NCIS Los Angeles

by Jerome Preisler

  “One that’s scheduled to sail out of Kiel in mid January nineteen forty-five, and secretly arrive in Kobe, Japan six to nine months later,” Callen said. “Except the war ended four months later in May ’forty-five, and the sub…”

  “U-437…”

  “Surrendered to the Allies before it ever got there.”

  “Surrendered,” Sam said, “and was brought to Hueneme.”

  Callen drove through the late afternoon traffic, coming up on a high white sound wall between the freeway’s northbound and southbound lanes. It suddenly blocked the ocean from sight.

  “Alders says every German sailor aboard the sub was accounted for,” he said. “But there’s no record of Japanese passengers arriving at the base with them.”

  “No public record anyway, G,” Sam said. “I read somewhere that maybe one percent of the military records from World War Two are still classified. Federal intelligence agencies are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. They can turn down FOIA requests for reasons of national security…”

  “So if the CIA wants to keep certain Deep Dive files under wraps, it’s entitled,” Callen said. “But why? You telling me that after seventy years, they’re protecting our country from something?”

  “Maybe,” Sam said, “it ain’t the country they’re trying to protect.”

  “Then who?” Callen said, flicking him another glance. “Or what?”

  Sam sat there a moment, then shrugged.

  “Don’t ask me,” he said. “All I know is my hand just ran out of fingers.”

  8

  “Simple question, okay?” Isaak Dorani said.

  “Sure,” Kensi said, which was not to guarantee he would get an answer.

  “Where the hell am I?” he asked.

  Kensi sat facing him across the table, a plain manila file folder in front of her. Although Dorani had no way of knowing it, his question really wasn’t so simple at all.

  Located at a small craft marina about a mile from headquarters on Los Angeles Harbor, the place she and her fellow NCIS agents called the Boatshed was, in fact, a genuine, honest to God boatshed, complete with burgee flags hanging from its rafters and an assortment of kayaks, canoes, oars, buoys, and fishing nets mounted on its bare wooden walls.

  For the agents it was also a safe, secret location where they could bring endangered witnesses and hold their suspects for interrogation. When you were with the Office of Special Projects, and the evildoers you were investigating ranged from major narco-traffickers and arms dealers to terrorists of every stripe, it made sense not to bring the individuals you held in custody, or needed to protect from harm, to headquarters and risk exposing its location, putting them, your own personnel, and your entire covert operation in jeopardy.

  At the same time, however, you needed to bring them somewhere.

  And so the OSP had used its various resources and connections to procure the shed from its original yacht club owners and transform it into a home away from home. Well, actually, two interrogation rooms, an observation area, a main conference room with a homey little kitchen, and enough expensive technology to keep it fully linked to HQ… but why nitpick?

  Bottom line, Kensi was hardly willing or able to give the caged, thieving little bird perched opposite her the answer to his question, simple or otherwise.

  “I’ll have to give that one a pass right now, Isaak,” she said, folding her hands against the edge of the table. “If you don’t mind.”

  Dorani frowned.

  “And what if I do?” he said. “How is it that, all of a sudden, everybody and their mother thinks they can throw a blindfold over my eyes, then take me wherever they want afterward? Lemme tell you—”

  “Everybody?”

  “Figure of speech,” he said.

  “Oh?”

  He shrugged. “Right,” he said. “That’s what it was.”

  His expression was not the least bit convincing. But she let it ride for the moment, wanting to get straight to the point.

  “Isaak,” she said. “Do you know someone named Theodore Holloway?”

  He looked at her for a long moment.

  “No,” he said. “Should I?”

  “How about Tip Holloway?” she said. “Does that name sound familiar?”

  He shook his head. “Tip, Schmip, Blip, I never met anybody named Holiday—”

  “Holloway.”

  “Whatever.”

  She inhaled, exhaled slowly.

  “Have you ever been to the Bel Air Palms Senior Living facility?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive,” he said. “Do I look like a freakin’ senior citizen to you?”

