by Jan Coffey
Nate was relieved to have the assistant director take charge again. Thirty-two open cases had been wiped off his New York desk with one quick sweep yesterday, and he was ready to get down to business. In spite of the fact that they had been ready to spring the trap on a high-profile brokerage firm’s CEO who was trying to hide income through some foreign art transactions, Nate had left behind the four special agents in his group and flown out of LaGuardia last night on an hour’s notice. Sanford Hawes acknowledged the well-groomed man sitting beside him at the head of the table.
“Chief Buckley and your police department are diligently working on the case, and they might even have a witness,” Hawes explained. “The decision regarding how to proceed with the press, though, has been issued from the top. That is why we have brought you in here. We cannot afford, at this time, to admit that the Schuyler flag has been burned. We cannot let the perpetrators know that they have succeeded. The world is watching, and if it becomes public that this artifact—a focal item in this Spirit of America celebration—has been damaged, we will be seeing not only the group responsible for this attack, but similar terrorist groups, as well, targeting other items.”
Police Chief Buckley leaned forward, stabbing the table with his index finger as he addressed the police officers and firefighters who had been directly involved with the flag-room fire. “This is a presidential gag order. When these reporters ask, you say you put out a fire in a trash can. Some smoke damage to the ceilings, but there was no damage to anything else in the room. Understood? This is the same thing that I said in the press conference last night, and you will simply refer any more questions to my office. That’s all.”
Nate looked at the faces of those around the table. None seemed adversely affected by the directive.
The director of the Fort Ticonderoga Museum raised her hand, looking at Wilcox. “The Schuyler flag was to be the backdrop of the entire ceremony. How are you going to explain it when it’s missing?”
“That is a separate matter that we’ll remedy before the start of the celebration.”
A heavyset museum guide snorted. “Since President Kent made the announcement last fall about this patriotic road show, we’ve had a dozen guys—experts and pseudo experts—coming in here and poring over that flag. You won’t be able to stick in some forgery. And if the press got hold of that—”
“We have no intention,” Wilcox sputtered, “of anything so underhanded as to use a forgery in a celebration of our heritage.”
Hawes held up his hand, cutting off the National Museum director. “We have nothing of the sort in mind, sir. Do you really think we would try anything so lacking in integrity?”
The museum guide flushed. “Well, no…I…”
“I am obliged to tell you, however, that the legal consequences of anyone failing to comply with this security directive are severe.” Hawes smiled, baring tiger’s teeth. “But I know that it’s unnecessary to even bring up such matters. Working with such a group as this, I am certain we will prevail in our efforts to comply with the President’s wishes. And on behalf of the President, I can say that the nation thanks you all for your loyalty and professionalism.”
Hawes looked around the table before fixing his gaze on the local museum director. “As far as what the replacement flag will be and where it will come from, that’s something Dr. Wilcox and the FBI are working on. We have already taken what is left of your flag into our custody. All you need to tell any reporter who asks is that the Schuyler flag has been handed over, as scheduled, to Dr. Wilcox at the Smithsonian in preparation for the celebration on the Fourth of July.”
The words and the tone were convincing enough. Nate watched the portly museum worker laugh self-consciously at some crack by one of the firefighters about what they could really say to the reporters.
Nate knew finding another flag was where he came in. He and Wilcox and Hawes were supposed to meet after this call-for-solidarity meeting and go over the specifics. Apparently, the artifacts director had something up his sleeve.
There were no other questions, so the non-law-enforcement personnel were dismissed. The handful of police officers stayed behind to discuss the possible witness. A young officer handed out a fact sheet and a photo.
Nate leafed through the manila folder beneath his writing pad and found the additional information he’d been given before the meeting.
