Simon Sees

by Ryne Douglas Pearson

  “You probably were,” Frankie commented.

  “I feel that if I can relate to what Agent Jefferson was like, his career, personal life, maybe during the time they came together, then I can speak to Simon as someone on an equal footing with the man he’ll never let go of.”

  Frankie didn’t have to consider that suggestion for more than a second to nod at its accuracy. In part, at least.

  “You can’t expect to replace Art in Simon’s life,” Frankie reminded the younger agent.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I don’t want to,” Emily said. “It’s clear to me that Simon was a huge part of Agent Jefferson’s life. I just want to be able to do my job. That’s all.”

  Frankie studied Special Agent Emily LaGrange for a moment. Was this her actually trying to perform a task as it had been given? Was she trying to show that she could do just that? Some nod to the Bureau brass who’d, in essence, shuffled her off to her very own Siberia?

  Maybe. Whatever her motivation, the request made sense. Granting it, though, was not the simplest of tasks. Emily LaGrange had access to the Bureau’s internal data system, just as any agent did. But Art Jefferson’s files were sequestered behind a classified firewall. Only those with certain need, or at a certain level of Bureau hierarchy, had access to the myriad of reports and documents that told the story of her late friend.

  Frankie was one of those people. All Special Agents in Charge were.

  “I can grant you seven days access through my login,” Frankie said.

  She took a slip of note paper ad jotted down what Emily would need to access the FBI’s data system as if it was her logging in.

  “How’s your memory?” Frankie asked, holding the paper out for Emily to see, but not take.

  “Good,” Emily said, studying the username and password combination before standing.

  Frankie tore the slip of paper in half and fed it into the shredder next to her desk. Later, the slices of paper would be turned to ashes during the nightly burn of sensitive material.

  “Thank you for your help,” Emily said. She turned toward the door, but only made it two steps.

  “Agent LaGrange…”

  Emily stopped and faced the Los Angeles SAC as she stood behind her desk.

  “You probably won’t hear this from too many people in the Bureau, but you did the right thing,” Frankie said.

  Emily puzzled at her for a moment, trying to equate what she was doing with such a broad, almost grandiose statement. Then, in an instant, she realized that the SAC wasn’t talking about this at all.

  ‘Shoot him now!’

  “You did what you had to do,” Frankie added. “In many ways, that makes you Art Jefferson’s equal. For what that’s worth.”

  She didn’t respond. Didn’t react. But inside, her heart was racing with the sudden flourish of memory which had burst free. The SAC had either read herself what had transpired at the end of her undercover assignment, or had been briefed. For some reason, she was deciding that now was the time to express her take on the matter. A take which was a hundred and eighty degrees different from the powers that be at the FBI and Justice. Hearing that, whether it was simply meant to buoy her, or whether it was an expression of confidence in her as an agent, Emily did not know how to react. In the end, she simply offered a small nod and let herself out of the SAC’s office.

  She’s still hurting, Frankie thought. All because she put a bullet in the right man.

  * * *

  The dead space was in the back room of a strip mall under renovation just off I-95 southwest of Baltimore. A workman who was not that at all let her in through the front door of the stripped establishment and locked it behind, standing guard as she made her way through the stacks of construction materials to the place where she would commit several felonies in pursuit of a higher goal.

  The room had once been a storage space, but was now filled with a small desk, computer system atop it, with a satellite phone and headset wired into an electronic scrambler next to the keyboard and mouse, the entire array of equipment plugged into a battery bank and inverter. No direct connection existed between the systems and the physical space in which it had been placed. Sheila closed the door and eased herself into the folding chair facing the setup and powered up the system, slipping the headset on as she began typing information into the computer, data from it transmitted to a satellite zipping past several hundred miles overhead.

  I need a name…

  Or at least a name that could lead to a name. That was her assignment—to find the owner of the funds which had been transferred to the account belonging to an octogenarian widow in Spain. She had amounts of transfers, and the source institution, Richport-Avante-Sol Financial, a conglomerate of banks formed through corporate marriage which had branches in Zurich, Madrid, Tokyo, Moscow, and a dozen other major cities.

  But not the United States…

  Sheila knew that choice of geography was purposeful. Executing warrants was made more difficult if federal agents had no door to kick down, nor any computer servers to confiscate. That fact wasn’t damning in itself, but it spoke to a corporate culture at the highest levels willing to turn a blind eye to certain activities of their depositors.

  That vice she planned to turn against them.

  “R.A.S Financial,” the pleasant voice answered in accented English. A swiss accent, which Sheila had always thought approached Germanic, but with a hint of meekness. “Interbank Relations, how may I help you?”

  It had taken Sheila only five minutes of delving online to locate a direct number, one in the Zurich office, for the specific department which could deliver what she needed. She’d chosen an office of the conglomerate outside of Spain, believing that some separation from the request would reduce any natural protectiveness toward happenings within the country. All she needed was a disinterested functionary. And she needed that on the first try, otherwise virtual alarm bells might be set off, leading to further security measures on all involved accounts. Worse, those on the other side would be made aware that someone was interested in their activities. That could not happen. She had to be subtle. Convincing.

