Judas Horse_ An FBI Special Agent Ana Grey Mystery - April Smith [37]
But the younger Abbott’s obligatory interest turned ravenous when we uncovered Dick Stone.
“He is a traitor. To his country. To his fellow agents,” he says emphatically. “Make no mistake. He is not one of us.”
“We’ve got a former FBI agent who’s bad,” Galloway agrees, “with federal warrants outstanding. He could have robbed banks and set up killings in other states. The dilemma is, when do we get Stone? Now, and blow the operation? Or do we play along with him and hope to get the bigger thing, which is FAN?”
“I know this man,” Peter Abbott says. “I was his supervisor out here in the seventies when we were going after the Weather Underground. Stone started out all bushy-tailed, got hooked on drugs and liberated women, and went over to the other side. Years of living with scum have made him one of them.”
“We were wondering why you’re here, sir,” Angelo interjects. He has not changed his Hawaiian shirt getup for the visitor. “There wasn’t a hell of a lot of interest in FAN from headquarters when Steve Crawford was killed. L.A. had to fight for Operation Wildcat. What made you get on a plane?”
“I was deeply saddened by that agent’s death,” Abbott intones on key, “but enraged by the fact that a man I trained was responsible. He threw all our principles right out the window. Simply put, the identification of Dick Stone has caused us to reframe the mission. Stone is a dangerous fugitive who may have ties to international terrorism. The purpose of Operation Wildcat has shifted.”
Nobody disagrees. We are all in awe of being in the same room with the adviser to the next Republican presidential candidate. Rumor is that Peter Abbott will resign from the Bureau to run the national campaign.
Charisma. Conviction. Peter Abbott has both. You wouldn’t think so from the cherubic face and well-fed cheeks, the big sloping forehead and close-cut hair that starts halfway down his skull. Besides, I never trust people from Washington who wear those rimless glasses that try to make it look as if they aren’t wearing glasses at all.
I have been lounging at the end of the conference table, wearing the ragged-out purple parka, dirty jeans, and work boots, insolently spinning a pen across the polished wood. For a dozen years, I have appeared in these halls perfectly put together in a pressed suit and laundered blouse, with manicured nails and polished shoes. Just off the plane from the clean air of Oregon, I haven’t washed my hair since yesterday, and I find it unacceptable to listen to the politicking in this suffocating room.
There are grander themes to respond to.
The wild mustangs, for example. Mesteno, the legendary Kiger stallion—who here gives a damn about him?
Darcy DeGuzman.
“I understand the case turned on a single fingerprint off some…hazelnut brittle?” Abbott raises an ironic eyebrow. “My North Carolina grandma used to make brittle. I haven’t thought of that in years.”
Appreciative chuckles.
“I understand Agent Grey did some quick thinking and snagged the suspect’s prints.”
I sit up, surprised to find him studying me with penetrating sea blue eyes.
“Good job.”
“Thank you, sir.”
And not only that; he also reads verbatim of my role in identifying Dick Stone. How Megan’s fingerprints on the hazelnut wrapper caused a hit off the NCIC data bank. How Megan Tewksbury turned out to be an alias and that the fingerprints of the woman using that name matched those of Laurel Williams, a young environmental scientist at UC Berkeley who disappeared in the seventies. Laurel was arrested during a protest march, and while in the