PM11-The Rule of Nine

by Steve Martini

  When the two Saudis behind him saw this, they began to laugh. “If you like, we can come over there and help you,” said Ahmed, smiling.

  “I think I can handle it,” said Thorn. “You just get the pylons finished.”

  “Whatever you say, boss.” They laughed some more.

  Thorn didn’t care. He knew that in less than two weeks they would both be dead and he would be sitting on a beach somewhere drinking mai tais while tallying up the bottom line for his numbered account in Lucerne.

  Thorn looked down at the little model. In a day or two the uric acid would begin to patina the copper pigment in the paint. By the end of the week, with another bath or two, the little plane would be the color of an old, worn penny. Precisely what he needed.

  Joselyn begged off and went to the ladies’ room while Paul and Herman grabbed chairs at the American Airlines gate at Miami International. They had two hours to kill before their connecting flight from Tucson would carry them south to Puerto Rico. Herman was feeling naked without his pistol, particularly now that they had a lead on Thorn’s whereabouts.

  The phone number, the Puerto Rico area code and the seven digits that followed on the hand-scrawled note that bled through onto the contract for the plane, rang at a hotel in a town called Ponce on the west side of the island, the Hotel Belgica.

  Joselyn wanted Paul to contact the FBI, but Madriani wanted confirmation that Thorn was actually at the hotel in Ponce. If he wasn’t there and the FBI was called in, whatever credibility they still had with the feds would evaporate.

  As she stepped out of the ladies’ room Joselyn reached into her purse for her cell phone. She had forgotten to turn it back on following their flight from Tucson.

  She fired it up and checked her messages. When she saw it, her eyes lit up. She’d missed a call from Snyder. He had called less than an hour before. She touched the message and hit the Callback button. The phone rang twice before it was answered.

  “Hello.”

  It didn’t sound like Snyder’s voice.

  “Hello. I wonder if I have the wrong number?”

  “No. No,” said the voice. “Are you calling for Mr. Bart Snyder?”

  “I am,” said Joselyn.

  “Then you have the right number,” said the voice. “My name is Peter Montoya. I am a lieutenant with the Chicago Police Department. May I ask who’s calling? Is this Ms. Joselyn Cole?”

  Obviously he could see Joselyn’s caller ID on Snyder’s phone.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. Mr. Snyder is dead.”

  “What?”

  “It happened early this morning,” said the officer. “The maid found his body when she arrived for work. We are not sure, we are still investigating, but it appears likely that it was suicide.”

  “I don’t understand. He called me not more than an hour ago,” said Joselyn.

  “No,” said Montoya, “that was me. I have been calling recent contacts, people who left messages on his cell phone, to see if any of them might have spoken to Mr. Snyder in the last few days. Did you talk to him recently?”

  “No,” said Joselyn. “I didn’t know him well. I met him only once, earlier this month.”

  “I see. Where was this?”

  “In California, near San Diego.”

  “May I ask the circumstances of this meeting, was it business or social?”

  Joselyn thought for a moment. The shock of Snyder’s death unnerved her. Something deep down told her it wasn’t suicide. “Neither,” she said. “I just happened to be seated at a table where Mr. Snyder was also having lunch.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he seem despondent? Upset by anything?”

  “Yes. His son had been murdered,” said Joselyn.

  “I see. Then you were aware of this.”

  “Mr. Snyder talked about it,” said Joselyn. “And it did upset him, obviously.”

  “Of course. According to our notes you made several attempts to contact him. May I ask why, what the reason was?”

  “I don’t have time to discuss this right now,” said Joselyn. “I’m trying to catch a connecting flight.”

  “I see. Where are you now?”

  “Miami International.”

  “I would like to get a statement from you. Are you headed home?”

  “No,” said Joselyn. “I’m headed to Puerto Rico with friends.”

  “And when will you be returning?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Can you give me the name of the hotel where you will be staying?”

  “I don’t know yet,” said Joselyn. “We’re going to pick a hotel when we arrive. But you can reach me at this number.”

