Hell's Corner (25 page)
“The British embassy is known for its first-class accommodations,” noted Chapman as she sat on the couch. “And a hotel just doesn’t cut it when one is examining classified documents and carrying a laptop with highly secret data.” She rose. “Give me a sec to dress and we’ll have a spot of tea.”
She left the room and Stone could hear drawers and doors opening and closing. A few minutes later she came out dressed in a skirt, blouse, no hose and no shoes. She was just finishing buttoning her blouse. He glanced away when she looked up at him.
“Feel better?” he said casually.
“Loads, thanks. I’m famished.” She picked up the phone, ordered tea and some food and joined Stone at the desk.
“Any word from your friends, the Camel Club?”
“Caleb called during his lunch hour. He faxed the list over of upcoming events at the park.” Stone picked up two sheets of paper. “Here they are. There are lots of potential targets on there, unfortunately.”
Chapman ran her eye down the list. “I see what you mean. Any of them stand out among the others?”
“A few. Two that the president was going to be attending. Other heads of state, congressmen, celebrities. But narrowing it down will be difficult.”
“But my PM isn’t in the mix.” She put down the papers and looked thoughtful. “You know, chances are very good that I’ll be pulled off this little caper.”
“Because of no proven threat against the PM?”
“That’s right. MI6 doesn’t have unlimited resources.”
“But the implications of what is being planned here could have global repercussions that reach to the UK.”
“That’s what I’ll say in my next report. Because I’d like to see this through. But I wouldn’t be surprised if you have to carry on without me.”
Stone didn’t say anything for a few moments. “I hope that’s not the case,” he said.
She looked at him closely. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“It was meant as one.”
When the tea and food came they ate and drank while going over the evidence once more.
“Nothing from Garchik and his mysterious debris?” Chapman asked as she took a bite of a hot scone.
“No. Weaver from NIC has cut me off. FBI too, obviously. ATF may be next.” He looked at her. “Guilt by association, I’m afraid. You won’t be too popular either.”
“I’ve dealt with worse. Got on the wrong side of the queen once.”
Stone looked intrigued. “How?”
“Misunderstanding that was more her fault than mine. But she’s the queen so there you are. But it eventually got sorted out.” She took another bite of scone. “But from what I’ve learned about you, you’re a man who’s used to rocking the boat.”
“That was never my intent,” Stone said quietly.
She leaned back in her chair. “You expect me to believe that?”
“I did my job, even when I didn’t agree with it. In that regard I was weak.”
“You were trained to follow orders. We all are.”
“It’s never that simple.”
“If it isn’t that simple our world goes to hell in a hurry.”
“Well maybe sometimes it should go to hell.”
“And I guess it did for you.”
“You ever been married?”
“No.”
“Ever want to be?”
Chapman looked down, “I guess most women want to be, don’t they?”
“I think most men do too. I did. I was married. I had a woman I loved and a little girl who meant everything to me.”
Stone grew silent.
Chapman finally broke the quiet. “And you lost them?”
“And the fault was entirely mine.”
“You didn’t pull the bloody trigger, Oliver.”
“I might as well have. You don’t voluntarily leave a job like mine. And I shouldn’t have married. I shouldn’t have had a child.”
“Sometimes you can’t control those things. You can’t control love.”
Stone looked at her. Chapman was staring directly at him.
“You can’t,” she repeated softly. “Not even people like us.”
“Well, considering how things turned out, I should have tried.”
“So you’re going to blame yourself forever?”
He looked surprised by the question. “Of course I am. Why?”
“Just asking.” She put down the rest of her scone and refocused on the reports in front of her.
Stone hit the TV remote and the news came on. They were just in time to hear a female reporter broadcasting near Lafayette Park.
“And late-breaking developments have Alfredo Padilla, originally of Mexico, dying in the blast. Apparently there was a bomb planted in a tree hole at Lafayette Park, and Mr. Padilla, unfortunately running away from the shots being fired in Lafayette, fell into the hole and accidentally detonated the bomb planted there. A memorial service is being planned for Mr. Padilla, who is being hailed as a hero, even if unwittingly. FBI special agent Thomas Gross, a veteran with the Bureau, was killed during a shootout at the tree farm where the tree with the bomb in it was procured. He
will be honored at this same memorial service in what some are calling a political move to mend relations between the two countries. Another man, John Kravitz, who worked at the tree farm and was allegedly involved in the bombing conspiracy, was killed by an unknown person at his home in Pennsylvania as police closed in. We will bring you more details as they become available.”
Stone turned off the TV.
“Someone has been shooting off his mouth,” he said. “Back in the old days we never would’ve revealed that much about an ongoing investigation.”
“That was before the days of the Internet and frothing media that have to deliver content every second of every day,” remarked Chapman.
“I wonder if they’ll let me attend Gross’s memorial service.”
“I wouldn’t count on it if I were you.”
Five minutes later Chapman said, “Hold on.”
“What?” Stone said, glancing at her.
She held up a piece of paper. “Evidence listing from the crime scene at the park.”
Stone looked at it. “Okay. What do you see?”
“Read down that column,” she said, indicating a list of numbers and corresponding categories on the left side of the sheet.
Stone did. “All right. So?”
