The Bishop's Pawn (Cotton Malone 13)

“It seemed like my only play.”

I walked closer and crouched down before her. Her anger seemed to have passed. She appeared more defeated now.

“Have you heard from Nate?”

She shook her head. “He hasn’t called, which is troublesome.”

“I read every page of the files last night,” I told her.

Her eyes burned into mine. I knew what she wanted to hear.

“It does change history. If it’s real.”

“I want to read it all, too.”

I would eventually come to learn that there were moments in every intelligence operation when only one course was available. Blind risk. A point when you had to place your trust in something that would otherwise be senseless and hope for the best. In later years I both lived for and feared those moments. But right now I needed an ally, not an enemy. And Lincoln was right. Do I not destroy my enemy when I make them my friend?

“Okay,” I said. “You can read it all. But we still have to establish that what’s inside this case is real, and not something Valdez manufactured.”

“How do we do that?”

“I have an idea. But I need your help to make it happen.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

I listened as Coleen used Nate’s cell phone to call Orlando and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Back in the cemetery at Port Mayaca, when the guy Foster had taken me there to meet drove off, I memorized his Florida license plate. I didn’t know at the time whether the information would be important, but I realized last night that it was now vital.

That guy knew things.

And he was former FBI.

What I needed was a name and address, and now I knew that I couldn’t contact Stephanie Nelle for help. But a sheriff’s deputy? All she had to do was ask one of her friends to run the tag. Cops did it all the time, as did military police. Thankfully, the phone had a signal out here in the middle of farm country, albeit a weak one as the conversation appeared to be cutting in and out with a lot of can you hear me’s.

She ended the call.

“The car belongs to a Bruce Lael. He lives in Melbourne. You gonna tell me who he is?”

“Your father brought him to Port Mayaca.”

And I told her what happened.

“He wanted Lael to lead Jansen straight to us.”

She seemed astonished. “For what?”

“My guess is, when you opened this can of worms, he saw it as the only way to close it. So he calls Lael, who calls Oliver. Then he sends me to get food, with everything in the car. He didn’t want any harm to come to you, and he doesn’t want you reading what’s in that case, so he sent me out to be caught.”

She glanced at the container as if it were a holy relic. “What the hell is in there?”

“Enough to raise some serious questions about who really killed King and why.”

She sat silent on the damp grass and I allowed her a moment with her thoughts. The sun was rising, becoming hotter by the second.

“Melbourne is about two hours north of here,” I said. “When we passed under I-95 a mile or so back I saw there was an exit just beyond the canal. I say we head there and see if we can bum a ride north.”

“We could wait for Nate to call. I’m a little surprised he hasn’t by now.”

I shook my head. “We have to do this without your father. He won’t want us to find this Bruce Lael. No way.”

“You still haven’t explained why not.”

Because I didn’t know. None of it made sense. But hell, I’d only been an investigator for all of one day.

“How long have you been a cop?” I asked her.

“Four years.”

“You like it?”

“I like what I represent. A little color in blue is good for everyone.”

I smiled. “So you’re a trailblazer. Like your father was long ago.”

She stood and brushed the moisture from her clothes. “I’m a good cop.”

And for the first time I heard the pride of a daughter trying to earn the respect of her father.

We walked back to the boats.

I carried the waterproof case. She seemed resigned to our uneasy truce. We left the inflatable and took the other boat back to the I-95 overpass. From there we walked through a neighborhood of boxy, single-family homes to a busy street, with exits on and off the interstate, that accommodated gas stations and a truck stop. It took only half an hour to find one of the long haulers willing to take us north to Melbourne. The rig’s main cab came with a sleeper compartment. I sat up front and chatted with the driver while Coleen occupied the sleeper, flicking through the files, reading every page. Every once in a while I glanced back and caught the surprise on her face.

Which I could understand.

It took just under two hours to make it to the Melbourne exit, where we thanked the trucker. I offered some money, but he refused. At a gas station I found a pay phone and learned the number of a Melbourne cab service. A car arrived a few minutes later and took us east, toward the coast, and the address we had for Bruce Lael.

Twelve years as a Magellan Billet agent would eventually teach me that people nearly always left trails. It’s human nature. Paper ones. Pictures. Bread crumbs. Doesn’t matter. There’s something. But I felt reasonably safe that no one could have possibly tracked us to this point. We’d made it away from Stuart with no one on our tail and I had laid down not a single speck that anyone could follow. Once we found Lael’s house, though, that could all change. It was entirely possible Oliver had the guy under surveillance. Of course, once Lael had served his purpose and led Oliver to Lake Okeechobee, they may have abandoned him. But then again, maybe not. So I had the taxi driver drop us off about a mile from the address, learning from him directions the rest of the way.

I paid the driver and we walked down the quiet street, the air filled with the sweet, sticky smell of freshly mowed grass. The houses were small, single-story, concrete-block rectangles, most with tile roofs and painted either white, pale blue, or yellow. Lots of tall trees signaled that the neighborhood had been here awhile. An enormous brown-and-white dog pounded across one of the front yards, charging with a canine friendliness, a light in its eyes, paws upraised, tail flailing like a whip. Coleen showed the animal a little attention

, but it quickly lost interest and padded away.

The address we sought was at the end of a long street, another ordinary sort of place, one of the white-painted houses. The same dark-blue, late-model Taurus with tinted windows and the correct Brevard County tag sat parked on the street, the short driveway filled with a flat-bottomed bass boat on a trailer.

We walked to the front door and I knocked. It was answered a few moments later by the same man from the cemetery.

He appraised me with a careful gaze.

But his words sent a chill down my spine.

“What took you so long?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Bruce Lael seemed like a man who still breathed the past. He wore a pair of dirty cargo shorts, a loud Hawaiian shirt, and tattered flip-flops. His house cast a measure in simplicity, everything neat and orderly. The living room reminded me of the one at my grandfather’s house back in Georgia, complete with an upholstered sofa, high-backed chairs, flat beige walls, and a brick fireplace. The cool rush from an overhead AC vent was particularly welcome.

“Were you expecting us?” I asked.

The warm grin slipped from his face. “You’re with the Justice Department. I figured you’d eventually run me down and come for a chat.”

“You didn’t seem real happy back in Port Mayaca?”

“I did what Foster wanted.”

“Leading Jim Jansen straight to me?”

The guy nodded. “I thought it was nuts, too. But that’s what he wanted.”

“You do everything he wants?”

I could see he did not appreciate my sarcasm.

“I don’t want those files going anywhere near Washington, either. I saw the wisdom in involving Oliver. He’d take care of things.” He paused. “And I don’t give a crap about you.”

I noticed he hadn’t offered us a seat or anything to drink, which meant this was going to be a short conversation. So I came to the point. “What is it you and Foster know about the King assassination?”

“Aren’t you the impatient one. No romance? No dinner beforehand? No foreplay? Just get right to it. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am. You’re awful young. How long you been on the job?”