Blow the House Down (27 page)

“Nope. It's not like we don't know this is all bullshit,” he said, a cockeyed smile on his face.

We walked out of the Residences at Market Square. A black Crown Vic was waiting for us, parked at the far end of D Street, in front of the 9th Street entrance to the Bureau parking garage.

Appleton insisted I buckle my seat belt before he drove off.

CHAPTER 45

W
E WERE FORTY BLOCKS EAST
on Pennsylvania Avenue, tuned in to an Orioles game, heading through the far eastern reaches of D.C., when Chuck Appleton slapped his hand to his forehead, said, “I need to get some things,” and pulled up in front of a Superfresh market with half the bulbs burned out in its overhead sign.

“Wanna come in with me?”

“I'll wait.”

Two black kids were leaning against the plate-glass window, eyeing us, undoubtedly trying to figure out what a couple of dead-on white guys were doing in their native terrain.

“Yeah, you better stay with the car,” Appleton said. “It's a—”

“Questionable neighborhood?”

He nodded, closed the driver's-side door carefully behind him, and disappeared into the store. The O's had men on first and third, none out. Appleton had left the engine running so I could listen to the radio without draining the battery and fill him in on what happened. For the a/c, too. He was nothing but thoughtful. The shopping list was short, but I knew he would be a while. Appleton was the kind of guy who did comparison shopping even when he was on an expense account.

I gave him maybe three minutes, then got out of the car. Our two watchers hadn't moved a muscle.

“Yo, lost?” It was the shorter one, maybe all of thirteen, his warm-up pants two-thirds of the way down his butt.

“Either of you know how to drive?”

“Shit, yeah. What's it to you?”

“Want to take this baby for a spin?”

“It's a fucking Ford, man. Like ten years old. My granddaddy's granddaddy's car!”

I went around to the driver's side, flipped down the visor, and pulled the government credit card out of the pocket on the back. Behind the kids, I could see my FBI keeper in the express lane. He was picking a deck of cards off a rack. Gin rummy till the cows came home.

“Your granddaddy's car come with its own credit card?”

The kids seemed to fly across the sidewalk into the front seat. Fortunately, the taller one took the driver's side. His spindly legs actually could reach the pedals.

“Wait a minute,” I said to them.

“Wha?”

“The light.” I leaned in and put the gyro on the dash and flicked it on. “You got to go in style.”

I took a half dozen quick steps back into the shadows and worked my way along the wall into the alley beside the store. The kids were a block down Pennsylvania Avenue, the light flashing, laying down rubber every inch of the way, when Appleton walked out of the Superfresh.

“Shit,” I could hear him saying. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

If the kids could just keep from ramming the Ford into the side of a Metrobus, the FBI would be chasing me through the worst parts of D.C. all night long.

CHAPTER 46

I
 
DUCKED DOWN AN ALLEY,
in between two houses, past a caged, derelict liquor store until I came to a pay phone in front of a 7-Eleven. I tried O'Neill at work, then his apartment. No answer on either number. I found him at Elaine's. Some things never change.

“How's your morning tomorrow, John?”

“What? They didn't give you the Congressional Medal of Honor?”

“I need the stuff, now.”

“I'm not in the office until three.”

“It can't wait. I gotta see you first thing tomorrow, pick it up, and be back here by five.”

I could hear chatter in the background, what sounded like ice cubes tinkling in glasses. O'Neill was well into happy hour. Happy hours.

“Sorry. There's no way I can change my rendezvous.”

“Listen. You have no idea the ambush I walked into. It got real nasty. They lifted the immunity.”

“Look, Max, I want this shit out of my life. The sooner, the better. In fact, don't come up here. I don't want to be seen with you. Give me an address and I'll FedEx the shit—no, better yet, find some Kinko's down there that'll let a crazy fuck like you hang by the fax machine for thirty minutes, call me first thing in the morning with the number, and—”

“No fax. No FedEx. I come get it, you understand. If I have to, I'll duct-tape it to my body and swim back to Washington.”

