Stuart Woods - Capital Crimes

KINNEY HAD BEEN in his office for an hour when the first news came in; typically, it was from CNN.

“There has been a shooting incident in downtown Washington, D.C.,” the announcer said. “A black GMC Surburban with D.C. license plates was fired into several times from another car, and a second Suburban lost a door in the incident. We expect to have further details momentarily, but these vehicles are typical of those used by the government to transport VIPs around the city.” Kinney pressed the intercom. “Get me the chief of police.” A moment later he was buzzed; he picked up the phone. “Good morning, Chief,” he said.

“Not really,” the chief replied. “We’ve got three men down in a shooting on Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“Any ID?”

“I’m waiting for that, now. Hang on a minute.”

Kinney was placed on hold, and he waited impatiently, tapping a foot and drumming his fingers on his desk.

The chief came back on. “It’s bad, Bob,” he said. “Speaker Efton has been shot twice and is being transported to Walter Reed Hospital as we speak. One Secret Service agent is dead and another down.”

“Any suspects?”

“We’re looking for a silver Mercedes that left the scene at high speed,” the chief replied. “That’s all I’ve got at the moment. I’ll get back to you when I have more.”

Kinney had barely hung up the phone when his secretary buzzed him. “It’s the president,” she said.

Kinney didn’t want to talk to the man, but he had to.

KINNEY TOOK A FEW deep breaths while he waited for the president to come on the line.

“Bob?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“Tell me about your trip to Atlanta.”

“First, Mr. President, I have to tell you that I’ve just learned from the D.C. police chief that the speaker of the House has been shot on Pennsylvania Avenue, on his way to the Capitol.”

“Good God! Is he dead?”

“He’s on his way to Walter Reed, sir. A Secret Service agent is dead and another wounded.”

“Was it Fay?”

“I have no evidence to that effect yet, sir, but I have no doubt that it is.”

“Was Rawls of any help?”

“Yes, sir. He told us that Fay might be using a hangar at Manassas Regional Airport, south of Washington. I landed there on the way back, and we raided it at the earliest possible moment.”

“And…?”

“The hangar was empty, but my crime scene team found a wristwatch that had apparently been run over by a car or truck. It had stopped four minutes before my SWAT team arrived.”

“And it was Fay’s?”

“I believe so, sir, but he had cleared the hangar of any evidence that he might have been there.”

“What’s your next move?”

“Rawls also told us that he believed Fay had bought a cottage on an island in Maine, Islesboro.”

“I know the place. My wife has spent some time on the island.”

“We’ve checked with the local postmaster and located the house. I have a team on the way to the island as we speak, and I had planned to leave myself almost immediately, until I heard about the Efton shooting. I want to look into that before I leave. I’ve also alerted every state police department between Washington and Maine to be on the lookout for Fay. We believe he’s driving an RV.”

“All right, keep me posted. I have to call Walter Reed now, and find out how the speaker is doing.”

“I’ll be in touch, sir.” He hung up.

Kerry Smith had come into his office while he was talking. “Are we on for Maine?”

“Yes, but first I want to check out the scene on Pennsylvania Avenue.”

“I talked to the ER at Walter Reed. The speaker is hanging on, but he’s gravely wounded. He took two fifty-caliber, armor-piercing slugs.”

“Christ, that’s machine gun ammo.”

“Right. It’s hard to know how Fay could have used such a large weapon in such a confined space as a car.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Kinney said.

TED SAT IN THE garage, in his RV, watching the story unfold on CNN, switching now and then to MSNBC, to see if they had any further information.

“THIS JUST IN,” the CNN reporter said. “Police have found a silver Mercedes answering the description of the car driven by the shooter of Speaker of the House Eft Efton. The car has a damaged left fender bearing traces of black paint. The first Secret Service vehicle was a black GMC Suburban, and the Mercedes collided with it during its escape, striking a Secret Service agent and taking off the right front door. Crime scene investigators from the D.C. Police Department and the FBI are on their way to the scene now.”

The reporter was handed a sheet of paper. “State police units in states along the Eastern seaboard north and south of Washington have been alerted to be on the lookout for the suspect, Theodore Fay, who may be driving a recreational vehicle north on I- 95.”

The report made him glad he had decided to sit things out for a day before heading for Maine.

KINNEY STOOD beside the silver Mercedes and looked into it. All the doors, the hood, and the trunk were open, and it was crawling with technicians. “Anybody found a print yet?”

“There aren’t any prints,” a tech replied. “This baby is cleaner than when it left the factory.”

“This is no ordinary Mercedes, either,” another tech, who was looking into the engine bay, said. “Somebody has shoehorned a big, AMG V8 into it, and the suspension has been reworked, too. You can buy one of these off a lot these days. It’s called an E55, but this car was made before they came out with that model. This is a custom job. It must go like a scalded cat.”

Kerry Smith looked at his watch. “It’s been an hour and a half since the shooting,” he said. “He’s out of D.C. by now. And we can’t even prove it’s Fay.”

“The lack of evidence is part of his MO now,” Kinney said. “Not that that’s going to do us any good in court.”

“Suppose we caught him right now, Bob? Would we have enough to even hold him?”

“I don’t want to think about that at the moment,” Kinney said. “I just want to stop the guy from killing anybody else.”

“I suppose we could charge him with some sort of fraud in the faking of his death. We could hold him on that, couldn’t we?”

“I haven’t seen any evidence that he’s defrauded anybody,” Kinney said. “He doesn’t appear to have gained from faking his death.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s get to the airport. You packed your warm clothes?”

“Yes, sir.”

WILL WAS AT his desk when an aide came into the Oval Office. “Excuse me, Mr. President,” he said, “but we’ve just had word from Walter Reed that Speaker Efton has died from his wounds.”

“Ask the chief telephone operator to find Mrs. Efton and get her on the phone. She’s probably at the hospital by now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And order the flags on all federal buildings to be flown at half-staff.”

“Yes, sir.”

Now he had another grim funeral to look forward to.

BOB KINNEY’S airplane landed at Rockland Airport in the late afternoon. He was met by an FBI agent driving a gray Explorer, and he and Kerry Smith were driven to a boatyard in Camden, a few miles north of Rockland, on the western shore of Penobscot Bay, where a shed had been rented as a rallying point for Kinney’s team.

A potbellied stove warmed the shed, with the aid of a large gas heater blowing hot air around. Masts from a couple of dozen yachts were stored in racks along the walls, and the only furniture was a large picnic table and some folding chairs. An easel held a large-scale map of Penobscot Bay. Everyone gathered around.