Twisted Prey (Lucas Davenport #28)(47)

“I can’t say I’m sorry,” Smalls said. “It’s out in the open now. Let’s see what happens.”

“As the ‘pet marshal,’ I wouldn’t be surprised if I got fired,” Lucas said.

“I would,” Smalls said. “Try to remember which party is in the majority right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tweeter in Chief wades into it.”

“Oh, shit . . .”

“Keep pushing, Lucas. You’re doing good. If you or anyone at the Marshals Service needs help, call me.”



* * *



—

LUCAS CALLED RUSSELL FORTE, and as he finished dialing, he heard a knock at the door. He walked across the room, took the spitball from the peephole, looked out, and saw Rae’s face. He opened the door, waved Bob and Rae inside—they were still dressed in their workout clothes—and when Forte answered the phone, Lucas asked him, “Have you seen Grant?”

“Everybody’s seen Grant,” Forte said. “The shit has hit the fan.”

“That seems to be the general opinion,” Lucas said. “Are we in trouble?”

“Hard to tell,” Forte said. “I’ve got lines out. There’s a rumor that the FBI might want to talk to us.”

“Kick us out? Take over the investigation? That’d be all right with me.”

“Uh . . . I don’t think so. This is becoming the hottest potato in Washington, and you don’t often see the FBI stepping up to intercept hot potatoes. I have gotten a call from the director’s assistant—our director, not the FBI’s—and I’ll be talking with him later this morning.”

“What should we do here? We were planning to call you about a search warrant for this afternoon.”

“Hold off on that,” Forte said. “Let’s see what the director has to say, see if anybody else gets into it. I’m sure the director will be talking with the attorney general . . . let’s see what happens.”

“You’re telling me to lay low.”

“For a few hours. Go climb the Washington Monument or something. Be a tourist.”

“All right. Smalls told me if you need some support, to call him.”

“If I need it, I’ll call you to call him,” Forte said. “I’d rather not talk to him directly, at this point. Not being a director.”



* * *



—

LUCAS FILLED IN Bob and Rae: “It’s not bad,” he said. “It’s a bureaucratic clusterfuck, but it has the effect of chasing these people out in the open.”

“There’s no way Grant or Parrish will do anything now,” Rae said.

“We couldn’t count on them doing anything before,” Lucas said. “They’re operating through Ritter and Heracles. Once all the newspeople start talking about Whitehead being murdered . . . maybe we’ll get a little panic. We could use a little panic.”

“So what are we going to do?” Bob asked.



* * *



—

NOTHING.

Spend a day or two as tourists, and let the situation cook, as Forte had suggested. Keep an eye on the news.

They tried to do that but failed. While Lucas went for a walk around the Capitol, and to look at the White House, Rae went to the National Gallery, and Bob went to find an uncle’s name on the Vietnam memorial, but by one o’clock they were back in Lucas’s room, watching sporadic commentary on the news channels, and a few minutes after that, Gladys Ingram, the lawyer, called Lucas.

“I’m going to email you a bunch of links. You said this phone was safe?”

“About as safe as it gets, but, you know . . .”

“I’m going to give you a string of numbers. You’ll need to write them down.”

Lucas got his pen and a legal pad: Ingram gave him eighteen random numbers. “That string will open the email I sent to you. If you copy the email with a pen—it’s quite short, but you’ll have to be accurate—you can touch the burn tab, and the email will eat itself. I don’t think, even if they’re listening to us, they could interfere, but if you save the documents instead of burning them, they might be able to get at them later. So print out a paper copy and hold it close.”

“I’ll do it right now.”

He did. There were twelve links, and they provided the same information that Kidd had . . . but now flowing from a different source. Lucas copied the twelve out on paper, then burned the email. If any investigator ever asked how he’d come up with all those links, he had an answer.

At two, Forte called and said, “Me, my boss—you met him, Gabe O’Conner—and a few high-level suits from the FBI want to talk to you.”

“Where at?”

“Conference room at the FBI building. They’ll take you to the conference room when you show up, at four o’clock sharp. Bring Bob and Rae.”

“Gonna be trouble?”

“Doesn’t feel like it. More like an ass-covering mission.”



* * *



—

LUCAS TOLD Bob and Rae that they’d been summoned, and they spent half an hour speculating about what would happen; and, despite the heat and the suffocating humidity, they decided to walk the two miles to the meeting.