Counterfeit Road

by Kirk Russell

  ‘They told me you’re both fine. Are you?’

  ‘Oh, never better. Elizabeth’s knee is a little sore and we’ve cleaned up the blood. The blast threw us forward, but we were far enough away.’

  ‘We’ve got one man and we’re looking for the other.’

  ‘I thought agents followed them back to Primm.’

  ‘They did and what I’m hearing is one went out the back door of a restaurant and left in another vehicle. This isn’t confirmed, but a man was seen out on a fairway of the golf course which might be close enough. They’re saying the bomb detonation was probably by a radio or cell signal. It may have had a built in delay of thirty to sixty seconds, or maybe when he realized what you were doing he went ahead and blew them anyway to minimize evidence.’

  ‘And the other man is in Primm?’

  ‘Yes. Can you get there and get a look at him?’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  SIXTY-ONE

  La Rosa’s knee was bad enough to where she couldn’t come with him. She was already on her way to a Vegas hospital when Raveneau got in the rental car and drove to Primm. He spotted the Heritage Wildlife vehicle first, and then the FBI car with a man sitting alone in the back. They were parked out in a big lot and he counted eight Fed cars. The man claimed to be Mark Davis, a Heritage Wildlife employee, but Raveneau knew Davis’s body would be found up on the mountain. His and that of the other biologist buried just deep enough to avoid attracting vultures or coyotes.

  He talked with the Las Vegas FBI agents and then walked up to the car with two agents. The man sat in the back seat, his wrists held by constraints. The agents were clearly ready to take him on into Las Vegas to start questioning him. They were tolerant but anxious to get on with it, but if Raveneau recognized him he was going to get wanted time with him first.

  After the car doors were unlocked, Raveneau got in the back seat with the man. He knew immediately but didn’t say anything until he’d eased down on to the seat. He left the door open. His back would be very stiff in an hour. But he was OK sitting without moving on the seat. The breeze was warmer now and the sun on him felt good. The ringing in his ears was mostly gone.

  ‘That was quite an explosion,’ Raveneau said.

  ‘I wasn’t there. We broke camp about forty-five minutes before. I don’t know why I’m being detained.’

  ‘What’s the hurry, Colin? Where would you go? Where would you hide?’

  With that Greiston turned his head. He didn’t say anything but he was waiting and attentive.

  ‘You can let the Mark Davis alias go now. We went up to the camp. We saw what happened. When they find the bodies there, you’ll be charged with those murders too. But that’s not the one I’m here about. It’s an old one and I’ve got something I want to show you. I’ve got some questions and then the FBI is going to take you on into Vegas.’

  Raveneau had the lone one hundred dollar bill he’d kept in the same clear plastic wrap the Secret Service used. With his hands behind him Greiston couldn’t hold the bill, so Raveneau held it for him. He held it up in front of him for several long seconds.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Ben Raveneau, a homicide inspector from San Francisco. I work cold cases. I’ve got a couple of questions. Are you OK with that?’

  ‘What would you know to ask?’

  ‘My first question is do you think Thomas Casey is still alive?’

  For several minutes, maybe longer, Greiston didn’t answer and that was fine. Raveneau was glad just to sit in the sun and be. All of his back hurt but particularly lower back. The road rash on his elbow hurt. It was deep and would take awhile to heal. Blood had soaked through the gauze he got before driving here. He rested that arm on his thigh, careful not to let the raw part get any pressure. It was a close call.

  He turned and looked at Greiston. He knew the FBI was sure Casey didn’t leave the Big Island on a plane and now doubted their boat theory. Coe told him they thought he was hiding somewhere on the island.

  ‘He could kill himself,’ Greiston said, and added, ‘I hope he does. He has a grandiose image of himself. He sees himself as a founder on par with Thomas Jefferson. You met him, what do you think?’

  ‘He was very conflicted when I last saw him.’

  ‘He is how you got here.’

  ‘No, he isn’t. How much money did he contribute over the years?’

  ‘What does it matter to you?’

  In the front seat the two agents stirred and Raveneau got it. This conversation should be videotaped. If Greiston was going to talk this easily they needed to get him in as soon as possible.

  ‘What was Jim Frank’s role?’

  ‘Captain Frank? Wow, what time machine did you walk out of?’

  ‘Was he ever a part of it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Alan Krueger?’

  ‘He wasn’t either but Casey said too much to him after we started using his counterfeit money. Casey thought he could bring him in. But Krueger didn’t want anything to do with it and we couldn’t risk him talking to anyone.’

  ‘So you killed him.’

  ‘Nice try, Inspector, but I’ve never harmed anybody. Neither is my association with Casey or others illegal.’

  ‘Casey kept the Glock in a glass case in his lanai. We tested it and the ballistics matched. Why would he keep it in a glass case?’

  When Greiston didn’t answer, Raveneau said, ‘My theory is he never got over providing you the gun you killed Alan Krueger with. He kept supplying money to the organization you were slowly building, but he never forgave himself for betraying his friend. What do you think of that idea?’

  ‘I think you can go fuck yourself. I didn’t kill Alan Krueger or anyone.’

