BAD DEEDS: A Dylan Hunter Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers) Read online

  He turned to search Conn’s face, peered into the thin slits that hid his eyes, sought some reassuring reference point deep within the man.

  “You began your political career in the nonprofit world, Ash. You started out as a crusader for environmental issues. And you wrote the best book on environmentalism since that of your mentor, Al Gore—in many respects, a better book.”

  “Why, thank you, Avery. That means a great deal, coming from you.”

  Trammel waved his hand dismissively. “As you know, that kind of intellectual pedigree means a great deal to me. I am a man of ideas. Of principles, if you will. Ash, you have never given me cause to doubt yours … So, yes—at this point, you may count on my support. I shall be happy to add my name to your exploratory committee. And I’ll also send off a check to your political action committee.”

  Ashton Conn flashed his white teeth and extended his hand again. “I cannot tell you how grateful I am for that, Avery. I promise you that I won’t betray your trust.”

  “I am not concerned about any personal betrayal, Ash,” he said, releasing the politician’s grip and turning to face the city again.

  As the elevator descended, he was amused to watch the Pentagon appear to sink into the Potomac. There are ways other than bombs.

  “Just don’t betray our cause, Ash,” he added.

  TWELVE

  The doors of their train car slid open at the Dupont Circle Metro stop. He gripped Annie’s arm, holding her back, letting all the other passengers depart first. Then they darted out just as the doors closed. He paused with her on the platform as the silver-gray train pulled away and accelerated into the tunnel, drawing a cool column of air in its wake.

  Hunter pretended to inspect the list of subway stops posted on a nearby directional post while he surreptitiously watched the departing passengers move on toward the escalator and the exit. When the platform cleared, he said, “Okay. Let’s go.”

  They headed toward the escalators that led to the Metro’s south exit onto Dupont Circle, at Connecticut Avenue and 19th Street. The click of her boot heels on the reddish brown tiles echoed off concrete walls that arched overhead, in a honeycomb pattern.

  “A bit paranoid, don’t you think?” she said.

  “You’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you.”

  They took the short escalator to the upper platform, exited through the turnstiles, and stepped onto the longer escalator that would transport them to the street. He kept his eyes on the growing blue oval of light above him and scanned the people descending on the parallel escalator to his left. His long leather coat was unzipped, and he stood so that his right hand rested casually inside it, on his hip—just inches from the concealed holster at the small of his back.

  “After everything you’ve said about this ‘Wonk’ guy,” she said, “you’ve aroused my curiosity. I can’t wait to meet him.”

  “You may change your mind in a few minutes.”

  “Seriously, I’m glad he agreed to let me accompany you.”

  “It took some persuading. He didn’t even like the idea of me visiting him in his apartment. This will be a first for me, too.”

  “So, he’s a reclusive genius.”

  “Genius—definitely. Reclusive? I don’t think so. Only hyper-secretive.”

  “Just like you, then. But he could have met us at your office. It’s just a short walk down Connecticut.”

  “For Wonk, there’s no such thing as a ‘short walk.’ You’ll understand when you see him. But he told me he has a cold and didn’t want to come outside into the chill. That’s the only reason he relented and is letting us visit him here.”

  They emerged from the escalator next to a massive, block-long office building, a twelve-story high-rise in red brick. The aroma of pastries wafted in the air; its source was the building’s doughnut shop, right next to the Metro entrance.

  “Wonk’s favorite cuisine,” Hunter said. “Probably why he chose to live here.”

  Annie laughed. “As the realtors say, ‘Location, location, location.’ To make a good first impression, let me run in and buy him a couple.”

  “A couple? You don’t know Wonk.”

  They went in and he ordered a box of a dozen assorted doughnuts. Then they walked a short way down 19th and into the building’s entrance.

  The floor, walls, decorative planters, and guard desk of the Art Deco lobby gleamed in complementary, tasteful tones of brown and beige marble. While the security guard announced them, Hunter looked at the building directory. The offices were filled with media outlets, healthcare consulting firms, and—ironically, he thought—environmental nonprofits.

