The Eighth Sister

by Robert Dugoni

  “Yeah, it is,” Sloane said. “What are the doctors saying?”

  “She lost a lot of blood. I just checked with the nurse. She said I should hear from the doctor any minute.”

  Sloane pointed to Jenkins’s right hand, which had started to shake. “How long have you had that shake?”

  Jenkins flexed his hand. “Since I first went to Russia.”

  “It’s not Parkinson’s, is it?”

  “No. It’s anxiety. I’m not as young as I once was . . . And I have a lot more to lose.”

  The doctor walked into the waiting room dressed in surgical gear. “Mr. Jenkins, you have a healthy baby girl.”

  “What?” Jenkins said, overwhelmed but also relieved. Sloane gripped his shoulder.

  “We delivered the baby,” the doctor said. “I’m sorry, but we had to act quickly.”

  A girl. He had a baby girl. “How’s Alex? How’s my wife?”

  “She’s weak and she’s tired, but all her vitals are strong and getting better. We’re replenishing lost blood. She’s anxious to see you.”

  “I’ll call Jake and CJ and let them know,” Sloane said.

  Jenkins followed the doctor down the corridor and through several swinging doors. Alex was in the third room of the ICU unit with nurses huddled around her bed. She looked pale and tired, but she smiled.

  Jenkins kissed her atop the forehead, whispering, “How’re you doing?”

  “I’m tired but I’m okay,” Alex said, her voice weak. “Better now that you’re here. Did you see your daughter?”

  In the bassinet beside the bed, the top of a pink beanie poked out from a white blanket with pink stripes.

  “Not exactly the birth we planned,” Alex whispered.

  “Not exactly,” Jenkins said, mesmerized at the tiny creature in the bassinet. “She’s so little. I don’t remember CJ being that little.”

  “He wasn’t,” Alex said. “But the doctor says she’s fine, just a little jaundiced, but that should clear up in a couple of days. Hold your daughter.”

  Jenkins picked up the bundle. She fit in his hand, from the tips of his long fingers to just past his wrist. He cradled her to his chest. “Hey, little girl.” He felt his heart soar as he said it, and he was filled with conflicting emotions. He wanted to hold her close so that no one could ever hurt her, but he also worried that he would not be there to protect her.

  “What about a name?” Alex said. They’d decided not to find out the sex, just as with CJ, and early on they’d toyed with several girls’ and boys’ names, but with everything happening, they hadn’t had a chance to come to a consensus. “I thought we could name her after your mother.”

  Jenkins smiled. “Elizabeth.”

  “We can call her Lizzie,” Alex said.

  “What about Paulina?” Jenkins said. “Maybe for a middle name.”

  “The woman from Russia?” Alex asked.

  “She’s the reason I’m here, holding our daughter. She never had children. This would be a way for her to live on.”

  Alex tried out the name. “Elizabeth Paulina Jenkins. It has a nice ring to it.”

  The curtain pulled back and a nurse stood with CJ. Jenkins moved so CJ could climb onto the bed next to his mother. Alex kissed him, and he became a little boy again, snuggling close to her side. Jenkins bent down so CJ could see his sister. “You want to hold her?”

  “Can I?”

  “Sure. Hold your arms out like this. You need to support her head.”

  CJ did and Jenkins placed his daughter in the crook of the boy’s arm. CJ smiled up at them. Then, in a serious voice, he whispered, “I’ll take care of her, Dad. I promise.”

  Jenkins smiled back, anything but certain he’d be there, also, to care for them both.

  57

  A week after Elizabeth’s birth, they all returned to Sloane’s house on Three Tree Point. As part of his bail requirements, Jenkins had to stay in King County, and they all agreed it was safer for him and his family at Three Tree than on the isolated farm on Camano. Sloane’s house was also closer to the courthouse in downtown Seattle, which gave Sloane and Jenkins more opportunities to talk. In between taking care of Alex and the baby, Jenkins made sure CJ kept on top of his homework. The additional responsibilities were a blessing, giving Jenkins something to do, and keeping his mind otherwise occupied, but only to a point.

