Shadow Account (3 page)

“Still—”

“I know it’s late,” the old man broke in, “but we need to talk about the presentation we’re making Friday to Pharmaco. It’s critical for us to win this mandate. It would go a long way toward putting my little firm on the map. And showing my old partners I can do it without them. I want to make certain we’ve anticipated
every
question before we walk into that boardroom. I thought of a few more things we should cover, and I want to go over them with you now while they’re fresh in my mind.”

The light turned green and the squad car squealed through the intersection.

“I can’t talk now.”

“Why not?” Gavin demanded. “Look, business takes precedence over everything. Especially
my
business, pal.”

“Something’s happened.”

“Something?”

“My apartment was broken into,” Conner explained, keeping his voice low. “I’m headed back there with the cops right now.”

There was a moment of silence at the other end of the line. “That’s terrible.” Gavin’s tone softened.

“I went out to pick up something. When I got back, I surprised the guy.”

“You all right?”

“Yeah. He chased me, but I got away.”

“Jesus. Well, call me when you’ve checked everything out. I’ll be up late.” Gavin paused. “Maybe you ought to come out here tonight. You sound pretty shook up.”

“I’m fine.”

“Still . . . you call me,” Gavin instructed. “You understand?”

“I
understand
.” Conner cut the connection as the cop turned onto Ninety-fifth. “This is it,” he said, pointing at the building.

Minutes later he and the two officers were standing in the hallway outside his apartment door.

“This one?” the small one asked.

Conner nodded, surprised that the door was closed. It had been wide open behind the man in the living room. The image was still vivid in Conner’s mind. The intruder wouldn’t have had time to shut it and be so close behind him on the fire escape.

He stepped forward and tried to turn the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. He pulled out his key and slid it into the lock.

“Get back,” the big cop ordered, drawing his gun. “Move over there,” he growled, motioning toward the opposite wall.

Conner stepped back as the small cop turned the key, then pushed open the door and burst inside. When both policemen had disappeared, Conner followed, at first unable to comprehend. The living room was in perfect order. The bookcase was in its original position, beside the television—turned on without volume—and opposite the couch. His Phenix Capital notebooks were on the shelves, and the couch and chair cushions looked as good as new.

“My God,” he whispered.

“I thought you said the place was destroyed.”

“It was,” Conner snapped, hurrying toward the bedroom.

Same scene there. The computer was back on his desk, hard drive reinserted. All of the desk and bureau drawers had been put back and the phone was on the nightstand, the cradle’s cord plugged into the wall. The voice-mail indicator blinked a red
1
. Gavin Smith’s message.

This was impossible.

Conner moved into the room, an eerie sensation crawling up his spine as he neared the desk. Liz’s body was gone. So was the spreading pool of blood.

“Christ,” Conner muttered. “What the—?”

“Listen, buddy, we’ve got more important things to do than chase false alarms.”

Conner turned to face the big cop who stood in the doorway. He’d replaced his gun in its holster. “I swear to you—”

“If this is some kind of insurance scam, I’ll run you in.”

“That’s not what’s going on.”

“All clear,” the small one announced, appearing at the bedroom doorway. “And it’s neat as a pin in here.”

The big cop glared at Conner. “We’re outta here. I suggest you get a good night’s sleep. You look like you could use it.”

When they were gone, Conner walked around the bed past the desk to the corner of the room. He knelt down and stared at the spot where Liz’s body had been. Touching the hardwood floor, searching for any traces of blood. But there was nothing.

He shook his head and moved to the desk, turning on the computer. He wasn’t going to stick around long, but there were two things he wanted to check before he cleared out.

When the computer had warmed up, he opened his e-mail. The message from Rusty was gone. He clicked on the “Deleted Items” option. Gone from there, too. But he still remembered the sender’s AOL address, which was probably what the intruder was worried about and why he’d tried to gun Conner down after killing Liz. Conner grabbed a pen and paper and jotted down the address.

When he’d put the paper in his wallet, he turned off the computer, then hurried to the kitchen and pulled a small bowl down from on top of the refrigerator. It was the sugar bowl Liz used for her morning coffee. His hands shook slightly as he placed it on the kitchen table and removed the top, digging into the smooth white crystals until his fingers struck gold.

Slowly he removed Liz’s engagement ring. She always stashed it here so she’d be sure to remember it over her morning coffee. He blew a few granules from the band and held it up. The three carats sparkled in the rays of the overhead bulb.

3

Lucas Avery was loyal to the president only by extension. Only because he was unfailingly loyal to the party, and the president was one of its leaders.

One of its leaders. The man in front of the cameras, but not necessarily the man pulling the strings. Over the last few months, that had become obvious.

Lucas gazed out the tinted window of the limousine into the predawn darkness. It was parked in the loading area of a strip mall somewhere in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. He wasn’t exactly sure where, because he hadn’t paid attention during the half-hour ride out here from his apartment in the city. He’d been too distracted.

