The Blacklist--The Dead Ring No. 166

by Jon McGoran

  She waved her hand again, annoyed, as if trying to swat a pesky detail. “Yes, yes, but I understand those companies were always talking about trying to purchase each other. They were very competitive.”

  Ressler looked at Navabi.

  “Mrs. Selby, how did Edward Stannis and your sister meet?”

  She smiled, like she was relieved at the change in topic. “I believe they had met at several Chamber of Commerce events. But they got to know each other when they both served on the board of a local educational charity.”

  “When was that?”

  She shrugged. “Some time ago. Maybe ten years ago?”

  “Before Michael’s death?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. Her face darkened. “You must understand, this is a small community. We all travel in the same circles. How could they not have known each other?”

  “And then Stannis bought the company and married Hoagland’s widow?” Ressler asked. “But you don’t think he had anything to do with the attack?”

  She sighed and glared at him. “As I said, you’re not the first person to mention the possibility, but it’s preposterous. Impossible. Ed Stannis was a good man, and I know Dorothy would never abide with anything like that. She’s a smart lady. If that’s what had happened, she’d know it.”

  Selby looked at her watch and huffed impatiently. Navabi got the sense the interview was about to end.

  “Did you have any inkling at all that they were planning on leaving the country?”

  She shook her head. “No. I know Dorothy had talked to Edward about retiring, getting out of that dreadful business. Maybe she finally prevailed upon him.” Her lips started trembling and her eyes welled up. “But I saw her just before she disappeared. She gave no indication whatsoever. And I knew my sister. I would have known if she was planning to leave.”

  Navabi could tell that Renee Selby was losing her patience with them, and a moment later Selby announced she had another engagement and she was very sorry, but that was all the time she could spend.

  “Certainly, Mrs. Selby. We appreciate your time. One last question, though, if you don’t mind.”

  Selby gave her a polite but strained smile.

  “Have you heard from your sister or brother-in-law since they disappeared?”

  “No,” she said without hesitation. “Not a peep.”

  Selby saw them to the door and graciously thanked them for looking into her sister’s disappearance, but it was clear she was relieved to be rid of them.

  As soon as they stepped outside, Ressler took a deep breath, but Navabi discreetly held up a finger, telling him to wait until they were in the car.

  “So what do you think?” he said as soon as they closed their car doors. “Stannis is the guy, right?”

  “Maybe,” Navabi said as she got out her phone and called Scheller.

  “Maybe? Stannis had already revealed his intention to buy Hoagland out. And he already knew Dorothy Stannis, who was in an unhappy marriage with her whack job husband. Stannis takes out Hoagland, he gets the girl and he gets Hoagland Services at a great price.”

  “Maybe,” Navabi said. Then Scheller answered his phone. “Detective Scheller,” she said. “This is Agent Navabi. We just left Renee Selby and I was hoping we could compare notes, as you suggested.”

  “Of course. What’s your take on the situation?”

  “Well, it’s hard to say. Looks like it was part of a well-planned and carefully executed plan.”

  “I agree.”

  “We were wondering about Hoagland’s death. We hadn’t realized Dorothy and Edward Stannis knew each other before Michael Hoagland’s death.”

  “Yes, apparently they did. There are some conflicting reports about how well.”

  “I see. We also didn’t realize Stannis had previously expressed an interest in buying Hoagland Services.”

  “There is some indication that he had previously reached out to several of the board members who died in the Peru attack.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What are you thinking?” Scheller asked.

  Navabi looked at Ressler. “I’m thinking it’s looking like Edward Stannis was behind the attack that killed Michael Hoagland, that he wanted the man’s wife and his company.”

  “Well look, I didn’t want to steer you one way or another. Whatever happened down in Peru was not my case, and whatever happened here, with Edward and Dorothy Stannis disappearing, didn’t appear to involve anything criminal. Our case file is closed, as far as that goes. But I had an interesting incident a couple of years ago. Picked up some hard case on an assault charge. Broke a guy’s leg in a bar-room brawl. Turned out he was a local kid who joined the service then found work with Hoagland. He said he was in Peru, working security when the attack went down. He said he saw Edward Stannis down there an hour before the attack.”

