As quietly as possible, he opened the door and slid into the hallway.
Staying on the balls of his feet, he ran up the carpeted steps to the top floor. Someone had been in his apartment, and they had been smart enough not to leave any electronic listening devices behind. They weren’t down on the street, so that meant one thing. they were in one of the nearby buildings. Coleman reached the top floor and opened the service door that led to the roof. Inside was a black metal ladder with a hatch door at the top. He climbed the ladder and slowly opened the hatch. As he climbed onto the roof, he was careful to keep his silhouette beneath the three-foot flange that ran along all four sides of the roof. Coleman crawled to the front of the building and peeked over the edge.
One month earlier he had checked to see which apartments were vacant in the surrounding buildings. Coleman started with the building right across the street. He counted up three stories and in two windows from the left. Pushing himself up just a little farther over the edge, he stared intently at the black hole and watched for movement. It was too dark to see more than a foot or two into the apartment, so he put on his night-vision goggles. Black turned into green and white, and after several adjustments the goggles penetrated the dark, empty room.
There they were, a cluster of long, black objects. He could plainly see the row of directional microphones lined up along the bottom edge of the windowsill, all of them pointing across the street at his apartment.
Behind them on tripods were several cameras, and then. Something moved. Coleman squinted and it moved again. A man was standing a ways back from the window drinking something. Coleman slid under the wall and crawled back to the hatch. When Coleman got back to the apartment, he analyzed the situation. As a SEAL he’d been trained in counter surveillance tactics and knew what represented good surveillance … the people watching him from across the street were good.
Coleman grabbed his jacket and brought it into the bathroom. Holding the digital phone by the rushing water of the shower he punched in the number to Michael’s pager and entered nine seven times. McMahon stood in the middle of the empty apartment. A
pair of large headphones covered his ears. He took a big gulp of coffee and glanced over
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at the other two agents sitting at the table in the dining room. A small red filter light illuminated their game of gin. They were on a twenty-minute rotation.
Every noise in Coleman’s apartment was taped, and everyone who left or entered the building was photographed. More than a dozen tail cars of assorted makes and models were strategically positioned around the city, and a chopper was on twenty-four-hour standby, its engines warm and pilots waiting. Michael was sitting upstairs in his den holding a mug of hot coffee when his beeper went off. He picked it up and looked at the small display. All nines. Michael set it down and thought about Coleman.
Next, he looked at the tape of Arthur’s confession, and a plan started to form in his head. Going to the media would cause more harm than good, but Nance and Garret had to pay. They were going down, one way or another —whatever it took. Stansfield climbed wearily into the back of his limo. The night had been one of many questions and no sleep.
The large door at the end of the executive parking garage at Langley opened revealing the early-morning sun, and Stansfield lowered his tired eyes.
The director had spent the entire night in the Operations Center trying to piece together the events surrounding Arthur’s abduction. Two important facts had been brought to Stansfield’s attention. First, strong traces of sodium pentothal had been found in Arthur’s blood.
Second, a fact discovered while his people were reviewing Arthur’s security tapes, Stu Garret and Mike Nance had visited Arthur the previous week. Garret had lied.
Stansfield found out about the sodium pentothal just after midnight, but the security team that had been dispatched to Arthur’s estate didn’t discover the videotape of Garret and
Nance until 6:45 A.M. He had an 8 A.M. meeting at the White House, but instead of going straight into D.C his entourage was taking a slight detour. He had to pick up an uninvited and, he was sure, unwanted guest. Stansfield’s limousine, along with its lead and chase cars, cut through the light Saturday-morning traffic. At about 7:35 A.m. they arrived at Director Roach’s house. Roach climbed into the limo, and the group of cars pulled away. As the director of the FBI settled into the backseat, he asked, “I assume this has something to do with Arthur turning up dead on Stu Garret’s lawn?” Stansfield shifted so he could face Roach. “Yes, it does.”
“What is Mr. Garret doing associating with someone like Arthur?”
“I don’t know.” Stansfield shook his head and frowned. “I would imagine you want this to be kept as quiet as possible.” Stansfield’s face hinted that he was struggling between doing what was comfortable and trying something new. “At this point I’m undecided. Our two agencies have worked in the past to keep things like this quiet, but
I’m not so sure I wouldn’t prefer you to raise hell on this one ….
There’s no doubt this is your jurisdiction. Arthur was kidnapped, transported across state lines, and murdered.” Stansfield bit his lip and shook his head. “Brian, Arthur was
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not the most law-abiding person we had at the Agency. Most of that had to do with the type of things we expected him to do, but he also did a lot of things that were not approved through the proper channels. That’s why he was forced out two years ago. We had lost control of him. To be blunt, his death is a blessing. He was a walking time bomb with enough secrets in his head to do an incredible amount of damage to not only our country but quite a few of our allies.”
“So you would like me to sit on it?”
“Yes and no. I do not want what Arthur did for the Agency to become public, but there is an issue I need resolved, and to do that I think I’m going to need you to threaten an all-out investigation.”
“This is where Garret comes in?”
“Yes, Arthur was not dumped on his lawn without reason. He and Nance were involved in something with Arthur.”
“Are you sure?”