The challenge was immense. No one seemed to know where the smoking gun was, whose fingerprints were on it, or what form it took. In fact, they weren’t sure it existed at all. Still, he’d been ordered to make certain nothing came to light. With three months until the election, party leaders were terrified that the president’s bid for a second term would be crippled if something came to light now.

A thrill coursed through Lucas’s small body as a delivery truck rumbled past. This was his first major assignment and important pairs of eyes were watching. He could make his career in the next ninety days. He’d been waiting so long for this chance.

Fragile looking, Lucas was thirty-four and single. His passion was chess, which he played constantly against anyone willing to challenge him. Friends, strangers on the outdoor tables at Farragut Square, and anonymous opponents on the Internet. And he almost always won. He never tried to overpower an opponent with an early rush. Instead, he set his defenses during the initial moves, then waged a war of attrition. He was a marathon man of the sixty-four squares. A grinder, who methodically forced his foe into a corner. Then, and only then, did he attack. Crushing the opponent into submission with a final fury.

Lucas had followed the same kind of long-term strategy in his career. Biding his time until he saw an opening, then acting decisively when the opportunity presented itself. Unlike in chess, this patient strategy hadn’t paid huge dividends in his career—until now.

His other passion was baseball, though he’d never once put a glove on and had a catch. He’d always been awkward, too uncoordinated to be any kind of athlete. His affection for baseball came from his love of statistics. They were everywhere in baseball. Batting averages, fielding averages, earned run averages. Myriads of categories to comb through every morning on the Web.

Lucas was self-conscious about his lack of athletic ability. And about his height. He was five eight, but people usually thought he was much shorter. Five five or five six, he often heard. Maybe it was because he was paper thin—he weighed only 140 pounds—or because he was balding. Without hair, he reasoned, he didn’t have that extra half-inch or so of perceived height other men enjoyed.

It irritated him to no end when his Northwestern University roommates nicknamed him Shorty a month into his freshman year. Because, statistically speaking, he wasn’t short. The average American male was five ten. So he was
slightly
below average, not short. But the nickname had stuck right away, and he’d carried it around like an anchor for four years. Fortunately, he’d been able to keep it out of Washington. But he worried every day that it might be resurrected by some arrogant intern.

Lucas was worth ten thousand dollars, most of that in a savings account earning a smidgen of interest. But it was safe there, protected by the federal government, and that gave him comfort. His family wasn’t wealthy, and he’d spent his entire career in politics—traditionally a low-paying job. Several of his Northwestern roommates had gone to Wall Street after graduation and made millions. Roommates he knew he was smarter than. Roommates he’d lost touch with over the years because they took vacations that cost more than his life savings. And lived in homes he could only dream about. He’d gone to his five-year reunion, but not his tenth.

Once in a while, he thought about the money a Wall Street career could have provided. But he was convinced he would ultimately come out ahead if he stayed committed to his long-term strategy in politics. There was an inner circle he’d heard whispers about ever since coming to Washington. Party leaders who fed off the political system with help from private sector moneymen the same way investment bankers fed off the financial system. And Lucas wanted in on it.

He’d signed up for on-campus interviews with the New York investment houses during senior year, but hadn’t heard back from any of them. So after graduation he’d come to the Hill to serve in the office of a newly elected Illinois senator. The son of a small-time Chicago lawyer, Lucas had a strong sense of national pride and political duty. His mother’s father had been a six-term state senator from a county near Springfield. And, from the time Lucas was old enough to wave the flag at Fourth of July parades, his grandfather had instilled in him a responsibility to serve.

After two more Congressional staff tours and an administrative management position at party headquarters, Lucas had come to the West Wing to serve as deputy assistant political director to the president. Translated, that meant he had to be ready for anything. One day, he touched up a canned “Buy American” speech for the president to deliver to steelworkers in Pittsburgh. The next, he interfaced with the Secret Service, coordinating a European trip for the president. The next, he helped the First Lady plan a dinner. Important jobs that enabled him to interact daily with high-level members of the administration, and gain their trust.

Important, but tedious. Until two weeks ago, when he’d been summoned to the first of these meetings.

The call had come at one o’clock in the morning, distracting him from an intense chess match on the Web just as he was finally cornering a slippery opponent. The anonymous caller told Lucas to be on the southwest corner of Fourteenth and M Streets precisely at ten o’clock that morning, and to wait there for contact. He was told nothing else except that he was
not
to go into work that day. And that he was to be on the specified corner no earlier than five minutes before the specified time.

He would have brushed the call off as a hoax, except that the person at the other end of the line mentioned a photograph taped to the inside of his desk drawer at the West Wing. A photograph of the only girl he’d ever really cared about. A girl he’d dated during his junior year at Northwestern. Brenda Miller. Though not beautiful, Brenda was more attractive than the few other girls he’d dated. And she was nice, too. Apparently unconcerned with his lack of physical appeal and impressed with his IQ.

He’d feared the entire time they were together that she would figure out she could do better. When she left him, it had devastated him.

