Philip Margolin - Capitol murder

Dana nodded. “I won’t try anything.”

The man smiled. “That’s an empty promise. I’ve read your file, and I know what you did to those meth cooks. But it would be foolish to try anything with these men. You’d be risking serious injury for no good reason. I assure you that you’ll be released quite soon.”

B y the time Dana’s food was brought to her, the effects of the drug had worn off. She was sore where she’d been Tasered, and there was a knot on the back of her head where her skull had struck the pavement when she fell. Other than that, she was okay.

Dinner was an excellent steak, mashed potatoes, and mixed vegetables. There was even apple pie and coffee, so she deduced that she was a prisoner of an American intelligence agency. No one else visited her, and she started to wonder if she would really be released. At first, the isolation and quiet unnerved her. She used her free time to think about the secret operation she’d stumbled into. Obviously it involved Tolliver, but how was he involved, and was it also focusing on Imran Afridi? After a while, Dana concluded that she had no facts to work with, and she stopped guessing.

There wasn’t a clock in the room, and Dana’s watch had been taken from her, so she had no way to tell time. She went to sleep when she got tired and woke up when her door opened. She guessed it was morning because a guard brought in a tray loaded with orange juice, bacon, eggs, toast, and coffee.

Dana finished breakfast and waited for something else to happen. Nothing did, so she started thinking about the mystery organization that had kidnapped her. She decided that it probably wasn’t the FBI. It was possible that they would kidnap a citizen, but she found that highly unlikely for a domestic law-enforcement organization. That left the CIA as the most likely suspect. They kidnapped foreign terror suspects and held them in secret prisons.

Assuming she’d stumbled into the middle of a CIA plot, what was the Agency up to? She’d been tailing Tolliver when they’d grabbed her, so they didn’t want Dana to interrupt whatever Tolliver was doing, but what was that? If she were in Tolliver’s shoes, she’d be trying to get out of the country as fast as she could. Maybe Tolliver was on his way to meet Afridi. If so, Tolliver was lucky the government had caved when it had. A day or so later, and Afridi would probably have been back in Pakistan.

Dana froze. Something occurred to her. She thought back to the beginning of her involvement in Tolliver’s case, and she reviewed everything she knew about it. By the time she finished, Dana had developed a theory. As soon as she was home, she would test it out, then run her idea past Ginny.

T he door to Dana’s room opened before she was fed another meal, and the man in the tweed jacket walked in with his bodyguards. As far as Dana could tell, he had not changed his clothes.

“You’re going to be released. I hope this hasn’t been too unpleasant.”

“It was great,” Dana answered sarcastically. “Can I book in advance for my next vacation?”

The man smiled. “It’s good to see you’ve retained your sense of humor.”

“How long have I been here?”

“Two days. You got a parking ticket, but don’t worry. We’ve taken care of it.”

“You do work for a powerful organization.”

The man laughed. “I’ve read your file, and I have tremendous respect for you. It’s unfortunate that you had to be detained. It’s also unavoidable that you’ll have to wear a hood when you leave, but we won’t sedate you if you promise to cooperate. You’ll be dropped off by your car.”

When Dana got home, she found copies of the Washington Post piled up on her doorstep. She dropped them on the kitchen table with the mail. Then she went to the bedroom, stripped off her clothes, and took a shower. Hot water pounded her body. She luxuriated in the steamy confines of the stall until she began to feel like a prune.

Dana dried off, dressed in sweats, and went back to the kitchen. She poured a mug of coffee and checked her answering machine, smiling for the first time in days when she heard Jake tell her he was headed home. She missed him terribly, and she had worried about him constantly since he’d left for Afghanistan.

Dana was about to look at her mail when she remembered the idea that had occurred to her just before her release. She looked up the number for Ben Mallory, Bobby Schatz’s investigator.

“Mr. Mallory, thanks for taking my call,” Dana said when she was put through. “My name is Jaime Pavel. I’m a reporter with the Post, and I’m researching an article about the way people who lost relatives in the Twin Towers on 9/11 are coping, years after the disaster.”

There was dead air for a second. When Mallory spoke, he sounded confused.

“Why are you calling me, Miss Pavel?”

“I was led to believe that you had a brother who was working in the World Trade Center on 9/11.”

“You’ve been misinformed,” Mallory said. “My brother manages a Walmart in Kansas.”

Dana apologized for taking up the investigator’s time and ended the call. She looked at the clock. It was the middle of the afternoon. Ginny was probably still at the DOJ. They needed to speak, but Dana didn’t want to call her at Justice, so she decided to wait and call after Ginny got home.

Dana shuffled through her mail before opening that day’s edition of the Post. The headline TERROR SUSPECT MURDERED jumped out at her.

According to the article, the body of Ronald Tolliver had been discovered by a jogger on a footpath bordering the C amp;O Canal. He had been shot, and his wallet was missing. Robbery was the presumed motive. Because there was no immediate way to identify the victim, it wasn’t until late last night that the authorities had discovered that the dead man had been arrested in connection with the attempted bombing at FedEx Field and released because of lack of evidence.

Dana wasn’t surprised that Tolliver was dead, but who had killed him? Was it Imran Afridi or someone working for him? Was it the people who had kidnapped her? What did it matter? Tolliver deserved to die.

What with following Tolliver and then her abduction, Dana had not read a paper or heard news reports for the past three days, so she was shocked when she noticed another front-page article about the murders at Senator Jack Carson’s estate. The story said that United States Senator Jack Carson, Carson’s chief of staff Lucas Sharp, and Brad Miller, a legislative assistant, had been attacked by burglars in Carson’s home. Dana’s jaw dropped when she read that Brad and the senator had been rescued by escaped serial killer Clarence Little, who had killed the three burglars before calling 911. Lucas Sharp had died during the encounter, but it was not clear who had killed him.

Dana was thoroughly confused. Why had Little left Brad and the senator alive? Hadn’t Little killed Jessica Koshani and Dorothy Crispin to terrorize Brad or the senator or both? Dana grabbed the phone and punched in Brad and Ginny’s number. The answering machine told her to leave a message, and she told Ginny or Brad to call her. She was about to hang up when Ginny came on the line.

“Dana, it’s me. The press has been driving us crazy, so we’re screening our calls.”

“Is Brad okay?”

“Not really. He’s out of a job, for starters, and he’s also the star witness for the prosecution in the murder and treason cases against Jack Carson.”

“Carson is accused of murder and treason?”

“You didn’t know?”

“I’ve been out of touch, and I just found out what happened.”

“Where have you been? This has been the lead news story for the past two days.”