  The trial loomed over him like the glistening blade of a guillotine, even more so now that they had Lizzie.

  Thursday afternoon, Sloane asked Jenkins to meet him at the office. Jenkins arrived at four, with dusk settling in. They pulled chilled glasses from the freezer and filled them at a keg in the kitchen, then sat in the main conference room.

  “I talked to Maria Velasquez this afternoon,” Sloane said, sounding somewhat hesitant. “In exchange for a plea of diminished capacity, she’ll recommend two years in a psychiatric ward. Then you’re free.”

  “They want me to plead insanity?”

  “Diminished capacity,” Sloane said.

  “I know what it means,” Jenkins said.

  “You’d have this behind you. You could all move on.”

  Jenkins sipped his beer and set it down on the table. He looked to the silver bracelet on his wrist.

  “Until one of the kids at CJ’s school, or a fisherman, tells him that his father was a nut job in addition to being a traitor. I could move on, David, if it was just me. But my kids would have to live with that admission for the rest of their lives. I don’t want to do that to them.”

  “If you don’t take the plea, the government will pursue life in prison.”

  “We knew that, didn’t we?”

  Sloane nodded.

  “I know you’re obligated to present the deal to me, and you have, but I won’t agree to any deal that requires me to admit I was crazy.”

  Again Sloane did not respond, and for the first time, Jenkins sensed uncertainty.

  “Do you think I should consider this?” Jenkins asked.

  “We haven’t been able to come up with any evidence to support our position, Charlie,” Sloane said. “And I’m not sure we will. Emerson seems to have vanished. Traeger is cooperating with the government, Goldstone is working on a plea agreement and can’t say anything until it’s finalized, and we can’t get in the polygraph, and we have no documents.”

  Jenkins said, “Do you think I’m telling the truth?”

  “Whether I think you’re telling the truth is irrelevant, Charlie,” Sloane said.

  “Not to me. Do you think I’m telling the truth?”

  “Of course, Charlie, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “We hired a consultant by the name of Conrad Levy. He’s an ex—”

  “I know who he is. He’s the guy who wrote the book about the CIA and sold out about a dozen former agents.”

  Sloane told Jenkins the details of his conversation with Levy. Then he said, “Again, Charlie. It’s not about the truth. It’s about what we can prove. What we heard from Levy is likely what we’ll hear from the government. It’s a compelling argument.”

  “But it isn’t the truth.”

  Sloane nodded. “There may be another way,” he said. “There’s a psychiatrist I’ve used in the past who could do an evaluation. Depending on the results, it might be the best evidence we have to argue you are telling the truth.”

  “Then let’s do it,” Jenkins said.

  For the next three days Jenkins submitted to extensive interviews and a battery of psychological tests administered by a psychiatrist named Addison Beckman. A woman in her midfifties, Beckman was held in high esteem by the profession, especially in forensic psychiatry.

  Sloane and Jake met with Beckman in the conference room before she’d committed her findings to writing. If she told them Jenkins was crazy as a loon, they’d never mention her and her tests at trial. Beckman declined coffee or tea. She seemed eager to talk. When seated at the conference room table she said, “He’s as straight as they come
. Too straight. It would be better for him if he’d loosen up a bit.”

  “What exactly does that mean?” Sloane asked.

  “I’m saying, believe your client. I’m saying that in my opinion, he’s honest, nondeceptive, and emotionally stable. I gave him a battery of tests, all of which will be summarized in my report. He isn’t delusional, and he isn’t a sociopath or a pathological liar. It’s my opinion that you can believe what he says happened.”

  They went over every test Beckman had administered. Five hours later, documents littered Sloane’s conference room table—charts, graphs, notes, and test results. It was all well and good, but it didn’t solve their biggest problem. Sloane still needed evidence to back up Beckman’s opinion.

  After Beckman had departed, Sloane retreated to his office with Jake to return a phone call he’d received while working with the psychiatrist. Sloane had hired investigator Peter Vanderlay to run a reverse directory search on the telephone number Carl Emerson had given Charlie. Sloane hoped it would provide evidence that the number belonged to Emerson. Vanderlay answered on the third ring. Sloane put him on the speaker so Jake could hear the conversation.

