Murder in Foggy Bottom (28 page)

42

That Same Evening
West Virginia

How many different emotions can one experience in a compressed period of time? Jessica wondered.

When she left the apartment with Traxler, she was shaking with fear. All the vague, unstated intimidation she’d suffered when they were married now took on a reality that gripped her with physical force, sickened her, made her hands tremble, legs go weak, voice crumble.

But after an hour in the car, she found herself gaining resolve. The helpless, hapless victim now began to think, to process the predicament in order to devise a way out of it. A calm set in as her former husband drove too fast; his speech was accelerated, too. He rambled, a jumble of thoughts going in many different directions, seldom connecting, with no beginning, middle, or end.

Midway through the trip, he abruptly fell silent after delivering a monologue about putting himself first for a change—“If I don’t look after me, make me numero uno, nobody else will. I’ve been laying my life on the line for years to make some bureaucrat look good and . . .” The muscles of his cheeks worked as he focused on the road, eyes narrowed, hands tight on the wheel.

“You don’t have to keep going, Skip,” Jessica said. “You can pull over and we can talk. Or you can let me out right here.”

He didn’t respond.

“It doesn’t matter to me what happened at that ranch out in Washington. I don’t know anything about what you did there, or why. The picture Cindy took—you have it. I don’t want it. I don’t have any use for it. Whatever it means, just tear it up, burn it. Let’s turn around and go back. I’ll get the negative from Cindy and—”

“Shut up!”

He put on the radio. An all-news station was in the midst of replaying Director Templeton’s press conference:

“. . . we’ve worked closely with law enforcement agencies in other countries.

“Today, in the wake of the successful siege on the Jasper compound in Blaine, our agents, working in concert with Canadian investigators, have linked another group to the downing of those aircraft, one closely allied with the Jasper Project, the Freedom Alliance. This organization . . .

“As we speak, the FBI, acting in close concert with our Canadian counterparts, have surrounded the Freedom Alliance’s facility in Plattsburgh and are . . .”

Traxler turned it off.

“Those are the men you were with in Plattsburgh?” Jessica asked. “In the picture?”

“Right,” he said.

Should she ask more, try to learn
why
he was there? It didn’t seem to matter what she knew or didn’t know. Simply having seen a photograph of him with those men—and his knowing she’d seen it—had caused him to pull a gun and kidnap her. The question she now asked herself was whether probing him for answers would ease his apparent, irrational need to silence her—or fuel it.

Fighting to think clearly, she decided that at this juncture it was better to engage him rather than allow his silent thoughts to fester.

“Skip, whatever’s happened in your life, I’m no longer a part of it. We weren’t right for each other and recognized it. I’ve gone on with my life and you’ve gone on with yours. Why don’t we just leave it at that?”

He sneered as he said, “You never did get it, Jess, never understood what I was all about, what I was going through.”

“Of course I did. Working undercover was dangerous. You were under constant pressure. I worried about you every day you were away working.”

“That’s really sweet, Jess. I’m touched.”

“I wasn’t trying to ‘touch’ you, Skip. I’m just telling you the truth.”

He drew deep breaths as though trying to keep himself under control. “You don’t know what it was like,” he said, not looking at her.

“No, I’m sure I don’t,” she said. “How could I? I didn’t live the life you led.”

“You bet you didn’t.” Now he turned to her. “Know what the worst part was, Jess?”

“What?”

“Watching the scum I was with living high and thumbing their noses at people like me. Oh, they didn’t know who I was. I was good, Jess. The best.” He began veering into the oncoming lane and swerved back, the maneuver startling Jessica into momentary silence.

She was afraid her resolve, manifested in the flat, calm voice she’d been using, might wane, and forced matter-of-factness back into her tone. “I still don’t understand why you’ve done this, Skip,” she said as waves of water hit the windshield from oncoming vehicles, causing her to wince each time they slapped the glass. “I don’t wish you any harm.”

“But you can
do
me harm, Jess.”

