old.
Dean’s sat phone began to ring.
“I just want to check this. Excuse me,” he told Sleeth. He got up, pulling the phone out as he walked to the door.
“Dean,” he said outside.
“Charlie, this is Chris Farlekas. I’m afraid you’re going to have to cut short your vacation. There’s something urgent that we need your help on. We’ll have a plane meet you at Le Havre Airport. OK?”
“What time?”
“As soon as you can get there. It’ll be on the ground in half an hour.”
15
“Oh, how precious — a onesie with a matching rattle.” Lia DeFrancesca tried very hard not to roll her eyes as the guest of honor continued to gush over her baby shower pres-ents. The very pregnant guest happened to be Lia’s best friend from high school, Tina Ricco, now Tina Ricco Kelly, well into the eighth month of pregnancy. Besides a healthy glow and a constant need to pee, Tina’s condition had apparently short-circuited several parts of her brain, causing her to use the word “precious” at least twenty times an hour and to speak of herself in the plural, as in, “We just think that’s adorable,” and, “We’ll have that drink super-sized.” Visiting Tina and her husband in their new home in North Carolina for a few days had seemed liked a good idea when Tina invited Lia. She envisioned long afternoons by the shore, sipping a cool drink from a tall glass. She might even get in a little shopping.
But the weather had turned out to be on the cool side, and Tina was generally too tired to spend more than fifteen minutes on her feet at a time. She was also too busy to go out — Lia’s arrival had come in the midst of a relentless stream of relatives and other friends, who dropped by nearly around the clock to “chat” and offer encouragement. Tina had made the mistake of saying that she planned on having the baby without painkillers, and her visitors felt obligated to let her know how foolish she was. They did this with war stories about their own excruciating times in labor, stories so vivid that even Lia got sympathy pains.
Fortunately, the pains of labor were no longer the topic of choice at the shower. Unfortunately, it was replaced by non-stop horror stories of babies with colic, babies who never slept, babies who never kept food in their stomachs. The odd thing was that the stories were told in the most cheerful way imaginable, and generally capped off with words to the effect of “You’ll love being a parent.” Lia resorted to vodka-spiked lemonade to remain calm.
If I ever have a baby, she thought, I’m going to keep it a secret until he’s eighteen.
Lia’s cell phone rang just as Tina unwrapped her third Diaper Genie. She jumped up to take the call, so thankful for the diversion that she would have bought storm windows from the most obnoxious telemarketer.
“Lia, this is Chris Farlekas. Can you talk?”
“Almost,” she said, walking out into the hallway.
“We need you here by eight a.m. tomorrow for a briefing.
I know it’s Sunday, I know you’re off, but—”
“Not a problem.”
“We’ll book a commercial flight from Raleigh-Durham. When do you want to leave?”
A burst of high-pitched giggling cascaded down the hall.
“I’m calling a cab for the airport right now.”
16
“The attack on Senator McSweeney involved at least two people: the man with a pistol, who appears to have been a decoy, and the actual shooter, who was located in this building across the way.”
The screen flashed as a picture of the office building across from the hotel appeared. Dean rolled his arms together in front of his chest, leaning back in the seat. He hadn’t been able to sleep on the plane coming back from Montana, nor had there been time for anything more than a quick nap before reporting to the Desk Three operations center in the basement of OPS/2B.
A face flashed on the screen. It belonged to a man about thirty years old. He had buzz-cut chestnut hair and a moon-shaped bruise below each eye. He seemed to be in pain.
“This was the decoy,” said Hernes Jackson, standing at the side of the room as he gave the briefing. “He had a pellet gun that looked like a Beretta. His name is Arthur Findley.” Jackson clicked the remote control in his hand, bringing two more pictures of Findley on the screen. In both, Findley looked heavily medicated, with a vacant gaze.
“Mr. Findley has been in and out of mental institutions for several years. His last known address was at an outpatient facility in Washington, D.C., two years ago,” continued Jackson. “Since then, he’s had no known address. He’s apparently somewhat well-known to the homeless community.
He seems to have been approached by a man who called himself John a few days ago. The man befriended him by giving him money, and eventually asked him to show up with the gun in front of the hotel.”
“And he didn’t have a problem with that?” asked Lia, sitting to Dean’s right. She’d already been here when Dean arrived, and seemed quiet, almost contemplative. They’d barely had a chance to say hello before the briefing began.
“Mr. Findley appears to have the mental age of a five-year-old,” said Jackson. “He clearly didn’t understand the implications. We have a sketch of the man, based on Mr. Findley’s descriptions.”
A nondescript computer-generated face appeared on the screen. He was white, of average height, maybe middle-aged.
“Needless to say, the FBI has come up with no real information about this person, John. There’s nothing in the Secret Service files, either.”
“What about the real shooter?” asked Lia.
Jackson shook his head. “Nothing. He appears to have used a stock Remington rifle with store-bought ammunition. They have that from the bullet. The thinking is the shooter wasn’t a professional. The shot was taken at eighty-five yards.” Dean grunted. On a range, eighty-five yards was nothing, not for a sniper or even a well- trained Marine. But in real life, with adrenaline flowing like beer in a biker bar, it could feel like miles.
Jackson said that the FBI was working to attempt to identify where the bullet had been purchased. But tracking ammunition wasn’t easy, especially when the ammo was relatively common, and so far the efforts had proved fruitless.
“The FBI identified the office from the trajectory of the shot,” continued Jackson. “There was nothing there — no spent shell, no trace of anything. All of the windows in that floor were open. The building has been vacant for about five months. No eyewitness has come forward. Two people in the area believed they saw an Asian man in the building a few days before.”
“Not much of a description,” said Lia.
“It may be significant,” said Jackson. “Which brings me to the second half of our briefing.”
“Let me preface the ambassador’s brief by saying that the relationship of this incident to Special Agent Forester’s death has yet to be determined,” interrupted Rubens. “There may in fact be no relationship at all. The only point of connection is that Forester was tracking down threats against the senator when he died. It is that investigation that concerns us.” Jackson flashed a picture of a Secret Service agent named Gerald Forester on the screen, explaining who he was and the fact that he had died about a week before the attempt on McSweeney. While the state police and the FBI had initially concluded that McSweeney had committed suicide, the head of the Secret Service had pressed his own agency to check into other possibilities.
“The lead investigator, an agent by the name of Mandarin, has also been assigned to this case,” said Jackson.
“That’s not necessarily a coincidence, though Mandarin is regarded as one of their top investigators.” Jackson
