Murder at Union Station - Margaret Truman [82]
“On orders from no one other than Adam Parmele, currently president of the United States, then director of the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“Wow!”
“You sound positively orgasmic, Joyce. Then again, getting the big story is always better than sex for you real newshounds, isn’t it? Does your intended know that?”
“I’ll see if I can go with this tonight without corroboration,” she said, deliberately ignoring him as she counted off what she’d need. “Unless I can get a statement from Widmer’s people or from the White House.”
“Want my advice?” Stripling said.
“Probably not, but go ahead.”
“Run with it, Joyce. You wait for statements from Widmer and Parmele, you’ll get scooped. I’m giving you this exclusively. Trust me.”
He ended the call and reflected on what he’d told her. It wasn’t exactly true that he’d given the information only to her. He hadn’t spoken to any other members of the press, but he had shared it with the two FBI agents with whom he’d been meeting, laid out for them everything he’d learned from Detective Fred Peck and Senate staffer Jimmy Gale.
His four o’clock meeting with the agents, to whom he’d now mentally assigned the nicknames Curly and Moe, had been like the other meetings he’d suffered through with them. A couple of Bureau losers, he’d decided, who’d pass along what they’d learned to other inept higher-ups who’d analyze it to death and undoubtedly come to the wrong conclusion. That wasn’t his problem. He’d earned his money, pulled in markers owed him, and dutifully passed along all the dirt he could find. As far as he was concerned, job over.
Until… he received a call early that evening from Mark Roper.
“Good evening, Timothy.”
“Hello.”
“I understand you’ve done a very good job, Tim.”
“According to who? Nuts and Bolts?”
“Pardon?”
“The two clowns I’ve been socializing with. We met this afternoon.”
“I know, I know. They say you’ve performed admirably.”
“I doubt if they put it that way. So what do I do now, return the cell phone they gave me?”
“No. You’re still employed.”
“I’ve been thinking, Mark, that I’d like to be retired.”
“Retirement is expensive, Timothy. Get in your car and take a pleasant drive over into Virginia.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. There’s a woman who very much would like to spend an hour with you, enjoy a drink together, chat about life in general.”
“Are you fixing me up?”
“In a sense. You’ll ask for the Klaus reservation in the Grill at Clyde’s, Tysons Corner.”
“Funny name for a woman.”
“Last name.”
“Klaus? Klaus? Sounds familiar.” He snapped his fingers. “Gertrude!”
“Two hours, Timothy. Call me when you get home.”
“This is Joyce Rosenberg with a breaking story from Fox News. We’ve learned through exclusive sources that the murders of Louis Russo at Union Station and his assailant, Leon LeClaire, whose body was found a few days later in Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, might be tied in some way to the upcoming Senate hearings into possible CIA complicity in the assassination seventeen years ago of Central American dictator Constantine Eliana. The Chilean strongman was gunned down during a state visit to Washington.”
File footage of the crime scene at Union Station, and of the aftermath of the assassination of Constantine Eliana, played behind Rosenberg. She continued.
“Fox has also learned that Russo, the Union Station victim who’d come here from Israel where he’d been living under the federal witness protection program after having turned evidence against Mafia leaders in New York, was to testify in person before the committee about his role in the assassination. Russo had collaborated on a book with Washington writer Richard Marienthal about his involvement in the assassination.”
The accompanying visual was of Senator Widmer walking the halls of Congress.
“According to highly placed sources exclusive to Fox News, Russo has claimed in the book that he pulled the trigger on orders from his crime family bosses, and that those same bosses had received the contract to kill Eliana from then CIA director Adam Parmele, now president