USA, Inc. (A Mike Wardman Novel: Book 1)

by Larry Kahaner

  Two more black SUVs crisscrossed in front of the truck, causing the driver to instinctively slam on his brakes. It overturned and slid along the pavement.

  Mike stopped the cruiser and ran toward the truck, which was facing driver side up. He opened the door, reached in, and pulled out the driver, who was unconscious but alive. When he flopped onto the pavement, he wasn’t breathing. Mike began CPR, and within a few minutes, the man was coughing and coming to. He managed a weak smile and asked about his helper.

  Mike turned away so he wouldn’t have to answer. He looked up and saw two county officers break the windshield with their batons. They pulled the limp, lifeless body of the gunman out and deposited him on the road, unceremoniously letting his left arm drop—the ultimate proof that the man was dead.

  Mike recognized the man’s face, but he couldn’t place it.

  Just then, an SUV pulled up.

  “FBI,” Hearst said. “This is a federal matter. We’ll take it from here.”

  Chapter 18

  “What do you mean there’re no fingerprint matches?” Mike demanded, sitting in Burke’s office that evening. The rest of the offices were empty and dark except for the glow of computer screens.

  “The FBI said there are no prints on file for either person,” Burke replied.

  “Bullshit. These guys are pros, ex-military or mob. They have skills. Somewhere, there’s paper on them. They didn’t just parachute in to knock off Veach and whatever the hell else they did.”

  “If you like that, you’re going to love this—DNA came up negative, too.”

  “Should I even bother asking about the car?”

  Burke tried to remain calm, but didn’t succeed. He stood up and stepped hard across the carpet, almost stomping. He let out a deep breath and strode back to his desk, opened the bottom drawer, took out a bottle of Scotch and two glasses. He spoke as he poured.

  “Wiped clean. No numbers anywhere, and the mechanics broke down every single part.” He handed a glass to Mike, who downed it in one shot and motioned for another. “I know what you’re thinking. I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

  Mike pushed back in his chair. “The FBI is playing fast and loose with us. I think they’re deliberately withholding information. Why?”

  Burke took a sip. “That would explain why Secretary Wickersham wanted us in on this from the get-go. He didn’t trust the FBI to give him the complete story through the attorney general.” He poured himself another and tilted the bottle toward Mike, who nodded. “Let’s assume that’s true. How high does this go? Is the chokepoint at the FBI level, or at the attorney general? Who’s lying and why? Who can we trust?”

  “Nobody,” Mike answered. “Nobody but us.”

  After a few more drinks, Mike wasn’t up for the three-hour drive home to Rehoboth, and slept on a cot in an empty office. The next morning, he took a shower at a nearby gym, using a guest card from Burke. Mike grabbed a fresh set of clothes stashed in his Jeep for emergencies like this, and despite the dent he and Burke had made in two bottles of Scotch, he was feeling okay. He had a plan to beat those FBI fuckers, and it involved a drive to Quantico.

  Mike hadn’t quite gotten his cover story firmed up, but he figured it would come to him on the drive south. He had trained at the FBI academy at Quantico many times, and knew the place backward and forward. Although a marine base, there was also a small town of about five hundred people, bordered by the base on three sides and the Potomac River on the fourth. Residents had to enter and leave through the guard gate. The town itself looked stuck in the 1940s—a Norman Rockwell main street with heavy brick buildings, clapboard houses with picket fences, hand-painted signs, and more barbers and tailors than a town that size should be able to support. If it weren’t for the marines, who needed both of these services on a regular basis, it wouldn’t.

  Mike borrowed Burke’s private vehicle for the trip. He didn’t want any FBI agents noticing his NOAA Jeep; he didn’t trust the bastards. To enter the base, he showed a phony driver’s license he’d kept from his days at the Bureau and said he was hoping to sell insurance. The guard wrote this down and waved him in.

  Mike waited in a coffee shop until darkness set in, then drove to the hospital, parked in the lot, and walked into reception. He studied the directory board and found what he was looking for: MORGUE – B12. It’s always in the basement.

