Roy took a long breath and nearly choked. In the close confines of the room, the Captain’s “aroma” was overpowering.
“I just scoot out. I’m real good at scooting.”
Roy put his pad and pen away and stood. “I’m sure you are. I’ll go check on that food for you.”
“Twinkies if they got ’em. And coffee.”
After arranging for some food, Roy left and called Mace.
“How’s it look?” she asked.
“An insanity defense is pretty appealing right now.” His tone sharpened. “All right, I want to know about Watkins. You just dropped a bombshell and then—”
“Not over the phone, Roy. Let’s meet later.”
“Where are you?”
“Heading out to start my new job.”
CHAPTER 52
THANKS FOR MEETING with me on such short notice,” Beth said.
She sat down across from the two men in a small conference room. Sam Donnelly, the nation’s director of intelligence, was as elegantly dressed as ever. Jarvis Burns, his right-hand man, looked just the opposite. His suit looked like it had been pulled from the bottom of a trunk after a months-long journey. The DNI had offices in various places. Today, Beth was in downtown D.C. not far from police department headquarters, in a nondescript building that on the outside looked like nothing special. That was sort of the idea, she knew.
She’d been issued a radio frequency badge on arriving here. It had been encoded with her security clearance levels, which were very high. Still, they weren’t high enough. Every room she’d entered, silent alarms had gone off, red lights installed on the ceiling had twirled, and computer screens automatically darkened because she was not cleared to see any of what was going on here.
“Always a pleasure, Beth.” Donnelly fiddled with a ring on his finger while Jarvis rubbed his leg.
“Getting worse on you, Jarv?” she asked, eyeing the limb.
“I would not advise anyone getting shot and then stabbed with a bayonet wielded by an enormously skilled and suitably mad Vietcong infantryman. I was lucky enough to have killed him before he killed me. But at least he didn’t have to endure this level of pain for the last three decades.”
“Nothing they can do?”
“What they did on the battlefield back then sort of sealed my fate. Nerve and bone damage that were basically wrapped in Band-Aids, ruptured blood vessels that were rerouted in crude ways.” He slapped his thigh. “It is what it is and you didn’t come here to hear me complain about it. What can we do for you?”
“There was a U.S. attorney found dead in D.C. His name was Jamie Meldon.”
Donnelly nodded. “A real tragedy. We were briefed on it.”
“Who by?” she said quickly.
Donnelly shook his head. “Sorry, Beth. I can’t say specifically, but any such criminal act would come to the attention of the DNI through various channels.”
“The crime scene was closed off to us and the FBI. We have no idea who took over the investigation. I’ve heard that the directive came from the White House?” She paused and looked at Donnelly expectantly.
“That’s a neither confirm nor deny answer, Beth.”
“Sam—”
He held up a hand. “All right, I can say that I have heard nothing that would connect this to the White House. And I think I would have.”
“So who can it be? These guys basically walked off with Meldon’s body based on waving around their driver’s licenses. And the mayor told me in no uncertain terms to back off. Okay, sometimes that happens. But the FBI got called off too.”
Donnelly glanced at Burns. “That is very unusual. Would you like me to look into this for you?”
“You’re the first person I thought of to do it.”
“We’ve always had a good working relationship,” he said. “Your spirit of partnership with the federal side is much appreciated, I can tell you that.”
“We have to keep the capital safe.”
Burns’s features darkened. “If terrorists can successfully attack this city, no American anywhere will feel safe. And the other side would have won.”
“Preaching to the choir.” She shook their hands. “I’ll wait to hear from you.”
Burns said, “By the way, how is your sister adjusting to life?”
“She’s adjusting. But Mace always goes her own way.”
After Beth left, Donnelly returned to his office. Jarvis Burns continued to sit at the table and rub his bad leg. He stopped long enough to type in a text on his BlackBerry and a minute later the door opened. The man with long white hair had changed from jeans and the tuxedo shirt that