Parrish: “Okay. So what’s up?”
—
“RITTER, IS WHAT’S UP,”Claxson said. “It looks like the Marshals Service might have enough on him to put him in the truck that hit Smalls.”
“And killed Whitehead,” Grant added, “It’s like I’m trapped in a circus. It all sounds good, then the clowns show up.”
“How do you know this?” Parrish asked. “That the Marshals Service has—”
“I have a friend at the DOJ,” Claxson said.
“So what do we do? Move Ritter out of here?” Parrish asked.
Both Grant and Claxson looked at him without saying a word, and Parrish finally said, “You’re thinking of something more... permanent?”
“Not only that,” Claxson said, “we’re thinking that one of the three of us has to do it. Senator Grant and I took a vote, and you won.”
“Wait!” Parrish croaked. “I’ve never done that.”
“Yeah, but you can. Maybe you never had the opportunity,” Claxson said. “I’ve seen you at the range. What’s the problem?”
“It’s... I’ve never done that.”
“We’re all in serious trouble here,” Claxson said, standing up, leaning over Parrish. “Jim is a good guy but he’s looking at life without parole if the marshals get to him. And they’re close. They want him, but they want us more. If they break him, if they make a deal with him, all of us are done. He has to go. Senator Grant needs to be in a public place when he goes away, and so do I. That leaves you.”
“I can’t fuckin’ believe this,” Parrish said. “There’s gotta be some other way.”
Grant said, “There is no better way, not for George or me. If you get caught, well, too bad. Claxson and I’ll say you’d gone rogue and we had no idea what you were up to. If you don’t get caught, we’ve sealed off an existential problem. A problem that could kill all three of us.”
“But...”
“No buts. It’s decided,” Claxson said. “Gotta be right away. Try not to step on your dick. Do that, and we’ll throw you, and your dick, under the bus.”
—
PARRISH ARGUED,but Grant and Claxson stonewalled him: it had to be done. Parrish left in a heavy sweat.
He’d never been an “operator,” in the military sense of the word; he’d worked in supply, in logistics, even when he was with the CIA. If you needed to get a thousand M4s to Iraq by Monday, he could do it, though a few crates might fall off the back of the truck.
He’d known lots of real operators, though, and had provided expedited supplies for special operations forces. A dozen former operators hung around Heracles, coming and going without saying much. He liked to think he could hang with them.
And Claxson had seen him at the range: Parrish liked to shoot and was good at it. He liked the whole ritual of handling the weapon, cleaning it, the signature smell of the Hoppe’s gun cleaner, the acrid odor of the brass brushes.
He left Grant’s SCIF frightened—and exhilarated. Had to be done; and now he’d find out what he was all about.
He had some thinking to do as well: if they really and truly wanted to wall off the problem, he might go next. Something to worry about.
He called Ritter. “We may have a problem in St. Paul. We need to talk.”
“Where?”
“My place.”
—
WHEN PARRISHbought his Georgetown home, he’d bought the best address he could afford, which turned out to be a late-nineteenth- or early-twentieth-century town house that was structurally sound but internally a mess. He’d taken home-improvement classes at a community college and, over three years, had cautiously upgraded the place.
The project of which he was most proud of involved a closet. It had been in a bedroom, and he’d converted it into an office. He’d stripped off the molding surrounding the original door and replaced the door itself with a heavy metal-core blank that he’d fitted flush with the wall. He’d painted the blank to match the wall and attached a bookcase as a front.
