Lone Hunter: Will Finch Mystery Thriller Series Book 3

by D. F. Bailey

  “Excellent idea.” He turned on the overhead spot light and adjusted the computer screen.

  “Wake me when the coffee cart comes around.”

  He felt like posting a Do Not Disturb sign on the back of the neighboring head rest. Instead, he opened the cellophane packet containing a pair of orange foam earplugs that the steward had given him and inserted them into his ears. He considered the writers back in the bog and their noise-canceling headphones. Finally, he was one with them.

  He spent the next two hours writing the profile of Malinin and the corporate connections linking him to GIGcoin and Senator Franklin Whitelaw. Despite Malinin’s instincts to protect Whitelaw, Finch had gathered enough information to make the allegations against Whitelaw indictable offenses. But the complete Malinin story, while critical to the overall picture, wasn’t required right away. What Finch needed first was an opening lead, two paragraphs that he could email to the senator. They would be a battering ram to smash the barricade to the senator’s world and let Finch into the center of the story he’d worked on for months. With the first draft completed, he returned to the opening lines to tweak the sequence of words that he hoped would shatter Whitelaw’s empire of corruption.

  A Russian oligarch has identified Senator Franklin Whitelaw as a key partner in an international banking scheme headquartered in the Grand Cayman Islands. In an exclusive interview with the eXpress, Alexei Malinin, an ex-KGB operative once assigned to the Soviet Embassy in Washington, confirmed that Whitelaw, the senior US Senator from California, is one of seven principals who signed the incorporation papers of GIGcoin Bank and Exchange.

  GIGcoin is a cryptocurrency set to launch this year and compete for supremacy with bitcoin, the digital currency associated with the disappearance of over $450,000,000 in March 2014. The eXpress has acquired copies of the GIGcoin incorporation papers which confirm Malinin’s statement. Whitelaw first met Malinin in 1987 at the height of the Cold War. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the two men have maintained a business and personal relationship.

  ※

  By the time the 737 touched down at SFO, Sochi’s fever had spiked above one hundred and three degrees. His face bore a gray pallor that sunk beneath his red hair and beard. His eyes couldn’t focus on any objects more that a few feet away. When he lurched into a trash can outside the departure gate Finch had to grasp him around his shoulders and pull him away from the luggage claim ramp.

  “Sochi, you’re soaking wet!” Finch rubbed his damp hands against the legs of his pants.

  “I know. Something’s wrong.”

  They could barely hear him. Eve held a hand to his forehead and pulled it away in shock. “Let’s get him to a hospital.”

  He raised an arm to object, then relented. “Okay,” he wheezed and then tried to tug his duffle bag behind him.

  “Let me get this,” Finch said and heaved the bag onto a cart and set Eve’s luggage and his own onto the rack and wheeled the carrier toward the airport exit.

  As Sochi stumbled forward, Eve wrapped her arm around his waist and steered him along the sidewalk to a taxi. Before he could climb into the back seat he leaned over the curb and vomited into the gutter.

  Fortunately the emergency ward at the San Francisco General Hospital was experiencing a brief lull. Within ten minutes Sochi was guided through the admission process, whisked behind the reception desk and led toward a bed with a pull-around privacy curtain. Finch helped him strip and then dressed him in a vented hospital gown. An orderly settled him onto a gurney. Soon an array of wires connected him to a monitor that clicked and beeped above his bed. Eve and Finch were told to wait in the reception area.

  But before he could sit down, Will’s phone pinged with an in-coming text message.

  “Wally. Somehow I imagined I’d get an hour to myself.” He read the text and glanced at Eve with a look of resignation. “I’ve got to go to the office.”

  “Go.” She slumped into the chair next to the water cooler and set her bag at her feet. “I knew you’d have to. But someone should stay with Sochi. Me, obviously. At least until we know what’s happened to him.” She dug through her purse and pulled out her tablet and tapped the cover with a fingernail. “Besides, I’ve got to sort out a ton of email with Gianna’s estate lawyer.”

  He leaned over and kissed her.

  She wrapped a hand around his neck and pulled him in close.

