Allstrong, wearing alligator cowboy boots with his light green gabardine suit, sat back and crossed a leg, his facial features relaxed, nearly friendly. "It adequately elucidates your understanding, certainly," he said. "Although, as I said in our conversation the other day, any assumption you're making that I've committed any kind of crime at all is false. I'm sure that federal investigators will find no evidence implicating me or Allstrong Security in what's happened to either of the Bowens."
"I'm sure they won't," Hardy said.
"And likewise they'll find no evidence that I ordered Ron Nolan to kill anybody. That's not the way I do business." His pro forma pitch completed, he flashed a quick salesman's smile.
"Since you've arranged to have Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles assigned to the investigation," Hardy said, "I'd be surprised if they could find Allstrong in the phone book. But that's not the point. What I'm going to uncover is the evidence the FBI already gathered that connects Nolan and your company to whatever it was that happened in Iraq that got the Khalils murdered. And if, in getting to Nolan, your company gets mixed up in a very public scandal, that's just an added bonus."
Allstrong sat impassively. "What makes you think the FBI has evidence tying Allstrong to these killings?"
"The agents told the Khalil family. What the agents found, I can find."
"I understood that the agents further told them that the contract had come from Kuvan Krekar. Isn't that so?" Allstrong asked.
Hardy nodded. "That's my understanding too."
"Well, then?"
"Well then what?"
"Well, then, it's obvious where the contract originated, isn't it? With Kuvan, not with me, and not with Allstrong."
"That would be obvious except for one thing. Or rather, except for two people. The Bowens. The whole thing with Nolan and Kuvan and the Khalils was a closed circle until Charlie Bowen pried it open again. If the Bowens were still alive, I might have believed that killing the Khalils was Kuvan's idea and Kuvan's contract. But Kuvan was already dead when Charlie Bowen started sniffing around, and that kind of neatly eliminated the possibility that Kuvan was Bowen's killer. But somebody still needed Charlie dead because he was going to find out and expose who'd really put out the contract on the Khalils. And you know who that was, Jack. You know because that was you."
Allstrong let his shoulders sag for a moment. "Back to that," he said.
"I'm afraid so." Hardy met his adversary's eyes, unyielding.
Allstrong shrugged, nodded, leaned down, picked up his briefcase, brought it up to his lap, and snapped it open. "Regrettably," he said, "this has become a very inconvenient situation."
And for an irrational moment, Hardy thought he'd miscalculated and in another half second he would be dead. Before he could even react to reach for his own gun, which he'd so stupidly, stupidly placed in the closed top drawer, Allstrong's silenced bullet would explode with no warning at all through the expensive briefcase and blow Hardy into oblivion. That would put an end to Hardy's threat right here, right now.
Hardy's left hand went to his drawer, started to pull it out.
He wasn't going to have enough time.
It was over. His life was over.
But in the moment Allstrong would have taken his shot if he could, instead of firing a weapon he'd perhaps concealed in his briefcase, he simply continued talking. "I have to admire your tenacity and industry. In fact, I'd like to offer you a retainer to take on some of my legal work. Mr. Loy is a fine corporate attorney but lacks the killer instinct sometimes required in my business. Like all our senior employees, you will be paid in cash."
Allstrong turned the briefcase around, showing Hardy the neatly stacked packages of one-hundred-dollar bills. And no sign of a gun.
Hardy quietly exhaled and brought his shaking hands together, clasped now white-knuckled on his desktop.
And Allstrong continued. "This is two hundred thousand dollars, Mr. Hardy. I'd like to offer it to you against billings for the first year. If you prefer, I could arrange to have this deposited in an offshore account, a Swiss bank account, or any other place that you choose. You would in fact be retained by one of our Iraqi subsidiaries, who do not file tax returns in the United States. So whether you choose to report this to the IRS as income is completely up to you."
"I wonder how many of those are my tax dollars," Hardy said.
