“Take a good look. This is the woman who murdered CIA Director Weir at the Hoover Building.”
Cahill shook his head. “Okay. So?”
“Her name is Nikki Williams and she’s former army. She operated as a mercenary for a while. A sniper, a good one. Lots of private contracts on her résumé. I know what you’re going to say, Joe—so?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Once upon a time, she worked for you and your partner, Hancock. Your agency shared your files with us, Joe. New era of cooperation. Here’s the real twist—I think you hired her to kill Weir.
“Maybe you did it through Geoffrey Shafer, but you were involved. I think you work for the Wolf. Maybe you always have—maybe that was part of his deal, too.”
“You’re crazy, and you’re dead wrong!” Joe Cahill stood up and brushed crumbs from his trousers. “You know what else, I think you’d better leave now. I’m sorry as hell I invited you into my house. This little talk of ours is over.”
“No, Joe,” I said, “actually, it’s just getting started.”
Chapter 94
I MADE A CALL on my cell phone. Minutes later, agents from Langley and Quantico swarmed onto the property and arrested Joe Cahill. They cuffed him and dragged him out of his nice, peaceful house in the country.
We had a lead now, maybe a good one.
Joe Cahill was transported to a CIA safe house somewhere in the Alleghenies. The grounds and the home looked ordinary enough: a two-story fieldstone farmhouse surrounded by grapevines and fruit trees, the entryway thick with wisteria. But this wasn’t going to be a safe house for Uncle Joe.
The former agent was bound and gagged, then left alone in a small room for several hours.
To thi
nk about his future—and his past.
A CIA doctor arrived: a tall, paunchy man who looked to be in his late thirties, horsey, WASPish. His name was Jay O’Connell. He told us that an experimental truth serum had been approved for use on Cahill. O’Connell explained that variations of the drug were currently being used on terrorist prisoners at various prisons.
“It’s a barbiturate, like sodium amytal and brevital,” he said. “All of a sudden the subject will feel slightly drunk, diminished senses. After that, he won’t be able to defend himself very well against prodding questions. At least, we hope not. Subjects can react differently. We’ll see with this guy. He’s older, so I’m fairly confident we’ll nail him.”
“What’s the worst we can expect?” I asked O’Connell.
“That’d be cardiac arrest. Oh hell, it’s a joke. Well, actually, I guess it isn’t.”
It was early in the morning when Joe Cahill was moved out of the small holding room and brought into a larger one in the cellar with no windows. His blindfold and gag were removed, but not the binds around his wrists. We sat him in a straight-backed chair.
Cahill blinked his eyes repeatedly before he could tell where he was and who else was in the room with him.
“Disorientation techniques. Won’t work worth a crap on me,” he said. “This is really dumb. Nonsense. It’s horseshit.”
“Yes, we think so, too,” said Dr. O’Connell. He turned to one of the agents, Larry Ladove. “Roll up his sleeve for me anyway. There we go. This will pinch. Then it’ll sting. Then you’ll spill out your guts to us.”
Chapter 95
FOR THE NEXT three and a half hours, Cahill continued to slur his words badly and to act like a man who had half a dozen drinks or more in him, and was ready for more.
“I know what you guys are doing,” Uncle Joe said, and shook a finger at the three of us in the room with him.
“We know what you’re doing, too,” said the CIA guy, Ladove. “And what you’ve done.”
“Haven’t done anything. Innocent until proven guilty. Besides, if you know so much, why are we talking?”
“Joe, where is the Wolf?” I asked him. “What country? Give us something.”
“Don’t know,” Cahill said, then laughed as if something he’d said was funny. “All these years, I don’t know. I don’t.”