Truth or Die (22 page)

“So, now … what? Bass is somehow connected, too?” I asked.

Only, this time, I could hear it in my own voice. That incredulous tone was missing. Owen could hear it, too.

“Just for the sake of argument,” he said, “what if there really was a path to the White House?
How would we follow it?
”

Between the two of us, I was the only one with a law degree, but you could’ve fooled me, the way he asked that question. Because lawyers—the good ones, at least—never ask a question they don’t already know the answer to.

I wasn’t the only one with Watergate on the brain.

“For the record, you don’t look anything like Dustin Hoffman,” I said.

Owen gave me a quick head-to-toe. He smiled. “Yeah, and you wish you looked like Robert Redford.”

CLAY DOBSON gazed across the clutter of his large oak desk, locking eyes with his 9 a.m. appointment while doing everything he could not to break into a shit-eating grin.

It wasn’t easy.

The morning had already brought the good news from Frank Karcher that their little problem in New York had been taken care of—right here in their own backyard, no less. The kid and the reporter’s boyfriend were both dead.

Of course, so was his old college chum, Wittmer, but there was a reason Dobson had had cameras placed inside and outside Wittmer’s home. He’d never fully trusted the guy. Wittmer was weak.

So, too, was Lawrence Bass.

That was what made this meeting with him such a lay-up, thought Dobson, the former small forward for the Princeton Tigers basketball team. Dare he think it, a
slam dunk.

After all, Bass hadn’t bum-rushed him out on Pennsylvania Avenue or cornered him with a clenched fist in the men’s room at the Blue Duck Tavern, where all the political heavyweights fed both their stomachs and their egos.

Instead, he’d made an appointment.
An appointment?
That was like knocking on a door instead of kicking it down. Total milquetoast. No balls.

“I’d like an explanation, Clay,” said Bass, sitting with legs crossed on the other side of the desk.

Even that was weak, thought Dobson. He’d
like
an explanation? No, you dolt, you
demand
an explanation!

Yeah, the decision to sandbag Bass, the former director of intelligence programs with the NSC, was looking better by the second. He would’ve made a lousy head of the CIA, not that he ever really had a shot at the gig. Bass was simply a decoy, the fall guy who would pave the way for Frank Karcher.

“Trust me,” said Dobson, folding his arms. “Karch is not the loose cannon you think he is.”

“So it’s really going to be him?” asked Bass. “The rumor’s true?”

“This is Washington, Larry. What rumor isn’t?”

Bass let go with a defeated sigh, slouching a bit. Dobson was happy to have him vent a little, but they both knew Bass had no recourse. He was a good soldier, and good soldiers fall in line.

As if having just reminded himself of that, Bass straightened up in his chair. The air returned to his lungs, his chest expanding.

“I serve or don’t serve at the pleasure of the president,” he said. “I understand the politics in play, and I appreciate your wanting to look out for me and my family.”

“You have my word,” said Dobson. “In a few months, you’ll have your pick of jobs and complete financial security.”

Bass nodded. “I know, and like I said, I appreciate that. It’s just that … Karcher?
Really?
”

“Listen, I understand your frustration, I really do,” said Dobson, rising from his chair. He walked over to the credenza and poured himself more coffee. It was his third refill of the morning. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, turning back to Bass. “Do you want a cup?”

“Actually, I do,” Bass said. “Thank you.”

Dobson cocked an eyebrow, surprised. The coffee offer was merely out of politeness. A perfunctory gesture. Everyone and their mother knew that Bass abstained not only from alcohol, but also from caffeine. It was the one and only thing he and Karcher had in common.

For a devout Catholic, Bass was more Mormon than most Mormons.

Was this the first loose thread, wondered Dobson? The beginning of the complete unraveling of Larry “Halo Head” Bass?

Coffee … then a little whiskey in the coffee … then hold the coffee, just give me the whiskey?

In the meantime, “How do you take it?” asked Dobson. “Cream?”

“No, but three sugars,” Bass said.

