She rose and left them.
White turned to Decker. “Okay, where are you going with all this?”
“We have one definite lead, Freddie,” Decker said in a low voice. “Slovakian money in the mouths of two dead people. That doesnottie into either Barry Davidson or Dennis Langley. But it might be connected to Kanak Roe and Gamma Protection Services. And the two dead people worked for Roe. So unless leaving that money behind was some giant coincidence—which stretches plausibility beyond belief—it’s symbolic, and all symbols have meaning.”
“So Lancer and Draymont, and, I suppose, Patty Kelly, are dead because of Kanak Roe and something he did, what, while he was still in the Secret Service all those years ago? For me,thatstretches plausibility to the breaking point. Why wait so long to take action?”
“That’s what we have to find out. And maybe they already took action, three years ago.”
“You mean, when Kanak disappeared?”
Roe came back out at that moment looking at her phone.
“Okay, his name is Arthur Dykes. He and my dad were close friends for a long time. Came up through the Secret Service ranks and worked side by side for quite a few years. He should be able to tell you some things I might not know.”
“Can you give him a heads-up that we’ll be in contact?”
“Yes. But I can’t believe this has anything to do with my father’s past.”
“That’s why we’re checking. To either rule it out or not.”
“Did your father have any enemies?” asked White.
Roe stared directly at her. “In this life, weallhave enemies.”
Chapter69
THEY STAYED OVER IN MIAMI,and the next morning Decker called Arthur Dykes, who had long since retired and was living in Punta Gorda, north of Fort Myers. They made arrangements to meet with him, then left Miami and drove straight to see the retired agent.
Dykes lived in—What else?Decker thought—a golf community. They took the elevator up to his condo and were invited in.
Dykes was medium height and had kept a trim, active figure, though he was now around eighty. He also had a full head of silvery hair. His home was free of knickknacks and the clutter one sometimes saw in the homes of the elderly. He was a widower, he told them, as he invited them in. His four kids were spread out over the country.
Over iced teas as they sat at an outdoor deck, Dykes told them about his time with Kanak Roe and the Secret Service.
“Kanak was driven, focused, wanted to make a career out of it,” he said.
“But he didn’t,” pointed out Decker. “He left nine years short of his full pension. Do you know what changed his mind?”
Dykes looked uncomfortable. “You could retire with twenty years’ service at age fifty, but Kanak wasn’t close to being that old. He wasn’t even forty when he left the Service. He was hard to read. I mean, he was a really good friend for many years, but we came from really different backgrounds. He left his home country when he was a kid, but he saw some crazy shit, let me tell you. And I know it affected him. As good friends as we were, there was a side of Kanak that no one else ever saw, including me.”
“Anything unusual with his Secret Service career?” asked Decker.
“We joined up at the same time. Went through training together. We did normal rotations, worked on protection details for several presidents, including Reagan. Everything was going smoothly. Then, bam, he checked out.”
“So he never talked to you about his abrupt career change?” asked White.
“Not in so many words, but Kanak became…different.”
“When and how?” asked a suddenly tense Decker. “Be as precise as possible.”
“I’ve given it a lot of thought, particularly after I found out you wanted to meet. And I can actually pinpoint it to one specific time.”
“Let’s hear it,” said Decker.
“We were protecting Reagan at the time. This was about eight months after Hinckley shot him. The Service, of course, had changed its protocols to make sure that wouldn’t happen again. Anyway, we’d been on that particular protection detail for about three months. And don’t believe what you see on movies or TV, there’s nothing glamorous about it. It’s just a grind. Tedious as hell ninety-nine percent of the time. The other one percent? You’re screwed if you mess up one little bit.”
“I’m sure,” said White.