They tried to do that but failed. While Lucas went for a walk around the Capitol, and to look at the White House, Rae went to the National Gallery, and Bob went to find an uncle’s name on the Vietnam memorial, but by one o’clock they were back in Lucas’s room, watching sporadic commentary on the news channels, and a few minutes after that, Gladys Ingram, the lawyer, called Lucas.
“I’m going to email you a bunch of links. You said this phone was safe?”
“About as safe as it gets, but, you know...”
“I’m going to give you a string of numbers. You’ll need to write them down.”
Lucas got his pen and a legal pad: Ingram gave him eighteen random numbers. “That string will open the email I sent to you. If you copy the email with a pen—it’s quite short, but you’ll have to be accurate—you can touch the burn tab, and the email will eat itself. I don’t think, even if they’re listening to us, they could interfere, but if you save the documents instead of burning them, they might be able to get at them later. So print out a paper copy and hold it close.”
“I’ll do it right now.”
He did. There were twelve links, and they provided the same information that Kidd had... but now flowing from a different source. Lucas copied the twelve out on paper, then burned the email. If any investigator ever asked how he’d come up with all those links, he had an answer.
At two, Forte called and said, “Me, my boss—you met him, Gabe O’Conner—and a few high-level suits from the FBI want to talk to you.”
“Where at?”
“Conference room at the FBI building. They’ll take you to the conference room when you show up, at four o’clock sharp. Bring Bob and Rae.”
“Gonna be trouble?”
“Doesn’t feel like it. More like an ass-covering mission.”
—
LUCAS TOLDBob and Rae that they’d been summoned, and they spent half an hour speculating about what would happen; and, despite the heat and the suffocating humidity, they decided to walk the two miles to the meeting.
“We need to look professional,” Bob objected. “If we walk, we’ll be all sweaty when we get there.”
Rae shrugged. “But it’ll sort of let them know we’re not too worried about things. They get all the media, but we’re just as big a deal as they are. Sort of.”
“So you’re saying we should push them back with offensive body odor?” Bob asked.
“Walk?” Rae asked Lucas. “Or drive, and spend an hour trying to find a parking place?”
“Walk,” Lucas said.
—
THEY STARTED WALKINGby three o’clock, stopped on the way to get Cokes, paused at an Au Bon Pain across the street from the FBI to cool off, and arrived at the building, looking crisp and non-sweaty, although they might not have passed a sniff test.
“Goddamn building looks like it was built by fuckin’ Joseph Stalin,” Bob grumbled, looking up at the Hoover Building, as they crossed the street.
“Art history–wise, I would say you are correct,” Rae said.
—
INSIDE,they found Forte and O’Conner waiting in the lobby with an FBI gofer, who escorted them to an elevator, up a few floors, and fifty yards down a hallway to a conference room. Other than the five of them, and the usual table and chairs, the room was empty.
“Everybody likes to be last because, that way, we know who’s most important,” O’Conner said. He was a beefy man, in a pale blue suit and white shirt, carrying an old-style leather briefcase. He took a sheaf of papers from the case, and said, “I understand you guys may be asking for a search warrant.”
“Depending on how this comes out,” Lucas said.
“I can tell you that in advance. You’re to be cautiously aggressive. Or aggressively cautious. I’ve been told that the FBI is not anxious to get involved until they figure out who’s the fall guy. There are several possibilities, including you three.”
“Great,” Rae said.
“The thing is, if you pull this off and prove there was an assassination attempt, it’ll be a big feather in our cap. If you screw itup, then...” O’Conner was about to go on, but the door popped open, and a half dozen suits walked in—three men, three women—and everybody shook hands with everybody else.
