Jim McGill 04 The Last Ballot Cast, Part 2 Read online

  Peck had worked for Scotland Yard before moving on to warmer climes.

  He stood as Welborn entered his office and told him, “I’ve met Sir Robert more than once and —” Looking at Welborn closely he was forced to admit, “Yes, I see the resemblance. How may the police service be of help, Captain Yates?”

  Always paid to have connections, Welborn thought.

  The two men sat as Welborn told the story of Linley Boland, aka Jackie Richmond. Commissioner Peck’s face tightened upon learning a killer had entered his jurisdiction and a crew of thugs was in pursuit of him. He was also annoyed that Welborn hadn’t come to him straightaway.

  “My mistake,” Welborn said. “I apologize. The situation is an emotional one for me. The Air Force officers Boland killed were my friends, and I was in the car with them.”

  His narrative had held that fact back, hoping it would be a mitigating factor in his lapse of professional conduct. Peck saw it for the gambit it was, but was affected by it nevertheless. He’d have done the same thing in Welborn’s place.

  “You’re sure you intended to contact my people once you found Boland?” Peck asked.

  “Yes, sir. I’m looking for justice not revenge, and I’d never do anything to embarrass either the president or my parents.”

  Kira, too, he thought, adding her to his list.

  Peck studied the younger man’s face and nodded.

  “Right,” he said. “Let’s find these yacht-going thugs and send them on their way. Then we’ll put this Boland chap in custody. You’d like to come along, I take it.”

  “Yes, thank you, Commissioner. If your people arrest Boland as the result of a tip from a local person, please get that person’s name. There’s a reward that will be paid for providing the information.”

  Peck got to his feet; Welborn did the same.

  “Decent of you to point that out. Speaks well of your upbringing. Give my regards to Sir Robert the next time you speak.”

  “I will,” Welborn said.

  The Oval Office

  Jim McGill had been personally, emotionally and physically intimate with Patti Grant for almost four years, but sitting behind President Patricia Darden Grant’s desk in the Oval Office made him feel as if he was taking indecent liberties — and when Galia Mindel bustled in, stopped short and tried to make sense of what she was seeing, he felt an overpowering urge to explain himself —

  That he converted into a wisecrack. “The coup is not quite complete. Please take a seat while we decide your fate.”

  The great thing was, for just a second, he had her believing.

  Then Galia scowled.

  Then she remembered that he’d save her life.

  “The president does know you’re here?” Galia asked.

  By that time, McGill had closed the briefing book he’d been reading and put it in a desk drawer. Galia looked displeased that he’d managed to distract her, but she didn’t comment on it, and was far too smart to ask what he was hiding.

  McGill said honestly, “The president insisted I sit here. She said I wouldn’t be bothered. That leads me to think something urgent has caused you to rush in. You must have given Edwina a fit.”

  “No more than usual,” the chief of staff said.

  “She didn’t even have the time to tell you the president is elsewhere. Must be quite the hoo-hah. What I need to know is whether it’s a matter of national or political interest.”

  “Why do you need to know anything?” Galia asked.

  “Because I’m one of the few people who knows where the president is.”

  The chief of staff frowned, but at the same time she felt pleased.

  She and McGill were sparring again. The world was returning to some of its natural contours. She had to do her best not to let her gratitude to the man turn her into a mushy opponent.

  “The president’s schedule says she’s supposed to be right where you’re sitting.”

  “Her official schedule,” McGill countered.

  That shook Galia, the idea the president had a secret schedule.

  One she didn’t know about but McGill did.

  Then she saw him grin. He was yanking her chain again.

  “It’s a political matter,” she told him curtly.

  McGill glanced at his watch. “Can it keep another forty minutes?”

  “Yes, but not much longer.”

  “In forty minutes, then, I’ll tell Edwina and she can tell you.”

  The chief of staff turned to go, but McGill called her name.

  He told her, “If Patti hasn’t told you, I’m sorry I didn’t get to Granby faster.”

