"Stacy," Jake said, somehow feeling better just hearing her voice.
"Jake, what's happening?" she said. "We heard some pretty weird stuff from the WFO."
"It's...It's not what they said."
"Then what is it?" Stacy asked, almost pleading. "What's really going on?"
"Someone tried to kill me."
"What?" Stacy said. "Who? Who tried to kill you?"
A beat-up van with smoke-tinted windows rumbled down 17th Street and stopped in front of the liquor store. Jake laid a hand on the Glock tucked into the front of his pants. Then the driver's window rolled down and he saw Favreau behind the wheel.
"Where did you get that thing?" Jake called out.
"Get what?" Stacy said in his ear.
"No. No. Not you," Jake said into the phone. "I was..."
"Who were you talking to?" Stacy said. "Who are you with?"
Favreau waved to Jake. "Come on."
Jake signaled him to wait, then spoke into the phone again. "Stacy, it's nothing like what you've heard."
"Then what, Jake? Talk to me."
"I...I can't. I don't have time. But I really, really need you and Chris's help. Can you meet me?"
"The Bureau put out a BOLO. Every cop in DC is looking for you, Jake. They said...that you shot two people inside WFO."
"I didn't shoot anybody," Jake snapped. Then he took a deep breath. He had to calm down. If there were two people in the world he could trust they were Stacy and Chris. When he spoke again his voice was more measured. "Who was it I supposedly shot? Did anybody at the Bureau identify them?"
"No."
"Don't you find that strange?"
"Yeah," Stacy said. "Kind of. I mean, I thought about that as soon as I heard it. I just...I don't understand what's happening, Jake."
"I need your help, Stac. You and Chris."
The line stayed quiet.
"Do you trust me?" Jake asked.
"Yes," she said without hesitation.
Her confidence lifted Jake's spirits. Maybe there was a way out of this mess. "Can you meet me?"
"Where?"
Jake considered the problem. He needed a quiet place outside of the city. Somewhere no one would be looking for him. "Fort Marcy Park," he said. "As soon as you can get there. By the old fort. Next to the jogging and bike path we ran that time. You, me, and Chris. Remember?"
"Yeah, of course I remember."
"Come alone. I mean just you and Chris. Please."
"We will. But, Jake?"
"Yeah?"
"If you didn't do anything, if this is all some kind of...terrible mistake, why not just turn yourself in? Chris and I could meet you at WFO or even Headquarters if you wanted. I know a lawyer who would probably be willing to help."
"I already tried going to the office," Jake said. "Things just got worse."
"Jake, this is really scaring me."
"Just meet me, Stacy, please. I'll explain everything. But don't tell anyone. Whatever this is, it's big. And there are a lot of people involved, powerful people...including the ASAC."
"Donahue?" Stacy said. "Are you serious?"
"Yeah."
"All right. We'll be there."
"Thank you."
Jake hung up.
Favreau stared at him from behind the wheel of the van as Jake climbed into the passenger seat. "Who was that?" Favreau asked.
"A friend?"
"Can you trust him?"
"Her," Jake said. "It was a her. And yes, I trust both of them."
The Frenchman smiled. "Both of them? You have two mademoiselles as special friends?"
"I spoke to two people. Both are friends. A guy and a girl. The guy is my roommate. We were at the Academy together."
"And the mademoiselle?"
Jake hesitated. "Somebody I care about."
Favreau cocked his face up into an exaggerated wink and made a quick double clicking sound with his cheek, which had the effect of making him look and sound both very cartoonish and very French at the same time. Like the amorous skunk Pepe' Le Pew in those old cartoons Jake used to watch when he was in grade school, before he caught the bus in the morning.
"Let's get going," Jake said. Then he eyed the broken steering column and the hanging ignition wires, which were twisted together to form a completed circuit. "We should leave a note for the owner."
"I left the Nissan."
Jake shook his head. "Drive."
"Where to?"
Jake pointed south down 17th Street. "That way."
Favreau mashed the gas pedal. The old van shuddered as it accelerated into traffic.
***
Wendell Donahue hung up the telephone and leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile on his face.
"What?" Blackstone said. Like a lot of people in the intelligence business, he hated secrets, unless he was the one keeping them.
They were still in Donahue's office.
"They're headed across the river to Fort Marcy Park," the FBI agent said.
"Who told you that?" Blackstone asked.
Donahue kept smiling, although Blackstone thought it had morphed into more of a condescending smirk, something that gave him a sudden urge to smack it off the man's face. "It's against Bureau policy to reveal a confidential source," Donahue said. "But trust me, they're on their way to Fort Marcy Park."
Blackstone stood. "The chopper can get us there in ten minutes."
"What happens to Miller?"
"If he keeps his mouth shut he can still come out of this in one piece," Blackstone said. It was a lie, but he was pretty sure Donahue already knew that. As a professional bureaucrat who had spent nearly his entire career behind a desk, looking for properly dotted i's and thoroughly crossed t's, the FBI agent needed to hear certain things to ease his conscience, and Blackstone was happy to supply him with what he needed to hear if it got the man off his ass and moving.
"And Favreau?" Donahue asked.
Now it was Blackstone's turn to smirk. "Who's Favreau?"