Apparently Teasley wasn't firing fast enough. Her boss took over. "Corte, let me read this: 'It was alleged that Agent Corte--' "
The Justice Department's Internal Affairs Division had gotten the job title wrong too. Not many people know about our organization.
" '--had a conflict of interest in running the Kowalski protection assignment, endangering the two witnesses in his care. Although a half dozen personal security professionals within three government agencies stated that standard procedure would have been to secrete the two witnesses in protective custody in the Providence, Rhode Island, federal penitentiary, Agent Corte chose not to do so but to keep the witnesses first in a motel and then to transfer them to a safe house outside of Newport, Rhode Island.' "
"I'm familiar with the report," I told him, braking hard for a lazy deer.
But he continued to read, "'The result was that Henry Jonathan Loving, who'd been hired to kidnap and extract information from the witnesses, injured a local police officer and a bystander. He came close to successfully kidnapping at least one of the witnesses in question.
" 'During the investigation into the handling of said matter, it came to light that Loving was the same individual who had murdered Agent Corte's superior, Abraham Fallow, the director of . . .' It's redacted. 'And a personal friend of Agent Corte's. The conclusion of the investigating panel was that Agent Corte, motivated by personal revenge, chose not to put the witnesses in question into the federal detention center but rather kept them in public, with full knowledge that Loving would attempt to kidnap them there.
" 'He in effect used the witnesses as bait to capture or kill Loving. This is supported by the fact that the witnesses were convicted felons and, accordingly, Agent Corte would feel more at liberty to imperil them.' "
He concluded, "'It was only through good fortune that the witnesses were not lost and the trial proceeded on schedule.' "
"Good fortune," I repeated softly. Something I absolutely do not believe in.
"Well?"
The penitentiary in Providence was more dangerous than the worst parts of the city itself and that was saying something. My protege at the time had learned that Henry Loving had done business with at least two people inside the slammer. As for the principals, yes, they were felons. But we shepherds never make moral judgments about the people we protect. The only quality in a principal that matters is a beating heart. Our job is to keep it that way.
But if I hadn't justified myself to my boss, I sure wasn't going to do so to Westerfield and his young assistant.
"It's the same thing here, Corte. The motel in Providence, the Hillside Inn. The safe house there, the safe house here. From what we can reconstruct, back at the Hillside, after Loving showed up and was in pursuit, you could have escaped right away but you paused in the back of the motel. You engaged him, with the Kesslers in the vehicle with you."
People who explain are weak, Corte. A shepherd can't be weak. He can be wrong but he can't be weak.
Abe's words, of course. I realized that Westerfield must be upset; he hadn't lapsed into French once during this conversation. I sped around a slow-moving Prius.
"So what happened is the trap in Rhode Island didn't work out after all, and your fox shows up still alive yesterday. So you set out to nail him all over again, using the Kesslers. And now, I understand from Aaron there's a terrorist component."
"A . . . what?"
"Ali Pamuk, aka Clarence Brown."
"We haven't found any terrorist connections. His father's Turkish, and he's contributed money to a mosque here in Virginia. He's also played with his identity. That's all we know at this point. We're investigating."
"But it's possible that a terror cell wants to kidnap Kessler and find out what he knows and who else might be involved in his investigation."
"Like I said, Jason, we don't know."
"Look, Corte, I appreciate you've saved the Kesslers from two tight situations. You're talented . . . and you were lucky. We can't risk that the third time Loving'll have more luck than you do."
Luck . . .
"Kessler may be the only key to a serious terror threat. We can't afford to have him jeopardized, like you've been doing. I have the attorney general's okay. I want the Kesslers and the woman's sister in a slammer now. The Hansen facility we were talking about earlier. I've already contacted them."
I pictured him looking at Teasley with an expression that said, See, that's how it's done.
"I want to talk to my boss."
"This is coming from the attorney general."
Everybody's boss.
I found I was driving ten over the limit. I eased up on the gas.
