“And Joe DeMeo gets away with pinning the hotel bombing on the terrorists.”
“Joe’s a slick one,” I said.
We were silent a moment while Lou’s mind worked it. “You tell Darwin about DeMeo yet?”
“I wanted to bounce it off you first.”
“Uh huh. Well, we better let him be the one to tell the world,” Lou said.
“Or not tell them.”
“You think he’ll try to cover it up?”
“I think he’ll keep the blame focused on the terrorists. He left the possibility open with Monica, and this is a logical extension. It’s easy to believe, and it’s good politically; it justifies his job and budget and brings the country together.”
“He’ll have to tell the Feebs something,” Lou said.
“Whatever he tells them, our focus is Monica. After we confirm her death, we’ll give them the hotel bombing and let them take the credit for solving it.”
“That’s worst case scenario,” Lou said. “We might get lucky, find and rescue Monica. Then we give the Feebs all the glory and get a ton of future favors in return.”
I said nothing.
There was a short pause and then he said, “Oh, right. I got it. There will be no rescue.”
I said, “Just so we’re on the same page.”
Lou sighed. “This business,” he said.
“Don’t get me started.”
I told Lou to get some full-timers working on any connection they could find between Baxter Childers and Victor.
“Tell me about Victor,” he said, and I told him what I knew, except for the part about the spy satellite.
Then I asked, “How long you think it’ll take to find a connection?”
Lou laughed. “Five, maybe ten minutes.”
“You’re joking,” I said.
“Donovan, you and I each have our specialties, and for both of us, some jobs are harder than others. When you tell me that on the one hand you’ve got a world-famous surgeon, on the other an angry quadriplegic midget with dreadlocks, and you know there’s a connection and want me to find it—well that’s like asking you how long it would take to kill a hamster with a shotgun.”
“So that’s a yes.”
“It is.”
I told Lou to also contact the LAPD and bomb squad techs and get back to me ASAP. The more we learned about the bomb, the more we’d know about Joe DeMeo and the extent of his power.
“No way the attack on you could have been an inside job?” Lou asked.
“I don’t think so. If our guys, including you, wanted to kill me, it would be a lot easier to just poison me.” I glanced at Quinn and noticed him watching me with amused indifference. “Of course, Quinn knew about both Jenine and the hotel,” I said, “but it’s hard to pin it on him.”
Quinn pricked up his ears.
“Not because he’s my friend,” I said, aiming a smile in his direction, “but because he didn’t know my plans for after the DeMeo meeting. I didn’t tell him about the hotel or Jenine until a few minutes before we got there. And he didn’t know her name or what she looked like until she arrived. None of that really matters, because Augustus could kill me anytime he wants when we’re testing the ADS weapon.”
Quinn nodded and closed his eyes, glad to know he wasn’t a suspect. Now maybe I wouldn’t try to murder him in his sleep.
“One more thing,” Lou said. “They’ve got your cell phone number.”
I hadn’t thought about that, but sure, if Jenine had my number, DeMeo’s team had it.
“If he’s got whores and bombs, he’s probably got connections to a radical fringe element as well,” Lou said.
“So?”
“You might want to shut down your cell phone, just in case.”
“In case what?”
“In case DeMeo’s aiming a Stinger missile at your cell signal right now.”
“Shit!” I said. I hung up and ripped the battery out of my cell phone. The jet had a secure phone, and Quinn had one, too, so I didn’t need mine anyway. I took a deep breath, thinking,
I couldn’t sleep; I felt trapped inside the jet’s luxurious cabin. Felt impotent, too. Stuck in this metal cocoon, I couldn’t do anything about Janet or Monica or Kathleen or the hotel bombing. I couldn’t even read the book I’d
