The Third Coincidence Read online

  “I could give you the long speech,” Jack said when they were all seated at the table, “but there’s more than enough long speeches given in this town. The short one goes like this: The nation is wondering. The world is watching. And this is happening right under the noses of our agencies, so let’s move right into doing the job.

  “Right now, each of us knows some of the data on one or more of these deaths. Before we leave tonight, I want us all to know everything. We’ll go around the table. When your turn comes, tell us what you know and what you think and answer questions from the others.”

  Everyone was looking at Jack except for Millet who sat gazing at Nora like a smitten-eighth-grader. “Millet,” Jack said, bringing the eccentric’s attention back to the group. “Let’s start with you. Did your computer digging come up with anything?”

  “Way too early, Jackman.”

  Jack pointed to Colin. “Did you learn anything from your international calls?”

  “Nothing yet. Maybe later.”

  Jack wasn’t surprised. He would keep the international angle alive, but as he had told the president, none of the trapping of these assassinations pointed outside America.

  “Rachel?”

  She opened a folder. “The CTC, in case any of you may not know, that’s the counterterrorism center, gave me the long list of terrorist and militant groups.”

  Jack got up and moved behind her chair. She leaned forward toward the document, uncrossing her legs. He heard the whisper of nylon. The soft fragrance of her perfume entered him when he inhaled.

  She ran her finger down the list. “CTC had nothing that points to any specific group, still, we can safely conclude that all these people are pleased this is happening.”

  Jack wanted to hear the specifics about the autopsy and evidence workup on the poisoning of Justice Monroe. Rachel had brought the reports from the FBI, but Jack knew Lieutenant Frank Wade had received copies, and Jack wanted to find out if Wade had kept himself current. “Frank, have you gone over the report on Monroe’s death?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sum it up for us.”

  Frank stood, draped his jacket over the back of his chair, and opened the collar on his button-down blue shirt.

  “The medical examiner estimated that Supreme Court Justice Adam Monroe died about ten thirty the morning of May eighteenth. Monroe had a congestive heart condition and diabetes—the type that does not require insulin injections. At first Monroe’s death appeared to be a heart attack, but the toxicology report changed all that. Cause of death: he died of ingesting ground oleander that had been mixed with the contents of his ginseng capsules. Monroe kept the ginseng in his chambers and took some each day about mid-morning. Many ginseng users believe it should be taken between meals.”

  Millet blurted, “Oleander?”

  Frank laughed, a laugh that seemed high for a thick man with a chest like a wine cask.

  “That’s the plant. It has a toxicity rating of six. Arsenic is five. In Europe, ground Oleander is sold to poison rats. The stuff grows like a weed in warmer climates. My ex-wife has a potted dwarf oleander in her sun room. She’s been barking at me to come by and move it outdoors for the summer.”

  Wade reset his glasses and glanced at his notes. “Monroe’s law clerk found him dead in his chambers at the Supreme Court. The FBI checked out the clerk, nothing suspicious there. They checked into the vitamin company. Nothing. The remaining ginseng capsules in the bottle were also compromised.”

  “Rachel. Anything you wish to add?”

  “Good summary, Frank,” she said in reply to Jack’s question.

  Jack sat down, clasped his hands under his chin, and put his elbows on the armrests of his chair, the sleeves of his white shirt forming the sides of a triangle. “Okay then. We’ve got copies here of all the reports from all the agencies, including the ones Frank and Nora brought over from Metro PD. Everybody reads all of it before tomorrow.”

  Jack noticed Rachel slipping out of her shoes. The skin on the backs of her heels looked smooth. He found it strange that he was so physically aware of her.

  “If this were a routine murder,” Colin asked, “what would the local cops do next?”

  “Everyone associated with the justice had both means and opportunity,” Nora said, “so we’d look for motive.”

  “I wonder if Monroe’s doctor had anything to do with the justice taking ginseng?” Rachel asked. “Maybe the doc gave it to him?”