She held up another sheet. “Now read this.”
Stone did so. He flinched and looked back at the first sheet. “Why didn’t anyone put this together before?”
“Most likely because it was on two separate reports.”
Stone looked between the two documents.
“Two hundred and forty-six slugs found in the park and environs matching the TEC-9s,” he said.
“Right.”
He looked at the other piece of paper. “But the casings found at the Hay-Adams Hotel only numbered two hundred and forty,” he said.
“Right again.”
“You would expect to have more casings than slugs, because some of the slugs might never be recovered,” Stone began.
“But you would never have fewer casings than found slugs,” Chapman said, finishing his thought. “Unless the bad guys took a few with them and left the rest. Which they never would. They would either take none or all.”
Stone looked up. “You know what this means?”
Chapman nodded. “The casings were planted at the hotel and someone miscounted. The shots came from somewhere else.”
“
W
E HAVE COMPANY,
A
NNABELLE
,” said Reuben.
She glanced in the rearview mirror. “The black SUV with the tinted windows?”
“Yep.”
“It was parked at the bar when we pulled up,” she noted.
“I know. I think someone is interested in our conversation with the Latinos.”
She said, “So what do we do? We’re in the middle of nowhere. And I don’t want to call 911, because then we’ll have to explain things I don’t want to.”
“Keep driving. There’s a bend coming up. They’ll make their move there.”
“And what will our move be?” Annabelle asked.
“Still thinking of it. Just drive. And hit the curve fast. I want the driver focused on the road, not me.”
Annabelle accelerated and drove into the bend in the road at speed.
“Punch it more,” instructed Reuben.
She did so, fighting to keep the car on the road.
Reuben had turned in his seat and was looking back. He pulled a large handgun from his pocket and aimed it out the window.
“I didn’t know you were armed,” Annabelle said.
“Well now you do.”
“Do you have a permit for that thing?”
“Yeah, but it expired about fifteen years ago.”
“Wait a minute, what if those are cops back there?”
“We’re about to find out.”
The SUV came into view. There was a man hanging out the side of the truck holding a submachine gun.
“Don’t think they’re cops,” said Reuben. “Keep it steady.”
The submachine gun fired about the same time Reuben did. The sub was aimed at the car. Reuben was aiming at the front tire. The sub hit its target, blowing out the back window of their car. Annabelle hunched forward and down, her head near the steering wheel.
Reuben fired once, twice and then a third time as the guy holding the sub reloaded. The front tires on the SUV shredded. The car shot across the road, hit the shoulder and flipped on its side.
Annabelle sat back up. “Jesus.”
Reuben turned back around. “Look out!” he screamed.
A second SUV was coming from the opposite direction and heading right for them. Annabelle cut the wheel hard and her car lurched across the road, cleared the shoulder and landed in the dirt. She gunned the engine and steered the car toward a stand of trees. They reached it. She slammed the car to a stop and they jumped out and ran for the trees as the SUV bore down on them.
Reuben turned and fired a few shots in the truck’s direction, causing it to veer off. The second they reached the trees, bursts of submachine-gun fire hit. Reuben grabbed Annabelle’s arm and threw her into the cover of the woods.
He wasn’t as fortunate. A round slammed into his arm.
“Shit!”
“Reuben!”
He wheeled around and fired at the now stopped truck. The windshield splintered and the men inside took cover.
Reuben turned and stumbled into the woods along with Annabelle. She held on to his other shoulder and helped him along. Between gritted teeth Reuben said, “Now might be a good time to call the cops, Annabelle. I’d rather have to explain things to them instead of lying in a box after these guys finish with us.”
She slipped the phone from her purse and hit 911. Nothing happened.
“Damn it. No bars.”
“Great.”
“But I had reception around here before.”
“Maybe they’re jamming the signal.”
“Who the hell are they?”
“People we do not want to meet up close.”
They heard running feet behind them.
They took cover behind a tree. Reuben fired off the rest of his ammo in the direction of their pursuers. A volley of automatic fire came back at them.
“Load my pistol for me,” said Reuben between gritted teeth. “Extra clip in my right pocket.” She did so and handed it back to him. He studied the terrain around them. “Submachine guns against a pistol only has one outcome,” he said.
“So we’re dead?”
“Didn’t say that.”
“I wonder what Oliver would do.”
“What Oliver would do is the unexpected.”
“So exactly what does that mean in this situation?”
Reuben fired three more shots, then they took cover behind a large oak as the machine-gun fire raked across it.
Reuben said, “When the rounds stop, you run that way.” He pointed behind them. “Cut to the left and get back to the road. You should be able to make a call there or flag down a car.”
“And what about you?” she said fiercely.
The firing stopped as the men reloaded.
Reuben grabbed Annabelle’s arm and pushed. “Go.”
“There has to be another way.”
“There is no other way. We can’t con our way out of this.”
“Reuben, I can’t leave—”
He gripped her arm so tightly that she winced. “You will do what I tell you to do. One of us has to get out of this.”
“But—”
The next moment he was running flat-out right at their pursuers.
Stunned, Annabelle turned and ran in the opposite direction. Tears streamed down her face as she heard the firing start up again.
Annabelle ran. But she couldn’t outrun the tears as the gunfire continued.