Cold Frame (40 page)

“Bullshit,” Ellen said. “Hiram Walker told me you came to him personally to get your hands on some of his more dangerous plants.”

“Yes, I did,” Strang said. “And you know what? He said no. Actually, what he said was: ‘Let me think about that, Mister Strang. I will need to consult with my colleagues in the society. But, on balance, I think we might be able to help you.' That's what he said.”

“And then, later, he turned you down?”

“He did,” Strang said. “Which begs the obvious question, doesn't it.”

“Absolutely,” Ellen said. “If you weren't behind what happened to McGavin and Logan, who the fuck was?”

“You know exactly who, Special Agent,” Strang said. “The ‘how' is another matter, but we at the Agency have no doubt that Carl Mandeville orchestrated both murders.”

“Our sources tell us that
you
were the ‘how,' if not personally, then the person who arranged for some operatives from beyond the Chinese wall to come take a hand in saving the DMX,” Ellen protested.

“Your sources?” Strang said. “Your sources were told what we wanted them to hear, Special Agent. You're missing the big picture here.”

“Me, too,” Av said. “So—”

“It's pretty simple, Detective. Before there was a DMX, the only agency that was allowed to go places and kill ‘persons of interest' was the Agency. Then, because of all the so-called intelligence failures preceding nine-eleven, the DMX was created. The Agency became just one player among many. It was a signal demotion, both of federal trust, prestige, not to mention budgetary power.”

“Wait,” Av said. “Are you saying—”

“Exactly, Detective. The Agency was and is in total agreement with the senators who want to kill off the DMX. Not because of some arcane ethical concerns, of course, but for the reason that we want that particular mission back in
our
hands, where it rightly belongs. Once we found out Mandeville was planning to off the entire committee, to purify it, as he said a couple times, then we saw our chance.”

“Now
you
sound like Mandeville,” Ellen said.

Strang smiled. “Mandeville was told that I could be ‘useful' to him, with the idea being that I could watch for an opportunity to unseat him. They gave him my classified bio, and then told him that I'd be hidden in plain sight in the Hoover building. He couldn't resist the irony of that, apparently. They told him I could get things done for him, outside of the usual CT channels. But: Carl Mandeville's not a trusting soul, as you can imagine. So he kept some of his own assets to himself, as you found out, Detective.”

“So Hiram gave
him
the magic potions?” Av asked.

“You'll have to take that up with Mister Walker,” Strang said. “What I do know is he told me no.”

There was a minute's silence in the room as they digested these revelations.

“Mandeville's genius,” Strang said, “is that he saw how cluttered the CT world was becoming, with every Tom, Dick, and Harry agency in the government wanting in on the coolest intel action in town—the Kill List. If anybody tumbled to some of the shit he was doing, he could immediately implicate about a dozen different agencies, and then they'd all go after each other.”

“You said he was gonna take out the entire committee?” Av said.

Strang hesitated, as if trying to figure out how much more he should reveal. “He had a connection at Fort Detrick, the army's bioweapons defense lab. The CO of that facility called the Agency and asked if they knew why Mandeville was asking for some truly bad shit that could be used to kill instead of warn.”

“A biological weapon?” Av asked. “We do that shit these days?”

“No, we don't. But Mandeville had set up a lab within the lab. He covered it by reprogramming a few million into the USAMRIID budget. DMX business. Secret-cubed. The guy was the original loose cannon.”

“But now he's in custody,” Ellen said.

“For the moment, perhaps,” Strang said. “I don't know where you're taking him, but I'll give you one piece of advice: do not, under any circumstances, allow him to communicate with
anyone,
anyone at all, because if he does, you'll never get your hands on him again,
and
you and all your bosses will be wading through a shitstorm for the next year.”

“We have him red-handed,” Ellen said. “He was about to shoot the detective here.”

“No, you don't,” Strang said. “For starters, I'm willing to bet you had no federal warrant to even be there at that park. The only help you could muster up were these rather—
interesting
specimens, from the MPD, for God's sake.”

