“Where are we going?”
“Arlington National Cemetery. There’s something I have to show you.”
CHAPTER 53
“OLIVER, DON’T YOU GET TIRED of graveyards? I mean, it seems a little obsessive,” Annabelle commented as they trudged along the asphalt at Arlington, the nation’s most exalted burial ground for its military dead. Most of the graves were represented by a simple white marker, although some of the statuary over the tombs of the famous, or else the very rich, were extraordinarily ostentatious, and often in rather poor taste. To Stone it seemed the less grandiose the grave marker the more the departed had actually done for his country.
He said, “Come on. It’s not much farther.”
He led her down the familiar path, counting off the rows in his head. This was a quiet section of the cemetery, one that he had often visited just to have some peace.
An instant later, he felt himself stagger, his balance suddenly gone. The area was not so quiet and peaceful today. At the thirty-ninth grave marker in the fourth row of this section of dead there was a great deal of activity in fact. Men were digging. As Stone and Annabelle watched, the coffin was raised out of the earth and carried past them to a waiting van that had been driven onto the path.
“Oliver?” Annabelle said. “What is it? What’s wrong?” She put a hand on his shoulder as he steadied himself against a tree.
Stone finally found his voice. “Do not follow me out of here. I’ll meet you back at the cottage.”
“But-”
“Just go.” He set off in the direction of the departing van.
As the cemetery workers started to fill the hole back in, Annabelle strolled casually by the grave.
“I thought they were supposed to put coffins
One worker glanced up at her, but said nothing. He went back to his shoveling.
She moved a bit closer, squinting to read the name on the marker.
“Uh, can you tell me where they do the changing of the guard here?” she asked as she edged closer.
As the worker told her she glanced over his shoulder and finally made out the name chiseled on the marker.
“John Carr,” she said to herself.
On foot, Stone followed the van until it hit the main road and then shot out of sight, after passing around the traffic circle leading away from the cemetery. It didn’t cross over Memorial Bridge into Washington. Instead the van headed west, farther into Virginia. Stone had a good idea where it and the coffin were going: Langley, home of the CIA.
He called Reuben on his cell phone.
“I want you to contact every friend you have at DIA and find out why a grave was exhumed at Arlington National Cemetery today.”
“Whose grave?” Reuben asked.
“A man by the name of John Carr.”
“Did you know the guy?”
“As well as I know myself. Hurry, Reuben, it’s important.”
Stone clicked off and made another phone call, this time to Alex Ford, the only living person other than Annabelle Conroy who knew that Stone’s real name was John Carr.
“You saw them dig it up?” Alex said.
“Yes. Please find out what you can.”
Stone walked back to his cottage, certain that Annabelle, who’d driven them both over to Arlington National, would beat him there.
She was standing by his desk when he walked in. “You look good for a dead man.”
He said, “Where are Paddy and Caleb?”
“They went to the grocery store. You apparently don’t keep much food here. Caleb told me to tell you he was appalled.” She motioned to the papers on Stone’s desk. “You’ve got quite a file going on Jerry here.”
“Jerry and you,” he said, startling her.
“You dug up stuff on me?”
“No, my friend only pulled Bagger’s file. The stuff on you is just conjecture.”
He sat down behind his desk.
“So the cemetery piece is bad, I take it.”
Stone said, “Let’s put it this way-when they open that coffin, they’ll be surprised what they don’t find in it, namely me.”
“Is there another body in the coffin?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t have any input in the decision. I was too busy avoiding
“Why would they be digging it up now?”
“I don’t know.”
“So what was the problem you mentioned earlier?”
“It’s not something I can really talk about.”
Her face flushed angrily. “You’re telling
Inwardly, Stone winced. For years he’d kept a sign in Lafayette Park that had read, “I want the truth.”
“Annabelle, it’s not something I can talk-”
“Don’t. Don’t try to make bullshit excuses. I took bullshit to an art form.”
Stone simply sat there, while Annabelle tapped the heel of her shoe on the plank flooring. “Look, Oliver, or John, or whatever the hell your real name is.”
“I told you my real name before. It’s John Carr.”
“Good, that’s a start. Keep going.”
He rose. “No. I won’t. And I can’t help you now with Jerry Bagger. In fact, the faster you can get away from me the better. Take your father and use all your money to run as far and as fast as you can. I’m sorry, Annabelle. I’m sorry. If you’re anywhere near me, you’ll die. I can’t have that on my conscience too.”
He gripped her arm, walked her to the front door and closed it behind her.
CHAPTER 54
HARRY FINN’S MOTHER rose early. The pain, the gnawing at her bones, always made her rise before dawn.
She used the bathroom, shuffled back to her bed and read through her newspapers with the discipline of a lifetime. The radio and TV news shows followed in her ritual of endless fact-finding. And that’s when she found herself staring at his face up there on the screen. She clawed at the remote control, and his grinning, smug countenance disappeared.
Her breaths coming in gasps, she looked down at the cell phone her son had given her. She had never called him on it; it was only reserved for emergencies, he’d told her. She kept it tied to a string that she wore around her neck. She only took it off to bathe. She needed to call him. She needed to know about the man. The face on the TV. Was it true? Could it be true?
She heard someone coming and quickly slipped back on the bed. The door opened and the attendant came in, whistling.
