Serious weaponry: not the Ruger Mini-14s but a rack of M4s, all with high-tech red-dot optics, several crates of 5.56 NATO and 12 gauge, four short-barreled pump shotguns, some chemical crowd control gimcracks, a rack of gas masks. On a metal shelf in the back, he found some papers, someone’s copy of
Got it, even as he realized the absurd ease with which all this had happened.
He grabbed the case, pulled the guard with him, closed the vault.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” he said to his captive. “If I had a brain in my head I’d snap your spine and be done with you, cowboy. But I’m a nice guy, see. So you and me, we’s walking out the door like buddies, to the motor compound in the back. Then I’m popping tires on all the other vehicles, and you and I are going for a ride. I’ll toss you out somewheres along the way, and tomorrow night you can have dinner with the wife and kids. You’ll be out of a job but not out of the rest of your life.”
“Mister, you are in so much trouble. You put that goddamn briefcase back or-”
“Let’s go, bub.”
He led the now cooperating man through the back entrance, and as he stepped through the door, someone hit him a perfect shot in the brachial plexus, the nerve group that ran from his shoulder to his neck, and his body went useless and puttylike on him. He fell, and the others were on him in seconds with their hard professional knowledge of leverage and application of force and pain. In another second, his own hands were snared in flex-cuffs. He was hauled roughly to his feet.
Whack! the man he’d taken hit him in the face, and for his troubles was shoved hard to the ground by another dark figure.
“You’ll be minding your manners now, mate,” said his persecutor.
Then he turned to Swagger, smiling. “Well, damn me eyes, look and see what the cat has brought in from the meadow.”
It was Anto Grogan.
36
Nick was alone in the house, as he had been for much of the week. Sally was finishing up some big case and wouldn’t be home until much later. Nick had read, watched DVDs, listened to music, and otherwise filled the time of his exile. But enough with the Lean Cuisines nuked, stirred, renuked, and stirred again. No more macaroni and cheese!
He looked out the window. Finally, they’d all gone away, the entourage of reporters who’d set up shop in the front yard to bedevil him. The weather had turned cold, it was late on a Friday night and nothing happened in Washington on a Friday night, so all the boys and girls of estate4.com had gone home early.
He should have shaved, but what the hell. He slipped on a sports coat, went into the garage, and pulled out. God, for just a few seconds the liberation was its own reward, the sense of being outside the house, away from the same four walls. He drove aimlessly through Fairfax and finally decided, since it was late and the line would be down, to head to Ray’s the Steaks in Arlington. He slid through the Northern Virginia night without much difficulty, found parking on the street, and headed into the old house that had become one of the most popular restaurants in the area.
“Is the kitchen still open?” he asked the maitre d’.
“You just made it, sir.”
“I can eat in the bar if it’s easier.”
“No, we’ve got tables. This way, please.”
He followed the man through the three-quarters-full room to a corner table for two, approved of its darkness and obscurity, and took a seat. In a bit, he ordered a drink, since he sure wasn’t on duty and wasn’t carrying anything except his credit cards.
“Bourbon and water.”
“Preference, sir?”
“Sure, Knob Creek, if you don’t mind.”
“Yes sir.”
He studied the menu and ended up with what he always ordered-house salad, filet, medium rare, mashed-and since Sally wasn’t here, he allowed himself to enjoy the luxury of skipping the asparagus. He sat, meditating, enjoying the mellow power of the bourbon to confer its merciful blur on things, and tried to figure out what to do next but of course knew that whatever he decided would be preempted by the Bureau’s next move.
Would he be formally terminated with cause? It might happen. More likely, he’d be demoted to some make-work job-hmm, had they closed out the who-really- fathered-Bristol-Palin’s-baby investigation?-while the Office of Professional Responsibility put together a case against him; then he’d be advised of a hearing, he’d have to hire a lawyer, there’d be some back-and-forth, and what would happen would happen.
A shadow fell across the table.
He looked up.
“I figured it would be you. At least it’s not Banjax,” he said.
“Hi, Nick. I’m hoping you won’t chase me away. We should talk,” said Bill Fedders.
“Sure, Bill,” said Nick. “Sit yourself down. Waiter, waiter, bring Mr. Fedders a drink, whatever he wants, on my tab.”
