The President's Henchman (43 page)

McGill called a cab. Had it come to the northwest gate of the White House. It was the only way he could think of getting around. His personal car was back home in Evanston. There were certainly cars in the White House motor pool available to him, but those were government-funded vehicles that were supposed to be used for official business. Not the business of McGill Investigations, Inc. He didn’t want to give Patti’s political enemies even that small an opening.

Besides, going through channels would alert the Secret Service. He wouldn’t wind up with a car, he’d be stuck in a
motorcade.
Not what he wanted at all. It was tough being a regular guy when you were married to the president.

The cabbie had beaten McGill to the gate and, for his promptness, the uniformed agents guarding the White House had him spread-eagled on the hood of his vehicle. Staffers at the Executive Mansion, the ones who didn’t rate limos, called for cabs every day. But they let the boys at the drawbridge know they were coming and who had summoned them.

McGill had not. Trying to keep a low profile. Now, his turbaned taxi man was paying the price. Until he stepped forward, and said, “It’s okay, guys. He’s here for me.”

The uniformed agents turned and saw the president’s husband.

He shrugged, and said, “Sorry, I forgot to alert you.”

“This taxi’s for
you,
sir?” the officer in charge of the detail asked. “I don’t understand.”

“An errand I have to run,” McGill explained. “I thought I’d keep things low-key. You want to let that fellow up?”

The driver was released and helped to his feet. He wiped off the front of his shirt and slacks. Resettled his turban to its proper angle. He looked at McGill and bowed.

With great dignity and an English accent, he said, “I tried to explain that I am a Sikh, and as of last week I am an American citizen.”

“I’m sorry for your trouble,” McGill said. “The fault’s all mine.”

The uniformed Secret Service agents weren’t sure what McGill was up to, having seen no other presidential spouse like him, but they appreciated that he hadn’t tried to pass the buck.

“Are you able to drive?” McGill asked the man.

“Yes, of course.” He opened the rear door of his taxi for his fare.

“Your tip will be generous,” McGill said, entering the cab.

“I’ll not take a penny, sir. I know who you are, and I am honored to drive you.”

McGill didn’t give him their destination until they were out of earshot of the Secret Service.

McGill had the cab circle the block on P Street and drop him off at the far corner. He gave the driver $50. Not for himself, of course, but for his favorite charity.

He approached his office building from the opposite side of the street. The block was tree-lined, and cars occupied every parking space; he had plenty of cover to duck behind. But there was no one out to spy on him. No other pedestrian walked on either side of the street. No one was peering out a window. The only sounds came from traffic whizzing along nearby Rock Creek Parkway.

He looked across the street at Dikki’s building. The café table was still, out but the umbrella and chairs had been taken in. He wondered if Dikki was still inside, too. Unable to answer the phone.

It hadn’t taken him long to guess the source of Dikki’s troubles. He’d figured it out in the cab on the way over. Who would pick a fictional doctor as an alter ego except another doctor? What doctor could he have ticked off lately? Damon Todd. Could Todd come to express his displeasure to McGill at home? Well, look what had happened when an innocent but unexpected cabbie had come calling at the White House.

So Todd had stopped by his office after hours. The only question was, had he hurt or killed Dikki to get McGill’s attention? Actually, there was another question. Could he have known McGill would come alone? No, he couldn’t. But if he’d been watching McGill’s movements, he would know the level of protection he usually had: one special agent.

If this guy thought he could take care of McGill and Deke, he had quite some opinion of himself. McGill didn’t share it, though. Any guy who had to drug and hypnotize women to have sex with them had to be the worst kind of coward.

McGill did a visual sweep of Dikki’s building from the top down. There was no one on the roof that he could see. The windows of McGill Investigations, Inc. were dark. As were the windows of Wentworth & Willoughby, the accounting firm on the second floor. Down on the ground floor, though, a dim glow showed through the plate-glass window at the front of A-Sharp Sound. Max Lucey could be in one of his recording studios working on a project.

McGill checked again for passersby. He still had that stretch of P Street to himself. He took out his gun and the key to the front door of the building. He crossed the street and slipped the key into the lock. He didn’t have to turn the key; the door was unlocked.

That wasn’t the way Dikki would have left it. He stepped inside.

To the right was the stairway, leading to the upper floors. To the left, a short hallway led to Dikki’s office and the rear exit. McGill flicked the safety off his gun and took a quick peek up the staircase. Didn’t see or hear anything.

Dikki’s small office was on the right of the hallway, tucked under the stairs. Light painted a yellow ribbon at the bottom of his door. The rear exit door was tightly shut. It could be opened with a push from inside, but an alarm would sound. Dikki had shown him once that the alarm was startlingly loud. Maybe that was the thing to do now. Draw some outside attention.

Of course, if Todd had a gun in Dikki’s ear, and the noise made him jump …

Maybe Dikki’s office, itself, was the trap. The burning light was the come-on. Open the door and
boom!
A gun or a bomb goes off, and suddenly your future is behind you. Only, as far as McGill knew, Todd had no history of using guns or bombs.

What was more likely for a headshrinker, he’d try to fuck with your head. Leave a light on and hope you’d ignore it. Wouldn’t take the chance of investigating. You’d consider your own safety first. Then, if you survived, you’d learn that you’d blown the opportunity to save someone else’s life; you’d chickened out. Live with that.

McGill looked around once more, saw no one, and turned the doorknob. He flung the door open and flattened himself against the adjacent wall. No lethal engine was triggered, but the door quickly closed again.

It had hit something and bounced back with a bang.

But the noise drew no reaction. No voice called out. No footsteps approached. McGill tried the door to Dikki’s office again. Gave it an easy push this time. Halfway through its arc, the door stopped with a soft thump.

McGill took a quick peek and saw Dikki lying on the floor in front of his desk.

