Executive Treason

by Grossman, Gary H.

  Dubroff explained he had just seen a woman carry those types away. The old man laughed. “Of course, of course. In the hands of someone with the knowledge, the poisons, once dried, can dull arthritis or migraines. But beware if you just add them to your greens. Your salad days will be over,” he joked.

  In recent years, Dubroff, like the old man before him, instructed newcomers and tourists in the ways of the dig. Now, he was the old man with the walking stick, the lumbering pensioner who had a simple answer when strangers asked about his work. “Oh, a little of this. A little of that.” No one needed to know more.

  Los Angeles, California

  late afternoon

  “I have something.” The call was from the LAPD lab technician.

  “Say again,” Ellsworth radioed.

  “Something on the Jane Doe.” He sounded nervous.

  “Okay, go ahead.” Ellsworth was a good way crosstown in his squad car.

  “I don’t think you want me to do that, sir.”

  Ellsworth only needed to be told once. They were on an open transmission—open to other police officers, and open to amateur eavesdroppers.

  “Where are you?”

  “Heading west on Wilshire. Before Hauser.”

  “Copy that.”

  The LAPD detective looked in his rearview mirror and waited for a car to pass. He moved into the left lane, continued another short block, then made a sharp U-turn in front of the County Museum. He now headed downtown, due east, toward the LAPD lab.

  “I’m about twelve out.”

  He flipped on his siren and picked up his pace. A string of lights ahead just turned green.

  “Make that ten. See you when I get there. Out.” The call ended.

  Cars and trucks pulled to the side as Ellsworth sped downtown. He focused on the one thought foremost in his mind. What the hell is the “something?”

  Chicago, Illinois

  After a late breakfast, Gonzales returned to his study. He told his men not to disturb him. The art dealer locked the door and logged onto his computer.

  With a few fast keystrokes, he was through Google and deep into eBay, searching the rare art auctions for a specific bid on a recently discovered, previously unknown oil painting depicting Konstantin’s Battle at the Bridge of Milva. The unknown artist had captured the grotesque detail of a Russian battle. Gonzales had acquired the oil on canvas some years earlier and now offered it for ten days, with a starting bid of $25,000. Forty-eight hours remained in the auction. It might be priced too high. He wanted to sell it, and perhaps would. But he was most interested whether an Internet bidder got in an offer of exactly $27,777.

  He scrolled to the bidding history. One offer at $25K. Not bad. Another at $25,400. Even better. He continued scrolling and saw what he was looking for.

  $27,777—a confirmation of a different transaction.

  Beside it, an e-mail address that would be dead—like a woman in Los Angeles. He was completely certain of that.

  Gonzales smiled at the results. He’d sell the painting for $25.4K, and the job he commissioned was successfully completed. He’d even use the eBay sale to help cover the final payment.

  If anything, Gonzales was a man of his word. He typed a new Web address and logged onto the first of four shelter bank accounts, the last one ending up in a secure Lichtenstein bank. It wasn’t in the millions as he had paid before, but then the job wasn’t as big as some of the others. However, if the news broke on the front page of the New York Times, he’d pay an additional, agreed-upon bonus.

  Gonzales quickly calculated. Over the past year he’d released $2.6 million to the man, each payment going to a different numbered account. And his spending spree wasn’t over yet.

  LAPD Lab

  Los Angeles, California

  “So what is it? Do we know who Jane Doe is?”

  “Yeah, and she’s not local. That’s why no missing persons,” the 46-year-old former Northrup engineer reported.

  “I ran the fingerprints figuring we’d find her through motor vehicles. Not California. Guess where?”

  “Dunno.”

  “District of Columbia. Your Jane Doe has a name, too. Meyerson, Lynn. Twenty-five.” He read off the birthdate and address.

  “Just moved or visiting friends,” Ellsworth concluded.