  “Of course. I will do that. I don’t want to hold you up any longer. You will be there tonight in Puerto Rico?”

  “Yes,” said Joselyn.

  “Have a good flight. And I am sorry to have to convey such bad news.”

  “Thank you,” said Joselyn. She hung up and jotted the name “Lt. Peter Montoya” on a small pad in her purse. Then suddenly she realized that the only number she had to reach him at was that of Snyder’s cell phone.

  Liquida walked the short block from where he’d parked his rental car to one of the bridges over the Chicago River. Joselyn Cole was with Madriani and their next stop was Puerto Rico. It was a safe bet this wasn’t a vacation. Liquida smiled, wondering how much this information would be worth when he offered to sell it to his employer.

  Word of Snyder’s death had been all over the local airwaves. A prominent lawyer committing suicide was hot news, that and the video of the babbling maid who found the body.

  Liquida walked halfway across the bridge and leaned against the railing. Lawyer with a scrambled brain, no one would even notice that his cell phone was missing. And even if they found records showing calls made on the phone after Snyder’s death, an inquiry like that wasn’t likely; given the virtual certainty of suicide, the call records would lead them nowhere, only to Joselyn Cole and a cop, Peter Montoya, who didn’t exist. Liquida felt the stiff breeze against his back as he unfolded his arms and casually dropped Snyder’s cell phone into one of the swift-moving eddies of the river below.

  THIRTY-TWO

  It was one thing to wait until we had confirmation of Thorn at the hotel in Puerto Rico, but the minute Joselyn came over and told me that Snyder was dead, we all knew this was no suicide.

  There is no sense in waiting any longer. I call Thorpe in Washington and wait until his secretary answers.

  “Hello, this is Paul Madriani calling for Mr. Thorpe. Is he there by any chance?”

  “I’ll have to check. Just a moment.” The line goes dead for a second as she puts me on hold.

  “You might give him the name Peter Montoya,” says Joselyn. She hands me a notepad where she has written this down.

  “Hello, Mr. Madriani.” It is Thorpe on the other end. “I’m afraid you caught me at a bad time. I’m on my way to another meeting.”

  “I understand. Did you hear that Bart Snyder is dead?” I ask him.

  “Yes. I received a phone call from the Chicago field office this morning. I have to say it doesn’t come as a great surprise,” says Thorpe.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “Of course, I am sorry for him, but he was around the bend, off the rails. You saw what he did up here in the news conference?”

  “No. I’m sorry, I’ve been on the road,” I tell him.

  “Well, you didn’t miss anything,” says Thorpe. “He went off on a rant against the police, us, the media, anybody and everybody within reach, claiming there was a cover-up involving his son’s death. And if that wasn’t enough, he shot off his mouth about this guy, Thorn, saying he was involved in some vague plot to blow up the Capitol. Snyder was bonkers,” says Thorpe. “It happens. I’m sorry for him, but there’s nothing we can do.”

  “You don’t really think he killed him
self?” I say.

  “What do you think? They found him hanging by a rope in his garage with a ladder knocked over underneath him. Given the evidence and his bizarre behavior over the last several days, I’d say suicide is a pretty good theory.”

  “Overdoses and suicides, those are Liquida’s specialties,” I tell him.

  “Yeah. Right behind knifing young girls in their sleep,” says Thorpe.

  “Listen to me,” I tell him. “We’ve tracked Thorn to Puerto Rico and he has a plane.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I tell him about the boneyard in Arizona, the 727 and the phone number in Puerto Rico.

  “And how did you come by all of this? Who put you on to the boneyard?”

  “Snyder,” I tell him.

  “Oh, that’s good. And how did he find out?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  “That should tell you something,” says Thorpe. “How do you know it’s him?” He means Thorn. “Did you see him?” he says.

  “No. But the guy at the boneyard ID’d him,” I tell him.

  “Based on what?”

  “Based on the photographs your agent gave to Snyder,” I tell him.

  “I thought your lady friend, Ms. Cole, told you those photographs were not a good likeness of Mr. Thorn.”