  Mike pushed on the door, but it was locked. He looked down the half-lit hallway and saw no one. He pulled out a lock pin gun, and with a couple of squeezes on the trigger, he was inside.

  The room was cold and smelled of cleaning solution. His flashlight reflected off stainless-steel tables. Refrigerator boxes lined the far wall. Mike found a clipboard and went down the list of recent arrivals.

  He was looking for John Does—there was no way that the FBI would enter their real names. There were two listed. Mike moved toward their assigned drawers. The two pals were next to each other.

  He opened the first one and it was him—the man who’d been pulled from the dump truck. His face was bruised, and his jaw appeared dislocated.

  “I’ll be damned.” Mike opened his “roommate’s” door. This one’s nose was broken and his left ear was sheared off, probably from the car crash. “I know this joker. But from where?”

  Mike held the first man’s face in his hands, turning it, assessing it from all angles.

  “Don’t move. Hands up. Turn around.”

  Startled, Mike purposely pressed his fingers hard into the dead man’s face. He then slowly raised his hands, and turned around to see a nervous shore patrolman aiming his flashlight and gun at him.

  Mike started toward him.

  “Stay where you are!”

  “I know how this looks, but I can explain.”

  “Shut up!”

  “I have my credentials. I’m Captain Jeckerson, JAG office. There was something I had to check for one of my cases. There’s no one here, and I’ve got a trial tomorrow morning.” Mike began to reach inside his jacket.

  “Don’t move!”

  “But if you’ll just let me show you, we can clear this whole thing up in a second. There’s no need to—”

  “Don’t move, sir.”

  “Listen …” Mike squinted at the nametag “Seaman Rogers. Let me just show you my credentials.”

  As he reached for his walkie-talkie, the SP took his eyes off Mike for a split second—enough time to charge the young man, thrusting him into the wall behind. His gun and flashlight went flying, and he slid to the floor. Mike checked his pulse and the back of his head, where a lump was already growing. No to blood, yes to a pulse.

  “Sorry, buddy.” He retrieved the enlisted man’s flashlight and gun and placed them back in their holsters.

  Mike closed both drawers and took one last look at the rag-doll sailor on the floor before he left. Nothing else was out of place.

  A mile away, Mike entered a diner, smiled at the cashier, and took a toothpick from a tiny cup on the counter. Back in his car, he used the toothpick to remove a bit of skin underneath the nail of his index finger. He placed the speck on a sheet of paper and folded it.

  Mike dialed his phone.

  “Evelyn. It’s Mike. Are you in New York?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m coming for a visit.”

  Chapter 19

  Mike decided to take the fast Acela train to New York City. He called in a small favor from an Amtrak police officer that he’d met while saving the man’s boat and his family. He paid cash for the ticket, no picture ID necessary.

  He dozed for most of the trip and arrived at Penn Station well rested. It was the first time that he felt like he was making headway with the case. At the very least, he had an inkling of some forward movement.

  He cabbed it to the United Nations, where he entered the spacious main lobby. Schoolchildren milled around in groups, waiting for their guides. Tourists sat on benches, planning their next stop with noses buried in foldout maps. Rather than go
through the metal detector with his service pistol, Mike decided to travel unarmed. To carry would require him to show his federal agent ID, and probably put a notation and signature in a security log. He wasn’t taking any chances that the FBI or anyone else could trace his movements.

  He had phoned Evelyn when he was about five minutes out, and while he took a second to look up at the stacked, white terraces in the atrium, he heard his name. Dressed in business chic, she half-ran to Mike, grabbed his left arm with both hands and squeezed as she moved against him. In the next instant, she realized that her greeting was too familiar for her workplace and loosened her grip. She put about foot of air between them.

  “Well?” she said.

  “Is there some place we can talk, privately?”

