but I need to speak to him.” Forty minutes later, his NATO teleconference was interrupted when the president returned his call.
“Is there a problem, General?” the president asked, and Bradford could hear the stress in his voice. The man was struggling with two wars, an intractable Congress, and a domestic agenda that appeared to be mired in the mud. He didn’t need another problem-which was exactly what Bradford was counting on.
“No, Mr. President, there isn’t a problem,” Bradford said. “In fact, I’m calling to suggest doing something to avoid one, and it would be best if the issue was handled by someone outside of the Department of Defense.”
20
“We got something on that guy Hopper.”
Claire looked up. It was the agent she’d assigned to watch the FBI man. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt that said POTOMAC ELECTRIC POWER COMPANY over the pocket, and she assumed the shirt was part of whatever ploy his team was using to stay close to the subject, maybe a power company truck outside the Hoover Building or near Hopper’s home. What Claire didn’t like was that he looked hung over, his eyes two bloodshot holes in his unshaven face. She made a mental note to have him checked out. Drunks were a liability.
“What did you get?” Claire said.
“Maybe you should just play this,” he said, and offered her a CD.
“Password,” she said.
“Feebwatch,” he said. “One word, lowercase.”
She started to berate him for using a password so closely related to the contents of the CD, but didn’t. She would talk to him about that when she spoke to him about the booze. She inserted the disc into one of her computers and listened to a phone call from a man named DeMarco to Hopper. When the call was over, she said, “So what? So this guy DeMarco is trying to find Russo’s will. What’s the big deal?”
“Listen to the next phone call,” the agent said.
I got your message. What’s going on?
The man speaking was the one who had directed Paul Russo’s execution. Hopper responded by saying:
It’s about the nurse.
What happened?
I got a call from a lawyer named DeMarco who works for Congress. He’s related to the nurse, and he’s trying to find out if the nurse had a will. The thing is, he’s searched the nurse’s apartment at least once and he seems to be following my investigation.
Do you think he’s conducting his own investigation?
I don’t think so. But I get the impression he isn’t buying the story that Russo was killed because of drugs.
There was a moment of silence.
Look, it’s probably nothing.
It was Hopper speaking again.
I’m just letting you know because you told me to keep you informed. You might want to put somebody on this guy, but that’s up to you.
It bothers me that he works for Congress.
Yeah, it bothers me too, but I don’t think his job is related to this. He’s just the nurse’s cousin trying to settle the estate. If you want, I could make up a will for the nurse. You know, fill out one of those online forms and give it to DeMarco. That would probably get him off my back.
No, don’t do that. If the real will shows up, that could just complicate things. Anyway, thanks for calling.
“Were you able to identify the man who called Hopper back?” Claire asked the agent.
“No,” he said. “We got a fix on his position when he was talking to Hopper and he was in a car on the beltway, but after he completed the call he powered down the phone.”
Claire made sure the agent had all the assets he needed to stay on Hopper, then dismissed him.
Her next thought was: DeMarco. Yeah, he might do.
“We need to spook Hopper.”
Claire said this as she paced Dillon’s office and she made him think of a walking pipe bomb, some completely unstable device that could detonate at any moment.
Claire Whiting just sucked the tranquillity out of any room she entered.
“I think we should use this guy DeMarco,” she said.
“Use him how?”
“We’ll give him something that’ll make him suspicious of Hopper. I mean, he’s already suspicious; you can tell by the sound of his voice that he doesn’t believe Russo was dealing drugs. So we’ll give him something else. We’ll tell him no autopsy was performed on his cousin and Hopper lied about Russo being killed with a handgun. Or maybe we tell DeMarco the night Russo died he was meeting with a reporter from the Post, and the reporter’s disappeared.”
“How would you leak all this to DeMarco?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll figure something out. But the idea is we give him something that’ll make him call Hopper again and make Hopper meet with whoever’s controlling him.”
“That could be rather dangerous for Mr. DeMarco, don’t you think?” Dillon said.
Claire stopped pacing and looked at Dillon. The expression on her face said and your point is?
“We actually don’t have to use DeMarco directly,” she said. “We’ve recorded his voice and I can have a guy imitate him. Then Hopper will run to his boss. Or maybe Hopper’s boss will send people to watch DeMarco…”
“And maybe kill him,” Dillon tossed in.
“… but we’ll be there covering DeMarco, and we’ll follow these people right down the rabbit hole.”
“No, Claire. I don’t want this DeMarco person involved, and I definitely don’t want him killed. Let’s leave him out of this, for the time being.”
Claire opened her mouth to debate this directive but, before she could, Dillon asked, “Tell me what else you’ve learned.”
Claire stared at Dillon for a moment, making no attempt to hide her annoyance. She was probably thinking how things would be different if she had his job. “We checked traffic cameras,” she said. “There wasn’t one right near the Iwo Jima Memorial but there was one half a mile away. The camera caught Hansen’s car going through the intersection half an hour after Russo’s body was discovered.”
“What about before Russo was killed? Did any of the cameras show Hansen going toward the memorial?”
“No. We looked at cameras on the most likely routes from Hansen’s apartment to the memorial, but none of them picked him up. He’s a local boy, so maybe he knew some back-road way to get there. Or maybe he didn’t drive from his apartment.”
“And I take it you couldn’t see who was driving the car.”
“No. Just the license plate. I don’t know why they don’t set up those fucking cameras so you can really see what’s going on.”
“They’re designed to catch people running stoplights, Claire, not to spy on the citizenry.”
“Well, that’s pretty damn shortsighted, if you ask me.”
“So you don’t really know who was in the car, Hansen or the people who might have killed him.”
“No, but you have one hell of a coincidence. Hansen goes missing the same day as the hit, and half an hour after the hit his car is spotted near the memorial. That’s good enough for me. They popped Russo and Hansen, and whoever was in charge took Hansen’s body. Then, while all the cops were looking at Russo’s corpse, one of the guys on the hit team comes back and picks up Hansen’s car.”
“And did what with it?”
“I don’t know,” she said, exasperated with Dillon’s mania for detail. “They took it to a wrecking yard and squeezed it into a little metal cube. Or they took it to a chop shop and had it cut up into a hundred pieces. It’s gone, just like Hansen, and neither will be found again. Hansen’ll be like that old-time reporter you like so much.”
