Max Collins - Executive Order

“Where did you first see our GAO friend?”

“At Fisk’s office.” She looked at him agape. “Oh, come on, Joe — you’re not saying Fisk may be compromised!”

“The Director of the Secret Service seems to be. And Fisk is just an Assistant Director.”

“She gave me full support on this investigation!”

He just sent her one of those frustratingly bland looks. “How better to keep an eye on you and your people?”

Government employees trouped by on the sidewalk in either direction. Employees of a government that Rogers could no longer trust...

She said, her voice sounding as small as a child’s, “What do we do?”

His response seemed a non sequitur. “You care about Kevin.”

“What? Yes! Of course.”

“Then we need to get him somewhere safe. You make him vulnerable, and he makes you the same.”

She willed herself to say calm. “Okay, so we get Kevin somewhere safe. What about us?”

“The same. Off the grid. Way off. We’ll pull Miggie in, too, so he can work his computer magic and help us get the identity of our GAO buddy. That son of a bitch is our way inside to whoever’s behind all this.”

“What about the rest of the team?”

“For now, they stay on the job. We’ll pull them off at some point, and get them to ground, too... but for now they make a show of continuing the Yellich investigation, only they won’t get anywhere that they share. Otherwise, anything they come up with, anything they accomplish, could be known by the rogue group.”

Soon, with Reeder at the wheel of his Prius, Rogers kept an eye out for a tail. After last night, the agent who lost his flag pin would not likely still be on the job, but someone else obviously could be. Right now they were going south on Ninth Street NW.

“We need somewhere to work from,” Reeder said, “a shadow HQ for an investigation of a shadow government. And we have to stay in the city, because that’s where the enemy is.”

“We need a safe house,” she said.

“Yes. And that’s where we’re going.”

He drove up the ramp for I-395 and headed east. They rode in silence for a while — she would let him think, even as her own mind was spinning. When he merged onto I-695, she finally asked, “Not the Navy Yard?”

“Not the Navy Yard. Too many security cameras. Someplace better.”

He parked on Ninth Street SE, with greenery to their right as he got out of the car and so did she.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Near where we’re going. But it’s best we walk.”

They skirted Virginia Avenue Park, then turned back down Tenth toward the Navy Yard and into a sketchy area where they passed a vacant lot between two brick buildings. The one on the corner of M Street, a tailor and pawnshop below, had a fire escape up to the floor above.

Reeder took the ’scape, surprising her a little, and she followed him to a landing where awaited a steel door with an overhead security camera... and a doorbell. As if the bell weren’t there, Reeder pounded on the steel.

In a moment, a voice came over a speaker: “Closed for bidness.”

“I got after-hours money, DeMarcus.”

“Who that with you?”

She said, “Special Agent Rogers.”

The voice said, “You shittin’ me, Reeder? You bring Five Oh to my door?”

“Five Oh is city, DeMarcus. My friend here is federal, but she isn’t DEA or ATF, so don’t sweat it.”

“Go away, man. I don’t know you no more.”

“Ten thousand dollars.”

The speaker fell silent.

Then: “Fifteen.”

“DeMarcus, you don’t even know what I’m buying yet.”

“I know you brung a fed around.”

“I need two minutes. We come to terms and I got ten K for you.”

“Like you got that much on you.”

Rogers goggled at Reeder as he withdrew a major wad of cash from his pocket like Bugs Bunny producing an anvil from somewhere. He held up the wad with one hand and the fingers of the other riffled through bills.

The door opened. Half-opened, anyway.

The skinny African American guy who peered suspiciously out at them looked to be in his early twenties; he wore Georgetown University gear, though she doubted somehow that he was enrolled.

“Patti,” Reeder said, “this is my friend DeMarcus. DeMarcus, this is my friend Patti. You can call her Agent Rogers. Be nice. She’s armed.”

He grunted an unimpressed laugh. “What you wanna buy?” he asked.

“Oh,” Reeder said innocently, “did you want to deal right out here in the open? On your doorstep?”

Their host scowled and waved them inside, stepping aside for them.

The place was a loft, with an office area just inside, a metal desk with computer off to the right and a warehouse of goods to the left — three tall rows of shelves arranged by product: bags of weed, handguns, and cell phones. Beyond was a modern kitchen, like something from a Home Depot showroom, and to the left a spacious home theater area with overstuffed black-leather chairs and a couch facing a massive flat-screen, below which a low-riding doorless cabinet held electronics gear, two massive black speakers bookending the big screen. Down on the M Street end was an elaborate wall mural of classic rap and hip hop, interrupted by two doors — bathroom and bedroom, probably.

The place reeked of weed. A door in the mural opened and a beautiful young naked black girl with a retro ’fro leaned there and called out sleepily, “Come back to bed, Markie — your baby’s lonely.”

DeMarcus shrugged at them. “Don’t mind Sheila.”

Reeder was looking in Sheila’s direction; he didn’t seem to mind one bit.

“ Bidness! ” DeMarcus called back, and Sheila’s sigh could be heard all through the loft before she shut herself poutily back in.

They remained near the door in the office area as DeMarcus asked, “So, Joe. What you wanna buy?”

“Nothing.”

“Nada?”

“Not a thing. I want to rent something.”

“What the hell you wanna rent?”

“This loft.”

And Reeder handed the wad of bills toward DeMarcus.

“Like hell,” their host said, his brow wrinkled. Maybe he was closer to thirty, she thought. “I got a bidness to run.”

“That’s why this fistful of money isn’t really ten grand.”

“If it ain’t ten grand, then get you white asses outa my crib.”

“It’s fifty.”

“Say what?”

“It’s fifty K, DeMarcus. You old enough to remember when somebody won something, and a guy showed up with a giant damn check for them? Well, nobody uses checks anymore. You’ll just have to settle for cash. Here. Count it.”

DeMarcus, looking a little dazed, took the wad and counted. It was hundred dollar bills. Presumably five hundred of them.

Reeder waited until DeMarcus’s nod indicated the tally was right.

Reeder said, “There’s a string attached.”

Their host scowled again. “Would be.”

“You have to use that to take little Sheila someplace exotic for a week. Belize maybe. Nassau’s nice. When you come back, I’ll have another fifty for you.”

DeMarcus thumbed through the bills; he looked stunned. “A hundred K to rent the place for a week.”

“That’s right.”

“What for?”

“Why, are you afraid we might do something illegal? DeMarcus, the green rents the place and comes with no explanations. You have a passport?”

“Yeah, but, uh...”

“How about Sheila baby? She have a passport?”

“Yeah, we did Cancun last year.”

“Long-term relationship, huh? That’s good, DeMarcus. That’s healthy.”

“Reeder, I gotta know—”

“That’s not healthy. One week, the out-of-country dream spot of your choice.”