  They made their way to Evelyn’s office, where they sat on opposite sides of her desk. Her window fronted the East River. The walls held pictures of her with Marilyn at the Acropolis in Athens, photos from Africa with various people, and even a shot of Evelyn holding a small, bug-eyed animal that Mike figured was the greater bamboo lemur.

  She swiveled her chair around to see what had caught Mike’s attention. “That’s Kevin,” she said. “He wandered into our camp one day and never left. They’re not particularly people-friendly, but Kevin took to us for some reason.”

  “And that’s kind of why I’m here,” Mike said.

  “I’m confused.”

  He unfolded the paper that held the skin bit taken from the dead man at the morgue and placed it on the desk as if it were a magician’s trick triumphantly revealed.

  “Still confused.”

  “I got a skin sample from one of the people who I believe killed Marilyn.”

  Evelyn’s eyes widened, and her head rolled back like she’d been smacked in the forehead. “How did you …?”

  Mike didn’t want to go into details of the chase, the dead man in the Camaro, and his accomplice who’d been dragged dead from the garbage truck. He especially didn’t want to relay the story of how he’d sneaked into the Quantico morgue, slugged an SP, and taken a piece of cheek skin from Marilyn’s alleged murderer.

  “It’s a long story. I can tell you later,” Mike said. “I can tell you now that this evidence isn’t kosher. It won’t hold up in court, but it will help us find your sister’s killer.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “My boss and I believe the FBI can’t be trusted on this. There’s something going on, and we don’t have a clue what it is. Knowing who this guy is,” he said, pointing to the paper, “will help answer some questions. I know that your office does DNA work on the lemurs. Is there someone who you trust that can give us the DNA sequencing?”

  “But we do animals,” she said. “This is a human.”

  “I know, but all I want is the genetic sequence. I can find someone else to read it for me and compare it to the suspect’s DNA from his file.”

  “Where will you get that?”

  “I’m not sure yet. Can you do it?”

  “Doesn’t NOAA have access to DNA typing for fishes?”

  “Yes, but right now, I don’t trust anyone in the government.”

  Evelyn’s eyes went to her computer screen. She tapped on the keys. “There’s one person I know … Yes. He owes me a favor.”

  “How much of a favor?”

  She smiled. “That’s also a long story.”

  Chapter 20

  Mike stared at the Post-it note that Evelyn had given him, then back at the building’s address. Then again at the note. And back at the building.

  Before him stood a slum. The soot-stained, brown brick apartment building from the early 1900s had housed the shifts of immigrants—Jews, Poles, Germans, Italians, Puerto Ricans—who’d cycled through on their way to the American Dream. Now, it was the only edifice left standing on this block of Orchard Street in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It appeared to be next in line for demolition, to be replaced with overpriced digs for one-percenters. For now, the dark, oily street featured potholes, sidewalks overflowing with public trashcans, and the occasional delivery truck inching along behind wavering drunks who had no idea where they were. Not that they really cared.

  Mike wished that he had brought his gun.

  He opened a thick glass door covered by a complicated wrought-iron design. It was heavy and squealed as he pulled on it. The floor of the vestibule was made of black and white tiles with hairline cracks that spread like spider webs and were littered with takeout menus. Mike winced at the smell of urine. To the left, he viewed tarnished brass mailboxes with tiny buttons next to each one. Mike ran his finger down one side until he saw the number 504 and pressed.

  A buzzer responded, and he opened another substantial door that led to a large lobby with a giant framed mirror, most of its silvering gone. There was no furniture. Next to the elevator was a huge picture window above a granite sill, looking out on an unkempt backyard.

  Mike rode the elevator to the fifth floor and stepped into the hallway.

  The carpeting was spotless. The air smelled clean and fresh, but not medicinal. It was bright. He saw planters with thin, leafy trees and green bushes. Paintings covered the walls. In a spotlighted nook, at the far end of the hallway, hung a bright-pink modern-art mobile.

  A door opened and a man asked, “Are you Mike?”

  Mike turned. The speaker was in his forties, wearing a lab coat and sneakers. “I’m Simon Jankow. Everyone calls me Jan. Evelyn said you would be coming over.” He extended his hand.

