The Innocent (49 page)

He scrolled from screen to screen, not expecting to find much of interest. And he didn’t. The only name he recognized was Gabriel
Siegel from about a month ago. That made sense because Siegel had admitted he’d last visited Van Beuren at that time.

He scrolled to another page. There was nothing.

He hit another page. Nothing again.

But then something caught his eye.

It wasn’t a name.

It was a date.

There was an entire day missing in the guestbook. He enlarged the screen as big as he could. He looked at it closely. Down in the far left corner of the frame he spied it.

A triangle of paper. It would have gone unnoticed by anyone looking at the guestbook itself. It was too small. But with the pixels swollen to an unnatural size on his phone, Robie knew what it was. The remains of the page that had been ripped out of the book. Probably while the front desk had been unoccupied.

Why would someone have taken a page from a hospice guestbook?

There could only be one answer. They wanted to cover up whoever’s name had been written in there. They wanted to wipe away the record of someone who had visited Elizabeth Van Beuren.

Was it Broome? Getty? Wind? Two of them? All three?

Siegel had told him that he hadn’t seen Broome for ten years and hadn’t seen Wind or Getty since Gulf One. Cassidy had said he hadn’t seen any of them since the war except for Getty.

But what if Broome or Getty or Wind had found out that Van Beuren was here and had come to visit her while she was still lucid? Siegel had said she was in and out of it. And had she let something slip? Something that had led to all three of them having to be silenced? It seemed a bizarre notion, but it was no more strange than any of the other theories that had floated through Robie’s mind lately.

Robie looked at the date before and after the missing page. Eight days ago. That would fit with the timeline. Siegel hadn’t been targeted since he’d stopped coming a month ago. Rick Wind had been the first to die. Counting back, it seemed that Wind might have been killed shortly after he had possibly visited Van Beuren.
And if Curtis Getty hadn’t come to the hospice, that would explain the heated discussion that the waitress at the diner, Cheryl Kosmann, had witnessed. Broome had told Getty. He then might’ve told Wind. Or it could have been the other way around. Robie couldn’t know for sure without seeing which of them had visited the woman. Getty didn’t have a car, so it was doubtful he’d driven all the way out to Manassas.

No chance could be taken. Husbands, wives, and an ex-wife, who was also a potentially dangerous government lawyer, had to be killed.

The Broomes had managed to escape. For a time. But with Robie’s involuntary help they had managed to get them too.

Robie’s mind next drew to the timing of the insertion of the ventilator.

It kept a terminally ill woman alive.

But it also did something else.

It prevented her from saying anything during her lucid moments.

From saying anything else!

They had put the tube in her to shut the poor woman up.

But whatever she had told one or more of her former squad members had been the reason they had been killed.

Robie raced out of his apartment and took the elevator down.

He had a hospice visit to make.

V
ISITING HOURS WERE OVER
. But Robie’s repeated raps on the glass front door brought an attendant. He flashed his badge and was allowed in.

“I need to see Elizabeth Van Beuren,” he said. “And I need to see her now.”

“That’s not possible,” said the attendant, a woman in her thirties with short blonde hair.

“She hasn’t been transferred out of hospice, has she?” asked Robie.

“No.”

“What, then?”

The attendant was about to say something when the nurse Robie had spoken to before came forward.

“So you’re back?” she asked. She was clearly not pleased.

“Where is Elizabeth Van Beuren? I need to see her.”

“She can’t see you.”

“That’s what she said. But why?” asked Robie, his gaze digging into the nurse’s features.

“Because Ms. Van Beuren passed about three hours ago.”

“What happened?”

“The ventilator tube was removed. She passed peacefully an hour later.”

“Who ordered the tube removed?”

“Her doctor.” ’

“But why? Wouldn’t he have to get permission from her family?”

“I really can’t speak to that.”

“Well, who
can
speak to it?”

“Her doctor, I suppose.”

“I’ll need his name and number, right now.”

Robie called and spoke with the doctor. The physician was reluctant to discuss the matter with Robie until Robie said, “I’m a federal agent. Something is going on here we’re trying to figure out. The only common denominator is Elizabeth Van Beuren. Can you tell me anything? It’s vital or else I wouldn’t be asking.”

The doctor said, “I would not have removed the tube without the family requesting it.”

“Who requested it?”

The doctor paused, then said, “Mr. Van Beuren had the medical power of attorney.”

“So he told you to remove it. Why the change of heart?”

“I have no idea. I just did what he asked us to do.”

“Was it by phone or did he come here in person?”

“By phone.”

“Pretty strange that he didn’t want to be here when his wife died,” said Robie.

“Quite frankly, Agent Robie, I thought the same thing. Maybe he had something more important to do, although for the life of me I can’t imagine what that might be.”

“Do you know where he works?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Ever seen him in person?”

