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“I guess Sir James was grooming me all that time. Right schools, right training, right contacts. It seemed inevitable.”
“In spite of what you wanted, you mean?”
She took a sip of the beer, holding it in her mouth a moment before swallowing. “I ask myself that from time to time.”
“And what’s the answer?”
“It changes. And maybe I’m right where I need t
o be. Maybe I can even find out what really happened to my poor dad.” She pushed her plate away and sat back, put her feet up on the porch railing. “What about you? You and Sir James obviously go way back. And he knows things about you I guess I never will.”
“They would mean nothing to you.”
“What did it feel like, to do what you did?”
Stone rose and stared out at the tombstones in the fading light. The weather in D.C., miserably hot and humid in the summer, and uncomfortably raw in the winter, could suddenly evolve to times like this, when the climate was perfect and you wished the day would never end.
She stood next to him. “Look I won’t push it,” Chapman said quietly. “It’s really none of my business.”
“It got to the point where I didn’t feel anything anymore,” Stone said.
“But how did you get out?”
“I’m not sure I ever did.”
“Was it your wife?”
Stone turned to her. “I thought your boss was more discreet.”
“It wasn’t him,” she said hastily. “I just made a guess based on my own observations.”
“What observations?” Stone said sharply.
“Of you,” she answered simply. “Of things that matter to you. Like friends.”
Stone turned away. “Good guess,” he said.
“So why did you come back in the fold? After that?”
“I guess I could say I had no choice.”
“I think someone like you would always have a choice.”
Stone didn’t speak for a long time. He just kept staring at the graves. A breeze rippled over them and Chapman wrapped her arms around herself.
“I have a lot of regrets,” Stone said finally.
“So this is about making amends?”
“I don’t think I can ever make amends, Agent Chapman.”
“Please, just call me Mary. We’re off duty now.”
He glanced at her. “Okay, Mary. Have you ever killed anyone? Intentionally?”
“Once.”
Stone nodded. “And how did you feel?”
“Happy at first. That it wasn’t me dead. And then I felt sick. I’d been trained to do it, of course, but—”
“No training can prepare you for it.”
“I guess not.” She clenched the porch railing. “So how many people do you reckon you’ve killed?”
“Why does it matter to you?”
“I guess it doesn’t. And it’s not morbid curiosity. I… I don’t know what it is, exactly.”
Before Stone could answer his cell phone buzzed. It was Tom Gross.
“We’re back on duty, Agent Chapman,” said Stone.
CHAPTER 30
THEY MET GROSS NOT AT HIS OFFICE at the FBI, but at a coffee shop near the Verizon Center. The federal agent was dressed casually in khaki pants, a polo shirt and a Washington Capitals zippered jacket. They bought coffee and sat at a table in the back. Gross looked pale and nervous, his gaze flitting around the small space, as though he suspected he was being followed.
“I’m not liking how this is shaking out,” Gross said. His hand went to his jacket pocket and then pulled back.
“You used to smoke?” said Stone.
Gross nodded. “Right this minute, sorry I gave it up.”
“So talk to us.”
Gross hunched forward and bent his head low. “First tell me how it went with Carmen Escalante?”
Stone and Chapman alternated filling him in about the bereaved and crippled young woman.
“Sad stuff, but then she’s a dead end?”
“We never had high hopes for that line anyway,” said Stone. “She’s a victim, just like her uncle.”
“Wrong place, wrong time. Poor sucker. Loves America and look what happens to him.”
“How’d things go on your end?” asked Chapman.
Gross shifted in his seat and took a swallow of coffee before answering. “I decided to cut to the chase and snagged the whole National Park Service crew that worked on the installation, including their supervisor, and sat their butts down at WFO. Supervisor’s named George Sykes. Career government service; guy has six grandchildren. Background clean as anyone’s. He was with his team the whole time and swore on a stack of Bibles that none of them were involved. And I tend to believe him. There were like seven people around the entire time from the moment the tree was delivered to the staging area. No way they all got bought off.”
“So why was the hole still uncovered?” Stone asked.
Gross smiled. “Got a real education on that. The National Park Service is very particular about the plantings in Lafayette Park. Apparently only specimens available during George Washington’s era are installed there. Those guys are really historians who dig the occasional hole. I learned a lot more about that today than I needed to. But the reason they left the hole open was because they had to prepare special dirt, an arborist was going to look at the tree to make sure the transition hadn’t damaged it, yada, yada. They were scheduled to close the hole the next day.”
Chapman spoke up. “So the bomb was in the tree’s root ball before it was even delivered to the site. That has to be it. The National Park Service folks aren’t involved at all.”
Stone looked from her to Gross. “Do we know the timeline with the tree? Where it came from? Who was involved on that end?”
“Running that down as we speak. The thing is, I don’t see how a tree gets from that point to Lafayette without it being checked for a damn bomb. I mean, at the very least you’d think they’d let a canine take a sniff when it got to the staging area. That tree was big. As you saw on the video, they had to crane the sucker in.”
Stone said, “Well, is there a record of a dog going over it for explosives?”
“Not that I can find. And none of the installation crew recalls that happening.”
“Another big hole in security if that’s true,” said Chapman.
“Yeah, but a bomb in a root ball?” said Gross. “Who’d figure that one?”
“Yeah, like jumbo jets flying into skyscrapers,” said Stone. “Or explosives in underwear or shoes. We have to start being ahead of that curve or more innocent people will die.”
Gross took another swallow of his coffee, his brow a mass of wrinkles.
“Something else?” prompted Stone, who was studying the man carefully.
When Gross spoke he lowered his voice to a level where Stone and Chapman had to lean forward to hear. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think our side is watching us. Screwing with us, I mean. That’s why I asked to meet you two here.”
Chapman said, “Our side? Why do you think that?”
Gross looked at Stone warily. “I know you’re with NSC, and frankly I’ve pulled too many years to blow my career, but I’m also not going to sit pat and pretend everything is fine either.”