  “At the Montgomery scene Jack told Nora and me that this was still officially a Metro case, so, we followed up on that angle when we didn’t see anything in the FBI reports.” Frank crossed his Popeyesized forearms. “And, incidentally, the doc’s a she. Doctor Joanne Hayworth had been Monroe’s doctor for twenty years. Bottom line: Doctor Hayworth didn’t even know Monroe took ginseng.”

  “Good work,” Jack said. “Anything else?”

  “I interviewed the justice’s wife,” Nora said. “Mrs. Monroe told me they had no visitors that morning or the prior night. And Dr. Hayworth never made a house call.”

  “At least that part of the case makes sense,” Rachel interjected. “Doctors quit making house calls the year Norman Rockwell quit painting.”

  Millet slouched in his chair like a bored kid in church. “We’re wasting time looking at families and coworkers.”

  Jack held up his hand for quiet, turning toward Millet. “Update those background checks for all the employees and staff who worked closely with any of the three victims. Credit records, arrests, financial records, bank accounts, travel in the past year, relatives who live outside the U.S., and so on.”

  “Wilco, Jackman.”

  “We checked out all forty-some law clerks and secretaries who work for the justices,” Rachel added. “We threw in the security and cleaning personnel and the people who work in the gift shop in the area open to tourists. The Supreme Court Police had extensive background checks on those people so it went pretty quickly. We just updated them. I agree with Frank and Nora. We’ve got lots of folks with means and opportunity, but no one even remotely suspicious as to motive.”

  For the next few hours they shared what they knew about the murder of Herbert Montgomery, the justice nearly decapitated in the National Mall.

  Jack liked the way his team was coming together. The local cops weren’t slackers, and Rachel looked as capable as he had hoped she would be. Colin and Millet were knowns, but the others hadn’t gotten past getting acquainted. The real work had not yet begun.

  CHAPTER 12

  National Security Advisor Robert

  Quartz refers to McCall’s squad as lightweights.

  —CNN, June 8

  Soon after dusk he pulled into the Resort at Depoe Bay, parking near the back of the lot. After twisting the rearview mirror to be sure his bow tie was straight, he tugged down his red baseball cap, popped an antacid, and stepped out, holding the vase of flowers he had bought on the outskirts of Newport Beach, Oregon.

  A series of precise circles of light were thrown to the ground by the dome-covered landscape lighting lining the path to the honeymoon cottage. As he moved, his warm breaths turned into small clouds, defeated by the chilly air. At the end of the path he stepped through the bushes and slowly worked his way around the cottage until he found a window with a narrow sag in a carelessly closed drape.

  Justice Breen sat near the sliding glass door to the cottage’s private garden, a fluted champagne glass in his hand. His bride stood near the center of the room. She wore a white thong, thigh-high black sheer stockings, red high heels, and a low-cut white halter top with tiny red bow ties around her neck and wrists. She ran her hand suggestively up the neck of the champagne bottle, then playfully eased her index finger around its head.

  The groom reached for her.

  She backed away teasingly.

  A fist of tension balled in the watcher’s belly. His nerve endings tingled. When she bent down to refill the flutes, her butt protruded toward the window. Perspiratio
n dotted his forehead like pimples on a teen. He reached inside his pants, taking himself in his hand.

  He picked up a fallen pine branch, using it to rub out his tracks as he circled back to the path near the door. After rechecking the duct tape he had applied to seal the legs of his pants to his white athletic socks and his sleeve cuffs to his latex gloves, he reached out and knocked.

  Breen’s voice boomed. “Who is it?”

  Oh. Pudgy Judgy. Did I interrupt something?

  “I have a delivery of flowers, sir.”

  “Who from?”

  Confident Justice Breen would not refuse flowers from his new in-laws, he said, “The card reads, ‘from Mom and Dad Ashcroft.’ Do you want them, sir?” The watcher, anticipating that the judge would look out through the peephole, stepped back and held up the vase of flowers.