“Hey,” Wong growled. “You want to see interesting? I'll show you interesting.”

Strang rolled his eyes. “You guys did all this on the fly, didn't you, Special Agent. Let me tell you how this will end: my director will come to see your director. I am confident that they will work something out.”

“We could subpoena you, then,” Ellen said. “You seem to know so much.”

Strang laughed a short bark of a laugh. “I keep forgetting—you work for the Bureau. It's all about the airtight case, isn't it? When Mandeville went from éminence grise to personally pointing a gun at a cop? He stepped out of the civilized light and into the same world he thought he owned—the world of ruby-eyed robots coming for you in the night. Besides, I'm going to be—unavailable, for a while.”

“Aw, lemme guess,” Av asked. “In one of those undisclosed locations, right?”

“Yes, indeed, Detective,” Strang said. “One last question, Special Agent—did Hiram Walker make an appearance at your little showdown at Fort Marcy?”

“He did,” she said.

Strang smiled broadly at something that obviously pleased him very much and then got up and walked sideways toward the front door.

“You gonna leave the chow?” Wong asked.

“Certainly,” he said, as he opened the door. “You just better hope I didn't put something in it, you know, like some, hell, I don't know, seven dragon loose-end sauce?” He gave them a wolfish grin and then left.

Nobody moved for a full thirty seconds after Strang closed the door behind him. Then Wong went to the door, opened it carefully, and retrieved the three white bags of takeout, which were already beginning to show oil stains.

“Seven dragon ‘loose-end' sauce?” Av said. “I think I'll pass, guys.”

There was general agreement on that strategy. Ellen yawned and said she needed to go home. Av said he would walk her out to her car.

Out on the sidewalk he said he had a couple of questions about their great adventure.

“Shoot,” she said.

“First, how'd you guys bug my apartment?”

She smiled. “We discovered that we had some ready-service help right there in your building. By the name of Special Agent Rue Waltham?”

“You're shitting me—
she's
an agent? She said she was a lawyer.”

“She is both. We've got lots of lawyers in the Bureau. In fact, back in the day, you had to be either a lawyer or an accountant just to be a special agent. Times have changed; she works in our international operations division.”

“You planted her in my building?”

“Nope. She did that rental all by herself. Our surveillance people needed a base of operations near your building, preferably something besides the traditional telephone truck. They scanned all the addresses in your area and hers popped out, right
in
your building. I wish I could tell you that this was all planned, but it was mostly serendipity.”

“Okay—one last question: you and Strang—you were a team in this, right? I mean there's no other way it could have worked.”

She feigned surprise. “You're suggesting that the Bureau and the Agency might have worked together on this goat-grab?” she said. “What are the chances of that?”

“You didn't answer my question,” he said.

She smiled, looked away, but said nothing.

“Okay.” He sighed. “But who was the second man working for Mandeville? The guy he sicced on me?”

“We have no fucking idea,” she said, quietly. “That's the disturbing truth.”

“Disturbing—that's one way of phrasing it,” he said. “Because if he's still out there, then
I've
still got a big problem.”

“I wouldn't think so,” she said. “Whoever he is, he knows the rules of the game. Once Mandeville goes down, his tasking, as it were, goes down with him. What would be the point?”

He sighed again, not entirely sure her logic would hold up. Then asked if he'd see her again.

“Whatever for, Detective Sergeant?” she asked, with a sly smile. “Me being so very scary and everything. You're not about to broach the R-word are you?”

“R-word?”

“As in: relationship?”

“Well, I guess I could make an exception, just this once.”

“Uh-huh.”

He felt himself blushing just a little. “I mean, well, um—”

“I've got some news,” she interrupted gently.

“News?” he said, warily. Oh, God, now what? he thought.

“I've got a date tomorrow, or I guess it's today, now. Dinner, and then a walk in a park, I believe.”

“With whom?”

“Can't you guess, you being a detective sergeant and all?”