  “That has nothing to do with what I asked.”

  “Well, I ain’t a fogey, and I don’t know no fogies. And if I did know one, I wouldn’t visit ’em in some stinking old age home.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “Because old age homes depress me.” He paused, rolling his shoulders. “Besides, what’s any of this got to do with Daggut slipping me those junk bills?”

  Kensi regarded him calmly.

  “We’ll get to that in a minute,” she said.

  “What’s wrong with getting to it now?” He stuck his chin out at her. “You’re supposed to be a Treasury agent, right? So how come you don’t stick to the subject of me, an innocent customer at a hock shop, getting fleeced by its crooked owner.” The chin went out further. “A guy hits hard times and has to sell all his worldly belongings, he’d like some honesty from the people who’re buying them. Instead, it’s like he’s meat for the goddamn vultures.”

  Kensi waited until he stopped rambling and then pushed her folder across the table.

  “I’ll tell you what,” she said. “You take a look at something for me here, and then maybe we can discuss the pawnshop.”

  Dorani frowned, glanced down at the folder, and flipped it open. His eyes widened. Inside was a fingerprint card with his police mugshot and basic personal data on the upper right-hand corner.

  “These are latent prints,” she said. “They were collected from a crime scene back in January.”

  He snapped his eyes up from the folder.

  “Huh? What crime scene?”

  “A burglary-kidnapping at Bel Air Palms,” she said. “When they were input into the AFIS system, they drew a positive match with prints already on file for you.”

  Dorani was staring at her.

  “I told you I never been to no old fogies’ home.”

  “Then how do you explain what your fingerprints were doing there?” she asked, meeting his gaze. “Because they were found on the victim’s desk.”

  He shrugged, pushing the card back across the table.

  “Gotta be a mistake,” he said. “Being I’m not a magician, my prints can’t be where I never was.”

  Kensi held his gaze. The bird was experienced enough at this drill to keep his feathers unruffled, give him that.

  “So you’ve never been in Theodore Holloway’s condominium?”

  “No,” he said.

  “Didn’t leave those fingerprints on his desk.”

  “No.”

  “Never heard of him before.”

  “No,” Dorani said, and cleared his throat. “Biff, Boff, whatever his name is, I’m telling you I never did. For the second time. Or is it the third? I’m getting hoarse here for Chrissakes.”

  Kensi sat quietly a second, thinking about the perfectly maintained gramophone she and Deeks noticed in Holloway’s apartment, which he’d told them was a prized family keepsake given to him by Elias Sutton.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let’s get to the hock shop.”

  Dorani looked heavenward.

  “Finally,” he said.

  “Can you tell me what you went there to pawn?”

  He hesitated for the briefest instant.

  “Mr. Dorani…?”

  “Rare coins,” he said, then, “Silver dollars.”

  Kensi’s
eyes narrowed on his face. “That’s what you gave Zory Daggut.”

  Dorani pursed his lips in disgust. “You must get off on makin’ me repeat myself,” he said. “Yeah, I brought him coins, and valuable ones too. What’s the problem… Daggut tell you it was something else?”

  She shrugged.

  “Right now I’m just interested in what you tell me,” she said. “And while we’re on the subject, whatever happened to your pawn ticket?”

  He looked at her. She waited.

  “Who knows?” he said. “Guess I lost it.”

  “How?”

  “How what? What’dya mean by ‘how’?”

  “How did you lose your ticket?”

  “No clue,” he said. “Wild guess, it could’ve dropped outta my pocket while you and your friend were chasing me down the street.”

  Kensi nodded. “Like when you reached for your machine pistol?”

  He stared at her again. “Gimme a break,” he said. “I didn’t reach for nothing.”

  She smiled thinly.

  “That’s a very interesting statement.”

  “Yeah? Why?”

  “Because, in case you don’t recall, I was directly behind you,” she said, “and saw you reach for the gun.”

  Dorani shrugged.