“How? What would I do? Why would I do it?”

“You and that stupid bird-watching.”

She reached across the seat and touched his right arm. “Skip, I didn’t take that picture. I wasn’t there. Are you concerned I might take the photo to someone, some law enforcement agency? That would never cross my mind. What would be the purpose, to show that my ex-husband . . .”

He slowly turned his head and fixed her in the sort of stare that froze her when they were married. “Go on,” he said, allowing a trace of a smile to touch his lips. “You were about to say that your ex-husband was photographed with a bunch of rednecks up on the Canadian border, right-wing, government-hating, white supremacists who don’t mind shooting down civilian planes to get the country’s attention. Right, Jess? Was that what you were about to say?”

“No.”

His right hand came off the wheel and shot across the seat, gripping her wrist and squeezing. She backed against the passenger door. “You’re . . . hurting me,” she said, trying to pull free.

He relaxed his grip and leaned forward, squinting, to see through the sheets of water on the windshield. She rubbed her wrist. As she did, a rage welled up in her of an intensity she couldn’t recall ever feeling before.

“What did you do, Skip, get involved with those rednecks in upstate New York, forget who you were and become one of them?” She had no idea whether that was what had happened, but her anger now dictated.

“What I did,” he said, “was to get a piece of what’s owed me.”

“
Owed
you? What were you owed?”

“Money. For years of sticking my neck out, getting paid off with a slap on the back by some fat-cat bureaucrat and a nice letter in the file. I learned a lot from hanging around with the lowlifes, Jess. The FBI. Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity,” he said scornfully. “Put the mobsters behind bars. Get the drug dealers off the street. You know what, Jess, this country’s on one fast slide to oblivion. In the sewer. The politicians steal us blind, the cops in every city are on the take, we blame Mexico and Colombia for the drug problem but the problem’s right here, the users, the market those countries feed. You have any idea how much money from drugs some of the right-wing groups, left-wing groups, no-wing groups make? Millions.” He snickered. “Those guys up in Plattsburgh have been bringing drugs into this country for a couple of years now, right across the Canadian border, waltz it in like loaves of bread. That’s how they finance their crazy schemes. They praise the Lord while they’re selling crack out the back door.”

“And you?”

“And me
what
?”

“You’re praising the Lord, or in this case law and order, while you’re taking some of that dirty money? Is that what you’re saying?”

“You hear what Templeton said before, Jess?”

“Yes, I heard. That group you were with in Plattsburgh was involved, too, in the missile attacks.”

“Of course.”

His cold admission of it—more important, that he knew—was like a blow to her chest. She said nothing for a moment, the countryside flashing by her window distorted by the rain, her mind distorted by him. Finally, she said, “The people out in Washington, the Jasper people. Were they involved too, or was that the ‘mistake’ you mentioned.”

Anger visibly flared in his face, then sagged into an expression of frustration, annoyance at her lack of understanding. “None of it matters,” he mumbled, barely audible above the sound of the car’s engine and the swoosh of water beneath the tires. “Who cares who did what, or who gets it? I’m through. I did what I said I’d do, got my money and I’m out of it.”

“Who cares?” she repeated loudly, incredulous. “
Who
cares?
What about the people on those planes? You could have stopped it, couldn’t you?”

“No, I couldn’t,” he said, exiting the highway and taking a two-lane road leading to Gauley Bridge. “I didn’t know the Freedom Alliance was going to target civilian airliners. All I did once it happened was to point a finger at the Jasper Project, make sure the Bureau looked the wrong way.” His laugh was ironic. “Worked out fine, didn’t it? Two hate groups down, including the right one. Justice prevails.”

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

“Like I said, go bird-watching with you.”

She stared at him.

“Only you’re not going to bring any pictures, or anything else, back,” he said, turning onto the narrow road leading to the covered bridge.

