Camel Club 05 - Hell's Corner Read online

  Kravitz had been shot with a rifle round that had ripped through his heart, killing him instantly. Stone had to admire the skill of the sniper, since the person would have had to make that shot with the distraction of Stone and Chapman shooting at him. The secretary at the tree farm had succumbed to a .45 round from a handgun, Lloyd Wilder from a shotgun blast to the face and finally Tom Gross had taken two .45 rounds to the chest. He had fired his weapon once, hitting the wall.

  Two different guns used in the attack meant two different attackers, at least. A shotgun was problematic. It was unfailingly deadly at close range but very noisy. The handgun could be used with a suppressor. Yet no one had heard anything, the report added. This was not so unlikely as it seemed. When Stone had traveled there with Gross and Chapman he’d observed that the tree farm was set far off the road. So probably no cars passing by would’ve heard the shots. And the other people working there at the time were far away in the fields. The office building was low and long. It would have blocked the view of any vehicle coming there from anyone working in the fields or other buildings. And tree farms were noisy places with machinery on for much of the time. Still, everyone there had been interviewed and professed to have heard or seen nothing. There were only three people in the office and they were all dead.

  Stone leaned back and drank his coffee as outside the dawn began to emerge.

  So Kravitz was part of the bombing plot and he was killed when the cops moved in. Short, sweet, made sense. Evidence all there. Signed, sealed, delivered. Check off the box. But why the attack at the tree farm in the first place? Was Lloyd Wilder part of the conspiracy? There was no evidence to point to that. And Stone had seen the man’s face when they told him why they were there. Stone had seen many liars. Wilder, he believed, had not been lying. The secretary? No connection. No evidence of wrongdoing.

  Stone heard the footsteps outside the cottage. He quickly closed the laptop, sending the room into darkness. Just as he had with Riley Weaver, he pulled his gun from his desk drawer and crouched down in the kneehole with his eyes barely above the top edge. He was getting a little tired of late-night unannounced visits.

  The silhouette at his door was that of a woman. He could tell by the hair, the shape of the face and torso.

  Agent Chapman? Too tall. Hair too long.

  “Oliver?”

  He moved his finger away from the trigger and rose.

  A few moments later he was staring at Annabelle Conroy as she walked into his cottage and plunked down in a chair by the fireplace, crossed her arms and scowled up at him.

  “Annabelle, what are you doing here?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About everything. But let’s start with you being in trouble and needing our help.”

  He said wearily, “I can handle this. And I don’t want all of you—”

  “What!” she snapped. “You don’t want us to what? Care about what happens to you? You want us to just come to your funeral and wonder what if? Did you really think that was going to work?”

  He sat down next to her and slid his pistol into his waistband. “No, I guess I didn’t expect that.”

  “Good, because I’m here to tell you that we’re going to help, whether you like it or not.”

  “How? You can’t meddle in an FBI investigation.”

  “I wouldn’t call it meddling. And since when are you against becoming involved in official investigations? From what I know, you’ve made a career out of doing just that.”

  “It’s different this time.”

  “Why, because you’re now working for the government? I don’t see how that really makes a difference. And since the government isn’t happy with you right now, I would think you’d need some unofficial help.”

  “But still I’m not sure what any of you can do.”

  “That never stopped us before.” She turned to him and her tone became less aggressive. “All I’m saying is we want to help. Just like you did with me, and everybody else in the good old Camel Club.”

  “But you’ve already paid me back for helping you. I’d be dead in Divine, Virginia, but for you.”

  “This isn’t a tit-for-tat contest, Oliver. I’m your friend. I would be here for you at any time.”

  Stone let out a sigh. “Where are the others?”

  “Out in the car.”

  “I thought so. Would you like to get them? I can put some more coffee on.”

  “Don’t bother. We brought breakfast too.”

  She rose as he looked up at her in mild amusement.

  “Camel Club forever,” she said.

  CHAPTER 40

  IT TOOK THE BETTER PART of three hours, but Stone finally brought them all up to speed on the case. Finn, Reuben and Caleb sat in chairs ringed around Stone’s desk while Annabelle perched on top of the desk. Alex Ford was not with them because he was on duty.

  “So the bomber, at least one of them, has been caught,” said Caleb.

  “Seems that way,” answered Stone.

  “Only you don’t look convinced,” said Finn. He had on a dark blue windbreaker, jeans, dusty boots and his Glock.

  “All the evidence is there,” said Stone. “In fact, too much.”

  “FBI see it that way?” asked Reuben.

  “I don’t know, seeing as how I’m a bit out of favor with them right now.”

  “If not this tree guy, who then?” interjected Annabelle. “If you’re saying he was set up, it’s a hell of a setup.”

  “Agreed.” Stone was about to say something else when someone knocked on his door.

  It was Chapman. She stepped inside and saw the others.

  Stone said bluntly, “I’ve finally come to my senses and asked my friends to help us out.”

  Chapman looked around at them. “Help us how?” she said in a skeptical tone.

  “In the investigation.”

  “And what agency are they with?”

  Caleb volunteered, “I’m with the Library of Congress.”