"Don't be naïve," Allstrong countered. "And don't trifle with me." The bribe offer having already, albeit tacitly, admitted his complicity in everything that Hardy had accused him of, he went on. "I'd strongly advise you to consider what I'm offering. As you yourself have noticed, other alternatives, though perhaps risky and more costly, are still available to me."
Hardy clucked and cracked a grin. "I really thought we'd moved beyond that, Jack."
Allstrong slowly and carefully closed up the briefcase, setting it down again beside him. Sitting back, he eyed Hardy for a long moment. "So, Mr. Hardy, do we have an understanding?"
"Oh, we understand each other, Jack. But, no, we don't have a deal. I thought I'd made it clear. I want Evan Scholler out of prison. I don't care how it happens, but that's my price."
"What if the FBI suddenly found evidence that did implicate Nolan in the Khalils' deaths? What if there were surveillance reports linking some members of the Khalil family to terrorist organizations? And wiretaps where they discussed killing Ron Nolan? Do you think that would do the job, Mr. Hardy?"
"I think it might. So what you have to do, Jack, is get me that evidence."
"And then what?"
"And then I lose interest in you."
But Allstrong still wasn't quite ready to give it up. "And what if the evidence just doesn't exist?"
Hardy inclined his head. "Ah, but we know it does. Remember? The FBI found it before they talked to the Khalil children. You saw it when you decided to sell out Kuvan."
A lengthy silence settled.
At last, Allstrong nodded once. "He should have never used the grenades," he said quietly, as though explaining a complicated process to a child. "That was his own decision and just tactically stupid. But he didn't care. He'd become a liability. He loved to blow things up. He thought it was fun. The fool thought he was invincible."
"You want my opinion," Hardy said, popping a peanut into his mouth in Glitsky's office, "he did Nolan too. Not personally. Allstrong himself was still over in Iraq back then. But one of his guys took out Nolan. Just another job."
"Why?" Glitsky asked.
"Allstrong said it himself. Nolan had become a liability. He used the frag grenades that could be traced back to Allstrong."
Bracco, sulking, stood against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. "You're not telling me he's giving you something that can be traced back to him? I'm talking about the frags."
"No. He won't do that. They might get back to the company, but old Jack will be able to say that Nolan stole them or something, that he was acting on his own when he killed the Khalils. It was a freelance gig."
"It doesn't matter anyway." Glitsky sat all the way back, exuding frustration. "He's got protection, remember? He might as well have immunity. I'm still having a hard time getting my arms around the fact that the Feebs are part of this. Schuyler wouldn't go along with any of this on his own."
"I wouldn't take it personally, Abe," Hardy said. "And it's not on his own. He's being told it's national security, too, and he believes his bosses. There's a greater good involved. So everybody winds up being good guys."
"Peachy," Glitsky replied.
"So what about the Bowens?" Bracco asked. "What about those murders? Collateral damage and we leave it at that? Does that seem right to either of you guys?"
Hardy turned to him. "You were never going to make the case anyway, Darrel. Never, ever, in a million years. Ask Abe if he agrees."
For an answer, Glitsky shrugged.
Hardy held up a hand. "I'm not saying I'm happy with that, but it's reality."
"It sucks," Bracco
said. "What am I supposed to tell Jenna the next time she calls? That fat cats like Allstrong walk? Sorry, but that's reality. Your parents don't count." He slammed his hand hard against a metal locker. "This just pisses me off." And he walked out the door.
"It's not over yet," Hardy called after him.
In the ensuing silence, Glitsky growled. "It's not over. What's that supposed to mean?"
"I mean I'm going to be getting this evidence in the next few weeks. And the great thing about evidence is that it speaks for itself."
Glitsky glared at him. "Oh, yeah, your client. Good for him. Good for you too."
"Not just us," Hardy said.
"No?" Glitsky asked again. "Then who else?" Sitting up, he shook his head in disgust. "Get the door on your way out, would you? I've got real work I got to do."
