The Camel Club (Camel Club 1)

“You’re unusually quiet tonight, Milton. Everything all right?”

Milton looked at him shyly. “I made a friend.” They all stared at him curiously. “A female friend,” he added.

Reuben slapped Milton on the shoulder. “You old dog you.”

“That’s wonderful,” Stone said. “Where did you meet her?”

“At the anxiety clinic. She’s a patient too.”

“I see,” Stone said, turning back around.

“That’s very nice, I’m sure,” Caleb added diplomatically.

They moved slowly under the Key Bridge, keeping to the middle of the channel, and then followed the curve of the river south. Stone took comfort that the thickening fog made them practically invisible from shore. Federal authorities didn’t tolerate trespassers very well. Stone watched as land came into view. “A little to the right, Reuben.”

“Next time let’s just meet in front of the Lincoln Memorial. It requires much less sweat on my part,” the big man complained as he huffed and puffed on the oars.

The boat made its way around the western side of the island and into a small strip of water known appropriately as Little Channel. It was so isolated here that it seemed impossible that they’d glimpsed the U.S. Capitol dome just minutes ago.

Reaching shore, they climbed out and hauled the boat up into the bushes. As the men trudged single file through the woods toward the main trail, Oliver Stone carried an extra spring in his step. He had a lot he wanted to accomplish tonight.

CHAPTER

5

THE LATVIAN ENTOURAGE FINALLY retired, and Alex immediately hitched a ride to a federal cop hangout, not far from the Secret Service’s WFO. The establishment was called the LEAP Bar. The acronym LEAP probably meant nothing to the layperson but was very well known to federal law enforcement types.

LEAP stood for “Law Enforcement Availability Pay.” In exchange for being available at least ten hours a day for work that required a badge, a gun and more than a modicum of guts, federal officers received from their respective agencies a 25 percent bump in their base pay. Naming the bar LEAP was a brilliant marketing move by the saloon owners because the place had been packed from day one with pistol-toting men and women.

Alex passed through the front door and edged up to the bar. On the wall facing him were dozens of arm patches with the insignias of law enforcement agencies. Adorning the other walls were framed newspaper articles of heroic deeds by the FBI, DEA, ATF, FAM and other such agencies.

When Alex saw her, he grinned, in spite of wanting to remain cool and unaffected by her presence.

“Beefeater martini on the rocks with not two, or four, but three plump olives,” she said, eyeing him with an accompanying smile.

“Good memory.”

“Yeah, it’s really tough considering you never order anything else.”

“How’s DOJ treating you?”

Kate Adams was the only bartender of his acquaintance who was also a Department of Justice lawyer.

She handed him his drink. “Hunky-dory. How’s the Service treating you?”

“The paychecks keep coming and I keep breathing. That’s all I ask.”

“You really should raise your standards.”

Kate mopped up the bar as Alex kept shooting discreet glances her way. She was five-seven with slender curves and shoulder-length blond hair curling around a long neck. She had high cheekbones with a slim, straight nose between, leading down to a shapely chin. In fact, everything about her was cool and classical until you got to the eyes. They were large and green and, to Alex, evidenced a fiery, passionate soul lurking within. Single, a GS-15 and in her mid-thirties—he’d checked on the government database—Kate looked five years younger than that. It was a pity, Alex thought, since he looked every bit his age, though his black hair had not yet started to thin or gray. Why, he didn’t know.

“You’re getting skinny,” she remarked, breaking into his thoughts.

“Being out of protection, I’m not standing around shoveling in hotel food, and I actually get to work out instead of sitting my butt on a plane for ten hours at a crack.”

He’d been coming here for over a month and chitchatting with the woman. He wanted to do more than that, though, and now tried to think of something that would hold her attention. He suddenly glanced at her hands. “So how long have you played the piano?”

“What?” Kate said in a surprised tone.

“Your fingers are calloused,” he observed. “A sure sign of a piano player.”

She looked at her hands. “Or from a computer keyboard.”

“No. Computer keys callous the tips only. Piano keys hit the full upper part of the finger. And that’s not all. You chew your nails down to the nubs. You have a dent in your left thumbnail, a scar on your right index finger, and your left pinkie is a little crooked, probably from a break when you were a kid.”

Kate stared at her fingers. “What are you? Some sort of hand expert?”

“All Secret Service agents are. I’ve spent a good chunk of my adult life looking at hands in all fifty states and a bunch of countries overseas.”