  “Who was this? Can we talk to him?”

  “Guy’s name was Taylor Clark, and there’s a bench warrant for him. He made bail and vanished.”

  Navabi thanked Scheller, ended the call and told Ressler what he’d said.

  “Stannis was down there?”

  “That’s what one not necessarily reliable witness said, but yes.”

  “So Stannis killed Hoagland, then took his company and his wife.”

  “Looks like.”

  “So a murderous billionaire with a history of spectacular violence cashes out and disappears, goes off the grid right around the time this Dead Ring thing first appears. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Navabi nodded. “Edward Stannis is the Ringleader.”

  Chapter 41

  Simon Wall lived in a run-down shack. The yard was dirt, and pitted with holes that looked like they had been dug by a dog, presumably belonging to a previous tenant, since Wall didn’t own a dog. He might want to get one after this, Red thought.

  Red and Dembe had parked down the block to wait for him. They’d already been inside and had a look around. The place was a worse mess than Burton’s, which was why Red had decided to wait in the car.

  They’d been sitting there an hour when Dembe looked at him in the rearview mirror, making sure Red had already spotted Wall, walking up the street.

  “I see him,” Red said.

  Wall might not have been able to take care of his place, but he seemed to be taking care of himself. He was lean and well muscled, his hair cut short. The difference between him and Burton couldn’t have been more stark.

  They waited until Wall was inside, then another ten minutes, to lessen the chances of making him suspicious. Then Dembe pulled the car up to the curb in front of Wall’s house, and Red got out.

  He walked up the path and knocked on the door, then stepped back, unthreateningly. He had his gun out and the silencer on it, but held it behind his back, hidden in the folds of his overcoat.

  Wall opened the inner door, but not the screen door.

  “Yeah?” he said, suspiciously.

  “Simon Wall?”

  “Who are you?” He looked up and down the block. He might have seen Dembe.

  “We have mutual friends.”

  Wall slammed the door. Red used one bullet to pop the screen door latch, then two more to take out the lock. He dashed inside and caught Wall as he was unlocking one of three deadbolts on the back door.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” Red said, calmly.

  Wall flashed him an animal glare and threw open another deadbolt.

  “Simon, stop,” Red said calmly.

  Wall reached out for the third deadbolt.

  “Simon, stop,” he said again.

  Red took a step toward him and when the floor creaked, Wall whirled and sprang at him, his hands out like claws. Red stepped back again and brought the gun down across Wall’s knuckles. The pain stunned him and when he paused, clutching his hand between his legs, Red swept his feet out from under him.

  Wall hit the floor hard enough to knock the wind out of him.

  Red knelt beside him and said
, “We need to talk.”

  Dembe appeared in the front door, surveying the scene.

  Wall started making a strange keening sound. It took Red a moment to realize he was crying. A lot. Big, whooping sobs wracked his body and he put his hands over his face. He started moaning through it, unintelligibly at first, but as he took a couple of breaths, his words took recognizable shape: “I can’t go back, I can’t go back, I can’t go back,” over and over again.

  Red looked over Wall’s shoulder as Dembe went into the kitchen, his eyes smoldering with rage—not at Wall, but at the people who had done this to him, who had kept him locked up for however long.

  Dembe found the paper towels mounted on the side of one of the cabinets. He tore off a length and handed it to Red.

  “It’s okay, Simon,” Red said quietly, folding the paper towels and handing them to Wall. “No one’s taking you back there. No one is making you go anywhere or do anything you don’t want to do.”

  Dembe retreated to the living room and looked on as Red sat with Wall, as the sobs quieted to weeping, and then to snuffles, and finally, after several minutes, a long sigh.

  “Sorry,” Wall said, quietly.