  “I love you, you know.”

  He wasn’t expecting to hear this. Not now.

  “So don’t fuck this up. Okay?”

  “Okay. I won’t.” He laughed with a genuine brightness and kissed her again. “I promise.”

  ※

  Finch loaded the three bags into a taxi, drove them back to Mother Russia, carried the luggage up to his condo, had a quick shower, shaved, and took the Powell-Mason cable car down to Geary Street. As he marched the three blocks over to the eXpress office he considered his next moves and tried to imagine a sequence that would lock all the puzzle pieces into place.

  As he walked toward his desk in the bog he passed Fiona’s pod. Her computer was on, the cursor blinked mutely. Her collection of Lypsyl sticks stood in a row behind her telephone. A cotton sweater lay draped over the back of her chair. He dashed off a note to her and stuck it onto her monitor: Welcome home. Come and find me. W.

  Back at his station, he tugged his laptop from his bag and plugged it into the server lines. Minutes later he was up and running. He pulled up the Malinin file that he’d written on the flight back to SFO and emailed it to Wally with a brief query: I’ll send the first two ‘graphs to Whitelaw to pry a response out of him. What do you think?

  Less than a minute later his desk phone buzzed. He checked the caller ID: W. Gimbel. “Finch, my office. Now,” Wally growled.

  “Nice to hear from you,” he replied with a false decorum.

  A pause. “Right. Welcome back. Now get over here pronto, amigo.”

  When Finch swung open the door to his boss’s office he saw Wally Gimbel standing next to a new wall-mounted TV monitor. Fiona sat in one of the three chairs facing Wally’s desk. As Finch passed behind her he squeezed her shoulder.

  “Good to see you,” he said under his breath.

  She set her hand on his, then let it slip away. “You too.”

  “Wally, you got a new video monitor?”

  “Scavenged it from the editor’s office in the Post.” He frowned and pointed to the floors below the eXpress. “The day after they closed down. Okay, let me replay this,” he continued without missing a beat. He pressed the rewind button on his remote clicker. As the gray-scale images whizzed past, Finch thought they could be watching reruns of a grainy 1950s TV show.

  “All right. This is security footage of the Van Ness subway station captured during the two-hour slot when Fiona managed to escape from Justin Whitelaw.”

  “Impressive. How did you get this?”

  “Can’t reveal my sources.” Wally turned and fixed them with his cheshire grin. “If I did, my ex’s ex would feel a certain level of betrayal.”

  “Your ex’s ex?” Fiona’ asked.

  “My first wife is a serial monogamist. Five times down the aisle,” he said without a hint of irony. “Her third husband, who works for MUNI, still bears a grudge. Okay Will, this is our second go-round with this. Fiona says she saw Justin at the edge of the platform right here.” He advanced the video and stopped it at the time marked 11.36.42.

  “Could be him,” Finch said. “Looking a little rough, I’d say.”

  Fiona said, “No, that’s definitely him. You can’t see his face very well, especially in the crowd, but that’s his shirt. And see” — she pointed with her hand — “the blood on his shirt. That’s from….”

  She looked away, unable to complete her thought. Given what she’d been through, Finch was impressed by her composure. She’d dug down deep to be able to come back to work and watch this video so soon after her imprisonment and escape.

 
“Now watch this.” Wally advanced the video in slow-motion, describing the images as they progressed. “The subway car enters the station. Then Justin seems frozen in place. Then here — look carefully — he simply turns and dives onto the tracks.”

  He let the video run as the three of them watched the disaster unfold. Justin’s arms slumped forward as if he were about to dive into a pool. He fell across the track, face-down, his belly atop the left rail. A second later the train rushed over him and Justin disappeared.

  “Unbelievable,” Finch whispered.

  “While you were gone,” Wally continued, “everyone agreed it was suicide. When you see this, there’s no doubt. The official rationale runs like this: the deaths of his sister and uncle led Justin into an acute depression. Then his desperate act. When Fiona escaped he knew it was the end.”

  Finch nodded. There was Cecily’s death and then Buddy. He knew more than a little about acute depression. “So the cops finally confirmed his link to Fiona?”

