Дэвид Балдаччи - Hell's Corner

He stopped a short distance from Marisa Friedman’s office, or former office, in Jackson Place. Staring at the front of the old town house, Stone recalled his last encounter there with her. It could have gone very differently if he’d been willing. And right now he was wondering why he hadn’t been... willing.

“Got something?”

He turned to see Chapman staring at him. She looked over at the building and then at him.

“Friedman’s career in the intelligence field is over,” he said. “Thanks to me.”

“She’s a big girl. Nobody made her agree to go along.”

“She actually didn’t have much of a choice.”

“Everyone has choices. You make them and then you live with the consequences.” She paused. “Do you plan to see her again?”

Stone shot her a glance. “What do you mean?”

“The last time we were together with her. It doesn’t take a genius to see.”

“To see what?”

She turned away, directing her attention to the hole in the ground where the bomb had gone off, starting their collective nightmare.

“I don’t plan on seeing her again, no,” said Stone. He seemed surprised by this sudden decision.

Where did that come from? Instinct?

Chapman turned back around. “I think that’s wise.”

As it started to get dark Stone and Chapman drove back to his cottage. They sat in the car by the wrought-iron gates for a few minutes.

“I’ll come with you tomorrow,” she said. “If just for moral support.”

“No,” Stone said decisively. “That would not be good for your career.”

“What career?”

He looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Friedman wasn’t the only one who lost her professional ride. I got a notice from the Home Office yesterday. I’m basically being ordered to resign from MI6.”

Stone looked anguished. “I’m sorry, Mary.”

She shrugged. “Probably time to try something else. After this cock-up I figure things can only go up.”

“Can’t McElroy help you?”

“No. He’s taken his lumps too over this. It’s out of his hands.” She looked around. “I no longer have access to the British embassy. And my credit card has been revoked. I’ve got passage back on an American military plane leaving for London tomorrow night.”

“I would advise you to be on it.”

She looked up at the cottage. “Mind if I crash at your place for tonight?”

“All right,” said Stone.

“And shouldn’t you prepare for the hearing tomorrow?” she asked. “I can help.”

“I just plan on telling the truth. If I try and prepare, it’ll just make things more complicated.”

“They’re going to come after you with everything they have.”

“I know.”

“You think you’ll come out okay?”

“I doubt it.”

They rose the next morning early and took turns showering. Stone put on his only suit. Then they had breakfast at the same outlet servicing the construction workers. Stone threw away his meal wrapper, finished off his coffee and checked his watch.

“It’s time,” he said.

“I’m coming,” replied Chapman.

“You’re not on the subpoena. They won’t let you in.”

“Then I’ll wait outside.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes I do, Oliver. I really do.”

The interrogation was to be conducted in the secure hearing room of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. It was in an underground room beneath the U.S. Capitol’s Rotunda, and accessed by a secret elevator. They grabbed a cab and then got out and made their way toward the main entrance.

“Did you get any sleep?” she asked.

“I actually slept remarkably well. I’m getting used to my desk chair.”

“I didn’t.”

“My cot is an acquired taste, I’m afraid.”

“Yeah, next time I try it, I’ll have to be drunk. Slept like a baby that time. Do you know what you’re going to say?”

“I told you, the truth.”

“But you need some plan. Some strategy. And not just the bloody truth. Lawyers can twist that all around.”

“What do you suggest?”

“That you were doing your best. You took a calculated risk based on conditions on the ground. A dozen people had died. The investigation was getting nowhere. You had to try something. The FBI and MI6 signed off on it. The only one whose feelings are hurt is Riley Weaver. And he had produced exactly nothing on the case. And they asked you to come back to work for them. You were doing the best you could under difficult circumstances. And before the hearing even starts I’d pull the government lawyer aside and mention that there are lots of things you can tell the committee that Weaver won’t want them to hear.”

“Such as?”

“Such as NIC withholding critical evidence from the FBI on an international terrorism case? Remember the video from the park? And it also wouldn’t hurt to remind him that your president was, or maybe still is, on your side.”

“So the reason you didn’t get any sleep last night was because you were up thinking about all this?”

“I didn’t want you to go in there and get ambushed. You don’t deserve that.”

“Thank you. I think I’ll take your advice.”

Chapman noted all the uniformed security. “Pretty tight around here.”

“Well, this area is on every terrorist’s wish list.”

They were walking up the steps leading into the building when a uniformed guard strolled by with his black Lab bomb detection canine. The dog sniffed around Stone’s and Chapman’s ankles and then proceeded on.

“At least that’s one sure thing in an uncertain world,” remarked Stone.

“Right. What did Garchik say? The dogs can detect nineteen thousand types of explosive material?”

“And also that there’s not even a machine sophisticated enough to measure how powerful a dog’s nose is. If I—”

Stone froze.

Chapman looked at him. She was holding open the door for him. “You okay?”

Stone didn’t answer. He turned and ran in the other direction.

Chapman called after him, “What the hell are you doing?”

She let go of the door and ran after him. The police frowned on sudden movement at this location. And people running away were even more frowned on. However, Stone was across the street with Chapman right on his heels before any of the uniforms could react.

She caught up to him and grabbed his arm. “I didn’t figure you to chicken out on your hearing. Better to just get it over with.”

“It’s not the hearing, Mary.”

“What then.”

“It’s the dogs.”

“What about them?”

Stone started to sprint. She ran after him.

“Where are we going?”

“To where it all began.”

“We already did that.”

“It’ll be different this time, trust me.”

Stone closed his eyes and sent his mind back to that night. For the second time in twenty-four hours he assembled the pieces in his head, but this time the images were even more vivid. He realized clearly this would be his last chance.

First up, Friedman on the bench. Dozing and then chatting with her fake lover on the phone. Then Alfredo Padilla in his jogging suit and iPod walking into the park from the northeast. Next, there was Fuat Turkekul lurking on the northwest side of the park examining a statue and actually waiting to meet with Friedman. Finally Stone recalled his exact steps in the park. Hearing the motorcade coming, starting to walk through the park, looking at the other people there.

The British security agent in the cammie jacket and seemingly walking in quicksand. He was behind Stone when the gunfire started. Now Stone opened his eyes and stared north, toward the Hay-Adams Hotel and then beyond it. Up floor after floor until his gaze reached the location of the shooters. U.S. government building. Didn’t know how they got in, but they did. They wanted Stone to stumble on things that appeared to be the truth, yet weren’t. But they hadn’t wanted him to find the U.S. government building connection. He’d unconsciously gone right instead of the left they had expected. That was why an attempt had been made to kill him and Chapman soon afterward.