41
Hardy was in his office opening his mail, having just finished reviewing the documents that he had received over the past three weeks via registered mail from the local FBI office in San Francisco. The FBI had done its usual efficient and thorough job and, from fragments found at the Khalil home, had matched the grenades used in that attack to a cache of them at the Allstrong warehouse at BIAP. Beyond that, they had recovered a bullet from the Khalil scene and matched it to the gun that had been in Nolan's duffel bag with the grenades. Downloads from Nolan's hard drive revealed not just the photos of the Khalil house from various angles, but also photos of the eventual victims that looked as though they'd been scanned in. Nolan's bank records memorialized regular biweekly automatic deposits of ten thousand dollars and another deposit, four days before the Khalils were killed, of twenty-five thousand. There was a handwritten quarter page in Nolan's handwriting, noting the victims' names and address, some indecipherable scribbling and doodling, and the notation "$50,000" circled several times.
The evidence tying the Khalils to a plot to kill Nolan was equally impressive. The wiretaps arrived, accompanied by neat binders of translations from the Arabic. There were informant reports, with names blacked out due to national security, but which clearly identified some of the Khalils as involved in a plot to murder Nolan in retaliation for the Menlo Park killings.
Hardy had to admire Jack Allstrong's own thoroughness, as well as his caution. All of this evidence would be valuable to Hardy when the hearing came up for Scholler's appeal. And none of it directly implicated either Allstrong himself or his company.
Of course, during the same time period, Hardy had been reading in the local press about the agents involved in the FBI's handling of the Scholler case. The debate raged in the media about whether the agents had been merely grotesquely incompetent or criminally derelict in suppressing such critical evidence in the trial of a bona fide war hero. Agents were being transferred, suspended, and demoted.
Glitsky, following it daily with Hardy, could barely suppress his own glee. Hardy had tried to point out that it was unlikely that anyone truly culpable in the affair was ever really going to be punished, but Glitsky exulted in the random carnage the agency was inflicting on itself.
Now Hardy reached for an 81/2 11 envelope. It had arrived addressed to him, personal and confidential, by regular mail with no return address, but postmarked in San Francisco. Reaching in, he pulled out two sheets of faxed copies of e-mail correspondence between [email protected] and [email protected]. Dated the day after the Khalil murders, it acknowledged that Nolan had accomplished his most recent assignment and requested payment of the remainder of his fee into a certain bank account. Allstrong should advise Mr. Krekar that "the situation has been resolved, as promised; Krekar should expect to move on the Anbar contracts without competition."
Although there was nothing remotely humorous about any of this, a ghost of a smile tickled the side of Hardy's mouth. Maybe he ought to tell Glitsky that Bill Schuyler wasn't the gullible, gutless G-man he needed to pretend to be if he wanted to keep his job. On the other hand, Hardy had no proof that Schuyler had had anything to do with this latest evidence. Any mention of his name would probably just get the man in more trouble. And in fact, the evidence could have come from any other FBI agent between San Francisco and Baghdad who had a sense of what was happening and a disgust at the role that the Bureau had been forced to play in it.
Hardy realized that without a witness or some other way to authenticate the documents, what he had in his hand were just two pieces of paper, worthless in a court of law. He sat at his desk pulling the tight skin at his jawline as for the hundredth, the thousandth, time he considered the ramifications of his intentions.
He had made no promises to Allstrong. To the contrary, he'd made it abundantly clear that whatever information he received would be his to do with as he pleased. Additionally, this wasn't information he'd gotten from Allstrong anyway. He owed Allstrong nothing. As Allstrong himself had said, it was an inconvenient situation.
He got up and, without a word to anyone, walked across his office and out to the copy room, where he copied the two pages. Coming back to his desk, he put the copy in his file and began searching through his notes for the address of Abdel Khalil.
