“In here,” a voice called. The employer. “All the way in back.”
They went in. The place was dark. The guy was waiting for them, somewhere in the shadows.
“These boards any use to you?” the employer asked.
There was a stack of old pine boards, way in back.
“They’re good lumber,” the employer said. “Maybe you can use them. Like recycling, you know?”
There was something else on the ground beside the stack of boards. Something strange. The two carpenters stared. Strange humped shapes. The two carpenters stared at the strange humped shapes, then they stared at each other. Then they turned around. The employer smiled at them and raised a dull black automatic.
THE RESIDENT AGENT at the FBI’s remote satellite station was a smart enough guy to realize it was going to be important. He didn’t know exactly how or why it was going to be important, but an undercover informant doesn’t risk a radio message from a concealed location for no reason. So he copied the details into the FBI computer system. His report flashed across the computer network and lodged in the massive mainframe on the first floor of the FBI’s Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. The Hoover Building database handles more new reports in a day than there are seconds, so it took a long moment for the FBI software to scan through and pick out the key words. Once it had done so, it lodged the bulletin high in its memory and waited.
At exactly the same time, the system was logging a message from the FBI Field Office in Chicago. The bureau chief up there, Agent-in-Charge McGrath, was reporting that he’d lost one of his people. Special Agent Holly Johnson was missing, last seen twelve o’clock Chicago time, whereabouts currently unknown, contact attempted but not achieved. And because Holly Johnson was a pretty special case, the message carried an eyes-only code which kept it off every terminal in the building except the one all the way upstairs in the Director’s office.
THE DIRECTOR OF the FBI got out of a budget review meeting just before seven-thirty in the evening. He walked back to his office suite and checked his messages. His name was Harland Webster and he had been with the Bureau thirty-six years. He had one more year to run on his term as Director, and then he’d be gone. So he wasn’t looking for trouble, but he found it glowing on the monitor of his desktop terminal. He clicked on the report and read it through twice. He sighed at the screen.
“Shit,” he said. “Shit, shit, shit.”
The report in from McGrath in Chicago was not the worst news Webster had ever had in thirty-six years, but it came pretty damn close. He buzzed the intercom on his desk and his secretary answered.
“Get me McGrath in Chicago,” he said.
“He’s on line one,” his secretary told him. “He’s been waiting for you.”
Webster grunted and hit the button for line one. Put the call on the speakerphone and leaned back in his chair.
“Mack?” he said. “So what’s the story?”
McGrath’s voice came in clear from Chicago.
“Hello, chief,” he said. “There is no story. Not yet. Maybe we’re worrying too early, but I got a bad feeling when she didn’t show. You know how it is.”
“Sure, Mack,” Webster said. “You want to confuse me with some facts?”
“We don’t have any facts,” McGrath said. “She didn’t show for a five o’clock case conference. That struck me as unusual. There were no messages from her anywhere. Her pager and her cell phone are out of commission. I asked around and the last anybody saw of her was about twelve o’clock.”
“She was in the office this morning?” Webster asked.
“All morning,” McGrath said.
“Any appointments before this five o’clock thing?” Webster said.
“Nothing in her diary,” McGrath said. “I don’t know what she was doing or where she was doing it.”
“Christ, Mack,” Webster said. “You were supposed to take care of her. You were supposed to keep her off the damn streets, right?”
“It was her lunch break,” McGrath said. “What the hell could I do?”
There was a silence in the Director’s suite, broken only by the faint hum on the speakerphone. Webster drummed his fingers on his desk.
“What was she working on?” he asked.
“Forget it,” McGrath said. “We can assume this is not interference by a Bureau suspect, right? Doesn’t make any kind of sense in her case.”
Webster nodded to himself.
“In her case, I agree, I guess,” he said. “So what else are we looking at?”
“She was injured,” McGrath said. “Tore up her knee playing ball. We figure maybe she fell, made it worse, maybe ended up in the ER. We’re checking the hospitals now.”
Webster grunted.
“Or else there’s a boyfriend we don’t know about,” McGrath said. “Maybe they’re in a motel room somewhere, getting laid.”
“For six hours?” Webster said. “I should be so lucky.”
There was silence again. Then Webster sat forward.
“OK, Mack,” he said. “You know what to do. And you know what not to do, case like hers, right? Keep in touch. I’ve got to go to the Pentagon. I’ll be back in an hour. Call me then if you need me.”
Webster broke the connection and buzzed his secretary to call his car. Then he walked out to his private elevator and rode down to the underground parking lot. His driver met him there and they walked together over to the Director’s bulletproof limousine.
“Pentagon,” Webster said to his driver.
TRAFFIC WASN’T BAD, seven-thirty on a June Monday evening. Took about eleven minutes to do the two and a half miles. Webster spent the time making urgent calls on his mobile. Calls to various locations within such a tight geographical radius that he could probably have reached them all by shouting. Then the big car came up to the Pentagon River Entrance and the Marine sentry stepped over. Webster clicked off his phone and buzzed his window down for the identification ritual.
“The Director of the FBI,” he said. “To see the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
The sentry snapped a salute and waved the limousine through. Webster buzzed the window back up and waited for the driver to stop. Then he got out and ducked in through the personnel door. Walked through to the Chairman’s suite. The Chairman’s secretary was waiting for him.
“Go right through, sir,” she said. “The General will be along in a moment.”
Webster walked into the Chairman’s office and stood waiting. He looked out through the window. The view was magnificent, but it had a strange metallic tint. The window was made of one-way bulletproof Mylar. It was a great view, but the window was on the outside of the building, right next to the River Entrance, so it had to be protected. Webster could see his car, with his driver waiting beside it. Beyond the car was a view of the Capitol, across the Potomac. Webster could see sailboats in the Tidal Basin, with the last of the evening sun glinting low on the water. Not a bad office, Webster thought. Better than mine, he thought.
Meeting with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was a problem for the Director of the FBI. It was one of those Beltway oddities, a meeting where there was no cast-iron ranking. Who was superior? Both were presidential appointees. Both reported to the President through just one intermediary, the Defense Secretary or the Attorney General. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the highest-ranking military post that the nation had to offer. The Director of the FBI was the highest-ranking law enforcement post. Both men were at the absolute top of their respective greasy poles. But which greasy pole was taller? It was a problem for Webster. In the end, it was a problem for him because the truth was his pole was shorter. He controlled a budget of two billion dollars and about twenty-five thousand people. The Chairman oversaw a budget of two hundred billion and about a million people. Two million, if you added in the National Guard and the Reserves. The Chairman was in the Oval Office about once a week. Webster got there twice a year, if he was lucky. No wonder this guy’s office was better.
The Chairman himself was impressive, too. He was a four-star general whose rise had been spectacular. He had come from nowhere and blitzed upward through the Army just about faster than his tailor could sew the ribbons on his uniform. The guy had ended up lopsided with medals. Then he had been hijacked by Washington and
