Текст книги "Заговор мечей"
Автор книги: Джейн Doy Press
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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 40 страниц)
They pulled up in front of the building just as David’s watch beeped one a.m. The street was fairly dark, but the lights on the building easily lit the path from the car to the door.
“You sure you don’t want any help getting inside?”
“No, I’m fine. Besides, if you come inside you’ll sit down and we’ll start talking, and it’ll be another hour before you get home. If that happened, Miri would kick my butt.”
David laughed and leaned over to give her a hug.
“Get some sleep, and I’ll see you at the office.”
“Drive safe, David. Remember, there’s a comfortable bed, and a warm companion waiting. Don’t fall asleep in the car.”
“And you just remember to set your alarm. If you’re late, Cliff’ll eat me for breakfast.”
Alex pulled her suitcase from the backseat and trudged up the sidewalk. David waited until she was inside before pulling away.
She took the stairs to her second floor apartment, glancing first at the mailbox to see that it was empty. That meant Sarah had been by to pick it up, and feed the cat. She wondered if Appleby would be happy she was home, or if he would decide she’d been gone too long, and ignore her. One of the things she’d always loved about her cat was that she never knew what he would do next.
Alex unlocked the door, and was immediately set upon by a small, hairy beast that leaped off the top of the bookcase and onto her shoulders.
“Damn, Appleby, why can’t you just rub my legs like a normal cat?” Reaching up, she snagged the orange and white feline off her shoulders while reaching for the lights. She hugged the cat, then dropped him to the floor. She tried not to step on him while moving her suitcase into the bedroom. After changing into a faded pair of sweats, she began to unpack. Appleby sat himself inside the case, batting at everything she picked up. When Alex finished, he was still sitting there swatting at a strap inside the suitcase.
“I guess that means you missed me, hm?”
She picked up the cat, who immediately transferred his playful attentions to her blond hair. Scratching his head, she headed out to the kitchen, intent to get him a treat. She’d been gone for so long, and yet he acknowledged her. That meant something; just what, she wasn’t sure.
Alex’s apartment was small. The largest room was the living room, which she had painted sky blue. The one and only lamp in the room had its shade upside down, with the light from the very bright bulb directed up and out toward the ceiling. The effect was almost, but not quite, similar to a sunny day in Chicago. Alex had paid the landlord extra for her blue walls, but this little bit of home had been well worth the money.
On the blue walls, right next to the window, was a framed poster of Frank Thomas. Alex had gotten it years ago, when the Big Hurt was just starting his professional career. He’d signed it for her on her birthday, when she and a few friends had waited outside the locker room just to congratulate the players. Later, when someone had offered her three hundred dollars for it, she’d gotten it framed and placed behind glass. This, too, represented a little bit of home, and it had gone up in every single place she’d lived, whether apartment or college dorm.
Her bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University hung on one side of the door to the kitchen, and her Master’s degree from Duke hung on the other. Outside of the poster, her diplomas, and a calendar, the rest of the wall space was either bare, or filled with bookshelves.
In the center of the room was a small grey couch, which nicely matched the blue sky ceiling. Most people who visited her apartment thought it was just good color coordination, but her friends knew that Alex had picked it because grey was simply the closest color to white that wouldn’t show every speck of dirt. The couch faced a home entertainment center with a t.v., VCR, and a stereo. As she headed for the kitchen, Appleby in her arms, Alex detoured toward the stereo, pushing a button for music. Sarah had obviously been playing with the station, as it was tuned to classical music. Switching it back to her normal oldies rock, Alex circled the couch and entered the kitchen.
The kitchen was the smallest room in the apartment, hardly big enough for two people to stand in, much less work comfortably. It was fine for just her, though. The fridge was old, and the stove took forever to heat up, but there was adequate cabinet space if you didn’t have too many dishes, and a pull out cutting board that she loved using.
Alex dropped Appleby and reached into a tiny cabinet next to the door. She used to keep the cat treats on the shelf under the cutting board, but the monster that paraded as her cat had become adept at opening the door to said shelf, so she’d moved the treats. Now, even if he could open the door to the cabinet, he couldn’t squeeze himself into the small cubby hole. It was in this place that Alex hid anything she didn’t want Appleby to get into; this included the mail Sarah had gathered for her. Alex gave Appleby his treat, then picked up her mail. By the time she’d closed the cabinet and turned around, Appleby was looking for more.
