He grinned. ‘‘Yeah. I think we got off easy, don’t you?’’
‘‘Absolutely. Until he finds out what we didn’t tell him.’’
Art and I didn’t always get along, but we’d been together for nineteen years. We coped well.
‘‘Oh,’’ I said, ‘‘I’m gonna have to go to Rumsford’s funeral on Monday.’’
‘‘Why so late?’’
‘‘I’m not sure, but I think it took ’em that long to find somebody other than his partner who gave a shit.’’
‘‘Too bad.’’
‘‘Yes,’’ I said, with feeling. ‘‘It sure is.’’ I figured he’d find out where the funeral was going to be shortly. Spice his life up.
The funeral lunch was excellent. I hobnobbed with Volont and Nichols, as well as Al and the other bigwigs. Everybody on their best behavior, polite, smiling. Volont even said I looked good in uniform. I got the impression he would be happier if it were something in, say, Foreign Legion blue… but I could have been wrong.
As soon as I got to the office, I found X1 there, with his laptop. I told him we really, really needed it to monitor something over the weekend, and maybe into Monday, and that I would clear it with Nichols and anybody else who needed to know. Cool with him.
I carted it to the back office, and set it up. Hester came in a few seconds afterward, and saw the laptop.
‘‘X1?’’
‘‘Yeah.’’ I turned it on. ‘‘That should do it.’’
‘‘Be careful, both Volont and Nichols are out front. Paying respects, so to speak.’’
‘‘Okay,’’ and I noticed that we had a message. ‘‘I think,’’ I said, ‘‘we’ve got a contact already.’’
We did, but it wasn’t really impressive.
FROM: AFREEMAN@xii. COMMONCOMMON. COM
TO: STRITCHHERMN@WIDETALK. COM
SUBJECT: RESPONSE
DATE: SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1996 10:21 AM
YES? GABRIEL
That was it. Oh, but it was a start. And we were widening the net, so to speak. This one wasn’t from ‘‘Bravo6,’’ but ‘‘afreeman.’’
Volont knocked on the open door and stuck his head around the corner. ‘‘May I come in?’’
Asking was more than he had done yesterday.
‘‘Sure,’’ I said, folding down the laptop screen. ‘‘Have a seat.’’
George followed him in, looking uncomfortable. ‘‘You too, George,’’ I said.
‘‘I’d better check in…’’ said Hester, starting to excuse herself.
‘‘Oh, please stay,’’ said Volont. ‘‘I insist.’’ He looked at me. ‘‘May we shut the door?’’
‘‘Sure,’’ I said.
Volont gestured to George, who shut the door and then sat on the corner of the desk behind his superior.
‘‘I understand,’’ said Volont, ‘‘that you have some idea about some sort of mission being conducted when they killed the two officers in the woods?’’
George looked guilty as all hell. Well, Volont had probably started to pry. We had known all along that George would have to answer up. The only problem was, neither Hester nor I had any idea how much George had been made to reveal.
‘‘Something like that,’’ I said.
‘‘I’m part of our antiterrorist intelligence unit,’’ said Volont. ‘‘Why don’t you run it by me?’’
‘‘Well,’’ I said, trying to buy a little thinking time, ‘‘Hester and I put this together from the physical evidence, mostly…’’
‘‘Let me save you some time,’’ said Volont. ‘‘Just tell me what you think happened, and we can get to the evidence later, if we need to.’’ He sounded like he was talking to errant children. On purpose, of course. Trying to get us to reveal more than we wanted. He was pretty good.
George looked up and down several times, very quickly. Nodding his eyeballs. It took me a second to realize that this was an affirmative sign.
‘‘Okay. What we believe is this: There was a right-wing group having a training session in the woods; they misidentified the narcotics officers for somebody from, say, your office who they thought were looking at them; they deliberately set out to ambush those officers the next day; a little doper named Turd inadvertently triggered the ambush prematurely, and they had to take him out; and tried for the cops too, because they were too close, to boot. They were going for a classic L ambush, but hadn’t quite got it set.’’ I stopped. George ‘‘nodded’’ his eyeballs again.
‘‘Have you identified this group who was having the training session?’’ asked Volont.
George’s eyeballs began frantically looking from left to right and back again. Shaking his eyeballs ‘‘no.’’
‘‘Not for sure,’’ I said.
‘‘Any leads?’’
George’s eyes went left and right so hard I thought Volont would hear them.
‘‘Not hard leads,’’ I said. I had to stop looking at George, or I was going to burst out laughing.
‘‘You’re being evasive,’’ said Volont in a matter-of-fact tone.
‘‘Yep,’’ I said, just as calm. I smiled.
‘‘I can’t force you to do anything, nor would I wish to do so,’’ said Volont, ‘‘but you might reconsider withholding information. I could be of some help.’’
‘‘I can tell you this,’’ I said. ‘‘Herman Stritch shot Bud and Lamar because he thought they were coming to arrest him for the killing of the two officers in the woods.’’
I glanced at George, and he was near apoplexy.
‘‘Really? Why would he think that?’’ Volont leaned slightly forward, expressing sincere interest for the first time in the conversation.
‘‘Because William Stritch was in the woods, and with the ambush team, most likely as an observer.’’
George put a thumb and forefinger astraddle the bridge of his nose, and began rubbing his eyes in the subtlest way possible, and slowly shaking his head.
‘‘An observer?’’
‘‘Yep.’’ I paused, and said, deliberately, ‘‘Courtesy of his leader.’’
‘‘A leader?’’ said Volont. ‘‘That would be…?’’
I just couldn’t resist, of course. George had turned his back, so I didn’t get the guilt vibes from him anymore.
‘‘They call him Gabriel, but I don’t think that’s his real name.’’
Silence. George coughed after a few seconds.
‘‘Where,’’ said Volont evenly, ‘‘did you come up with that name?’’
I looked him right in the eye. ‘‘I’m not at liberty to tell you that right now. It’s a highly confidential source.’’ And then chickened out, at least partway. ‘‘Should be able to tell you in a couple of days, though.’’
‘‘Hmmm,’’ said Volont. ‘‘So, exactly what do you want from this?’’
Exasperating.
‘‘What I want,’’ I said slowly, ‘‘is this: The person who shot Lamar, Bud, and Rumsford; and I realize there may be at least two shooters here. Then I want the persons who shot Turd and Kellerman in the woods.’’ I leaned back away from the table, tilting my chair onto its back legs. ‘‘That’s what I want. That’s what I’ve always wanted.’’
‘‘Yes,’’ said Volont. He stood. ‘‘We’ll do everything we can to see you get that,’’ he said. ‘‘And now, I have to be getting along.. .’’ He turned to George. ‘‘May I see you for a moment?’’
As soon as they’d left the room, I looked at Hester. ‘‘He’s gonna be a lotta help.’’
‘‘Right.’’
‘‘Now,’’ I said, ‘‘how we approach Gabriel could be very, very important.’’ I said that I thought Hester should compose the messages from that point on, as she would bring what I hoped would be a convincing female touch to the correspondence.