Av was baffled, and not for the first time, by this high-energy lady. Then he did guess.

“Hiram?”
he squeaked. “But—but—”

She was laughing now. “And why not?” she said. “He's head and shoulders the most interesting man I've met in a long, long time.”

“Head and shoulders is right,” he said.

“We-e-ll, I didn't say it was romance, did I. It's drinks on the terrace, dinner served by the staff, and then a walk in the park. His park. At his mansion on his riverfront estate, where the gardens are alive in more ways than one. Frankly, I was flattered when he asked me. Besides, it's just possible he may have already solved your potentially big problem.”

“Wow” was all Av could manage, trying to visualize them as a pair.

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “We could always be workout buddies again sometime, Detective Sergeant,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “Just keep an eye on your caller ID, okay? Bye, now.”

As she drove away, Av looked out into the tiny park by the canal lock. A young couple was walking by, the woman rhapsodizing about the historical canal, the guy looking over at Av, a sympathetic expression on his face when he saw Ellen leaving. Av put up his palms and shrugged. The guy grinned; they do get away, sometimes.

He went back upstairs, where Mau-Mau and Wong were taking beer bottles and glasses out to the kitchen. Wong was still griping about the compromised takeout.

“Gonna see that one again?” Mau-Mau asked him.

“Don't think so,” Av said. “You know me.”

“Thought I did, till I saw that bra in the bathroom,” Mau-Mau said with a grin. “Although it wasn't really your size and all.”

Av tried to think of a snappy comeback but all he could do was grin, too. After they'd left, he climbed up to the rooftop and stretched out in the lawn chair.

He thought about Ellen Whiting and her bewildering world of spooks, high-powered secret committees, and scary political games. He conjured up an image of her blasting through D.C. on a Harley with a swarm of feds on her tail—his Harley, now that he thought about it, have to get that back. He wondered if there were warrants out on that bike now. Did he really want to be involved with a woman like her?

Have to think about that, he concluded. Then he heard the house phone ringing. He ran down the stairs and barely beat the voice mail robot.

“Detective Sergeant,” Ellen said. “I forgot about your bike.”

“Where'd it end up?” he said.

“At the Hoover building. I'll get it back to you tomorrow.”

“Take your time,” he said. “Bring it when you feel like taking a ride. So to speak.”

“Feel?” she said, ignoring his not very subtle suggestion. “As in feelings?
You
talking about feelings? You telling me you felt something that night?”

“It was morning,” he said. “And, yes, I did. Feel something. There was something in the bed. Like a rock, maybe. Piece of gravel? A pea?”

She started to laugh. “Careful what you wish for,” she said. “And remember, I don't always knock.”

“I'll keep the change jar open for you,” he said.

 

TWENTY-FIVE

“You ever seen a guy that big?” the agent driving asked his teammates as he turned the SUV south onto I-395 near the Pentagon and headed for Quantico.

“Looked like fucking Frankenstein,” one of the others said.

“Frankenstein was the mad scientist, not the monster,” said the third. “But, yeah, that's what I thought of when I first saw him. Had to be what, six-ten, maybe even seven?”

“Had to be. The funeral director from hell. I stopped breathing for a moment. You see Bruno going for his weapon?”

They all laughed at that, except their passenger.

Carl Mandeville was still bound into his personal wiring harness in the middle of the backseat, with a bulky agent on either side. His hands were in his lap, the right one throbbing painfully under bulky bandages and one plaster cast. There was a plastic restraining wire strung between his forearms, supporting a third restraint wire that was clipped to a ring in the floor. His suit-coat sleeves hung empty on either side of his chest. His eyes were closed but he was definitely not asleep.

He was waiting. Wherever they were going, there'd be a phone. Or someone who had a phone, or someone who could
get
to a phone who could be intimidated to make one call, just one call to the White House operator, say a single code word, and then every one of these clowns would be shaking fries at a McDonald's the next day and wondering what had just happened.