Hardy and Frannie were trimming the roses that bounded the fence in their backyard on a cool Sunday afternoon in the second week of June, talking about the arrival of their children, who'd both be returning home from their respective schools in the next couple of days. "I think they should both work," Hardy said. "I worked every summer of my life."
"Of course you did," Frannie said. "I can see you now, four-year-old Dismas out plowing the fields. To say nothing of walking ten miles to school every day, in deep snow."
"Leave out the snow part," he said. "This was San Francisco, remember."
"Yeah, but back when you were a baby, wasn't the climate different here?" Frannie enjoying the little joke at the expense of the eleven-year difference in their ages.
"You're a very funny person." He reached over and clipped a newly budded rose just at its base.
"Hey!" She turned on him.
"It's my old eyes," he said, backing away. "I was aiming for lower down on the stem."
"Yeah, well, keep it up and I'll aim for lower down too." She took a quick and playful swipe at him with her cutting tool.
Hardy backed up another step, then cocked his head, looking over her shoulder. "Well, look what the cat dragged in."
Glitsky was just emerging into the yard from the narrow walkway between their house and the neighbor's. He was in civilian clothes, hands in the pockets of his battered leather jacket. Getting up to them, he gave Frannie half a hug and accepted her kiss on the cheek, then turned to her husband. "You should leave your phone on."
"I know. It's bad of me," Hardy said. "But it's Sunday, I figured whatever it is can wait. But maybe not."
"Maybe not, after all. You know anything about this?"
"About what?"
"Jack Allstrong."
Hardy felt his stomach go hollow. He caught his breath, cleared his throat, tried to swallow. "No. What about him?"
"He got in his car this morning down in Hillsborough and turned it on and it blew up him and half his house. It's all over the news."
"I don't watch TV on Sunday either."
Glitsky just stood there.
Frannie touched Glitsky's arm. "Abe? What's wrong?"
"I don't know, Fran. I don't know if anything's wrong. I was thinking Diz might be able to tell me." He kept his eyes on Hardy.
Who drew another breath, then another, then blew out heavily and went down to one knee.
EPILOGUE. 2008
On a warm late-summer day about fifteen months after Jack Allstrong's death, an excellent jazz quartet was doing arrangements of big band material in her backyard as Eileen Scholler came out of her house. She wended her way under the balloons and through the large crowd of well-wishers, touching an arm here, a back there, smiling and exchanging pleasantries and congratulations with her guests. At last she came to the table under one of the laden lemon trees where Dismas and Frannie Hardy sa
t drinking white wine with Everett Washburn.
"Ah, here you are, way in the back. Do you mind if an old lady pulls up a chair?"
"I don't see any old ladies," Washburn said, "but glowing mothers of war heroes are always welcome."
Hardy pulled out the chair and as she sat, her eyes started to tear up at Washburn's words. She smiled around the table. "War hero. I never thought I'd hear anybody say that about Evan again. And now…" She indicated the overflow crowd and turned to Hardy. "How am I ever going to repay you?" she asked.
"Believe me, Eileen," he said, "the result was plenty payment enough." After the court of appeals had ordered a new trial for Evan, the San Mateo County district attorney declined to prosecute further. The FBI, it seems, was reluctant to cooperate, citing national security and the need to keep its own internal investigation confidential. Over the impassioned objection of Mary Patricia Whelan-Miille, the DA had been only too happy to use that as a reason to dismiss the charges. "Seeing Evan walking around a free man. Look at him over there, laughin' and scratchin'."
They all looked to where Evan stood with his arm around Tara in a knot of people comprised of his father, several other guys and women about his own age, Tony Onofrio, and even Stan Paganini.
"I still feel like it's a dream," Eileen said. "Like I'm going to wake up and he's going to be in prison again."
Frannie reached over and put a hand over hers. "That's not going to happen. What's going to happen is he and Tara are going to get married next month and I wouldn't be at all surprised if you become a grandmother in pretty short order after that."
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