Liars & Thieves (22 page)

I already knew that, and he knew I did, but this was Jake Grafton, thinking aloud. He had that habit. Then everyone knew precisely what was on his mind and could predict the directions in which he might go. I thought it a solid leadership technique. All the listener had to do was keep his mouth shut. That’s what I was thinking when he asked conversationally, without a change of tone, “What do you want to do about Dell Royston?”

I glanced at him, wondered what was going through his mind.

“Cut his nuts off and feed ‘em to him,” I replied curtly.

Grafton drummed a few licks on the steering wheel with his fingers. “He’s going to be in New York next week for the convention. Could you bug the hotel where he’ll be staying?”

Apparently he was fishing to see if I still wanted to do the warrior thing. Well, I was good for a little while longer, I told myself, which was a real whopper. I never squander my best lies on other people—I tell them to myself.

“Sure,” I said aloud. We discussed it, the equipment I’d need, when and where I could get it, and when the best time would be to do the jobs.

“Hang loose,” he said, and got out of the vehicle to make some more telephone calls.

The dude who liked rap got his ride under way. In the relative silence that followed his departure I could hear a baseball game playing on the convenience store’s sound system.

Right then I would have traded a couple months’ pay to be sitting in a ballpark watching a game, smack in the middle of the American summer with nothing on my mind but the possibility of another beer. Oh well, a man can dream.

Mikhail Goncharov awoke from a nightmare bathed in sweat. He had been in one of the cells in the Lubyanka being interrogated by five experts. They wanted him to confess to something, though now, awake, he couldn’t remember exactly what it was. He lay in bed thinking about the dream as it slowly faded.

Finally he began to take notice of his surroundings. Nothing seemed familiar.

Then he remembered the lady who fixed the sandwiches and brought him to this room.

The window was open—he could feel a warm breeze. Hear traffic noises. And . .. something rhythmical, a deep sound. He listened intently. The steady sound that repeated was .. . surf! He was near the ocean. He could hear surf pounding on a beach.

Galvanized, he rose from the bed, realized he was not wearing shoes, and automatically searched until he found them, then put them on.

In the room downstairs he found the woman. She was wearing shorts and a blouse. “I can hear surf. Where is the beach?”

“Come,” she said. “We will go together.”

Before he saw the ocean, he could smell it, salty and clean. Crossing the dune on the boardwalk, he saw the sun glinting on the swells. He stopped and stared as the warm sea wind played with his shirt and trousers. Before him was the beach. Beyond it the great blue ocean stretched away until it met the sky.

The woman waited patiently, watching him. He was so absorbed in the scene before him that he was unaware of her scrutiny.

There had once been an ocean and a beach . . . and another woman. He could see her face, remember how her hand felt, how the cold water felt as it swirled about his feet. Her name—it was right there on the edge of his memory, just out of reach, but her face was plain, her smile, her eyes staring at him, her hand on his cheek.

The memory was there, but the specifics wouldn’t come. It was in the past, but not too long ago; he sensed that. And it was not here. Not this beach.

With a jolt he again became aware of the presence of the woman beside him. She was kind—he could see that. Very kind, with warm, intelligent eyes.

Despite the wind, the sun was warm on his skin. He took a deep breath, let the smell of the sea fill his lungs and head.

“Who—?”

He had to clear his throat, then he began again. “Who am I?”

At a kiosk in an Ocean City mall, I bought two cell phones and signed up for service while Jake Grafton watched from a bench fifty feet away. New phones on an account that couldn’t be tied to me or Grafton would allow us to communicate with each other and Sarah with more confidence. Sarah thought she had a handle on the telephones the CIA and FBI were monitoring, but…

I used my Zack Winston driver’s license as my ID and paid cash, gave the fake address on the driver’s license as the address for the account. They would close the account eventually, but I had a couple months to use the phones before that happened. “So you live in Virginia?” the girl manning the kiosk asked. She was a trim brunette with a great smile.

“Uh-huh.”

“Get down this way often?”

“Now and then.”