“No, big guy, not until tomorrow. You only get one at a time, you know that.”
The look on his face never wavered. It reminded Alex of the stern way her father had always looked at her when she was in trouble. She sighed. Appleby seemed to be reminding her that she’d been gone a very long time, and he’d been very patient. After a minute, she sighed again and reached back in the cabinet.
After two more treats, Appleby seemed somewhat mollified, and Alex felt safe leaving the kitchen. She snagged an almost empty bottle of wine from the fridge and headed back into her bedroom. Appleby settled near the foot of the bed, and started washing his face with his paws. Alex gave him a fond look and a scratch on the head before climbing onto the bed herself, crackers and wine in hand.
Alex’s bedroom was a study in organized chaos. Across from the door, and directly under the window, a short bookcase was crammed to overflowing. On top of the bookcase, even more books and magazines threatened to block out any light that might try to come in the window. To the left of the bookcase, there was a similarly disorganized and crowded nightstand, which was pushed up against a neatly made bed. To the right of the bookcase, a Macintosh G4 computer covered half the surface of a nearly clean desk. While her dirty clothes from her trip had been tossed into a pile at the foot of the bed, her laptop and papers had been neatly placed, with her briefcase sitting on the floor between the desk and the printer stand.
Placing the bottle on the bedside table, Alex reached to the bottom shelf of her nightstand and hit the button for her phone messages. She propped up her pillows and leaned back, closing her eyes as the long day began to catch up to her.
The first message was from her mother, reminding her that she had promised to go home for Passover in April. Alex’s family was Jewish, and while they knew she no longer practiced the faith, they did expect her to join them for such important celebrations. For a long time, Alex hadn’t minded, but since her father had passed away two years ago, visits home hadn’t been the same.
Even though her father had never understood Alex’s love of women, he had always accepted her as she was. His own childhood, which had been filled with the terror of the Holocaust, had made Aaron Reis understand how important family was. His parents had died at the hands of the Nazi’s, and Aaron’s uncle had taken his seven year old nephew with him when he escaped Prague. From there they had wound a criss-cross path through Europe, finally finding their way to Greece. From Greece they, and a few hundred others, immigrated to the United States. The journey through a war torn Europe had never been discussed between Aaron and his daughter. For him, it was something he never wanted to burden her with. For Alex’s part, she never wanted to make him remember the horrors of that time.
After his daughter had been born, Aaron had made a deal with the Maker of the Universe, and he was quick to remind Alex of it.The agreement was that if the Creator would keep Alex safe, Aaron would work to fight discrimination in all its forms. He had been a member of many activist groups, faithfully paying dues even if it meant going without a few luxury items. His wife, Errita, had never completely understood her husband’s insistence on this point; then again, her family had lived in Greece, and had escaped the worst parts of the Holocaust. They, too, had immigrated to the U.S., coming over on the same ship as Aaron’s family, but their move had been more from choice, than from fear. Errita’s family had settled in Chicago, not far from Aaron and his uncle. Despite the six year difference in their ages, Aaron and Errita had fallen in love, and they had married when Errita was twenty. Ten years and two miscarriages later, Alexia Edrea Reis had been born.
Errita had always thought her husband was spoiling Alex, and when she came out to them as a lesbian at fifteen, she was certain that Aaron was to blame. It had caused a split in the home that Alex regretted to this day. When Alex came home with her first broken heart, her mother had patted her and told her she’d live. It had been Aaron who held her while she cried on his shoulder.She had always been closer to her father, but her love for her mother was still very strong. It had been painful for Alex. While the two women still lived in the same house, they acted more like roommates, than mother and daughter.
Aaron died of a stroke in 1998. Alex had already been living in Washington, but she had been a steady visitor home, always making time to be with her parents. After her father died, however, the battles with her mother became more frequent. They couldn’t find a way to bridge their differences, and finally, the two had just stopped trying. While Alex still loved Chicago, and her mother, it was harder and harder to get through family occasions without fights erupting over her lack of religion, her job, or her sexual orientation.
