The Washington Lawyer (25 page)

She grabbed a rock and tossed it at the front windshield. Flying glass and the rock made him lose control. The van careened into a ditch.

Heart pounding, almost totally out of breath, she got back into her car and roared off. Now what? Go to the police? Bad idea. Better if she left all her stuff in the hotel room. She had her wallet, Vanessa's vault key, and their two passports in her bag. That was all she needed. She'd drive to the dock in town. Find somebody with a boat to take her to St. Martin, and get the hell off this island.

* * *

She checked into The Palms, a small hotel near the airport in St. Martin. Her teeth chattering, goose bumps on her arms, she turned the deadbolt and put the chain on the door. After a long shower, she fixed hot tea from a machine on the counter.

To warm up, she climbed under the covers.

One thought kept racing through her mind:
My God, they were trying to kill me
.

What in the world was happening? she asked herself.

But it was a rhetorical question. She was getting close to learning whom Vanessa had gone with to Anguilla and they were determined to kill her rather than have her discover that information.

Thinking about her experience that evening made her whole body shake.

She had to talk to someone about what had happened.

Paul. He was her only choice.

She reached for her cell phone.

“Where are you?” he asked.

She was unbelievably relieved to hear his voice. “St. Martin. I'm flying back to Washington in the morning.” Her voice was coming out in short bursts.

“Are you okay?”

“No. I'm terrible. On Anguilla some men followed me and tried to kill me. I managed to escape.”

“Holy shit! Did you go to the police?”

“They're running the cover-up. Vanessa had to be involved with a man who's getting support from the police.”

“Did you get any information on his identity?”

“I'm getting close. I have a description.”

“What's he look like?”

She read him her notes from the conversation with Mary Pat.

“That description fits lots of men in Washington. Let me think about how we can narrow it down. As soon as you land in Washington, come right to my house. You'll be safe here. I'll be at the office. Call me on my cell and I'll come home.”

Allison had no intention of doing that. The first thing she had to do when she returned to Washington was go to Vanessa's bank vault.

Washington

M
artin came home at nine in the evening. To his surprise, he found Francis there and in bed.

“Hey, I thought you were going to the Kennedy Center for chamber music with Sharon.”

“Stomach virus,” she muttered. “Leave me alone.”

And he did until almost eleven thirty in the evening when she called to him. “I've rejoined the living.”

He went upstairs and found her in bed, propped up against the headboard.

“Wow! It just hit me all at once. Sorry to kick you out, Andrew.”

“You okay?”

“For sure. Now I want to hear about your meeting with President Braddock and Arthur. And I want the whole nine yards.”

For the next half hour he reported while she interrogated like a trial lawyer about small details. When he was finished, she said, “I think it all sounds positive.”

“I didn't mention Jasper and Anguilla to Braddock. You think I should have?”

While she thought about it, he added, “It's not too late. I can call Arthur first thing in the morning and inform him.”

“No, no. You made the right decision. I know Arthur. You'd be out. He'd tell the president. And Braddock would turn on you, concluding that he didn't want someone sleazy on his short list.”

Martin winced.

“I didn't say
you
were sleazy,” she continued, as if reading his mind. “What I said was Braddock might jump to that conclusion. No, no. You were smart. You had no choice.”

Later asleep, next to Francis, Martin dreamt he was walking through a field. He saw an electrified fence in the center with yellow neon lights on top. He knew he had better stay away from it, but the light became dim. Then, a searing jolt like electricity shot through his body.

The cell phone on the night table rang. It was Gorton. “You don't have to worry about Allison Boyd. She never learned what actually happened.”

“What about Har Stevens? I was afraid he'd be a problem.”

“Fortunately, he was off island the night Vanessa drowned. His deputy and the two officers stuck with the story I created for them.”

Martin let out his breath in a sigh of relief. “Good work, Gorton.”

“But I have to tell you. She is one tough lady. Roughed up a couple of my guys.”

“I told you no violence,” Martin said sharply.

