by Brad Thor
“If we’re talking about a crime being committed—” began Klees, who stopped when a waiter appeared with their drinks.
Once he had gone, Elise said, “I don’t know for sure if a crime has been committed. That’s why I’m here. But, if I’m wrong and there’s nothing to this, then my career’s over.”
“So this has to do with the president?”
Campbell nodded.
“Can I assume he’s the one you were referring to when you said maybe somebody wasn’t completely truthful in their witness statement?”
Again, Campbell nodded.
“Okay. Did he have something to do with the accident?”
Elise looked at her friend. “I hope not.”
“Then where’s all of this coming from?”
“I may have overheard a conversation.”
Rita stirred the ice cubes in her drink. “Now I understand.”
“This puts me and the Secret Service in a very difficult position,” said Campbell. “If he didn’t do anything wrong and it gets out that I told people about the conversation, then the entire Secret Service not only looks bad, presidents will forever distance themselves from us, which will make it even harder to protect them.”
“But if he did do something, then he’s an idiot to have mentioned it in front of you.”
“He didn’t exactly know I was there.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was standing guard in a wooded area. He couldn’t see me. He stopped within earshot and I heard his conversation.”
“Who was he talking with?”
“Do I have your word that this will stay just between us?” asked Elise.
Rita nodded.
“He was talking with Stephanie Gallo.”
“That’s who was having the fund-raiser for him here.”
“I know,” said Campbell.
“That’s also whose house he was staying at.”
“I know.”
“It’s also where Nikki Hale had been before she left and had her accident.”
Campbell reached for her wine and took a long sip.
“Were Gallo and the president having this conversation in person or was he on the phone?” asked Klees as she glanced around the room to make sure no one was eavesdropping on their conversation.
“They were together, taking a walk on her horse farm just outside D.C.”
“What exactly did they say?”
Elise filled Rita in on the kidnapping of Julia Gallo, the ransom demand, and Stephanie Gallo’s threat to expose the president’s involvement in the death of Nikki Hale unless the president got her daughter back. When she was finished, she lifted her wineglass, sat back, and tried to dissolve into the booth.
“I’m stunned,” said Klees.
“You and me both.”
“He doesn’t seem like that type of guy.”
“I know,” replied Campbell.
“So what exactly are the specifics of his involvement or this alleged cover-up around Nikki Hale’s death?”
“That, I don’t know. He and Gallo walked off before I could hear the rest of the conversation.”
“Then you do have a problem. A big one.”
“But if he wasn’t really guilty, why would Gallo threaten to expose him and ruin his presidency?”
“Good point,” said Klees as she stood up with her drink and left the file sitting on the table between them. “I’ll have to think about that. I’m going to go have a cigarette. When the waitress comes back, order me another cocktail, okay?”
* * *
The East Hampton detective stood outside long enough to smoke two cigarettes and polish off her drink before returning. She was tempted to have a third cigarette, but worried it would be obvious that she was avoiding going back in and having to face Campbell. She steeled herself with the knowledge that as a detective, especially one in whose jurisdiction the crime in question took place, she had every right to do what she had done to Elise. It was time to face the music.
Walking back into the restaurant, she found a fresh Johnnie Green at the table and Campbell on her second glass of wine. The file was back where she had left it and their dinners had arrived. As she had expected, Elise was not happy.
“You told me you were going to let me see the entire file.”
“That is the entire file,” replied Klees as she took a sip of her new drink.
“It can’t be.”
Rita set down her cocktail and said, “East Hampton PD conducted the investigation as well as the on-scene accident reconstruction. The vehicles in question were impounded to our motor pool, where each underwent a full safety inspection by our mechanics.
“The bodies of the deceased were removed from the scene to the Suffolk County medical examiner’s office in Hauppauge. Per the attached report, their portion of the investigation was to detail the cause of death for each fatality and to run toxicology tests to determine the intoxication and/or presence of any other substance or substances in the drivers’ bodies that would have impaired them. As you can see from the report, Nikki Hale was the only one who was impaired. Case closed.”
“Case closed?” replied Campbell as she reached over and shook the file. “You’ve got photographs, diagrams of the crash scene, everything but witness statements.”
“That’s because there were no eyewitnesses to the crash. One of our patrol officers was the first person on the scene.”
“But what about the people back at Stephanie Gallo’s estate? What about them? What about putting together what led to Nikki Hale’s intoxication? Who was drinking with her? Who saw her last and so forth?”
Klees understood where Campbell was going. “You were a patrol officer when you were with the Virginia Beach PD, not a detective, right?”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked, a bit defensively.
Rita put up her hands. “I’m just trying to explain the way these things work. As a patrol officer, you take eyewitness statements at the scene. Anything above and beyond that is normally handled by detectives.