She sighed. Still, the Passover had always been a special time for her and her father, and he would want her there. She knew he’d be there, even if it was just in spirit. Alex also realized that her mother had cared enough to make the invitation. She cared too, and she’d be in Chicago in April.
The second message on the machine was from Sarah Mahoney.
“Hi, Alex. Listen, I didn’t think you’d get home early enough to have a decent meal, so there’s a plate of lasagna in the fridge for you. No going to bed without food.” Alex smiled. She’d eaten with David on the way home from the airport, but the lasagna would make a good enough breakfast. “I should tell you that spaz cat managed to lose his collar again. He hates that bell, you know.” Damn, she hadn’t even noticed. “And yes, he’s still jumping from the bookcase as people come in the door. Maggie had to feed him for me last week, and he pulled that surprise on her. She said she’ll never go into your place without an umbrella again.” Alex had to smile at that. The phrase ‘it’s raining cats’ drifted through her mind, forcing a chuckle out of her. “Oh, yeah, before I forget. You’re having dinner at our place on Thursday night. No, this is not an invitation; I know better than to give you a chance to say no. So, be there, seven o’clock. And yes, there will be four of us. Sorry, sweetheart, I know you don’t like it when I try to set you up, but as the best friend, not to mention ex-girlfriend, it is my prerogative. Love you, Alexia.”
The third message was a computerized voice asking if she’d thought about vinyl siding for her house.
“Damn, glad I called to pick up the messages while I was gone. I probably would have spent an hour listening to people offer me mortgages and improvements for the house I don’t own.”
She uncorked the bottle and drained it in a few swallows. Appleby crawled up on her chest to swat at the cork, and Alex stroked his white and orange fur. “So, you just had to go and scare Aunt Maggie, huh? You know, she’s the one who gave you that catnip toy at Christmas, so you better be nice.” She felt around his neck, where a slight discoloration marked the location his collar normally sat. “How do you keep pulling that off? I know you don’t like the bell, but that’s the only way I have of warning people when you do your bookcase leap. So I’m just gonna keep putting it back on, until you stop this raining cats stuff, okay?” Appleby swatted the cork away from her hand, his tail twitching.
“Yeah, I’m glad we had this talk, too.”
Idly petting Appleby, Alex thought back to the time Sarah would be waiting for her to come home. The two had met at a neighborhood Fourth of July picnic in 1997, and had spent the rest of that summer exploring the area in and around Washington. Sarah had taken Alex to all the museums, and the historic landmarks, while Alex had taken Sarah to Baltimore for a White Sox – Orioles game. During a weeks vacation, they decided to save the money and spend the week visiting the National Archives together. Sarah had used the time to research her family history, reading through ship manifests and immigration lists. Alex, on the other hand, spent those several days reading through boxes of material on the Kennedy assassination. The two had laughed at themselves, realizing if they didn’t go there together, and leave together, they never would have crossed paths at the Archives.
Still, they had tried to ignore any romantic or sexual feelings between them, thinking themselves just good friends. It wasn’t until September that they actually declared themselves a couple, and by Thanksgiving they were living together. Sarah had even organized a party for Alex when she was made a Special Agent in the beginning of December.
Their’s had been a strange relationship, based more on comfort than need, and on friendship rather than passion. Alex had to admit that during those six months she had been grateful to have someone to go home to; as their first official assignment she and David had been given a serial killer case, and Alex had needed someone to listen to her rant to about the frustrations. Unfortunately, being Alex’s sounding board wasn’t what Sarah had needed, and after the killer had been caught, and Alex was sleeping through the night without nightmares, Sarah had told her that the relationship was over. While there had definitely been pain then, it didn’t take either woman long to see that the relationship really was a friendship, and just because they were no longer sleeping together, that didn’t mean they couldn’t see each other. Sarah had gone to Chicago with Alex when her father died and Alex had flown to Colorado with Sarah when her little brother was injured in a ski accident. Alex had been with Sarah the night she’d met Maggie, who was now Sarah’s partner. And Sarah and Maggie had taken it upon themselves, much like David and Miri, to find Alex someone to love. She appreciated the effort, knowing they had only good intentions, but some of the Thursday night dinners had become disasters, and for the last couple of months Alex had turned down their invitations to dinner. It sounded to her like Sarah had caught on to her ploy. It was no longer an invitation but a demand for her presence. With a sigh, Alex knew she’d probably show up. After all, she’d been missing Maggie’s cooking immensely.
