The Brothers

by Michael Bronte

  Chapter 9… Who’s Listening?

  “Harry, did you get a copy of the affidavit from the guy over at the cement plant who is disputing Mister Riley’s disability claim?”

  Harry didn’t even look up from his desk. “No, sorry, I’m really backed up,” he said, indicating the papers strewn all over his desk. “Is it urgent?”

  His associate made a face that said, duh! “Yeah, it’s urgent. The hearing is already scheduled and we haven’t even filed the medical reports and the treatment statement to substantiate the claim. If we don’t get on it we’re gonna have to request a postponement and that’s not going to make anyone happy.”

  “I’m sorry Karen, being out of town two weeks in a row has really put me behind the eight ball. I hate to ask, but can you cover me on this one?”

  Karen made another face. “You owe me on this. I’m already up to my eyeballs.”

  Harry put on his best smile. “I know you are, but you’re young, you can take it.”

  “Yeah, right,” she carped as she turned to leave. “I’m not that young, Harry. God forbid I should have a social life.”

  Having been in her shoes, Harry smiled again, mostly to himself now, but the smile faded quickly. There were a dozen deadlines on his desk, but all he could think of was what had happened over previous two days. He shifted a stack of files from his inbox to the inboxes of his two associates, knowing they’d scream bloody murder when they saw his quickly scrawled sticky notes on each one of them. But hey, he was the boss and they’d have to suck it up and deal with it. The thought didn’t do much to alleviate his guilt, however. He’d pay them back somehow, but not now.

  “I’ll be back later,” he called over his shoulder to Mary, his admin/receptionist/office manager as he blew past her on his way to the front door.

  “Later, when?” she called back urgently, knowing what had been sitting on his desk waiting for his return from the funeral. “And what do you want me to do about your two o’clock—who’s probably already on his way here?” she added sarcastically.

  Shit, he’d forgotten about that. Harry stopped in his tracks and looked Mary straight in the eye. She’d been with him for a long time, and normally she didn’t question his requests, but she knew how backed up things were and how important those issues were to their clients. “Can you get Karen and Jack to cover for me and push off whatever they can’t handle?”

  “Are you all right?” she asked. Not getting an immediate response, “I’ll take care of it somehow,” she said, “but you’re gonna have to face the music with them.”

  “You’re a doll,” Harry called as he walked through the front door. Now he had three more people besides Denise that he needed to explain to. He climbed into his car and made the fifteen-minute drive home in ten, his mind racing the entire time. Why he hadn’t thought about this before he couldn’t explain, but now he couldn’t get it out of his mind. He checked the clock, seeing that it was just coming up on two o’clock. Denise wouldn’t be home from work for another couple of hours so he had time. He flew into his home office just as he had done the night before and woke up his laptop, seeing that he’d forgotten to close his internet browser and the webpage showing the article from American Banker magazine. The picture of Brendan Phillips—the real Brendan Phillips, he thought to himself cynically —was still displayed on the screen. He closed it out, thinking he’d deal with that later. What he wanted now was his email, more specifically one particular email that he’d received from Hutch almost two months earlier.

  He clicked on his Outlook icon and clicked on his email box, the one with the email address that was through his internet provider. Like many people, Harry had multiple email addresses that he’d put into use over the years, but this specific one he’d set up way back when in the early years of email, and as such it was still his private address, the one that his family and close friends used from the very beginning. It was also the one most inaccessible to him from outside the house. He knew there was a way to access it remotely, and he’d actually written it down once, but he’d forgotten the procedure and password long ago, which was why he had to come home to check it. It was also the address Hutch always used to correspond with him.

  Where is it, where is it, he asked himself. Looking through his inbox and not seeing it, he switched to his deleted items box and scrolled down, again not finding it. Then, he did a search and finally, after a mild panic thinking he’d deleted it permanently, there it was. Opening it, he read the words carefully, feeling the choke in his throat as he went through it. Hey Harry, Hope all is well with you and Denise, and that all is well with the kids. I need a favor. Are you available to meet with me in NYC in two or three weeks? I would like to discuss a client situation with you in person—you know, no phone, no email trail. I’ve got a predicament and I need someone I can trust implicitly to give me some advice and keep his mouth shut. Can’t go into more detail here. Let me know if you can meet me. Will be on short notice. I’ll take you to Spark’s Steakhouse. Y.I.T.B., Hutch.

