No Man's Land

by Sara Driscoll

McCord’s first text had come in Monday night:

  Can I bring someone else in on the case?

  Is it absolutely necessary?

  Yes. Having language issues. Multiple dialects.

  Do you trust this person?

  Yes. She’s solid. An editor here. Have worked with her for years.

  Meg made the executive decision based on the fact that Kate had already given her permission to bring in whatever resources she needed.

  Keep it confidential but do it.

  The next text from McCord had come on Tuesday just as she got home from work.

  Need more time.

  How much more?

  Can we push the update to Thursday?

  Is this good news?

  Yes. I’m onto something.

  Thursday it is.

  She knew he really was onto something from the way he dropped out of sight.

  Even Cara hadn’t heard anything from him other than the briefest of texts. They’d only been together for six months, but she was already accustomed to his blackout investigative reporting sprints. “He’s caught the scent,” Cara said. “It’s radio silence because he’s probably working around the clock and not eating or sleeping.” She frowned down at Blink as he ambled around her feet. “I hope he’s feeding Cody.”

  “Don’t worry about Cody,” Meg replied. “That dog won’t let anyone starve him or not take him out. Though I admit he’s likely not being walked and is mostly being left to his own devices.” She could see her sister fretting, not about the man—he could take care of himself—but the dog. “Cody will be fine. A few quiet days won’t kill him. And if you’re really worried about him, bring him here for a few hours or overnight. He’ll be happy as a clam with us.”

  Not surprisingly, an hour later, Cara walked into the kitchen with Cody, who proceeded to dance joyously from human to dogs and back again in an excited circle.

  Meg pushed through the canine frenzy to open the sliding door that led out to the deck and their fenced backyard, and then stood out of the way while four dogs shot through. “How’s he doing?” Meg asked. “McCord, not Cody.” She stepped through the doorway into the rapidly fading twilight, watching the retriever bullet around the backyard, stubby little Saki admirably keeping up with him. “Cody is clearly in his element.”

  “I got a mumble, two grunts, and the most distracted good-bye kiss ever.” Cara joined her sister on the deck and slid the door shut behind her. “He’s really on the trail of something. Not that I got any details, but he had about sixty tabs open in his browser, several files of notes, and a Slack window going on his phone, so he’s actively working with someone.”

  “That part I knew. Not that I know who it is.” Meg leaned on the deck railing. Hawk raced by with a knotted rope dangling from his mouth, kicking up a plume of multicolored leaves behind him, Cody close on his heels. “He’ll let us know when he’s ready, I guess.”

  “You can’t rush him. He’ll resurface when he has something. In the meantime, I’ll feel better knowing Cody is getting some attention.”

  Meg poked her sister in the arm. “Look at you, caring more for the dog than the man.”

  Cara poked her back. “Not true. McCord can take care of himself. I have no doubt there’ll be a stream of delivery food arriving around the clock. Our having Cody will actually make his work easier because he can stay focused.”

  “And most of the time you like dogs more than people.” Meg held up her hand, palm out.

  Cara high-fived her with a grin. “You got that right.”

  McCord’s next text came after ten o’clock Wednesday night.

  10am at the Post. In my editor’s office. Martin Sykes. Bring Agent Moore.

  Aye aye, Captain.

  A gif of M*A*S*H’s Hawkeye Pierce giving a saucy salute was his only response.

  Thursday, November 15, 9:57 AM

  The Washington Post

  Washington, DC

  The next morning, Meg, Kate, and Hawk arrived at Martin Sykes’s office. Kate knocked on the door, and a sharp voice barked, “Come in!” from the other side.

  Kate entered the office with Meg behind her. The room was spacious and well-lit from a wall of windows that looked over K Street to Franklin Square beyond. Framed stories and awards covered every open inch of wall space. A square-jawed man with steel gray hair and assessing eyes sat behind a desk covered with paper printouts and sheets of newsprint. A Washington Capitals mug with multiple coffee rings stacked up the inner surface sat beside an older-model desktop computer.

