Simple Simon (16 page)

“He was about to give KIWI away whole,” Kudrow said, making a minor effort to convince Folger.

“He doesn’t know KIWI whole. None of them do.” Folger gestured to a Picasso reproduction to the right of the Lichtenstein. “You’re the only one who has it whole, in that safe.”

“He had an idea who might.”

“And just who was he going to…” Folger’s words trailed off. “
Had
?”

Kudrow brought his hands together, fingertips touching, just below his chin. “You know, it wasn’t that difficult. I was surprised.”

Folger’s jaw went slack, his mouth suddenly as dry as cotton. “Nick, what have you done…”

“Do you know what the real lesson from all this is, Bradley?” Kudrow mused. “It’s that people can be manipulated just like the machines Rothchild plays havoc with. Dean taught me that. He was a willing participant in his own demise until just before the end, and he didn’t even know it. You tell a machine what to believe, like Rothchild does, and it believes it. And people believe the machines. If you give a person something to believe in, they will, even if it’s a lie.”

Folger backed toward the door. “Oh dear God, what have you done?”

“People and machines, Bradley,” Kudrow observed. “The similarities are striking.”

The thick, soundproof door stopped Folger, or he would have kept backing until his eyes could no longer see Kudrow. Then he would have run. But never, never now, would he turn his back on this man.

“Are Mary and the children prepared to live without you?” Kudrow inquired, then added before Folger could respond, “Or will they visit you in prison? What is the going sentence for running down an old woman when you’re drunk, Bradley?”

“So…it’s an outright threat now.”

“It’s manipulation,” Kudrow corrected to his own preference. “I made that unfortunate accident go away, Bradley. If it comes back, you will be on your own.”

The devil was calling in his chits, Folger saw. And what else would the new prince of darkness do? “Who else are you going to kill, Nick? Simon Lynch, once you have your hands on him?”

“Me? No. We need to know some things from him, and, oddly enough, thanks to Dean we’ll have the means to get what we need. Beyond that…”

All Folger could do was shake his head and ask himself over and over again how this had all happened. How had it come to this?

“Now, Brad, Patel has had a long night. He’s stayed over into your shift.” Kudrow picked up a file folder from his desk. “If you don’t mind, I have some reading to do.”

Folger watched Kudrow sit and go about his reading as if all was as it should be. He slid to the side and opened the door, backing out, surprising Kudrow’s secretary by hurrying past like a runner out of the starting blocks.

*  *  *

Already Breem was visualizing the larger office, the Georgetown residence, black tie events, but a question from Deputy United States Marshal Peter Kasvakis interrupted his pleasant interlude.

“All right, Breem,” Kasvakis began. “Why us? Why use my warrant service teams? You could have Lomax call him into his office and that’s it. No guns, no nighttime raid.”

Breem’s head shook slow from side to side. “I’m not taking any more chances on Bureau weak knees.” The image of Jefferson stalking away down the courthouse steps burned in Breem’s head. “He goes down at home, with the missus.”

What some sons of bitches would do to make a name for themselves
, Kasvakis thought with distaste. He looked again at the arrest warrant signed just hours before by Judge Kinmont, flipping through the pages. “I can’t believe this. Jefferson is cleaner than any cop I’ve ever known.”

“Well he just got dirty,” Breem countered.

The Deputy U.S. Marshal slid the warrant back to Breem. “And Fiorello?”

“You get him, too. As soon as Jefferson has the cuffs on.”

Kasvakis shook his head once and left the office without another word. Passing the secretary’s desk, he gave the wall a solid punch and went off to make preparations for two warrant services that night.

*  *  *

Glasses off and set aside on the date blotter, Kudrow rubbed at his eyes and listened to Rothchild relate the latest information.

“Very good,” he said, and hung up the phone with Rothchild making some wisecrack at the other end. The day before he would not have done that, but the day before he had feared Rothchild. That was no more.

Kudrow slipped his glasses on and placed an internal call.

“Section Chief Willis.”

“Have the surveillance teams back off,” Kudrow directed. “Something will be happening this evening, and I want no exposure. Understood?”

“Yes.”