  “Eye of the beholder,” he said. “Truth is, it was falling down my pants. And I tried to stop it.”

  “Oh?”

  “Right,” he said. “Didn’t want to shoot myself in the leg. Or someplace worse. And by the way, you can forget about trying to pin an illegal firearm rap on me.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive,” he said. “Don’t pretend you don’t know why, either.”

  “I’d hate to put words in your mouth,” she said. “So how about telling me?”

  “It’s a three-D printed gun,” he said. “I downloaded it from the Internet, put it together myself.” He shrugged. “Ain’t no law against that.”

  She sighed. “You’re right,” she said. “But there are laws against carrying a concealed weapon. And threatening an officer with one.”

  Dorani shook his head. “I just told you I didn’t pull it on nobody,” he said. “Besides, the only reason I brought it along was for protection.”

  “Really? Against who?”

  “Criminals on the street,” he said. “Figured I’d leave the pawnshop with big money for my coins.” He spread his hands. “Who knew it’d all be counterfeit?”

  Kensi sat there quietly a moment. She was not inclined to mention that his printed semiautomatic looked nothing like any other weapon of its type she’d ever seen, and that the same went for its ammunition. While these things did not make either illegal, they did raise certain questions in her mind, and she wanted to run some tests on the gun before asking them.

  “Isaak, I won’t deny you brought your ‘A’ game today,” she said. “But you still haven’t explained your fingerprints at Theodore Holloway’s apartment.” She paused. “Among other things.”

  “Oh yeah?” he said.

  She smiled at him.

  “What other things?” he said.

  She kept smiling.

  “Come on,” Dorani said. “You’re not foolin’ me for a second.”

  “No?” she said.

  He shook his head, smiling back at her now.

  “If you had anything else, you’d tell me,” he said, his smile expanding. “Besides, LAPD closed that case.”

  Gotcha.

  “Oh?” she said. “How do you know?”

  Dorani abruptly stopped smiling.

  “I thought you never heard of Mr. Holloway before,” she said. “That is what you told me a minute ago, right?”

  It was his turn to stay silent. He crossed his arms over his chest, staring across the table at her.

  “I’ll ask you again,” she said. “If you’ve never heard of Holloway, how do you know the police investigation into his kidnapping was shut down?”

  Dorani sat there with his arms folded. Opened his mouth, closed it.

  “I want me a lawyer,” he said at last.

  Kensi stood up.

  “Famous last words,” she said, and turned toward the door.

  * * *

  Driving through Santa Barbara on East Figueroa Street, Sam quietly watching the scenery beside him, Callen saw a large chocolate Labrador stretched out under a Moreton Bay fig in someone’s front yard. The dog raised its head lazily as he waved out his window, regarded him with mild, fleeting interest, then settled back down on the grass.

  “Canines,” he said. “I hold them spellbound.”

  “Noticeably,” Sam said.

  Callen went on past a string of private residences with stucco porches and neat green lawns. Its wide, clean sidewalks shaded by palms, jacarandas and fig trees, the street rolled gently up and down for a while before beginning a steadier climb toward the Santa Ynez range in the distance.

  Low and whitewashed with a red tile roof and arched entryway, the Santa Barbara Police Department was one of several neo-Spanish municipal buildings concentrated in the town center, about a mile from the highway exit.

  Callen was pulling into the parking lot when his smartphone rang through his car’s stereo speakers. He answered the call over the Bluetooth.

  “Beale?”

  “Guys, I have a name for you,” Eric said.

  “Grand Sorcerer?” Callen said, swinging into a spot. “I’d like to be called ‘Grand Sorcerer’ at least once in my life.”

  “Call me the Wizard of Ops and I might consider it,” Eric said flatly. “The name belongs to Elias Sutton’s personal driver.”

  “Let’s hear it,” Callen said.

  “Ronald T. Valli,” Eric said. “He’s listed as an employee on Sutton’s tax forms, and named as a ‘frequent driver’ on his auto insurance policy.”