  During the elevator ride to the eighth floor, he tried a last time to prepare her. “Remember, his personal hygiene is a disaster. You may not even have a place to sit down in there—or want to.”

  “I consider myself warned.”

  They left the elevator and walked down the hallway past a number of doors bearing company logos. They found his number and Hunter knocked.

  When the door opened, what stood before them was someone the approximate size and shape of a small mountain.

  Annie thought the man looked to be in his late thirties. He had tea-colored, curly, unkempt hair, and ruddy cheeks the size of baseballs. In place of a neck, a bag of flesh hung from the stub of his chin and tucked into the open collar of his gray plaid pajama top. The huge pajamas were covered—barely—by a vast gray terrycloth bathrobe, the largest she had ever scene. A large red stain—spaghetti sauce? pizza?—splotched its lapel; it was held shut—almost—by two mismatched cloth bathrobe belts, knotted end-to-end and tied in a small bow that rested on his enormous belly.

  The man’s dark eyes glinted at her suspiciously from behind black-framed eyeglasses; one temple clung to the rest by white adhesive tape; they balanced on a nose that looked red and irritated.

  “Hi, Wonk,” Dylan said, smiling. “I want you to meet Annie. Annie Woods, this is Freddie Diffendorfer.”

  It was the first time she had heard his real name. She could barely tame a laugh into a mere smile. “So very nice to meet you,” she said, balancing the doughnut box in one hand and extending the other.

  He looked at her palm with horror. “No! I am ill,” he said, retreating a few steps back into the room.

  “Oh, I forgot,” she said, remembering. Well, at least he’s considerate. “Dylan told me that you were sick.”

  “Yes I am,” he said. “And obviously, I do not wish for anyone to make my condition even worse.”

  She had to stifle another laugh.

  “Obviously,” Dylan repeated. She caught his eyes; he was having trouble suppressing his own mirth. “May we come in?”

  “You may. However, please forgive the appearance of the apartment.” His voice was high-pitched and a touch whiny. “My cleaning lady has been out of town, and I thus have been unable to maintain it properly, due to my illness.”

  She entered, followed by Dylan. Then stopped in the foyer and gaped.

  Small replica Greek sculptures adorned end tables in the living room and niches on bookcases. Several framed Dutch master reproductions hung on the walls. Well-tended broadleaf plants sprouted from large, colorful ceramic planters sited strategically around the room. She couldn’t spot a single speck of dirt or errant thread on the thick, dark-burgundy expanse of carpeting beneath their feet.

  Their host shuffled like an ungainly walrus into the living room, stopped beside a massive stuffed chair, then turned to them. “Please be seated on the sofa,” he said, puffing slightly from the exertion.

  Dylan looked at her and spread his hands.

  “We got something for you from downstairs,” she said, gesturing with the box. “Shall I bring it to the coffee table?”

  “Oh, no! Thank you very much, Miss Woods. But I permit absolutely no food in any area of my residence except for the kitchen. Would you please leave it in there, on the table?”

  “Certainly. But please call me Annie.�
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  The apartment had an open floor plan and she walked into the kitchen area. The metal fixtures sparkled. Lights reflected from the polished black surfaces of the refrigerator and stove. Not one dish or cup, clean or dirty, marred the granite countertops, kitchen table, or sink. She couldn’t see a single crumb, smudge, or fingerprint anywhere. The faint fragrance of lemon was in the air. It was as if this were a model apartment, uninhabited and meant only for show.

  She left the doughnut box on the table and returned to the living room. “And what name do you prefer that I call you?”

  He looked at Dylan uncertainly, then back to her.

  “Dylan has a nickname for me, which is fine, as we are friends. But if you do not mind—until we know each other well—would you please refer to me as ‘Frederick’?”

  Frederick?

  “Of course. Your home is lovely, Frederick. How do you manage to keep it so spotless?”

  He frowned. “Spotless?” He gestured toward a box of tissues on the lamp table beside his chair, and then at a small copper wastepaper basket beneath it, half-filled with used tissues. “Look at that. It is a complete mess. I hope you do not mind.”

