‘Would it be there now?’
‘I’ll look. Hold on.’ The wait of no more than twenty seconds was nearly unbearable for the detective, made worse by the sight of the large brightly lit house beyond the open gate. It was both an invitation and a target. ‘Paddy?’
‘Yes!’
‘I’ve got it.’
‘Give it to me. Quickly!’ She did so, and O’Reilly issued an order that was not to be disobeyed. ‘Stay in the office until I call you or pick you up. Understood?’
‘Is there a reason?’
‘Let’s say I don’t know how far up, or down, or sideways, this kind of thing reaches, and I happen to like beef stew.’
‘Oh, my God,’ whispered Annie.
O’Reilly did not hear his wife; he had disconnected the line and within seconds was dialling the number Annie had given him. After eight agonizing rings a woman’s voice came over the phone. ‘Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Payton’s office.’
‘Are you his secretary?’
‘No, sir, this is the reception desk. Mr. Payton has gone for the day.’
‘Listen to me, please,’ said the Washington detective with absolute control. ‘It’s urgent that I reach Mr. Payton immediately. Whatever the regulations, they can be broken, can you understand me, girl? It’s an emergency.’
‘Please identify yourself, sir.’
‘Hell’s fire, I don’t want to, but I will. I’m Lieutenant Patrick O’Reilly, Detective First Grade, District of Columbia Police Department. You’ve got to find him for me!’
Suddenly, startlingly, a male voice was on the line. ‘O’Reilly?’ the man said. ‘Like in O’Reilly, the secretary of a certain Congressman?’
‘The same, sir. You don’t answer your goddamned phone—excuse my language.’
‘This is a trunk line to my apartment, Mr. O’Reilly… You may switch systems, Operator.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ There was a snap over the phone.
‘Yes, Mr. O’Reilly? We’re alone now.’
‘I’m not. I’m in the company of six corpses thirty yards from my car.’
‘What?’
‘Get out here, Mr. Payton. Kendrick’s house. And if you don’t want headlines, call off any relieving unit that’s heading here.’
‘Secure,’ said the stunned director of Special Projects. ‘The relief comes on at midnight; it’s covered by the men inside.’
‘They’re dead, too. They’re all dead.’
Mitchell Payton crouched beside the dead body of the guard nearest the gate, wincing under the beam of O’Reilly’s light. ‘Good God, he was so young. They’re all so young!’ ‘Were, sir,’ said the detective flatly. ‘There’s no one alive, outside or inside. I’ve turned off most of the lights, but I’ll escort you through, of course.’
‘I must… of course.’
‘But I won’t unless you tell me where Congressman Kendrick is—if he is, or whether he was supposed to be here, which would mean he probably isn’t. I can and obviously should call the Fairfax police. Am I clear, sir?’
‘Gaelically clear, Lieutenant. For the time being this must remain an Agency problem—a catastrophe, if you like. Am I clear?’
‘Answer my question or rest assured I’ll do my sworn duty and call Fairfax headquarters. Where is Congressman Kendrick? His car’s not here and I want to know whether I should be relieved by that fact or not.’
‘If you can find any relief in this situation you’re a very strange man—’
‘I mourn these people, these strangers to me, as I’ve mourned hundreds like ’em in my time, but I know Evan Kendrick! Now if you have the information, I want it this very moment, or I go to my vehicle and radio my report to the police in Fairfax.’
‘For God’s sake, don’t you threaten me, Lieutenant. If you want to know where Kendrick is, ask your wife!’
‘My wife?
‘The congressman’s secretary, in case it’s slipped your mind.’
‘You fancy rumbugger!’ exploded Paddy. ‘Why the hell do you think I’m out here? To pay a two-toilet social call on my old society chum, the millionaire from Colorado? I’m here, Chauncy-boyo, because Annie hasn’t heard from Evan in two days, and since nine o’clock this morning both his phone here and in Mesa Verde don’t ring! Now, that’s what you might call a coincidence, isn’t it!’
‘Both his telephones—’ Payton snapped his head around, peering above.
‘Don’t bother,’ said O’Reilly, following the director’s gaze. ‘One line’s been cut and expertly spliced into another; the thick cable to the roof’s intact.’
‘Good Christ!’
‘In my opinion, you need His immediate help… Kendrick! Where the hell is he?’
