Stone leaned forward more. “My loyalties run to the people at this table. Now tell me why you suspect that your own side is against you.”
Gross looked irritated and sheepish at the same time. “I think my damn phone is being bugged, for one thing. At my office and my house. And it’s like when I ask questions, there’re more fingerprints down the line than there should be.” He eyed Stone and then Chapman. “Tell me something. And I’d like the truth.”
“All right,” said Chapman quickly, but Stone remained silent, waiting.
“The video feed from the night of the explosion? I mean after the detonation took place? I gotta tell you I’m not buying the company line that the blast screwed the cameras permanently. Like the Secret Service said today, there are lots of eyeballs on that park. But they all don’t share.” He stopped speaking and eyed them. “So is there more?”
Chapman shot Stone a glance.
Gross frowned. “Yeah, I thought so. So you guys are screwing with me too. How the hell can I run an investigation with both hands tied behind my back? You know what? The only person I trust right now is my wife. And that’s the God’s honest truth.”
“I can understand that.”
“And why the hell were you two privy to the full video and I wasn’t?” He scowled at Chapman. “Hell, you’re not even an American.”
“There’s no good reason why you were kept out of the loop,” admitted Stone. He looked at Chapman. “Your laptop in the car?”
She nodded.
“Go get it.”
A minute later she was back and fired her computer up. Seconds later they were looking at the video feed. The full video feed.
After they finished Gross sat back, apparently mollified. “Okay, I’m still pissed that I got the rug pulled out from under me, but I didn’t see anything on there that deserved to make it off-limits to the FBI.”
That was true, thought Stone. But in light of what he had learned, was there something there he just wasn’t seeing?
He said to Chapman, “Run it again from the point where everyone starts walking off from the park. And do it in slow motion.”
She did as he asked. After a minute Stone said, “Freeze it there.” He stared at the motionless video. He was angry for not having seen it before, particularly after what he had learned today.
“Can you enlarge the frame?”
She clicked some keys and the picture morphed larger in front of them.
“Can you swing the frame to the left?”
Chapman manipulated the built-in mouse and the image moved to the left.
Stone put his finger on one spot on the screen. “Do you see it?”
Gross and Chapman looked closer.
“What?” they both said together.
“That car’s headlights flicked against the window there. You can see a face clearly reflected in the darkened glass.”
The other two leaned closer. “Okay,” said Chapman, “I can see it now.”
Gross nodded. “But who is it?”
“It’s the man in the suit. That’s why you didn’t get this part of the feed.”
“Wait a minute,” said Gross. “How do you know it’s the guy in the suit?”
“Because I met him today.”
Gross’s face turned red and he stood. “You know where he is? Son of a bitch. You guys keep holding shit back from me. Maybe you’re the ones bugging my phones.”
Stone stared up at him. “Agent Gross, keep your voice and your temper in check. And sit down. Now.”
There was something in Stone’s manner that made the federal agent obey. He sat, though his expression was still angry.
Stone continued, “The man in the suit was in the park that night to meet with someone about a very high-priority mission for this country.”
“And how do you know that?”
“I’m telling you what I was told earlier today from a source that I trust. As I said, I met the man whose face is reflected in that window. His mission involves tracking down someone who is the enemy of this country. Perhaps its greatest enemy,” Stone added.
Realization slowly spread over Gross’s features. He said, “Damn, do you mean…?”
Stone held up his hand. “A highly secret mission. Secret enough for the FBI to have been given an incomplete video feed of a major crime scene to keep his features off the video. Let’s leave it at that.”
Gross exclaimed, “But then this guy might’ve been the target.”
“No. If he were they wouldn’t have missed him.”
“And where is this guy?”
“Nearby.”
“Okay,” Gross said. “And where does that leave us?”
“With not much,” said Chapman grumpily. “With not bloody much.”
CHAPTER 31
CHAPMAN DROPPED STONE OFF at his cottage and then went on to her lodgings. Stone walked around the cemetery tidying up things at the same time he was thinking about the day’s events. They had hit dead ends pretty much in every direction. Each person in the park that night had been checked and found to have nothing to do with the bombing or the gunfire. Alfredo Padilla had been blown up by mistake. Marisa Friedman worked nearby and had been calling her lover. Fuat Turkekul was there to meet Adelphia to discuss their very important operation. The British cop had been there on orders from MI6. Four promising leads turned out to be worth nothing.
Stone went inside and sat behind his desk. It was late and he should sleep, but he wasn’t tired; his mind was working too fast to rest. He attempted to read a book to try and relax, but his mind kept coming back to what had happened in Lafayette Park.
Someone had carried off an incredible feat of terrorism smack in the middle of one of the most protected areas in the world, and they had done so for no apparent reason. He did not believe the statement from the organization in Yemen. This operation had to have taken a long time and required enormous resources. While Islamic terrorists had a lot of both, their assets were not infinite. They could not afford to waste them. Therefore, you did not undertake all that for symbolic reasons, any more than you would go to all the trouble of hijacking a jumbo jet and “symbolically” flying it close to a tall building instead of directly into it.
And he also didn’t buy the theory that he had seen some pundits bandying about on TV. That people would be scared to come to D.C. now. So what? The government wouldn’t be crippled because busloads of tourists from Iowa or Maine decided to go somewhere else on vacation. It was not a “replicable act,” as some counterterrorism specialists liked to say. This wasn’t a shopping mall or an airport ticket counter. You detonate in one of those places and you terrify people all over the county, who will stay away from their malls and airports. That would severely disrupt the economy. But there was only one White House. Only one Lafayette Park.
If it doesn’t make sense the way I’m thinking it through, it means I’m thinking it through wrong. But then what way is right?
He was about to try a different tack when he sank down in his chair after putting out the desk lamp with a flick of his hand.
There was someone outside.
He dropped down and smacked a part of the plank floor in the kneehole section of his desk. The short board spun on a swivel. Inside a holster clipped to the underside of the plank was a custom pistol that he had carried for many years on the job. Back then it was as much a part of his body as his hand. Stone gripped it and swung the board back into place.
He crawled to the rear window and peered out. There was a moon, and even though the men were moving stealthily through the underbrush, Stone still saw them because he knew where and how to look.
He slipped his cell phone from his shirt pocket and was about to text a message when he heard the voice.
“Stone? I’d like to talk to you.”
Stone’s finger was poised over the send button. He recognized the voice. His mind was moving swiftly over the possible reasons why the man would have come here to see him.