  “Mr. Sloane,” Vanderlay said. “I was going to call you in the morning. I just arrived at my daughter’s basketball game.”

  “I’m sorry to intrude on family time.”

  “No worries. They’ll be warming up for another ten minutes. I got a hit on that number you provided. You have a pen handy?”

  Sloane grabbed a pen and a pad of paper. “Fire away.”

  “The number belonged to a man named Richard Peterson of TBT Investments.”

  Sloane had never heard of the person or the company. He looked to Jake, but at the mention of the name, Jake had left his chair and hurried from the office.

  “Anything else?” Sloane said.

  “That’s it. No forwarding number. No address.”

  Sloane asked Vanderlay a few more questions before disconnecting.

  Jake reentered the office and slapped LSR&C’s incorporation papers on Sloane’s desk. He stabbed at the documents with his finger. “TBT Investments was a subsidiary of LSR&C. It’s right there. And the COO of TBT Investments was Richard Peterson.”

  Sloane read the document carefully to be certain.

  “You think Carl Emerson could be Richard Peterson?” Jake asked.

  “Sure looks that way,” Sloane said. “And if we can prove that he is, it’s tangible proof to argue that Charlie met Emerson. The question is, How do we get it into evidence? Even if we can find Emerson, there’s no guarantee he’ll acknowledge the card or the number.” Sloane thought of Beckman’s statement that he should put Charlie on the witness stand, but that was always a dicey proposition in a criminal matter. He paced his office, thinking. He stopped at the round table in the front corner and saw the Seattle Times. The Times had reported that morning that Mitchell Goldstone, the former COO of LSR&C, had accepted a plea agreement that called for substantial prison time. He turned to Jake. “You read that Mitchell Goldstone agreed to a plea deal?”

  “Sentencing is within the month,” Jake said.

  “And until then, Goldstone is at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac. He might know if Carl Emerson is Richard Peterson.”

  “He might, but the government will argue Goldstone is a liar,” Jake said. “His plea required that he admit he’d lied about LSR&C being a CIA proprietary.”

  “Yeah, but we now have a number on a business card, and an expert who will testify that the number belonged to Richard Peterson of TBT Investments, and we have documents that TBT was a subsidiary of LSR&C. If Goldstone says Peterson is Emerson, it would prove that a CIA officer was acting as the head of an LSR&C subsidiary. It’s solid evidence that what Charlie is saying is true.” Another thought came to him. “The LSR&C documents—what documents existed anyway—were classified in the Goldstone matter, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But with that matter final when Goldstone signed the plea deal—”

  “The government will never give up LSR&C’s documents,” Jake said.

  “They’re not the government’s documents. Those documents belong to a Washington State corporation that is currently in bankruptcy. The firm handling that bankruptcy has control over the documents. With the plea by Goldstone, the criminal case is over and it is now a straight bankruptcy matter. I’m betting the government is no longer even thinking about those documents.”

  Jake smiled. “You want me to prepare a subpoena to get them?”

  “There’s no need for a subpoena. The government is arguing that LSR&C has nothing to do with this case, that this is a straight espionage case. We don’t have to go through the government to get LSR&C’s documents. We can go straight to the law firm handling the LSR&C bankruptcy and get the documents without the government ever knowing it.”

  58

  Sloane left his office and drove to the Federal Detention Center, referred to as the “airport prison” because of its proximity to SeaTac Airport. For the first time, he saw a faint glimmer of hope. Goldstone could fuel that glimmer into a full-blown flame, or extinguish it.

  The exterior of the beige building—two cubes with wings and an awning over a glass-door entrance—gave the prison the appearance of a hospital. After the usual red tape, and a lot of forms, Sloane found himself in a beat-up room behind a plexiglass window with several holes that allowed him to speak to the prisoner.

