Both men were furious about their failure to kill the pair, and it was fortunate indeed for Milton Farb that he wasn’t at home right now.
The two men pulled out their flashlights and started searching. Farb’s place wasn’t that large, but it was filled with books and expensive computer and video equipment for his Web design business. Also located there was the one thing Reinke and Peters hadn’t counted on: a wireless infrared surveillance system that looked like overhead track lighting. Located in each room, it was now recording their movements, and had also sounded a silent alarm to a security firm that Milton had hired because of several previous burglaries. The system ran off a regular household outlet with a battery backup. He’d stopped using a loud alarm because in his neighborhood the police took their time coming and the alerted thieves had always been long gone before their arrival.
As the pair searched the house, their amazement grew with each new discovery.
“This guy’s a freaking nutcase,” Peters said as they explored the kitchen. The canned goods in the pantry were all neatly labeled and placed in excruciatingly precise order. The utensils hung from a rack on the wall arranged from largest to smallest. The pots and pans were organized the same way on a large rack over the stove. Even the oven mitts were lined up with precision, as were all the dishes in the cupboards. The place was a monument to fastidiousness of the most zealous kind.
When they went upstairs and poked around Milton’s bedroom and closet area, it was more of the same.
Reinke came out of the master bathroom shaking his head. “You’re not going to believe this. This bozo has torn off each sheet of the toilet paper and stacked them in a wicker box beside the toilet with instructions on disposal. I mean what do you do with toilet paper except flush it!”
In the bedroom closet Peters said, “Yeah, well, come in here and tell me who puts their socks on hangers?”
A moment later they were both staring at the socks and the tri-folded underwear and shirts that all hung on wooden hangers in precise order, with the shirts fully buttoned, including the cuffs. And they were organized by season. The men weren’t guessing at this, as Milton had helpfully posted pictures depicting winter, summer, spring and fall.
Finding nothing useful in the master bedroom, the two NIC men slipped into the other room upstairs that had been fitted out as an office. They both were immediately drawn to Milton’s desk, where every item there was laid at right angles to its neighbor.
And finally in this house of perfect order they found something that they could actually use. It was in a box marked “Receipts,” on a shelf behind Milton’s desk, and the receipts, they quickly determined, were divided by both month and product. From the box, Reinke plucked out a credit card slip that had a name on it.
“Chastity Hayes,” Reinke read. “Want to bet that’s his girlfriend?”
“If a guy like that can have a girlfriend.”
Each probably thinking the same thing, they shone their lights on the wall of Milton’s office. The pictures there were arranged in a very elaborate configuration that Peters recognized first. “It’s a double helix. DNA. This guy is a total freak.”
Reinke’s light flickered across one picture and then came back to it.
“Love, Chastity,” Reinke read at the bottom of the picture, which showed Chastity in a revealing bathing suit and blowing a kiss to the photographer, presumably Milton.
“That’s his girlfriend?” a stunned Reinke said as he eyed a picture of Milton next to the one with Chastity in her bikini. “How the hell does a geek like that get a chick like that?”
“Nurturing instinct,” Peters answered promptly. “Some women love to play mother.”
Peters pulled out an electronic device that looked like a larger version of a BlackBerry and typed in the name Chastity Hayes. A minute later three possibilities came up. Restricting his search to the Washington, D.C., area, Peters found Chastity Hayes, accountant and the owner of a house in Chevy Chase, Maryland. In addition it revealed her educational, medical, employment and financial history. As Peters ran his gaze down the info pouring over his tiny screen, Reinke pointed a finger at one line. “She was in a psych hospital for a while. I bet you she’s OCD like Farb.”
“At least we know where she lives. And if Farb isn’t here”—Peters glanced once more at the photo of the lovely Chastity—“chances are he’s there. Because that’s where I’d be sleeping if I were him.”
The noise in the back of the house froze them both. They were footsteps. And then they heard a groan and a thudding sound.
They pulled their guns and moved in the direction of those noises.
When they reached the kitchen, they saw it. The man was on the floor, unconscious. They both started when they saw the uniform.
“Rental cop,” Reinke said finally. “We must’ve tripped some alarm.”
“Yeah, but who the hell knocked him out?”
They looked around nervously.
“Let’s get out of here,” Reinke whispered.
They slipped out the back of the house and soon reached their car a block over.
“Do we hit the chick tonight?” Peters asked.
“No, you don’t,” a voice said causing both of them to jump.
They turned and saw Tom Hemingway rising from the backseat. He did not look very happy.
“You’ve had a singularly unproductive night,” he began ominously.
“You followed us here?” Peters asked in a small voice that broke slightly.
“After your last report of screwing up, what exactly did you expect me to do?”
“So you did the rental cop. Is he dead?” Reinke asked.
Hemingway ignored him. “Let me impress upon both of you once more the seriousness of what we’re trying to accomplish here. I have an army working their asses off just north of here doing far more than either of you have been asked to do. And unlike them, you two are being paid very well. And they’ve made no mistakes whatsoever. ” He stared at them so intensely that both men held their breaths. “Maybe what happened tonight was just a string of bad luck. But going forward, I will make no more allowances for bad luck.”
“What do you want us to do now?” Reinke asked nervously.
“Go home and get some rest. You’ll need it.” He held out his hand. “Give me the receipt with the woman’s name on it.”
“How did you—,” Reinke began.
However, Hemingway looked at him with such disdain that Reinke closed his mouth and passed the paper over. In a few seconds Hemingway had disappeared.
Both men sat back in their car seats and let out deep breaths.
Peters said, “That guy scares the complete and total shit out of me.”
Reinke nodded. “He was a legend at CIA. Even the drug guys in Colombia were scared to death of him. Nobody ever saw him coming in or going out.” He paused. “I’ve watched him working out at the gym at NIC. He looks like he’s carved out of granite, and he’s quick as a cat. And he’s destroyed two seventy-five-pound body bags with just his hands. They won’t even let him use his legs on the heavy bags anymore because he was breaking them with just one kick.”
“So what now?” Peters asked.
“You heard the man. We get some rest. After three close shaves tonight we don’t need a fourth. You can crash at my place.”
CHAPTER
44
AFTER WHAT HE’D SEEN AT Arlington Cemetery, Gray had gone directly to CIA headquarters at Langley. Inside this facility was a room that only current and former CIA directors were allowed to enter. Each director could access documents and other materials that pertained to missions he was involved in while at the Agency. They were held in vaults that contained large safe-deposit-style boxes. Because of the secrets housed here, it was the most heavily guarded room at Langley.
Gray put his hand on a biometric reader in front of the vault door that was labeled with his name. The door slid open and Gray entered, taking out his keys. He knew exactly the box
he wanted: number 10.
He unlocked it and drew out the contents, sat down and spread the materials out on a desk kept in the vault.
The file he was perusing was officially marked “J.C.” Those two initials could stand for many things, including Jesus Christ. However, they didn’t refer to the Son of God, but were simply the initials of a remarkable flesh-and-blood man named John Carr.
As Gray read through the exploits of Carr’s career at the CIA, his head continued to shake in absolute amazement at what the man had accomplished. And survived! Although it could be argued that the world was a more dangerous place now, it was not appreciably more perilous currently than when John Carr worked for the Agency.
As Gray came to the last pages of John Carr’s career at Langley, it ended, the way it had meant to end, with burial at Arlington Cemetery with full military honors, although John Carr had not technically worked for the army for years and had not died in a uniform. After that, his entire past had been wiped clean from every record in the United States. Gray had seen to that personally based on orders from the highest level at the CIA.