Nelson Demille - The Lion's Game

"They're not easy to hide."

"They can be broken down. I mean, we are not discounting the possibility that Asad Khalil has a sniper rifle and that he intends to kill someone, who he would have trouble getting within pistol range of. But it really doesn't fit his stated mission or his MO. You said so yourself. Up close and personal."

"Right. Actually, I think there was a patio furniture set in that box. You ever see how they pack that cheap shit in the discount stores? Ten-piece patio furniture set in a box no bigger than a shirt box. Six chairs, a table, umbrella, and two chaise-longes made in Taiwan. Put Slot A into Slot B. Okay, see you in D.C."

"Right. We'll make the travel arrangements here. I'll fax the flight info to the L.A. office. Press conference is at five P.M. at J. Edgar. I know John enjoyed his last visit there. And again, congratulations to both of you on a fine job and on your engagement. You set a date yet?"

Kate replied, "June."

"Good. Short engagements are best. I hope I'm invited."

"Of course you are," Kate assured him.

I hit the Disconnect button.

Kate and I sat silently for a minute, then she said to me, "I'm concerned about that rifle."

"And well you should be."

"I mean… I'm not the nervous type, but he could be gunning for us."

"Possibly. You want to borrow the Little Italy T-shirts again?"

"The what?"

"Bulletproof vests."

She laughed. "You have a way with words."

Anyway, we went back into the common area and had an informal stand-up meeting with the six people there, including Juan, Edie, and Kim. We drank some coffee, and Edie told us, "We're getting Mr. Rahman back from L.A. in about half an hour. We're going to take him out to look for the canyon where he took Khalil to drop that bag."

I nodded. Something about that bothered me, too. I realized that Khalil had to kill time at that early morning hour before the stores opened or whatever, but he really could have had Rahman just take him to a cheap motel. Why did he drive an hour north up the coast highway and ditch the bag?

Anyway, I didn't ask Cindy for the bulletproof vests and neither did Kate. I mean, all we were going to do today was drive around L.A. On the other hand, that may have been reason enough to have bulletproof vests. New York joke.

But Cindy did give us two nice overnight canvas bags with big FBI logos on them as souvenirs of our visit, and perhaps as a way of saying, "We don't want to see you again." But maybe I was projecting.

So, Kate and I put our few toiletries in our bags, and we were ready to go to the Los Angeles office. We discovered that there was no helicopter available, which is sometimes a tip-off that your stock is slipping. However, there was a car available, sans driver, and Cindy gave us the keys. Kate assured her that she knew the way. California people are really nice.

So, we all shook hands and promised to stay in touch, and we were invited back anytime, to which I replied, "We'll be back day after tomorrow." This had the same effect as if I'd broken wind.

Anyway, we left, found the blue government Ford Crown Victoria in the lot, and Kate slipped behind the wheel.

She seemed very excited about driving in California again, and informed me we'd take the scenic coast road to Santa Monica, via Santa Santa, then Las Santa Santos, then some other Santas. I didn't really give a rat's ass, but if she was happy, then I was happy. Right?

We drove down this coastal highway, through Santa Oxnard, and south toward the City of Angels. The water was on our right, mountains to our left. Blue skies, blue water, blue car, Kate's blue eyes. Perfect.

Kate said it was about an hour's drive to the FBI field office on Wilshire Boulevard, near the UCLA campus in West Hollywood, and also near Beverly Hills.

I asked her, "Why isn't the office downtown? Is there a downtown?"

"There is, but the FBI seems to prefer certain neighborhoods over others."

"Like expensive, white, non-inner city neighborhoods."

"Sometimes. That's why I don't like lower Manhattan. It's incredibly congested."

"It's incredibly alive and interesting. I'm going to take you to Fraunces Tavern. You know, where Washington bid farewell to his officers. He got out on three-quarter disability."

"And went to live in Virginia. He couldn't stand the congestion."

So, we did the California – New York thing for a while as Kate drove. Then she asked me, "Are you happy?"

"Beyond happy."

"Good. You look less panicky."

"I have surrendered to the light." I said, "Tell me about the L.A. office. What did you do there?"

"It was an interesting assignment. It's the third largest field office in the country. About six hundred agents. Los Angeles is the bank robbery capital of the country. We had close to three thousand bank robberies a year, and-" "Three thousand?"

"Yes. Mostly druggies. Small-time cash snatches. There are hundreds of small branch offices in L.A., plus there are all these freeways, so the robbers can make easy escapes. In New York, the robber would be sitting in a taxi for half an hour at a stop light. Anyway, this was more of a nuisance than anything else. Very few people got hurt. I was actually in my bank branch office once when it was getting robbed." "How much did you get?"

She laughed. "I didn't get anything, but the perp got ten to twenty."

"You collared him?" "I did."

"Tell me about it."

"No big deal. The guy was ahead of me in line, he passes a note to the teller, and she gets all nervous, so I knew what was coming down. She fills a bag with money, the guy turns to leave, and finds himself staring at my gun. It's a stupid crime. Small money, big Federal rap, and between the FBI and the police, we solved over seventy-five percent of the bank robberies."

We chatted about Kate's two years in L.A., and she said, "Also, it's the only field office in the country with two full-time media representatives. We got lots of high-profile cases that needed media fixes. Lots of celebrity stalker cases. I met a few movie stars, and once I had to live in this star's mansion and travel with him for a few weeks because someone had threatened his life, and it looked like a serious threat. Then there were the Asian organized crime syndicates. The only shoot-out I ever had was with a bunch of Korean smugglers. Those guys are tough cookies. But we have some Korean-Americans in the office who have penetrated the syndicates. Am I boring you?"

"No. This is more interesting than the X-Files. Who was the movie star?"

"Are you jealous?"

"Not at all." Maybe a little.

"It was some old guy. Pushing fifty." She laughed.

Why was I not having fun yet? Anyway, it appeared that Kate Mayfield was not the naive hick I thought she was. She'd been around the dark side of American life, and though she hadn't seen what I'd seen in twenty years on the job in New York, she'd seen more than your average Wendy Wasp from Wichita. In any case, I had the feeling that we had a lot of history to learn from each other. I was glad she didn't ask me about my sexual history because we'd be in Rio de Janeiro before I was finished. Just kidding.

All in all, it was a pleasant drive, she knew her way around, and before long we found ourselves on Wilshire Boulevard. Kate pulled into the big parking lot of a twenty-story, white office building, complete with flowers and palm trees. There's something about palm trees that makes me think nothing serious or deep is going on in the vicinity. I asked her, "Did you ever get involved with any Mideastern terrorism?"

"Not personally. There's not much of that here. I think they have one Mideast specialist." She added, "Now they have two more."

"Yeah. Right. You maybe. I don't know beans about Mideast terrorism."