  Several minutes after Sloane sat, the door on the other side of the plexiglass opened, and Mitchell Goldstone entered with his hands cuffed to a belly chain at his waist and white bandages wrapping each wrist. Goldstone looked younger than in newspaper photographs and on television. He parted his hair in the middle and it extended over his ears. His complexion was pale and his cheeks flushed. He did not look like a chief operating officer of a multimillion-dollar investment company, and maybe he never had been. According to Jenkins, if LSR&C was a CIA proprietary, then Goldstone was just a figurehead. Decisions came from Langley.

  Goldstone gave Sloane a quizzical look.

  “I’m David Sloane, the attorney for Charles Jenkins.”

  “Do you have a card?” Goldstone asked.

  Goldstone had every reason to be paranoid. Sloane pushed his card and his driver’s license against the plexiglass.

  Goldstone leaned forward and considered them closely. Then he said, “I’m sorry about what’s happening to him. Tell him I wish him the best.”

  “He feels the same about what’s happened to you.”

  Goldstone sat back. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he refrained. “What’s your question?”

  “I wanted to know if the LSR&C documents at the bankruptcy attorney’s office make mention of its subsidiaries.”

  “I’m sure they do. Which subsidiary are you interested in?”

  Sloane watched Goldstone closely. “I’m interested in a company called TBT Investments.”

  Goldstone’s eyes flickered and the corner of his mouth inched upward, though he suppressed a grin. “I don’t know for certain,” he said.

  “But TBT was a subsidiary of LSR&C,” Sloane said.

  Goldstone nodded. “Yeah. It was.”

  “And were you the chief operating officer of TBT Investments as well as LSR&C?” Sloane knew the answer, but he wanted Goldstone to talk.

  Goldstone shook his head. “No.”

  “The incorporation papers say it was run by someone named Richard Peterson.”

  Goldstone smiled, as if bemused by the information, but didn’t otherwise comment.

  “I’m having difficulty locating people to corroborate Charles Jenkins’s story,” Sloane said. “Do you know how I would find Richard Peterson?”

  Goldstone sat back, head tilted, evaluating Sloane.

  “Charlie has a wife and two children,” Sloane said, knowing Goldstone also had a family. “A new baby girl just a couple weeks old.”

  Goldstone appeared to be thinking carefully
. Sloane thought he was about to leave the window, but he sat forward and said, “Ask Carl Emerson about Richard Peterson.”

  Sloane did his best to keep a poker face. “He would know?”

  Goldstone nodded. “Ask him.”

  “Have you ever met Carl Emerson?”

  “Once. He flew out when we were trying to get money out of the Philippines.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “He’s older. I’d say late seventies, maybe even early eighties. He’s tall. Six two or three, and thin. Has a head of white hair and dark eyes. Not brown. Darker. He’s also tan.”

  The description fit the one Jenkins had provided.

  “I understand he’s retired. Any idea how I might find him?”

  Goldstone shook his head.

  “You said he flew in to Seattle. Do you know from where?”

  “I assume from DC, but I understood from talking to him that he golfs a lot. He talked about the golf courses he’d been playing and it was the middle of winter. So it was someplace warm.”

  “You don’t happen to have any LSR&C documents, do you?”

  Goldstone’s eyes sparkled, and the corners of his mouth again inched into an impish, boyish grin. Just as quickly, the grin faded. Goldstone rubbed the bandage on his left wrist. “As part of my plea deal with the government I had to relinquish anything I had related to LSR&C.”

  Sloane realized the facial expression was intended to convey what Mitchell Goldstone could not say. He was savvier than the newspapers had portrayed him. Sloane suspected Goldstone held leverage over the government, documents he had likely secured someplace that would inflict damage if exposed. He suspected that was the reason for the plea deal, and maybe why Goldstone was still alive. He also suspected that Goldstone, not the government, had pushed for that deal. He had no doubt that Goldstone would be sentenced to a long prison term, but Sloane doubted he would spend much time behind bars, and likely at a minimum-security federal penitentiary. The government would wait until all the investor suits against LSR&C concluded and everyone had gotten their pound of flesh and moved on with their lives. When they did, Mitchell Goldstone would come up for parole, and quietly slip back into society.