Christopher Weaver. Eight years old. Male Caucasian. Forty-four inches tall. Sixty-five pounds. Light brown hair. Brown eyes. A second-grader at Washington Elementary School. Reported missing after the class field trip to the fort and museum yesterday afternoon. The museum security cameras’ timed shots of the hallway outside the flag room were a positive match with the boy’s pictures on file with the Department of Child Services. Nate thumbed through the attached pages. Domestic disaster. Foster homes. Runaway. Tons of history.
The report read that after separating from his classmates yesterday, Christopher had vandalized a bathroom. After doing some damage there, he’d walked across the hall to the flag room and then run off by way of a back exit door.
Nate looked closely at the school picture of the boy. A good imitation of a tough look, but there was vulnerability behind the brown eyes.
The officer who’d passed out the fact sheet spoke. “We’ve already checked all his usual hangouts. We have a cruiser sitting by the trailer park where the mother dropped anchor a couple of weeks ago with a new boyfriend. There’s been no sign of him.”
“As you requested,” Chief Buckley said to Hawes, “publicly we’re treating these incidents as separate. There’s been no connection made with the fire. As far as the school and the teachers are concerned, he left the museum but never boarded the bus. And he’s a chronic runaway. Everyone figures he’ll probably show up in a day or two—a week, tops—like he always does.”
Nate thumbed through the manila folder and checked Christopher’s age again.
“You’re dealing with an eight-year-old,” he said. Everyone turned around and looked at him, as if noticing his presence for the first time. The chair creaked when Nate shifted his weight in it to face the police chief. “This is still a missing child. The perps responsible for the fire could very well have grabbed the boy. Are we considering the possibility that this Christopher Weaver might be at risk?”
“Of course we are,” Buckley answered immediately. “But as you can see for yourself, Agent Murtaugh, his footprints show him leaving the room, and we have his fingerprints on the door where he exited the building. Naturally, we want to know if he saw anything that could shed some light, but there is also the strong possibility that the device was planted much earlier.” The chief looked at Hawes for support as he continued. “And you have to remember that this kid has a record of delinquent behavior. He runs away all the time.”
“But what if this time is different?” Nate asked, staring at the man’s perfectly groomed hair and crisp uniform. Buckley obviously came ready for a press conference. “What if there is foul play involved here? I mentioned the possibility of abduction by the perpetrators, but let’s forget about the flag and the fire for a minute. How about parental abduction? Hasn’t the state declared both of them unfit? Has anyone checked to see if the father is still in prison? Isn’t there a possibility that after he left the building some deviate off the state highway picked him up and—”
“We know the drill, Agent Murtaugh,” Chief Buckley snapped. “And yes, we’ve gone through all of it.”
Nate was ready to press the police chief for more, but he caught the “let the damn thing go” look Hawes was fixing him with. Clearly, he was stepping on the chief’s toes, and the fire and the boy were not specifically part of the task he had been assigned. Nate shrugged, letting the subject drop—for now.
Eleven years ago, Sanford Hawes had been Nate’s first special agent in charge when he’d started with the FBI. If there were any good old days that he could recall of his years with the Bureau, those first four years of reporting
to Sanford had been it. Tough as reinforced concrete, the big guy also had that touch of humanity and loyalty that you rarely found in the guys on the fast track. As a SAC, Hawes worked his guys to the bone, but he had common sense, too. Nate and the others trusted his judgment and would have followed him to the gates of hell, if he’d asked. It was the memory of those days that shut Nate up now.
A quick summation followed, and Hawes ended the meeting.
Nate remained in his seat while Buckley’s people pushed out of the room. From the folder, he jotted down the name and address of Sharon Green, identified as Christopher’s current foster mother. As he was writing, the same police officer who’d passed out the fact sheets approached him.
“I’m leaning your way, Agent Murtaugh,” he said in a hushed voice. At the head of the conference table, Hawes and Buckley were doing a postmortem on the meeting. “I don’t think things are as cut-and-dried as we’d like them to be.”
Nate looked at the young man’s name tag. “If you could use some help, Officer McGill, just let me know. That’s what we’re here for.”
