by M. A. Lawson
“Okay,” Brookes said.
“That’s not all,” Prescott said. “I want you to program the phone so we can listen to whatever she’s saying, whether the phone is on or not. Got it?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“I also want you to personally monitor the phone until I tell you otherwise. I want to know where Hamilton is every moment of the day and I want a recording of everything she says or texts from that phone. With one exception. When she’s speaking to me, stop monitoring and recording. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
• • •
ALMOST EXACTLY ONE HOUR after Kay spoke to Prescott, a guy wearing black-framed glasses, jeans, a white short-sleeved shirt, and a narrow green tie entered the cafeteria. The end of his tie was about halfway between his waist and his collar. When she saw his head swiveling about as if he was looking for someone—there were only three other people in the place and two were older than God and the third was in a wheelchair—Kay raised a hand and he walked toward her table.
“Are you Hamilton?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said.
He handed her a plastic bag and walked away. Inside was a phone, a regular charger, and a car charger. She took out the phone. It looked like an iPhone. Even had the little bitten apple on the back. Kay didn’t realize it, but the phone was just slightly bigger in every direction than a standard iPhone.
• • •
“HERE’S WHAT I WANT,” Kay told Prescott, using her new phone. “The guy Callahan killed was an ex-con named Ray Brown. He had a sister named Shirley, who lived with him. I want all of her bank accounts frozen and her credit and debit cards canceled. If she has a safe deposit box, make sure that she’s denied access to it. And she and her brother might have joint accounts, so make sure all of Ray’s accounts are frozen as well. You understand?”
“Yes,” Prescott said. “But do you understand that this isn’t the sort of thing the agency does?”
“But you can do it,” Kay said. “You can fuck up anything that relies on a computer, and I want you to fuck up Shirley Brown’s finances.”
“Why?” Prescott asked.
“Because I want to make her give me the names of the men her brother was working with. I also need you to monitor Shirley’s phones, and I know that’s something you can do.”
Prescott hesitated. Kay figured Prescott didn’t have a problem morally or ethically doing what Kay wanted; she was just trying to decide if it was in her own best interest. Finally she said, “Okay.”
“How long will it take you?” Kay asked.
“I don’t know. The banking stuff, three or four hours, maybe less.”
“I have Ray Brown’s basic information. SS number, DOB.”
“Give it to me,” Prescott said, and Kay rattled off the numbers.
“Call me when it’s done,” Kay said. “I want to go see Shirley as soon as possible.”
“I don’t work for you, Ms. Hamilton.”
“That’s right, and I don’t work for you. But if you want me to track down who shot Callahan—and I know you do—then you’ll do as I ask.” Kay hung up before Prescott could respond.
• • •
KAY NOW HAD three or four hours to kill, and she didn’t want to spend the time at the hospital. She wanted to do something either productive or pleasurable. Nothing productive occurred to her, but something pleasurable did.
She called Eli Dolan. “Where are you?” she asked.
“K Street. I finally got the cops out of here. When I got here yesterday, one of their technicians was trying to log on to a computer and two other guys were searching desks. I informed the detective in charge—”
“Mary Platt?”
“Yeah. What a charmer. Anyway, I told her we were willing to be cooperative but we weren’t going to allow them access to our computers without a warrant. Then I had a nasty lawyer deliver the same message. At any rate, they’ve cleared out of the office and I’m trying to put the place back together. I’ve got carpenters coming to replace doors and carpets, and to patch up all the bullet holes. I couldn’t believe how many bullets were fired, Kay. It’s a miracle you weren’t killed. I also sent Henry over to protect Callahan.”
“Yeah, I know,” Kay said. “I saw him. I went to the hospital first thing this morning to check on Callahan. I was hoping he’d be conscious, but he wasn’t.”
“Henry told me that Callahan’s in really bad shape. The infections you can get in hospitals these days are worse than gunshot wounds.”
“Aw, he’s too ornery to die. Even the devil wouldn’t want him.” Kay was trying to sound lighthearted, but she was genuinely worried about Callahan.
“How are you handling the cops?” Kay asked.
“I gave Platt the names of half a dozen people who work the cover side, just to give her people to talk to. They’re all telling her the same thing: that they had no idea what was in Callahan’s safe or why anyone would want to steal it. But Platt knows I’m stonewalling her, and she’s pissed. Now, tell me what you’ve been doing.”
“Why don’t we meet at your place,” Kay said, “and I’ll fill you in. And we can also . . . you know. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”
Eli laughed. “How soon can you get there?”
“Half an hour.”
Kay wondered if people still used the term nooner anymore.
• • •
BROOKES, BACK AT FORT MEADE, wondered who Eli Dolan was. The machines had given him Dolan’s name as soon as Hamilton called him. Prescott hadn’t told him anything about why he was monitoring Hamilton or who she was—which was typical of her.
The iPhone Prescott had given Hamilton was a whole level above any other iPhone on the planet. Its battery would last for days instead of hours—the Apple people would kill to get their hands on it—and Brookes would be able to hear anyone in the same room with her. He would be able to read her e-mails and text messages, and see anything she looked up on the Internet. And naturally the phone was equipped with GPS. Right now Brookes could see that Hamilton had left the hospital and was moving toward Georgetown. As she drove, she was humming a song he couldn’t identify. She sounded happy.
