The Second Shooter (7 page)

Garcia sighed. "I'm on my way."

The line clicked dead.

Garcia looked at his wife. They were supposed to go to a garden show tomorrow. Since his retirement they had both become certified master gardeners. It was something they could enjoy together. He hated to disappoint her. Especially after all the years he had spent disappointing her. They'd been married for forty years, and for most of those years, he'd traveled the world spying for the CIA. Sometimes months passed without them so much as being able to speak on the phone.

Now all that was behind him. Now it was her time. She liked gardening, long walks on the beach, and dinners at quiet restaurants. She was certainly going to be unhappy with him flying off to DC in the middle of the night. But she would be even more unhappy, Garcia thought, if he let this lingering problem fester and it ended up sending him to prison for the rest of his life. So he set his book on the nightstand and quietly climbed out of bed.

***

"I need to make a phone call," Jake said.

They were driving somewhere in Northwest, above DuPont Circle. Favreau pulled the Nissan over at the next corner, beside a package liquor store. Jake glanced up at the street sign: U Street and 17th. "Why are you stopping here?"

"You said you had to make a call," Favreau answered, pointing to a beat-up, graffiti-tagged payphone clinging to the painted brick wall of the liquor store.

The payphone's handset hung by its spring metal cord, and the slot beneath the phone, where Jake assumed a directory might have once fit, was stuffed full of trash.

"That's what we used before mobile phones," Favreau said.

"I've never actually used one," Jake said, being dead serious. He'd grown up with a cellphone and could not remember using a payphone even once in his life.

Favreau shook his head. "Do you know how?"

"I've seen people use them in movies." Jake patted his empty front pockets. "How much does it cost?"

"Twenty-five cents, I think."

"Your friends didn't leave me anything," Jake said.

Favreau spotted some change in the ashtray and fished out a quarter. Jake took it and climbed out of the car. He left the door open.

"Close the door," Favreau said. "I have something to do."

Jake turned around. "What?"

"Dump this car."

"How are we going to get around?"

"We'll find a way." Favreau motioned with his hand. "Come on, close the door."

Jake pushed the passenger door shut and walked to the payphone. Favreau drove the Nissan west on U Street.

The telephone handset smelled like liquor and vomit, but maybe that was just Jake's imagination. He hoped so. A broken wooden match was jammed in the coin slot, and he had to dig it out before he could deposit his quarter. After a three-second pause he heard a dial tone and punched in Chris's cellphone number. The call took a long time to connect, and when it finally did, the ring sounded old fashioned, like a mechanical bell.

Jake glanced at his watch. It was ten o'clock. Kickoff had been at seven, so the game was in the fourth quarter.

Chris answered on the third ring. "Hello."

His voice sounded oddly cautious, and Jake wasn't sure why. Chris usually answered with a cocky "My time, your money" or "You got Chris." Sometimes he announced himself as "the Chris-i-nator." Then Jake realized that Chris would not have recognized the number he was calling from. But did payphones even show up on caller ID? "Chris, it's me," he said.

"Holy shit, Jake."

There was no football game noise in the background. "Where are you?" Jake asked.

After a few seconds of hesitation, Chris said, "In a cab. With Stacy."

That last bit was like a knife in Jake's guts. "Why are you in a cab? The game's not over."

"What's going on, Jake?"

Chris's voice still sounded strange. "What have you heard?"

"The office texted us," Chris said. "Both of us. Looks like they texted everybody in the WFO. Maybe the whole Bureau."

"What did the message say?"

"It was crazy," Chris said. "I thought it was a joke, like maybe you were trying to—"

"What did it say?"

"That you helped a terrorist escape FBI custody."

"That's not true!" Jake said. Then he heard a rustling sound over the phone. He wasn't sure if Chris was still on the line. "Chris, are you there?"

"Jake!" It was Stacy's voice on the phone now.

"Stacy," Jake said, somehow feeling better just hearing her voice.

"Jake, what's happening?" she said. "We heard some pretty weird stuff from the WFO."

"It's...It's not what they said."

"Then what is it?" Stacy asked, almost pleading. "What's really going on?"