She glanced over at the clock on her desk, then groaned when she saw it was after two. She had to be at work in six hours. She’d be lucky if she got a chance to eat that lasagna in the morning.
Alex pulled the wine cork away from Appleby’s claws, dropping it into the wastebasket. He immediately went to look for another plaything, and Alex gratefully slid under the covers. She turned off the light, and listened to Appleby’s soft footsteps till she fell asleep.
Chapter Four
The task force meeting was scheduled for ten o’clock Monday morning. Alex knew that she’d need plenty of caffeine to get her through the meeting, so she turned in her report to Cliff Jackson’s secretary, and headed out to find a large bottle of Coke. Instead, she ran into Cliff just outside the elevator.
“Alex, glad I caught you. Are you and David ready for the meeting?”
“As ready as we can be, sir. My report is on your desk; David’s finishing his.”
“Anything new?”
“A few things. You can read it in the report.”
“Don’t need to. You and David will present your story at the meeting.”
Alex stared at her boss, completely missing the elevator she’d been waiting for. “Excuse me?”
Cliff sighed. He’d known she wouldn’t like it. “Deputy Director Bishop will be there. He wants to hear verbal reports from all the teams directly involved with the homicides. Then he’ll make recommendations to the Director on whether to increase the size of the overall task force. I know you weren’t prepared for this, and believe me, neither were the other teams. I thought we’d do a brief on Dabir, then do a brainstorming session to map out any strategies. Instead, we have to do verbal reports cause this guy doesn’t have time to read.” He shook his head. “If I ever say I don’t have time to read reports, just shoot me, Alex, okay?”
“You’re on, Cliff.” Alex took a deep breath and ran her fingers through her hair. “Well, it looks like I’m gonna have to skip the trip for caffeine. I better warn David, and then we’ll come up with something to present.”
“You worry about this presentation, Alex, I’ll have Jodi order a two-liter bottle of coke for you.”
“Bless you, Cliff.”
“I thought you were an atheist.”
“Actually, I’m more of a pagan. But for a two-liter bottle, I’ll be as Christian as you want.”
*******************************************************
Deputy Director Bishop, in his dark suit with a crisp white shirt, sat stone faced at the front of the room. He had insisted that the meeting be held in this theatre type auditorium, where the seats went from the floor level up. It reminded Alex of the huge lecture rooms she’d sat in at college.
Rather than going in chronological order, Bishop requested that the newer cases be presented first, so Alex and David had been the first to stand at the podium and face the crowd. Each of the agents had a copy of Alex’s report in front of them, and they nodded as the two agents went through the events from Philadelphia. They finished, and were about to start fielding questions, when the Deputy Director interrupted them.
“Thank you, Agent Reis, Agent Wu. I don’t have time to listen to questions. Let’s get the next team up here, shall we?”
David breathed a sigh of relief as he and Alex found two seats near the back of the room. “Damn, I’m glad that’s over,” he whispered to Alex. “At least he didn’t have a million questions for us. Maybe that means we did okay, huh?”
Alex shook her head, and opened her notepad. She tried to focus on the new speaker, but found her mind wandering. She knew that the reason Bishop hadn’t asked questions had nothing to do with whether or not they’d done okay. The man simply wasn’t interested. Several times she had glanced at him to find him staring into space, not even paying any attention. The only time he’d seemed to notice anything was when they’d told of the forged badges and the possibility of white supremacist involvement. At those times he seemed to grow slightly agitated, but gave no sign that he heard anything in the rest of their report. He hadn’t even bothered to open the front cover of the written copy she’d hurriedly made for him.