“If Nikki Hale had survived the accident, then the investigation would have definitely been more in-depth. We would have wanted to know what happened at the fund-raiser, how much she had had to drink, etcetera, because she’d be facing criminal charges. But since she’s dead, there’s no one to charge with a crime. Hence, case closed.”
“So you let me come all the way out here knowing there were no witness statements for me to go over?” asked Campbell.
“You said you wanted to see the file. You didn’t say you only wanted to see witness statements.”
“Which I assumed were in there.”
“And which you could have specifically asked about,” replied Rita.
Elise shook her head in frustration. “I feel like you lied to me.”
“I never lied to you. You held back from me, and I’ll admit I wasn’t 100 percent forthcoming with you, but what you were suggesting over the phone was that there might be adjunct criminal activity to Nikki Hale’s death. I could have kicked it up the chain of command and made it official, or I could do it this way. I love you, Elise, but cop to cop, there wasn’t a third option.”
Campbell lifted her fork and stabbed at her food. “Without any witness statements, I can’t even begin to piece together what happened that night and what the president’s involvement in all of this might be.”
“Wouldn’t the Secret Service have written up a report of some sort?” asked Klees.
“I’m sure they did, but that’s not something I have access to.”
“Maybe not,” replied Rita, as an idea began to form in her mind, “but you could get access to the agents who were on duty the night Hale was killed.”
Elise thought about it. “Theoretically, but I don’t have any authority.”
“Maybe you could. Sort of.”
“What do you mean?”
“If a civil suit had been filed, everyone, including then senator and now preside
nt Alden, would have been subpoenaed.”
“But a civil suit never was filed, was it?”
Klees shook her head. “No. With Charlie and Sheryl Coleman and their two children dead, the only surviving relatives were Charlie Coleman’s parents. They decided not to sue.”
“Sheryl Coleman didn’t have any family?”
“None.”
“At the risk of sounding callous,” said Campbell, “everyone sues today at the drop of a hat, but in this case it might have been justified. I’m no lawyer, but I would think that the Coleman parents could have named both Gallo and President Alden as defendants. They would have been prime targets.”
“From what I heard,” replied Rita, “they were.”
“You mean Charlie Coleman’s parents did want to sue?”
Klees nodded.
“So what happened?”
“The Hamptons’ rumor mill has it that Stephanie Gallo bought them off.”
“Are you serious?” asked Elise.
“If you believe the gossip,” replied Klees.
“And do you?”
“I saw Charlie Coleman’s parents not long after the accident. His mother was beside herself and his father was mad as hell. I also gathered that he was not a big fan of Senator Alden’s.
“He lawyered up pretty quick and hired a big firm out of Manhattan. They wasted no time in getting a lawsuit rolling. They were a couple of months into everything when all of a sudden the firm was discharged.”
“Because Gallo bought them off?”
“Makes sense,” said Klees “The one thing Gallo has in greater supply than anything else is money. I have a feeling that if she wanted to avoid a messy trial and save her candidate the embarrassment and bad press, she could pull it off.”
“That’s something else that’s bothering me,” remarked Campbell. “How did this story never make national news? Something this scandalous, especially during an election, is pretty juicy, doubly so by today’s journalistic standards.”
“I’m sure President Alden can thank Gallo for that as well. She’s a very powerful woman. Probably insisted on some sort of a gag order from the get-go.”
“And if the Colemans reached a settlement with her, she probably would have had them sign a bunch of nondisclosure agreements. They’d be gagged so tight their lips would turn blue.”
“Agreed.”
“So without any other relatives, that’s it,” said Campbell. “They’re the only ones who could bring a civil action to get to the bottom of what happened.”
“Not necessarily,” replied Klees. “There may be someone else who still has legal grounds for a suit.”
“So? How would that give me any leverage with the agents who were posted to Gallo’s home that night?”
“It depends on how far you’re willing to go to get to the bottom of this.”
Campbell drained the last sip of wine from her glass, held it up to get the waiter’s attention, and then replied, “I’m still sitting here, aren’t I?”
CHAPTER 21
AFGHANISTAN
SATURDAY
Mullah Massoud arrived back at his compound along with Sergei Simonov and the small security contingent they had taken with them. They had visited a village called Surobi, halfway between Jalalabad and Kabul. As it was safer for Massoud to travel at night, they had conducted the entire trip in two cars under the cover of darkness.
Per standard practice, none of the Taliban commanders attending the meeting had known its exact location until shortly before the meeting was scheduled to take place. They had many things to discuss, but the most important was their spring offensive.
The Taliban had successfully placed a noose around Kabul, and the readiness status of their forces was excellent, but their infrastructure and the condition of their military equipment was quite poor. The Russians and several other countries covertly supported their cause, but were only willing to supply so much. If they flooded Afghanistan with hardware and other things that could be traced back to them, they risked the wrath of the United States government and its allies.
