The Cavalry’s not as dead as they’re supposed to be, Charlie thought.
Because his hands were bound in front of him by plastic cuffs, each turn slammed him into the door or the window as the SUV sped away from the marina.
The black man drove. Washington, according to his ID. The Secret Service badge the white guy had flashed identified him as Madison. Either the names were flagrantly fake or a simple instance of truth being stranger than fiction.
As the sun fell into the woods lining the two-lane country road to the local police station, their purported destination, their SUV approached an identical black vehicle, which slowed as it drew near. Washington stopped so that he was even with the other driver. Both drivers’ windows glided down. In the burgeoning darkness, Charlie could make out only a thickset man in the other car.
“How’s it going, Wash?” the man asked.
“Can’t complain-no one would listen. You?”
“Another day, another advance team packed off to Dauphin Street. You heavy?”
Washington glanced at Charlie in the rearview. “A Class Three.”
The thickset man yawned. “You boys hitting happy hour?”
Leaning across the seat, Madison said, “We sure hope so.”
“I’ll be waiting. Wash here’s been ducking me at Miss Pac Man.”
With a round of Later’s, they were off.
Charlie was almost convinced that Washington and Madison were indeed who they said they were. The laptop computer, bracketed to the console between the front seats, had a Secret Service gold star as its screen saver. The muted chatter from the police radio continued to include “Grand Hotel” and “protectees.” And if these guys were Cavalry, he would either have been dead by now or on a waterboard.
But why would the Secret Service want him? Aside from the fact that he’d been exonerated-although it wouldn’t be the first time in government annals that paperwork was slow to be processed-how did they even know where to find him?
Bream might have told them. He could have seen Charlie through a porthole.
“So what are we supposed to talk about?” Charlie asked the agents.
Madison turned around in the passenger seat, no trace remaining of his happy-hour banter. “Mr. Clark, for a heads of state event prep, the Secret Service is required to conduct advance interviews of all Class Threes in a two-hundred-fifty-mile vicinity.”
“I’m guessing Class Three doesn’t mean VIP,” said Charlie.
“It’s an individual in our database who-”
Washington cut in. “Who, we hope, won’t give cause for concern.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“We received a tip from a civilian who has a working relationship with law enforcement.”
“Not the private eye, LeCroy?”
Madison looked to Washington.
“We don’t disclose the identities of paid informants,” Washington told Charlie.
LeCroy must have snapped a photograph of Charlie with the Webcam he had used to produce his screen saver of the naked blonde, then sent the picture to his law enforcement “colleagues” in hope of collecting a reward for a tip leading to an arrest. Irksome, but better a betrayal by a two-bit PI than a setup by Bream.
“My record was cleared though,” Charlie said. “It’s supposed to be in the same classification now as driven snow.”
Washington slowed the car, to better focus on Charlie in the rearview mirror. “Sir, then why your interest in private vessels arriving from overseas?”
“I’m glad you asked. I believe there’s, like, a Class Ten at the Mobile Bay Marina, a guy bringing in high explosives.”
The agents exchanged a glance.
“I get it, I sound like one of the people who tells you they’ve seen a flying saucer,” Charlie added. “But just call Caldwell Eskridge, the director of the Europe division at the CIA. Or let me call him myself. I met with him at CIA headquarters yesterday about this matter. I’m almost certain the bad guy is passing himself off as a yachtsman named Clem Clemmensen.”
The resort town’s police station sat adjacent to a fire station and looked to be part of the same toy set. Sitting alone at the intake desk, Charlie waited for his claims to be verified and for the return of the personal items he’d been forced to surrender upon arrival-“just a technicality,” the duty officer had said. The policeman had also promised that, afterward, either Washington and Madison or one of the four cops on duty would take Charlie back to the marina.
An hour crept past.
Finally the duty officer reappeared. “Sir, I’m afraid we’ve got some not so good news.”
Charlie braced for the latest.
“We need to charge you for possession of a forged United States government document-your New York driver’s license. It’s a Class Two misdemeanor.”
This was good news by Charlie’s standards. Teenagers were caught with fake licenses all the time. “So is there a fine?” he asked.
The duty officer, a gangly, twentysomething Southerner, had warm blue eyes and the gentle manner of a kindergarten teacher. “A conviction carries a fine of up to a thousand dollars or confinement for up to six months, or both,” he said apologetically. “We’ll need to hold you here. Bail will be set tomorrow morning.”
Charlie’s initial thought, practical joke, was too much to hope for. Best case scenario, this was indeed his sort of luck. Worst case, Bream had somehow managed to keep him on ice here. No, that wasn’t the worst. The worst was that Bream or one of his confederates would be visiting.
Charlie decided to use his allotted phone call to solicit Eskridge’s help. Although arrogant, the division chief wasn’t stupid, and Charlie had a solid lead to give him.
After wending his way through the CIA’s telephonic maze, Charlie reached an agent on duty in the Europe division who promised, “I’ll get this to the chief right away.”
Then, once again, Charlie was behind bars. In this case, wire mesh. The police station’s “holding cells” weren’t cells so much as a single small room divided in two by a wire mesh sliding gate, with windowless walls painted cherry red, so bright as to be depressing. A stainless steel panel would provide him a modicum of privacy should he need the toilet in the corner. He was the only detainee, however.
He sat on the concrete bench running the length of the back wall and stared at the lone door, a slab of metal with a glass stripe at eye level. The door would not open again until breakfast-tray time, he thought.
If he was lucky.
A few hours later the door to the next cell opened, with a hydraulic hiss.
The duty officer ushered in another detainee, a handsome man of about forty with a deep tan and the physique of a former athlete. The man’s demeanor remained pleasant in spite of his circumstance.
Closing the door, the policeman said, “Don’t worry none, we ought to get this settled right quick, Mr. Clemmensen.”