David Baldacci - Stone Cold

“So why the sudden call?” he asked. “I didn’t figure I’d be seeing you again.”

“What can I say, I’m a sucker for tall cops.”

“Does that translate as a cry for help?”

“How much do you know?”

“Oliver asked me to dig up stuff on this Bagger guy and I did. It seems Milton and Reuben went to Atlantic City, presumably to the Pompeii Casino. Oliver said they were laying low now. They’re friends of mine too, so if they’re in trouble I’d like to know about it so I can help them while I’m helping you.”

“Is that what you do, run around helping people?”

“That’s what it says in my job description. So tell me about you and Bagger. And why did Oliver go to Maine?”

“You already seem to know everything.”

“Everything and nothing. But if you really want my help you’re going to have to trust me.” He cocked his head as she stared moodily off. “I take it trusting people is not something you do well.”

“That’s a philosophy that’s served me incredibly well over the years.”

“I don’t doubt it. But just so you know, I’ve covered Oliver’s back, more than once. And I’d trust him with my life.”

“I know, he told me. He said he’d go to war with you any day.”

Alex sat back. “There you go. So maybe I can help you, if you can bring yourself to trust me.”

Annabelle took a deep breath. Enlisting Alex’s aid was critical to her father’s plan to get Bagger. Yet even with that goal in mind this was so damn hard for her. She was sitting across from a cop-no, not just a cop, a federal cop! Someone who could bust her in a second if she misspoke. On the drive over it had seemed so simple. Now it appeared impossible.

Come on, Annabelle, you can do this.

With one more deep breath, she decided to do something she almost never did. She swallowed her principles and decided to tell the truth. At least part of it.

She quickly went through the main points. Bagger killing her mother. The fact that he was now in town. That she had teamed with her father to bring him down. Alex already knew that they’d been kidnapped and almost killed by Bagger’s men. She added, “I don’t have evidence of any of this. Nothing that would stand up in court. But it’s the truth.”

“I believe you. But my cop friends were a little pissed when they showed up to arrest the guys and found no one home.”

“No less pissed than I was.”

“Why is Bagger after you now?”

Annabelle went automatically to lie mode. “He knows I’m trying to nail him for my mom’s murder. He found out I went up to Maine where it happened. He doesn’t want me to find something that could put him away for good.”

Alex sipped his coffee and studied her some more. Either she was the best bullshitter he’d ever run across or what she said was legit. “And so you’re teaming with your old man? How exactly do you propose sticking it to Bagger?”

“My dad’s going to pretend to double-cross me with Bagger. Bagger gets me, I get him to confess, and the cops are there to nail him.”

“That’s your plan?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because it has about a million holes in it, that’s why. And all of them end up with you dead.”

“That’s just the broad concept. It’s all in the details. It’s always in the details.”

“You really think you can make this work?”

“I sort of have a knack for it. My old man’s not that bad either.”

“Uh-huh. I’m going to need a little bit more than that if I’m going to be able to get you the backup you need.”

“I tell you what. We’ll get everything in place, you can take it to your people with a big nice bow, and then you can decide? Then if you say no, I die. That do it for you, big fella?”

“Hey, I’m just trying to be realistic here.”

“No, you’re being a classic bureaucrat. You look at how you can’t do something instead of how you can.”

Alex managed a tight smile. “Actually, the Secret Service is pretty can-do.”

“Good. Show me.”

“Give me a break here. I’m doing you the favor. I’m going out on a really big limb and it’s a long way down.”

Annabelle nervously balled her napkin up. “I know, I’m sorry. It’s just…”

“The good news is the Justice Department really wants something to stick on Bagger. If I can dangle a big enough carrot in front of them, we should be able to get some FBI support. Bagger’s been involved in a lot of questionable stuff. Several murders in fact, but the evidence just wasn’t there.”

“I know of a few more, but without his tripping himself up, nothing you can use.”

“Just so you understand, I’ve only believed about half of what you’ve told me.”

She started to say something but Alex said, “But I’m not going to press it.”

Annabelle eyed him curiously. “Why not?”

“Because Oliver told me not to ask too many questions. He said you were a good person with an imperfect past.”

Annabelle studied him closely. “So who was John Carr?”

“He worked for the U.S. government doing some highly specialized work.”

“He killed people, didn’t he?”

Alex looked around but the place was empty and the girl at the counter was too busy reading about Britney Spears’ latest comeback in People to waste time eavesdropping on them.

“He doesn’t do it anymore. Not unless he has to. Not unless someone’s trying to kill him, or his friends.”

“I saw him kill a man,” Annabelle said. “He did it with a knife. Just a flick of his wrist and the man was dead. But the guy was trying to kill us.” She fiddled with her coffee cup. “Do you have any idea what’s really going on with him?”

“Did you hear about Carter Gray’s house blowing up the other night?”

“Yeah, I read about it.”

“Well, Oliver and Gray go way back, and not in a good way. Oliver was at his house, at Gray’s request, shortly before it blew up. And it was no accident. Oliver had nothing to do with it, but somebody else did. Somebody else who might just have Oliver on his target list.”

“So he’s got someone looking to kill him too?”

“Looks that way. And that’s why he didn’t want to hang around any of us.”

“And I was really upset that he abandoned me.”

“Hey, he called me in. I might only be the JV, but I’ve been known to get a few good punches in from time to time.”

“That stuff I said before about you being a bureaucrat.”

“I believe the exact phrase was classic bureaucrat.”

“Yeah, well, I take it back. I appreciate your help.”

“I need to make a few calls. And then I can help you fill in some of the details now that we have the concept nailed down.”

She returned his grin. “I’ve never met a fed like you before, Alex Ford.”

“That’s okay, you’re a new one in my book too.”

AS THE NIGHT SETTLED IN Oliver Stone knew he was still being followed. Well, now was the time to say good-bye to the shadows. He ran for a cab and gave the driver an address in Alexandria. With deadly men in pursuit of him he was heading to a rare book store.

The taxi dropped him off in front of the shop on Union Street a block from the Potomac River. With the hunters behind him Stone hurried inside, nodding at the owner of the place, Douglas. The man had used to be called simply Doug, and had once sold pornographic comic books out of the trunk of his Cadillac. Yet he harbored a secret passion for rare books and a desire to be rich. That dream had gone unfulfilled until Stone had hooked him up with Caleb. Now Douglas ran a successful high-end rare book store. As part of the bargain Stone was given access to the place at all times, and had a room in the cellar area that he used to store some of his most important possessions. And it also provided something else that Stone was going to use right now.