A nudge on her arm brought Alex out of her dismal thoughts. She turned to David to see him handing her a coffee mug. She reached for it on reflex, surprised when she felt cold rather than heat. Then she noticed Cliff silently hiding a red bottle under the table in front of him. She smiled, and took a sip. Ice cold Coke. Maybe David was right; maybe they had done okay.
After downing half her cup of soda, Alex tried to concentrate on the presentations of the other teams. Pulling out her notes, she compared them to the details the speakers were relating to the group.
The first man killed was Steven Fletcher, National Director of the Rights of Humanity Campaign. After leaving a meeting at a New York gay community center, Fletcher was walking with four other people to a rented car in the parking lot. Several shots rang out, and Fletcher was dead, just yards from the safety of his car. The assassin had used a high powered, semi-automatic rifle, from the roof of a nearby building. When the police investigated, they found a couple of shells on the rooftop, but nothing else. The building itself was a condemned apartment house, three stories tall. On the back side of the building, facing away from the shooting location, there was an intact fire escape. It was suspected that the killer went down it, then either drove away, or met his getaway ride. There, the police investigation had stalled. Unfortunately, the FBI inquiry was similarly mired down. The only thing they’d been able to add was that the bullets used had been 7.62X39 mm, and had most likely been manufactured outside of the United States. Nothing else had been found.
The second death was that of Max Rhodes, director of the Regional African-American Caucus. He had been shaking hands in the middle of a political rally near Baltimore when two shots had struck the side of his head, killing him instantly. Once again, the killer had been in a near by building. This time, however, the police responded quickly, as did the security guards in the office building. Even though the shooter was not apprehended, he had been glimpsed as he exited the rear of the building, jumping into a blue sedan. The license plate had been noted, but was discovered to be stolen plates belonging to another car. The only other clue was the rifle, a Colt carbine semi-automatic, which had been left behind in the empty office. It wasn’t really a lead though, since the gun held no prints. The serial number on the rifle identified it as being one of five rifles to have disappeared from a sporting goods store in a robbery six months earlier. The description of the shooter had been vague; approximately five-foot, six-inches, with sandy blond hair, wearing a brown suit and sun glasses. It was estimated that the time between the first shot, and when the shooter jumped into the car, had been less than four minutes. Once again, the investigation stalled.
Victim number three was a Hispanic male in downtown Los Angeles. This murder had confused the task force. Instead of following the set pattern, a semi-automatic rifle shot from a building, the killer had borrowed the tactics of gang bangers from the inner city. As Mr. Mario Arturo, candidate for representative in the state of California, walked from his front door to his car, a sedan, this time black, had driven past, with a shotgun firing out the window. Arturo, who’d been expected to win the Congressional seat, had died before he hit the ground. There had been only one witness, who described the car, but had been too close to get a license plate. This killing had left hard feelings between law enforcement and the Hispanic community in California, feelings that increased as neither the police department, nor the FBI offered any hope of catching the killer.
The last victim, before Dabir, had been killed in Atlanta, Georgia. Doug Wilson had run a community center in a black neighborhood. A white man, he was initially mistrusted by the people he was interested in helping. Slowly, though, he had managed to prove himself, and the neighborhood had rallied around him when he fought against the drug dealers who openly plied their trade. For six years he had worked to create a community among the people, finding ways to keep kids off the streets, and help many stay in school. He had denounced many officials in the Atlanta area when they cut funding for many social programs. His intention, he announced, was to run for the city council in order to reverse those funding decisions. When the list of potential victims had been handed to the task force, Wilson’s name had been number four on the list. He had been the second on the list to die when his car blew up in the parking lot of his apartment complex. The FBI investigation team, which had originally included Ken Thomas, had determined that the bomb was triggered by the vehicle ignition. When parts of the bomb were found and examined, it had fit no known bomber profile. Once again, there were few clues. A couple of people remembered a blue sedan that they had never seen before in the area, one with tinted windows. One woman said it had been in the parking lot the night before the bombing, and that she had seen a young white man with brown hair climb into the car. Sketches had been made, and compared to the very vague description of the individual seen in Baltimore. They had not matched.