Dobson turned his back, reaching for the sugar bowl and spoon on the credenza. He began scooping. “You like it sweet, huh?”

“Yes,” said Bass. “Sweet.”

Like revenge.

THERE WERE two things on Frank Karcher’s to-do list that morning. Both bordered on a death wish.

The first was lying to Clay Dobson. Bright and early, at oh-seven-hundred hours, he told the president’s chief of staff that the kid and the former lawyer were eliminated, their bodies disposed of so thoroughly that even God himself didn’t know where they were.

How much time this would buy Karcher, he didn’t know. But there was only so much bad news and perceived incompetence he could dump in Dobson’s lap, and that quota had already been met in spades.

So it was time for plan B. As in, bullshit. He’d played the game inside the Beltway long enough to know how things really worked.
When the truth doesn’t cooperate, stop telling it.

Sure enough, Dobson was so relieved to think the kid was no longer a threat that the collateral damage—the stuff that actually was true—was taken in stride. When he was told about Wittmer, as well as about having to shut down the now bullet-ridden lab behind M Street, Dobson’s only response, after a pregnant pause, was “So the kid is definitely gone, right?”

Of course, the fact that the kid actually wasn’t gone was merely semantics, a minor detail, as far as Karcher was concerned. Sometimes a lie is just the truth that hasn’t happened yet.

Or so he’d convinced himself as he made his way to the outskirts of McLean and the off-site training gym of the CIA’s Special Activities Division, the same division he’d headed up years ago before moving up the ladder to become the National Clandestine Service chief.

The reason the gym was off-site was because it “officially” didn’t exist. Nor was it open to all the agents-in-training of the Special Activities Division. Only a select group was invited to join, the CIA’s equivalent of Green Berets.

Accordingly, hanging a sign out front that read
MEN ONLY
would’ve been redundant.

Paying a visit to the gym was the second item on Karcher’s to-do list. It promised to be one the young agents would never forget, although that was precisely what they were required to do.

Nothing “officially” happens in a place that doesn’t officially exist.

Barging through the door, his heels stomping the cement floor with each and every step, Karcher marched straight across the middle of the windowless gym toward an old-school boom box on a milk crate that was pumping out Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

Without breaking stride, he grabbed a twenty-five-pound barbell off a rack and heaved it dead center into the boom box, a perfect strike that shattered the cheap molded plastic into a hundred pieces. The gym immediately fell silent, save for the lingering echo of Lars Ulrich’s drumbeats.

Then, as patiently as possible for a man desperate to save his career, Karcher waited until every set of eyes was looking directly at him. He scratched the chin underneath his oversized head before folding his arms, his deep voice filling the room until there was no escape, not for anyone.

“Okay, he barked.
“Who’s the toughest motherfucker here?”

THERE WERE no takers, no volunteers.

This, despite the fact that membership in this particular gym was predicated on being a badass, and being proud of it.

A
smart
badass, though. Someone not prone to unnecessary risk or exposure, or, at the very least, someone who knew a trick question when he heard one.

Karcher glanced around amid the deafening silence, making sure to lock eyes with the dozen or so men in the room. He was giving each and every one of them his live-grenade look, the full-on crazy, the kind of batshit stare that could make Charles Manson himself step back and say, “Hey, man, whoa …
chill out
.”

But Karcher was only getting started.

Slowly now, he made his way over to the largest agent in the room, a brick wall with a buzz cut who was sitting on the bench press between sets. The veins rippling up and down each arm looked like maps of the DC Metrorail.

“Do you know who I am?” Karcher asked, almost politely. The young agent nodded. “Yes.”

Karcher’s face immediately soured. So much for polite.
“Then stand the fuck up when I’m talking to you.”

The agent stood. He had four inches on Karcher, easy. But right then, right there, he hardly seemed taller.

“What’s your name?” asked Karcher.

“Evans, sir.”

“Was I ever here today, Evans?”

“No, sir.”

“Were any of us here today?”

“No, sir.”

“So none of it ever happened, right?”

The agent, Evans, blinked a few times. Confusion in his eyes.
None of what? What’s about to happen?