Most of the commanders were pessimistic about what they were going to be able to do with the limited resources they had at hand. Opium eradication in Afghanistan had been stepped up dramatically, and that meant their main source of revenue had been just as dramatically stepped down. If they were to have any long-term success, they needed more money to buy more equipment and to train more fighters. Without a major infusion of cash, all their achievements of the last several years would be for naught.
None of this was news to Massoud. In fact, he’d been one of the first commanders to see it coming, but the other commanders wouldn’t listen to him. The poppy crops had produced so much money for so long and the Americans had been so halfhearted in their attempts to stem the flow that they thought they had a license to print money that would never expire.
As their circumstances started to erode, so did their blind faith in Mullah Omar. His empty promises and unwise alliance with bin Laden and his Arab al-Qaeda would be his ultimate undoing.
Massoud knew something that no one else in the room but Simonov did. Soon things were going to change. While the other commanders complained and worried about the progress of the spring offensive, Massoud had looked beyond it. He had seen a new future for Afghanistan and he was quietly confident in the resurgence the Taliban was going to achieve under his command.
His optimistic mood, though, did not last long. During a break in the meeting, Massoud and Simonov learned that Mustafa Khan was no longer a resident of Policharki. The talk was that he had been moved to another, more secure facility.
The two men were well aware of how the Afghan grapevine worked. Every piece of information was normally inflated as each person in the chain exaggerated his involvement or knowledge of the topic to make himself look more important and better informed. The Taliban commander and his Russian colleague would have been considerably more heartened if the “news” had been of a full blown escape rather than a transfer. If the Afghan government had indeed moved Khan to a more secure facility, it would mean the Americans would have a much tougher job on their hands.
While Massoud didn’t particularly care how difficult the task was for them, he was dependent upon their success. Mustafa Khan was the key not only to the Taliban’s ridding itself of al-Qaeda, but also to its being able to drive the American and other international troops out of the country so they could retake complete and final control of Afghanistan.
When they returned to Massoud’s compound it was shortly before sunrise. Most of the men were already saying their dawn prayers.
To help him stay both warm and awake in Surobi, the Taliban commander had consumed large quantities of tea. Though he had urinated before leaving, he had refused to allow any stops on the way back, even for himself. Combined with the hour at which the meeting had finally ended he was not only late for prayers, he also needed to urinate again most urgently.
Stepping out of the vehicle, Mullah Massoud shooed away one of his lieutenants eager to speak with him and headed for the compound’s rudimentary toilet facilities.
After relieving himself, the Taliban commander performed his ablutions and then hurried to his quarters for his prayer rug. Upon opening the door to the main room, he was quite surprised to find his brother, Zwak, leading the four village elders in prayer. His pride was quite apparent, as the volume of his voice was much louder than it should have been.
Massoud removed his shoes and stepped quietly inside. After retrieving his prayer rug, he respectfully laid it on the floor and prostrated himself toward Mecca.
He followed the prayers until their completion and then greeted the elders and his brother. Stepping away for a moment, he opened his door and found his lieutenant waiting for him. The man’s message was no longer urgent now that the commander had discovered the village elders waiting for him.
Massoud sent the lieutenant for tea and stepped back inside. The room was colder than it
should have been and Massoud realized that in his excitement over the visit from the elders, Zwak had forgotten to turn on the heat. Approaching the propane heater in the corner, the Taliban commander took down a box of matches and got it going.
He was tired and not much in the mood to deal with village politics, but he had no choice. Undoubtedly, the elders needed something important from him and had appeared at such an early hour in the hopes that their request would magically jump to the top of his list.
Though he was annoyed to see them, he knew his place. He might be the most powerful man in the village, but it was necessary that he respect the elders. They provided him and his men with cover and that was very valuable. The quality of his life was directly proportional to how content the elders were.
Though Massoud had tried a long time ago to force communication to go through his lieutenants, the elders hadn’t gone for it. They would deal with no one but him and him directly. It could be an incredible distraction at times, but it was also a sign of great respect, and respect was a two-way street.
The men made small talk about the weather, how deep the snows had been, and the relatively strong grip the cold still held on their valley, especially at night. Once the tea came, Zwak played host and made sure everyone was well taken care of before he saw to himself.
When they had been served, Baseer, the chief elder, explained why they had come. Upon mention of the American woman, Zwak’s mouth spread into a broad smile, revealing several of his missing teeth. “Doktar. Doktar,” he sang as he brought his hands together.
Massoud motioned for him to be quiet. Baseer waited until Zwak had calmed down before continuing. “Zwak,” he said, addressing him directly. “Did you strike someone with your rifle yesterday?”
The man’s smile faded and a confused expression fell across his face. He looked around the room for his rifle like a child suddenly gripped by the fear that a cherished blanket or stuffed animal had disappeared.