  She stared at the morbidly obese, disheveled man in the soiled bathrobe, then at his impeccably neat surroundings. “No, I don’t mind at all, Frederick.”

  Hunter waited for Annie to take a place on the sofa, then seated himself before the neat stack of files that Wonk had waiting for him on the coffee table.

  “Before we begin, Dylan, allow me to take a precaution first.” Wonk picked up what looked like a complicated remote from the lamp table beside him, raised it, and pressed a button. “There. We can speak freely, now.”

  “Jammer?”

  Wonk nodded. “Though I have already conducted my daily sweep for electronic bugs, you cannot be too careful when you are dealing with the federal government.”

  “Tell me about it,” Hunter said, looking Annie’s way. She answered with a mock scowl.

  Wonk plopped himself down into his oversized club chair, which groaned under its burden. “I keep the jammer down the hall in my office. It is short range—only a fifty-foot effective radius, but sufficient to block nearby electronic surveillance devices. I do not use it for extended periods, however. Interrupting cell communications in adjacent rooms might draw the attention of two ‘Other Government Agencies’ that maintain front-company offices in this building.”

  “Really.” Annie sat forward. “How would you know about such agencies and their surveillance capabilities?”

  Wonk laced his pudgy fingers across the massive arc of his belly. “Internet and communications surveillance happen to be my chief areas of expertise, Annie. In fact, those two entities engage my services regularly, as an outside contractor. Several years ago, for our mutual convenience, one of them—located only an elevator ride away—made a special arrangement with the building management so that I could maintain my private residence here, in what otherwise is a strictly commercial office building.”

  “Good for you, Wonk,” Hunter said. Maybe those affiliations will prove useful to us in the future. “I gather you were able to find out some things for me about WildJustice and CarboNot?”

  “Indeed. In addition to the usual newspaper and magazine articles, I discovered some investigatory material in federal law enforcement files. The top folder in the stack is about WildJustice. The thick one beneath it contains material relevant to its founder and leader, Zachariah Boggs. The rest are about CarboNot.”

  “Let’s talk about him first,” Hunter said, opening the second file. “Can you give me a summary?”

  A slight, cherubic smile formed. He closed his eyes and began to recite from memory.

  “Zachariah Joseph Boggs, Ph.D. Age 40. Born May 1, 1968, near Asheville, North Carolina. The only child of devout fundamentalist Baptist parents.” Wonk opened his eyes. “I assume that may explain his somewhat ‘biblical’ name. Hence, his antipathy to it. Today, he prefers to be called Zachary, and to a few intimates, Zak.” He closed his eyes again. “His parents were not highly educated. But Boggs universally was regarded as intellectually gifted. He also was described, even at an early age, as arrogant, brash, narcissistic, and cruelly indifferent to the feelings of others. During his youth, he surpassed his parents in religious zealotry. One source from that period said, ‘He wielded the Bible like a billy club.’”

  “Well,” Annie interrupted, “I guess he had the fanatical personality of a ‘true believer’ even then.”

  Wonk opened his eyes and nodded. “So it would seem. During his teen years, however, he experienced some sort of disenchantment and rebelled against his parents and their religion. Due to his academic achievements, Boggs received several full scholarship offers. He studied physics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, then did graduate and post-graduate work at MIT, where he received his Ph.D.”

  He paused to reach for a tissue, then blew his nose loudly. He used two fingers to hold the tissue by its corner, leaned to the side, and deposited it carefully into the wastebasket. Then he reached for a tiny bottle of hand disinfectant on the lamp table.

  “How did he get involved in radical environmentalism?” Hunter asked.

  “It apparently began during his undergraduate years.” He squeezed the bottle into his palms, returned it to the table, then rubbed his chubby hands together vigorously. “Those were the early days of alarm about global warming. Government scientists had extrapolated doomsday prophecies and worst-case scenarios from their mathematical computer models. According to a magazine profile, Boggs seized upon the theory like a convert to a new dogma. He became as fanatically outspoken about global warming as he had been about his earlier religious beliefs.”