  “I don’t think so,” Cullin replied. He looked up from his computer and handed a sheet of paper to Ellsworth. A phone number was written on it in longhand. “A few minutes after I made the computer hit, the desk told me I had a phone call. I took it, and this guy asked me who I was and—”

  Ellsworth interrupted. “Who you were?”

  “Yup. And why I was looking into this particular woman.”

  “Jesus, who was it?”

  “You’re going to find out yourself. And if you ask me, I think you stepped into some messy shit. That’s the number. After I explained why I made the inquiry, I was ordered to have the investigating officer dial this specific number.”

  “You were ordered, who in hell…”

  “Now you need to do it,” Cullin said, not answering the question.

  “A two-oh-two area code.” Washington? “Come on, Cullin. Help me out here. Who the fuck is it?”

  Cullin stood up and motioned for Ellsworth to take the seat. “The Director of the FBI.”

  The technician left without another word. He wished he hadn’t been the one assigned to the computer this morning.

  “Hello.” Ellsworth began tentatively. He thought about telling his own chief about the call. He’s the one who should be doing this. Whatever “this” is. Ellsworth felt he was way too low on the food chain to know how to talk to the director of the FBI. But the instruction was clear. Call. Right away.

  “Mulligan,” the voice answered.

  “Sir, I’m Detective Frank Ellsworth, LA…ah, Los Angeles Police Department. I was told—”

  “Yes, Detective. Have you talked with anyone?”

  “Well, sir, Mehegan. My lab man.”

  “We spoke. Anyone else?”

  “No sir, but—”

  “You will notify your chief and no one else. Is that clear?”

  Ellsworth didn’t answer the question. Instead, he challenged the command. “Pardon me, sir, but with all due respect, I believe that will be my department’s call.”

  “Detective Ellsworth, it is not your department’s call. It is not your call. You will do as instructed. I’m certain that your supervisors will agree.”

  “With all due respect—” Ellsworth began again.

  “With all due respect to you, Detective, the woman you found is quite important.”

  This silenced Ellsworth.

  “My team will be coming in to observe the autopsy and participate in the investigation. The information may be sensitive. Do you understand?”

  Ellsworth looked around the room. He was alone on the phone with the head of the FBI, and something was extremely out of the ordinary. He wasn’t sure what to say. He decided to go by the book. “My department will cooperate with the Bureau. We will expect the same in return.”

  “Appropriate response, Detective. Now, in the spirit of cooperation, was there anything unusual about the crime scene?”

  Chicago, Illinois

  the same time

  Witherspoon’s phone call triggered a number of reactions from the man who retrieved the message.

  Gonzales already knew that the Kessler woman had developed a relationship with the Secret Service agent named Roarke. But the information led him to believe that Roarke was now personally pursuing his man. In his experience, personal vendettas were dangerous—far more dangerous than an investigation in the hands of a nine-to-five civil servant. The latter usually didn’t take his work home. Roarke would look far further, consider possibilities that others would ignore or dismiss. And now Kessler was helping. Luis Gonzales would have to give this thought.

  Chapter 13

&n
bsp; Maluku, Indonesia

  Wednesday, 20 June

  Umar Komari did as promised. He took one scrawny, diseased man out of the makeshift Shabu manufacturing plant—actually little more than a hut with a tin roof and the requisite burners—and beat him in front of his co-workers. He chose the man partly because he was the first to have eye contact with him and partly because he had three worthless daughters who would not serve the cause for which Allah had chosen him. So, the sins of the daughters now fell on the father, and Amjad Mohammed suffered a twenty-minute caning which left him weak, yet alive. With the last lash, he collapsed on the floor and broke his nose.

  “If you want to feed your pitiful family, you’ll get on your feet and return to work!” Komari ordered. He signaled for a fellow worker, little more than a slave, to help him up.

  “Do you see what happens when you fail?” Komari shouted to the other twelve half-starved men. “You are punished. This time, one of you. This time, he lives. The next time, you will all feel the bite of my stick. And two of you will die.”