There was a long sigh at the other end, a swallow.

“Who's bothering you, John? The Bureau?”

“My old comrades in arms. They came to see me this afternoon. More shit. This time it's about some money I borrowed while I was still in. All aboveboard but that's not stopping them.”

“John—”

“It's you, Max. Don't you get it? You're toxic. I tried, right? But everything that touches you turns into fucking melanomas. I'm not going down with you on this one. I've got a new life.”

I could hear a woman saying they were late, something about reservations, purring in his other ear.

“Okay. Okay,” he finally said. “When?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“Eight-fifteen in my office. And I mean it. If you're not there by nine, I burn it. The chimes start ringing and I light the fire.”

“John!” I could tell he was about to hang up.

“What, for crissake?”

“Don't blow me off.”

“I don't understand why you don't just come up tonight. Maybe one last drink.”

“I got one thing to take care of first.”

CHAPTER 47

B
UT, SIR, THE TABLE IS FOR ONLY TWO,”
the maître d' sniffed.

“Someone must have made a mistake,” I said. “If you wouldn't mind adding a place.”

The maître d' swept his hand around the dining room of the Four Seasons, inviting me to take a look for myself. He was right; the place was packed. It was lucky Sherley had made a reservation. It was even luckier that I knew Sherley would go sniveling to Channing about my blackmail threat. And it was just as lucky that I remembered India telling me that David Channing would eat only at the Four Seasons when he was in Washington.

I spotted a single empty chair in the far corner, off by a service station, and pointed it out to the maître d', who summoned a waiter to move it.

I settled myself in one of a pair of matching wing chairs near the entrance, grabbed a magazine someone had left on the table between them, and held it half over my face as I waited. Not for long. Sherley came racing down the steps just over my shoulder, neck craned like some demented ostrich, until he spotted a man who looked as if he might actually own the Four Seasons. The two of them blew right past the front station, heading for what had to be a regular table. I arrived just as they were summoning the maître d' over to ask about the third place setting.

Sherley bounced to his feet, napkin clutched in his right hand, as I pulled out the extra chair and sat down. I thought he was going to pick up his water glass and throw it at me. His dinner companion, though, was unruffled. He took one look at me, one look at Sherley, then rose himself, put a hand on Sherley's shoulder, turned him so he pointed toward the lobby, and gave him a little pat on the shoulder.

“I think the two of us will be fine, Donald. Just fine. Surely you have more important matters to attend to in your new exalted position.”

Sherley looked almost stricken as the man patted him again, harder this time, then gave him a shove in the small of the back.
Go.

“David Channing,” he said, extending his hand as Sherley began to trudge back up the stairs. Oliver Wendell's son in the flesh. Not quite the massive brow. Not quite the massive presence. Not half the money, either, if O'Neill was right.

“Would you care to join me?”

I nodded. “Only so you don't have to dine alone.”

He ignored me.

“A glass of wine?” he asked. “White?”

Before I could answer, he summoned the waiter over and ordered a Bienvenue Bâtard Montrachet. “René, be sure it's either a 1995 or '97.”

This guy was very good. Why not sit back and enjoy the performance.

“I understand you just returned from Beirut, Mr. Waller,” Channing said. “It's always good to hear the perspective from the ground.”

“Trust me, it hasn't changed. The same clans run the place.”

He looked at the bruise on the side of my head but didn't say anything.

“We hear that Syria's grip on Lebanon is faltering. It would take only a nudge to loosen it completely. They're itching to make a deal with us, don't you think?”

“The Syrians don't really talk.”

Channing signaled the waiter again, this time to order pâté and caviar.

“Well, of course, you've stopped seeing the reporting. We think that some fillip in the Middle East will bring them around. Offered the right deal, they'd close down Hizballah, don't you think, Mr. Waller?”

“What do you mean, a fillip? Something like Israel complying with U.N. Resolution 242?”

Channing threw up his hands, palms up. “I'm not so knowledgeable as you, of course, but maybe U.S. boots on the ground in the Middle East. The big stick. Make the rats scurry back into their holes.”