  McCord rose from one of four chairs in front of the desk; two chairs clearly belonged there, and two more had been brought from the small meeting table near the windows. “Meg, Agent Moore, thanks for coming in to meet with us.” He held out a hand toward his editor. “This is Martin Sykes, my editor. Sykes, this is Meg Jennings and Agent Kate Moore, both of the FBI. And this is Hawk, Meg’s search-and-rescue K-9.” He waited while Sykes shook hands with Meg and Kate, and then he stepped back to reveal a woman sitting in the adjacent chair. “And this is Priya Chari, one of our best multiplatform editors.”

  The petite woman stood and held out her hand with a warm smile. Dressed in black dress pants and a simple black sweater, she set off the outfit with a stunning scarf in vivid tones of indigo and silver with dangling silver earrings to match. “It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “Please, join us.”

  Meg took the chair next to McCord while surreptitiously studying the newcomer. Her facial features and fashion accents spoke of her ethnic heritage, but her vocal inflection was born-and-bred New York City. Her name was unfamiliar, but she trusted that McCord wouldn’t have brought her into the case if he’d had any other choice.

  “Thanks for coming down to meet us,” McCord said. “We wanted to bring you up to speed as soon as possible, and I thought it would be best if you could meet Priya personally and could ask her any questions directly.” He glanced at Kate, but then his gaze settled again on Meg. “I know you wanted the circle kept as close as possible, but I couldn’t do the research I needed, and I’d trust Priya with anything. She’s been here at the Post for six years now—”

  “Seven,” Priya corrected.

  “—seven years now,” McCord continued, without missing a beat, “and she’s thorough, efficient, and dependable. And a damned good editor.”

  Priya leaned on one elbow to stare at McCord. “I’m already on board to help. You can stop pumping up my ego.”

  Meg stifled the laughter that sprang into her throat at McCord’s disconcerted expression. She liked this new colleague already. Tempering the smile that twitched at the corners of her lips, she turned to Sykes. “Mr. Sykes, thank you again for your willingness to give Clay the freedom to work with us. You’ve been flexible several times in the past few months, and the Bureau has noted that flexibility and is appreciative.”

  “We’re happy to do it.” The rasp in Sykes’s voice spoke of years spent in smoky newsrooms, flavored with what Meg bet was a tendency toward scotch. “The stories are always worth the extra effort. Including this one.” He picked up a folder off the desk and held it out. “McCord, bring everyone up to date.”

  “You got it.” McCord took the folder, laid it on his lap, and opened it. “We’ve previously talked about the South Asian connections between the victims found by the Human Scent Evidence Team. Donna Parker was adopted at age six into the Achari family, Indian immigrants in New York City, and she took their family name. Fourteen years later, she married Harry Parker and moved to Virginia, and her name changed again. But she stayed in close contact with her family, as have her children and grandchildren. Warren Roth was married to Jovita Peera for nearly fifty-five years until she passed away two years ago, leaving him in their house in the retirement community. Jovita was born in India, in the southwestern coastal city of Kochi, and came to the US as a baby. Bahni Devar was born in Maryland, but her parents were from Chennai, the capital of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and immigrated to the
US shortly after they married. The newest victim, Vikram Pillai, also had ties back to India. He immigrated with his children to the US from Madurai when he was in his forties. They moved around the country a lot, but he was retired and living in Germantown. We’ve also got three other victims who are a potential part of the pool.”

  “You mean the three seniors found in abandoned buildings before the case started for us?” Meg asked.