“She came after two of my men who were following her. They had all they could do to defend themselves. One has a broken arm and the other one cuts on his face from a broken windshield.”

Martin had never dealt with violence like this. Sure, he had represented criminals who were connected to violent crimes, generally in court appointed cases. But not in his own life. He felt as if he was rapidly losing control of the situation. “What about Allison?”

“I don't think she had a scratch.”

“Has she left Anguilla?”

“She took a boat to St. Martin about an hour ago. My nephew's. While she was on the boat, he heard her booking a plane on American Airlines to Washington for the morning.”

Great, Martin thought, she was coming back here to resume her investigation. But meantime, he had dodged a bullet in Anguilla.

Gorton added, “Good luck to you in dealing with that hellcat, Mr. Martin.”

“Thanks for everything, Gorton.”

Once Gorton clicked off, Martin decided to call Jasper. He didn't want the senator doing anything foolish. Martin called him at home, waking Jasper.

“Good news, Wes. Anguilla was a dry hold for Allison.”

“How do you know that?”

“Gorton just called me.”

“Okay,” the senator said and hung up

“Thanks for the show of gratitude,” Martin said into the dead phone.

* * *

Xiang was in the computer room in the Chinese Embassy watching a technician deftly hack into airline computers. She started with United. “No record of Allison Boyd.” Then moved on to American.

Xiang was looking over her shoulder. He saw the name Allison Boyd appear on the screen followed by a flight number: American 220 from Miami. It showed an arrival time of 2:55 p.m. today into Reagan National.

Xiang decided that he and Han would wait at the exit for American on the lower level in a dark blue Civic, with Han driving. He expected Allison to take a cab. It would be too difficult to channel her into a cab with a driver working for him since it was impossible to control those cab lines. So he'd follow her cab.

If Xiang were a gambler, he'd bet heavily that if Allison hadn't found the CD in Anguilla, she would immediately go to the bank and Vanessa's safe deposit box before the bank closed. So if she didn't go to the bank, that meant she had the CD. He'd follow her cab and when she came to her destination, probably Vanessa's apartment, he'd pull up behind her, jump out, and grab it. With the element of surprise that should be doable.

But suppose she retrieved the CD from the bank vault?

He tried to put himself into her mind. She would undoubtedly place the CD in her briefcase. He could try to snatch it from her on the street as she left the bank, but that would be too risky in broad daylight. Besides, as he learned two days ago, Allison was tough. She'd fight back and bystanders or a passing policeman might intervene.

He didn't know where she'd be going with the CD, but suppose he arranged to have a cab waiting in front of the bank, with the driver working for him, and hopefully that was the cab Allison got into. That would be easy to arrange in front of the bank. Then it wouldn't matter where Allison planned to go. The driver could take her to a destination that Xiang selected.

Getting control of a DC cab was easy. For enough cash, he was confident he could borrow one from a cab company. But the driver couldn't be Chinese. Xiang was convinced Allison would never get into a cab with a Chinese driver after what she'd been through the last couple of days.

He came up with an idea for the cab and driver. Xiang had become friends with Kiro, a Nigerian intelligence agent attached to their embassy. The Nigerians were courting China for a large new trade agreement. Xiang was confident Kiro would help.

Xiang called Kiro. Half an hour later he was seated in the Nigerian Embassy telling Kiro, “I need a favor.”

“I'm listening,” the tall, thin Nigerian responded in English, spoken with a British accent, the result of four years at Oxford.

“You once told me that a number of Nigerian cab drivers in Washington were on your payroll.”

“That's right. They supplement their income with drop-offs and pickups for me.”

“Can these men be trusted?”

Kiro's head snapped back. He was scowling. I've insulted him, Xiang thought. Before Xiang had a chance to say anything, Kiro interjected.

“Apology accepted. But whatever you're planning, I don't want to risk my driver being arrested.”

“Don't worry. He won't be. I promise you that.”

“Okay. Tell me what you want him to do.”

