“Sorry about the Bronco.”
“DEA drug take. Ain’t no big deal. But look, Ed. We were supposed to have us a little talk, not a firefight.” He began to come closer.
Kreiss twitched the Barrett’s barrel.
“That wasn’t a firefight. And I can hear you fine from right there.”
Ransom stopped and flashed his palms at Kreiss in a gesture of peace.
“All right, that’s cool,” he said, “but this isn’t what you think.”
The rifle wasn’t pointed right at him, but it would not have taken much to fix that. Kreiss knew that from Ransom’s perspective, the business end of a Barrett light .50 must look like the Holland Tunnel.
“Right,” he said.
“Then why were you two laying for me in my own house?”
““Cause Bellhouser asked Agency CE for some off-line help. Apparently didn’t want to use Bureau FCI people. Either that or AD Marchand didn’t want the exposure.”
“Help with what?” Kreiss asked patiently.
“Word is, Bellhouser’s principal went postal when he heard that you’ve come out of retirement, so to speak. Apparently, one of the Roanoke agents told somebody you been operatin’. Word got back.”
That would be Carter, Kreiss thought.
“My daughter is missing,” he said. He was tired and he was hurting. He could hear the edge in his own voice and saw that Ransom was struggling to hold his casual smile.
“The local Bureau people tucked around with it for a little while, then sent it up to Missing Persons. That’s not good enough. I know a thing or two about looking for someone. They’re not going to look, so I am. You tell Bambi and company that this does not concern them, and to stay out of my way.”
Ransom gave him a peculiar look, started to say something, but then put up his hands again.
“All right, all right,” he said.
“That’s cool.
I’ll tell ‘em. Not saying that’s going to go down so good, but I’ll certainly tell ‘em.”
“You do that. You leave anything behind in my house?”
“Well, now, you know—” “You go back down there. Take Tonto there with you. Get your insects out of my house, whatever you’ve done. Take your time; do a thorough job. I’ll give you fifteen minutes. Then you come out and walk down the drive to the creek, and then walk south on that road. South is to the right.
I’ll call someone to come get you.”
“Shit, man, we got the modern conveniences. We can take care of that.”
Kreiss did not reply, but he indicated with his chin that Ransom should get going. Ransom gave him a little salute and then walked back down the hill, keeping his hands in sight. They might have cell phones, Kreiss thought, but they won’t have a signal. They were in for a long walk. He also knew that their being rousted out of a stakeout was going to look bad enough without him, Kreiss, making the call to come get them.
He settled in alongside the Barrett and watched Ransom and his partner go back into the cabin. He would certainly have to do a sweep of his own. He swore out loud. This was definitely a development he did not need right now. The number-two guy at Justice had sent his own PA and another horse-holder from Kreiss’s old department at the Bureau down here to step on his neck. He wondered where the heartburn was really coming from; the Agency shouldn’t care. Upon reflection, he realized this probably wasn’t about the Glower incident; this was probably about the Chinese spy case. If he had popped up on radar screens at Justice, the Agency, and the Bureau, then somebody very senior must be very nervous.
Glower had been a major embarrassment, but his suicide should have long since tempered their pain. He wondered if this was about the money.
Janet Carter was summoned to the RAs conference room just after noon.
The call came directly from Farnsworth’s office, which once again set Larry Talbot off. To her surprise, the two Washington people were back, along with a large black man and a much younger white man. The two executive assistants were in business suits, but the other two men were wearing slacks, sport shirts, and windbreakers. Farnsworth asked her to join them at the table. He did not introduce the new players, and Janet saw that the RA was looking worried again.
“Agent Carter,” Farnsworth announced formally, “This concerns the Edwin Kreiss matter. I’ve been requested to put you on special assignment.
But first, Mr. Foster here has something to share with you. Mr.
Foster?”
Foster looked down for a moment at some papers he had in a folder in front of him.
“You said the other day that Kreiss went to see one of the people you interviewed about his missing daughter?”
“I said that I thought it was probably Kreiss.” She replayed the story of the headless man for them.
“And the kid later told you that he told Kreiss they went to a “Site
R’?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you know what that is?”
“I never did find out. Nobody here seems to know about any Site R.”
Foster shuffled his notes for a moment and then looked over at the woman, Bellhouser. Bambi, Janet thought. Perfect.
“We think Site R refers to the Ramsey Army Arsenal,” Bellhouser said.
“More properly known as the Ramsey Army Ammunition Plant. It’s located south of the town of Ramsey, on the other side of the New River.
It’s been shut down for almost twenty years and is technically in cadre status.”
“Where’d that name come from, that Site R?” Janet asked.
“It’s an EPA appellation. The industrial area of the site is highly contaminated, but since it’s a military complex, the EPA doesn’t name it as such on their lists of toxic super sites They just called it Site R.”
“And?” Janet asked. She was trying to figure out why the Justice Department cared about an abandoned military installation.
“There’s some history here, Agent Carter. First, let me ask you something:
Could you establish a working relationship with Kreiss if you had to?”
“Working relationship? With Edwin Kreiss?”
Farnsworth got into it.
“Yes,” he said.
“Like if maybe you went to see him. Told him you were personally unhappy with the fact that the Bureau was just dropping his daughter’s case like that. That you might be interested in helping him look for his daughter, off- line, so to speak.”
She shook her head.
“He was a special agent for a long time,” she said, remembering her little confrontation with him in the cabin.
“He would know that’s bullshit. Agents don’t work off-line and remain agents for very long.”
“He’s been retired for almost five years,” Foster said.
“You could play the line that the Bureau has changed a lot since then. And play up the fact that you are an inexperienced agent.”
Janet cocked her head to one side and gave Foster a “Fuck you very much” look, but Farnsworth again intervened.
“I’ve explained to Mr. Foster that your assignment to the Roanoke office was something of a lateral arabesque, Janet,” he said.
“Not for doing anything substantively wrong, of course, but for annoying a very senior assistant director at headquarters.
