Mike Lawson - House Divided

“That may be,” Dillon said, “but if we expose Charles Bradford, that’s what will happen.”

“So what’s the second option?”

“We do nothing. Life simply goes on as it was before. Bradford may have another John Levy or Martin Breed working for him, but even if he does, I imagine he won’t be authorizing any executions anytime soon. He knows we’re watching now.”

Claire just shook her head.

Dillon stared at her for a moment, then said very quietly, “I’m sorry, Claire, but I don’t have all the answers. I think Bradford’s won this round and we’ll just have to bide our time and look for another opportunity-and hope he doesn’t figure out that you and I were the ones helping DeMarco.”

“And what about DeMarco?” Claire asked

“He’s not going to be a problem. He has no evidence, and he knows what we can do. And I’ll threaten him, of course.”

“You may be underestimating him, Dillon.”

“What are you suggesting? That we murder the man?”

“No, I’m not suggesting that,” Claire said. “If we killed DeMarco, we’d be no better than Charles Bradford. I’m just saying, Don’t underestimate the guy.”

Dillon handed DeMarco his cell phone and the keys to Perry Wallace’s truck and said, “You’re free to leave, Joe.”

“So it’s all over,” DeMarco said.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”

“And you’re not going to expose Bradford, are you?”

“You keep missing the big picture, Joe. I’ve told you before that exposing Bradford is bad for the country.”

“Oh, right. The big picture. Where does my cousin getting murdered fit into the big picture?”

“Joe, I don’t have time to debate this with you. And I think you can relax somewhat regarding General Bradford. Now that he knows that other people are aware of his activities, I think he’ll exercise some restraint.”

“What’s gonna restrain him from killing me?” DeMarco said.

“What would be the point? You don’t have any evidence and Bradford knows you’re just being used by someone else. Killing you won’t accomplish anything-or not much, at any rate.”

That was really comforting, DeMarco thought.

“Now listen to me carefully, Joe. Some of my colleagues think that leaving you among the living is unwise, but so far I’ve been able to prevent them from taking any action against you. But if you talk to anyone about any of this… Well, need I say more?”

“No,” DeMarco said.

“And you do know, of course, we’ll be aware if you talk. You need to keep in mind that every word you say in the future might be overheard. Every call you make might be listened to. Every piece of mail you send may be opened. You need to remember you’re dealing with an organization that has at its fingertips technologies you can’t even imagine.”

DeMarco looked at Dillon for a long moment, then nodded his head.

“I think I’m starting to see the big picture now,” he said.

DeMarco was glad that Dillon’s people had been kind enough to move Perry Wallace’s old pickup from the parking garage at the Days Inn in Crystal City to the safe house in Maryland. Had they not done this, Perry’s truck would have been towed away. As things stood now, DeMarco was not looking forward to seeing Perry when he returned the truck, considering how Perry had most likely been grilled by Dillon’s agents.

DeMarco turned the key in the ignition, shifted the ancient transmission into first, and took off. He knew that far above his head a satellite was possibly watching him. And somewhere behind him was stone-faced Alice or somebody just like her. And Perry’s beat-up Mazda was most likely fitted with a tracking device, and he was almost certain he was wearing listening and tracking devices as well.

He felt like a dog infested with fleas.

He drove a little farther, thoughts buzzing inside his head.

Finally he said to himself, Fuck the big picture.

“Why’s he stopping, Alice?” Claire said.

“He’s at that liquor store, the one he went to after he met with Bradford at the Pentagon.”

“It would appear that Mr. DeMarco has a drinking problem,” Claire said.

“I don’t know,” Alice said. “He likes his booze, but he doesn’t look like an alky to me.”

Claire listened to DeMarco’s voice through the speaker in the operations room. Alice, parked half a block from the liquor store, was also listening to him via her headset.

Hey. How you doin’ today? How ’bout another bottle of Stoli?

Uh, yes, sir.

A couple of minutes passed then: That’ll be twenty-two fifty.

There you go. And thanks.

And thank you, sir.

“What was that ‘and thank you, sir’ stuff?” Claire said. “It sounded like DeMarco gave the clerk a big tip or something.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Alice said.

“I mean that sounded funny. It sounded off,” Claire said.

“You want me to do something?”

“No. Just watch his ass. I don’t know why, but he’s making me nervous. Dillon had better be right about him.”

Fifteen minutes elapsed.

“He’s stopping again,” Alice said.

“Where’s he going this time?” Claire said.

“I don’t know yet,” Alice said. “He just parked the truck. Okay, he’s going into an auto parts store.”

“What the hell for?” Claire said.

Hey, I need some oil.

The oil’s right over there, sir.

Thanks.

Five minutes later.

That’ll be twenty-eight fifteen, sir.

“He’s heading back to the truck,” Alice said.

“Twenty-eight bucks for oil? Does that sound right to you?” Claire said.

“No,” Alice said, “but maybe he bought something else.”

“What’s he doing now?”

“He tossed a bag into the truck and now he’s adding oil to the engine. That truck’s a piece of shit. It leaked oil all over the garage at the safe house.”

Claire didn’t say anything.

“He’s taking off again,” Alice said.

Fifteen minutes later, Alice said, “He’s stopped again. He pulled into a loading zone in front of a Starbucks. I guess he wants a latte for the drive home.”

Two minutes later, Claire said, “Can you see him?”

“No.”

“Get in there, Alice, and see what he’s doing. The GPS shows he’s not moving, but we can’t hear him.”

It was five long minutes before Alice reported back.

“Claire, the Starbucks has a back exit that leads to a shopping mall, and I found his clothes in one of the men’s rooms. Everything except for his shoes. And there’s an empty plastic bag that used to hold a set of coveralls. It looks like he bought the coveralls at that auto shop.”

“Son of a bitch!” Claire said. “So we have no devices on him?”

“No,” Alice said. She hesitated, then said, “Claire, the Gallery Place metro station is one floor below the mall level. He could be on the metro.”

Claire called out to the techs in the operations room. “I want live feed from all of metro’s surveillance cameras. Look for a man in coveralls. Start at Gallery Place and expand out from there.”

“If he’s underground,” Alice said, “we can’t follow him by satellite until he surfaces again.”

“I know that,” Claire snapped. “What color were those coveralls?”

“The bag didn’t say. Just coveralls.”

Shit.

“He’s going to be hard to spot in the crowds coming off the subway,” Alice said.

“Goddammit, quit telling me things I already know!” Claire screamed.

Claire paced the op room, hovering over her technicians. Ten of them were now looking at surveillance camera images from metro stations trying to spot a man in coveralls. The problem was that from the Gallery Place metro station DeMarco could have gotten on either the Green, Red, or Yellow lines. And one station away was Metro Center, where he could switch to the Orange or Blue lines. He could be headed in any direction, to any place in the District, Virginia, or Maryland-and he could get off at any one of eighty-six metro stations.