  Mike shook it and the two stepped inside. Mike was prepared to see a tiny apartment, but instead he viewed a cavernous white room. White floors, white walls, white ceiling. Even the tables were white, and held white lab equipment. Bachata music filled the sterile area. Mike squinted at the brightness of it all.

  “I know. It’s weird, right?” Jan smiled. “Coffee?”

  Mike nodded. “Black.”

  Jan walked over to a table holding a white coffee maker. He poured a mug for Mike and refilled his own. “Everyone’s gone for the day except me.”

  Mike looked at his watch. It was six P.M.

  “How do you know Evelyn?” Mike asked.

  “I was head of the laboratory where her office sent their samples for DNA sequencing. Sometimes, they would come upon a species they had never seen before—some odd variation—and we would sequence them. I seem to recall that Evelyn’s team discovered a tree shrew that was thought to be extinct. Another time, they found a plant that had never been cataloged. We had a professional relationship for many years, and then we became friends. It bordered on becoming serious, but she traveled too far and too often for anything more to come of it.”

  Jan stopped in front of a window and looked out at a construction-site hole across the street. “Shit, not again.” He retrieved a phone from his pocket. “I’d like to report a man down on the sidewalk.” He gave the address, put the phone away. “That’s Lenny. He gets drunk and sleeps in the gutter. I’m afraid he’ll get hit by a car or rolled—not that he has anything of value on him. For a while, I let him have an empty apartment on the first floor for free, but he let in some bad characters. They ripped the copper pipes out of the walls. Took the wiring.

  “Now, everything is buttoned up tight except for this floor.” He pointed his thumb at the window. “One-way glass. If people knew what I had here, it would walk away on me. I have a small camera hidden by the mailboxes. I saw who you were—Evelyn described you—which is why I buzzed you in. Nobody gets past the lobby unless I know who they are. I don’t even let the UPS or FedEx guys up here.”

  “Why all the camouflage?”

  “When I left my last lab job, I had some money saved and bought this building for a song. I’ve been sitting on it for a while because I knew that one day the neighborhood would come back. That’s just starting to happen, and I’ll sell the building to a developer and make a killing. In the meantime it seemed like a great place to set up a lab. You can’t beat the rent. As long a
s I keep the junkies away from my expensive equipment, I’m in good shape.”

  “What about the lab workers?”

  “They enter and leave through the back. Nobody sees them.”

  Mike scanned the room again and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Jan asked.

  “What is this place really?” said Mike.

  “What do you mean?”

  Mike didn’t say a word. He just looked at Jan and smirked.

  “You’re a cop, right?”

  “Federal agent. And I can keep a secret. I don’t jam anybody’s hustle as long as nobody’s getting hurt.”

  Jan looked Mike up and down. “Evelyn says you’re good people.” He removed his glasses and cleaned them on the end of his lab coat. “My clients are people like you. For their own personal or professional reasons, they don’t want any record trail of DNA sequencing. I am not accredited, and I don’t submit DNA results to anyone but the client. Hell, I’m not even licensed to run a business.” He took a breath. “You’d be surprised how many government agents, like you, need work done on the down-low. Private parties, too. Someone wants to know if their kid is really their kid, or if their betrothed is from that rich and famous family like they claimed. I even had a widow have her dead husband’s body dug up in the middle of the night and take a sample of his hair to see if it was really him in the ground. I don’t ask questions.” He took a sip from his mug.

  “Why not just run a legitimate lab and keep your lips sealed?” Mike asked.

  “It’s not that easy. The feds are always leaning on labs for reports. They can be as bad as the mob. No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  “The same with local cops. And the goddamn lawyers. They’re always sniffing around, serving subpoenas and shit. It never ends. I like it better this way. Off the radar. Plus, I’m a cash kind of a guy.”

  That was Mike’s cue to pay. He produced a wad of small bills held together by a paper clip and handed it to Jan.