  Raveneau let long minutes go by. He closed his eyes and felt the desert breeze across his face. The venom in Greiston’s voice affected him. He couldn’t say why but it affected him in a peculiar way today. Maybe because Greiston, despite acknowledging he was caught, still acted as if somehow he was on the right side. When Raveneau spoke again his voice was harder.

  ‘In January we were FedExed a videotape of the shooting. I opened it and took it down to our Criminal Investigation Unit. You and Krueger are in the video, in fact, you and Krueger are the video, shooter and victim. It starts before you crossed the lot under the old Embarcadero Freeway. It’s how we tracked you down. We’re going to charge you with the murder of Alan Krueger.’

  ‘I guarantee that you don’t want to do that.’

  Raveneau waited a few more minutes, then eased himself out of the car. He nodded to the other FBI agents as he approached them.

  ‘It’s him.’

  And that was how it ended, or almost. Garner in Utah, and an Army general in Kentucky were arrested and charged, as was an officer inside the Pentagon. Coe told Raveneau a week later that the general held out for three days before cutting a deal and was talking. Several more arrests were made but the group was much smaller than Coe had believed. Still, they were recruiting and Coe believed they had raised tens of millions of dollars, much of which he didn’t think they would ever be able to trace.

  ‘It started in Hawaii long ago,’ Coe said, ‘and they did use a large stash of counterfeit supernotes they knew where to look for after killing Krueger. Greiston double-crossed Krueger and when Krueger figured it out he killed him. Greiston has laid all the blame he can on Casey.’

  ‘And Casey is dead.’

  ‘Very dead. His body was found by a K-9 unit after a helicopter spotted his car out on a remote dirt track part way up a flank of Mauna Loa. Dogs found him. In Hawaii they’re saying he put a gun in his mouth and shot himself. A handgun was found nearby. The bullet exited the top of his skull.’

  ‘How sure are they that is how it happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. They do things a little differently in Hawaii. But to go on, Greiston claimed the initial plan was to finance operations for years with the counterfeit money. What scares me is how much money they�
��ve raised in the last five years and how recruitment has picked up.’

  ‘To what end?’

  ‘To save America, and each one we’ve interviewed has got the same rap, the great Republic in danger from within. They see what they’re doing as noble, if you can believe that.’

  Raveneau could.

  ‘Ben, thanks for everything you did and I should tell you I hear you and la Rosa are also going to get a call from someone else soon.’

  La Rosa and Raveneau were at their desks when the President called to thank them. But the call he was really waiting for came about a month later. That was after he’d gone to visit Pagen, though Pagen wasn’t expecting him. He found him at a breakfast spot in Marysville in the foothills of the Sierras. The dry month of January gave way to heavy snow and the mountain peaks off to his right were bright white and floating in the sky in the early sun. The orchards he drove past were sodden. In Marysville sunlight through a window fell on a plate of food and the craggy face of a man sitting alone at a booth. He offered his hand after Raveneau introduced himself.

  ‘I thought you had forgotten about me, Inspector.’

  ‘Far from it.’ Raveneau slid into the booth across from him. ‘I just needed to learn more first.’

  ‘Have breakfast with me.’

  ‘No thanks, I drank coffee on the drive here. I just want to ask a few questions. Here’s the one that I wonder most about. You were the one Alan Krueger was closest to. Why didn’t you protect him?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re saying. I did everything I could.’

  ‘You and the Canadians thought he was working both sides. You thought he was making himself rich, but he wasn’t. You told Greiston about the planned meeting along the wharf with the Canadians. You’re the only way Greiston could have known to be there.’

  ‘Greiston told me he never made the meeting.’

  ‘He not only made the meeting, he shot Alan Krueger.’

  ‘Greiston did? Your homicide inspectors concluded he was robbed and killed.’

  ‘You let him down and he was forced to resign. When he went out on his own he kept on being the same guy he always was, but you made him into someone different. He was as true as when he worked under you. You gave him to Greiston. You let it happen because you thought he was double-dealing.’

  ‘That’s all bullshit.’

  ‘I can’t prove it, but you and I know it’s not. I’m sure you’ve worried since Greiston’s arrest and I’m sure the FBI has talked with you and everyone else that had any dealings with those supernotes and Greiston. I’m sure you’ve told your story, but I just wanted to let you know that I know what you did. I’ll see you later.’

  Raveneau left him staring at his eggs. A few days later he got another call when he was sitting with Celeste at a table after the bar had closed. March moonlight was bright and clear through the windows along the street. On the phone screen he saw Barbara Haney’s name.

  ‘We took the video to record who he was meeting with. It was spur of the moment. He was supposed to meet us and then suddenly there was this other man so I recorded it. We wanted to figure out later who the other man was.’

  ‘I thought so.’

  ‘One night toward the end of last year I was alone here and thinking about what I had done with my life, and where I had failed. I FedExed the videotape from Los Angeles the following weekend. I guess in a way I was trying to make up for what you really can’t.’

  ‘I understand that.’

  ‘I know you do, and you take care, Inspector. We’ll meet again someday.’

  They both knew they never would, but it was as good a way as any to say good bye.