Chapter 16 #2
“Yeah, I was okay. High hurdles. Tier one recruit, never could quite cut the last quarter-second off my times.”
They talked about sports for a while, and about competitiveness, and about team play versus individual sports, and how that carried into their careers.
“The CIA is different than the FBI,” Sherwood said, watching the city go by.
“I mean, by personality type. The FBI is all about teams, and the CIA isn’t.
We’re about talent. The FBI is mostly Republicans, the CIA is mostly Democrats.
The Marshals Service, as far as I’ve seen, is different than the FBI and the CIA.
Haven’t figured it out yet, but it seems like the brows get lower as you step down the scale. ”
“You’re saying the Marshals Service is at the bottom?”
“It’s more…obscure,” Sherwood said. “Nobody knows exactly what you guys do, because you’re all over the place. I wouldn’t say you’re at the bottom. You’re more like sideways from all the other gun-toters.”
“Thank you,” Lucas said.
“You’re welcome. I’m interested the way you compare street cops to FBI agents. Like they’re totally different animals.”
“They are.”
“I had my researcher take a look at your daughter,” Sherwood said. “She comes across as a hybrid of an intelligence operator and a marshal, skipping the FBI altogether. Maybe a little bloodthirsty.”
“Not bloodthirsty—she doesn’t back away when somebody wants to jack up the violence. She doesn’t start things, but she’s willing to end them,” Lucas said. “She’s smart, works hard, got a good education. Best female combat shooter you’d ever meet. With pistols, anyway.”
“I know. She doesn’t really work for Homeland Security, though, does she?
She actually works for a Republican senator but pretends to work for Homeland Security.
She’s a shooter. You pretend to work for the Marshals Service, and sometimes you do, but you’re also wound tight into the Senate.
My researcher tells me you could call up almost any senator, ask a favor, and get it. ”
“That might be an overstatement,” Lucas said. “I’ve worked with several senators, and, I guess, word gets around.”
“My researcher says you’ve given significant help to seven different senators,” Sherwood said. “The kind of thing that saves careers. You might even have saved the life of the lady senator from Georgia.”
“There’s a little more to that than your researcher knows,” Lucas said.
“You mean that some people believe that you lured a right-wing nut to the senator’s house so you could kill him?”
Lucas glanced at Sherwood and said, “Your researcher is picking up unsupported rumors.”
“Yeah? He’s a really good researcher. Really good. He’s especially good at sifting out unsupported rumors.”
“Is all this leading to something?” Lucas asked.
“Just wanted to let you know that I’m an excellent connection for a guy like you. You and your daughter are excellent connections for a guy like me. If you or Letty ever think you might need something I could give you, under the table, call me. I’ll give you a private number.”
“And you’ll call us if you need something?”
“Of course. That’s the way it works.”
· · ·
The Hennepin County Medical Center was a labyrinthine complex of rooms, hallways, and elevators, decorated mostly in varieties of beige and pale gray, with splashes of blue and red; like most hospitals, it smelled of cleaning fluids.
Weather wasn’t on staff, so Lucas hadn’t often gotten past the emergency room when he was working in Minneapolis.
Sherwood had called ahead and an FBI agent, who appeared to be fourteen, but was probably older, and was named Jason Coulter, met them in the reception area and led them through the labyrinth to a room in the birth center.
“If the Russians tried to bust in, we figure they wouldn’t expect Sokolov to be in this area,” Coulter said.
“Don’t count on that,” Sherwood said. “They have good intel.”
“That’s what we’ve been told. We don’t think they’d make the effort to get him here, but in case they do, we’re trying to exploit every possible edge.”
“As you should,” Lucas said. “These guys are good.”
The ward was on the fourth level. Two more agents, dressed in scrubs and wearing hair coverings, were sitting at a nurses’ station, with two more inside Sokolov’s room.
“More edges,” Coulter said. “Guys who look kinda like doctors, sitting with the nurses, and there’s nothing in a hallway that would quickly identify a specific room.
They’d have to look in each room as they run down the hallway.
The hall’s monitored with cameras at each end, transmitting to iPads in Sokolov’s room.
Even if they got in, there’d be guns waiting for them. ”
“Fire stairs?” Lucas asked.
“More cameras.”
“Ah.”
They took a quick look in Sokolov’s room.
Sokolov lying in bed, in a blue hospital gown, slightly propped up so he could watch television, if he was conscious and his eyes were open, which he apparently wasn’t, and they weren’t.
The two bodyguard agents were on their feet, looking at Lucas and Sherwood, and Lucas showed them empty hands.
“We recognized you,” one of them said.
“I was afraid St. Vincent told you to shoot me,” Lucas said.
“He did, but we were told to let you make the first move,” the agent said; he smiled as he said it, but the other one didn’t.
Sherwood went to Sokolov’s bed and asked, “You awake, Leonid?”
Sokolov twitched, seemed to struggle to get his eyes open, but failed. He might have tried to mutter something, but it was unintelligible.
Sherwood said, “I’m sorry about all of this, I truly am. It shouldn’t have happened. We’ll get you back to the Farm and figure out a new move.”
No response. Sherwood patted Sokolov on the leg and said to Lucas, “Let’s go look around.”
One of the agents whispered, “He’s been very quiet. He’s only had light painkillers, but he hasn’t been coming up.”
Sherwood shook his head and whispered back, “Not good.”
Before they left, Lucas asked for the lead agent’s cell phone number, and poked it into his own phone. Ten minutes later, standing in a stairwell, he called the agent and asked, “Where am I?”
“Stairwell C4, between the third and fourth floors.”
“Outstanding.”
· · ·
“What do you think?” Sherwood asked on the way out.
“The FBI has big bureaucracy problems, but their gun guys are usually okay,” Lucas said.
“I don’t see the Russians getting on top of them.
Not unless they go in with their automatic weapons and risk a massacre.
Even if they did that, I don’t see them getting back out.
It seems to me that they’re trying to stay as safe as they can and not do any more damage than they have to.
Haven’t killed anyone except Masha, and that looks like a mistake. ”
“You think Sokolov is safe?”
“In the hospital. I wouldn’t guarantee he’d be safe on a ride to the airport. They’ve got those automatic weapons. Might be a good idea to check the plane for a bomb…”
“If he’s safe for now, let’s go see your Mr. Capslock.”