Lucas had been forced to watch her walk around campus senior year with other men, one in particular she’d started seeing second semester. All three of them had been in a psychology class together, and it had sickened him to watch Brenda holding hands with the guy during lectures. Lucas had followed Brenda to his apartment once, wishing he had the courage to do what he really wanted to do as he stood there knowing what was going on inside.

Now Brenda was in Washington, divorced and childless. A lawyer with a prominent firm in town. Here for a fresh start after leaving a physically abusive husband. He’d heard all this from a friend back in Chicago, but he hadn’t called Brenda yet. She’d probably agree to have lunch or even dinner with him, for old times’ sake. But then he’d have to endure that disappointed look when she first saw him. At least he’d had
some
hair back then.

The door of the limousine opened and Franklin Bennett, the president’s chief of staff, eased inside. “Morning,” he said curtly, settling onto the leather seat opposite Lucas.

Lucas nodded back stiffly. “Good morning, sir.”

Bennett was a decorated ex-Marine who kept his graying hair in the same crew cut he’d worn since basic training at Parris Island years ago. A man who routinely intimidated everyone from senior congressmen to the Joint Chiefs to network anchors. A man who commanded respect and had a fierce reputation as one who carried out swift political revenge.

“I have five minutes,” Bennett announced. “Give me an update.”

“Yes, sir. I’ve set up the place in Georgetown. It’s ready to go. As we discussed, I’ll move in full-time whenever you give me the order to go live.”

“And only when
I
give you that order,” Bennett spoke up. “I am the only one who does that. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Someone else says something to you about this operation, you get word to me immediately. In the way that we discussed.”

“Right.”

“And
only
in that way.”

Bennett was repeating himself. As he would to a child, Lucas realized. “Yes, sir.”

“This is a very small cell. It must stay that way.”

“I understand.”

Bennett pointed at him. “And once you move into the apartment full-time, you do not come
home
until you’re notified.”

Home was code for the West Wing. “What will my story be?” Lucas asked.

“Story?” Bennett asked gruffly. “What are you talking about? You don’t need a story. You shouldn’t see anyone.”

“Of course, of course, but when I come back, sir. That’s what I meant. What will my story be when I come home? How will I explain my absence?” In the back of his mind it bothered Lucas that Bennett hadn’t thought through the other side of this operation—his return.

“Oh.” Bennett hesitated, deep creases forming on his broad forehead. “You’ll tell people you were on a special election committee that was focused on ways to reach out to minorities. But we’ll talk more about that later,” he said, waving a hand in front of his face like he was swatting a bug. “Until then, I want you concentrating on the task.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bennett glanced at his watch. “What about the research?”

“I’ve begun compiling biographies on the five individuals in quest—”

“The
jewels
, dammit! I don’t want to hear you say
individuals
or
subjects
one more goddamn time. I want to hear you say
jewels
.”

Lucas nodded anxiously. He’d made the same mistake at each of their first two meetings. “Sorry, sir.” He had to get used to the cloak-and-dagger crap. It seemed to be vitally important to the ex-military types. “I’ve begun my research on the
jewels
.”

“And?”

“Nothing yet, but I’ll begin ramping up that effort as soon as you give me the order. I’ve made arrangements to get some help.”

“Good.” Bennett hesitated. “But nothing so far? Nothing that could be used against us, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Very good.”

“But there is still a tremendous amount of information to go through, sir. I don’t want you thinking I’ve reached any concrete conclusions. I’m not even close to that point yet.”

“Uh huh. One more thing. I’m going to ask another man to join the operation. I’ve known him for some time.”

“Who?”

“You’ll know him only by his code name.”

More mindless military bullshit. “What is that code name, sir?”

“Cheetah.”

“Cheetah?”

“Yes. He has talents that will prove important to us as we move forward. Strong investigative skills. As well as a lot of strong contacts in both the public and private sectors. We’ll pay him well, but he’ll be worth every penny.”

“If you say so, sir.”

“I do say so.”

“How exactly will we pay him?” Lucas asked. “If you want this cell to be transparent, I wouldn’t think you’d want any money trails.”

“I’ll give you those details later,” Bennett answered, checking his watch again. “Okay, that’s it,” he said sliding along the seat to the door. “Keep at it, Lucas.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good-bye.”

“Good-bye, sir.”

When Bennett was gone, Lucas relaxed onto the seat. His body was damp with perspiration, his shirt and pants sticking to his skin. He let out a relieved breath when the driver began to turn around in the loading area. Being in Bennett’s presence scared the hell out of him. Just once he wanted to do that to somebody else.

As the driver accelerated onto the main road in front of the strip mall, Lucas reached beneath the seat and pulled out a marble notebook, opening it to the last entry. He recorded everything of importance in this book: a critical move he’d made in a chess match; a particularly interesting baseball statistic; Brenda Miller’s new telephone number at the law firm in D.C.

As well as details of each of his meetings with Franklin Bennett.

These were the minutes of his life.