Last Chance to Die

29



It was dark when Kate got back from the Pentagon. Bursaw had taken off to WFO to put in an “end of the day” appearance for his supervisor. Vail could hear Kate’s footsteps coming up the marble staircase. She rushed into the room. “I think we found him,” she called out as soon as she saw him.

“Where’s Tim?”

“He said he had a meeting with the town council that he couldn’t miss. Actually, I think he was trying to impress you with his modesty by not bringing the news himself.”

Vail looked at her patiently, tipping his head to one side, telling her not to draw it out herself.

“Okay, okay,” she said, “the air force guy. I’m getting to that. Who knew that working applicants for decades would have an upside? Tim seemed to know everybody. The first stop was this air force colonel. He was in charge of personnel there. Tim explained about the sensitivity of the inquiry, and this guy was great. He explained that whatever he gave us would have to go through his commanding officer, who is an air force general. So I made the decision—let’s go see him right now. He told the colonel to let us have carte blanche. The only thing he wanted was to be given the heads-up should we have to arrest one of his people. I told him I’d personally call him. The colonel found the infrared facial-recognition drone project almost immediately. We played the tape for him, and he didn’t recognize the voice. He determined there were eight individuals assigned to it who could have had access to the actual plans. One is a woman, so she’s out. Of the remaining seven, four are still there. The others either have finished their hitch or were transferred. Now it gets interesting. One of them disappeared over a year ago. They’re still carrying him as AWOL, an E-5 staff sergeant named Richard David Gallagher. I got a copy of his service record. The colonel also gave me copies of the other six.”

She handed Gallagher’s file to Vail, and he flipped through its pages until he found what he was looking for. “Did you read this?”

“I haven’t had a chance.”

He handed it back to her. “Let me see the rest of them while you take a look.”

She read a few pages and closed the file. Vail looked at her, and she said, “He was born and raised in Texas. Whatever accent Preston has, it’s not Texan. I thought with him taking off, I was onto something, because we don’t know how old that recording is.”

“Actually, I think you are. The percentage of air force E-5s going AWOL has to be about zero. He may not be Preston, but that he’s missing may not be a coincidence.” Vail went back to reading the other files. When he looked at the fourth one, he read the first page and then handed it to Kate. He went over to the computer and started typing.

“Master Sergeant Chester Alvin Longmeadow, E-7, grew up in Patzau, Wisconsin.”

Vail punched one last key on the computer and, watching the screen, said, “Which is in northern Wisconsin on the Minnesota border.”

“He’s had several Article Fifteens, whatever that is, for drinking-related incidents,” Kate said, continuing to read the file.

“They’re administrative actions taken by his commanding officers when something isn’t court-martial serious. And it’s not unusual for a double agent to have a drinking problem, or a gambling problem, or women problems. Actually, I believe it’s a requirement.”

“So do you think this is him?” Kate asked.

When Vail didn’t answer, she looked over at him. He got up and started exploring the information on the wall. “Longmeadow—that’s an unusual name. I’ve seen it before.” He looked at the reports and files scattered around the room. To himself he said, “Please tell me I don’t have to go through all this again.”

He went to the window and pulled up the shade. Sitting down, he let his stare reach the old Russian embassy across the street. He picked up a pencil and tapped its eraser on the tabletop like a drumstick. Finally Vail snapped to his feet and walked over to a smaller table, where Bursaw had piled up the printouts from Sundra’s laptop. He took them and sat down on the couch. “Can you call Luke and run Longmeadow’s name by him?”

“You think he’s involved in the analyst’s disappearance? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know. For some reason I’ve got it in the back of my mind it’s connected. Maybe Luke can eliminate it.”

Kate dialed Bursaw’s cell. “Luke, it’s Kate. We got some names at the Pentagon that could be Preston. Steve wants me to run one by you—Chester Alvin Longmeadow. He thinks it might have come up in Sundra’s case.” She listened a moment and then said to Vail, “He’s not sure.”

“Tell him it might be something from the deleted files.”

Kate relayed the message and then said to Vail, “He’s still not sure, but there is something familiar about it.”

“Then tell him I need him back here.”

She told him and hung up. “Twenty minutes.”

Vail patted the couch next to him, and Kate sat down. He handed her half the Sundra Boston pile. “If it’s anywhere, I think it’s in here. Somewhere.”

Kate started looking through the pages, carefully piling the ones she finished next to her. “Are you sure you saw Longmeadow’s name in this case? It just doesn’t seem possible that the Russians could be connected to Sundra’s disappearance.”

“I know, but with that other air force sergeant, Gallagher, also disappearing without a trace, it’s something we have to consider.”

“But he wasn’t the mole. Why would they make him disappear?”

“You weren’t a spy, and they tried a different kind of vanishing act on you. Keep looking. If I’m wrong about that name being in here, then there’s no connection.”

Fifteen minutes later they heard Bursaw come in. He walked into the room and said, “What’s going on?”