Regardless, his answer wasn’t about to change. “No, sir,” he said. “It never happened.”

Karcher leaned in, his big head getting right in Evans’s grill. “I’ll tell you what definitely did happen,” he said. “The three-some I had with your mother and another whore last night.”

Evans cracked a slight smile. He’d hardly be in the CIA, let alone the Special Activities Division, if he’d taken the bait.

But this heap of chum was pushing things.

“Your mom’s quite the moaner,” Karcher continued. “You want to hear what she sounds like? Do you?
Do you?
”

Evans dropped the smile, his jaw tightening, his fists balling. He shifted his feet, if only to give himself something else to do besides decking Karcher, who was far from finished.

“You’re just going to stand there and take it, Evans? Huh? Like your mother did on her hands and knees? What kind of a pussy are you, Evans? You don’t want to take a swing at me? C’mon, boy, take a swing at me!”

As if that invitation weren’t open enough, Karcher stuck out his chin. He waited … waited … waited … before finally shaking his head in disgust.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” he said.

Neither did anyone else in the gym. A couple of the other guys even let out audible sighs of relief as Karcher turned to walk away. Only, he wasn’t walking away.

He was winding up.

Karcher spun around and threw his first punch like he was throwing a javelin, thrusting the flat of his knuckles square into Evans’s solar plexus. The bigger they are …

The young agent fell to his knees, immediately gasping for air that he no longer had. He was defenseless and teed up like a Titleist as Karcher began swinging, hitting him over and over and over in the face, the blood rupturing from his nose and mouth.

C’mon, you idiots, what are you waiting for? Stop watching me and do something. Get in here!

The group inertia from the initial shock wore off, the other agents collapsing on Karcher to pull him away from Evans. Karcher feigned a struggle, trying to break free from all the sets of hands holding him back.

But he wasn’t looking for peacemakers.

“That’s right, protect your boy, Evans!” Karcher shouted. “You probably all wipe each other’s asses, too. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if—”

Pow!

The punch came out of nowhere, as did the guy who threw it—a Hispanic agent with a shaved head who couldn’t have been more than five-eight while standing on his toes.

“Martinez, no!” someone shouted.

A couple of the other agents let go of Karcher so they could hold back Martinez, or try to. Martinez pushed them away, one after the other, and resumed going after Karcher, unleashing a barrage of right jabs until the skull-and-bones tattoo on the inside of his wrist became a blur.

Everyone backed away now. There was no stopping Martinez. Karcher fell to one knee and then both, his head whipping back and forth with each punch until finally he collapsed, his blood-soaked face hitting the ground with a nauseating
squish
.

Martinez loomed over him, like Ali over Liston, daring him to get up for more. But Karcher had no such plans. He’d gotten what he’d come for.

Martinez had just owned him in a fight. But now he owned Martinez forever.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner …

“MY NAME’S Trevor Mann,” I told the guy in the black suit who opened the front door. He looked far more bodyguard than butler. “I believe Mr. Brennan is expecting me.”

“He is,” I was told with a nod that somehow managed to be both deferential and disinterested at the same time. “He’s out back. I’ll take you.”

Great, you do that. Just so long as you don’t frisk me first.

As much as I didn’t really think that was a possibility, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure of anything. The guy’s boss, Josiah Brennan, didn’t head up one of the most powerful—and profitable—law firms in DC based on his good looks and Southern charm alone, although those certainly didn’t hurt his cause.

To read anything about this self-described “good ol’ boy from Tennessee” was to know that when he was done slapping your back, he was just as capable of putting a knife in it. And not just figuratively speaking.

Which pretty much explained the Glock in my shin holster.

Had Brennan already been tipped off? Did he know the truth about me? Or did he buy the lie?

I walked behind his henchman—all six foot six of him, if I had to guess—through the front-to-back foyer the size of a cathedral. Along the way, I did my best to get the lay of the land without being too obvious. A quick peek down a hallway here, a slight crane of the neck there. When the moment was right, I could ill afford to be wasting time in the wrong rooms.