Dark Ambition (21 page)

"Last night at ten-thirty, Pacific time," Traynor said, "we took Jeb Hines to the town of Montecito, outside of Santa Barbara, where he confronted the fifth George Nesbitt at his home. Jeb's convinced he's not the man."

With a flourish, Traynor drew a line through number five. He was playing it up for Murtaugh, emphasizing what a thorough manhunt he had directed.

Ben said, "Number six is our San Jose computer VP, right?"

Traynor nodded.

"The guy we haven't been able to find?"

"We found him."

Ben looked up. "Well?" he said anxiously.
 

"He called his home late last night, and we traced the call. It was made from the Trade Winds Hotel along Mission Bay in San Diego. Yesterday around six in the evening Nesbitt checked into the hotel."

"Alone?"

"Accompanied by another man. They took one room with a king-size bed. Room 807."

"Has Hines seen the man?"

"Not yet."

Fulton jumped in, "What do you mean, not yet?"

With Director Murtaugh now personally involved, Traynor was determined to play it by the book. "They showed the room clerk the artist's sketch of Nesbitt. He says the guy in 807 could very well be our man, but we're not going in without a warrant. The magistrate should have signed it at seven o'clock Pacific time this morning." Traynor glanced at his watch. "Ten minutes ago."

Ed added, "And suppose Nesbitt got away while your guys were fucking around with the magistrate?"

Ben smiled. At least this guy was consistent.

"There's no chance of that," Traynor said, proud of how he'd handled it. "Once we established that they were in the room, we've had someone outside in the corridor all night. No one came in. No one went out."

"What happens now?"

Traynor eyed the phone. "They'll call us here in a few minutes with a report."

* * *

Jeb Hines, accompanied by two members of the FBI's San Diego office, raced with guns drawn into the lobby of the Trade Winds Hotel along Mission Bay. Chuck Connor, the head of the local FBI office, flashed his badge at the startled desk clerk. Half a dozen hotel guests immediately scattered.

"We're going up to eight-oh-seven," Connor said to the desk clerk.

In the elevator he reached into his pocket and extracted a pair of metal cutters. "I can get through a chain in twenty seconds," he boasted to Hines. Then he reached into another jacket pocket and waved the search warrant he had gotten minutes earlier. "I was told to play it by the book," he said, and laughed.

On the eighth floor, Connor nodded to the agents at each end of the corridor. With Hines in tow, Connor walked up to room 807. "You stay here and cover me," Connor said, handing the warrant to Hines. "Christ, I hate faggots."

Connor never gave a warning. With a gun in his right hand and metal cutters in his left, he smashed his shoulder, driven with all the force that his two-hundred-forty-five-pound body could muster, against the door to room 807, directly above the doorknob. The thin wooden door shattered as the chain ripped out of the frame. Connor dropped the metal cutters and ran into the room.

Startled out of a deep sleep, two naked men bolted upright to a sitting position in the king-size bed.

"What the fuck is this?" one of them screamed angrily.

Connor flashed his badge. "FBI. We're looking for George Nesbitt."

"Yeah, well, I'm George Nesbitt," the other man said defiantly. He wrapped the sheet around his lower body and stood up. That left his partner, naked and exposed, grabbing a pillow to cover his privates.

"Just stop right there," Connor said, pointing the gun threateningly at Nesbitt. "Jeb, get in here," he called over his shoulder.

Hines ran into the room carrying his own gun.

"What do you think?" Connor asked him.

Hines looked carefully at the man and then at his friend, still sitting in bed. "Negative," he said, not concealing his disappointment.

"Sorry, guys," Connor said. "The wrong George Nesbitt."

He turned and started to leave.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?"
Nesbitt screamed at him. "Breaking in like this? You ever heard of the Constitution? I'll sue you and the FBI for so much money that you'll be cleaning out toilets the rest of your life."

Connor wheeled around. "We had a search warrant. Besides," he said, pointing at the sheet, "I doubt that your wife and kids would enjoy a lawsuit like that."