Welborn and Leo saw the silhouette on the shade in a second-floor window of the Cowan house. A nude woman. Arlene Cowan. Doing her best in a bad situation. Really working for that new house in Tennessee.

The two men watched from Leo’s Chevy, parked nose out, in the driveway across the street. It would have been the most natural thing in the world for Welborn and Leo to offer bawdy comments, but neither of them did. They’d both been raised better than that.

Arlene Cowan had reached her husband at the number he’d given her. She’d persuaded him that they had to talk. She had information he needed, but no way was she going to tell him over the phone. Who knew who might be listening in? Person to person, wife to husband, nobody could make them reveal a word of what they said.

After Arlene had clicked off, she’d turned to Welborn with tears in her eyes.

“I actually loved Dex once upon a time. Now, I feel like such a rat.”

“Think of your new life,” Welborn told her. “Your job, your house, your horse.”

“Accentuate the positive.” She laughed, but it was a humorless sound.

It had been her idea to do the peep show. Make sure she got Dex into the house. And if Welborn didn’t mind, she’d throw him one last good one as it would likely be the last he’d ever have. The law could have him after that.

Welborn didn’t like the idea; it conjured images of a hostage situation.

But Arlene looked so forlorn … and the idea of his coming between a man’s last conjugal act with his wife was embarrassing … and he thought he could make it work, and …

Welborn was young. It was his first case.

He waited across the street in the car with Leo. For all he knew, a married man could smell another male in his house. If he stayed inside, he was more likely to cause trouble than prevent it. Besides, if Arlene did throw Dex Cowan a good one, he didn’t want to be close enough to hear the bedsprings creak.

Intruding on Welborn’s thoughts, Leo said, “Lights coming.”

Welborn turned his head and saw the approaching car. “It’s a Viper.”

The car slowed. Captain Dexter Cowan was behind the wheel. He turned the wheels to head into his driveway and … stopped. Seeing Arlene’s figure up there could have that effect on a man, Welborn reasoned. Cowan spent several seconds taking in the view. Maybe anticipating the pleasure that would soon be his.

“Enjoy it while you can, buddy,” Welborn muttered.

But sex with the missus wasn’t what the Navy man had in mind. He suddenly cut his wheels back toward the street, and the Viper took off with a roar. A heartbeat later, Leo had the Chevy rocketing after it.

Welborn had flown fighter jets. Whatever top end either the Viper or the Chevy could manage, it would amount to little more than stall speed for an F-22. Then again, speed was relative, a matter of context. At thirty thousand feet, supercruising at Mach 1.5 could get to feel more like cruising than super. It was only when you flew your bird down on the deck and saw how fast that distant mountain range was coming upon you that you really got to appreciate how fast you were moving.

At street level, being pressed back into his seat by the car’s acceleration, Welborn felt like Leo had the Chevy about to break the sound barrier. Stationary objects — houses, trees, light poles — became part of a blurred continuum at the corners of his eyes. The only object that remained in sharp focus lay directly ahead: the navy blue Viper.

Welborn was very glad most of the good people of Falls Church were off that particular thoroughfare just then. God help anyone who got in the way.

“You’ll stop for school buses, right?” Welborn asked.

Leo grinned. “Them and people with white canes. But you got a point.”

He tapped a button on the steering wheel. The special effects show began immediately. High-intensity lights flashed from the front grille. A howler screamed. Even the engine’s growl seemed louder. Seismographs would be picking up their approach.

Welborn only hoped that any other drivers on the road would be equally aware.

Especially after Dex Cowan busted right through a red light. Flew through the intersection and onto the Leesburg Pike entrance ramp to I-66 eastbound. Leo had the Chevy no more than ten feet behind. By great good fortune neither vehicle had threatened any legitimately proceeding cross traffic. But rolling along the highway, approaching the entry point of the on-ramp, was a fifty-three-foot tractor-trailer hauling groceries for the Giant supermarket chain.

Both speeding drivers downshifted. Welborn was thrown forward and caught by his three-point safety belt. He felt it dig hard into his shoulder, chest, and waist. The sensation was so hauntingly familiar it would have flashed him back to the night his friends had died had he not been so focused on his own imminent mortality. The Giant truck filled his entire field of vision; it looked like both the Viper and the Chevy would become decals on the side of the trailer. He closed his eyes, not daring to hope he’d ever open them again.

But the crash never came. There wasn’t even a jolt. Only a sideways drifting sensation. Welborn wondered if the passage from life to afterlife could be so gentle. He opened his eyes. The truck that had been right in front him was now … where the hell was it? He looked at the right-hand side-view mirror. There it was. The semi had already receded to the point of being tiny. Looking ahead, he saw that Cowan, too, had escaped unscratched.

“Boy’s a fair driver for an amateur,” Leo allowed.

The Viper and the Chevy were, appropriately, in the fast lane. Traffic on the highway was light at the moment. The cars in the other two lanes might have been stopped to fix flat tires for how quickly they were left behind. Both the Viper and the Chevy weaved around a Porsche that was clogging up the fast lane, doing no more than 95 mph.

Leo made it look effortless. He even started to hum.

Which made Welborn think to ask, “You have a radio? I’ll call for help.”

“Look out your window,” Leo said.

Welborn did, at first seeing only the blur of highway signs. Then he looked up and saw a police helicopter. It was struggling to keep pace.

“We’re outrunning an aircraft,” Welborn said.

Leo smiled. “Yeah. Who says Detroit can’t make a great car?”

“Those cops didn’t just happen along, did they?”

“Uh-uh. When I hit the let’s-boogie button — the lights and screamer — it started broadcasting an emergency signal. Every police unit in a sixty-mile radius is homing in on us. For all they know the president’s husband could be along for the ride.”