“Yes, numerous times. He seemed like a perfectly normal person. He was deeply devoted to his wife. He was intimately involved in her care. I liked him.”

“But not devoted enough to be with her at the end?”

“Again, I can’t explain that.”

Robie clicked off and looked at the nurse. “Is the body still here?”

“No, the people from the funeral home already picked it up.”

“And her husband never came in? Does her daughter know?”

“I have no idea. I would assume Mr. Van Beuren has contacted her. He didn’t ask us to do so, and thus we couldn’t make that sort of communication.”

Robie called Vance but still got voice mail. He next called Blue Man, but the man didn’t answer either.

Robie raced down the hall to Van Beuren’s room. He pushed open the door and saw the empty bed. He drew nearer, picked up the photo, and looked at George Van Beuren. Short hair, muscular physique. Robie wondered if he was maybe military or former military.

The nurse had followed him down the hall and was standing in the hallway.

“Is this really necessary?” she asked.

“Yeah, it really is.” He whirled around. “George Van Beuren. You said you’ve seen him. Was he ever wearing a uniform?”

“A uniform?”

“Yeah, like military or something?”

“No, not that I ever saw. He was just dressed normally.” She took a step forward. “We need to collect Mrs. Van Beuren’s personal effects and send them along home.”

“I’ll need that home address.”

“We can’t give out that sort of information.”

Robie took a long stride until he was within a couple inches of her.

“I don’t like playing the asshole, but in this case I’m going to. This is a case of national security. And if you have information that might be able to stop an attack against this country and you don’t provide it to a federal officer who has requested it, you’re going to prison, for a very long time.”

The woman gasped, then said, “Follow me.”

A minute later Robie was flying down the road in his car.

T
HE
V
AN
B
EURENS
lived about twenty minutes from the hospice center.

Robie made it there in fifteen.

The homes were solidly middle-class. Basketball hoops. Vans and American-made cars in short asphalt driveways. Do-it-yourself landscaping. Not a butler or Rolls-Royce in sight.

Robie zeroed in on the Van Beurens’ house. It was set at the end of the street. The home was dark, but one vehicle was parked in the driveway.

Robie stopped his car at the curb, pulled out his pistol, and crept toward the house. He didn’t knock at the front door. He peered in one of the windows. He couldn’t see anything.

He hurried around to the back. Putting his elbow through the glass in the back door, he reached through and turned the lock. He pulled a flashlight and made his way through the house. It didn’t take him long. He ended up in the front room after clearing the others.

He shined his light around. It hit on various objects on walls and shelves. He passed one item and then came back to it. He rushed over and snatched it up.

It was a photo of the Van Beurens.

Mother, daughter, and father.

Mom was in her combat fatigues.

Robie’s gaze focused on Dad.

George Van Beuren was also in uniform, a very distinctive one. White shirt, dark pants. Dark cap.

It was the uniform of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.

George Van Beuren helped to guard the president of the United States.

And then in a flash of synapses Robie finally made the connection.

He was watching Annie Lambert walking down the hall. He had lost her for about thirty seconds. But then regained her. She had changed clothes in those few seconds.

And then Robie forgot all about Annie Lambert and took his mind back to that airplane hangar in Morocco. Through his scope he had watched Khalid bin Talal climb the steps to his jet. After that he had lost sight of the prince for a brief period. And then he had regained him as the Saudi walked down the aisle of the plane and took his seat across from the Russian and Palestinian.

That’s when Robie had noticed the straps around the prince’s middle. He had assumed it was the straps holding on his body armor. But the prince had not been wearing body armor before he got on the plane. Robie had been watching him closely. He would have seen the outline of the armored vest under the robes. And it took longer than a few moments to put on, especially if one was wearing a long robe and was very heavy in the belly.

What had happened was now clear.

Talal had been warned about a possible hit. He’d had someone, perhaps a double he routinely employed, take his place at the meeting. Maybe he thought the Russian and Palestinian would try to kill him. Maybe he suspected a traitor in his inner circle, or a sniper like Robie waiting to take his shot. He had outsmarted them all. He had had his double die in his place.

Robie thought back to the conversation he had overheard that night. It now took on a critical importance.

Something that everyone assumed was pointless to try.

The weakest link.

Willing to die.

That could only be one possible target.

The president of the United States.

Now the theft of the Secret Service SUV made sense. They had someone on the inside. They had George Van Beuren.

And the fact that they had let Elizabeth Van Beuren die told Robie that the time to make the attempt was right now.

And Talal’s billions had bought him people in this country to do his bidding.

Then he remembered something Annie Lambert had told him. When the president got back to D.C., there was going to be a big event at the White House.

He pulled out his phone, did a quick Internet search.

He got the results and raced out of the house.

Tonight the president would be entertaining the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

Talal was multitasking tonight.

The son of a bitch was going for both men.