Dean Koontz - Dragonfly

Beau Jackson was not in the cloakroom.

McAlister put down his attaché case and went to the open-front wall-length closet. As he put on his coat he noticed a thick black-and-gold hardbound book lying on the hat shelf. With the curiosity of a book lover, he picked it up and looked at the title: The Complete Kafka — The Stories, Annotated and Analyzed. On the flyleaf there was a three-inch-square bookplate:

From the Library of

b. w. jackson

Beau Jackson came out of the lavatory into the cloakroom. He stopped and stared at the book in McAlister's hands, and said, “Somebody left that here last week. It yours, Mr. McAlister?”

“Belongs to a B.W. Jackson. Know him?”

The black man smiled. “Surprise you?”

“Not really. I've always figured you can't be what you seem to be.” He put the book back on the hat shelf.

Carrying McAlister's attaché case, Jackson walked him across the cloakroom, into the hall. “Then I guess I belong here.”

McAlister pulled up his hood, buttoned his coat collar. “Oh?”

Handing him the case, Jackson said, “Around here a lot of people just aren't what they seem to be.”

Grinning, McAlister said, “You mean that you're disappointed with the way the boss has been running things? You're sorry you voted for him?”

“I did vote for him,” Jackson said. “And for once in my life I figure maybe I pulled the right lever.” His broad, dark face was sober, almost glum. “Compared to that Sidney Greenstreet of his, the boss is as real and genuine and unphony as they come.”

“Sidney Greenstreet?” McAlister said, perplexed.

At the end of the hall, the guard came back inside and said, “Car's ready, Mr. McAlister.”

“Who's Sidney Greenstreet?” McAlister asked the black man.

Beau Jackson shook his head. “If you aren't a fan of the old movies, then it can't mean anything to you. Just goes right over your head.”

For a long moment McAlister stared into the other man's watery chocolate-brown eyes. Then he said, “You're an original, Mr. Jackson.” He went down the last stretch of the hallway toward the door that the guard was holding open for him.

“Mr. McAlister,” the black man called after him.

He looked back.

“You're sure enough the only one I ever met here who is just exactly what he seems to be.”

McAlister couldn't think of anything to say. He nodded stupidly, embarrassed by the compliment, and he went outside into the rain and wind that lashed the capital.

Crossing the small reception lounge at two-twenty that afternoon, Andrew Rice told his secretary, “Officially, I'm not back yet. I don't want to talk to anyone. I don't want to see anyone. I'm not feeling very well.” And before she had a chance to tell him who had telephoned during the morning, he hurried past her desk and went into his private office and slammed the door behind him.

The office was a reflection of Rice himself: the furniture was large, bulky, heavy; the chairs were overstuffed; there was a slight but pervading sloppiness about the place. The wall shelves overflowed with books that had been jammed into them every which way. The desk was six feet by four feet, held three telephones, and was littered with dozens of letters and memoranda and government reports. Three rumpled easy chairs, all of them wide enough and deep enough to comfortably accommodate Rice himself — therefore, so large that they dwarfed many other men — were arranged in a semicircle around a water-stained oak-and-chrome coffee table.

Roy Dodson was sitting in the easy chair nearest the windows. Because he was six four and weighed two-twenty, the chair did not dwarf nun. He was holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a recent issue of a news magazine in the other. When Rice came in, Dodson leaned forward and put both the coffee and the magazine on the low oak table.

Rice said, “We have to move fast.”

Dodson got up.

Not bothering to take off his raincoat, scarf, or hat, Rice went around behind the desk and collapsed into a king-size, caster-equipped, posturematic chair. He pulled several paper tissues from a chrome dispenser on the desk; he wiped his face, which was greasy with perspiration. “McAlister's man is David Canning.”

“He's had a desk job for years.”

“Obviously, McAlister doesn't think the man's gone to seed, desk job or no desk job,” the fat man said. “Get out of here. Get to a public phone.” He picked up a pen, scribbled on the back of a used envelope, and handed the envelope to Dodson. “That's the number of a phone in the agency's main file room. It'll be answered by a Miss Rockwalt. She's one of ours. She'll find Canning's home address for you.”

“Then?”

“You take two men out to his house. Look it over. Find a way to hit him.”

“Make it look like an accident?”

“There's no time for that approach,” Rice said irritably. “He's leaving Washington on a four o'clock flight to Los Angeles.”

“Which airline? Which airport?” Dodson asked. “It might be a lot easier to hit him in an airport parking lot or restroom than in his own home.”

“Well, I don't know which airline or which goddamned airport,” the fat man said. “McAlister didn't say. If I'd insisted on knowing, I'd have had to explain why I was so damned curious.”

Dodson nodded. “One problem.”

“What's that?”

“The only other men I know in our group are Maxwood and Hillary. Maxwood's in Texas on an assignment. Hillary's here in the city, but I don't know where. How do I reach him? Who do I get for backup?”

The fat man thought for a moment. Hillary and an agent named Hobartson were on security duty at Wilson's laboratory. They could be spared for this. “I'll get to Hillary and his partner. They'll meet you downstairs in the lobby at a quarter of three— twenty minutes from now.” He shook his head. “I just don't see how you're going to have time to hit Canning before he leaves for the airport.”

“Maybe we won't have to set him up at home. If we can get there in time to follow him, we can still do the job at the airport.”

“Get moving.”

“Yes, sir.” Dodson took his coat from a hook on the back of the door, and he went out, closing the door behind him.

Rice's three telephones were three different colors: one black, one blue, and one white. The white phone was a private top-security line that did not pass through the building's switchboard. He lifted the white receiver and dialed the unlisted number of the laboratory.

The man on the other end did not identify himself or the place from which he was speaking. “Hello?”

“Hillary?”

“Yes.”

“This is the Spokesman.” That was the name Rice used with agents of The Committee, for nine out of ten of his men did not know who he was.

“Sir?”

“You and your partner leave that place and go to the first-floor main lobby of the Executive Office Building. At two forty-five you'll meet Dodson there. He has a job he'll explain to you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You haven't much time. Don't be late.”

“We're leaving now.”

Rice put down the receiver, opened a desk drawer, and put his right hand into a bag full of chocolate-covered marshmallow cookies. He ate one of them, licked his fingers, and flicked an intercom switch.

“Yes, Mr. Rice?”

“Miss Priestly, I need a list of all U.S. marshals assigned to the Washington area. Do we have a thing like that on file?”

“No, sir.”

“Then get hold of Fredericks over at the Justice Department. Ask him to have such a list hand-delivered to me within the half-hour. Tell him it's connected with a matter of national security.”