43

That Night
Pittsburgh

Roseann and Senator Jackson talked music on the limo ride from the Cedars, in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, to the airport in Pittsburgh. He wanted to know everything about her—her childhood, her musical training and ambitions, and her influences.

She felt embarrassed talking so much about herself and after a while began asking him questions.

“I considered staying at the Cedars an extra day to get in some golf,” he said, “but I’ve got to be back in Washington in the morning. I’m the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. We’re going to have an emergency meeting on this Jasper ranch fiasco. You’ve kept up with it?”

She swallowed and looked out the window. Knowing he was waiting for an answer, she said, “Yes, I have. I . . . the man in my life has something to do with it.”

“Oh? Who’s he?”

“Joe Potamos. He’s a reporter for—”

“You don’t have to tell me about Mr. Potamos,” the senator said. “He’ll be a prime witness before the committee.”

“He will?”

“Yes, he certainly will. He told a remarkable story on TV today. Do you know how accurate his account is?”

“Me? No, I don’t know anything about it, except that Joe is an honest person. He wouldn’t make anything up.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Jackson said.

The rest of the ride was consumed by his questions about Joe, and she was glad when they pulled up in front of the Pittsburgh terminal.

The senator and his aide, a young woman named Marie, and Roseann were escorted to a VIP lounge, where they were told the flight to Washington was delayed because of weather. “The equipment should be here in a half hour,” the pleasant woman at the desk said. “Sorry for the delay, Senator.”

“No problem,” he replied, smiling. “You can’t fight Mother Nature.”

He excused himself from Roseann. “I’m afraid Marie and I have some reports to go over before tomorrow.”

“That’s all right,” Roseann said. “I brought a book.” As the senator and his assistant went to a secluded corner of the lounge, Roseann settled into an overstuffed chair, opened her book, and picked up where she’d left off. She thought of Joe, wondered how Larry King had gone, and how he’d react to being a witness before a senate committee. She kept her smile from becoming a giggle.

How exciting; he’d hear it from her first. She couldn’t wait to get home.

The pickup truck was red and new. It was an extended-cab model, with a small bench seat behind the twin buckets used by a driver and front passenger.

Its driver was a small, wiry man wearing a red-and-black flannel shirt over well-worn jeans, and rubber, ankle-high boots. His hair was gray and matted, slicked down with some sort of gel, and pulled into a small ponytail.

His lights were off as he parked the truck in a heavily wooded area a mile from the southern end of the Pittsburgh airport’s north-south runway. He reached behind and pulled a heavy, five-foot-long canvas bag from the rear bench, grunting against the weight. He laid the bag on the passenger seat and unzippered it, began to remove the contents piece by piece, handling them with care, running his fingers over them, a gesture of admiration.

The sound of a plane taking off caused him to look up into a clearing sky. The plane passed directly above him, then banked to the east, the shriek of its engines fading into the night.

He got out of the truck, went around to the passenger side, opened the door, and lifted the missile and its shoulder launcher from the seat. He walked a hundred yards to a clearing in the trees that he knew well from having been there a number of times over the past two weeks. A fallen tree provided a seat, which he took. He checked the mechanisms on the launcher, took a small, thin cigar from his shirt pocket, lit it, drew a sustained, calming breath, and waited.

44

That Same Night
West Virginia

Pauling saw the headlights through the cabin window. He got up from the stool and went through the rear door carrying the Glock 17 in his right hand. He’d left the aeronautical charts in the kitchen; no time to go back for them.

The rain had effectively stopped, leaving a fine mist in the air. Behind him, the sound of the flowing river provided a misleading sense of peace.

He stood on the top step and peered through the gap he’d created in the curtain. The approaching vehicle’s lights continued to flash into the cabin, then disappear as the car bounced over the bumpy, pitted road. He heard the engine, then its shutdown. A car door opened and closed. Another door opened; “Come on, come on,” a man’s voice said. The second door slammed shut. Foot-steps on the front porch, the door being unlocked, swung open with force; “Come
on,
” the man’s voice again. Would he notice the broken windowpane? Pauling wondered. Evidently not. The door was closed and the cabin was suddenly illuminated by two overhead fixtures suspended from rough-hewn beams in the ceiling.