"Someone tried to kill me."

"What?" Stacy said. "Who? Who tried to kill you?"

A beat-up van with smoke-tinted windows rumbled down 17th Street and stopped in front of the liquor store. Jake laid a hand on the Glock tucked into the front of his pants. Then the driver's window rolled down and he saw Favreau behind the wheel.

"Where did you get that thing?" Jake called out.

"Get what?" Stacy said in his ear.

"No. No. Not you," Jake said into the phone. "I was..."

"Who were you talking to?" Stacy said. "Who are you with?"

Favreau waved to Jake. "Come on."

Jake signaled him to wait, then spoke into the phone again. "Stacy, it's nothing like what you've heard."

"Then what, Jake? Talk to me."

"I...I can't. I don't have time. But I really, really need you and Chris's help. Can you meet me?"

"The Bureau put out a BOLO. Every cop in DC is looking for you, Jake. They said...that you shot two people inside WFO."

"I didn't shoot anybody," Jake snapped. Then he took a deep breath. He had to calm down. If there were two people in the world he could trust they were Stacy and Chris. When he spoke again his voice was more measured. "Who was it I supposedly shot? Did anybody at the Bureau identify them?"

"No."

"Don't you find that strange?"

"Yeah," Stacy said. "Kind of. I mean, I thought about that as soon as I heard it. I just...I don't understand what's happening, Jake."

"I need your help, Stac. You and Chris."

The line stayed quiet.

"Do you trust me?" Jake asked.

"Yes," she said without hesitation.

Her confidence lifted Jake's spirits. Maybe there was a way out of this mess. "Can you meet me?"

"Where?"

Jake considered the problem. He needed a quiet place outside of the city. Somewhere no one would be looking for him. "Fort Marcy Park," he said. "As soon as you can get there. By the old fort. Next to the jogging and bike path we ran that time. You, me, and Chris. Remember?"

"Yeah, of course I remember."

"Come alone. I mean just you and Chris. Please."

"We will. But, Jake?"

"Yeah?"

"If you didn't do anything, if this is all some kind of...terrible mistake, why not just turn yourself in? Chris and I could meet you at WFO or even Headquarters if you wanted. I know a lawyer who would probably be willing to help."

"I already tried going to the office," Jake said. "Things just got worse."

"Jake, this is really scaring me."

"Just meet me, Stacy, please. I'll explain everything. But don't tell anyone. Whatever this is, it's big. And there are a lot of people involved, powerful people...including the ASAC."

"Donahue?" Stacy said. "Are you serious?"

"Yeah."

"All right. We'll be there."

"Thank you."

Jake hung up.

Favreau stared at him from behind the wheel of the van as Jake climbed into the passenger seat. "Who was that?" Favreau asked.

"A friend?"

"Can you trust him?"

"Her," Jake said. "It was a her. And yes, I trust both of them."

The Frenchman smiled. "Both of them? You have two mademoiselles as special friends?"

"I spoke to two people. Both are friends. A guy and a girl. The guy is my roommate. We were at the Academy together."

"And the mademoiselle?"

Jake hesitated. "Somebody I care about."

Favreau cocked his face up into an exaggerated wink and made a quick double clicking sound with his cheek, which had the effect of making him look and sound both very cartoonish and very French at the same time. Like the amorous skunk Pepe' Le Pew in those old cartoons Jake used to watch when he was in grade school, before he caught the bus in the morning.

"Let's get going," Jake said. Then he eyed the broken steering column and the hanging ignition wires, which were twisted together to form a completed circuit. "We should leave a note for the owner."

"I left the Nissan."

Jake shook his head. "Drive."

"Where to?"

Jake pointed south down 17th Street. "That way."

Favreau mashed the gas pedal. The old van shuddered as it accelerated into traffic.

***

Wendell Donahue hung up the telephone and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile on his face.

"What?" Blackstone said. Like a lot of people in the intelligence business, he hated secrets, unless he was the one keeping them.

They were still in Donahue's office.

"They're headed across the river to Fort Marcy Park," the FBI agent said.

"Who told you that?" Blackstone asked.

