Stone Cold (Camel Club 3)

“While I’m there, you want me to lay down a bet for you at the craps table?”

“I never gamble, Reuben.”

“How come?”

“One, I don’t have any money, and two, I hate to lose.”

CHAPTER 21

THE NEXT MORNING Bagger met with Joe, from the PI firm. The man was trim, with calm gray eyes. Though soft-spoken, Joe was not intimidated in the least by the casino king. It was one of the things Bagger loved about him. He sat down across from Bagger and opened a file.

“We got some quick results on this one, Mr. Bagger.” He scanned the pages and then looked up. “I’ve got a written report for you, but let me just give you the essentials.” He handed a photo across. “We had an associate of ours in Vegas check out the wedding chapel where Conroy and DeHaven were married. It’s a typical mom-and-pop; the same couple run it today, in fact. After a little financial encouragement they let us take a peek at their records, and that’s where we got a copy of that photo. Apparently they take pictures of all the people they marry and put them up on the wall. I’m assuming from the look on your face, Mr. Bagger, that that’s our girl.”

Bagger was smiling and nodding as he stared down at a photo of a much younger Annabelle Conroy and her brand-new husband, Jonathan DeHaven. “That’s my little friend. Good work, Joe. What else you got?”

“Well, this has the potential to make our job easier. I’m just not sure yet.”

Bagger looked up from the photo. “What has the potential?”

In answer, Joe handed Bagger a newspaper clipping. “The name DeHaven rang a bell for me, but I didn’t know why at the time. Then I did some digging. And bingo!”

“He was murdered!” Bagger exclaimed, reading the headline.

“Very recently. Found in some vault at the Library of Congress in D.C. It was all tied into some spy ring going down in Washington.”

“Are we sure it’s the same DeHaven?”

Joe handed Bagger another photo of DeHaven from a newspaper article detailing his death. “You can see it’s the same guy, only older.”

“So Annabelle’s hubby was a spy and got whacked?”

“Her ex-husband. We also found out that the marriage was annulled a year later.”

“Annulled? Doesn’t that mean they didn’t have sex or something? For a whole freaking year?” Bagger stared down at Annabelle’s wedding picture. The lady was a stunner. Bagger of course hated the woman for ripping him off, but how in God’s name did her husband keep from jumping her the minute the “I do’s” were said? “Was this DeHaven guy secretly gay or something?”

“I don’t know the details of why the annulment took place, but it did and was made a matter of record in Washington, D.C., where the couple presumably came back to live. And DeHaven wasn’t part of the spy ring. Details are still coming out and some of it’s being buried because of national security interests, but it looks like he was an innocent guy who got killed because he stumbled onto something he shouldn’t have.”

A pensive Bagger sat back. Annabelle had conned him into thinking she was with CIA and that the money he had given her was a way for the government to launder cash overseas. But what if she really was with CIA? What if it had been the government that had screwed him? You couldn’t sue the government. You couldn’t kill Uncle Sam.

He stared across at Joe. “Good work, Joe. Keep digging and see what you come up with.”

Joe rose. “Already on it, Mr. Bagger.”

After Joe left, Bagger stared down at the picture of the youthful Annabelle. She looked happy although her new hubby looked like, well, like a librarian.

Bagger rose and looked out the window, onto his empire that occupied nearly an entire block on the Boardwalk. Making up his mind, he picked up his phone and called his chief of security. “Warm up the jet, we’re heading out.”

“Where to, Mr. Bagger?”

“My favorite city. Washington, D.C.”

CHAPTER 22

THE NEXT MORNING, while Reuben and Milton drove to Atlantic City, Harry Finn was also busy. He and two team members were surveying a parcel of land near the United States Capitol. Their uniforms were perfect, their equipment spot-on. Most importantly, they exuded the confident air of people who had every right to be where they were. When two Capitol police officers approached them, Finn calmly pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and showed the pair his official-looking orders.

“I just go where they send me, guys,” he said apologetically. “We won’t be here much longer. It’s the damn visitor center project.”

“You mean that taxpayer hell pit?” one of the cops growled. The project had become D.C.’s version of the Big Dig fiasco in Boston.

Finn nodded. “You know in this town everybody thinks somebody else has jurisdiction. So we have to do the same thing ten times because somebody’s panties got in a wad.”

“Tell me about it,” the other cop said. “Just make it quick.”

“Roger that,” Finn said, turning back to his work.

The surveyor’s apparatus they were using was actually a video camera currently filming two entrances to the Capitol building and detailing the rotation of security guards and other essential elements for a successful penetration later. Ever since a man had broken through the Capitol security perimeter with comparative ease, several high-ranking pols had been livid. They had secretly retained Finn’s company to test whether the “enhanced” security measures put in place were the real fix or not. From what Finn had seen so far, they clearly weren’t.

Back at the office, Finn spent the next two hours “phone freaking.” This was a complex exercise involving phoning one person after another and building on the intelligence with each call to elicit more specific information from each new person called. Finn had used this technique to learn the central location in the United States of the vaccine for a nasty bioterrorism bug by pretending to be a marketing student doing a term paper on commercial distribution techniques. He talked to eight different people, finishing with a vice president of the company that manufactured the vaccine, who unknowingly confirmed the location while answering what he obviously thought was a totally unrelated series of questions.

Today Finn was gathering info on two upcoming projects: the hit on the Capitol and a far more involved crashing of the Pentagon. While it had been unfortunately proved beyond doubt that one could fly a large plane into the headquarters of the U.S. military and damage it, there were far subtler ways of breaching the facility’s security and perhaps doing more harm than the doomed jumbo jet had. Among other possible scenarios, one could booby-trap the military’s command and control system, or sabotage its air filtration system, killing or sickening tens of thousands of key government personnel, or even blow up the building from the inside out.

As Finn went about his work, he kept an eye on the Internet for news of Carter Gray’s death. As expected, the authorities were keeping a tight lid on all of it. There had been no leaks and most stories were confined to telling and retelling the glorious career and public service of the dead man, Carter Robert Gray. Finally, Finn couldn’t take it anymore. He went for a walk.

And then he decided, on impulse, to visit his mother. He would catch a flight that very night, after the kids were in bed. He could see her the next day and be back home that same night. After the navy gig, he had some downtime coming anyway. His was not a nine-to-five occupation. And with several jobs percolating in the prep stage before the field operations would begin, now was actually a good time to go.

He both loved and hated to see his mother. The routine never varied; it couldn’t, actually. Yet since it had all begun with her, Finn had to return to that touchstone from time to time. It wasn’t like he was reporting in, but in a way that’s exactly what he was doing.

He booked the flight online and called Mandy and told her. He left work early, drove his two youngest to swimming and baseball practice respectively, and then picked them up later. After they were asleep he left fo

r the airport, for the short ride to one of the longest days of his life.

CHAPTER 23

STONE PUNCHED IN Annabelle’s phone number. Four rings went by and he assumed she wasn’t going to answer when her voice said, “Hello?”

“Where are you?” he said.

“Oliver, I left a note.”

“The note is bullshit. Where are you?”

“I don’t want you involved in this, so just forget me.”