On another computer, he called up everything the government had on Dolan. It was just basic information, the sort that could be obtained by accessing tax returns, property records, and military and criminal databases. He didn’t spend much time looking at Dolan’s information; he figured if Prescott wanted to know more, she’d tell him. But he couldn’t help but note that Dolan was extraordinarily rich and was currently employed as a consultant for the Callahan Group—whatever the hell that was. He had previously worked for Goldman Sachs, then over in Treasury and the OMB. Dolan looked like some kind of financial heavyweight.
Brookes routed the recording of Hamilton’s brief conversation with Dolan to Prescott’s computer, then went back to working on his novel. He figured he’d get fired if it was ever published because, although it was fiction, it was based on things he’d observed the last fifteen years working for the NSA. He would need a literary agent who could get him an enormous advance—like seven or eight figures enormous—enough to compensate for the pension he’d lose and enough to retain all the lawyers he was going to need.
• • •
ELI DOLAN’S TOWN HOUSE was filled with high-end furniture and expensive artwork, and Kay could imagine photos of it in some glossy magazine. Kay had even met the decorator once when she was having dinner with Eli at a restaurant in the District. The woman had a sexy Southern accent, what Kay thought of as blow-job lips, tresses the color of a raven’s wings, and a body that turned every head in the room. When Eli had introduced her as his decorator, Kay got the impression that the woman had once spent time in Eli’s bedroom doing more than picking out the wallpaper.
Eli asked Kay if she wanted lunch
and she said yes, and he started digging things out of the refrigerator to make sandwiches. As he was digging, he asked her what she’d been up to.
She wasn’t sure how much to tell him. She knew she should tell him about Prescott and what Prescott had told her about the e-mail attachment, but was reluctant to do so. Prescott had threatened to have her arrested if she divulged the information, but she wasn’t worried about herself. She was worried about Eli and what he might do. She didn’t want to put him in the NSA’s crosshairs. So rather than tell him the whole story, she told him the part that really mattered.
“I got the names of the two robbers who were killed,” she said.
“You told me you got the name of the guy you killed from Platt,” Eli said. “How did you get the other one?”
“From a DEA guy I worked with in Miami. He put me in touch with a D.C. Metro narc, and the narc got the other name for me.”
Keep track of all the lies you tell.
“Anyway,” Kay said, “the guy Callahan killed was another ex-con named Ray Brown, and he lived with his sister. I’m going to lean on her for more information. The cops couldn’t get anything out of her, but maybe I’ll be able to.”
“Because you’re a woman?” Eli said.
“No. Because I’m going to do something mean to her if she doesn’t tell me what I want to know.”
Eli laughed.
Kay watched as Eli prepared the sandwiches, completely absorbed with the task, his long graceful fingers placing meat and cheese on slices of freshly baked bread. He had his cold cuts delivered from the best deli in D.C. He was wearing jeans and a blue dress shirt with the tails untucked. He was normally clean-shaven, but today he had a couple days’ worth of stubble. Shaven or unshaven, he turned her on.
She almost said, “We need to talk.” She needed to tell him that she was planning to quit the Callahan Group. But she had always hated discussions that started that way. She remembered a couple of past relationships that she had terminated after beginning with, “We need to talk.”
Well, the relationship with her first husband hadn’t ended that way. She married her first husband, who’d also been a DEA agent, when she was twenty-three and then divorced him when she found out he was cheating on her only eight months after they said their vows. The marriage had ended with: “Get the hell out of my sight before I shoot you.”
At any rate, she wasn’t in the mood for talking. She got up from the chair at the kitchen table where she’d been sitting and walked over to him.
“Why don’t we eat later,” she said and started to unbutton his shirt.
• • •
BROOKES HEARD A THUMP, like the iPhone had hit the ground. The next thing he heard was two people making love—and Brookes was really getting turned on. He had a woody that was threatening to break his zipper—which also made him feel like a voyeuristic creep. But he had to find some way to put this scene into his novel, which could use a bit more sex. He played back the recording and typed up the dialogue, Hamilton saying things like, “Oh, yes. Don’t stop. Don’t stop.”
• • •
PRESCOTT WAS THINKING about the Russian colonel who was, almost certainly, trying to sell nuclear materials to the Saudi prince. The NSA had done all the things it was supposed to do. The CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security, and the president’s national security advisor had all been informed. Com satellites were hovering in space hoping to pick up more chatter between the greedy colonel and the royal nut in Arabia.
But Prescott knew it wasn’t enough. They might be able to stop the Russian from selling materials for a suitcase nuke this time, but he’d try again. And if he couldn’t sell what he had to the Saudi prince, he’d find another buyer. As for the prince, if he couldn’t get what he needed from this Russian colonel, he would find another Russian colonel.