  Chapman stared at him, openmouthed. “The bloody hell you are.”

  He looked taken aback. “I beg your pardon?”

  She turned to Stone. “What the hell is going on here?”

  “I spoke with McElroy last night. He gave me the FBI file on the incident in Pennsylvania. I’ve gone through it. With them.”

  “With your friends? Who are going to help us?” she said slowly, as though not believing her own words. “A bloody librarian!”

  Caleb said with dignity, “I’m actually a rare book specialist. In my field that’s like being James Bond.”

  Chapman drew her pistol with enviable speed and placed it against Caleb’s forehead. “Well, in my field, little man, that means shit.”

  She put her gun away while Caleb looked like he might have a stroke.

  “Do I have a choice?” asked Chapman.

  “In what?” asked Stone.

  “In working with them?”

  “If you want to continue to work with me, you’ll have to work with them.”

  “You lot do things a bit peculiarly over here.”

  “Yes, we do,” agreed Stone. “So would you like me to fill you in on the FBI’s report? Unless McElroy has done the honors already?”

  Twenty minutes later Chapman was fully informed both of the content of the report and Stone’s skepticism with its conclusions.

  “So if Kravitz might not have done it, who did?” she asked.

  “That’s what we have to find out. But I may be wrong and the FBI right.”

  “And we’ll be doing this how, with the FBI’s knowledge and cooperation?”

  “I would say with neither their cooperation nor knowledge,” Stone replied.

  Chapman pulled Caleb from his chair and plopped down in it. “All right. Do you have any whiskey here?”

  “Why?”

  “Well, if I’m going to break the law and my oath of service I’d like to do it in a bit more relaxed frame of mind, if
you don’t mind.”

  “You don’t have to do it at all, Agent Chapman,” said Stone. “This is my plan and my responsibility. Your boss will understand fully once I talk to him. Then you can back out gracefully.”

  “And then what, I get my arse shipped back to the good old UK?”

  “Something like that.”

  “I don’t think so. Unfinished business bothers the devil out of me.”

  Stone smiled. “I can understand that.”

  She sat forward. “So where do we go from here?”

  “With a plan, an ever-evolving one, but one that involves no one else getting hurt,” said Stone firmly.

  “I don’t think you or anyone else can guarantee that, Oliver,” said Annabelle.

  “Then at least a plan that allows maximum protection for all of you.”

  “Doesn’t sound all that much fun, really,” said Reuben.

  Chapman eyed him with interest. “So you’re willing to die for the cause?”

  He faced her with a defiant gaze. “I’m willing to die for my friends.”

  “I like your way of thinking, Reuben,” said Chapman, giving him a wink.

  “Well, there’s a lot more of me to like, MI6.”

  Caleb had watched this exchange with growing frustration. He turned to Stone. “So is there something we can do now?”

  “Yes,” Stone said. “I actually have something for each of you to do that will utilize your strengths.”

  Caleb looked at Chapman. “I usually get the dangerous stuff.”

  “Really?” she said, looking bemused.

  “It’s my lot in life, I suppose. You should take a drive with me sometime. I think that will explain everything. I’m a real daredevil. Just ask Annabelle.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Annabelle. “If you want to drive yourself nuts spend a couple days zooming around country roads with Mr. Speedy while he drones on and on about some dead writer no one but him has ever heard of.”

  “Sounds delightful,” replied Chapman. “Sort of like gnawing off one’s arm for sport.”

  “Caleb,” said Stone. “I’d like you to research at the library all events to be held at Lafayette Park over the next month.”

  Chapman’s lips twitched as she stared at a red-faced Caleb. “I’d go in with at least two machine guns for that one, mate.”

  Stone proceeded to give out the rest of the assignments to the others. Before they left, Annabelle gave him a hug.

  “Good to be back where we belong.”

  Chapman was the last to leave.

  Stone said, “I’ll meet you at the park in three hours.”

  “Do you really trust these people?”

  “With my life.”

  “Who are they? I mean really.”

  “The Camel Club.”

  “The Camel Club? What the hell is that?”

  “The most important thing in my life,” answered Stone. “Only I forgot that for a little bit.”

  CHAPTER 41

  “YOU LOOK PUZZLED, Agent Garchik.”

  Stone and Chapman walked up to the ATF agent as he was staring over the grounds of Lafayette Park.

  Startled, he turned to them. “I was sorry to hear about Tom Gross,” he said as they joined him. “He seemed like a real good guy.”

  Stone nodded, while Chapman simply stood there frowning. Her hair was unkempt and she looked like she’d slept in her clothes. And she had, for all of two hours. Stone, on the other hand, had shaved, showered and pressed his pants and shirt.

  “He also believed that his own side was watching him. Do you have the same feeling?”

  Garchik looked nervously around. “How did you figure that?”

  “I think of the highly unlikely, then push it to the practically impossible, and I often find I arrive at the truth, particularly in this town.” He studied the man. Garchik’s eyes were bloodshot and his clothes were as wrinkled as Chapman’s. “But that isn’t all that’s bothering you, is it?”