When Xiang finished, Kiro was shaking his head. “It's too risky. I don't want to lose a good man. Besides, my government doesn't hold most of the American debt as yours does. They don't treat us with any deference.”

Xiang viewed Kiro's comment as an offer to negotiate. He had come expecting it. So, casually, he reached into his jacket pocket and removed an envelope which contained ten thousand dollars in US currency. He laid it down on the desk without saying a word. Kiro's superiors might have bugged his office. He didn't want to get the Nigerian into trouble.

“Our two governments are currently embarked on a cooperative approach in many commercial activities. I view what I'm asking as part of that cooperation,”

Silently, Xiang slid the envelope toward Kiro.

“When you express it that way, it is something I can do. But I don't want my man arrested.”

“I assure you. He will not be.”

As Xiang left the Nigerian Embassy, he considered another possibility: suppose that Allison didn't have the CD and after all this she didn't know where it was. What to do about her then?

He thought about it for a few minutes and decided he'd have the cab drive them to a remote location in Rock Creek Park. There he'd rough her up and threaten to kill her in an effort to intimidate her into leaving town before she found out that Jasper had been with Vanessa.

* * *

Allison's plane landed ten minutes early. Seated in the bulkhead in coach, on the aisle, she raced through the first class cabin as soon as the door opened, nearly crashing into a gray-haired man who shouted, “What's the hurry lady?”

She was the first one off the plane.

Without any bags, ten minutes later, she exited the terminal on the lower level and headed for the cab line.

A light rain was falling. She gave the driver the bank's address on Connecticut Avenue, a little north of Vanessa's apartment. Anxiously, Allison checked her watch. She would make it well before four o'clock when the bank closed.

Getting access to Vanessa's safe deposit was easy for Allison. When Vanessa opened the box, she had sent forms to Allison to sign, putting her sister on as a co-lessee.

In the bank, Allison took the gray metal box to a booth, closed the door, and opened the lid. Inside were four volumes of Vanessa's diaries—substantial books, but each one with a different cover—and a stack of hundred dollar bills. That was all.

No CD
.

This was the last place Allison thought Vanessa might have hidden the CD. Not finding it here, she was rapidly coming to the conclusion that there was no CD and that the Chinese were mistaken about its existence. Perhaps Vanessa had led them to think she had a damaging CD. But why? Did Vanessa have a powerful Chinese official as a lover and she was blackmailing him? That was possible.

Allison put the diaries into her bag. She'd look at them later when she got to Paul's.

She counted the money. Twenty thousand dollars in hundreds. She put it in her bag.

When Vanessa had opened the box, soon after she moved to Washington, she proudly told Allison, “I believe in keeping cash. You never know. I have a million dollars in cash left over from my modeling days in the bank vault I just opened.”

Amazing how Vanessa burnt through money. Not just spending it, but she had lost so much with managers and financial advisors who had either made bad investments or stolen it. Allison had recommended wealth managers she knew, but Vanessa had said, “They're too boring.”

And when Allison suggested putting it into US government bonds, Vanessa replied, “I might as well be stashing it under a mattress. I want to make money with my money.”

Allison exited the bank and looked around for a cab. The rain was coming down harder. A cab was parked at the curb. Allison signaled to the driver; he waved his arm, motioning her to get in.

He was a Nigerian, she guessed from his name and looks, and this was confirmed by the small Nigerian flag hanging from the rearview mirror. He was a muscular man, wearing a dark green t-shirt which showed off his biceps. Music in an African language was playing in the cab.

She gave him Paul's address. He turned off the music and pulled away.

Exhausted, she had trouble keeping her eyes open as the wheels turned.

Dozing, she noticed the driver turning into an alley. “Shortcut,” he said. “We'll miss some traffic.”

Not knowing Washington that well, she didn't protest.

Seconds later, he made a sharp turn into a rear loading dock for a building, stopped the cab, and turned off the engine. Now Allison was alarmed. Two Chinese men sprang up from behind a dumpster. She recognized them as the two who had confronted her in the churchyard and then came into the Silver Eagle restaurant.