  “Yes. First there’s the gentleman found in the mansion near Trenton, New Jersey. Norman Stanley. At first, I couldn’t find any Indian connection for him, until I finally discovered that his daughter married into an Indian family. Then there are the two individuals who SSA Beaumont tracked down. Iniya Pearson was found in the Martinsburg movie theater. She’s a second-generation American, but her family hailed from Thanjavur in southern India. Kathir Nadar is the one I’m having trouble finding information on. We have his name because his wallet was found with him in the abandoned brewery, but we don’t know much else. He was a recluse, kept very much to himself, and had no family in the area. So I need to do more work there and simply ran out of time with everything else I had going on. But if you look up the genealogy of his family name, it has Tamil origins.”

  “Were you able to find a connection between the victims?” Kate asked. “None of our research turned up any links between them that could be related back to business or family relations.”

  “At first, I couldn’t find anything either. Life insurance was a mixed bag with no common beneficiaries for those who had it. They didn’t live near one another, and as far as their families know, they didn’t know one another. There was no overlap in jobs or careers. From the research and interviews I did, the Indian connection is the only one I’ve found that seemed relevant, so I dug deeper there. The families were eager to help in any way that would advance the case, but I admit at the beginning I had little hope we were going to get anywhere. And then one of Roth’s grandkids, a guy who’s one of those business whiz kids who had his eye on an MBA before he even started his undergraduate degree, mentioned what he described as the ‘weird annuity’ his grandfather received. The kid apparently helped his grandpa do his taxes every year and knew about this single fund that paid out in rupees that were converted to American dollars for deposit here. That’s the main reason it caught his attention—the foreign currency. But his grandmother was Indian, so he didn’t really dwell on it until I really started asking questions. When I asked Vikram Pillai’s son, he said his father had a similar investment. And that’s when I knew I was onto something.”

  “And that’s when he realized he needed help,” Priya said.

  “I’ll say.” He pulled a pamphlet out of the folder and handed it to Meg. “You see my difficulty.”

  The paper was blocked out in bright tones of gold and orange and covered with an array of letters comprising curving lines and bars. She met McCord’s eyes and took a wild guess. “Sanskrit?”

  “Devanagari.” Priya answered for McCord. “It’s Hindi. I translated it for him.”

  “I see why we needed you.” Meg turned to McCord. “You recognized it as a South Asian script?”

  “That was about as far as I got with it. Once I had your okay, I took it to Priya, who speaks Hindi and several other languages.”

  “Tamil, Telugu, and a smattering of Malayalam,” Priya said. “I can understand it much better than I can speak it.”

  Meg extended the pamphlet. “What is this?”

  “It’s an investment advertisement. For the specific annuity in question.”

  Kate plucked it out of Meg’s hand and looked at it. “I thought English was the language of business in India?”

  “It is, especially for international business. But there are plenty of citizens who don’t speak it fluently. This is for them. This isn’t a multibillion-dollar, multinational deal, this is an investment for regular people who are looking to make some money to retire on.”

  “It’s an IRA?”

  “Not exactly.” The gleam was back in McCord’s eye. “Are you familiar with the term ‘tontine’?”

  Meg glanced at Kate, who shrugged. “Apparently neither of us are. It’s a financial term?”

  “Yes. It’s an annuity fund that is set to pay out annually to the shareholders in the fund at the time. Everyone buys in at the beginning to a joint fund, investments are made, and then dividends are distributed as expected. They tend to be low-risk, high-yield investment funds that can be paid in installments. However, a tontine has the provision that the annuities are paid out only to surviving investors. As the investors age and die out of the fund, the remaining surviving investors receive higher payments.”

  Meg opened her mouth, closed it again when nothing came out, and swiveled in her seat to stare at Kate, who wore a dumbfounded expression that mimicked how Meg felt.

  McCord leaned toward Priya. “I told you she’d get it inside of about three seconds.”

  Meg finally found the words. “They’re killing each other off in a race to the final payout?”

  “I think so, yes. Or a variation on that theme. And before you ask, yes, we’ve done the legwork. In India, only insurance companies offer annuity plans. This one comes from Kalidasa Life Insurance Company. Most of their annuity funds are the traditional kind that pays annually, settles with the beneficiary after the fund holder’s death, and then closes. But a tontine is a group annuity that pays out to all the investors every year.”