  Galia’s eyes began to fill. “You got there faster than anyone else.”

  She left and after waiting a minute McGill picked up the phone on the president’s desk, hoping he was calling Edwina not the Kremlin or the Forbidden City.

  “Yes, Mr. McGill?” the president’s secretary said.

  “Edwina, will you please have Secret Service agents with weapons drawn stand guard just outside this office? Tell them if anyone tries to storm in again not to spare the ammo.”

  “Certainly, sir, subject to presidential countermand.”

  “Of course.”

  McGill took the briefing book he’d been reading out of the drawer. He felt more relaxed about what he was doing now. Good old Galia.

  He found the place where he left off. As he’d suspected, the CIA hadn’t quite come clean about Arn Crosby and Olin Anderson. The spook-shop bureaucracy had passed along all the details of the missions the two covert operatives had led but … the Company had held back the psychological evaluations that had led to the men’s confinement at The Funny Farm.

  Both Crosby and Anderson had grown up in abusive family settings. But neither of them had been materially or educationally deprived. Crosby’s father was the mayor of a small town, one whose town council he’d cowed, along with pretty much everyone else. Anderson’s father had been a minister, one whose church, he thought, was losing its way, ignoring fundamental doctrine to make itself more salable to new recruits.

  Both men beat their sons. Crosby’s father did it simply because he saw himself as an authority figure who need not suffer contrary opinion from any quarter. Anderson’s father saw corporal discipline as a religious mandate. Having no intention of spoiling his son, he did not spare him the rod.

  As a result of their upbringings, Crosby and Anderson believed in both serving the powers that be and in subverting them.

  The CIA had known of that dichotomy from the start. The agency had made cynical use of Crosby and Anderson’s willingness to serve, doing work few others had the stomach for, and ignored their efforts at subversion. At least until the latter far outweighed the former. Then the Agency locked up the two of them.

  The rationale for that was they could no longer be trusted not to disclose vital intelligence.

  That and all the CIA shrinks thought they were headed for Technicolor self-destruction.

  A post-escape addendum noted the opinion that both Crosby and Anderson would prefer to die rather than be returned to The Funny Farm.

  McGill sat back and returned the report to the desk drawer.

  Without going into detail, he’d have to tell everyone working with him that Crosby and Anderson had to be treated as candidates for suicide by cop.

  Reading the CIA’s evaluation of Crosby and Anderson made McGill wonder how much awful stuff Patti read routinely. All in a day’s work. Probably a lot. Probably never stopped. He’d have to step up his game and be a more thoughtful husband.

  He’d taken a step in that direction a little less than an hour ago.

  McGill had gotten Patti to agree to a suggestion he’d been making to her for over a year.

  Take an hour for lunch away from your desk. Book time with one of the White House massage therapists. Let yourself relax a little. She’d said okay. Nothing like a health scare to make someone finally see sense.

  For a moment, McGill wondered wha
t the political tempest bothering Galia was.

  Then he went back to thinking about Crosby and Anderson.

  How Damon Todd might try to make use of them.

  And how DeWitt would receive the new idea that had just occurred to McGill.

  Aboard Irish Grace — Barcadere Marina, Grand Cayman Island

  Jackie Richmond aka Linley Boland called out Carina Linberg’s name before he set foot on Irish Grace. Even a desert rat like him knew that much about boat manners. If anybody on one of the other boats nearby saw him, they’d know he was behaving right. Getting no answer, he went aboard and tried calling out again. Got no response again.

  But he acted like he had. Said loudly, “Sure, honey, I can wait a minute.”

  Using his body as a shield, he went to work picking the lock on the cabin door. Getting past it took less than thirty seconds. He went below and relocked the door from the inside.

  He stood still and listened. Something electronic buzzed. If he’d triggered the timer on an alarm system, he’d go back outside and walk away like it had nothing to do with him. But after a minute there was no loud noise or flashing lights. Some other kind of doodad was drawing juice and humming about it. Nothing to concern him.