I got the impression that I could get a date with her if I worked at it a while. She whacked away on her computer for a minute, then put the telephones in a bag and handed them to me.

“You’re good to go,” she said, flashing that smile again. “You should charge the phones overnight before you use them. The batteries will last longer.”

I liked the way she grinned and brushed the hair back from her forehead. She didn’t look a bit like Kelly Erlanger. Or Dorsey O’Shea, come to think of it. I gave her my absolute best smile and strolled away with my purchases in a bag.

Callie was out on the beach with Mikhail Goncharov when we returned to Grafton’s beach house. I wandered upstairs and took a good look out each of the upstairs windows. Were the Russians pulling Royston’s strings? I knew a little about him, Grafton knew a little, and we talked about what we knew on the way home.

Dell Royston was one of the president’s political loyalists who had been with him all the way. He was a Washington lawyer who had only practiced for a few years when he hitched his wagon to the future president’s—his new law partner’s—rising star. He campaigned, directed door-to-door canvassing efforts, shook hands, raised money, did it all on the president’s first run for statewide office, as the state’s attorney general. He had been there on the unsuccessful first run for governor, and the successful second one. The Senate had followed, then the first run for the presidential nomination—which had failed—and the second run, which won the nomination and the presidency.

There were people who supposedly knew about these things who said Royston was the real political brains in the administration. Others said the president would never have won the White House without him. Who knew the truth of that? In any event, the president didn’t seem inclined to change horses at this date, which was why Royston had resigned as chief of staff and was now heading the reelection committee.

Neither Grafton nor I had ever been in the same room with the man, much less met him. To me he was merely a figure on the evening news or a black-and-white photo in the newspaper. Looking out the windows of Grafton’s house, I tried to recall his image. Balding, with chiseled features and no extra fat.

Personally I didn’t think the Russians were pulling Royston’s strings. His loyalties were on the public record for all to see.

So, was it the president? Did he order the trigger pulled on all those people at the safe house, on Willie Varner and Sal Pulzelli?

We were going to find out. One way or the other.

I remembered how casually Grafton asked the question, “What do you want to do about Royston?” Royston might know politics and politicians, but he had never met a warrior like Jake Grafton. I would bet my bottom dollar on that. I was equally willing to wager that he was going to meet the admiral before he got a whole lot older.

From the upstairs guest bedroom I saw Callie and Goncharov coming across the dune on the boardwalk. Callie had her sweater pulled around her, with strands of her hair adrift in the breeze.

She was a fine figure of a woman, every bit as tough as Grafton. I wondered if I would ever meet a woman like that.

Well, to tell the truth, I did once. A Russian named Anna. If I ever got the chance, that was the woman I wanted for a wife. If.

When Callie and Goncharov neared the house, I went downstairs to open the door for them.

I got a great night’s sleep that Sunday night and awoke at dawn feeling much better. Didn’t think about the mess I was in for almost ten minutes.

I thought about slipping out for a run along the beach, then thought how easy it would be for some asshole to shoot me as I jogged along, got mad at myself and went anyway.

Grafton went out for a paper, and Callie and I made it last, passing the sections back and forth. I even spent twenty minutes with the classified ads. Maybe this summer I ought to sell the Mercedes and get another ride. It was pleasant thinking about the prospect.

Goncharov wandered the house, sat for hours on the porch, occasionally flipped though magazines. He looked haggard, haunted. He wasn’t sleeping much, that I knew. Callie took him for a waik along the beach. She spent most of Monday evening chatting with him in Russian, but she did most of the talking.

We still had Basil Jarrett’s SUV parked in front of the Grafton bungalow, and that had to change. Driving it didn’t seem like a red-hot idea either. Sarah had told Jake Grafton that the vehicle was listed on the national crime computer as stolen, with an armed and dangerous driver. Presumably that was me. At least I was appreciated.

About ten that night I borrowed Grafton’s car, which was not yet on the crime computer, and sallied forth. Four hours later I was cruising by Kelly Erlanger’s place in suburban Washington. My old Mercedes coupe was still in her driveway. There didn’t seem to be anyone watching the house, although the car was also in the crime computer as stolen. I would have bet my last dollar that there was a radio beacon in the car so it could be tracked.