And that was it, Kudrow thought. The end was in sight.

His mistake was forgetting that with the culmination of most things, others quite easily began without warning, and in this case it wasn’t a true end at all by which circumstances could be measured. No, G. Nicholas Kudrow had ended nothing. He had done little more than toss a pebble onto a glassy pond, defining the center from which ripples were already spreading.

The Song and the Dance

Breem was impressed with the facade of the old brownstone and the window boxes expectant of spring. He spit into one and pounded on the door, ignoring the brass knocker. When it opened, an ugly man stared out at him.

“Agent Lomax,” Breem said in greeting.

Bob Lomax, in sweats and a pullover sweater, gave Breem a cursory glance, but seemed more intrigued by the man standing next to him. “Pete?”

Kasvakis tipped his head in a joyless greeting.

Past both Breem and Kasvakis, Lomax now saw the familiar dark vans, windows tinted. He knew what was inside, or rather, who was inside. But why were they here? “What’s going on?”

From inside his coat Breem removed the warrant, folded in half lengthwise, and passed it to Lomax. “I think you’ll want to come with us.”

*  *  *

The surveillance teams were gone as ordered by Kudrow, pulled back to locations sufficiently far from the neighborhood where Art and Anne Jefferson lived that there would be no chance of errant contact with the authorities closing in on the area.

The sun had long since set. It was getting late. The streets were quiet. Just a lady walking her dog, a diminutive Westie, enjoying the crisp night, circling the block repeatedly.

Each time around, she took special interest in the two story Tudor with the Volvo in the driveway. It was usually in the garage, she was aware.

On one particular trip past she slowed, making mental notes, and after she turned the corner at the end of the block she came back no more.

*  *  *

In the captain’s chair behind the driver’s seat of a van following those carrying the warrant service teams, Bob Lomax finished reading the warrant. When he looked up, Breem was smiling at him from the passenger seat.

“Where’d you get this crap?” Lomax demanded angrily.

“Bank records don’t lie, Bob.”

“Someone is lying, because this just ain’t true. Art Jefferson would no more get into bed with Kermit Fiorello than I would. Or you.”

Why was it so hard for them to accept it? Breem wondered. Did the Bureau boys think they were all beyond reproach, that they were genetically incapable of selling out?
Well, sorry to rain on the parade, Lomax, but I have your man cold, in the bag.

“This is not right,” Lomax said, collapsing back against the resistance of the high backed chair, swiveling it left and right, his heels digging into the carpet. “No way.”

“Your cooperation here is expected,” Breem said, eyeing the warrant. “He
is
one of your people.”

“Are you enjoying this?” Lomax asked, satisfied that he knew the answer beyond what Breem might say.

“I’m doing what I have to do.”

“Making your name?”

Breem quieted, then said, “Jefferson has a weapon and a shield. You’ll take those.”

Out the side window, streetlights blazed by as whitish streaks. Lomax stared at them until his eyes hurt, and then he simply closed them.

*  *  *

This time, only Mr. Pritchard smoked, savoring a cigar that was nearing the end of its life. It glowed bright with each breath, a fat stub poking from between his teeth.

And as he smoked he read, eyes scanning the message given him just a minute before by Sanders, who had promptly and properly retreated from the room. When Pritchard was done reading he passed the message to a man on his right, Mr. Bellows, and watched it progress around the table with serious, contemplative eyes.

Bellows passed it to Muncy, who passed it to Yost, who passed it to Pike. Pike read it twice and laid it on the bare table they circled. All eyes tracked to Pritchard.

“This is not good,” Pritchard said, choosing an understatement over the actuality.

“And the expected result of this…glitch?” Yost inquired of the group.

“He’s an honorable man, by all accounts,” Pike said. They’d read much concerning the parties that day.

“He’s not our concern,” Pritchard said coldly. “We have an innocent to think about. How does this affect our efforts there?”

Silence ebbed from man to man, broken only by Muncy’s throat clearing, a wet, raspy product of the cancer assaulting his esophagus.

“It complicates anything we do tenfold,” Yost observed. There were no disagreements.