  The date on the email was March 20th, about six weeks before the reunion. Harry also found two more related exchanges, one of them being his own response, which was only two lines. He’d written: Hutch, of course I’m available if you’re paying for us to go to Spark’s. Shoot me a date when you zero in. Best, Harry, Y.I.T.B. The third exchange was from Hutch, saying: Harry, trip to NYC is off. I’ll talk to you at the reunion. Hutch. The date on this final exchange was April 14th, and Hutch never got to talk to him at the reunion.

  * * * * *

  Picking up his cell phone, Harry looked for Monica Brimton’s number. He didn’t have it. “Shit,” he said aloud. He picked up his land line and dialed directory assistance. “Yes, I need the number for the Hampshire County Massachusetts district attorney’s office... please,” he added, remembering that Monica was an assistant district attorney. He jotted it down on the back of an envelope sitting on his desk and hurriedly punched up the numbers. Someone answered on the first ring.

  “May I speak with ADA Monica Brimton, please?”

  “I’m afraid she’s in court. Can I take a message, or would you like her voicemail?”

  “Can you tell me when she’ll be available in person?”

  “If she comes directly back to the office from the courthouse, she will probably be here around four-thirty or so.”

  Harry looked at his watch. That would be in a couple of hours. Not the end of the world. “Would you tell her Harry Curlander called. Let me give you my cell number, and I’ll probably call you back later.” He gave the number, thinking, that was easy enough; hopefully she’d call back. If he didn’t hear from her by the end of the day, he’d call Ducky tonight after work and talk to her then. And speaking of work, he should probably get back to it if he didn’t want a mutiny on his hands back at the office. He took the envelope with the DA’s number on it and zipped down Monument Way out of his cul-de-sac, paying no attention to the white van sitting between the Cezinskis’ and the O’Tooles’ houses.

  As he passed the van, one of its two occupants, both of whom were wearing white shirts and hardhats with an insignia from Blake Electric on them, dialed a number with an 857 Boston area code. “He just called the district attorney’s office for Hampshire County in Massachusetts,” the van occupant said as soon as someone picked up.

  “What did he say?” the party on the other end asked.

  “Nothing. She wasn’t in and he left a message.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Not sure. He blew down the street in a hurry, though. He might be going back to his office. Do you want us to stay here, or do you want us to camp out there for a while?”

  “We don’t have a tap on his office lines, do we?”

  “Nope, just the house.”

  “Stay where you are. Maybe we can pick up something tonight when he gets home.”

  “Will do.”

&nbs
p; “Did you get the number he was calling?”

  “Got the number and the name of the person he was calling.”

  “Good. Stay with it. I’ll check in with you later.”

  * * * * *

  “How were things at work today?”

  A question; she was talking to him. That meant the ice was thawing. He didn’t dare tell her that he’d pissed away half the day chasing after clues, clues that would give him more insight into Hutch’s death. They were threads, really, like tiny pieces of lint blowing down the highway. It would take a lot of damned lint to reassemble a suit, thought Harry, and that was very much like what this quest of his was turning into. “I had a lot of catching up to do, but nothing out of the ordinary,” he replied to Denise. “How about with you?” It was good to get her talking. Maybe he could get things back to normal.

  “You wouldn’t believe how Melanie messed up the quarterly projections again.”

  Melanie was her boss, and Melanie’s incompetence was the last things he wanted to hear about right now, but he sat there and took it like a man; he even asked a couple of questions which made the agony of the conversation even more acute for him. Ah, the sacrifices he made.

  They cleared the dinner dishes and Denise’s sister called, which meant that Denise would be on the phone for a while. Perfect, thought Harry. He took the opportunity to go into his home office and call Ducky.

  “Any luck with Monica?” he asked.

