Read Online Dead Sleep by Greg Iles - Free Book Online Page B

on skids. The baggage truck squeals to a stop. Agent Sims loads my cases into the chopper, then returns for me. He’s a tall man, and the Bell is cramped quarters for him. Still, he doesn’t look unhappy. Most of his fellow agents probably make the twenty-mile drive to Quantico in a Ford Taurus.
    In less than a minute we are lifting into the night sky over the capital, the Pentagon receding behind us as we rotor southward over the lights of Alexandria, roughly parallel to I-95. In less than ten we’re descending over the Quantico marine base, arrowing down to the FBI Academy helipad. There’s an agent waiting to handle my baggage, but Sims leads me straight into the maze of the Academy building. After a short elevator ride and a walk along a darkened hall, I’m escorted into an empty room, sterile and white, like some convention hotel meeting space.
    â€œWait here,” says Sims.
    The door shuts, then locks from the outside. Do they think I’m going to prowl the halls, looking for something to steal? If someone doesn’t show in the next two minutes I might just sack out on the table. The last thing I want to do is sit down; my behind feels like a massive hematoma. Despite my exhaustion, I’m still nervy from the fire and the knowledge that Wingate is dead. The investigation will be severely handicapped without him. One thing is sure, though. It’s not going to be like last year. Nobody’s shutting me out this time.
    The doorknob clicks. Then the door opens and two men walk in. The first is Daniel Baxter, looking scarcely changed from thirteen months ago when I first met him. He’s dark-haired and compact, about five-ten, and corded with muscle. His eyes are brown and compassionate but steady as gunsights. The man behind him is taller—over six feet—and at least ten years older, with silver hair, an expensive suit, and a bluff Yalie look. But his grayish-blue eyes, hooded by flesh, suggest a sinister George Plimpton. Baxter doesn’t move to shake my hand, and he speaks as he takes his seat.
    â€œMs. Glass, this is Doctor Arthur Lenz. He’s a forensic psychiatrist who consults for the Bureau.”
    Lenz extends his hand, but I only nod in return. Shaking hands with men is always awkward for me, so I don’t do it. There’s no way to equalize the size difference, and I don’t like them to feel they have an edge. The men I know well, I hug. The rest can make do.
    â€œPlease sit down,” says Baxter.
    â€œNo, thanks.”
    â€œI suppose you have an explanation for missing the plane I booked for you?”
    â€œWell—”
    â€œBefore you go any further, let me advise you that Christopher Wingate has been under Bureau surveillance since you called me from the airplane.”
    I wasn’t sure whether I was going to admit being at the fire. Now there’s no way to deny it. “You had people outside his gallery?”
    Baxter nods, his face coloring with anger. “We’ve got some nice shots of you entering the building about forty minutes before it went up.” He opens a file labeled NOKIDS and slides a photo across the table. There I am, in low-res digital splendor.
    â€œI knew Wingate probably had information about my sister.”
    â€œDid he?”
    â€œYes and no.”
    Baxter’s anger boils over at last. “What the hell did you think you were going to accomplish in there?”
    â€œI did accomplish something in there! And it’s a good thing I did, because he would have been dead by the time you guys decided to question him.”
    This sets them back a little.
    â€œAnd if you had people outside the gallery,” I push on, “why didn’t they bust in there and try to save us?”
    â€œWe had one agent at the scene, Ms. Glass, doing surveillance from his car. The fire started on the first floor, and it was explosive in nature. An incendiary device made of gasoline and liquid