  “Yeah. Right after they interviewed me. I guess they wanted to get it out before I did.”

  “They scooped us?” Finch let out a mock laugh.

  “I guess they did.” She shrugged. “I just wasn’t ready, Will.”

  “Of course. Sorry, Fiona … I didn’t mean….” Finch tired to back pedal, realized it was impossible and decided to switch the discussion back to the suicide.

  “So now it’s all about Justin’s depression. The SFPD claimed the exact opposite at the media session just last week. That he wasn’t depressed, I mean.”

  “You know how it works. Second opinion.”

  “And the forensic psychologist confirmed the diagnosis this morning,” Fiona added.

  “That’s what the family said about Gianna. Depression, then suicide.” Finch turned away in disgust. Their collective delusion sickened him with its perverse self-pity. “What is it about the Whitelaws?”

  “Hard to say.” Wally turned off the monitor and settled into his chair. “The senator has gone to ground. Hiding in his condo in D.C., apparently. It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s had a complete breakdown. Losing two children separately within two months? And his step-brother. Most parents would completely collapse. I know I would.”

  Finch took a moment to assess the implications. “Okay, I’ve got a lot to fill you in about Hawaii. Fiona, you want to stick around for this?”

  “I would, but I’m finishing my feature story.” She stood. “I want it ready before I go to the police press conference at the Palace of Justice.” She checked her watch. “In two hours. I think they’re trying to wrap it up. Stamp ‘case cleared’ on Justin’s file and bury it in the archives.”

  “Your first-person account?” Finch asked.

  She nodded.

  “Go.” Wally tipped his head toward the door. “If there’s anything you need to know, I’ll fill you in. And Fiona.” He paused. “Everyone knows you’ve done a helluva job with this.”

  Her face churned with a twist of pain and pride and she slipped out of the room.

  ※

  Finch spent the next hour with Wally. Given Malinin’s history, the murder of Marat following the exchange of flash drives, the illicit web cams, Witowsky’s involvement with it all, and Sochi’s sudden illness — Wally sat riveted by Finch’s story. The only episode he omitted was about Sochi spiking the software. Since Will didn’t know the implications, he decided to ignore it for now.

  When he concluded, Wally believed they were poised to smash open an international financial conspiracy. Only one question remained: how to reveal the scheme in the right sequence to ensure that one source didn’t jeopardize another and immediately kill the entire operation.

  “We have to publish this all at once.” he announced. “A complete A-to-Z box-set exposé. No drip feed with this thing.”

  “To do that, I have to talk to Senator Whitelaw.”

  Wally looked away with a frown.

  “Did you read my last email?” Will pointed to his boss’s computer. “I sent you the story on Malinin. But I want to send the first two paragraphs to Whitelaw. If he doesn’t consent to an interview with me the implications of his silence will be brutal. It’ll mean the end of his career. Most likely he’ll be imprisoned. His only hope is to go on record and clear his name of any involvement with GIGcoin. The question is, how do I get him to read it?”

  Wally peered into this monitor and read the opening paragraphs. Then he set his elbows on the desk, tented his fingers over his mouth and thought a moment more. “Leave that to me,” he sighed. “I should have an answer for you in a day or two. Meanwhile write all the backgrounders to the story so we can publish everything after you talk to Whitelaw.”

  “And if he refuses an interview?”

  “Then we publish without him. But he’ll talk. He’s smart enough to know he has to get in front of this story. Like you say, it’s his only way to survive.”

  “Okay.” Finch stood up.

  “By the way, you said that friend of my nephew got sick in Hawaii?”

  “Yeah, Sochi. On the flight back from Honolulu. Instant flu syndrome, I guess. Fever and some vomiting. But the guy’s built like a Viking. I’m sure he’ll be fine in a few days.” He swung open the door but before he could leave, Wally called him back.

  “One more thing.” Wally held a finger in the air. “New orders from Lou Levine in Legal. Every eXpress reporter is now required to install a security app on their phones before they conduct another in-person interview. It’s called Stand Up 4 Justice.”

  “What?”