  The door opened.

  Breen’s eyes circled when the Colt 2000 appeared from behind the vase. His lips moved, but his first word drowned in the spit from the noise suppressor.

  Breen’s black boxers twisted as he coiled unevenly against the carpet.

  The shooter stepped closer and fired again, this time striking Breen in the forehead. After kicking the groom’s foot out of the way, he shut the door and looked for the bride. She was not in sight. As he started toward the glass slider, he heard a low vibrating sound, then saw light slicing out from under a side door.

  Of course, she stepped into the bathroom when Judgy came to answer the door.

  The narrow strip of light went dark and the fan died with a tinny whimper. The door opened. Judith came out, her halter top dangling from her fingers. The candlelight cast its shadowy hands across her bare breasts. When she saw her husband on the floor, she opened her mouth to scream.

  The silencer made no more sound than the amplification of a woman’s leg sliding into a nylon stocking.

  Judith collapsed against the wall. Her knees buckled. She went down. Dead.

  He pulled the drape over to close the gap he had watched through, then held the candle closer and watched as the flickering light changed the look of her body.

  Some sicko might have sex with her, but he would not. Time was of the essence. He needed to get back across the state line, and he couldn’t chance leaving his DNA behind. Instead he carried her to the bed, where he gently spread her soft hair on the pillow, creating a loving yellow nimbus around her head. Then he rammed a long serrated knife up into her and felt his satisfaction gush.

  He went through the judge’s wallet and the bride’s purse, removing anything identifying. The local cops would have only their names from hotel registration, which he felt confident the Breens had disguised in some manner to keep their honeymoon site secret from the media.

  After blowing out the candles, he eased open the door, smelled the wet pines, and heard only silence. He picked up the vase of flowers, hung the do-not-disturb sign on the outside knob, and quietly reentered the world he was changing.

  In today’s world, political power, sex, and gore guaranteed headlines. This elimination, having all three, would quickly become his most publicized elimination. The FBI’s evidence response team would find hairs and fibers and secretions from countless honeymooners, but no trace of him. He had been too careful. He had been too smart.

  At the bottom of the hill he turned south onto Highway 101, back toward Newport. Along the way he stopped in the parking lot of one of Oregon’s spectacular beaches, the moon reflecting the ocean’s natural phosphorus, creating a silvery shimmer. He changed clothes next to the back of the van and put his delivery outfit, including his shoes, into a black metal drum along with the lovebirds’ identification and the flowers, squeezed a full can of lighter fluid into the jumbled mess and dropped a lit match. The gun, he’d left at the scene. The knife, well, the knife, he had left in the scene.

  Newlyweds dream their honeymoon will last forever. For the Breens he had made that a reality.

  And then there were twelve.

  CHAPTER 13

  The Middle East remains conspicuously quiet on the American assassinations.

  —FOX News, June 8

  At nine that night, Jack turned his straight-back chair around, straddled it and plopped his arms across the backrest. “Fill us in on Santee, Nora.”

  “The local police in the Poconos concluded Santee accidentally drove off the cliff,” she began. “Their local M.E. confirmed the time of death matched Mrs. Santee’s statement. She said her husband played a game in which he raced his Jaguar down the mountain road.” After a smirk of sorts, Nora added, “One thing we can be sure of, men never grow up.”

  Rachel and Nora smiled at each other while the men protested.

  Fostering camaraderie was a part of Jack’s reasoning for tonight’s meeting, along with getting everyone up to speed. He knew they needed to bond to have a good chance to complete their mission, particularly in this town where the common denominator was: everything becomes a political football.

  So far he had heard no media leaks since the one he discussed with the president, and that one had come from the president’s inner circle. Rachel had a history of working FBI cases without leaking to the press, and he had shared lots of classified stuff with Colin and some with Millet. He trusted them. If there was anyone to worry about it would be Frank Wade or Nora Burke, but they hadn’t leaked anything after he pushed them to the sidelines at the Montgomery murder scene, so he doubted they would now that they were back on the inside.