  “You got an address?”

  “Yeah… he lives in Carpinteria with his wife and child. And there’s more.”

  Callen exchanged glances with Sam.

  “Go on,” he said. “We’re listening.”

  “I did some cross-indexing,” Eric said. “Valli has two felony convictions, both for home burglaries. His last got him five years at CSP-Sacramento, although he gained early parole for good conduct.”

  “When was this?” Sam said.

  “A little over three years ago.”

  “He clean since?”

  “There’s no record of legal trouble since his release. Not even a traffic summons.”

  Sam looked thoughtful.

  “Sutton was a major booster of prison reform in the Senate,” he said. “He talks a lot about second chances in his book.”

  “Then I can see how he’d have a soft spot for Mr. Valli,” Eric said.

  Callen cut the Benz’s ignition. “How’s that?”

  “Valli’s former Navy,” Eric said. “He received an honorable discharge after eight years of service.”

  “And then gets into robbing homes,” Callen said. “How’s that happen?”

  “It isn’t easy to adapt after service life,” Sam said. “A person can lose himself… doesn’t matter if you’re a seaman or an admiral.” He paused. “Sutton understood.”

  Callen digested that a minute.

  “You have a photo of him, Eric?”

  “Several,” Beale said. “Off his military and prison files.”

  “Cool, shoot ’em over to us.”

  “Already done—you need to check your email more often,” Eric said. “I’ll let you know if anything else turns up.”

  And with that the tech disconnected.

  Sam looked at Callen, exiting the car. “Next stop Carpinteria, huh?”

  “Right,” Callen said.

  Sam frowned, reached for his door handle. “I was kinda hoping to grab a pizza after we leave here.”

  “Justice never eats,” Callen said.

  * * *

  Detective Frank Varno was sitting with his feet crossed on his large oak desk
when his receptionist showed Sam and Callen into his office.

  “Hola,” he said without budging. “Make yourselves halfway comfortable, why don’t you?”

  They sat down in the chairs opposite him and waited. His office was clean, spacious, and tidy, the only decoration a smattering of golf memorabilia. Behind Varno, a large bay window offered a charming view of the employee parking lot.

  “Want something to drink?” Varno asked, nodding at a mini fridge against one wall.

  “What’ve you got?” Callen said.

  “Sparkling mineral water, cola, ice coffee… and ice tea.” Varno grinned at him. “It’s regular tea, so you know. Nothing fancy like oolong.”

  Callen gave Sam a quick I-told-you-so look.

  “I can use a little sparkle right now,” he said.

  “Same here,” Sam said.

  Varno swung his legs off his desk, rolled his chair over to the fridge, grabbed two bottles of mineral water, and lobbed them to the agents.

  “So,” he said. “You guys couldn’t stay away because you missed me, right?”

  Callen unscrewed his bottle cap. “You’re the last person I think about every night,” he said.

  “And the first one I think about when day breaks,” Sam said.

  “Although we would kind of appreciate another look around Elias Sutton’s place,” Callen said.

  “Being we’re in the neighborhood anyway,” Sam said.

  Varno rubbed his jaw as if he’d been punched.

  “Oof,” he said. “Pick me up, knock me right down.” He smoothed a finger across his bristly white mustache. “You know, I’ve been all the rage in SoCal these last couple days.”

  “Aren’t you always?” Callen said.

  “In a word,” Varno said, “no.”

  Callen took a sip of the fizzy water, imagining the detective putting balls across the floor while the cars came and went outside.

  “Your sudden popularity have something to do with the Sutton case?”

  “Smart guy,” Varno said. He sank back in his chair, folding his hands across his middle. “First thing this morning, I get a phone call from Josh Knowles. He’s a commander with Robbery-Homicide in L.A.”

  “He been missing the hell outta you too?” Sam asked.

  “Hilarious,” Varno said. “Knowles is a good one. I like him. But I don’t like somebody thinking he can throw his weight around. Ranking detective or not.”