  “If you mean did I badger her enough for her to talk to the DA again, the answer is yes, I did badger her enough, and, no, the DA isn’t going to authorize an investigation based on no evidence of foul play, and, no, I can’t badger her any more, she’s already torqued off at me. I’m probably never going to have sex again for the rest of my life.”

  “At least she didn’t throw anything sharp at you.”

  “It’s not funny, Harry. You’re lucky Denise doesn’t have that kind of temper.”

  “Yeah, I’m lucky all right. You have no idea how cold it is in New Jersey this time of year.” Harry waited a moment and sprung it on him. “I was followed, Ducky. When I left the funeral reception to come home, I was followed by someone from the bank.”

  “What do you mean, followed? I don’t understand.”

  It was the same reaction Fish had. Indeed, it was hard to fathom in reality. “Followed, Ducky, like spy shit followed. All the way from Boston past Bridgeport.”

  “Harry, that’s like a fucking hundred miles. Are you high or something?”

  Putting on his patience hat, Harry went through the whole episode with Ducky.

  “That all sounds squirrelly as hell,” said Ducky. “Why in the world would anyone be following you, let alone the CFO from Hutch’s bank? And why would anyone be posing as the CEO? It’s too easy to check. And what does all this have to do with Hutch?”

  Just like with himself, the questions piled up quickly in Ducky’s head. Harry said, “That’s why I thought I should talk to Monica again.”

  Ducky said, “Maybe you’re right. I’ll get her for you.”

  She was on the line in just a few seconds. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “I’m not gonna give up now. I tried calling you at your office today; I guess you didn’t get the message.”

  “If you didn’t leave a voicemail, no, I came straight home after court. What’s up?”

  Did you hear any of what Ducky and I were talking about?”

  “No, I was on the loom weaving a blanket.”

  Fucking smartass, thought Harry. No doubt Ducky had his hands full with this one. He went through the whole thing again, duplicating his conversation with Ducky almost word for word. “I was hoping this would be enough to change the DA’s mind.”

  “I don’t see why it would, Harry. While certainly strange, nothing you’ve told me qualifies as evidence that Hutch’s death was caused by any outside or unnatural circumstance. And nothing you’ve said will cause the medical examiner to change the cause of death.”

  “Can’t anyone dispute the medical examiner’s findings?”

  “That might be difficult now that Hutch has already been buried.”

  “This whole thing stinks, Monica. Hutch was in the best of health, and for him to have had a massive heart attack on his own is just insane. Something had to have caused it to happen, and if that’s the case, then that’s murder and someone is responsible.”

  “Maybe it was accidental.”

  “Accidental my ass. How does someone have an accidental heart attack?”

  Monica went totally silent. “You have a way with words, Harry,” she said finally. “There is something we could look into, however.”

  A glimmer of hope. “Now you’re talking. So what is it?”

  “Do you remember Detective Pruitt?”

  “The frumpy old state police detective?”

  “Don’t underestimate her,” Monica admonished.

  “She gave me the creeps. How does she fit into this?”

  “She called me this morning. She said she saw the medical examiner’s findings and wanted to talk to me about a couple of things that were bothering her about the scene.”

  Harry sat up in his chair. “Don’t tease me, Monica. Ducky might like it, but it’s not for me.”

  “Get your mind out of the gutter, Harry. You Zeta Chi guys are all alike.”

  “And the detective said...?”

  “She was asking about Hutch’s cell phone. She said it was still bothering her as to why anyone driving a big expensive car like Hutch’s Mercedes would be talking on the cell phone rather than using Bluetooth.”

  Harry considered the statement, remembering that Pruitt had made the same point to him on that fateful Saturday night. “Is that it?”

  “No. She was also puzzled as to why Hutch was found inside a locked car. As best she could figure, that car had to be locked either from the inside, or using the remote entry device, both physical actions that had to be performed by Hutch himself, assuming that he was alone, of course.”

  “Of course,” said Harry, hoping this was going somewhere. “Did she have any theories?”

