120
Chief Ball had a cover story all ready, but the clerk at the car rental counter didn’t even bother looking at the name as Amanda Rauci’s credit card cleared the scan. He was too busy selling the optional insurance.
“I guess I’ll take it,” said Ball as soon as the man glanced at the card. “The insurance.”
“Can’t be too careful,” said the clerk happily. He slapped the card through the reader and handed it back to Ball without checking the name.
In the old days, the days when he was back from Vietnam, Ball would have immediately driven down to the worst ghetto in the city and sold the car for cash and, with luck, a new ID.
He’d quickly acquire a whole set of phony identification—
license, credit cards, Social Security number, anything and everything he needed.
But he was too old for that, and not “hip” to the local scene. He didn’t know where the chop shops were, and certainly wouldn’t have known who to trust. He didn’t even know if you could make money doing that anymore.
Looking tough when you were sixty wasn’t nearly as easy as when you were twenty. If he looked like anything now, it was probably a cop: an old, has-been cop.
He’d fallen down a rat hole. Plunged down.
He’d never felt like this, not even in Vietnam.
He thought of Amanda Rauci, and his hands started to tremble.
Just drive, he told himself. Just drive.
121
Rubens waited until he had reached his office to call the President. Even so, it was only just 6:00 a.m. The switch-board operator gave him Mark Kimbel, the most junior aide to the chief of staff.
“Mr. Rubens, what can we do for you?”
“I have important information for the President,” said Rubens.
“Important enough to wake him up?”
“No,” said Rubens. “But he should call at his earliest con ve nience.”
President Marcke called Rubens back an hour later.
“What’s going on, Billy?”
“The man who was identified as Sergeant Tolong and buried at Arlington National Cemetery is not Sergeant Tolong,” said Rubens.
“Is it Ball?”
“We’re working on that,” said Rubens. The FBI had been unable to obtain DNA samples to match relatives; tracking them down, obtaining and testing samples, and most of all doing it with the legal paperwork necessary to be used in court would take some time.
“Assuming you’re right, linking this Chief Ball and Tolong won’t actually prove that McSweeney was involved in the theft of the money, will it?” asked Marcke.
“No, sir. As I said, there may in fact be no link.”
“Which would mean he would get away with it, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think the senator’s reaction would be if someone told him what you know now? In other words,” explained the President, “if you said that the attempt on his life may have had something to do with the theft of money in Vietnam, and that we think he’s being pursued by one of the men.”
“I don’t know.”
“As we saw with the Vietnam information, word will leak at some point,” explained the President. “Let’s see if it will give us some advantage. Don’t mention that we suspect he may have ended up with the loot, or is otherwise involved.”
122
The customs agent came up to Tommy Karr’s belt.
“Could you and Mr. Dean come with me, Mr. Karr?” she asked.
“Now how do you know I’m Tommy Karr?” said Karr, suppressing a laugh.
“I was told to look for the biggest man on the plane.”
“Got you there,” said Dean, shouldering his carry-on bag.
The diminutive customs agent led them around the side of the row of customs stations, through a door, and into a hallway that was part of a secure area at Los Angeles International Airport. Another customs agent met them and asked to see their passports.
“Gee, I don’t know if I have mine,” said Karr, before handing over his brown diplomatic passport.
“Plane ride put you in a goofy mood?” asked Dean as they were led down the hall.
“No — twenty-something hours of Abbott and Costello did. I have the ‘Who’s on First’ routine memorized. Want to hear it?”
Dean declined.
They were shown into a conference room used by the customs agents for briefings and updates. When the agents left, Dean asked the Art Room what was going on.
“We think Tolong’s death was staged,” said Sandy Chafetz, who’d taken over as their runner while Rockman got some rest. She explained that DNA evidence had proven that the remains that were brought back weren’t Tolong’s.
“Our working theory is that McSweeney, Gordon, and Ball were involved in taking the money during Vietnam,” said Chafetz. “And for some reason they had a falling-out.
The FBI and the local police are reinvestigating Gordon’s death; it’s very possible he was pushed rather than jumped from that window.”
“So you think Ball was the one who tried to kill McSweeney?”
“We’re not sure,” said Chafetz. “It looks from his credit cards that he was there. But we can’t find him now to verify that. There may be another player — it’s possible someone killed him, or he’s just hiding out. Everyone’s looking for him — FBI, Secret Service, and us. Tommy, they want you to join the press corps covering McSweeney. Stay undercover and see if you spot Ball or pick up anything else suspicious.
We’ve uploaded photos and other information for you, along with credentials.”
“I always wanted to be a reporter,” said Karr.
“What am I doing?” Dean asked.
“Mr. Rubens wants to talk to you about your assignment himself.”
123
Amanda Rauci’s credit card had been used the day before to rent a car in Buffalo, New York; the information was flagged and passed along to the Desk Three analysts as soon as it reached the credit card company from the pro cessing firm, roughly eight hours after the transaction itself. The information led the analysts to request the tapes from video surveillance cameras at the two train stations that served Buffalo, Exchange Street and Depew. Neither station was very large, nor did many trains stop there. But Amanda Rauci had not been spotted.
A man who
