Mike Lawson - Dead on Arrival

‘Well, shit,’ DeMarco said. ‘What do you expect me to do, plant evidence on the guy or something?’

Now had John Mahoney been a normal employer he would have said, No, of course not. What sort ofperson do you think I am? But Mahoney wasn’t a normal employer; he wasn’t even a normal human being. Instead what he said was, ‘Now there you go, now that’s usin’ your head.’

‘Mahoney,’ DeMarco said to Emma, ‘wants me to come up with some way to catch Lincoln, and he doesn’t care how I do it.’

Emma, instead of acting surprised, nodded her head. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Something’s got to be done about that guy. He can’t be allowed to get away with this.’

Emma, unlike Mahoney — or, for that matter, Joe DeMarco — had rather high ethical standards. DeMarco, in fact, suspected that there were canonized saints who were less ethical than Emma. But here she was, apparently agreeing with Mahoney that when it came to Oliver Lincoln anything was fair game.

‘Christ, Emma,’ DeMarco said. ‘It’s like I told Mahoney. What can I do, plant false evidence in the guy’s house?’

‘No,’ Emma said. ‘That would be illegal. I have another idea.’

Emma’s plan began with a series of digital photographs.

First she instructed Mahoney to direct the FBI to e-mail him the picture that Randy White had taken of Lincoln while Lincoln was sitting in the Waffle Shop in Winchester with Jubal Pugh. When the FBI asked Mahoney why he wanted to see the picture, he told them, ‘Because I do.’ Mahoney’s secretary e-mailed the photo to Emma.

Emma then had a man fly to Key West and take a number of candid head shots of Oliver Lincoln. Her man then drove to Winchester and took a series of photos of the interior of the waffle house. And finally Emma obtained, from a source at The Washington Post , pictures of Jubal Pugh when he’d testified at Randy White’s trial.

The FBI had used its wizards to identify Lincoln as the man in Randy White’s original photo. Well, Emma had her own wizard. She had her wizard take all the photos and construct one showing Oliver Lincoln — still wearing his Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball cap, a long-haired wig, a false beard, and sunglasses — sitting with Jubal Pugh at a table in the Waffle Shop. In the photo, a building across the street was clearly visible through a window near where they were seated. Emma, after studying the photo for a bit, made her wizard remove the sunglasses from Oliver Lincoln’s face.

A week later, Emma now had the photograph the FBI wished they had: a photograph that placed a recognizable Oliver Lincoln with Jubal Pugh in exactly the place that Jubal said they’d met. The fact that the photograph was a fake didn’t matter. Emma had no intention of giving the photograph to the FBI or using it to convict Lincoln for conspiring with Pugh. That wasn’t the reason she’d had the photograph made.

They needed someone to run the sting against Pugh, and the ideal person was some government employee who had decided to go over to the Dark Side. They thought originally that maybe DeMarco himself might be the right man for the job but then ruled that out. The problem was that Joe DeMarco was related to Danny DeMarco, and since Danny had been the one who had set Pugh up, Pugh would be suspicious of anything anyone named DeMarco might propose.

They considered using DeMarco’s friend Barry King at the DEA, but the truth was, even though DeMarco liked King, he just wasn’t sure that his softball-playing pal had the ability to do what they wanted done. The other problem was that Barry would be a new face to Pugh, and Pugh might be leery once again of being set up by someone he didn’t know.

No, they needed someone whom Pugh knew and someone who would have a legitimate reason for deciding to switch sides. They finally decided that the perfect person was Patsy Hall.

Patsy Hall had never been summoned up to the Hill before. People of her rank rarely were unless they’d turned whistleblower and had been asked to testify at some congressional hearing. The last time she’d been to the Capitol she’d come uninvited, to tell that bastard DeMarco what she thought of him for what he’d done. But now here she was again, and it wasn’t to testify. It was to meet with the speaker of the House. Why the hell the speaker would want to talk to her, she couldn’t imagine.

She walked into Mahoney’s suite in the Capitol and was immediately taken to his office, no waiting at all. She’d seen pictures of Mahoney, of course, but the man in the flesh was more impressive than the photos. The photos captured his big white-haired head, the stubborn thrust of his chin, the powerful body. What they didn’t convey was the twinkle in his eye or the way he blatantly checked out her figure when she entered the room. Nor did the photos capture the smell of bourbon on his breath when he grasped her small hand in his two big ones and said he was delighted to meet her.

‘I know,’ he said, ‘that you’re not too happy that this meth dealer, Pugh, ain’t sittin’ in a jail cell.’

Hall wanted to say no shit , but of course she didn’t. All she said was, ‘No, sir, I’m not.’

‘And the fact is, we’re not going to be able to put him in jail unless he commits some other crime. But what we can do, with your help, is get the man who hired Pugh, this Lincoln guy.’

‘With my help?’ Hall said.

‘Yeah,’ Mahoney said.

‘What do I have to do?’ Hall said, but she was thinking that if the Speaker of the House had wanted her to run around the National Mall dressed in a chicken suit, all he had to do was call the director of the DEA, that ass-kissing bastard Garner, and Garner would make her do it.

In answer to her question, though, the speaker surprised her by saying, ‘I don’t know.’

‘What?’ Hall said. ‘You want me to do something to help get Lincoln, but you don’t know what it is?’

‘Yep,’ Mahoney said. ‘You see, I can’t know, because what my friend has planned isn’t exactly — uh, orthodox.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Hall said.

‘Me either,’ Mahoney said, and he laughed, and because she couldn’t stop herself, she laughed with him. He was a lecherous old bastard, but he was charming.

‘But what I do know,’ Mahoney said, ‘is that right now you’re a GS-Thirteen and I know you’re damn good at your job. And I know you’ve still got two girls at home, in high school if I remember right, and that you’re on the road about half the time with this job you currently have. Whether you help me out or not, I’ve already told that brown-nosing boss of yours … what the hell’s his name?’

‘You mean Garner?’ Hall said.

‘Yeah, that’s the guy. Anyway, I’ve already told him that because of your role in nailing Pugh’s people, I’m disappointed that you’re not a GS-Fourteen, maybe a Fifteen, and acting as the DEA’s liaison with Congress. I got a feelin’,’ Mahoney said with a wink, ‘that Mr Garner is very concerned that I’m disappointed.’

‘Jesus,’ Hall said. ‘What do I have to do?’

‘All you have to do is talk to a guy named DeMarco. I think you’ve met him.’

Hall’s face must have conveyed her opinion of DeMarco because the speaker said, ‘Yeah, yeah, I know, he wasn’t exactly up front with you last time, but this time I promise he will be.’

‘You don’t have to bribe me with a promotion to get me to talk to him, Mr Speaker.’

‘I know that,’ Mahoney said, ‘and it’s not a bribe. I’m givin’ your career a boost because I like you and because I’m impressed with all the knuckleheads you’ve put in jail during your career.’