  “You should all be aware that CIA Director Miller is a close, lifelong friend of June Santee,” Jack told the others. “She’s also the godmother of one of Santee’s children. We need to be sensitive to that whenever she’s around. Director Miller told me Mrs. Santee had spoken with her on more than one occasion about her husband speeding down that mountain road.”

  “Whoever is behind these killings has done their homework,” Rachel said. “The killer knew about Monroe’s ginseng, Montgomery’s penchant for morning walks through the National Mall, and Santee’s regression behind the wheel of his Jaguar. This guy has a spot picked out for each target.”

  “Frank, you and Nora, tomorrow morning, go to the Federal Reserve here in D.C.,” Jack said. “Talk to the head of security. After that, stop to see Chief Oscar Wiggins at the Supreme Court Police. I talked with him after I left you guys at the Montgomery scene. He’ll give you a CD detailing the security breaches, crank stuff, and threats over the past few years. Other than that, carry on the same as you would have if you had never heard from me.”

  Rachel slipped her shoes back on before asking Jack, “What’s your take on all this?”

  “As you just laid out, each victim died doing something that was part of his normal routine. Whoever is behind these killings has done reconnaissance and carefully planned when, where, and how. With that in mind, tomorrow, take Colin and make contact with the rest of the Fed governors and the justices. Encourage them to change their habitual routines as much as possible.”

  “When do you want us back here?” Frank asked.

  “I expect to have this place outfitted tomorrow, by three. Millet, this is the last late meeting we’ll pull without some food.”

  Millet winked at Nora. The corner of his mouth moved more than his eye, morphing the effort into a startling expression.

  After the others had drifted out, Rachel walked over to Jack, her blue eyes intense.

  “You’ve assembled quite a team,” she said, hands on her hips, “two local cops, a strange computer geek, and the mysterious Colin Stewart. And that’s without mentioning you and me. I figure Colin for a military sniper, right?”

  “Colin is one of the best long-range shooters in the wor—”

  “Like I said, a sniper. That’s okay. The FBI has snipers in their SWAT teams.”

  “That’s true,” Jack said. “But FBI snipers usually arrive in a comfortable truck, accept the risk and take the shot, then go back to the truck and back to their homes and families. A military sniper crawls thro
ugh the muck, and often waits in the same position for hours, even days, then takes the shot and crawls out hoping to escape with his life. Colin’s been with me on four or five covert operations. He has a sixth sense that’s uncanny. Trust it. I do. As for Millet, he’s different. I grant you that, but I’ve used him many times. He fights me. He’s even antisocial. But he’s never failed to find what I need and without being slowed down by rules or authorizations.”

  “He’s a hacker,” Rachel said with a cutting edge to her voice, “like the hackers arrested by the bureau’s White Collar Crime Division.”

  Jack shook his head. “I grant you Millet wouldn’t fit in over at J. Edgar University. In the end, no one on this team will be more important than Millet. Not me. Not you.”

  He had to get Rachel out of her FBI button-down mind-set. He didn’t want to lose her, and he was coming to realize he meant that on more than one level.

  Like the unfolding wings of a bat waking from a long day of sleep, the assassin could feel his expanding thirst for blood as he continued to reassure himself that his eliminations were justified by both his love of country and loyalty to his father.

  After driving south late into the night, he pulled off the interstate at Redding, California, to get something to eat, use a prepaid phone card for a long-distance call, and send a FedEx package.

  The time had come to abandon the pretense of coincidence and turn the law dogs loose to chase his phantom militia.

  At midnight, Jack stood on the second floor deck on the front of his house with his nightly three fingers of Marker’s Mark. Between drinks he rolled his shoulders up and back, then stretched his head from side to side until each ear touched each shoulder. He then swirled his glass and sent the last swallow to exercise his insides.