases that spilled cascades of dendrobium orchids. Massive, multi-tiered crystal chandeliers sparkled like starships. The room’s lights were adjusted to display the guests to best advantage—not so bright as to accentuate physical flaws but bright enough to allow the women to display their hairdos, jewels, and gowns.

He turned his attention to the dais when the New York City mayor welcomed the audience and then introduced the President of the United States. The President toasted his foreign counterparts. Each of the heads of state on the dais then toasted the President and one another. While the dinner was served, with a different wine for each course, the cordiality grew almost frantic and the noise of conversation in the ballroom escalated.

The President rose after dinner. The audience immediately quieted. The President announced, “We accomplished much this week. We dealt with the key elements of international security, including intelligence, economic, and strategic issues. And we are all committed to do our best to build a safer, healthier, and more prosperous world for every child on the planet. There is no future without our children and there is no future unless the children are prepared to provide leadership in their turn. It is for this reason I have declared this year to be the Year of the Child in the United States of America.”

Bishop nodded. His head bounced like a bobble-headed dog in a car rear window. He caught himself and stopped. Don’t be an idiot, he told himself.

“All of us in this room are privileged,” the President continued. “We have the best life can offer. But if you are like me, you may sometimes forget you too were once a small child, weak and vulnerable. So I thought we all might enjoy a trip back in time to when we were, each and every one of us, a long way from our present positions of power.”

The President offered his most charismatic smile and waited while the lights slowly dimmed until the room was almost completely dark. The soundtrack on the video started while four large screens dropped from ceiling booms. Soft music wafted over the room like a light breeze, then built in volume, and finally subsided when an image of the President in the Oval Office was projected on the screens and the President’s recorded voice filled the ballroom. It was apparent the audience appreciated the effect, as “oohs” and “ahs” were heard from every corner of the room. The President spoke of power and privilege. Then the picture suddenly changed to a photograph of the President as a small child dressed in tattered, dirty overalls, in front of a ramshackle house. It was an image the White House spinmeisters loved. It conjured up an echo of Lincoln. The President spoke of how many children around the planet lived in poverty and lacked any opportunity to escape from it. Other photos showed the President as he grew from a young boy to a teenager to a young adult. “It is opportunity that makes the difference in a young person’s life, and it is the realization of that opportunity which makes our world a better place,” the President’s voice said.

The next image on the screens was of the French President. His round, smiling face stayed on the screens for a few seconds and was then replaced with photos of him at various ages. The voice of the U.S. President on the soundtrack spoke of the French leader’s life as a poor farmer’s son sent on scholarship to military school miles away from his home. The photographs and the background music had been matched beautifully and created an empathetic atmosphere in the room.

Each head of state, in turn, was featured. Their images as children seemed to delight the guests. A couple of women at Bishop’s table actually had tears in their eyes. After all eight leaders were highlighted, the video showed the images of several other persons in attendance, including the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Each had been included because he or she came from a poor background and pulled themselves up by the bootstraps. The point of the program was to show that children from other-than-privileged situations could grow up to make significant contributions to their countries and to the world—if given the opportunity.

Bishop felt perspiration on his brow. He knew what would happen next. The President had briefed him. He looked at the screen nearest his table and forced a neutral expression on his face. Even when his photograph showed on the screen he didn’t react. But inside, he was full of electric excitement.

The President’s voice boomed from the speakers. “The next person I want to introduce is a good friend who comes from my home state and who grew up in conditions of poverty and hunger. He attended The United States Military Academy at West Point, served in Grenada, Iraq, and Afghanistan, is a military hero, and a true American patriot. He has served his nation and the free world at great personal risk and sacrifice, in conditions of hardship and deprivation, and always without complaint. He lost a leg in combat. And he has done much for his country and in the interest of peace. I am proud to include in tonight’s program my life-long friend, Rolf Bishop.”

The picture segued to a photo of a small boy dressed in torn clothes, fishing rod in one hand and the hand of a smaller boy in the other. The photo drew a loud murmur of approval. Bishop felt his face redden as numerous attendees glanced over at him. This was truly his moment in the sun.

The mood in the room was now almost euphoric. The evening had been a tremendous success. Suddenly, the background music stopped. A different voice came from the speakers. Then a photograph of a man, woman, and two children showed on the screens.