Westerfield continued, speaking reasonably, "If this was some bullshit embezzlement or organized crime thing, I wouldn't care so much. But now there's a terror component, we can't fool around. We need to make sure we do everything we can to identify a threat. We also don't need any blowback."
Even spending so much time inside the Beltway I could never quite get used to the lexicon.
"I want them in Hansen as soon as possible. You want to keep after Loving, be my guest. You want to keep tracking down the primary, fine. You just aren't going to use my witness for cheese in your mousetrap."
His witness . . . The famous hero cop.
Westerfield continued, "I'm ordering an armored van now."
"No."
"I'll just call Aaron and find out where they are."
"He doesn't know."
"What?"
"I haven't told him."
Need-to-know . . .
"Well, that's . . ." Westerfield had trouble processing this, though I wasn't sure why. I doubted people in his organization shared everything with one another.
"I hope this isn't going to become a fight, Corte. Mon Dieu . . . that would not be good."
Ah, the French. At last.
Finally I said, "Here's what I'll agree to do. I'll call Aaron. If he confirms that the AG's ordered them into a slammer"--I let that linger--"I'll arrange for one of our armored transports to get them to the Hansen facility. But I'll tell you . . . a District cop? Inside? Ryan's not going to be happy at all. I don't know how cooperative he'll be after we move them."
"You let me worry about that, Corte. This has to happen immediately. I can rely on you?"
Meaning he was going to call Aaron Ellis in about ten minutes to make sure I was doing what I'd said.
"Yes."
"Thanks. It's really for the best--for us, for them, for the country."
I didn't know if those words were directed toward me, toward Teasley or an invisible audience.
After I disconnected, I gave it a few minutes and, without bothering to call Aaron Ellis for the confirmation, dialed Billy to ask about an armored van.
Chapter 23
HOTELS ARE GOOD meeting places in our line of work. They never close and even if you aren't registered there, nobody pays much attention if you sit quietly in the lobby in a business suit and pretend to look over your computer, like you're waiting for a meeting.
Which was what I was doing now.
At 11:10 a.m. Claire duBois arrived at the Tysons Hyatt. She was wearing a black pantsuit but a different black one from yesterday. The pattern, I noticed. A thin burgundy sweater underneath. As she sat down I smelled jasmine. Her eyes were red. I supposed she hadn't gotten much sleep. Her face was troubled and for a moment I thought we had a security situation on our hands. But she simply said in a ragged whisper, "I heard Billy's signed out a secure transport for a run to a slammer in D.C. He was secret about it. I mean, I sensed he was. Inscrutable. I'm not sure exactly what that means but it seemed to apply. When I walked toward him he headed the other way."
That was duBois's very long way of asking a very simple question.
"First." I gestured across the lobby, picked up my laptop and we walked to the Starbucks stand. It wasn't my favorite coffee. But it had caffeine and that I did need. We got two cups and Claire duBois went for some
food. A vegetable wrap. We returned to where we'd been sitting. I explained about Westerfield's call, though not the Rhode Island part or the inquiry. I supposed that duBois knew about the matter, which was there for public consumption, provided you were up for a little insidious digging, as Chris Teasley had done. It wasn't the sort of thing to bring up with your protege and fellow workers unnecessarily.
When I told her the U.S. attorney had demanded the Kesslers and Maree go into a slammer, duBois blinked as if I'd said the District were seceding. "But he can't do that. You're in charge of the principals."
I told her, "But he's in charge of the sanctity of the nation. And of his career." I chose not to work the word "self-righteous" into my comments. I also chose to tell her nothing more. "In any case, that's not our priority at the moment. We need to find who's hired Loving. Tell me what you've got so far."
"I'm still checking on the email you sent, following up on the tracker situation, the police department."
Since I'd given her the assignment only a half hour ago I wasn't surprised or troubled there were no results yet.