“So,” Bellows began, looking to Pritchard, “the question becomes, ‘Do we intervene?’”

“The situation has changed since we agreed to step in this morning,” Pike said.

“An extreme innocent is involved,” Pritchard reminded the boys.

Muncy leaned forward, coughed into his hand, and said, “And if something goes wrong, what about the next innocent? And the next one?”

Pike agreed with a nod. “Will we be in a position to help them?”

“I think,” Bellows began thoughtfully, sitting back, “that it all depends on one man. How he reacts.”

“To them, or to us?” Pike asked.

“To us,” Yost said. “Do you doubt how he’ll react to them?”

After a moment’s contemplation, Pike shook his head.

“Well, how do we determine one man’s reaction to something he has no knowledge of?” Pritchard asked the boys.

“He is an honorable man,” Yost observed, adopting Pike’s earlier point.

“Meaning?” Pritchard probed.

“He has to understand the big picture,” Yost explained. It was difficult to suggest what came next. “If it is presented to him.”

“Presented?” Pike challenged.

“That is not the way to do these things,” Muncy said. It is not the way. It’s dangerous.”

“Extremely dangerous,” Bellows had to agree.

Pritchard, though, was silent. After a moment the boys looked to him.

“You’re not considering this?” Pike inquired cautiously.

“It’s too early to say yes or no,” Pritchard responded. “How the next few hours play out will affect any decision on that point.”

Pike shot a derisive look Yost’s way before getting up from the table. He walked toward the door, saying directly to Pritchard on his way out, “One innocent we can’t save is not worth risking everything we’ve worked for.”

No response seemed appropriate, and Pritchard simply watched Pike leave, followed by the others, none of whom had any comments to add. They knew the decision was in his hands, and, like Pike, they had a fair idea what that decision was going to be.

Alone in the room Pritchard pressed the stub of his smoldering cigar into an ashtray and leaned back in the chair to stare at the ceiling. It would have been so damn easy, if it weren’t for Jefferson. He was a good person in the wrong place at the wrong time.

What Pritchard needed was someone who didn’t care. What he had on his hands was the FBI’s equivalent of Gandhi.

Gandhi with a gun.

*  *  *

A little before ten in the evening, a dark van cruised past the Jefferson house in Evanston, Illinois, and glided to a stop at the opposite curb, lights out and no screeching tires. A second, similar van was doing the same one house shy of the two-story Tudor. The side doors of each opened quickly, but quietly, and seven men in black exited, fourteen in all moving stealthily to positions around the house.

Four went down the side walkway, scaling a fence to cover the house from the rear and sides. The remaining ten huddled in front of the garage, weapons ready. One man held a Kevlar riot shield. Another gripped a small battering ram. Ten seconds after their comrades went over the side fence, the entry team made their move.

In a union choreographed through countless sessions, both practice and real, they moved in one line from the garage to the front steps, guns tracking to every window. The man in the lead pried the storm door open and held it as the man with the ram came up the steps, his implement already swinging, and knocked the simple wood door in with only one hit.

*  *  *

Anne’s head was twisting toward the front door from her spot on the living room couch, alerted by the pop of the storm door’s latch, when she saw the jam around the deadbolt explode into splinters. She screamed and stood, thinking
Dial nine one one, dial nine one one
, but there was no time for her body to react to the mental directions.

“U.S. MARSHALS! GET DOWN! DOWN! YOU! DOWN! ON THE FLOOR!”

Anne froze at the sight of men with guns invading her home. For the oddest instant she thought it might be some of Art’s friends from the office playing a joke, but the absurdity of that coupled with a faceless man shoving her to the carpet, foot on her back, gun at her head, made it very clear this was no joke.

“What is going—”

“SHUT UP!” a Deputy U.S. Marshal ordered, pulling her hands behind and cuffing them as the rest of the team fanned out through the house, clearing room after room, checking closets and the attic, the basement, the garage, and under the beds.

Within two minutes it was clear that there was no one else in the house. One minute after that, Angelo Breem entered behind Peter Kasvakis and Bob Lomax.

Anne, straining to look up from a forced position face down on the rug, saw her husband’s boss right away. “BOB!”