  “She did, but the guy at the boneyard still recognized him,” I say.

  “Bully for him. We’ve looked at those pictures and compared them to our old file photos on Thorn. I hate to tell you this, but we don’t see the resemblance,” says Thorpe. “We’re having experts look at them to see if maybe there’s been some facial reconstruction, but it takes a while. We told Snyder this, but he was impatient. He didn’t want to wait. According to our agent who interviewed him in Chicago, Snyder’s law career was over. He was a man at an end. People at his office said he was chronically depressed. I hate to tell you this, but it’s a classic case of depression and suicide.”

  “I hope you’re more inquisitive when Liquida hangs me,” I tell him. “By the way, I assume it wasn’t your people who put the GPS tracking devices on our cars?”

  All I hear is silence from the other end.

  “No, then who else but Liquida?” I ask.

  “These tracking devices, do you still have them?” he asks.

  “Why?”

  “Because if you do, we might be able to trace them, find out who bought them, or contracted for satellite service.”

  “We assumed it wasn’t healthy to hang on to them.”

  “What did you do, throw them away?”

  “Something like that,” I say.

  “That’s too bad. And the photographs, the ones you say are of Thorn, I assume Snyder gave them to you?” he says.

  “That’s right.”

  “I should have killed the agent,” says Thorpe. “He had no business giving those photographs to anyone, let alone to a loose cannon like Snyder. Where are they now, the photographs?” he says.

  “I don’t know where Snyder kept his, but we have ours,” I tell him.

  “They’re not yours,” says Thorpe. “They belong to the federal government. They’re part of an ongoing investigation, and I want them back. Now!” he says. “Where are you?”

  “I’m not sure I should tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you seem to be in a foul mood.”

  “Sorry, but I have a full calendar today. I don’t have time for this. But I want those photographs back. Do you understand?”

  “Stop dithering over the photographs and listen to me,” I tell him. “Do you have a pencil and paper?”

  “Why?”

  “Write this down. From what we know, Thorn is in Puerto Rico in a town called Ponce.” I spell it for him. “Unless I’m wrong, he’s staying in a place called the Hotel Belgica.” I spell it again. “Did you write it down?”

  “What am I, your secretary?” says Thorpe.

  “Did you write it down?”

  “Listen, I’m late for a meeting. And I want those photographs. Do you hear me?”

  “I’m telling you he has a plane, a 727, and he’s up to something.”

  “Right,” says Thorpe. He thinks for a moment. “All right. I’ll have somebody check it out. What’s the name of this boneyard?”

  I give him the information.

  “We’re going to have to continue this some other time. I gotta run. Take some advice and go home,” he says.

  “I can’t. I’m flying south.”

  “You’re going to get in over your head,” he says.

  “I already am.”

  “Try not to get in any more trouble, and call me when you get back.” Thorpe hangs up.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The second he got off the phone with Madriani, Thorpe grabbed his jacket and was out the door. One agent held the elevator for him while another waited for them in a car down in the garage. Thorpe was pressed for time, and what he was dealing with couldn’t wait.

  It was Victor Soyev, a Russian arms merchant who had been arrested in Los Angeles. The FBI had received an anonymous tip as to Soyev’s whereabouts and had taken him into custody at LAX just as he was getting ready to jump on a flight to Asia. Immediately, they hustled him off to Washington on a government jet.

  For two days agents had been moving him around, from one location to another, trying to keep him out of the news and away from the clutches of defense lawyers. If the honchos at the Justice Department found out, Thorpe would be looking for a new job.

  Based on the anonymous tip, the FBI checked Soyev’s voice against the NSA voiceprints from the telephone conversation between North Korea and Cuba. The Russian’s voice was a match. Soyev’s was the voice on the North Korean end of the conversation. He was one of the operatives moving the massive thermobaric device that got grounded in Thailand. Thorpe wanted answers, and he wanted them before Soyev had a chance to lawyer up.