“Well, aren’t we feeling generous,” Fedders said. “Better let me put it on my tab. It’s the least I can do.”
Fedders ordered a vodka martini, dry, Grey Goose, and explained that by “dry” he meant that the olive should be allowed to read the label on the vermouth and that was it for vermouth.
Nick thought it was actually kind of funny but suspected that it was a treasured Feddersism, famous all over DC. He was hearing it late because normally he was so distant from the fabulous Fedders orbit.
“So, Nick,” said Bob.
“So, Bill,” said Nick.
Fedders’s drink came and Fedders toasted, “Nick, to you. I always liked you. None of this was because anybody disliked you. You’re a hell of a guy, Nick, and a hell of an agent.”
“Hear, hear,” said Nick, drinking to himself.
“It’s not too late, Nick. You can call the director, tell him in the time off your thinking has clarified on the case and you are one hundred percent behind resolution now and moving onward. Get that report issued, hang the case-closed tag on it, and sit back and relax. Then maybe some of the forces that seem to be conspiring to destroy you could conspire to help you.”
“You can make it happen that fast?” said Nick. “You can stop the
“Well, Nick, you overestimate my power, sure. But I can make some things happen. I’ve been in this old town since the first Roosevelt. I used to date Alice Longworth, in fact. I’ve got a few favors owed me; I’ve sure done enough in my time.”
“Impressive, Bill, I give you that. Impressive.”
“Nick, really, what’s the problem? The Big Guy doesn’t want to spend the last years of his life reading how he hired aliens to murder his ex-wife because she was sleeping with some kid with too much mousse in his hair. Can you blame him? Once all you guys go to case-closed, the report is the record, the verdict, the official version. Nobody will have access to the evidence. No more nutcase articles, nobody getting rich on craptastic books and DVDs, no movie versions, no
“Wow, again, you can do that?”
“My pleasant voice, suave charm, brilliant instincts, and, oh yes, Tom Constable’s six billion bucks. Money talks loud. He just wants this goddamn thing to go away.”
“I’d think he’d want the guilty party drawn and quartered.”
“Nick, I can’t argue the case with you, but the crazy marine sniper thing made absolute sense to Tom and he bought it totally. Maybe he’s deluding himself, because he also saw how quickly and neatly it ended things.”
“Or maybe he did pay somebody to kill her and frame Hitchcock. Or maybe killing her wasn’t even the point, maybe it was killing one of the others, like that, what was his name, the comic, Mitch Greene.”
“Nick, believe me, nobody would go to that much trouble to kill Mitch Greene.”
“Well, I’m sure you’re right about it, but I can’t see hanging it up until we’ve worked out all the possibilities, not just the most obvious ones. That’s my obligation as a law enforcement officer. I can’t walk away from that, no matter what.”
“Nick, really, the news isn’t good. Not tomorrow, but in a few days, the
So that was it. That’s why Bill was here, to deliver the news in person. Nick had no doubt that at some level Fedders was genuine in his affection for Nick and was probably going to some kind of extra exertion out of some kind of twisted nobility to deliver the news in person.
“You know, it’s all crap,” Nick said. “I never did a thing for FN, took one red cent, one lousy meatball. I didn’t even know they’d bought Winchester. I have no brief for the Model 70 over the 700. I don’t know anything about firearms acquisitions; that’s handled at Quantico. I missed most of the meetings for the Sniper Rifle Committee.”
“Nick, the evidence says different, and it’s a hard one to talk your way out of. I’d get good counsel, if I were you, and I’ll tell you what he’ll say. He’ll say, ‘Let me cut a deal. You sign off on something else, maybe behavior detrimental to the Bureau, have a suspension, and when you come back, they’ll move you someplace out of the mainstream. That way you keep your pension and it all looks rosy and cosy.’ That’s good advice, Nick. Don’t try to play hardball with this thing. It’s too big. It’ll squash you. The more you fight it, the worse off you are.”
“See, Bill, here’s the funny thing. If you want to go after me, that’s fine. I’m a big boy, I’m in a hot-seat job, it’s what I wanted, it was the risk I ran to pay for my ambition. I can go down; it’s the way of the wicked world. But you guys went after Swagger. Let me tell you, it takes a powerful kind of fool to go after Swagger. He