“Call me Tom.” He threw a hesitant glance over his shoulder at his superior. “I’m still fairly new at the job, and I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot. If you happen to drop by the station, though, I’d like to show you what I’ve got on the boy and see if any of it makes any sense.”
Nate rose stiffly to his feet and shook the officer’s hand. “I’ll do that. Hold on a second,” he said, scribbling his cell phone number on his pad. He tore the piece off the page and handed it to the young cop. “In case you need to get hold of me.”
As McGill left, Nate saw that Hawes was watching him. His left knee was rusty as an old gate hinge, but he refused to let the assistant director see him hobbling around. Making sure he didn’t favor his bum leg, Nate turned to the window and looked through the blinds again at the reporters who appeared to be camped out permanently on the sidewalk. They were more like vultures than wolves, and they all clearly smelled something nasty. He glanced over his shoulder at Eric Wilcox. The artifacts director was talking into his cell phone and taking notes furiously in the corner of the room. He sure as hell hoped the man had an ace up his sleeve.
Hawes closed the conference room door behind the police chief. Seeing Wilcox still on the phone, he crossed the room to Nate. “How’s the knee?”
“Good as new. Coffee?” Nate walked to the table in the corner to get himself another cup.
“Still looks stiff to me,” the older man said, joining him there and pouring a cup for himself.
Nate refused to talk about it. Following two knee surgeries and four months of physical therapy after being shot, he’d ended up with a bum leg and a promotion that had taken him out of the field and shoved him behind a desk.
“How’s the new job?”
“Stinks.”
“I thought so.” Hawes took a sip of the scalding coffee.
“How do you do it, Sanford?” Nate asked. “How do you deal with all the bureaucratic bullshit and ass-kissing that goes along with it?”
“Mouthwash.” Hawes flashed his big teeth. “Thought you’d like a break. Are you up for the job?”
“What’s to be up for?”
Hawes shot an impatient glance in the direction of the artifacts director. “Dr. Smithsonian over there has identified another flag made about the same time as the one that was burned.”
“Private collection?”
“Yeah. And more closely linked to George Washington than this one.”
“How’s that?”
“There was a guy named Robert Morris who practically financed the whole American Revolution. Signed the Declaration of Independence and everything. Story is that Washington gave this other flag to Morris after the revolution. Wilcox claims this flag may be the first one that Betsy Ross delivered.”
“I thought that Betsy Ross stuff was all a myth.” Nate cast an incredulous look at the tall thin man with the phone growing out of his ear. “How come nobody knows about this other flag, then?”
“Apparently, quite a few collector types do know and have known about it for some time.” He gestured to the museum director to cut it short. “We can both hear all the particulars as soon as he gets off the god-damn phone.”
From the tone of the conversation, it sounded as if Wilcox was wrapping up the call. Nate sat down next to his superior at the conference table. “How about the weave and wear of the two flags? That museum guide had a point. How is Wilcox going to substitute one flag for the other?”
“I don’t think there’ll be any need. We come up with the original Betsy Ross flag, and nobody will care about this one.”
“Do we know who has the flag?”
“No. That’s where you come in. Wilcox is supposed to get us some leads on who had it last and where they kept it.” Hawes’s voice turned low and confidential. “This operation has to be discreet. No publicity. Your job is to find the flag. I don’t care if you buy or steal it, but you will bring it back in under fifteen days. This thing’s got to be in Philadelphia on the Fourth of July for President Kent’s kickoff of this Spirit of America thing.”
“So this might be as simple as approaching the present owners and convincing them to loan it to us for the length of the president’s tour.” Nate swiveled his chair toward Wilcox, who had just joined them. “This doesn’t look like a Bureau job. Sounds to me like you’d be much better off using some artsy society diplomat type.”
“I’m afraid things aren’t as simple as they look, Agent Murtaugh.” Wilcox opened his briefcase and took out a file more than three inches thick, held together by a couple of thick rubber bands. “This is only a sampling of the work special agents at the Department of the Interior have done over the past ten years chasing this flag. You’ve told him the details?”