"Here's the result of the phone call traces you asked me for." She handed me a folder. I read it fast but completely. The answer was pretty much what I'd expected.
DuBois then handed me a second file--dealing with the alleged Ponzi scam. This was filled with a lot of paperwork and documents. I glanced up and she summarized, "Clarence Brown, aka Ali Pamuk." She shuffled through them. "Detective Kessler hadn't gotten too far with the case."
"He told me. He was busy."
"And nobody in the Department or the SEC was that concerned."
"Poor, minority victims."
"Not much money involved. And no loudmouths to stand up for them. Like Al Sharpton. Pamuk has an office in South East but it's a short-term lease. All the furniture's rented. A secretary and two assistants. Neither of them've graduated from college. It just doesn't smell right. You'd think that if you were an investment advisor you'd have something that wasn't so cheesy. Now, I saw this movie. All the President's Men."
"It was a book too."
"Was it? Well, in it--"
"I know the story."
"To track down what was going on, the reporters followed the money. I was thinking about it and that's what I did."
"Good."
She continued, "I know some people at Treasury and State. And this lawyer who's involved in international banking treaties." She seemed to know half of the under-thirty population in the District of Columbia. "Ever since the Swiss got scared, the UBS thing a few years ago, and started to chatter, it's not quite as hard to get information. But the trail's really complicated." She pulled a sheet of paper out of her file and showed me an elaborate diagram in her elegant handwriting. "I managed to find somebody at Interpol in Europe and MI6 in the U.K. They were working late or early or around the clock, I don't know. To summarize, the investors' money goes from D.C. to Georgetown--ha, that's funny, I just realized. The Georgetown in the Cayman Islands. Not the Georgetown where I go to Dean and DeLuca. From there the money goes to London and Marseille and Geneva and Athens. Then, guess where?"
Pamuk's dad was Turkish so I gambled on Istanbul or Ankara.
But the real answer was a lot more interesting. "Riyadh."
Saudi Arabia, the origin of most of the Nine-eleven hijackers. Westerfield's terrorist connection, which I'd thought was pretty speculative, was looking more and more possible.
"A British shell corporation. And from there, it goes to more companies throughout the Middle East but--how's this?--they're not Middle Eastern. They're registered in America, France, Austria, Switzerland, England, China, Japan and Singapore. They're all shell corporations. Every one of them. They get the money and from there it disappears."
I sipped the bitter coffee. I summarized, "So investors aren't getting their money out because it's being used to fund terror operations by Hezbollah, the Taliban, Hamas, al Qaeda."
"That's what I was thinking."
It was a clever idea, using a Ponzi scam to produce revenue for terrorists. And, if true, it was doubly effective. The money Pamuk raised would not only fund operations but would also have secondary consequences: destroying the lives of people in the West who'd invested their savings with Pamuk.
"Where are we now?"
"The Saudis aren't being cooperative. No surprise there. State and Interpol and local FBI're doing some digging, trying to see who specifically is getting the money."
I guessed that Pamuk could be a front man, picked probably because he had connections with the neighborhood--and his sympathies to fundamentalism. I wondered if he'd been the one who'd hired Henry Loving or if that had been someone in the Middle East.
"Any word about when they'll know something?" I asked.
"By tomorrow, they hope."
They hope. . . .
"Now, about Graham," I said.
She grimaced. "Sorry."
We threaten. We don't bluff. . . .
I shrugged. She'd learned the lesson. The question was what to do about the situation.
I finished my coffee. I said in my mentor voice, "In this line of work?"
"Yes."
"Sometimes we've got to do things that test us. Push us to the extreme."
She'd gone quiet. Unusual for her. But she was looking me in the eye, nodding slightly.
"That's what we have to do now. . . . But it's really above and beyond the call of duty. I can't order you to do it."