  He watched, amused, as Wonk dried his clean hands on the dirty bathrobe.

  “Soon he began to read more broadly about environmentalist philosophy. When he transferred to MIT, he began to associate in Cambridge with proponents of what is known as ‘Deep Ecology.’”

  Hunter nodded. “I’ve read about it. The ‘John Muir wing’ of the environmentalist movement. They believe humans are no more significant than bugs. And considerably more malignant.”

  “After college,” Wonk went on, “Boggs began to work as a scientific consultant for Nature Legal Advocacy and other green groups. Even though his physics specialty had little to do with the subject matter of their various studies—which dealt mainly with toxic chemicals or endangered species—NLA would add his name as a ‘peer reviewer.’ His Ph.D. from MIT helped lend their reports a scientific cachet with the media.”

  “That sounds extremely cynical,” Annie said.

  “And extremely interesting,” Hunter added. “NLA is the group behind the current fracking scare. So there’s a direct connection to Boggs.”

  “Cynical, yes,” Wonk said. “However, I do not believe there is a connection any longer between Boggs and NLA. In fact, it was the group’s cynicism and hypocrisy—rampant among mainstream environmental groups—that eventually disillusioned him. NLA resisted his calls for greater militancy. Eventually, he had a nasty public break with them. In a movement publication, he accused them of selling out. He complained about their plush Washington headquarters and high salaries, as well as their lobbying machinations and political compromises.”

  Hunter riffled the documents in the file folder with his thumb. “You mentioned federal law enforcement reports. What are those about?”

  Wonk raised his forefinger. “That is where matters took an ominous turn.” He tried to lean forward, but gave it up and fell back into the chair. “Do you recall the ‘Technobomber’ case of about ten years ago? When someone was sending bombs to various corporate headquarters?”

  “I do. He killed several people and maimed a lot of others. They finally got that guy—some activist in Boston, right?”

  “Martin Malleck. An MIT chemistry student working on his Ph.D. Based on an anonymous tip, the FBI searched his apartment and found physical evidenc
e, including chemicals that they linked directly to several of the bombings. Malleck was arrested and eventually convicted. Later, he committed suicide in prison.” Wonk nodded at the file folder in Hunter’s hand. “However, Dylan, you may be interested to know that he was not the FBI’s initial suspect. For several months prior to that, as you will see in the reports, they were investigating Zachariah Boggs.”

  He felt a little jolt. “Really.”

  “It is a fact. Even after his conviction and imprisonment, Malleck continued to profess his innocence. He insisted that the explosives in his apartment had been planted by someone. He claimed the same thing in the suicide note that he left in his cell. As you will see in the investigative file, some people who knew him—and at least two FBI investigators—believed him. Meanwhile, Boggs had airtight alibis, and the physical evidence proved sufficient for the federal prosecutors and the jury to establish Malleck’s culpability.”

  He was no longer seeing Wonk; he was envisioning the bomb rigged to the cabin door. After a few seconds, he caught himself. He dropped the file atop the stack and sat back. Glanced over at Annie. She was staring at him, eyes wide.

  “What else?” he asked.

  “Soon after, Boggs established WildJustice—in his words, ‘to reclaim the ideals of the corrupt environmental movement.’ To date, it has attracted only a few hundred followers, and its core group is even smaller, perhaps a dozen. For the most part, the latter live—what is the term?—‘off the grid’: simply, ascetically, and naturally, eschewing most technology, practicing veganism, while engaging in acts of ‘monkeywrenching.’”

  Hunter saw Annie’s puzzled expression. “It comes from the phrase, ‘tossing a monkey wrench into the works.’ It refers to sabotage directed against corporations, scientific research labs, and advanced technology.”

  “As the reports I have compiled indicate, Dylan, a host of such incidents have been attributed to WildJustice over the years. Yet, though they publicly endorse such criminality, they have been extremely careful not to leave behind incriminating evidence. Until this past month, that is. In recent weeks, they have overtly attacked hydraulic fracturing enterprises in Pennsylvania. It appears that Boggs and his associates are trying to foment and lead a wider rebellion among environmentalists.”