* * *

Dejectedly, Bill Traynor listened on the phone to Connor's report. The others in the room quickly deduced what had occurred.

"What do we do now?" Traynor asked Ben when he hung up the phone.

Before he could respond, Fulton chimed in, "We've got our marching orders. We file charges against Clyde Gillis."

"We?" Ben said. "Don't forget, hotshot, I'm the only one here who can file that case. I haven't decided what I'm going to do."

"Then I guess you need your ears checked, because I sure as hell heard Mr. Slater order you to file those charges by four today, regardless of what happened with George Nesbitt."

Ben's face turned stony. "You may not believe this, but Jim Slater can't order me to do squat."

"Now, that's a novel view of the executive branch of the government."

"Stick around. You'll learn all sorts of new things."

Ben felt better yanking Fulton's chain. In reality he knew Fulton was right. Ben had the grand jury primed and ready to rubber-stamp an indictment charging Clyde Gillis with first-degree murder. From the evidence, he thought he had no choice, apart from his own nagging doubts. Al Hennessey would be able to announce to the world at four o'clock today that charges had been filed. Ben knew damn well that if he refused to sign the indictment, any of the other assistant U.S. Attorneys would be eager to add their names. The ball was rolling.

 

 

 

Chapter 13

 

Jennifer shut the door of her office and told her secretary to hold all of her calls. She needed time to think about the Clyde Gillis case.

How could she represent a client who wouldn't talk to her?

She kept asking herself, Did Gillis kill Winthrop? Is that why he wouldn't talk to me?

She refused to believe that. Earlier this morning she had met with Gillis's wife, Lucinda, who affirmed her husband's innocence in the strongest terms. "You've got to help my Clyde," she had pleaded. "The Lord knows he didn't kill anybody."

So like any good criminal lawyer, Jennifer pushed aside any doubts about what her client did or didn't do, pressing ahead to prepare a defense. Her objective was to build a solid enough case that the Chinese government had hired George Nesbitt to kill Winthrop, and that the administration, to avoid a foreign policy brouhaha, was engaged in a massive cover-up, with Clyde Gillis taking the fall. Once she had her case built, she intended to present it to Ben. He'd realize how well it would play before a D.C. jury. She was also confident that her position would work its way up to Sarah Van Buren, the AG, and maybe even the President, because of the foreign policy and political implications of her going forward with this explosive story. Of course, if it was White House intervention she was looking for, she could pick up the phone and call Jim Slater. She considered and rejected that possibility in a nanosecond. Her relationship with Jim was already too complicated.

Jennifer realized that while her plan made sense in theory, she was missing a major ingredient. Her case against the Chinese government was anything but solid. The idea of George Nesbitt as a hired assassin lost credibility when she thought about what Detective Campbell had told her at Ann's house on Saturday. If Campbell was right that the stain on the front of Winthrop's pants was precoital fluid, that suggested Nesbitt had come for a sexual encounter. Was Robert Winthrop bisexual? If he was, then had Nesbitt tried to exploit that fact to blackmail him? Or had they planned a homosexual encounter that produced an argument, which led to Nesbitt's shooting Winthrop? Suppose Nesbitt wouldn't do it with Winthrop for some reason. Winthrop got angry. Winthrop threatened Nesbitt to get him to change his mind. He refused. Winthrop kept pressing. Finally Nesbitt killed Winthrop. Leaving the house, he tossed some money and the gun into Clyde Gillis's truck when the guards weren't looking. It seemed plausible.

Or maybe Clyde Gillis really did kill Winthrop.

So how could she build her case?

"Facts," she remembered her criminal law professor had taught her. "You always start with facts."

The fluid Campbell had observed in front of Winthrop's pants was a fact. The file folder stuffed with condoms downstairs in Winthrop's house was a fact. Winthrop's liaisons with prostitutes had given the Chinese ambassador the ammunition to blackmail the secretary of state. That was a fact. The common ingredient in all of these was Winthrop's sexual behavior. Somewhere in that behavior was the key to unlocking the puzzle of his death. She had to find that key.

