Mike Lawson - House Divided

DeMarco had yet to approach the window, however, because there was an old woman at the front of the church, in a pew by herself, fingering rosary beads. She seemed absorbed in her prayers and probably wouldn’t notice if he searched near the window, but he thought he’d wait awhile, hoping she’d leave pretty soon.

While he waited, he closed his eyes, clasped his hands together, and prayed to God to bring down a plague upon his insurance company, like the plagues He’d brought down upon the pharaoh when the pharaoh refused to let Moses and his people go. DeMarco wanted locusts to eat his insurance agent. He wanted the agent’s office to be set upon by lice, frogs, and flies. Slaying the firstborn son of every executive in the company might be going too far, but maybe their dogs and cats could all get fleas.

In his opinion, insurance companies were like guys who welch on bets. In fact, that’s exactly what insurance was: a bet between a homeowner and the company. The homeowner was betting that one day his house might burn down, and the insurance company was betting it wouldn’t. The homeowner then put his money into the kitty by paying premiums for twenty years, and the insurance company used the money to invest in things that made them rich. Or richer. Then, if the house does burn down, the insurance company, in spite of all the money it’s made, refuses to honor the bet. And that’s what his insurance company was now doing by trying to get him to settle for half the money it was going to take to repair his kitchen. And when they finally did pay, they’d raise his rates.

Thank, God. Finally, the old woman was finished praying. He watched as she genuflected and crossed herself about a dozen times, then walked up the main aisle of the church. She gave DeMarco a little smile as she walked by him, which he returned, then he looked down at his lap, trying to look like a pious man saying his prayers, which, in a way, he had been doing.

As soon as he heard the church door close, he hustled over to the window. He could see a ledge below the window but was too short to reach it. Shit. He opened the door to one of the confessionals and got the chair the priest used. He took the chair over to the window, climbed up on it, and there it was: an envelope.

The only thing in the envelope was a dinky digital recorder.

Sitting in the operations room, Claire watched on a large plasma screen as DeMarco pulled his car off the Memorial Parkway and into a parking lot where people could look across the Potomac at the District. From this particular vista, DeMarco had a good view of the Lincoln Memorial, the Kennedy Center, and the dome of the Capitol shimmering in the distance-although Claire doubted DeMarco was thinking about the view.

Through three different bugs-one in DeMarco’s car, one in his cell phone, and one in his belt-Claire listened as DeMarco played Martin Breed’s recording. The sound quality was excellent and when DeMarco muttered, “You gotta be shittin’ me,” Claire felt like she was sitting right next to him.

Claire had sent her technicians out of the room while DeMarco played the recording. Dillon had told her that he didn’t want anyone but him and her-and DeMarco-to know about the things Martin Breed had done for Charles Bradford. Claire still didn’t think it was smart giving the recording to DeMarco, even one that had been doctored, but Dillon had overruled her objections. Once DeMarco listened to the recording, he would know almost as much as they did-and that was dangerous.

But the oddest thing about Dillon’s plan-if you could call it a plan-was that he didn’t appear to have an endgame. He said he hadn’t decided what to do with the information on the recording, whether to use it to destroy Bradford or simply force him to resign, as Breed had planned. It was very unlike Dillon not to have thought things completely through.

Then another thought occurred to her: maybe Dillon did have an endgame and he just wasn’t telling her what it was.

What in the hell was he supposed to do with this thing? DeMarco wondered, looking down at the small recorder resting in the palm of his hand. He knew it was his imagination, but the damn recorder actually felt hot, like it was going to burn right through his flesh.

He was only sure of two things-neither of which he could prove. First, he was sure Paul had been killed because of what he’d just heard, and second, Paul had wanted to get the recording to that reporter, Hansen. But other than those two things, he was completely confused.

He assumed the man who had made the recording was General Breed. That made sense, considering the things he claimed to have done for this guy Charles, but Breed never identified himself on the recording nor did he ever state Charles’s last name or the last name of this guy Thomas, who he’d obviously made the recording for. He found it odd that their last names weren’t mentioned, but even worse, it made the recording almost useless in terms of evidence. The other thing he didn’t understand was why Paul decided to give the recording to a reporter instead of Thomas, whoever the hell Thomas was. He didn’t know. He didn’t know shit.

Well, he did know one thing: the damn recording was a political A-bomb and way, way too big for him to handle. He needed to give it to somebody who had the clout to deal with it. But who? Normally, he would have given it to the FBI, but he was afraid to do that because he didn’t trust Hopper. He did know someone personally at the Bureau, a woman he’d once dated, and he knew he could trust her but he didn’t feel comfortable taking this to her. He hadn’t seen her in three years.

Another thing bothering him was that somebody had assigned Hopper to take the case away from the Arlington PD. Maybe it was this guy Charles-and Charles, based on the recording, was a guy big enough to boss around a two-star army general, which made Charles pretty damn scary.

So if he couldn’t go to the Bureau, who could he go to? He supposed he could go directly to the Justice Department. The only problem with that bright idea was that the FBI, at least theoretically, worked for Justice and, for all he knew, Charles worked for Justice.

The guy he needed was Mahoney. Mahoney was Speaker of the House. Mahoney had major clout and could definitely force Justice to investigate and make sure they didn’t try to cover anything up. But Mahoney was still flat on his back in a coma from which he might never wake up.

The only other person he could think of was his friend Emma. Emma had retired from the DIA-the Defense Intelligence Agency-but she’d been a power player when she worked there. She had helped him on cases in the past and she knew powerful people all over Washington, people who could be trusted. But, right now, like everyone else in his life, she wasn’t available. She was cruising the Mediterranean with her lover, and DeMarco didn’t even know what cruise line she was on.

The more he thought about it, he concluded that Paul had the right idea: turn this whole mess over to the press. They’d print a front-page headline in eighty-five-point font and all hell would break loose. Congress would call a bunch of hearings, special prosecutors would get assigned, and, if the FBI was told to investigate, every politician on the Hill would be watching them. Yeah, that sounded like the best idea. Just do what his cousin had been trying to do: set up a meeting with some reporter-which one, he didn’t have a clue-and hand over the recording.

Or he could just mail the recorder to the press. No, that wouldn’t work. Without an explanation as to where it came from and its connection to Paul and General Breed, people might just ignore it or take it for a hoax. No, he had to talk to a reporter and convince the reporter that the recording was the real thing.