It would have to sit there until this mess was resolved or I signed it over to criminal defense lawyers as partial payment on a fee.

Thirty minutes later I stopped by a huge apartment building in Silver Spring. Sitting in the parking lot, I called Sarah Houston at her office in the NSA. She was there tonight and answered on the first ring.

“It’s me,” I said.

“You going to kill somebody, Carmellini?”

“Don’t say things like that over the telephone.”

“They are questioning everyone about you, trying to establish a link between you and the Russians, although they don’t come right out and say it.”

“Subtle guys.”

“I had to admit I know you. Really took me down a notch professionally, I can tell you. I told them you like caviar.”

“If I go down the slide, I’ll know who to thank. I’m going to call him now.”

“Okay.”

I closed the phone, which I had borrowed from Grafton, and dialed the number.

A sleepy baritone answered. “You had better not be a telephone solicitor,” he growled.

“I’m selling male sexual enhancers. We’re counting on you for a big order. Sorry about the pun.”

There was a moment of silence, then he said, “That you, Tommy?”

“No names.”

“You asshole, it’s . . . it’s damn near three o’fucking clock in the morning. Couldn’t this have waited until daylight?”

“This is the only time I could sign out of the sewer where I’m hiding.”

“No shit. What do you want, anyway?”

“Is that any way to talk to your boss?”

“What do you want, asshole?”

“I want to talk to you. I’m in front of your building. Buzz me in.

Silence. “And to think I could be getting a good night’s sleep in a hole in Afghanistan right this very minute.” He hung up. I’ll admit, Joe Billy Dunn had a rough personality. The system sent me a holy warrior from Delta Force that I was supposed to transform into a cool, collected, accomplished burglar.

The door clicked, and I entered the lobby. I stood there with the cell phone in my hand, waiting. If Joe Billy Dunn called the cops or CIA security, Sarah would immediately call me. I checked my watch. A long minute passed, then another.

Maybe Dunn couldn’t find the telephone number. Then again, how hard is it to dial 911 ?

After three minutes I called Sarah.

“Nothing,” she said, Okay.” I walked over to the elevator and pushed the up button.

Standing outside Dunn’s door, I patted the Grafton’s Colt for reassurance. I didn’t want to shoot him for any reason under the sun. I needed his help. On the other hand, if he had a gun in his hand when he opened the door, this might get a little dicey.

Of course he did. A Beretta 9 mm. He stood back, waved me in.

“You packing?” he asked when I was in the center of the room with my hands up.

“Yeah.” So much for the Mexican standoff.

“Drop it on the floor, real slow.”

I did as he asked.

“Now sit on the couch.”

Only when I was well away from him did he bend down to pick up my shooter. He squatted, never took his eyes off me. The Beretta looked like it was welded into his hand. Okay, maybe he was as good as the Army said he was.

“Explain to me why I shouldn’t call the agency and tell them that I’m holding a traitor who sold out to the Russians at gunpoint in my apartment.”

“Because you know I’m not a traitor.”

“They’re looking all over hell for you, Tommy. Claim you murdered a bunch of agency people in West Virginia.”

“I was there. We were hit by some guys. I got a couple of the killers and got away in one piece.”

He took a seat on a chair against the far wall, as far from me as possible. Although he was wearing only his underwear, there was not a sliver of doubt in my crooked mind that Joe Billy Dunn was a first-class pro who could handle anything in my limited repertoire.

I went through it, explained everything, holding nothing back. When I finished he put the pistol on the countertop and asked, “Want some coffee?”

Sure.

“They wouldn’t tell me anything at the office. Just that you were wanted and to call them immediately if I heard a peep out of you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t believe a damn word of it. Not that I’ve known you that long, but I can’t see you for cold-blooded murder. I’ve known a few killers. They like it; you can sense that.” He went into the kitchen and began making coffee. I retrieved my shooter and took a seat in front of the counter. His pistol was lying beside my elbow.