Skip Traxler and Jessica Mumford stood facing each other in the center of the room. She wore a yellow rain slicker Pauling had seen her in many times before, part of her standard bird-watching gear. He searched her face for what she was feeling and thinking. He saw anger in her eyes. Pauling felt no such anger at the moment. He’d cleared his mind of anything and everything to make room for the decisions he’d have to make.

Traxler held a revolver pointed at the floor. Pauling had seen him in pictures in Jess’s apartment, never in person. This was “Scope,” an undercover FBI agent and her former husband. The question of why he’d done this came and went, unanswered. It didn’t matter. There’d be plenty of time for those questions. For now, disarming Traxler and getting Jess out of harm’s way was the only question to be acted upon.

Pauling sized Traxler up physically. Same height, squarely built, fit and strong was the assessment. Pauling had him outmanned when it came to firepower. The Glock was a semiautomatic, Traxler’s revolver less puissant.

They moved out of his view. He pressed his ear to the door but only the incessant flow of the river reached him. He considered going to the front of the cabin and looking through one of the windows, but Traxler might hear him. As he pondered his next move, Traxler said loudly, “What the hell?” Pauling looked through the gap in the curtain. Traxler stood by the front window Pauling had smashed. Traxler looked around, eyes wide, mouth determined. Pauling stepped off the side of the steps and crouched in the darkness. The back door opened. “Unlocked,” Traxler growled to himself. Pauling was certain he’d see the car beneath the trees, but if he did, he didn’t react. He slammed the door shut.

Pauling immediately straightened, went around the side of the cabin, stepped onto the porch, took careful, silent steps to the nearest of the two windows, and looked through it. Traxler had herded Jessica to the closed rear door. Her back was to him; his revolver was trained on her. Pauling strained to see what Traxler held besides the revolver. Binoculars? A book of some kind?

Pauling knew he had to act. It appeared that Traxler was about to take Jessica out through that rear door. If he went in the direction of the river, he’d see Pauling’s rental car. Pauling tensed until he saw Traxler open the door and push Jess through it into the night. He left the porch and hugged the side of the cabin until reaching the back corner. A full moon, obscured until now, cast light on the area between the cabin and the river, then was hidden again behind low-moving black clouds. But in that brief moment, Pauling saw that Traxler was prodding Jessica to the riverbank. He stepped away from the cabin and moved in their direction, taking long strides, trying to be silent and swift at once. He hesitated; Traxler had suddenly stopped when he saw the Caprice parked beneath the trees. Jessica continued to walk to the river, creating ten feet between her and Traxler.

Pauling sprung, feet churning in the mud as he hurtled at Traxler, crouched low, closing the gap, only a second until contact. Traxler saw him but not in time to do anything with his weapon. Pauling’s head rammed into the FBI agent’s stomach, causing the revolver to pop from his hand as he went over backward. Pauling pounced on him and they rolled down a slippery slope to the river, clutching each other, over and over, until a tree stopped them. The jolt caused the Glock to slip from Pauling’s hand and land a few feet away.

Traxler twisted free of Pauling’s grip and reached for the gun, but Pauling grabbed his wrist. They struggled to their knees. Traxler made another try for the Glock but Pauling drove a fist into his face, felt his nose break. Traxler let out a tortured moan as he got to his feet. Pauling was on all fours, about to get up, when Traxler’s foot smashed into his side, sending him tumbling. Traxler desperately looked for the Glock, saw it, went to his knees and reached for it in the mud, found it, turned and pointed it at Pauling, who was up on his knees facing Traxler, a broad target. Pauling braced for what was sure to come. Jessica appeared from nowhere and flung herself at Traxler. He collapsed beneath the weight of her unexpected attack but held on to the Glock, twisted free, then slipped in the mud, his feet going out from under him and landing on his stomach.