Realizing that there was little, if any, new information on the other four investigation fronts, Alex began to relax. She leaned back in her seat, finishing her soda, and wondering why the deputy director had really wanted to sit in on their meeting. This was certainly not anywhere near how the task force usually conducted itself. In another room, down the hall from this one, they had set up a contol center, where they met at least twice a week. The walls in the room were covered with sheets of paper. The paper was in turn covered in names, dates, places, and other facts pertaining to the murders. The names of all the potential victims were on one long list next to the door. There were several computers in the room, along with other office equipment. During their meetings, the agents would find seats somewhere in the room. If it was a full crew of sixteen, there would always be a few people on the floor, or leaning against the wall. They’d review what they knew, and look at what they needed to know. After that, there would be brainstorming on what roads the investigation should take.
Background checks on the victims had yielded few results. Fingerprints on the rifle found in Baltimore had been negative, as had all fingerprint tests in Atlanta. There were no footprints found, and no tire tracks. Ken had traced a few of the Atlanta bomb components, but they had been sold at several discount hardware stores in the city. Cash had been paid, and no one had any memory of who bought them, or when.
The most productive line of inquiry, surprisingly, had been the list itself, but even that had given the agents little in the way of clues. While the letter attached to it had been delivered to the Washington Post, and the people who had handled it had left many fingerprints on it, they had also found several fingerprints that had not matched any of those known to have touched the letter, nor did they match any civil service employee. Also, the fingerprints had been found on both the letter and envelope, which ruled out the letter carrier. Other than that, however, there wasn’t much. The post mark was from Georgetown, an exclusive area of D.C. The return address had turned out to be a closed gas station earmarked for demolition.
Alex’s thoughts were dragged back to the present when she realized Cliff and Deputy Director Bishop had stopped the meeting. Bishop was thanking everyone for their time, and said that he’d present what he’d heard to his superiors. He left, and the room was silent for a moment.
“Asshole.”
The muttered word from Cliff broke the tension in the room, and many of the agents chuckled.
“All right. We’ve wasted most of the morning, and I have phone calls to make. Everyone get some lunch, but be back here this afternoon ready to work. We’ll meet in Task Force Central, and put some new sheets on the walls. During lunch, try and study Alex’s report; we’ll go over it in depth later. Any questions?”
“Yeah, ” David said. “Only Alex’s report? I handed mine in.”
“Yes, David, I know you did. But we both know you only copied Alex.”
This brought more laughter from the agents. “Not all of it, Cliff. I mean, I changed a few words here and there.”
“Yeah, like the name on the cover sheet.” More laughter. “All right, get out of here, get food, read the report, and I’ll see you at one.”
Alex gathered her papers and followed David down the aisle and out the door. Cliff was waiting for her, and pulled her aside.
“Your Coke.” He handed her the bottle. “Great job, by the way. All the facts set out, plain and simple.”
“Thanks. I don’t think Director Bishop liked it, though.”
“Don’t take it personally. The guy probably slept through most of it. He’s been known to sleep with his eyes open.”
They laughed.
“By the way, Alex, what time you plannin’ on leaving tonight?”
“I don’t know, Cliff, depends on when we finish the session, and when I get a couple of reports I’m waiting on. I should be getting a phone call from Philly at some point.”
“Well, if you can stick around till six, I’d appreciate it. One of my connections finally came through, and I’ve got someone from the CIA coming in. He won’t come during business hours, though, so we agreed on my office at six o’clock. I’d like you to be there. I’d ask David as well, but he insisted only one agent.”
“That’s fine. I can be there at six. Do you mind if I at least let David know? That way he’ll know to expect me at his place if we get anything important.”
“Fine. Just let him know that I could only have one of you at the meeting. I chose you ‘cause I thought he’d want to get home to his wife. After all, you two were gone for quite a while.”
“Yeah, we were. Wait, what are you saying, you chose me because David has a life and I don’t?”
“No, no, absolutely not.”
“Good.”
” It’s just that lately, your job is your life.”
“Oh, thanks, Cliff. You better watch it, I still have plenty of vacation I could use. How’d you like to lose me for a couple months?”
“I wouldn’t. If I promise you another bottle of coke at the meeting, would you delay that vacation?”