  Chapman added, “You were bragging before that you could tell us what sort of bomb it was very quickly. We haven’t heard a peep from you since. Did your state-of-the-art facility fail you?”

  “Can we talk somewhere else? This place is starting to give me the creeps.”

  The three of them walked a couple of blocks to a bagel shop. Stone and Chapman each had a large cup of coffee. Garchik twisted plastic stirrers into knots and ignored the bottle of orange juice he’d purchased.

  After swallowing a mouthful of coffee Stone said, “Do you feel comfortable talking here?”

  “What? Yeah, I guess.”

  Chapman said, “You can trust us, Agent Garchik.”

  He gave a dull laugh. “That’s good to know. I’d thought I’d run plum out of people I can trust.”

  “What happened to make you feel that way?” asked Stone.

  “Little things. Reports not coming back. Pieces of evidence not where they should be. Clicks on my phone when I pick it up. Funny shit on my computer at work.”

  “Is that all?” asked Stone.

  Garchik snapped, “Isn’t that enough?”

  “It would be for me. I’m just wondering if there’s more.”

  Garchik drank some of his juice. He put the bottle down and took a breath. “The bomb.”

  “What was it?”

  “Some components we don’t usually see in an explosive device.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean some unique combinations that were a surprise.”

  “You mean undetectable?” asked Chapman quickly.

  “No. That would be impossible. Bombs have to have certain elements. Blasting caps for starters. This bomb had all that, at least we found pieces that showed that.”

  “So what, then?”

  “We also found some other stuff.”

  “What stuff?” said Chapman, her irritation growing.

  “Stuff that nobody has figured out what the hell it is yet, which is why I’m just referring to it as stuff.”

  Stone said, “You mean you found debris from the explosive that you are unable to identify?”

  “That’s more or less what I’m saying, yeah.”

  “What is ATF’s official position on it?” he asked.

  “Official position?” Garchik chuckled. “Their official position is that they are officially baffled and scared shitless. We’re actually getting NASA involved to see if they can figure it out.”

  “NASA! So what are the implications for this?” asked Chapman.

  “I don’t know. None of us knows. That’s why we’re keeping this on a tight need to know. I probably shouldn’t even be telling you. Correction: I know I shouldn’t be telling you.”

  Stone thought about this as he fingered his coffee cup. “Did Agent Gross know?”

  Garchik eyed him warily. “Yeah, he did. I told him myself. He was the lead investigator, after all, thought he had a right to know.”

  “And what was his reaction?”

  “He told me to keep him apprised. I think he had other things on his mind.”

  “Did you tell anyone that you’d told him?”

  Garchik saw where this was going. “You think he was killed because of what I told him?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “But who would’ve known?”

  “Hard to say since we don’t know if he told anyone or not. So did you tell anyone you’d informed him of that?”

  “Maybe a couple people at ATF. I have people I have to report to,” he added defiantly.

  “I’m sure you do. Have you been out to the trailer owned by John Kravitz?”

  “Yeah. We checked the bomb material found there.”

  “And did it match the debris in the park?”

  “Yes. Although it was a strange place to keep the stuff.”

  “Under the trailer, you mean?” said Stone.

  “Yeah.”

  “Moisture,” said Chapman. “Not good for that sort of stuff.”

  “Right,” agr
eed Garchik. “And not to mention it was difficult to get to.” He shifted uneasily in his seat. “Look, I’m no chickenshit. I’ve infiltrated militias and gangs and come out alive. But what I’m not used to doing is watching my own side. That freaks me out.”

  “It would me too,” said Stone.

  “What do you think is going on?”

  “There’s a traitor out there somewhere,” answered Stone. “And people are aware of it. So they’re trying to ferret the spy out.”

  “So they’re basically watching all of us.”

  “Right. The only problem is if one of the watchers is actually the traitor.”

  “God help us if that’s the case,” said Garchik. “So what should I do?”

  “Keep your head down, limit your conversations on your phone and with your colleagues, and if any other agency strolls into your space, play stupid.”

  “There are a lot of us at ATF. I’m not the only one who knows about this new stuff.”

  Stone rose. “Given the circumstances, I wouldn’t necessarily count that to be a good thing.”

  They left a troubled-looking Garchik in the bagel shop and headed back out.

  Chapman said, “So what about your fabled Camel Club? Have they started their work yet?”

  Stone checked his watch. “Right about now, in fact.”

  Harry Finn walked along like he had not a care in the world. Wraparound shades, jeans and a sweatshirt, sneakers, bedhead, he looked like a college student. Which was what he wanted considering he was on the Georgetown University campus. It had stone buildings that looked craned in from Cambridge or Oxford, nice green spaces, students hurrying here and there or else lounging in between classes. Finn walked confidently among them all. He sipped on a cup of Starbucks, shifted the weight of his backpack over his left shoulder.

  He picked up the trail of Fuat Turkekul within five minutes. He did so by good prep work. This involved a little computer hacking onto the college’s database, a couple of discreetly placed questions and a thorough recon of the campus.

  The Turkish-born scholar walked along, books cradled under one arm, in deep discussion with another faculty member while a trail of students brought up the rear. They went into a building near the western end of the campus. Finn did too.