“As much as I know,” Hawes said.
“How do we know this is the real thing?” Nate asked.
“The authenticity of the claim is supported by one entry in a letter from Robert Morris’s personal man-servant. The letter refers to the flag as George Washington’s gift to the financier,” Wilcox explained.
“Why has this never made the news?”
“Because the flag immediately disappeared after it was found on one of the Morris descendants’ properties back in the late eighties. Apparently, it was sold to a private collector.” Wilcox slid the file across the width of the conference table to Nate. “I had just joined the Department of the Interior at the time of the find. We got wind of it then, but the decision was made to keep it out of the news since we had nothing to show for the discovery, anyway.”
Nate opened the file. “How can you be sure that the whole thing wasn’t a hoax? You said there was no verification of its authenticity.”
“We have a report of the flag changing hands six years ago for twenty-five million dollars.” Wilcox reached across the table and pointed to a tab on the folder. “Serious collectors don’t put that many zeros on their checks for a fake.”
Nate opened up to the marked page and looked at the name. “Does this guy have it now?”
“Unfortunately, no. What we’ve found out is that the flag has changed hands at least twice since then, but as to the identity of the buyers or how much they paid for it…” Wilcox shrugged.
Nate didn’t even bother to ask why the ball was dropped. The flag wasn’t stolen property, and after the September 11 disaster in 2001, all the federal agencies had gone through some serious overhaul, especially the FBI. In that climate, keeping an eye on something merely for the sake of its potential historical interest definitely took a back seat to tracking down terrorists.
“This flag could be anywhere in the world,” Hawes snapped at the artifacts director. “And we have barely two weeks left. How the hell could you promise the President that we’d find the thing when we have no leads?”
“But we do have leads…or I think we do.” Wilcox took a small pad of paper out of his pocket. “My contacts in
the private sector tell me that there’s been a rumor going around for a week or so about an original Betsy Ross flag coming up for auction again. Soon.”
“Well, that simplifies things, anyway,” Hawes grumbled. “We’re authorized to pay whatever is necessary to get it. When and where is the auction?”
Wilcox pushed the wire-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his long, thin nose and reached into his pocket again, this time for the handkerchief. “This is the sticky part, I’m afraid. These private auctions are only attended by invitation. Certainly you know how the art world works, Agent Murtaugh. Because of the…ah, shady backgrounds of some of these collectors, a representative of the U.S. government would definitely be persona non grata.”
Nate leaned back in the chair and listened without interest to Hawes chewing Wilcox’s ass over how the museum director was going to get Nate on the list of bidders for this auction. Going undercover had its appeal, but acting like some rich art collector just to buy a flag wasn’t exactly Nate’s idea of getting back in the field. Still, remembering the piles of paperwork and reports on his desk, he told himself it was a start.
Wilcox was thumbing through his notes and successfully avoiding eye contact with the FBI assistant director. When Hawes took a breath, Wilcox jumped in.
“The only way to go about this is to have the right people recommend him. There is a network of dealers involved here, and it is not a large community. Everyone knows everyone. The whole business—that is, collecting in the private sector—is about so-and-so knowing so-and-so, who tells their cousin or therapist, who tells a dealer about some guy with money who is looking for a certain property. There are corporate buyers who occasionally work their way into the network, but they, too, need a reference.” Wilcox paused. “Of course, most artifacts of American history with any significant value are bought and sold only by members of the ‘good old boys’ network.”
“We need names, Wilcox,” Hawes barked. “Someone we can squeeze. We need a place where Nate can start.”
“I know that.” Wilcox looked at his notes again. “My people have come up with a name of a former art dealer who served time in prison for her involvement in her late husband’s fraudulent operations. She’s back on the street again and, as far as we can tell, is very well connected and respected in the community.”