  Like she had a dozen other times.

  “Yes, good day, this is Alma Esparza,” Sheila said, manufacturing a Spanish accent that might not fool a Spaniard, but should trigger no suspicion in the Swiss woman on the other end of the call. “Banco Placido Rey. I am in the Wire Release department, and we have a situation with funds that transited through your institution.”

  “Oh,” the unnamed Swiss woman reacted, nonplussed. “What is the situation?”

  “Quite simple, while also not so simple,” Sheila said. “A substantial overage was misdirected to a client account, one belonging to a Maria Oliveras, and the money must be returned to avoid tax implications for the unfortunate woman. She is quite old and upset. Yes, provincial revenue officers contacted her, and they went on and on about penalties, and additional taxes. This is not something she is equipped to handle at her age.”

  “That is unfortunate.”

  “Yes,” Sheila said.

  “You cannot simply reverse the transfer?” the Swiss representative asked.

  “We do not know who to return it to,” Sheila explained, drizzling the first bits of bait for the woman across the Atlantic. “All we have is a transit account number, but our system requires a name attached to that to proceed. It is apparently a requirement to prevent fraudulent disbursement of funds should an account be compromised.”

  “I see, I see,” the Swiss woman said. “We don’t have that requirement.”

  “It is very cumbersome to deal with, but a necessity,” Sheila added. “So I was very much hoping you can assist with matching the account number I have with the name so the funds can be returned.”

  There was a hesitation on the other end of the call. That was good, Sheila thought. There was no immediate wall of stone thrown up to repel her request. At the very least, there was consideration.

  “
We guard our clients’ privacy vigorously,” the Swiss woman finally responded.

  “That is understandable,” Sheila said. “Nothing, though, will be released. The name will only exist in the computer to allow the transfer. Your client will not even know. They will simply see funds reappear in their account that never should have been missing.”

  Again, there was a burst of silence, this one longer. Sheila mentally ticked off the precautions she’d taken to avoid giving the woman any hint of the subterfuge underway. The number she was calling from was showing up as coming from the very bank in Madrid that she claimed, a bit of technical spoofing making that possible. She was asking for the least amount of information possible, and was attempting to return money. There was no reason for the representative in Zurich to be suspicious, but even if she was fully convinced, it might not be enough to push her toward action.

  Sheila had anticipated that, and, as the silence lingered, she decided to employ this last gambit to, hopefully, nudge the potentially reluctant Swiss woman.

  “I’m afraid if I cannot arrange this return transfer, my manager has shared that he will file an open complaint alleging mismanagement by your institution,” Sheila said. “He is related to the woman who received the funds erroneously and now faces these difficulties. It is impossible to reason with him. I’m simply hoping to make this end quietly, so our customer finds relief, and so your client isn’t dragged into a public airing of financial failings.”

  This time, Sheila heard a breath through the phone. It could be the prelude to a reaction stating that R.A.S. Financial does not alter its policies due to threats. Or, it might be an indicator of surrender.

  “What is the account number?” the Swiss woman asked without further discussion.

  Sheila recited the information and waited.

  “Yes, I have an account name for you to initiate a reverse of that transfer,” the Swiss representative said.

  “Thank you,” Sheila Reese said. She clicked a pen for effect but set the instrument aside. Writing down as little as possible was imperative to operational security. What was unwritten was unseen.

  But not unheard. She noted the name given to her and ended the call, slipping out of the headset and setting it aside. She powered down the computer and unplugged it from the battery bank and inverter which powered it. There was no data stored on the simple device, a design feature of the system, though it would not have mattered if any had been as a sound rose from within.

  Sheila stepped back and stood near the door, slipping her leather gloves back over their blue latex brethren. A rising whine spilled from the boxy computer case as a motor, powered by an internal battery, spun the small hard drive at an increasing speed, far beyond any tolerance built into the storage device. Within seconds there was a shattering sound as the magnetic platters within disintegrated, the case shuddering before the process within quieted, the motor shutting down.

  Within ten minutes of her departure, she knew, the room would be empty once again, all the technical gadgetry fed into an industrial-grade shredder designed to turn old building materials into tiny bits for disposal. That was the procedure. Leave no trace.

  Sheila Reese left the room and the building with the name in her head that Michael Lane had tasked her with learning. What he would do with that, she didn’t know, though what he’d shared with her at their meeting in the park made her certain that something momentous lay ahead. That, though, would be for others to handle. Her part in this was done.

  Fifteen

  It was all there before her, on screen. The life of Art Jefferson. All the particulars. Education. His Bureau career. Assignments. Los Angeles. Chicago. He’d even pulled some FBI duty that sent him to Vietnam in the waning days of the war. There were no particulars on that, but attachment to some Department of Defense action was not unheard of.

  Then there was his personal life. A failed first marriage to a woman named Lois. A successful second trip to the altar with Dr. Anne Preston. No children of his own, just through marriage. The closest thing he’d had to a child appeared to have been Simon Lynch.