  The problem was the constantly changing rules for interrogation laid down by the White House. The guidelines were as clear as mud, and designed with enough political wiggle room so that members of Congress and the White House could run for cover and point the finger at underlings the minute anything went wrong. Everything was on a case-by-case basis. The minute Thorpe told the White House he had Soyev and what the case involved, the Russian would be put in a holding pattern, and the FBI would be told not to question him until a decision had been made by a higher authority as to the process to be used.

  It was fashionable to quote Truman as to where the buck stopped, but in reality, every White House since had become increasingly expert in the art of plausible deniability. And every one of them could spin like a weather vane when it came to the blame game.

  For the moment, Soyev was in a hotel room six blocks from FBI headquarters. Transported in a blacked-out van and taken up to the room in a service elevator with a hood over his head, the Russian had no idea what city he was in. He would be in the hotel for no more than two hours before they moved him again. Interrogation was captured on multichannel microphones and video in case they missed something the first time through. At night they held him in a safe house just across the Maryland state line, where questioning continued. Thorpe would devour the interrogation transcripts each morning.

  So far Soyev wasn’t giving up much. He denied that he was ever in North Korea. He claimed he was a Moscow businessman dealing in heavy industrial equipment. He demanded to see the nearest Russian consul, and when that failed, he asked for a lawyer.

  Thorpe had his people giving Soyev only the best when it came to food and drink. They would give him Stolichnaya vodka whenever he asked for it. It was available only through one importer in the States. The agents told him if he wanted a lawyer they would get one, but that if they did, Soyev would have to be locked up in a federal facility pending trial, and the booze and steaks would all go away. The Russian withdrew his request for a lawyer. Thorpe knew he couldn’t keep the movable feast going forever. He was run
ning out of time.

  When Thorpe arrived at the hotel that afternoon, interrogation had already started. The room had been sanitized to remove everything that might tell Soyev where he was. The curtains were pulled and only a single light from a lamp illuminated the room.

  It was the third time Soyev had seen Thorpe, though the two men had never talked. All questioning was conducted through a set of three interrogators. But the Russian seemed to know that Thorpe was someone important. Like a bitch in heat, he could smell an alpha male.

  “Mr. Soyev, why don’t you tell us what we want to know?” said the interrogator. “We have the tape and the transcript of your telephone conversation from Pyongyang to Cuba. We know that it was your voice coming from North Korea based on voiceprint identification.”

  “So you say,” said Soyev. “And I tell you I have never been to North Korea. Check my passport if you don’t believe me.”

  “We are well aware that an arms merchant of your stature can avoid the normal processes of customs and immigration in places like North Korea. Let’s stop playing games. Tell us who the man was on the other end of the telephone conversation. The man in Cuba.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I am a Russian citizen and I demand to see the Russian consul. Also I would like a drink if you don’t mind. I’m getting thirsty. How long is this going to go on? I am very tired. As you know, I haven’t been able to sleep in two days. You keep waking me up every few minutes to ask more questions.”

  The interrogator nodded toward one of the other agents, who immediately opened an attaché case and came up with the bottle of Stolichnaya.

  “I hope you have ice?” said Soyev.

  “Stop,” said Thorpe. “Enough.” Thorpe reached over and flipped on the switch for the overhead lights in the room.

  Soyev looked at him, squinted, and shaded his eyes.

  “Mr. Soyev, I am Zeb Thorpe, executive assistant director for the National Security Branch of the FBI. We’ve carried on with this as long as we can and I’m putting an end to it right now. Upon leaving here, you’re going to be transported to a federal detention facility for maximum-security prisoners. You will be charged with numerous crimes, including violation of international weapons embargoes, terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism, and arms smuggling for starters. I’m sure that there will be superseding indictments with other charges that will be added in the coming weeks. Suffice it to say that there will be enough charges and convictions that you are almost certain to spend the rest of your life in a federal penitentiary in this country. That is, unless one of these thermobaric devices that you’re dealing in goes off in a major metropolitan area, killing a number of people, in which case we will be seeking the death penalty. Do you understand?”