“Invade Iraq?”

“Maybe. Maybe not that dire. But who knows.”

“I met a guy not long ago who met your father.”

“Dear Dad knew everyone.” He said it the way someone might describe a fish he'd just bought for dinner.

“He liked your father. Said that he was smart, that he read and thought about things. Perfect Arabic and Farsi…”

“All that and five bucks gets you a cup of coffee at this place.” He was sweeping his hand grandly around the dining room. “My father was a romantic. What did he retire out of the Agency as? A GS-13? Not that he needed the money, of course, but I never could figure—”

“Mr. Channing?”

“Mr. Waller?” A smile was on his face.

“Perhaps we could cut the shit.”

“At the Four Seasons? But let's do. Tell me why you invited yourself to dinner.”

He held a hand up as he said it. René had brought the wine. Channing took the bottle to look at the label. “It's a Chevalier Montrachet.”

“Mr. Channing, unfortunately, we've run short on the Bienvenue Bâtard.”

A blaze of anger ran through Channing's eyes. I thought for a moment he was going to smash the bottle on the floor. Instead, he waited until René had filled our glasses, then dismissed him with a quick twist of his hand and turned his attention back to me.

“You were saying?”

“Not saying. About to say. There's a difference.” I waited a beat before going on. I wanted to see if I could throw him off his stride. “You know the myth that Brzezinski turned Karol Wojtyla into Pope John Paul II and brought the Soviet Union down?” Channing nodded as he spread his caviar. “People actually believe it because they believe that people can make history. I thought you were one of them.”

“Thought?” For a trim man, he was eating the hors d'oeuvres greedily.

“That's the point. You didn't. I was wrong. It's only about money.”

“Here's what I'll tell
you,
Mr. Waller.” He took a sip of his wine, let it linger on his tongue before swallowing, then dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “I was wrong, too. I thought the Lone Wolf was cunning. But he's not. You believed you could take me, but you don't have the sense, the pieces, anything else. You're not connected to the machine. Too bad I won't be able to see you again and ask what the ride down was like.”

Channing pushed his chair back, stood up, and turned to leave. As he did, I instinctively palmed the caviar knife, slid it up my sleeve, and followed him out. What was I going to do with a knife? Cut Channing's throat and declare I'd done a public service? He was on the third stair back up to the lobby when I threw an arm over his shoulder like any old friend. He looked over at my hand and saw the knife.

“I think we missed a couple points,” I told him.

I turned him around, and we walked down the steps and into the bathroom tucked underneath them. Some guy in his eighties—cashmere blazer, pink turtleneck—was dowsing himself with perfume in front of the mirror.

“My friend enjoyed his Montrachet too much,” I explained. “If you would give us a minute.”

As soon as the man was out the door, I let Channing go and crammed the caviar knife into the crack between the door and the jamb, hard enough so that someone would need to give the door a good kick to open it. Channing looked at me, trying to measure just how crazy I was.

“You know, maybe I should kill you right now,” I said, shoving him into a stall.

I could see Channing looking at the door and then at me. Would I retrieve the caviar knife and plunge it into his throat?

“You don't have shit,” he said, calling my bluff.

“Wrong. I know about BT Trading. I know about the calls on oil. As soon as the refinery gets hit, the Saudi gas-oil separation towers, the tankers, or whatever it is, you're nailed. Cold. Done.”

“You can't—” Channing barked.

“You don't care if we invade Syria or Iraq or remake the Middle East. You don't give a shit about history. You just want to blow the house down so you can pick up the pieces.”

“You don't—”

“I do. I have the evidence, understand? The bright, shining dots any idiot will be able to connect. The only way you get out of this is if you call it off.”

There was a pounding at the door. Channing looked in its direction, for the first time sure I wasn't going to kill him.

“One question. Are all the dead just unfortunate collateral in paying off your G-5?”

Channing straightened up, smoothed down his hair, adjusted the knot of his tie. “You have the paper, you say? Fine. Use it.”

I pulled the knife from the doorjamb and walked out.