“Exactly, and a number of lower-ranking officers, all of whom covet high-paying jobs with GSG when they retire or resign. Which means they’re willing to provide cover by retroactively approving Gatling’s targets. Covering both his ass and theirs. Pretending it was all a mistake, the authorization got lost in the paperwork. The Intelligence Sub-Committee has so far done nothing about it, and if we’re waiting for them to grow balls, we could be waiting forever. It’s far easier, and less dangerous politically, to look the other way.”
“It has ever been thus,” Naomi points out. “But what has this to do with Professor Keener?”
Bevins gives boss lady a steely look, as if daring her to make the connection. “Nothing, directly. But something else came up before the committee, in secret testimony. Something very instructive, if you know enough to pay attention. There was a question about GSG’s involvement in unauthorized domestic surveillance.”
“QuantaGate.”
“Yes. QuantaGate, and specifically Professor Keener. That push to have the FBI investigate Keener? It came from Gatling himself. And when the Bureau reported finding no evidence of espionage, Mr. Gatling apparently decided to take matters into his own hands. He had become convinced that Keener was, indeed, passing secrets to the Chinese, and initiated what he called ‘countermeasures.’ He claims, and the committee apparently believes him, that the so-called countermeasures were nothing more than surveillance, as authorized by the Patriot Act.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
“Someone targeted Keener for assassination. It could have been Gatling.”
“And he framed Shane at the same time, as revenge for testifying against his father?”
Bevins shrugs her agreement. “Two birds with one stone.”
“This all makes sense,” Naomi says. “It fits the facts as we know them. But one thing I don’t understand, one thing that haunts me: If Gatling knew he was going to have Keener taken out, to prevent him passing secrets, why kidnap the boy at all? Why take Joey Keener?”
Bevins has a strange look on her face. The same look people get just before they’re going to be sick. “I was hoping you knew,” she says.
As near as he can determine, the security system at the Nantz residence is state-of-the-art. There are no cheesy stickers guaranteeing quick response, because pros know that the logos are a dead giveaway as to what kind of system is in place, and therefore how to defeat it. The installation has been subtle, but Kidder knows what to look for. Every window, door and lock has been equipped with pressure-sensitive alarm devices. There are at least a dozen mini surveillance cameras mounted on various corners, and those are only the ones he can see. No doubt they’d been installed by professionals and cover every conceivable angle. Bust out a single pane, an alarm starts blaring, either at a security service, or the local cops, or both. Plus you’ll be starring on the video cameras. Hi there, world, this is me on my way to prison.
Too bad Nantz hasn’t contracted with Gama Guards. The very thought makes him want to giggle. That would be too easy, and not all that much fun. Bottom line, it doesn’t matter what kind of system she has, or how foolproof they think it is, there’s one surefire, never-fail way around it.
All he has to do is determine who the first responders are.
Kidder finds a nice, comfortable spot behind a Dumpster in the so-called public alley. He’s good at waiting. Back in the day when he’d been in the military, an elite warrior trained to kill with his bare hands, he’d once had to hold position for fifteen hours until the target, a terrified gray-haired hajji with a comically hooked nose and a rap star’s gold tooth, finally crawled out of the wreckage of what had been his home. Thought he’d made it, too, until he felt the cold muzzle against the base of his skull. Kidder put him down like Old Yeller—his own personal joke, because of the tooth. Of course he kept the tooth as a souvenir, who wouldn’t? Had it drilled and put on a matching gold chain which he wears around his neck as a reminder of the fun times over there in the sandbox.
Old Yeller, yuk, yuk.
With infinite patience Kidder begins to assemble his custom-made weapon. The twelve-inch rifled barrel from where it has been strapped to his leg. The plastic hand-stock from his right trouser pocket. The spring-loaded trigger mechanism from his left trouser pocket. And from beneath the carefully buttoned flap of his shirt pocket, a single fifty-caliber, five-hundred-and-seventy grain, center-fire, round-tipped, soft-nose bullet.
Just the one bullet. Because all he needs is one shot.
Chapter Forty-Two
Elephants Not in the Room
I’m dreaming about prison when the alarm begins to whoop. In my dream the prison cells are a kind of concrete maze, with some cells branching off into dead ends, others leading to the next cell and the next. There are no prisoners, none that I can find. The prison/maze seems to be empty. Except I keep hearing something on the other side of the concrete walls, just around the next corner. Something furtive but alive. Something, or someone, that I have to find, and which keeps me hunting from cell to cell, heart pounding.
Whoop whoop whoop.
The alarm isn’t particularly loud, but is accompanied by flashing lights throughout the residence. And if that isn’t enough to wake me, Teddy pounds on my door. “Alice! Get up! Someone’s trying to break in!”
The nightmare about the prison hasn’t cleared from my mind, and at first I think that it’s me that’s trying to break in. Finally I surface enough to get what’s going on, hurry into a bathrobe and find Teddy prancing around outside the door like his feet are on fire.
“Come on,” he says, grabbing my arm. “We have to get to the safe room!”
That’s the drill. If the security alarm goes off, indicating a possible break-in, we’re all supposed to pile into the safe room—a windowless vault not far from the library—and wait until the first responders from Beacon Hill Security clear the premises. Mrs. Beasley, clad in a very handsome pair of men’s pajamas, has beat us to the safe room and sits there with her arms crossed, looking somewhere between bored and resolute. Naomi, fully, if hastily, dressed, arrives a moment later with Milton Bean in tow. Mr. Bean has wrapped himself in a sheet and looks like he escaped from a toga party, and isn’t sure if he should be amused or terrified.
“What’s going on?” he wants to know.
“Probably just a false alarm, but we need to take precautions.”
Naomi helps Teddy secure the door to the safe room. The vault is appointed like a small airport executive lounge, with low-level lighting, comfortable seating, a small refrigerator stocked with food and beverages and a video console wirelessly connected to all the security cameras in and around the residence. We watch as first one Beacon Hill Security patrol car rolls up in the public alley, then another, and finally a Boston Police patrol car arrives street-side. The Boston cops will secure the exterior of the building, which means they’ll walk the perimeter and check for signs of break-in. The Beacon Hill Security guards will, by previous arrangement, enter the residence and conduct a room-by-room search.
Fifteen minutes after the alarm first sounds, the Beacon Hill boss punches into the safe-room intercom, enters the code and informs us that the premises are clear and the situation is, his word, “contained.” And so we emerge unscathed if bleary-eyed to the news that a bullet has been fired through the third-floor window of Jack’s bedroom. That’s what triggered the alarm. No one has actually attempted to enter the premises.