Steven James - The Bishop

I glanced over the evidence again. “What have you done so far to try and disprove Farraday and Cassidy’s involvement?”

“Well, of course, that’s the tricky part here. It’s all a house of cards. Circumstantial, like you said. I can’t just start showing pictures of my colleagues to the Rainey children or the taxi driver.”

I considered that.

The Rainey boy had said that the man leaving the alley was scarred, but Cassidy had no scars on his face.

Scars can be faked.

“Could someone be setting them up?”

She shook her head. “I don’t see how. The crime scene assignments came from either dispatch, Margaret, or Rodale. The killers would need to know the ERT’s dispatch protocol and response time.”

Who would know those times?

I’d first met Natasha Farraday at the primate center Tuesday night

… then I saw her at the hotel on Wednesday… then Wait.

SED-UAR.

IPR-OMI.

Said you are…

I promised you are…

Natasha had mentioned she read my books…

She questioned you about Mahan’s car, how you knew that one was the vehicle the killer had used…

I closed my computer. Stood.

“What are you thinking?”

“The lab at Quantico,” I said.

Lien-hua shook her head. “We don’t have enough here to justify talking to them. We barely have-”

“I don’t want to talk to them. I want to look more closely at what they brought back from the scenes.”

She quickly collected her things. “I’ve been in this building since 10:30. I’m coming with you.”

I had no quarrel with that.

“We’ll take my car,” I said. “There are a few tunnels I want you to help me explore on the way.”

Tessa answered the door.

Detective Warren stood on the porch holding a grocery bag in one hand, her computer satchel in the other. “Hey,” she said.

Tessa moved aside. “Come on in.”

Cheyenne held up the groceries as she entered. “How does falafel burgers, humus, and tortilla chips sound? Oh, and some root beer?”

“Righteous.” Tessa closed the door.

The detective’s eyes flitted to the chessboard. “You’re a glutton for punishment, Tessa.”

“Not this time. Tonight you’re the one who’s going down.”

A slight grin. “We’ll see about who’s going down. Come on, let’s get something to eat, and then we’ll get started with the game.”

Margaret stepped into Semansky’s Bar.

A few pool tables. Air that reeked of stale beer. Slow, heavy country music drawled from the speakers hidden in the ceiling. A thin film of smoke creased the air. It was illegal to smoke in restaurants in DC, but it was pretty clear that the owners of Semansky’s weren’t too concerned about that ordinance.

She looked around.

A few sleepy businessmen sat in the shadows, caressing their drinks. Two of them looked up when she walked in but then disappeared into their own little worlds when she ignored them.

What a pit.

No sign of Rodale.

Over the loudspeakers, a country singer was hoping to get his wife back.

She scanned the room again, and this time saw Greg seated by himself in a corner booth, an empty beer glass on the table in front of him. She approached him, and he greeted her a little too warmly: “Margaret.”

“Greg.” She took a seat across from him in the booth. “Thank you for taking the time.”

“Of course.”

A wispy waitress with frenzied hair and too much makeup appeared out of nowhere. “Refill?” she asked him.

“Give me another Strasman Dark.” He looked toward Margaret. “Want a drink?” She wondered how many he’d had already.

“No thanks.”

“You sure?” the waitress asked her.

“I’m sure. But thank you.”

“Thank you,” she replied in that tone of voice that means “Then why are you taking up my table space?”

“Bring us a basket of fries too,” Greg added.

Their server sloughed off into the darkness. Music throbbed.

“So,” he said.

“So.”

“You wanted to discuss some memos.” Obviously he wasn’t interested in wasting any time.

“Greg, you passed along Defense Department files to the private sector before they’d been carefully reviewed, vetted, and cleared.”

“There was nothing top secret in the research, Margaret. Project Rukh had been terminated. Besides, the program had originally been subcontracted to a private firm.”

“Under the oversight committee’s supervision.”

He let a moment pass. Didn’t reply.

“The decision was ill-advised and premature.”

He dismissed her concerns. “So we have a difference of opinion concerning the matter. What else?”

“Tell me about Dr. Renee Lebreau.”

“You’ve been talking to Ralph Hawkins.”

“How do you know her?”

He gazed into the shadowy confines of the room. Ran his finger gently across the tabletop. “Renee and I met at a conference years ago, before I was appointed FBI Director, before she was a professor.” He said the words as if they were a prepared statement.

“Before your divorce.”

He eyed Margaret coolly. Stilled his hand. “Yes. Before my divorce.”

“Did you suggest that she look into Richard Basque’s case two years ago? Is that how she became involved?”

“Why are you bringing this up, Margaret?”

“Because she disappeared and Basque is here in DC and I don’t believe in coincidences.”

“Now you sound like Bowers.”

The waitress reappeared, deposited the basket of fries, Rodale’s beer, and a glass of cloudy water for Margaret, then vanished into the shadows again.

Greg took a sip of the beer. “Considering all the media hype and Basque’s claims over the years that he was innocent-and the fact that the case involved Bowers, one of our highest profile agents-yes. I reviewed Basque’s files.”

“And?”

“And I felt there were enough inconsistencies to justify a lawyer giving his case a fresh look.”

“Not just a lawyer, a law professor. He had plenty of lawyers. She’s one of the nation’s most outspoken anti-death penalty-”

“I knew Lebreau.” His words had turned hard. “I gave her a call. That’s it. There’s nothing unethical about that. On the phone you mentioned nanotechnology.”

Now for the big one. “You stand to benefit if the Gunderson Foundation has any breakthroughs.”

“How’s that?”

“Stock.”

“The Gunderson Foundation is a nonprofit organization. What are you talking about?”

“It was clever,” she said. “If they make any breakthroughs, it’ll catapult the whole industry forward, sending stock prices at the other firms in the business skyrocketing. But through it all, you stay one step removed. Still, with the purchase of those stocks, we have breach of trust, conflict of interest, possibly insider trading.”

He took a long sip of his drink. “Did you come here to blackmail me, Margaret?”

“By no means, but there are too many holes in all this. It’s going to come to light eventually. I’m giving you the opportunity to bypass all that, to come clean before it happens.”

“Before you make it happen.”

She didn’t reply.

He set down his beer and gave her a look that seemed to contain both derision and defeat. “You just want my job, Margaret.”

He was right about that, and they both knew it. The FBI Director was appointed by the President of the United States with the Senate’s approval, but an executive AD would almost certainly make the short list if the Director resigned or was asked to step down. “That’s what this is all about,” he said, then repeated, “You want my job.”

“That’s not all I want.”

He nodded as if he’d been expecting that. He slid the beer aside. “What else?”