“Why?”

“Because people kill with their hands, Kate.”

“Oh.”

He was about to say something else when a group of FBI agents who’d just gotten off the last shift burst in, strode en masse to the bar and started ordering in loud voices. Alex, pushed away by their sheer number, took his drink and sat alone at a small table in a corner. However, his gaze remained fixed on Kate. The Bureau boys were giving the lovely bartender their fawning attention, which irritated the hell out of the Secret Service agent.

Alex finally turned his attention to the TV bolted to the wall. It was tuned to CNN, and a number of bar patrons were listening intently to the person speaking on the screen. Alex carried his drink over near the set so he could hear better, and watched a repeat of an earlier press conference held by Carter Gray, the nation’s intelligence chief.

Gray’s physical appearance instantly gave one assurance. Though short in stature, he had the weighty presence of granite with his burly shoulders, stout neck and wide face. He wore glasses that gave him a professional air, which wasn’t simply a façade; he was the product of some of the finest schools in the country. And everything the schools hadn’t taught him, he had learned through almost four decades in the field. He did not seem capable of being either intimidated or caught off guard.

“In rural southwest Virginia three alleged terrorists were found dead by a farmer looking for a lost cow,” the secretary of intelligence announced with a completely straight face. The mental image this conjured made Alex want to laugh, but Carter Gray’s

grave demeanor extinguished any desire to chuckle.

“Forensic evidence suggests these men had been dead for at least a week and perhaps longer. Using the information database at the National Intelligence Center, we have confirmed that one of them was Muhammad al-Zawahiri, who we believe was connected to the Grand Central suicide bombing and is suspected of running an East Coast drug ring as well. Also killed were Adnan al-Rimi, believed to be one of al-Zawahiri’s foot soldiers, and a third man whose identity is still unknown. Using intelligence developed by NIC, the FBI has arrested five other men with connections to al-Zawahiri and confiscated a large quantity of illegal drugs, cash and weapons.”

Gray knew how to play the Washington game perfectly, Alex thought. He’d made sure the public knew that NIC was the one who’d done the heavy lifting, but he’d also credited the FBI. Success in D.C. was measured in budget dollars and extra scraps of turf. Any bureaucrat who forgot this did so at his extreme peril. Yet every agency occasionally needed favors from its sister organizations. Gray had clearly covered his bases there.

Gray continued. “One of the most interesting facets of this incident is that, based on the investigation so far, it seems that al-Zawahiri killed his two companions and then committed suicide, although it may turn out that his death was somehow related to his drug trafficking. Regardless, we believe that this latest development will send another shock wave through terrorist communities at a time when the United States is making clear inroads in the fight against terror.” He paused and then said in a crisp voice, “And now I’d like to introduce the president of the United States.”

This was the standard drill for these press conferences. Gray would report the actual details in straightforward language. Then the charismatic James Brennan would follow and knock the political baseball out of the park with a hyperbole-laced speech that left no doubt as to who could protect the country best.

As Brennan began his remarks, Alex turned his attention back to the bar and the lady there. He knew that a woman like Kate Adams probably had twenty guys gunning for her, and most of them were probably better prospects than he was. She also probably realized how he felt; hell, she’d probably known how he felt about her even before he did.

He squared his shoulders and made up his mind. Well, there’s no reason I can’t be the one guy out of twenty who sticks.

However, halfway to the bar he stopped. Another man had come in and walked right up to her. The immediate smile on Kate’s face was enough to tell Alex that this person was special. He sat back down and continued to watch as they moved off to the end of the bar where they could talk in private. The fellow was a little shorter than Alex, but younger, powerfully built and handsome. To Alex’s practiced eye the man’s clothes were very expensive. He was probably one of those high-priced corporate attorneys or lobbyists who plied their trade on K Street. Every time Kate laughed it was like a meat cleaver directly in the Secret Service agent’s skull.

He finished his drink and was about to leave when he heard his name. He turned and saw Kate motioning to him. He reluctantly walked over.

“Alex, this is Tom Hemingway. Tom, Alex Ford,” she said.

When they shook hands, there was such strength in Hemingway’s grip that Alex, who was pretty strong, felt a pain shoot up his arm. He stared down at the man’s hand, amazed at the thickness of the fingers and the knuckles that looked like wedges of steel. Hemingway had the most powerful set of hands the Secret Service agent had ever seen.