  Of course, it was possible Carina had been out last night and thrown back some drinks. Might be sleeping it off, hadn’t heard him call her name or felt the boat rock slightly when he’d come aboard. But he didn’t think so. He had the feeling he was all by himself.

  Before they’d arrived on Grand Cayman, he’d gotten Cap’n Thurlow to show him how he operated his boat. Wasn’t anything to it. Just a throttle and a steering wheel really.

  The hard part was figuring out which way to go.

  Weren’t any damn landmarks on the ocean.

  He’d asked, “If you get lost out here, how the hell you know which way to go?”

  “Use your GPS. That goes out, follow the birds,” Thurlow said.

  It was the second suggestion caught his attention. “Birds? What birds?”

  He’d asked the questions with a smile on his face and a beer in his hand. He was no threat to anyone. Just a goober with money looking to learn a new thing or two.

  “Seabirds,” Thurlow said. “They can fly thousands of miles, but they got to find land sometime. They always know which way to go.”

  Jackie couldn’t imagine any animal being able to walk that far, much less fly that distance, but he didn’t see a hint that he was being kidded.

  “Okay, then,” he told the cap’n. “You see one of these birds, point him out to me, will you?”

  Thurlow gave him a salute and another beer. After a while, sure enough, he pointed out one bird and then another. They followed the damn things straight to Grand Cayman.

  Once they got there, Jackie had the cap’n go from one harbor and marina to the next, saying he couldn’t remember the name of the damn boat his friend had chartered, but he’d sure as hell recognize him and his latest wife if they were out on deck.

  “His wife’s new, how you know her?” the cap’n asked.

  Jackie said, “She’ll be younger, blonder and bustier than the last one.”

  Thurlow liked that. He didn’t really care if they were on a fool’s errand. He’d already made his money. It was a nice day. The client wasn’t any dumber than most, and he was easy going.

  Jackie spotted Irish Grace at the next to last anchorage they visited, but he didn’t say a word about it. Kept his face as straight as he could. Was glad Carina Linberg hadn’t been on deck and seen him. The way he’d read her, she might have taken a shot at him.

  When they tied up at the last stop, the cap’n said he was going to spend the night on Grand Cayman, visit family he had there. To show what a sport he was, Jackie gave Thurlow a tip. Said it wasn’t the cap’n’s fault his dumb friend was late showing up. What he’d do now was start a pub crawl. Maybe the jerk had decided to rent a house instead of a boat.

  The two men said goodbye amiably, and that should have been that.

  Should’ve been.

  Though Jackie’s thing was stealing cars, he had family and friends who burgled for a living. They told him where people kept things in their houses. Money and jewelry: bedroom, top drawer of a dresser, under lingerie or socks. Second choice: kitchen, cabinet within easy reach. Third choice: any room with artificial flowers or plants, under the flowers or plants.

  There were other places for people who thought they were trickier, but Jackie’s mentors had scoffed at all of them. They said if you were any kind of thief you should be able to smell money. If you were great, you should be able to feel where the money was.

  Jackie didn’t know if he was great but he was pretty good. He found Carina’s .38 in a lock box made to look like an old fashioned computer processor. Damn thing didn’t have any business on a boat where all the other electronics looked new.

  He didn’t touch the gun, though. Not yet.

  He didn’t see the need. Why transfer a fingerprint?

  Besides, he was looking for money. People who worked straight jobs usually didn’t keep cash in their cars, but the way he thought about it, it seemed like a good idea to bring a healthy amount of actual coin on your boat if you were sailing off to backwater countries where there wasn’t an ATM on every corner.

  Sure enough. Carina had ten grand worth of Uncle Sam’s finest federal reserve notes stuffed inside a phony garbage disposal.