  “So it’s a race to see who can survive the longest,” Kate said.

  “Until the one person left is getting all the income.” Meg sat back, shaking her head in disbelief. “What a scheme.”

  “It’s better than that,” McCord said. “When there is only one person left, the tontine dissolves and the final investor gets all the income as well as all of the original investment.”

  Kate whistled. “That’s a hell of a motive. How is this even legal?”

  “It’s not,” Priya clarified. “At least not in America. It is legal in several European countries, like France. It is also legal in India.”

  Hawk, lying at Meg’s feet and doubtlessly feeling the tension in the room, pushed his head against her knee. She stroked his head until he relaxed and lay down again. “The fund is based in India, which is where they invested the money?”

  “Yes. From what I can gather, the most important issue was the low buy-in value of the initial investment. The rupee is not a strong currency, and the poverty rate at that point was quite high, so the insurance company itself was looking for an infusion of US dollars. The company set up this specific fund as an investment initiative for Indian diaspora living in America, and investors went looking at members of Indian diaspora cultural associations, essentially recruiting them to invest. This is why we couldn’t connect the victims—they didn’t belong to the same associations or communities, but the company paid to send employees to the US to entice Indian diaspora to invest.” McCord flipped through a couple of pages until he came to a specific one. “And I don’t know if the insurance company was extremely savvy or they happened to get in on the ground floor of a gold mine by chance, but they invested in technology stocks.” He stopped and looked at them expectantly. “The fund started in 2000.”

  Meg glanced from McCord to Kate—who shook her head—and back again. “Does that mean something?”

  Sykes leaned forward over his desk, as if for emphasis. “Before outsourcing became what it is today.”

  Meg understood then. “Before some of this country’s biggest tech companies started outsourcing their technical support lines and coding teams. Before those businesses started employing huge numbers of people, and likely raking in some pretty big profits.”

  “Blessing their early investors with a portion of those profits.”

  “So you’re saying this fund did well. If they reinvested some of the profits into additional shares, then the profits have continued to grow,” Kate stated.

  “And when you’re talking abou
t winner takes all,” Sykes said, “the last man standing is going to have a very, very nice payout.”

  “Yeah, I did a little research on that to see what kind of investment it is, and has been. Did you know that outsourcing is nine and a half percent of India’s GDP and that they provide sixty-seven percent of the world’s information technology? All while hiring workers at a starting salary of a whopping eight thousand dollars a year.”

  Meg winced. “Ouch.”

  “You can say that again. So the fund made a very nice profit. From what I understand from the families of the American investors, the income from these annuities made a big difference in the comfort of their retirement.” McCord pulled out a pile of papers consisting of smaller bundles paper-clipped together and stacked. “Business whiz kid provided several years of statements from the annuity. But not everyone kept statements, or at least the family doesn’t know where they are at this point.”

  “They must still be shell-shocked,” Meg said. “Some of the victims might have been less stable as far as their health was concerned, but some were fairly healthy for their age, so the loss is jarring.”

  “Can I take those?” Kate asked.

  McCord extended the papers to her. “He scanned and sent them to me, so you can have these copies.”

  “And all the victims were enrolled in this fund?”

  “Yes.”

  Meg grabbed Kate’s forearm. “We need to find out who else is in the fund. That could quite literally be the kill list.”

  “We’ll have to get cooperation from the Indian authorities, but I’ll get to work on that now. One thing is clear, though—it doesn’t sound like whoever is doing the killing is one of the investors. You said the fund started in the year 2000?”

  McCord nodded. “Yes.”

  “Then we’re looking at someone who likely hadn’t even reached the age of majority at that time, let alone had money to invest.”

  Meg had a brief flash of the man struggling to his feet on the cell block platform. “I agree. He’s too young. Maybe he’s a friend or relative of one of the investors?”