Jessica jumped on him. So did Pauling, but not before frantically digging into the pocket of his vest and coming out with the ampule of prussic acid. He brought the device up to Traxler’s broken nose and activated the spring. The ampule shattered, releasing its deadly contents— into Jessica’s face.

She shrieked as the acid entered her nostrils and then fell away from them, rolling on the ground, her fingers at her nose as though she could tear the acid from it.

Pauling saw what had happened. He brought his fist back and pounded it against the side of Traxler’s skull, again and again, pounding him until he was limp. He jumped to his feet, ran to where Jessica lay on the ground, pulled the vial of nitro from his vest pocket, held it beneath Jessica’s nose, snapped it in two, and shouted, “Breathe, Jess. Breathe, damn it!”

She looked up at him with frightened eyes as the prussic acid began to act on her heart, constricting the arteries, shutting off blood supply. But the nitro took effect. Her hands, which had been clutched against the pain in her chest, relaxed, and her breathing became less labored.

“You okay?” Pauling asked.

“I think so.”

Pauling got up and returned to where Traxler was beginning to recover from the pummeling he’d received. He picked up the Glock, grabbed Traxler by the front of his shirt, and pulled him to his feet.

“Let’s get inside,” Pauling said as the rain began to come down hard again. He shoved Traxler down into a chair, brought the stool and aeronautical charts from the kitchen, and sat in front of him.

“So here’s the infamous Scope,” Pauling said, “FBI undercover hotshot. You don’t look so hot to me, buddy.”

Traxler glared at him.

“He told me what happened, Max,” Jessica said from where she stood behind him. “He said—”

Pauling cut her off. “These charts, Traxler. Boise, San Jose, and Westchester, where the three planes were shot down.”

Still no response.

Pauling waved the fourth chart in front of his face. “Tell me about this one,” he said.

Traxler wiped a rivulet of blood from beneath his nose and managed a grin. “Who the hell are you, anyway?” he asked.

“Somebody who’d enjoy putting a hole in the middle of your head,” Pauling said. “This Pittsburgh chart, is that where the fourth missile is going to be used?” He took Traxler’s lack of a reply to be affirmative. “When?” he asked. “These handwritten numbers on the charts— dates? The number on the Pittsburgh chart is today’s date. Is it being used today, tonight?”

This time, when Traxler didn’t say anything, Pauling grabbed his face and squeezed hard, pressing the heel of his hand against the FBI agent’s nose. He put all the fury and loss and sadness of Bill Lerner’s death, the woman at the Jasper ranch, the victims of the plane crash, even the slain Russian into his grip. Traxler whined from the excruciating pain and slipped down in the chair. Pauling stood, yanked him up to a sitting position, and brought his face within inches. “When?” he repeated with vengeance. “Tonight?”

Traxler’s nod was almost imperceptible.

Pauling stepped back and asked Jessica, “There a phone here?”

She shrugged, started to look for one. “No,” she said from the far end of the room.

“You have a cell phone?” Pauling asked Traxler.

“Go to hell.”

Pauling brought the back of his hand against the side of Traxler’s face. “Where’s the nearest phone, Traxler?”

Silence.

Pauling handed the Glock to Jessica: “Keep it on him, Jess, and don’t be afraid; if he moves, use it.” He went to the kitchen and rummaged through several drawers, coming up with a roll of gray duct tape. He returned to the main room, shoved Traxler against a wall, and taped his hands behind him. “Let’s go,” he said.

They exited through the rear door and went to Pauling’s rented Caprice. Traxler was stuffed into the backseat, and Pauling used more tape to secure his ankles and mouth. Jessica, still holding the Glock, got in the front passenger seat while Pauling backed out from beneath the trees, clipping the sideview mirror against one and knocking it off. “Going to be an expensive rental,” he grumbled, coming forward again, then going into reverse and clearing the obstacle. He could barely see, but he managed to reach the road in front of the cabin.