If Prescott were the president, she would order a SEAL team to eliminate the colonel and schedule a drone strike on the tent in the desert where the prince was sleeping with a couple of his wives, but she knew the current resident in the White House would never do this. And this was exactly the reason why the Callahan Group had been formed. If Callahan wasn’t dying, she would have told him to send somebody—maybe even Kay Hamilton—to take these maniacs off the board.
Brookes interrupted her reverie with another recording of Hamilton speaking to Eli Dolan. She heard Hamilton tell Dolan that she’d obtained the name of the man Callahan had killed and was planning to go see Brown’s sister, which Prescott already knew. She stopped the recording when Hamilton and Dolan started having sex. Prescott couldn’t remember the last time she’d had sex and didn’t want to be reminded of the fact.
Fortunately, Hamilton hadn’t told Dolan about Danzinger and the e-mail attachment, and maybe she didn’t because she was trying to protect him. The truth was, Dolan didn’t worry her as much as Hamilton did. He’d worked for Callahan for years and had proven himself to be completely loyal. And, unlike Hamilton, he either believed that Callahan worked for the president or he didn’t care who Callahan worked for. Even before Callahan had been shot, Prescott had thought that Dolan might be the person to replace Callahan if something should happen to him. She knew they could work with Dolan. But Hamilton . . . she was a whole different story. Nobody could work with that woman.
As she was stewing, there was a rap on her door. It was an elfinlike technician named Natalie Jones. Natalie was about five feet tall, wore jeans with ripped knees, tinted her hair purple, and wore a ring in her nose—but Prescott didn’t care. Natalie was a shark when it came to her job.
“Those bank accounts you wanted frozen? They’re ice.”
“Good,” Prescott said. It had only taken Natalie two hours.
After Natalie left, Prescott called Hamilton. She figured by now Dolan and Hamilton must be finished. How long could they possibly go on? The phone rang several times before Hamilton answered, and Prescott thought she sounded . . . well, languid was the only word she could think of. Prescott said, “Those accounts you wanted frozen have been frozen. The sister now only has access to the money in her purse.”
“Thanks,” Hamilton said and hung up.
16
DAY 3—3 P.M.
Kay pulled up in front of Ray and Shirley Brown’s house in Springfield and was surprised. It was a brick rambler with a manicured lawn and brightly colored perennials in the flower beds. There was a boxwood hedge surrounding the front yard, but it might as well have been a white picket fence. Eagleton had told her that Quinn—the man she killed—lived in a double-wide with a pit bull and Kay had been expecting Brown’s place to be similar. Instead it looked like a place where Mr. and Mrs. Beaver Cleaver would dwell.
Kay rang the doorbell, and when no one answered, she started pounding on the front door with her fist. The door flung open a moment later.
“What the hell do you want?” Shirley Brown said.
Kay’s reaction was: Whoa! Shirley was one tough-looking lady. Kay had an immediate image of Shirley riding on the back of a Harley with a fat bearded guy driving. When she got off the bike the inscription on the back of the guy’s leather jacket would say: IF YOU CAN READ THIS, THE BITCH FELL OFF.
Once Kay got past the woman’s hard face, the tats on her muscular arms, and the raggedly chopped hair, she noticed the red-rimmed eyes. Shirley Brown was grieving for her brother. She was also drunk; her breath smelled as if she’d been gargling with Jack Daniel’s.
“I need to talk to you,” Kay said.
“If you’re another cop, you can fuck off. I don’t have anything else to tell you and you already ripped my house apart.”
“I’m not a cop.”
“Then you can definitely fuck off.”
Shirley started to close the door, but before she could, Kay said, “Shirley, I’m a whole lot worse than a cop.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I want some information from you and if you don’t tell me, I’ll—”
“I’m not going to tell you shit.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say. After you slam the door in my face, I want you to call your credit card company. They’re going to tell you that your card has been canceled. Then I want you to try and make an ATM withdrawal, and you’re going to find out that your bank accounts have been frozen. If you have a safe deposit box, you won’t be granted access. In a couple of days, the electric company is going to shut off your power because their records are going to show that you haven’t paid your bill for six months. Ditto your phone bill. If your brother had a will, it’s going to be frozen solid in probate. You won’t be able to get at his assets for a year. And if this place has a mortgage, your bank is going to discover that you’re behind on your payments and they’re going to foreclose. You’ve heard of identity theft, Shirley? Well, I’m not going to steal your identity. I’m going to steal your fucking life.”
“You can’t do all that shit! It’s not legal.”
“I am doing all that shit, Shirley. Call your bank. Call your credit card company. I’m leaving now, but I’ll be back in an hour. That should give you enough time to find out that I’m not bullshitting you.” Kay took a breath. “You need to understand something, Shirley. Your brother and his pals didn’t rob just any ol’ office in D.C. They robbed a guy connected to national security.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look, I’m sorry about what happened to your brother, but whoever he was working with stepped into something way over their heads. I’m sure they had no idea when they stole that safe.”
“What safe?”
“You don’t know about the safe? Your brother’s friends stole a safe that contained something a lot more important than money. Now I need to know who your brother was working for. We’re not going to arrest anyone. We just want back what is ours. In fact, we’re willing to buy it back. I guess you could say that I’m the negotiator, and I need a name to negotiate with.”