Vail told him what Kate and Mallon had found at the Pentagon, and that Longmeadow was currently their leading suspect to be Preston. Vail gave him half his remaining stack, and Bursaw started going through it, not even taking the time to pull off his topcoat.

Suddenly Kate said, “Here it is. Toll records for a Chester Longmeadow.”

Vail and Bursaw moved closer and read over her shoulder.

Bursaw said, “Then her disappearance has to be connected to the Russians.”

“Apparently so. We just have to figure out how.” Vail told him about the missing air force sergeant.

“Why are they making these people disappear?”

Vail leaned back and closed his eyes for a few seconds. “There’s a hidden level of this that we’re not seeing.”

“Like what?” Kate asked.

“I don’t have the slightest idea, but our neat little explanation for everything so far being caused by old-school Russia versus old-school U.S. isn’t going to work anymore. There’s a well-camouflaged hand in this.”

“Do you mean like an agent provocateur,” she asked, “someone trying to use us against our own interests?”

“Something like that. But since we don’t know whether it’s a person, a group, or another country, and we don’t know what their real purpose is, it’s more like an agent X.”

“This is getting too big. We’re going to need some help,” Kate said.

Vail just looked at her in response.

“Shouldn’t we at least tell the director?”

“You don’t tell just the director. There are people he has to inform, and so do they.” Vail looked at his watch. “It’s too late to get anything done tonight, but first thing in the morning, Luke, we’ve got to find out if there are more missing people who could be related to this whole thing. You made some contacts when you came up with those missing prostitutes. You’re going to have to search Virginia, D.C., and Maryland and look for people with clearances who are missing. If you run into a possible, just check the name in indices, since we should have background-investigation files on them. If they’re not in there, move on. Also, it would be nice to know why Sundra was looking at Longmeadow—where that lead came from.”

“I’ll make some calls.”

“Kate and I will get Longmeadow’s phone calls broken down and see who he’s been calling.”

“I assume we’re not going to talk to him,” Kate said.

“We’re not going anywhere near him, his residence, his bank, or his dry cleaner. We need him alive. Luke, let’s run this one backward for a while and see what you come up with. In the meantime Kate and I will figure out who’s on Longmeadow’s speed dial.”

Bursaw said, “I should be able to get this done by sometime tomorrow.” He got up and left.

Kate was studying Longmeadow’s phone records. “We’re going to need a subpoena to get information on this many phone numbers. We can sneak one or two by our contact at the phone company, but this is too much.”

“Think Tim Mallon can help us out?” Vail asked.

“With the phone company?”

“That guy Hillstrand who took the two kids, didn’t I read that he was coming up for trial?”

“Tim did say a hearing had been set for next month and that if Hillstrand didn’t plead out, he’d need you and me to testify.”

“Then I’m sure the prosecutor is in a frenzy, throwing subpoenas around like confetti. We’ll get Tim to piggyback our numbers on one of them. I’m sure there’s enough useless information being accumulated right now in the name of justice that you could probably sneak in a request for the invasion plans of North Korea and no one would notice. That’s one good thing about a child’s kidnapping: People become so emotional that they don’t mind bending a few rules. Can you call Tim again?”

“Right now?”

“You said he owed us two favors, didn’t you?”

“I was thinking more of the misdemeanor variety.”

“There is a time for misdemeanors, and there is a time for magnificence.”

“You sound like Fagin instructing the Artful Dodger.”

“Actually, I think that’s from Foghorn Leghorn.”

“It doesn’t really matter whether it’s Dickens or Warner Brothers, the important thing is that it’s an irrefutable source.”

She found the number on her cell phone and dialed. Vail watched as she walked up and down the length of the room, slightly uncomfortable with what she was about to ask an old friend to do. She had slipped her shoes off and glided as if on skates across the hardwood floors, trying to make the call less rigorous. She laughed at something Mallon said. Her laugh was almost too husky to be feminine, but that’s what made it seem genuine to Vail. Finally she made her request of the Reston chief and gave Vail a playful glare as she asked Mallon to falsify the subpoena.

After telling him she’d e-mail the phone numbers they were interested in, she snapped her phone shut at Vail in mild protest. “First thing tomorrow morning, Stan.”

“Thank you.”

“What else?”

“I think we’re both off duty,” Vail said.

“I should go get some sleep. There might be other friendships I have to violate, and I don’t want to be dozing off during that.”

“ ‘Should’ makes it sound like you want to be talked out of it.”

“Sorry, I’m saving myself.”

“For?”

“I think it was Foghorn Leghorn who said it best—‘a time for magnificence.’ ”

He moved close to her and put his arms around her. With a lopsided grin, he said, “I’ll be quick, I promise.”

Kate had to be careful not to show how painful it was to maintain her nonchalance. There was nothing she wanted more right now than to accept his offer. “See, there’s the problem, bricklayer. Only men equate quickness with magnificence.”