  “She did,” Monica replied. “Maybe you ought to sit down now, Harry. Ducky is wondering if you need a ventilator.”

  Harry smiled, knowing she was trying to keep him calm. “Tell Ducky I appreciate his concern. What about Detective Pruitt’s hypotheses?”

  “She had the notion that Hutch was on the phone outside the car and that something caused him to get back into the car and lock the doors.”

  Harry’s mind suddenly exploded into half a dozen possible scenarios. “It could have been the phone conversation itself, but I see what she’s thinking. Something Hutch saw or heard caused him to get back inside that car and lock the doors as if he was trying to get away from something, or protect himself.”

  “Detective Pruitt voiced a similar thought,” said Monica.

  Monica let his statement dangle there for a while, and Harry could hear Ducky talking to her in the background. “I guess Ducky has been working on you pretty hard,” he said, to which Ducky repeated, “Get your mind out of the gutter, Harry.”

  “He has,” said Monica. “But I understand how important this is to both of you. Detective Pruitt is wondering if she could get hold of that cell phone. It might reveal the identity of the last person Hutch talked to, and that could be significant.”

  “What about Hutch’s phone records?”

  “We’d need a subpoena for that.”

  Right, Harry thought to himself, unless one of the other brothers knew of a way to get around that little speedbump. “I’ll call Suzanne and see if Hutch’s cell phone is among his belongings.”

  * * * * *

  Harry no sooner hung up his phone than it rang again and he picked up thinking Ducky or Monica were calling back. They weren’t; the caller ID read Stuart Eisenberg.

  “Doc. What’s the word?”
Small talk wasn’t needed.

  “I got a call today from one of my cardiologist buddies and I thought you’d like to hear what he had to say.”

  Doc hadn’t made it to the wake or the funeral, and as such Harry hadn’t followed up with him. As promised, however, Doc had made inquiries about the possibility of someone with a healthy heart having a massive heart attack at fifty-two years of age with no symptoms or warnings whatsoever. Harry said, “I’d like to hear it very much.”

  Doc began, “Well, my friend, Doctor Kadam, started with the usual warning that even a healthy person can suffer a heart attack when there is a presence of soft plaque inside the coronary arteries. In such cases the soft plaque could break off or rupture which could cause a blood clot that would travel to the heart, blocking blood flow and causing severe myocardial infarction. It’s not unusual that such situations are not picked up in a stress test. Someone could pass a stress test today and have a heart attack tomorrow. Remember that famous news anchor that died a while back? That’s what happened to him.”

  “Yeah, we know all that, Doc, and according to the ME that wasn’t the case.”

  “I figured that, and that’s how I responded.”

  “So?” Harry didn’t hear anything for some moments and said, “Doc, are you there?”

  “Harry, what I’m about to tell you sounds a bit farfetched, but Doctor Kadam went into something that really rattled my cage. It sounded really spooky.”

  “You’re beginning to scare me, Doc.”

  “Well, it made me perk up and pay attention.”

  “Doc, what the hell? You’re killing me here.”

  “Sit down and buckle up, Harry. Have you ever heard of the Office of Strategic Services, otherwise known as the OSS?”

  “I’m not sure. Wasn’t the OSS the predecessor of the CIA?”

  “Very good. There probably aren’t a lot of people who know that.”

  “I watch Jeopardy a lot.”

  “Having done its job during World War II, the OSS was dissolved after the war and went through some reiterations that eventually became the CIA. According to Doctor Kadam, it was around this time and through the 1950s that they started looking into some technology that was reputed to be able to assassinate targets so that they appeared to die from natural causes. With the advent of the Cold War, the concern revolved around the vulnerability of U.S. leaders to assassination by, quote, natural causes.”

  Just as Doc had described, Harry perked up immediately. “This is for real, right?”

  “It’s for real, all right, and it gets better. As time progressed, the causes of death that were researched were cancer, heart attack, and cerebral hemorrhage, each of these being induced in the target victim. Originally, the inducing methods involved the use of chemicals, which obviously proved to be unsatisfactory since they could be detected in any autopsy, and even specially developed drugs or chemicals had limited opportunities.”