  Amjad spit out the blood that had filled his throat, and forced himself to a wobbly stance. He diverted his eyes for fear of further reprisal.

  “From now on, you will triple your output because you have shorted me. And it will be the finest Shabu you have ever produced.”

  No one dared object.

  “I don’t care which one of you is guilty. You all share the burden. Everyone works harder, or you die a traitor’s death.”

  Komari had another stop to make—an arms supplier twenty-five kilometers away, across a stretch of calm seas. He would be lucky if he got half his order of AK-47s, 40-mm GP-25 under-barrel grenade launchers, Russian-made VSK-94 sniper rifles, semi-automatic high-velocity 9x21mm Gyurza pistols, and the most prized possessions: Stinger missiles.

  He would not be getting the tube-fired missiles he sought or all of the Kevlar-piercing ammunition. The new cache provided him with less than enough weapons to turn his growing army into a formidable force. Komari also had to buy food and medical supplies for his men. Because of failures on the manufacturing side, his dream of raising a mighty sword for Islam and striking a deadly blow in Allah’s name was delayed. The Christians in the Malukus would live awhile longer, perhaps through late August. Then he would cleanse his beloved islands of the pagans. Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch blood would flow from the fishing villages into Jakarta’s gutters. A reborn Indonesia, a fully Muslim Indonesia, would rise, and the world would acknowledge the name Komari.

  As Komari brushed by Amjad Mohammad, the beaten man struggled to stand. He kept his eyes lowered, but a small curl formed at the corners of his mouth. It made his swollen face hurt. It wasn’t the kind of expression that suggested happiness. It was more relief. However, Komari read only insubordination.

  A smile? He dares to ridicule me? In one swift move, Komari unholstered his pistol, and with absolutely no remorse, put a bullet in the forehead of the slave laborer.

  “Let that be a lesson for all of you. I am Commander here. I will not abide insolence.” To his own shocked men, he demanded, “Take him out.”

  Washington, D.C.

  “Alma, get me in.”

  In the first months of Lamden’s presidency, Alma Coolidge had already put through calls from the county’s biggest political egos and the world’s greatest leaders. In order to reach the President of the United States, they went through her first. Everyone. Congressmen, kings, dictators, prime ministers, department heads, and Boy Scout leaders. Most people knew her by her first name. The FBI chief did. She could distinguish between a calm greeting, noting no real sense of urgency, to a rapid-fire, curt hello, which didn’t invite any small talk in return. She measured the importance of each call by the tone of the first words. She’d been tutored by the best, Louise Swingle.

  The FBI director’s intent was unmistakable. He didn’t invite anything other than a proper business response.

  The president’s secretary clicked to a screen showing the day’s calendar. “Five forty-five, sir?”

  “Earlier.”

  It wasn’t a question. Robert Mulligan needed to see the president immediately. Alma didn’t ask for a reason. She quickly scratched a note to herself on her phone log. She’d move a meeting with an FCC commissioner.

  “Thirty-five minutes, Mr. Director? Twelve fifty?”

  “Good.”

  “Can I have any lunch waiting for you?”

  “No.”

  His answers were all short and deliberate. The hair on the back of her neck prickled her skin.

  “And would you like Mr. Gilmore there?”

  “No.”

  The president felt better when his chief of staff, his confidant, was present. She thought he might want to reconsider.

  “Are you certain?” she said matching his delivery. Telling more than asking she continued, “You know that the president values his opinion.”

  “Thank you, Louise. Tell him I want fifteen minutes alone. After that, he might want to have Billy around, Evans, and, hell, maybe the CIA chief and the whole National Security Council. I’m on my way.”

  Robert Mulligan scanned the notes he took over the telephone from the LAPD officer. His folder also included an e-mail jpeg of the victim. It would be difficult for the president to view, but part of the process of identification was confirmation. Henry Lamden would have to look at the startled and pained expression on a young and beautiful face: an expression frozen forever. Fingerprints and dental records would also provide indisputable proof.