  “No need to apologize,” said Red. He got to his feet and grabbed some more paper towels. He handed them to Wall, who wiped his eyes and his nose.

  “Who are you?” Wall said, looking up at Red.

  “My name’s Raymond Reddington.”

  “The ‘Concierge of Crime’?” He laughed despite himself. “No really, who are you?”

  “I’m trying to—”

  “Holy crap, you’re really Raymond Reddington?” Wall got to his feet, stunned out of his misery at the unlikelihood that Raymond Reddington would be standing in his kitchen.

  “I am. I’m assisting the FBI. We’re trying to take down the people who were holding you last year.”

  Wall stopped smiling, and the fear returned to his eyes.

  “Someone very close to me has gone undercover, and she’s in danger,” Red continued. “I need your help. To save her, and to stop them from what they’re doing.”

  “Sorry.” Wall shook his head. “I can’t help you. I’m done with all that. I got away from those guys once, and I’m not doing anything that could land me back there.”

  “Who are ‘those guys’? Who was holding you?”

  “I don’t even know,” he shook his head again. “I don’t. There were two guys with names, Yancy and Corson. And there were a bunch of rent-a-psychos, private military contractor types. They didn’t have names, and they never spoke.”

  “Who was in charge?”

  “Corson was in charge of me. He made that abundantly clear. But who was in charge of him? What I was working on, all that stuff? They talked about a guy called the Ringleader. Other than that, I have no idea. They knew enough about me to know what I could do, and enough about what I could do to tell me what they wanted.”

  “And what were you doing for them?”

  “I’m a cryptographer. I was doing encryption.”

  “Encrypting what?”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t want to know. I just want to get on with my life.”

  “Have you ever heard of the Dead Ring?”

  He paused, thinking about it. “The Dead Ring? No.”

  “That’s what you were working on. It’s a kind of a sick game, for sick people to bet on. There’s only one winner, one survivor. Everyone else dies. And so do a lot of other people. When you were in Turkey last year, that’s what was going on. There was a factory fire, and before that a train crash. There was also a sinkhole that swallowed up a mosque. Scores of innocent people have been killed each year, in addition to all but one of the people actually playing the game.”

  “Look, I don’t know anything about that, man. They held me prisoner, for months. They made me work for them, and I didn’t know anything about that other stuff. Didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Well, this Dead Ring is happening again. In this country. Dozens of people have already died. As I said, someone very important to me is trying to stop them. And she is in danger now because we can’t break their encryption.” Red gently but firmly pressed his finger into Wall’s chest. “Your encryption.”

  Wall looked down at Red’s finger as the words sunk in.

  “I’m hoping you’ll help us because it’s the right thing to do,” Red continued. “To save innocent lives. But another thing to keep in mind is that I found you. It wasn’t that hard. Do you really think they won’t find you again, too?”

  Chapter 42

  It was almost eleven P.M. when Red walked into the field office. Aram glanced up from his computer, but just for a second.

  “Agent Keen looks like she’s staying put for the night,” he said, yawning and tapping a few more keys. “The tac team is standing down and Ressler and Navabi are on their way back from Dallas.” Then he saw someone else walking in behind Red. “Who’s this?”

  “Aram Mojtabai,” said Red, “meet Simon Wall. He’s here to help with the encryption.” He turned to Wall. “Simon, this is Aram. He is the man your encryption software has been so bedeviling.”

  Cooper appeared in the doorway to his office. Before he could say anything, Red said, “Simon, this is Deputy Director Cooper.” He turned to Cooper and continued, “I was hoping you’d be here. This is Simon Wall. He wrote the encryption software that Aram has been trying to crack. He’s here to help.”

  “Simon Wall,” Cooper said. “We appreciate your assistance.”

  “Simon was held captive in Turkey by whoever organized last year’s Dead Ring,” Red continued. He turned back to Wall. “Tell them what you told me.”