  Simon…

  Emily took her laptop from the small desk in her living room and carried it to the couch, settling in there with the device on her lap. She’d returned from Los Angeles on an afternoon flight, arriving at her apartment a day later than planned. For a while she’d considered sleeping on what she was considering doing, thinking that a clearer head, and some distance from her interaction with Simon Lynch, might allow her to make a more grounded decision on how to proceed.

  That hesitance lasted only through the ten minutes she spent in the shower. By the time she emerged from the bathroom, drenched hair soaking the shoulders of her robe, there was no wonder at all as to what she needed to do. None.

  She scrolled through pages of data, searching for as much information on the focus of her new assignment as she could find. But there were just a scant few mentions, mostly notations of his relationship with Jefferson’s wife, who’d been his doctor at one time. Everything else was locked away behind a deeper firewall, all that she’d been given access to classified Top Secret. Some truths pertaining to Art Jefferson, such as who Leah Poole was, and how the mystery woman related to him and Simon Lynch, had been compartmentalized further, graded even more sensitive than what was already hidden away. And completely out of her reach.

  Unless…

  Unless the Los Angeles SAC had given her a full password to use. One that would give her access as if she were Francine Aguirre-Welsh herself. Had the SAC handed over her personal password? To do the latter would be a breach of security protocol. More likely she gave her ‘one-pass’, which happened on occasion when an agent was accidentally locked out of their own account. Emily wondered if that was the case here, and, more importantly, had any restrictions been placed on the one-pass.

  She said she’d give you access…

  But Emily LaGrange doubted the SAC intended for her to go hunting through files that were beyond classified—even if she hadn’t expressly prohibited it.

  I’ll give you access…

  Those were her words, Emily recalled. No qualifiers.

  “You’re treading dangerous ground here, Em,” she said to herself.

  That was true. If the Bureau needed any more reason to boot her, she very well could be giving it to them with the click of the cursor on her laptop screen. But if she didn’t, she’d remain in the dark, unable to understand just what was happening to Simon Lynch.

  She hesitated, looking at the tab atop the browser which would, possibly, allow her into the highly compartmentalized area of Bureau files. If she clicked on that and hadn’t been granted access, alarms might be set off in some FBI monitoring center somewhere. And if she did make it through…

  “They’ll find out eventually,” Emily reminded herself.

  There was no doubt in her mind, though, what one person would want her to do. One man. Art Jefferson, who’d invested so much of his life to protecting Simon Lynch, would tell her to just do it already.

  Emily dragged the cursor across her laptop screen and clicked the tab atop the page.

  “What the hell…”

  That was Emily’s reaction after just a few minutes spent scanning the information which had been deemed beyond Top Secret. Almost none of it dealt with Simon Lynch at all. The majority concerned activities Art Jefferson had been engaged in leading up to his suicide, all gleaned from the internal review done by Bureau personnel whose names had been redacted.

  “Why blank names out here?” Emily asked herself.

  That made no sense. If this information was secure, why hide those who’d participated in dissecting the last stages of Art Jefferson’s time on earth?

  And why had his actions been deemed worthy of this level of classification? He was emptying and closing bank accounts, money market funds. Cashing in CDs. He was hoarding cash, which was odd, but there was also no indication that he was using it in any criminal matter requiring this ty
pe of scrutiny.

  E-mail…

  That was odd, as well. He’d begun deleting e-mail accounts. Ones that he’d had for years. And he canceled his cell phone service, just two days before he killed himself. For some reason the man with injured arms had begun taking Kung Fu lessons some months back. He’d also begun purchasing large amounts of shelf stable foods, some of which was found in a storage facility he’d rented under a false name. Why do that? Why do any of it?

  There was no evidence of a will naming anyone who would be beneficiary of the hard cash he was accumulating. No suicide note to direct its disbursement. In fact, those investigating his death had been unable to even locate the cash hoard remaining after his erratic purchases. It was as if Art Jefferson had liquidated a good portion of his life and dumped it in some river, all while severing links with the outside world. From the information she’d seen, it appeared that the former agent was at least thinking about going off grid. Maybe going into hiding. But from what? Or who?

  Was it depression run amok? Some internal descent over a span of months that led him to a precipice from which he ultimately made his final decision? If so…

  “Why is the Bureau burying this so deep?”

  It was a valid question. But a pointless one, which had little, if anything, to do with her real reasons for wanting access to Jefferson’s file.

  Stay focused…

  She reminded herself to set all periphery wonderings aside. There was one specific reason she was probing where she was.

  “Leah Poole…”

  That name meant something to Simon Lynch. It made sense that Jefferson, too, would have some connection to it. But she could find none amongst the overload of seemingly pointless data. Mundane details of the investigation were mixed with the salient. Emily had to wade through this conglomeration of useless and telling data to search for the elusive Leah Poole.

  The truth was, though, there was too much. With a team of agents assisting her she might only get through half the material concerning Art Jefferson before her seven-day access was up. And she didn’t have a team.