Keith Thomson - Once a spy

As he stepped away from the glass, the message on the tractor-fed paper grabbed his attention.

12/26/09@23:58:04

*. TXT SENT VIA NATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT TELECOMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM* TO: NEW YORK PD 107 STATIONS FROM: DC FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION 10003787 °CHARLES CLARK, 30, AND DRUMMOND CLARK, 64, SOUGHT FOR QUESTIONING BY FBI RE: TONIGHT’S (12/26/09, AT APPROX 2330) ARMED ROBBERY/HOMICIDE OF TAXI DRIVER WALLID, IBRAHIM ELSAYED, 43, IN THE MACY’S PKG LOT ON FLATBUSH AVENUE IN BKLYN, NY. MULTIPLE EYEWITNESSES SAW CLARKS FLEEING SCENE.

Charlie grabbed the printer stand to steady himself, then looked over the message again, to find the words that in his harried state he must have misread.

He saw he’d misread nothing.

Poor Wallid, he suspected, had merely stumbled into the same dark pit he had. He wanted to study the message further, in hope at least of deriving some idea of what to do now, but he didn’t want to risk drawing the detectives’ attention. He was certain of just one thing: Staying here in the precinct house meant submitting to arrest, which would only make life easier for Smith and MacKenzie. If they-or whoever sent them-could either fake an FBI bulletin or get the FBI to send a real one, they’d be able to waltz into a holding cell here. They’d have Charlie and Drummond in their custody within fifteen minutes.

“Nobody out there?” Beckman called over.

Shaking his head, Charlie summoned an earnest-sounding, “Detective, thank you so much for your time. We won’t take up any more of it.”

“Okay,” Beckman said with cheer that seemed genuine. He started up from his desk chair, headed for the printer.

At the same moment, the thick toe of one of Charlie’s Converse All Stars caught the carpet at a bad angle. He stumbled and flailed wildly at Beckman’s desk. Intentionally. The target of his flailing was the large Styrofoam coffee cup on the desk.

He struck it squarely, splashing at least ten ounces worth of potentially permanent stains onto the detective’s dress shirt and silk tie.

“Of all the fucking ties,” the cop said, pounding the desktop.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Charlie lied.

With a prolonged grunt, Beckman launched himself out of the squad room, capturing the attention of the two other detectives. Just as Charlie had hoped.

Exigency overrode his nerves, allowing him to double back to the printer and tear along the perforation at the base of the page.

To his ear, the tear was loud enough to rouse area seismographs. The detectives, cackling as Beckman plunged into the men’s room across the hall, didn’t look over.

Charlie was hardly put at ease. Others in the precinct house would read the same bulletin. Alternatively the names Charles and Drummond Clark, which the duty officer had logged into the system, would “click.” The phones here would begin ringing any second.

“We’re leaving,” Charlie whispered, pulling Drummond up from his chair.

Perhaps too hastily. The action drew odd looks from both of the detectives.

“I was thinking the least I could do is buy Detective Beckman a new cup of coffee,” Charlie told them. “Can you tell me where…?”

“Take a left outta here,” said the detective nearer to him, “then right at the copier. End of the hall, hang another right, you can’t miss it.”

“Thanks, officer,” Charlie said. “See you in a minute.”

Entering the corridor, he turned right, toward the elevator.

“What about the coffee?” Drummond asked.

“That was an attempt at diversion,” Charlie said. “We’re leaving, actually, because we’ve been framed for murder, and if we’re detained, we’re as good as dead.”

“I see,” Drummond said, as if he got this sort of thing all the time. Or because he had no clue what was happening. He seemed in no hurry.

“You do get that we’re fugitives?” Charlie asked.

“Yes, yes, framed for murder-I understand.”

Charlie ran for the elevator and pounded the down button.

Drummond turned into the adjacent stairwell.

Just as well, Charlie thought, backpedaling and shoving through the stairwell door. His hurried steps resonated as if the raw concrete space were a canyon. Drummond doubled back to catch the door before it could boom into the frame, then he resumed his leisurely descent.

Maybe his pace was deliberate, Charlie thought. If nothing else, it was less conspicuous.

Nearing the door to the lobby, Charlie slowed too, just in time to avoid being spotted through the glass porthole. The duty officer was hurrying across the lobby.

Fighting the inclination to duck beneath the glass, Charlie continued walking toward the next flight of stairs, which led to the basement. He beckoned Drummond, who followed as if he had been headed to the basement all along.

Charlie glanced out again as he passed the door. Trailing the duty officer were two stern and determined-looking men in plain gray suits. FBI agents. Had to be. Charlie’s heart erupted into a beat strong enough to give him away.

It all but stopped with the realization that he recognized the second FBI man: the father of the happy little boy in the park this afternoon. Unless his appearance now was a coincidence-and the odds were the same that a mule would win the Kentucky Derby-it spoke of an operation more elaborate than Charlie ever would have conceived.

The duty officer and two FBI types could be heard passing the stairwell and boarding the elevator. The duty officer, more deferential now, was launching into his pickpockets-on-a-cold-night joke when the doors clanged shut.

Charlie and Drummond exited the precinct house lobby onto a dimly lit sidewalk in the middle of a block of pitch-black stores and office buildings. There was no traffic. Alley cats were padding out from wherever they spent the day. The Daily News deliveryman was the only person in sight.

Whichever direction Charlie turned, he had the sensation that someone was sneaking up from behind. A cold gust sliced through his sweatshirt.

Taking Drummond by a sleeve, he headed downtown, if only to have the wind at their backs. He stayed close to the buildings so that someone in the squad room would have to open the window and stick out his head in order to see them.

On the slight chance Drummond’s knack for evasion would yield an idea of what to do next, Charlie admitted, “Getting us out of there was as far as my plan got.”

“There’s an IRT station just two blocks away,” Drummond said.

The Interborough Rapid Transit Company had discontinued service here, Charlie was sure of it. His only question was whether it had been before or after his birth. “It’s closed.”

“Oh, right, right.”

There were two working subway stations in the area, each about a ten-minute walk. But by the time Charlie and Drummond made it to either-if they made it at all-they could expect a reception committee of transit cops.

“How about that?” Drummond pointed to the Daily News truck.

The twenty-foot-long rear loader sat at the curb two buildings down from the precinct house. Silver letters stenciled onto its driver’s door spelled out HIPPO, which was apt. Its big rear door was wide open.

“You mean, stow away in it?” Charlie asked, hoping that Drummond had meant something else. Newspapers were stacked so high and tight inside the truck, it would be hard to hide, or even fit.

“No, take it.”

Charlie mulled it over. Any second the “FBI agents” would finish conferring with Beckman and the other detectives, and the lot of them would stampede this way.

At the corner, the deliveryman loaded a stack of newspapers into the machine. He was the size of a grizzly. But Smith had been no peewee.