  “Since Fiona was abducted. You’ll find instructions in an email from me with a link to the app. In an emergency it automatically captures a video on your phone, sends the recording to Dropbox and a text to me. If you’re in trouble, I’ll know it and we’ll have documented video proof of whatever went down.”

  ※

  When Finch scrolled through the screens of email back at his desk, he was pleasantly surprised to find no emergencies waiting to snap at him. He sorted the new messages by the sender’s name to identify anything important: one each from Wally and Fiona, another from the new intern, Gabe Finkleman.

  As promised, the note from Wally contained the “legal requirement” to install Stand Up 4 Justice on his phone. Despite his doubts, he installed the app as requested, taking a moment to scan the user tips as the program loaded on his Samsung. The app had been inspired by the murders of US citizens by cops. 2015 would mark a record year if the trend continued: one thousand people shot dead during arrest procedures. Everywhere you looked it seemed like the police were out of control. Did the intake process not include some kind of psychopath screening? Or maybe psychopathology was now a requirement for new recruits.

  He opened the email from the ever-eager-to-please Finkleman: “Just checking to see if I can help.”

  Finch replied: “Yes, you can. Dig up any and all info on GIGcoin patents, copyrights and trademarks. Email results directly to me. Thanks, W.”

  From Fiona he found something much more personal, written several days earlier when she was still in the hospital.

  Will, thanks for the pep talk last night. After crying myself to sleep I woke up realizing that you’re right. I can eat the rapes and beatings I took or let them eat me. (Good old Nietzsche, right?) So I started writing the first-person feature story that Wally assigned to me. Began with me breaking out of Justin’s make-shift prison and running for my life to the Van Ness station. Then I looped the story-line back to the night when I met him for a drink at Café Claude, thinking I could interview him to get the inside scoop on Gianna and Dean Whitelaw and his crazy driver, Toby Squire. (Who lies in a coma, in a locked room three floors above me....) I haven’t finished writing yet, but the story will end with Justin’s death in the subway. Kind of a full-circle thing.

  Anyway this isn’t supposed to be about my story. It’s more about how you helped guide me out of the maze I was in. I know in some way you blame yourself for what hap
pened. But that’s not accurate. I went to meet Justin knowing there was a risk. Both you and Wally warned me, but it was my call. What I couldn’t do on my own — and where I needed help — was to find my way back to something resembling ‘normal.’ But you did. You came to me and you got me out. Thank-you. Fiona. PS — I owe you one. Lunch some day? On me.

  Finch read the note a second time and was about to reply with a snappy come-back, something to diminish the weight of emotion — so that they could, as she said, put the “normal” back in their working relationship — when his phone buzzed with a text message from Eve: Sochi’s taken a bad turn. Can you swing by?

  Finch wavered between the two messages, both demanding something from him. There’d been a time in his life, in his early twenties, when he would have ignored both women and simply moved on. But that was when he needed to deny their power. It also meant that he had to deny what he needed — and what they offered and possessed. He now believed that denial was somehow tied to personal destruction. To say “no” to someone in need is like summoning death in a whisper. And there was plenty of that going around these days.

  First he responded to Fiona, one sentence that he hoped would keep their bond alive: Fiona, you are the most normal person I know and if you think that feeding me lunch can prove it, then simply name the time and place.

  Then he took his phone and replied to Eve’s text: I’ll be there in an hour.

  ※ — THIRTEEN — ※

  WHEN FINCH MET Eve in the hospital lobby, he felt concerned the moment he saw her face.

  “Sochi’s been moved to ICU.” She bore a worried look, as if some threads of her life had slipped beyond her reach and she didn’t know how to pull them back under control.

  “Intensive Care? I thought he had a bad flu.” Finch scanned the hallways, seeking out a sign pointing the way to ICU. “Where is he?”

  Eve led the way along the hall and up an elevator to the third floor. As they marched along the antiseptic-smelling corridor she explained the little she knew about Sochi’s condition. “Apparently his fever has spiked and there’s been more vomiting and diarrhea. The orderlies let me walk along the gurney beside him as they moved him up here. All he could say was that he’s been poisoned.”