‘The Bahamas. Nassau, in the Bahamas.’
‘Why did you think my wife, his secretary, knew that? And you’d better have a good goddamned reason for thinking so, Dan Fancy, because if this is some kind of spook shit to involve Annie Mulcahy in one of your fuck-ups, I’ll have more blue jackets swarming around here than you’ve ever seen!’
‘I thought so because he told me, Lieutenant O’Reilly,’ said Payton, his voice cold, his eyes straying, his thoughts apparently racing.
‘He never told her!’
‘Obviously,’ agreed the CIA director, now staring at the house. ‘However, he was explicit. The day before yesterday he said that on the way to the airport he would stop at his office and leave the information with his secretary, Ann O’Reilly. He stopped; he went up to his office; the mobile unit confirmed it.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Around four-thirty, if I remember the mobile’s logs.’
‘Wednesday?’
‘Yes.’
‘Annie wasn’t there. Every Wednesday she leaves at four o’clock in the afternoon and Kendrick knows it. It’s her crazy aerobics class!’
‘He obviously forgot.’
‘Not likely. Come with me, sir.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Out to my car.’
‘We have work to do here, Lieutenant, and I have several calls to make—from my car. Alone.’
‘You’re not doing a damn thing until I speak to Congressman Kendrick’s secretary.’ Sixty-five seconds later with Payton standing by the open door, the voice of Patrick O’Reilly’s wife came over the cellular phone’s speaker.
‘Congressman Kendrick’s—’
‘Annie,’ interrupted her husband. ‘After you left the office Wednesday afternoon, who was there?’
‘Only Phil Tobias. It’s slow these days; the girls left earlier.’
‘Phil who?’
‘Tobias. He’s Evan’s chief aide and washer of the bottles.’
‘He never said anything to you, yesterday or today? About seeing Kendrick, I mean.’
‘He hasn’t been here, Paddy. He didn’t show up today or yesterday. I left half a dozen messages on his answering machine but I haven’t heard from him, the high-hog PR brat that he is.’
‘I’ll talk to you later, tiger. Stay where you are. Understood?’ O’Reilly replaced the phone and turned in his seat, looking up at the man from the Central Intelligence Agency. ‘You heard, sir. I think an apology from yours truly is in order. You have it, Mr. Payton.’
‘I neither seek it nor want it, Lieutenant. We’ve botched up so damned much in Langley that if someone thinks that his wife may be caught in one of our bungles, I can’t fault him for telling us off.’
‘I’m afraid that was it… Who goes after Tobias? You or me?’
‘I can’t deputize you, O’Reilly. There’s no provision for it in the law and, frankly, there are specific provisions against it, but I can ask for your help, and I desperately need it. I can cover for tonight on the basis of genuine national security; you’re off the hook for not reporting. But where this Tobias is concerned I can only plead.’
‘For what?’ asked the detective, getting out of the car and quietly closing the door.
‘To keep me informed.’
‘You don’t have to plead for that—’
‘Before any official report is released,’ added Payton.
‘That you’ve got to plead for,’ said Paddy, studying the director. ‘To begin with, I couldn’t guarantee it. If he’s spotted in Switzerland or floats up in the Potomac I wouldn’t necessarily know about it.’
‘We’re obviously thinking along the same lines. However, you have what’s referred to as clout, Lieutenant. Forgive me, but I’ve had to learn about everyone around Evan Kendrick. The District of Columbia Police Department virtually bribed you to come to Washington twelve years ago from Boston—’
‘Grade pay, nothing shady.’
‘Grade pay nearly equivalent to chief of detectives, a position you turned down four years ago because you didn’t want the desk.’
‘Holy Jesus—’
‘I’ve had to be thorough… and since your wife works for the congressman, I believe a man in your position could insist on being informed if and when anything relevant to Phillip Tobias comes down, as he also works, or worked, in Kendrick’s office.’
‘I suppose I could, that’s my girl. But it leads me to a question or two.’
‘Go right ahead. Any questions you have may help me.’
‘Why is Evan in the Bahamas?’
‘I sent them there.’
‘Them? The Egyptian woman?… Old Weingrass told my wife.’
‘She works for us; she was part of Oman. There’s a man in Nassau who fronted a company that Kendrick was briefly associated with years ago. He’s not terribly reputable and neither was the firm, but we felt he was worth checking out.’