  “Opportunities,” said Harry. “Funny context for that word.”

  “Ain’t that the truth? According to Doctor Kadam, the research continued into the mid to late sixties and expanded into other government agencies.”

  “What the hell kind of other government agencies would get into something like that?”

  “Probably very secret ones,” Doc replied, “but according to Kadam one of them was called... wait, I have it here... the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, which did advanced research for DoD. It was started in the Eisenhower administration and part of its purpose was to cook up R and D projects that expanded the boundaries of science and technology, some of it, quote, ‘beyond the requirements of the military.’”

  “As in the science and technology of turning people into corpses.”

  “Some people, evidently,” said Doc. “The ARPA research studied techniques on how to induce cerebral hemorrhage and heart seizures from outside the body without the use of chemicals.”

  “Fucking A,” said Harry. “So that any doctor doing an autopsy couldn’t detect foul play and had no choice but to conclude that death was due to natural causes.”

  “Bingo,” said Doc. “Evidently the research continued over decades and the good old US of A wasn’t the only duck swimming in that pond. The Soviets were developing their own technology, and MI6 was in on the act also, looking into human mind control using low frequency microwave beams.”

  Harry took a breath and he could feel his heart beating faster. “Is that what was used to induce the heart attacks?”

  “Not quite. Supposedly, the US developed a radio frequency weapon that CIA assassins used, and the Soviets developed a similar weapon that could kill an animal as big as a goat from a range of one kilometer. Can you imagine? Popping a beam into the middle of someone’s chest from half a mile away and causing one’s heart to contract to the point where it stops blood entering into it? Talk about scary....”

  “How does your Doctor Kadam know all this?

  “You know, I didn’t want to ask. Kadam is from India, although I don’t know if that has anything to do with anything, but he’s done a lot of things in his career and I know he’s published a lot of material over the years.”

  “And you think this is all for real?” Harry asked for the second time.

  “I think it is. You can go on the internet and read all about this stuff.”

  “My head is spinning, Doc. I’m not sure what to make of it.”

  “I’m not sure either,” Doc responded. “But it’s a possible explanation for why those autopsy findings turned out the way they did. I think we owe it to Hutch to find out the truth about all this.”

  “I think you’re right, Doc.”

  * * * * *

  One of the occupants of the van which now belonged to Roker Plumbing instead of Blake Electric dialed the same number with the Boston 857 area code he’d dialed six hours earlier that day. “I think we’re blown,” he said as soon as someone answered and they went through their protocols to make sure the call was secure.

  “Fuck. Don’t tell me the local cops showed up to check you out? I thought we had that covered. Did you change your location and change the sign on the van per procedure?”

  “It’s not that. Our mark has been on the phone for the last hour. His first call went to a number in Massachusetts belonging to a Richard Swan, and he ended up talking to him and someone else named Monica who we’re sure is the same ADA he tried to reach this afternoon. Swan and this ADA chick must be married or living together.”

  “And?”

  “And it sounds like the ADA and the original investigator on the case are sniffing around and they’re not buying into the ME’s findings that the COD was due to natural causes.”

  The 857 party said, “Fuck,” again and said, “Maybe we can squash that. You said the ADA is Hampshire County, right? What about this detective person?”

  “It’s a Detective Pruitt, state police evidently, but I think your idea is too little too late. There’s more.”

  “You’ve had a busy night. What’s the there’s more part?”

  The van occupant said, “As soon as he got off that call he got another call from someone he called Doc. The caller ID belonged to a Stuart Eisenberg with a Chicago area code. We’re running that down now. Our boy Harry and Doc sounded like they’re old friends, and they sounded like they were old friends with Hutchinson also. Doc has also been doing some snooping around, it seems.”

  Mister 857 area code said, “From the way you’re saying it, it doesn’t sound good.”

  “It isn’t. The information this Doc person has discovered could blow this op wide open.”

  “Are you telling me he knows the technology?”

  “I don’t think he’s aware that he knows. At this point it’s only a crazy far out possibility that would explain their friend’s death.”