DuBois touched the single button closing her jacket, subconsciously, I believed. Tucked in her waistband was a pistol similar to mine, the compact Glock. I'd seen her scores. She was a good shot and I remembered the image of her at our range, eyes focused and intense, beneath the yellow-lensed glasses, her short dark hair puffed out comically around the thick ear protectors. Always getting a tight grouping in the fifty-yard targets.
She'd be thinking, possible terrorist connection, possible New Jersey syndicate connection, even a Department of Defense conspiracy of some sort. Would there be a firefight?
She cleared her throat. "Whatever you need, Corte."
I sized her up. Her still blue eyes, taut lips, steady breathing. She was ready for what we were about to do, I decided.
"Let's go."
Chapter 24
"MR. GRAHAM?"
I was displaying my ID, which the man had glanced at as if he'd been expecting it all day, which he probably had been.
Trim-haired Eric Graham was about fifty, solidly built, though not overweight. He was in jeans and a sweater and he hadn't shaved since rising for work on Friday.
He looked at me without interest and at duBois with sheerly veiled contempt, once he learned her name.
"Agent Corte, there's nothing to talk about. The forgery case has been withdrawn. I really don't understand what the federal government is doing, involved in this."
"That's not what I'm here about, sir. . . . You mind if we come in just for a minute or two? It's important."
"I don't see--"
"It won't be long." I was looking grim.
He shrugged and motioned us inside. He directed us to the den, whose walls were covered with photos, diplomas, certificates of achievement and memorabilia from his scholastic and athletic endeavors thirty years ago.
"As I explained to her," Graham said icily, "I'm in a very sensitive job. It's unfortunate that the money was stolen. But on the whole, in the interests of national security, I decided not to pursue a criminal case." He gave a tight, insincere smile. "Why burden the D.C. police department anyway? They've got more important things to do than deal with a careless computer jockey who left his checkbook where it shouldn't've been."
We sat down around a circular coffee table with a glass top and a recess in the middle. Inside were pictures of Graham's sports successes--college football and tennis. On the walls were some family photos: vacation, school pageants, holidays. I saw a few of his son, presumably the one whose future education had been derailed. I note
d too photos of the daughters, also in college. They were twins. Many were of Graham with what looked like wealthy business associates and a politician or two.
There were no sights or sounds of family, though I saw two nearly empty coffee cups on the dining room table, around the remains of the Sunday Washington Post, and heard NPR talk radio on the stereo, the volume in the netherworld portion of the dial. I heard creaks coming from upstairs. A door closed. He'd sent the women and children off to the hills when the marauders arrived.
"I'm sorry about Detective Keller."
"Kessler."
"Who's had all this trouble. He seemed like a nice guy when he interviewed me. I know"--another nonglaring glare at duBois--"that some hit man or somebody was curious about him because of something."
Interesting way to phrase it.
"I'm sorry about that. But there's no way my situation could have anything to do with it. You're thinking that whoever stole my checkbook wants to kill him? That just doesn't make sense."
I held up my hands. "Like I said, we're not here about that. We're here . . ." My voice faded and I glanced at Claire duBois.
She took a deep breath. Her eyes down. "I'm here to apologize, Mr. Graham."
"To . . . what?"
"When my supervisor," she began, looking at me, "learned what I'd said and done in our conversation--"
"Conversation," Graham said sardonically.
"He advised me that I'd acted in an unprofessional manner."
"To put it mildly."
I merely observed; I said nothing but turned and studied the room.
Graham was smugly pleased I wasn't defending my aide. He looked to duBois. She explained, "See, we have profiling software. When I ran the situation through the computers, the scenario that was number one on our list was that Detective Kessler had been targeted because he'd learned something about your check fraud situation. What it laid out for us was that somebody, possibly a security threat, had stolen your checkbook and used the funds for something that might compromise you. They then blackmailed you into either handing over secrets or maybe sabotaging some of your designs for the DoD. It was a credible scenario."
He snapped, "Except it wasn't."
Nodding, duBois said, "I'm fairly new to this position. I don't know if you've worked in any place other than the federal government."
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