T. Bunn - Drummer in the Dark

“You’re not making any sense, Jackie.”

“Colin is a genius. He rewired my phone so it played over my stereo, we left on all the lights, then worked up here with his cellphone dialed to my apartment number. We could hear ourselves talking from the back porch. Brilliant.” She paused to cough. “Millicent hasn’t been up here in twenty years. We’ve had sneezing fits that’ve lasted for hours. The place smells of mildew and cat pee and we can’t get the window open. It’s awful.”

“I know this woman?”

“She’s my landlady. Crazy as a loon. But a sweetheart.” A voice spoke behind Jackie. She seemed to stifle laughter as she went on, “Colin says I need to get to the business at hand. Don’t mind me. I’m giddy over not being a crispy fritter. Not to mention what we’ve discovered.”

The phone in Wynn’s other hand began squawking angrily. Wynn said, “Hold on one second.” He took the other phone, said, “Ask your agents if there’s a woman named Kirby living nearby.”

Welker said tightly, “We’ve got a felonious situation on our hands, and you want them to play twenty questions?”

“She’s Jackie’s landlady. Jackie says she’s hiding upstairs with somebody named Colin.”

“Who?”

“I have no idea. Oh, and tell your men the Kirby woman is apparently not entirely sane.”

A huffing breath, then, “Why should she be any different?”

Wynn returned to the cellphone. “What have you discovered?”

“Oh, man,” Jackie replied. “This is sweet. It really is.”

Wednesday

Wynn waited until five o’clock the next morning to waken the Fed official, Gerald Bowers. It had taken Jackie and Colin that long to sift through all the data and come up with something that resembled a case they could walk around with. Show to people, convince others they weren’t totally off the wall. Add to that another half hour it had taken to explain it in single syllables so that Wynn and Kay and Carter could understand.

But when he got the Federal Reserve Bank official on the line, Wynn stared down at the pages in front of him as if they contained the cuneiform scribblings of some alien race. Which is why he woke the man up with, “Sir, I have reason to believe that the nation’s financial system is going to be attacked this morning.”

“It happens every day at nine, Congressman.” The man croaked a tune that truly fit his appearance. “The moment Wall Street hits that morning bell.”

“No sir. This is something different. At least, that’s what we think. Or thought.” Wynn looked helplessly across the room. The Hutchings parlor was much the same as it had been upon Wynn’s arrival. Graham was lying down in the other front room, but the last time Wynn had checked, the old man’s eyes were open and fully alert. One staffer had surrendered to fatigue and was sacked out on the floor by Graham’s bed. The tables were littered with papers and coffee cups. The air had the stale quality of gritty exhaustion. “Somebody come help me out here.”

Carter merely smiled. Kay watched him with the grim satisfaction of seeing an acolyte come into his own. “You’re doing fine.”

“Thirty seconds,” Bowers finally growled. “Then I’m hanging up only long enough to call Welker and have him lock you in a cage.”

“Too late. Welker is on the FBI jet they’ve sent down to collect Jackie and Colin.”

The voice on the other end sharpened a notch. “Who?”

“They’re supposed to be arriving at National about seven,” Wynn said. “Why don’t you come join us. Hear this straight from the horse’s mouth.”

“And why on earth should I do that?”

“Because,” Wynn announced. “They’ve located Tsunami.”

The rain passed with the dawn. Not that Jackie gave it much notice. The FBI formed a three-car convoy in Millicent’s front yard. Two men with shotguns stood sentry at either end of the porch. Welker waited in the front hall as first Jackie, then Colin, used the downstairs bathroom, showering under a trickle of rust-colored water, trying to scrub away the fatigue and the fear.

When Jackie came out of the back room, her wet hair was plastered to the same shirt she had worn the previous day. And all night. It was all she had. Everything else had gone up in the backyard bonfire. Welker paid her clothes no mind whatsoever. He glanced at his watch and said once more, “We really need to be going.”

“Almost ready.” Jackie slipped by the agent and walked down the back hall. Millicent was in the same place she had been since the agents stormed her house. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Mrs. Kirby will be fine,” Welker replied, stepping in behind her. “We’re stationing an agent here on permanent watch.”

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Jackie said, seating herself beside Millicent, taking her hand.

“Ms. Havilland, we need to be leaving now .”

Jackie massaged Millicent’s hand, shifting in her seat until she was as close as she could get to the center of the woman’s roving gaze. “You remember how you told me you were afraid of being alone in the dark? This nice man will be around just to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

The gaze might have been as scattered as sunlight on windswept waters, but the voice was all there. Soft and precise and terrified. “They’re going to put me in a home.”

“Not a chance in this world.”

“You don’t know. They’ll watch me and they’ll see what they want to see.”

“Millicent, look at me.” Jackie waited until the woman had brought her gaze under some semblance of control. “How would you like me to move in upstairs?”

The fragile shoulders lifted a fraction. “Live with me?”

“It won’t be all the time. I don’t know where I’m going to wind up after this, but I doubt it will be here.” Jackie pushed away thoughts of any future beyond the next few hours. “I’ve got some money coming. At least, I think I do. We could have some people come in, build me a little apartment I’d use whenever I’m in town. Would you like that?”

The tiny woman used her free hand to wipe shaky streaks down both sides of her nose. “We could be best friends.”

“That’s exactly right.” Jackie rose, then bent down and kissed the top of Millicent’s head. Her hair felt like spun glass. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

She turned to the FBI agent and gave a little nod. Welker lifted his wrist to his lips and said, “Heads up. We’re moving.”

Wednesday

Burke studied the dawn beyond his window. The rain had passed with the night, and the sun rose within a pristine sky. He reached for his phone and dialed Hayek’s private line. The hand holding the phone stank of petrol and charred wood. He had showered four times after finally arriving home and still could taste the fumes.

The man answered himself. “What is it?”

“I’m just making sure,” Burke replied, “you want me to go ahead as planned.”

“Yes, Burke. I want you to do exactly as we discussed. Make the two calls. Report back to me. Now precisely which portion of this did you not understand?”

“But Crawford hasn’t checked back in. Which means he might have been arrested. And we still don’t know what Colin Ready managed to steal or whether-”

“Fear, Burke. When you begin to question the course of events, remember that. The greater their terror, the larger our gain.”

The words were the same, but not the power. Burke had the impression that Hayek himself no longer fully believed what he was saying. “I’m sorry, I don’t-”

“Chaos. Turmoil. Frenzy. That is what we are after here. Remember this at all times. Our success will be determined by one thing. The market’s level of panic.” When Burke did not respond, Hayek continued, “War is won not merely by force. They must hear our approach like drumbeats from the forest shadows, and fear what they can neither see nor understand. That way the battle will be decided before we even commit our forces.”