  Wall looked at his feet. “Um… When I was locked up, in Turkey, the two guys that were kind of in charge, Corson and Yancy, used to talk about this guy they called the Turk. He seemed to be, like, the local organizer of this Dead Ring thing, or whatever they were doing there.”

  Cooper raised his eyebrows at Red with a look that said, “A guy in Turkey known as the Turk” doesn’t narrow things down at all.

  Red nodded and held up a finger, telling him to be patient.

  “But there was another guy they talked about sometimes,” Wall continued. “A guy they called the Cowboy. And I was wondering if maybe he’s involved in what’s going on now. Sometimes they called him ‘the C-c-cowboy,’ like with a stutter. They’d mimic him and laugh.”

  Red patted him on the shoulder. “Simon overheard some other bits and pieces, and he thinks the guy they were talking about is in the oil business, but not a driller, so maybe oil services, engineering, construction or the like. He’s big but wants to get bigger. He’s not a criminal by nature, but he wants to do business with criminals.”

  Wall nodded. “That was the sense I got. The way they were talking about him, it was like maybe he got outmaneuvered by some criminal gang or screwed over on a big deal, and he’s doing whatever it is he’s doing to prove he can be a tough guy, too. He wants to show he can hang with the big dogs.”

  Aram was typing frantically at his computer, but then he stopped. “So you wrote this encryption software. Can you help us break it, so we can hack into the uplink?”

  Wall nodded somberly. “Yeah. I couldn’t tell what those guys were up to, but I knew it wasn’t good. My encryption is virtually unbreakable. But I put in a back door. And I can show you the key.”

  “Hold on a second, here. What’s your security clearance?” Cooper asked.

  Wall snorted. “Well, I had secret clearance a couple years ago. I don’t know if that’s good enough, but if you’re not comfortable with me helping you people break the encryption software I wrote, then believe me, I can just walk. Frankly, I’m not crazy about getting involved in any of this stuff again.”

  Cooper put up his hands, soothing and a little defensive. “Calm down, son, I’m just saying we need to be careful here.”

  “You’re right,” Wall said, still vaguely indignant. “And I ne
ed to be careful, too. I don’t know what you people are up to here. So you go ahead and make sure you’re comfortable with my security clearance, and I want your assurance, in writing, that I won’t be held legally liable if whatever it is I’m helping you do breaks any laws.”

  “I assure you, Mr. Wall, we are in the business of enforcing the law, not breaking it.”

  “Well, I’ve seen some well-intentioned representatives of this country’s government cross some pretty definite lines, so excuse me if I’ll take that assurance in writing.”

  Cooper stared at him for a moment. “Understood.”

  “And I’ll tell you something else,” Wall said. “You might think you’re going to take these guys down, but with the money they’ve got they can pretty much buy their way out of anything. The only way to really hurt these guys is to get at their money.”

  Aram had been watching the exchange with his mouth slightly open, but now he turned and looked at his computer screen as if something had grabbed his attention. “Huh,” he said, “Dwight Tindley,” as if he was surprised at how easy it was.

  “I beg your pardon?” Cooper said.

  “Dwight Tindley. Owner of an oil services company called Occitex. I think that could be our guy. He was ‘Man of the Year’ four years ago at a big fundraiser for a group called Big Talkers, which raises money to help kids with speech disorders. Two references mention him having a stutter.”

  He tapped a few keys and then sat back. “Two years ago, his company lost a huge contract in Azerbaijan. Occitex went public with allegations that Roskov Services, the company that won the contract, got it because of its ties to Russian mobsters, which were well known. Two days later they withdrew the allegations and issued a formal apology to the Azerbaijani government. Since then, Occitex has been expanding its presence in central Asia and at least three other companies have alleged the company has been doing so in conjunction with criminal gangs.”

  “Sounds like it could be our man. Excellent work, Aram,” Cooper said. “And welcome aboard, Mr. Wall. Thanks for your help.”

  Wall nodded as he took a seat near Aram’s workstation.