Baldacci, David - The Collectors by Baldacci David

Author:Baldacci, David
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

Chapter 34

While Annabel e and Milton were meeting with the architects, Stone had ventured into the neighborhood where Bob Bradley had lived. He'd dressed in a floppy hat, oversize coat and baggy pants, and he had on a leash Goff, Caleb's mongrel dog, which had been named after the first director of the Rare Books Division. This was a dodge that he'd used before, and had actual y originated in his old job with the government. People just could not bring themselves to be suspicious about someone walking a pet. Stone had no idea, of course, that Roger Seagraves had used the same ploy in making his escape after kil ing Bradley.

As he strol ed down the street, he could see that al that was left of the town house was a blackened mass of toppled studs and a scorched brick chimney. The two attached homes on either side of Bradley's residence had also been extensively damaged. Stone looked around the area. It was not a particularly affluent part of town. Being a congressman was not the financial windfal that some people thought it was. Members had to maintain two residences, one in their home state and one in the capital city, and the cost of housing in D. C. was extraordinarily high. Some congressmen, particularly newer ones, often shared homes in Washington or even slept in their offices for this reason. Yet the veteran Bradley had lived alone.

Milton managed to get Stone background information on the man, and Stone had also consulted the journals kept at his hiding place. Together they had presented an overal picture of

Bradley. Born in Kansas, he had had a typical politician's career, if there was such a thing, serving twelve terms in the House and rising through the ranks to head up the House Intel igence Committee for over a decade before assuming the position of Speaker. With his death at age fifty-nine, he left behind a wife and two grown children, al back in Kansas. From what Stone could learn the man had been honest and his career never threatened by scandal. His stated purpose of cleaning up the Congress could very wel have made him many powerful enemies and led to his death. Some might conclude that assassinating a man who was third in line to succeed the president would be too audacious a move. However, Stone knew that was a pipe dream: If one could kil presidents, nobody was safe.

Official y, Bradley's murder was stil an ongoing investigation, although the media, after a flurry of stories about it, had been uncharacteristical y mum. Perhaps the police were starting to suspect that the terrorist group didn't real y exist and Bradley's death was due to something far more complex than the work of bigoted and violent lunatics.

He stopped next to a tree so Goff could take a leak. Stone could sense the presence of authority al around him. He'd been in the spy business long enough to know that the truck parked

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