Jennifer hit the intercom button on her telephone. "Kathy," she said to her secretary, "please get me Dr. Grace Hargadon at NIMH."

"A messenger just arrived with something for you, Miss Moore."

"Will you bring it in?"

Kathy entered a moment later carrying the largest floral arrangement Jennifer had ever seen. She put the flowers down on a credenza and handed Jennifer a small envelope. Inside, the note read,
I enjoyed being with you at dinner last evening—Jim.

Kathy looked at her expectantly. "A new boyfriend. Miss Moore?"

Jennifer blushed. "Nothing of the sort. Now get me Dr. Hargadon on the phone."

Grace was able to see Jennifer in an hour. While packing up her briefcase to head out to NIH, Jennifer stopped and stared at the flowers. The arrangement was quite magnificent. He was entitled to a thank-you. She checked her directory of government telephone numbers and dialed 284-2000.

It was impressive to hear the operator announce, "This is the White House."

"Jim Slater, please."

A secretary picked up. "Mr. Slater's office. Who's calling?"

"Jennifer Moore."

"Please hold...."

There was a long pause while the secretary asked Slater if he could take the call. It'll be just as well if he doesn't, Jennifer thought. I'll just leave the thank-you message with her and be done with it.

But Slater picked up. "Well, hello, there, Jennifer. Great evening at the Kelsos'. What can I do for you?" He sounded relaxed and self-confident.

"I want to know if you bought out the flower shop."

Acting surprised, he laughed. "Oh, they came."

"Jim, they're incredible. Thanks so much."

"Happy to hear you like them. Nosegay does a great job."

She wanted him to know how much she appreciated the thought. "They've certainly made my day."

"Listen, I've got an offer for you. Tomorrow evening the Washington Opera's doing
Luisa Miller.
I could probably scrounge up a couple of tickets for the presidential box. How about that and a late dinner somewhere?"

"How'd you know I like opera?"

"Well, you are on the opera board. That gave me a hint."

She was pleased that he was obviously doing some checking on her. Then she thought about Ann's advice that getting started with any married man, even one as attractive as Slater, was a mistake. She could tell him that she was supposed to see
Luisa Miller
next week, which was true, of course, because she had missed the performance last Saturday when Robert died, to spend time with Ann.

From her silence, he sensed her hesitation. "It is Verdi. Nothing wrong with seeing it twice in a season."

"Great. I'd love to," she replied.

"I'll leave your ticket at the box office."

* * *

Chip Donovan sat at his desk and examined the message, now decoded, that Sherman had sent from Shanghai via the venture capital firm in San Francisco. Chinese troop movements had advanced. The President's warning to Liu yesterday, following the consensus reached at the meeting Donovan had attended with Hawkins, Cunningham, and Joyner, had done nothing to slow down the Chinese deployment toward the Strait of Taiwan.

Let them keep coming, Donovan thought. Unlike Cunningham, President Brewster had balls. If the Chinese dared to attack Taiwan, and Donovan hoped they would, he was confident that Brewster would respond with force. Now was the time to fight that battle. The United States couldn't afford to wait much longer for the inevitable battle over Taiwan. Not at the rate the Chinese military machine was developing.

But would the Chinese attack?

That was why Operation Matchstick was so important. If Chen succeeded, and Donovan was confident he would, that would be the spark that would force the Chinese to attack.

As Donovan reread Sherman's report, there was one fact in it that disturbed him. "Extremely nervous" was how Sherman described Chen. Jesus, I hope he doesn't bail out on me now, Donovan thought. Everything's in place. Don't let me down.

* * *

Jennifer briskly climbed the concrete stairs in front of building ten of the National Institute of Mental Health, one of the largest in the NIH complex in Bethesda. She averted her eyes from the sun reflecting off the black glass windows.