Hell's Corner (Camel Club 5)

Stone didn’t answer.

“Still, not a particularly good day for any of us.”

“You could say that.”

“And do you blame yourself?”

Stone looked at him. “And why wouldn’t I?”

McElroy considered this. “I suppose I would’ve been disappointed if you’d answered any other way. I’ve grown used to finger-pointing over the years, accepting it as just the way the world works now. But I know it doesn’t work that way for you and never has. And neither does it for me.”

“So am I going to be pulled from the case?”

“Do you want to be?”

“I don’t like unfinished business.”

“I wish I could give you a definitive answer, but I can’t.”

“The president wavering on me? He’s done it before.”

“He’s a politician. It’s never easy. That’s mostly why I never threw my hat into the ring. A spy’s life is a bit easier in that department.”

“So until I get the word either way am I free to continue my investigation?”

“The answer to that would be yes.”

“That’s all I needed to know.”

“I understand that Riley Weaver came to visit you.”

“He did.”

“He’s scared, as I understand it. Sees something big coming over the horizon. And he thinks that what happened here plays into it somehow? That it was merely a first step?”

“I think he believes that, yes.”

“And do you?”

“Since the attack at the park made no sense, then it seems likely that it was part of something else.”

“Bigger than exploding a bomb and scattering machine-gun fire across from your president’s humble abode? Goodness, we might be in serious trouble.”

The man’s words were said in a jesting tone, but it was apparent from the look of concern in his eyes that McElroy too had a sense of foreboding. “Any inkling as to what that something else might be?”

Stone turned to him. “Fuat Turkekul.”

“What about him?”

“I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Meaning his being in the park at the same time of the attack.”

“I think someone in your food chain knows something about it.”

“So why didn’t they kill him, then?”

“That would make the answer simple. This isn’t simple.” He eyed the security team. “Feel like a bit of a walk?”

“If you’ll lend me a hand, yes. Knees aren’t what they used to be, and what they used to be was never much, I’m afraid.”

The two old allies walked along the brick path. Stone supported McElroy with a firm hand under his elbow as the spy chief made his way slowly along using his cane.

“Theories?” said McElroy.

“They know everything before we do. And more to the point, they seem to know what we’re going to do at the same time we decide to do it.”

“So a traitor assuredly?”

Stone nodded. “Any possibilities?”

“I’ve looked that issue up one side and down the other and I can’t find a viable suspect. Damn infuriating.”

“So you suspected something like that too?”

“I always suspect something like that. And it usually turns out to be true. I agree with you that the other side seems to be always ahead of us. But I don’t know how they’re doing it.”

“We could lay a trap. Channel information through one source only and see if it ends up in the wrong hands.”

“I don’t think whoever it is will fall for that.”

“Worth a try?”

“Then we warn them we suspect.”

“If they’re as good as I think they are, they already know that we suspect.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to sit down, Oliver.”

Stone helped his friend to another bench and then sat next to him. “Tell me something,” said Stone. “Did what happened at the park cause Turkekul to change his plans in any way? Was the mission altered at all?”

McElroy didn’t answer right away. “Of course it would have been completely altered if Fuat had been killed,” he pointed out. “Altered to the point of being abandoned. One would think that would have been the goal of the attack.”

“Since the man didn’t die, we have to think of alternative reasons.”

“I can think of none.”

“For now, but we have to keep trying.”

“It won’t be easy for you. The FBI is looking to crush you. Its director has already had a meeting with your president. I have also had the pleasure of your leader’s company, and have done my utmost to dissuade him from giving in to the entreaty that you be removed from the case.”

“Until they make me stop I’ll keep going.”

“Pretty much sums up our professional lives, Oliver.”

“Yes, it does.”

“I wish you luck.”

“I’ll need it.”

“You’ll also need this.”

McElroy took a memory stick from his pocket and handed it to Stone.

“What is it?”

“The FBI’s preliminary report on the attack at the tree farm.” As Stone looked uncertainly at the USB stick, McElroy added, “By the by, I had a computer delivered to your cottage earlier.” He paused. “You do know how to work a computer, don’t you?”

“I can manage. And thanks.”

“Cheers.”

McElroy rose on stiffened legs and slowly walked off.

CHAPTER 39

STONE SAT BACK, RUBBED HIS EYES and yawned. He poured out a last cup of coffee and surveyed the miniscule interior of his cottage before his gaze alighted once more on his shiny new laptop computer. It looked almost as out of place in his dingy surroundings as a Picasso hanging on the wall would have.

What was on the memory stick McElroy had given him was far more interesting than the computer itself. The FBI, motivated no doubt by the murder of one of its own, had done an intensely thorough investigation of the tree farm and the trailer. What they had found was incriminating if not wholly surprising.

Stone ticked off the points in his head.

A sharp-eyed agent had noticed that a narrow section of the cement blocks forming the foundation of Kravitz’s trailer home was of a slightly lighter color. They had removed this stack and entered the open space underneath and found bomb-making materials, along with two basketballs, both of which had been cut in half.

A review of John Kravitz’s personal history had found him to be a college graduate as his boss Lloyd Wilder had noted. But what Wilder hadn’t told them, or more likely didn’t know, was that Kravitz had been arrested twice in the past during rallies against the government for items ranging from antiwar protests to stem cell research. Also found on his cell phone were names and addresses of certain people on government watch lists.

His neighbors had reported that Kravitz had acted suspiciously over the last few weeks, though Stone discounted that as witness bias since there had been no specific examples from any of these neighbors as to why they thought that other than the police and FBI showing up at the man’s door.