  Mister 857 said, “That’s still way too close for comfort. We could have a whole bunch Langley boys left
holding their nutsacks having to explain how a gang of camel scrubbers were operating right under our noses. If our man goes public with what he doesn’t know he’s just discovered, or if our friends from Qatar somehow get wind of it, he could end up in the same condition as his friend Hutchinson.”

  “And so could his friend Doc.”

  “Where did this Doc get his information?”

  “A doctor friend of his named Kadam.”

  “And who the fuck is he?”

  “No clue.”

  “Then fucking find out.”

  “You’re gonna need to handle that from there. This van isn’t exactly an ideal base of operations.”

  “That won’t be a problem. Shut it down and come on in. We’re gonna need to rethink this.”

  * * * * *

  He found a restaurant that served Fattah with eggplant and pulled the black BMW into a parking spot outside. He decided not to wear his keffiyeh this time as the days were long and even if he stayed inside the car at all times it would be noticeable. Indeed, it was almost eight-thirty in the evening and it was still quite bright out. He looked at his watch noting that it would be four-thirty tomorrow morning in Qatar and he wondered if he should wait before calling since his compatriots were quite probably asleep. He decided not to. He dialed 011 plus the 974 international calling code for Qatar and as usual the call to Doha went through without a problem. Surprisingly, the man he called Mushir answered on the first ring, sounding wide awake.

  “Allo, as-salam alaykom.” Hello, peace be upon you. It was his usual greeting, however ironic it seemed since peace was the least likely concept that dwelled in his brain.

  “Wa alydom as-slam,” the caller replied. Peace be upon you as well. “I hope I did not wake you, Mushir.”

  “I am waking early today in preparation for special fajr.”

  Fajr prayers were usually before sunrise, but the Mushir was up earlier than that. “I will be performing maghrib prayers shortly,” the caller said, noting that sunset was imminent. “I will be joining you in spirit.”

  “As-salamu alaykum,” the Mushir said.

  That was quite unusual. He must be in a good mood. “Wa-alaikum-us-salaam,” the caller said back to him. And onto you the peace. “It seems we are not the only ones watching the accomplice,” the caller said bluntly, hating to break up this little moment between them and getting down to business.

  There was an almost audible pause on the phone. “Please explain, mujahid.”

  “Two American government khanzeer swine have been watching his every move for the last few hours. They seem to be centered on the residence so I am assuming they have installed listening devices inside the house. If that is the case, I assume they also have his phone monitored as well.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “They are sloppy operators. They are operating from an enclosed vehicle, and in the typical American way they are very arrogant in how they carry out their duties. I was able to see inside the vehicle with my binoculars when one of them stepped behind it to urinate thinking he was hidden by the vehicle. I’m sure it was a listening station.”

  The Mushir asked, “About these two khanzeer, you described them as being government swine. What makes you think that is the case, saheb?”

  Saheb? So he was being friendly now. There had to be someone else there with him, the caller thought warily. He’d better choose his words carefully. “The vehicle they were using and the equipment I saw inside was very sophisticated and very expensive, not the kind of equipment that a small town police force could afford. It has to be government, but it could be from any of their law enforcement agencies—FBI, CIA, NSA, ATF—they would all have access to that type of technology.” It sounded like the Mushir muffled the phone and did indeed say something to someone else nearby. “It is good that we did not move too quickly on this accomplice. We could easily have been discovered,” the caller added, wanting to point out that he’d been advocating patience in this operation since before they’d taken care of the banker. It was important that the time and the place be carefully planned for maximum effect with the least chance of detection.

  “So our accomplice has his own government spying on him,” the Mushir concluded. “Is there a chance this is a strategy on their part to discover us for political purposes?”

  A very good question, one that the caller hadn’t thought of. “That is indeed a possibility,” he responded.

  “Are you still certain that no one in that country is aware of your presence?” the Mushir went on.

  Another good question he hadn’t thought of. Perhaps the Americans inside the van weren’t the only ones being arrogant. “I don’t think so, but I will be more careful, Mushir.”