  He was congratulating himself when he heard voices on the jetty outside approaching the boat. Sonofabitch, if one of them didn’t sound like Cap’n Thurlow. Jackie took a quick peek out a window and saw he was right. Thurlow and three guys who looked like they ate bowls of anabolic steroids for breakfast. The cap’n was pointing right at Irish Grace.

  Shit, Jackie thought. So much for being poker faced when he’d seen Carina’s boat.

  That dirty fucking bastard Thurlow had seen his interest and ratted him out.

  After Jackie had tipped the prick.

  But he hadn’t given the cap’n nearly as much money as the biggest hulk was handing him.

  So who the hell were those oversized ass — Oh, shit, the slavers. Alice had sold him out, too.

  Thurlow smiled broadly, but not for long because there was a woo-waw, one of those police sirens you heard in foreign movies. The hulks looked at Thurlow like they might all grab a limb and make a wish. They didn’t have the time. A dozen or so local cops appeared on the run and put all of them in handcuffs.

  Marched them off like they were late for a hot date.

  When the crowd moved on, Jackie saw two guys who’d stayed behind.

  One was a local cop, probably the local cop, the uniform he had on.

  It was the other one, though, who scared Jackie. He was that sonofabitch who’d caught him stealing his car in Baltimore. What the hell was he doing here?

  Not waiting for an answer to come to mind, Jackie took possession of Carina’s.38.

  Either of those assholes outside came through the front door, he’d put him down.

  Nobody came, though. They didn’t know he was there.

  Small comfort. Jackie knew the cops had to be looking for him. Maybe there were other guys he’d never seen before looking for him, too, and, goddamn, he’d never felt so trapped before.

  He had nowhere to —

  Wait a minute, he did have somewhere to go. Thurlow’d had his ass dragged away by the cops. He knew where the cap’n had docked his boat. Thurlow had showed him how to operate it. Okay, the boat used to belong to the cap’n. Pretty soon, though, it was going to be his.

  He hoped the fucker had gassed it up. Jackie was going to … follow the damn birds someplace. Maybe they’d lead him to Venezuela.

  He peeked out the window again.

  No cops in sight. No anybody. He was about to leave Irish Grace when it hit him.

  He had no way to prove it, but he felt where the money was.

  The money that had been taken from his bank account.

  Th
at prick from Baltimore had stolen it. He had it.

  The White House Residence

  Galia was waiting for the president the moment she finished getting dressed after her massage. From the look on her chief of staff’s face, Patricia Darden Grant knew something big was up. A crisis of some sort was about to become her concern and a part of the country’s consciousness.

  Only moments earlier so much of the tension the president had felt in her neck, shoulders and back had been dispelled that she’d felt like a new woman. Now, the tightness was creeping back and she decided there was only one way to deal with whatever headache Galia was about to share with her.

  She held up a hand before Galia could get a word out and called for Blessing, the White House’s head butler. She whispered a few words into his ear. He nodded and went off to carry out the president’s wish.

  “Sometimes, that man makes me think he’s a genie,” Galia said.

  “He’s better than that,” the president said. “There are never any unintended consequences when Blessing does his work.”

  “May I ask what wonder he’s off to perform now?”

  “Galia,” the president asked, “when was the last time you had a massage?”

  The president and her chief of staff lay on adjacent massage tables, Galia still working on overcoming the embarrassment of being nude, under a cotton sheet, and being attended to by Antoinette Barrie, LMT. The president was receiving her second massage of the day from Devin Waters, also licensed to knead skin and muscle, whom the president had warned not to peek at the chief of staff.

  That little joke had only made Galia more uneasy.

  To prevent two innocent civilians from overhearing tales of political malevolence, both massage therapists had donned the ear buds attached to their iPods and turned the volume as high as they comfortably could bear.

  The president had also insisted that she and Galia wait until they’d had their scalps, necks and shoulders massaged before getting down to business. Once that was accomplished, the president turned to her chief of staff and gave her a nod. Whatever it was Galia had come to tell her, she seemed far less anxious about it now.