  Mulligan framed his thoughts in the backseat of the six-minute chauffeured drive from the Hoover Building to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. On some level, Meyerson’s death was like hundreds if not thousands of others every year: a woman attacked and killed in the act of robbery, rape, or attempted rape. He could have someone research the exact statistics, but it didn’t matter. What made her death different, notable, and newsworthy, was the fact that this victim worked in the White House, directly under the eyes of the president. And then there was his other concern.

  Right after talking to Ellsworth, Mulligan ordered his Los Angeles team to work with the LAPD. With his next call, he sent his most experienced D.C.-based investigator to Meyerson’s apartment.

  Alma Coolidge tried to read the FBI director’s expression as he entered. There were no signals, but there were no pleasantries either. The FBI head usually chatted with the 58-year-old mother of five. He’d normally ask about her children and grandson, her mother, and her husband who worked as a cab dispatcher. Not today.

  “Alma.”

  “Mr. Director.”

  She didn’t get anything more. He hurried past her desk, only calling out a thank you with his back to her.

  He knocked on the door.

  “No need, you can just go in, sir,” she said. “The president is waiting for you.”

  Coolidge had alerted Henry Lamden that the FBI director had been absolutely insistent on seeing him right away. Not ever liking to be blindsided, a carryover from his days as a battleship captain, the president asked if Mulligan gave her any reason for the unexpected visit.

  “No, sir. I tried.”

  The “no” meant trouble. He could feel his heartbeat quickening.

  As Mulligan entered, the president’s secretary could see Henry Lamden gazing out the window. She understood that somehow the very act of looking into the Rose Garden instinctively became a way to deal with the unknown. The openness of the grounds provided every president the way to surround impending troubles with natural beauty, if only for a moment.

  Mulligan closed the door.

  “Mr. President, thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

  The president didn’t turn around. As if reading the FBI director’s thoughts, he began, “Imagine what Lincoln thought as he looked out these windows. Do you think he found any solace in the Garden while America was at war with itself? What about Woodrow Wilson, wh
en he desperately tried to convince the country that the League of Nations was a good and necessary idea? Or President Kennedy, at the brink of a third World War? Where were his thoughts? Out there? Wishing he could be playing in the fall leaves with his daughter, Caroline?

  Lamden slowly walked away from the window, and greeted the man he had asked to stay as head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “I understand you have something urgent.”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “Then put your things down, Bob. A pleasantry first. How are Molly and the girls?”

  “All fine, Mr. President. And Joanne?”

  “Missing the ranch. Like me. Now sit. Please. Some water?”

  “No, thank you.” Mulligan gingerly crossed the magnificent rug that lay in front of the president’s desk in the center of the Oval Office. The chief executive’s seal was woven into it. Guests automatically walked over it lightly, out of a sense of guilt. He took a seat in one of the two modest cherry wood courthouse chairs. He removed a sealed document and placed it on his lap.

  Lamden took his favorite seat, a handcrafted, button-tufted, brown leather Teddy Roosevelt Room chair from the Kittinger Furniture Company. His choice. The president noted the file, but didn’t ask about it yet.

  “And you, Bob. You’re doing okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, sir.” He was still getting used to his newest employer—different, more measured than his predecessor. “But I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  Lamden had heard these words many times before. They were never a good start to a conversation. From his navy days, it usually meant a pilot was down, a helicopter was lost, incoming fire. Now the president realized this was his first time, as commander in chief, anyone started a conversation that way.

  “Come sit down and tell me about it.” The president reached for the same warm words he had used years earlier.

  Mulligan obliged. He realized he hadn’t forged a real relationship with President Lamden. Go slowly, he warned himself. He wondered whether Lamden truly had what it takes to be president. Could he exert the ultimate authority? Would he be willing to use extreme measures? A voice told him no.