The Undertaker

As gazed absently out the window at the Capitol, I realized the dark window glass also captured the reflection of Hardin's outer office. I could see his receptionist's desk. I could see the rear side of the office's telephone console. And I could see that none of the little red lights were on. I looked back at Hardin again and saw he was talking into the telephone anyway. I looked at the console again, then back at Hardin, and it did not compute. None of the lights on the telephone console were lit. Then I saw another reflection. In the back corner of Hardin's office, I saw a gaudy, red and gold U. S. Marine Corps flag and an icy shiver ran up my back. Next to the flag hung a large, framed photograph of men in jungle fatigues. Younger men smiling and laughing. Some framed ribbons and citations. And I saw a framed motto that read, “Zero Defects.” Hardin's shrine was not nearly as extensive or imposing as the one Ralph Tinkerton had in his office in Columbus, but I knew we had been had.

Hardin hung up the phone and smiled at Sandy. “They'll be here in a couple of minutes, so why don't you give me all that stuff you brought, especially those flash drives, Pete, and I'll lock it all up in my safe,” he said as he held out his hand toward me.

“Sure,” Sandy said as she picked up her stack of papers.

I took the three flash drives out of my jacket pocket, but kept a tight grip on them, wondering how I was going to get Sandy's attention so we could get the hell out of there. “Uh, you know, maybe we should keep them with us, Senator.”

“Pete, Pete, they'd be safest right here in my office.” He held out his hand and gave me that confident, toothy smile.

“Yeah, but what if the FBI wants to go over all that stuff with us tomorrow,” I began edging away. I motioned toward his “shrine” and said, “By the way, Senator, I didn't know you were in the Marines.”

“Me? I did a few tours, sure… Semper Fi,” he smiled lamely, not having a clue what I was getting at.

That was when I heard that all-too-familiar Texas twang behind me. “Good boy, Pete, bravo! You are finally catching on, aren't you?”

I spun around and found Ralph Tinkerton's large frame filling the doorway to the outer office. He was dressed in a stylish, beige, summer-weight business suit and burgundy tie, looking every inch the successful lawyer, except for the black Glock automatic with a long silencer he was holding in his hand.

“Now, put those flash drives on the corner of Timmy's desk and back away,” he said as he pointed the gun at Sandy.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Zero Defects, a zip drive, and a bag of cash…

“What are you doing here?” Hardin shrank back, surprised and worried.

“That is an excellent question. What am I doing here?” Tinkerton chuckled as he motioned with the automatic for me to step back, then picked up the three flash drives and slipped them in his jacket pocket. “I would say I am checking up on my old partner, “Major” Timothy Hardin.”

“You damned fool!” Hardin exploded. “Don't call me that!”

“Don't call you which? Major? Or partner?” He motioned me back even further. “Now, sit down, Pete.” He pointed the Glock toward the chair next to Sandy's. “And see to it you keep your little feet flat on the floor, Miz Kasmarek. I would threaten to shoot one of you if you get out of line, but better than that, I'll shoot the other. You two got that?”

Tinkerton turned back to Hardin. “You know, Timmy, it is positively amazing what a fellow can accomplish these days with one of those sleek little jets you were nice enough to have Justice to buy for us. My, my, but it saves time. An enterprising fellow can go damned near anywhere — Columbus, Chicago, Boston, New York, even Washington — in no time flat. But it's even more amazing what you can learn with a couple of well-placed telephone taps, once you understand whose telephones you ought to be tapping.”

“You tapped my phone? My phone!” Hardin turned red.

“Yours, Charley Billingham's, Rico Patillo's ...”

“How dare you!”

“How dare I?” He feigned surprise. “Well, Tim, how else would I know you had these special guests coming in all the way from… now, where was it? Tennessee? You know how we Texans do hate to miss a party.” The look of amusement on the big lawyer's face quickly changed to anger and cruelty as he turned the Glock on Hardin. “These days, I “dare” to do a whole lot of things “major.” Especially when it's my neck that's in the noose and I learn a traitor has sold me out.”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Tim, Tim, fuzzy language is the first sign of fuzzy thinking. Stop calling you what? Traitor? Or, do you mean partner? Or, is it major again? This is all getting very confusing for me, so you must put it in itty-bitty little words that even a dumb west Texas hick like me can understand.” Tinkerton looked down at him with utter contempt. “Isn't it funny how you didn't object to what we did when it was Sergeant Dannmeyer and Lieutenant Tinkerton taking the orders and doing all your dirty work for you.”

Shut up!” Hardin hissed as he glanced nervously at Sandy and me.

“Surely you jest,” Tinkerton laughed cynically. “You are afraid of these two? Why, Major Hardin, I would bet the farm that my old friend Pete Talbott saw through your bull shit act a long time ago, even before I came walking in. Didn't you, Pete?”

I looked at Tinkerton and at Hardin, but I said nothing.

“You see, Pete here is a very smart boy,” Tinkerton went on. “He may not look like a whole lot, but it doesn't pay to underestimate him, I assure you of that.” He looked at his bandaged hand and flexed it. “I underestimated him several times and I learned that lesson the hard way.” He turned toward Sandy and me with those cold, gray, November eyes and a particularly nasty smile. “By the way, Pete, you and your little hump here owe me a new Rolex watch, remember? You owe me for a couple of other things too, and before this night's over I intend to take them out in trade.”

I saw Sandy's hands flex on the armrest, so I put my hand on hers. This wasn't a good time for her to rise to the bait.

“Let me venture a guess, Pete. I bet the good major told you he was calling the FBI and they would swoop in here and whisk the two of you off to a safe house somewhere in the lovely Virginia countryside. Is that what he told you?” Tinkerton's eyes twinkled with amusement. “He was calling in the cavalry to the rescue, the bad guys would go to jail, and the two of you would live happily ever after? Is that the fairy tale you told them, Major? Oh, shame on you.”

Hardin glared at Tinkerton, but the Senator did not answer.

“The cavalry?” Tinkerton walked to the window and looked down into dark side city street beneath the window. “I don't see any horses, but there is a large, midnight-blue Mercedes with New Jersey license plates parked down there by the side door. Did you know that, Tim? Is that what the FBI is driving these days? Mercedes Benz sedans with Jersey license plates. Or, could that be a couple of Rico Patillo's gunmen sitting inside?”

He backed away and motioned me to the window with the Glock. “Come over here, Pete. Take a look for yourself… Carefully, very carefully.”

I stepped to the window and sure enough, there was a large, dark Mercedes parked in the side street near the building's rear entrance.

Tinkerton motioned me back to the chair. “You phoned the good Senator here and told him you and your little slut were coming down to Washington, right here to his office where you'd be safe, so you could personally hand him Louie Panozzo's files on those flash drives, didn't you?” Tinkerton shook his head. “You are such a fool, Pete. Do you have any idea what you had in your pocket? Do you? You were handing Timmy the world on a silver platter, on Rico Patillo's platter, and that Mercedes is what you were going to get in return, you and “Miz” Kasmarek.”

He motioned toward the Marine Corps flag standing in the far corner of the room, surrounded by all his photographs and decorations. “A Silver Star,” he shook his head sadly. “The voters ate that up, didn't they, Major? You should read the citation, it would make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. “Heroism above and beyond…” at “the risk of his own life…” against “a skilled and resourceful enemy…” and all the rest of that crap. It was great stuff, really. It took Sergeant Dannmeyer and me half the night and a bottle of Chivas in a Saudi bar to put that crap down on paper without vomiting.”