“We’re trying to save your life, Brant,” Wells said. “Why won’t you let us?”
“Six of your guys dead and you don’t seem worried for your own safety,” Shafer said. “A cynic might wonder.”
“Full-time guards for me and my family.”
“Maybe Duto should pull them,” Shafer said. “If you’re not going to cooperate.”
“Let him try,” Murphy said. He stood. “Now you need to leave. Or I really will call security.”
“THAT WENT WELL,” Shafer said when they were back in his office.
“He’d rather get killed than tell us what happened over there.”
“Or maybe he’s got nothing to worry about from the killer.”
“You think that’s possible.”
“I don’t know. It’s time to go at him. I’m going to get Duto to open up his 600s”—the financial disclosure forms CIA employees had to file. “His polys. We don’t need a warrant for that. You, you’re going to talk to his neighbors. Don’t sugarcoat it, either. Tell them Mr. Brant Murphy is under investigation—”
“Ellis—”
“He’s telling us to shove it. And he knows we’re working for Duto. His ultimate boss. He’s got nerve.”
“He’s got protection.”
“Then we’ll force it into the open. Whoever’s shielding him, Whitby, whoever, we’ll make him come out. He’s the pressure point. He’s the weak link.”
“I don’t like it,” Wells said. “It feels forced.” Though the move made a certain amount of sense. Murphy was acting like he was untouchable. They needed to find out why.
Shafer’s phone trilled. “Yes. They’re positive?”Pause. “No. I’ll tell him. Yes. I’m sorry, too.”
Wells knew even before Shafer hung up. “Jerry Williams?”
“Louisiana, Terrebonne Parish. A fisherman found his body today. In the swamp.”
Wells remembered Jeffrey Williams, curled on his mother’s lap, awaiting sleep, awaiting his father. What would Noemie tell him now?
“They’re sure.”
“His wallet was in the jeans. And the body had a Ranger tattoo. Looks like he was shot in the head, but they won’t know for sure until the autopsy. Bodies in the swamp, you know—”
“Ellis. You’re talking about someone who was a friend of mine.” Wells felt his gorge rise at Shafer. Then realized he should direct his anger at whoever was behind this.
“Sorry,” Shafer said mechanically. “You going to the funeral?”
“I don’t think Noemie would want to see me. And you’re right. It’s time to lean on Brant Murphy. Past time.”
WELLS HAD ALWAYS DRIVEN with a heavy right foot. His WRX, a nifty little Subaru that looked like a five- door hatchback but could outrun the average Porsche, only made matters worse. Not his finest character trait, though he’d never had an accident.
He was running at eighty on the Beltway, playing tractor-trailer slalom, when he saw the black Caprice sedan with Virginia plates sneaking up behind him. He figured the Caprice for an undercover statie. He eased off, wondering what the ticket would cost. The Commonwealth of Virginia had raised the price of speeding to extortionate levels.
But the Caprice didn’t try to catch him, instead ducking behind an Audi three cars back. Wells peeked again at the mirror, saw a gray Chevy Tahoe sliding in behind the Caprice. Of course, unmarked government vehicles choked the Beltway at all hours. These two might have nothing to do with him. But the way they’d paced him made Wells think they did.
Only one way to be sure. He was three miles from his exit now. Plenty of time to move. If they were on him, he would lose them, get off the highway before they recovered. He tightened his seat belt, feathered the gas, felt the WRX’s engine rumble. There. One lane right. Between two eighteen-wheelers. Then into the far right lane, a quick left-right-left around a FedEx van. and then he’d see.
He pushed down on the gas, slid the wheel to the right. The WRX reacted instantly. The Caprice matched his first move but then got stuck behind the FedEx van. Wells accelerated and cut left, barely getting by a Toyota Scion. The Scion’s angry honk faded behind him as he pulled left and left again to a patch of open asphalt in the passing lane.
And now, no lie, he was having fun, the Subaru weaving through its bigger cousins like a fox dodging a pack of hounds. This stretch of the Beltway had just been repaved — Virginians liked their roads smooth — and it was sticky and tight underneath his tires. For the first time in months, he heard the music of the highway, nothing serious today, no Springsteen:
He boomeranged past a big low-slung Mercedes, resisting the urge to wave. Sixty seconds later, he’d lost any hint of the Caprice or the Tahoe in his rearview mirrors. Easy. Almost too easy.
TWO MINUTES LATER, he swung onto Braddock Road. He was heading for Brant Murphy’s no-longer- mortgaged house in Kings Park West, an upscale neighborhood in the city of Fairfax, fifteen miles from Langley. Per Shafer’s plan, Wells would knock on neighbors’ doors, flash his identification, ask if anyone had noticed anything unusual about Murphy recently. Sudden changes in spending? Late-night trips? Let the neighbors draw their own conclusions. And let Murphy hear the gossip.
He was stopped at a light at the corner of Braddock and Guinea when he heard the helicopter coming in fast and low. He peeked through the windshield, saw it directly overhead. Black, no more than three hundred feet up. Intentionally intimidating, letting him know he was being watched. No wonder the Caprice had let him go so easily.
Then he heard the sirens.
The light changed as the Caprice and Tahoe reappeared. Wells eased the WRX over. Best to settle this now. Spare himself the foolishness of trying to outrun a helicopter.
The Tahoe pulled in front of him, the Caprice behind, boxing him. Two men stepped out of the Caprice. Suits. White shirts. Blue ties. Hands on hips. Federal agents. Or so Wells hoped. Otherwise, he’d made a very big mistake.
19
The Midnight House had five cells. Four were standard prison cells in the basement of the barracks. The fifth was a level down, a single subbasement room. Kenneth Karp had immediately realized its potential.
With a dozen Polish soldiers, Karp and Jack Fisher and Jerry Williams and his Rangers had poured thick concrete walls on all four sides. By the time they were done, the cell was something close to a vault: dark, silent, nearly airless.
Prisoners in the other cells faced all manner of minor indignities and irritations. Karp piped in music while they tried to sleep, sometimes loudly, sometimes so quietly it could barely be heard. He particularly favored Whitney Houston’s “The Greatest Love of All,” once putting it on a loop for five nights straight, until even the Poles begged him to stop. He and Fisher forced prisoners to stand on one leg for hours at a time, woke them at 2 a.m. for interrogations.
But in cell five, a prisoner was simply. left alone. In the void. Monitored by infrared cameras and microphones. Fed at random intervals through a slot in the two-inch-thick steel door, a tasteless gruel in a plastic bowl with a cup of lukewarm water to wash it down. The cell had no bed, only a metal chair bolted to the floor. A prisoner who tried to injure himself by banging his head against the walls lost even the tiny privilege of being allowed to move around the cell. Instead, his hands and legs were cuffed tightly to steel loops embedded in the