Donahue kept smiling, although Blackstone thought it had morphed into more of a condescending smirk, something that gave him a sudden urge to smack it off the man's face. "It's against Bureau policy to reveal a confidential source," Donahue said. "But trust me, they're on their way to Fort Marcy Park."

Blackstone stood. "The chopper can get us there in ten minutes."

"What happens to Miller?"

"If he keeps his mouth shut he can still come out of this in one piece," Blackstone said. It was a lie, but he was pretty sure Donahue already knew that. As a professional bureaucrat who had spent nearly his entire career behind a desk, looking for properly dotted i's and thoroughly crossed t's, the FBI agent needed to hear certain things to ease his conscience, and Blackstone was happy to supply him with what he needed to hear if it got the man off his ass and moving.

"And Favreau?" Donahue asked.

Now it was Blackstone's turn to smirk. "Who's Favreau?"

"I had called the two people I trusted the most. I wanted to get the full story out of him, whatever he believed that to be, in front of witnesses. I still thought he was a nut. But obviously he had information that somebody high up wanted to suppress pretty badly. Whatever that information was, I figured it had to be the key to unlocking this whole thing. At the time, of course, I had no idea how right I was."

***

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2013

Jake checked the luminous dial of his Submariner. It was just past midnight. He and Favreau were sitting in the front seats of the stolen van. Their second stolen vehicle of the night. They had all the lights out and were stopped at the end of a winding road deep inside Fort Marcy Park, with the van turned around and facing the entrance. The park was dark and quiet. Both of them were staring out the windshield, watching for car headlights in the otherwise deserted park.

Jake felt a little better now, knowing that Chris and Stacy were on their way. He needed people to brainstorm this problem with, people to bounce ideas off of, people he could trust. He glanced at Favreau sitting behind the wheel. The man was either out of his mind or...No, there was no or to it, no alternative. Favreau was flat-out crazy. Delusional. Which meant there had to be some other explanation for everything that had happened tonight. Some logical explanation. There just had to be. And surely whatever that explanation was, it did not involve the fifty-year-old assassination of the country's thirty-fifth president. It couldn't. Because that was crazy.

"I see you looking at me," Favreau said.

Jake turned away, feeling like he'd been caught doing something wrong. Then he realized how stupid that was. He looked at Favreau again. "How'd you get out of the handcuffs?"

Favreau smiled. "If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

"That's not funny."

The Frenchman slid a worn billfold from his back pocket. From a concealed slot inside the wallet, he pulled out a small piece of hard plastic and handed it to Jake. The piece was a quarter-inch wide by three inches long. Jake turned it over in his hand. In the dim ambient light he could see a magnetic strip on one side and part of a bank name and logo on the other. It was the top edge of a credit card, sliced off neat with a razor or a well-honed pair of scissors.

Jake handed it back. "Your credit score must really be bad if that's all they gave you."

"It's how I opened the handcuffs." Favreau flicked a thumb nail against the end of the strip of plastic. "The tip slides inside the ratchet mechanism."

"You have to live pretty dangerously if you need to carry that in your wallet."

"You've only spent a few hours with me and look how much trouble we've gotten into," Favreau said. "And remember, I've mostly been sightseeing."

Jake smiled. It felt good to smile. He needed something to break the tension of the last...Reflexively, he glanced again at his graduation Rolex, built, according to his stepfather, to last his entire career and beyond, into his golden years, his retirement years. Now he had to wonder if his FBI career had any chance of lasting past daybreak.

Had it really been only six hours since he'd first laid eyes on this lunatic, this self-confessed "presidential assassin"? Yes, it had. Just six hours. Six hours that seemed a lifetime ago. Back when he had been on his way to RFK Stadium to watch the Redskins game with a beautiful girl and maybe lay the groundwork for a real date. Now he was here, hiding in a closed park, inside a stolen van, with a madman who was convinced he'd killed John F. Kennedy.

"What's this really about?" Jake asked.

"I told you what it's about."

"And stop with all the Kennedy bullshit." Jake spun to face Favreau. "I've heard all I can possibly stand to hear about that. This isn't a fantasy about an assassination that happened...Do you know how old I am?"