President's assassin sd-5

by Brian Haig

  "All right. Winter, two years ago. A unit was sending a two-and-a-half-ton truck filled with Ml6s off post to a depot facility to have the weapons reblued-that is, to have the exterior metal parts recoated with an antirust compound. Now, here's the first interesting fact. It's routine to send broken weapons to depot level to be repaired-nonfunctioning weapons that won't work till they're fixed-but the thieves targeted a vehicle filled with working weapons."

  I commented, "Which would seem to imply inside knowledge."

  "Yeah, exactly. The truck got about thirty miles outside Killeen, when a car roared up from behind and nearly side-swiped it. The car had apparently been following and waited until the truck reached a lightly trafficked back road. Then the car got just ahead, and one of the thieves tossed out a bunch of oversized tiretacks. Our lab later determined that the tacks had been specially manufactured for this hit. The thieves wore balaclava hoods, and were armed. They made off with forty Ml6s"

  Jennie and I exchanged glances. I had no idea what she was thinking. She asked Eric, "How many people in the car?"

  "Two."

  "Was there a woman?"

  "Maybe." But after a moment, he admitted, "Look, they were both built like men, and they moved like men. But as I said, they were masked, so the truck driver couldn't provide good descriptions. We know one man was extremely tall and lanky. Maybe six foot six or six foot seven."

  Jennie asked, "Well… was a woman observed at any of the thefts you haven't described?"

  "No. But there were no reliable witnesses to the other thefts."

  "No… witnesses." She asked, "What about the tall guy?"

  "Just at the hijack."

  Jennie began tapping a pen on the table. "Yet you're assuming all these people are part of the same ring, and you're assuming the female might have been present at other crimes?"

  "I'm sure they're one team. And I'm sure she's part of the team. Sometimes she's involved, sometimes not."

  "Did they kill anybody?"

  "They planned well enough that they didn't have to."

  Jennie leaned toward him. "Was that deliberate?"

  "I'm sure it was."

  "You're sure, Mr. Tanner? Seven times you've used that word. But, you're not… sure. You're manufacturing assumptions and guesses, and expressing them as facts. Right?"

  "I-"

  "Beyond the possibility of an inside source, I can't see any resemblance between the two thefts. You have witnesses to two of the crimes, yet none of the same perps were observed at both crime scenes. Correct?"

  "Yes… but-"

  "One crime was committed on base, employing masquerade, falsified documents, and a nonlethal weapon. The perps showed their faces and left witnesses. Have I described this accurately?"

  "Yes, and I-"

  "The earlier theft occurred off base. They used guns, they wore masks, and their technique was markedly less clever and less restrained. One theft showed complexity and finesse, the other was simple and coarse. One was a scam, the other your basic armed robbery." She leaned back into her chair and exhaled a long breath. "But maybe I'm just dense. Tell me again, what ties them together?"

  Clearly, Eric had not been subjected to, nor had he anticipated, this kind of rigorous interrogation. He was becoming flustered, and it showed. He said, "Well, I see the differences, and… as I said, those differences are-"

  "Those differences are enormous. How many weapons or munitions thefts and losses occurred at Fort Hood over the past five years?"

  "Well… a lot."

  "A lot?”

  "It's our biggest base. Many dozens. Perhaps a hundred or so."

  "Are they all interconnected? Applying your reasoning, the intent, the location, and the desired loot were the same."

  "Look… we all know you can't-"

  "That's right, Mr. Tanner-you can't. And now you're suggesting these same people-who aren't actually the same people-are working with Jason Barnes here in Washington. But how would Jason Barnes even know these people?"

  "I… I don't know."

  "You don't seem to know much." The room was completely still. General Tingle, Colonel Johnson, and the two older agents were mesmerized, watching their prize peacock getting his plumage ripped off by a pit bull.

  I put a hand on Jennie's leg under the table and squeezed, a signal to back off. Jennie drew a breath. Speaking at Tanner, but clearly to me, she said, "I hope I'm not being too harsh on you, Mr. Tanner. We're investigating the most serious case in the land. Somebody assassinated three of our highest officials, and coldly murdered thirteen others. Now they are promising to murder our President. You've suggested a link to your case. We need to know if it's worth following. Understand?"

  "Sure. And I-"

  "Wouldn't you agree there's a compelling difference between this.. this team of thieves you're hypothesizing, and a trio of expertly trained killers?"

  "Well, I think-"

  "What you should think-what you should know-there's a threshold in every criminal mind. You're describing thieves who tailor their schemes to avoid having to kill. They have a moral or pragmatic line in the sand."

  "Crime is a stepladder, Miss Margold. Like dope-start with marijuana and eventually you're mainlining heroin."

  Clearly, Jennie did not appreciate this lecture on criminology, and replied, "Boy… I sure wish I had your intuitive insights before I taught criminal motivation at Quantico for five years." She looked at me. Turning back to Eric, she said, "There has to be something you're withholding. Right?"

  Eric's face was slightly pink. He was twisting his wedding band around his finger, I thought metaphorically, wishing he was wringing Jennie's neck. "No… unless you want to hear about the other thefts."

  "I…" She looked at her watch and shook her head dismissively. "We don't really have time for that."

  Jennie had made her point, but she had been really rough on the poor guy. He kept glancing at General Tingle, probably wondering if he still had a job. Actually, I felt sorry for Eric Tanner.

  In a moment of uncharacteristic generosity, I turned to General Tingle and asked, "Earlier you asked me to hold that thought. What thought?"

  He'd been so preoccupied watching Eric being bent over and Roto-Rooted that he needed a moment to come to his senses. "What? Oh, yes… right. I was going to say, when you raised the issue of an insider, Eric and the CID detachment at Fort Hood went through a painstaking process to try to pinpoint that source."

  I nodded at Eric. It wouldn't hurt to get a few points back on the board, and I said, "Tell me about that."

  Eric cleared his throat and recovered a little of his cockiness.

  "Well, our people considered a number of variables. Soldiers are reassigned every two or three years, so we're sure- uh… we think we're dealing with a civilian employee, somebody with access to range control data, logistics information, information on MP security procedures, and certain other command information."

  "Sounds reasonable."

  "We narrowed it down to five civilian suspects."

  "That's a workable number."

  "Yeah, but that's when we hit a brick wall. They all looked good, and they all had discounting factors. So we sent this list to the Behavioral Science Unit, and we asked them to have a profiler assess our suspects and determine our most likely candidates."

  Sounded like a smart move to me, but Jennie mumbled, "Good luck."

  The general looked a little surprised. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean, the BSU is up to its ass in serial killers, serial arsonists, serial rapists, and, these days, serial snipers." She turned to Eric and asked, "Have you gotten a response yet?"

  "No."

  "And you probably won't. Ever," Jennie informed him. "The BSU gets perhaps ten thousand requests a year, from the rest of the FBI, from every local and city police department in the country, and, these days, from police forces around the world who've heard of the unit and its unique abilities. The unit's very small and notoriously overworked. Your
case is too vague and too trivial to merit their attention. It's probably near the bottom of the slush pile."

  Jennie then turned to me. She pointed at her watch and said, "We need to be going."

  I nodded. Everybody nodded, apparently agreeing that we should be going.

  General Tingle stood, and we both stood. The general remarked to us, "I warned you that it might be difficult to isolate a particular case."

  Jennie shrugged. "Elimination is as important as discovery. We've at least ruled out three cases that aren't hopeful."

  In that light, I said, "However, General, you and your people should keep searching. It's possible the FBI screen missed some likely cases, and it's also possible the case was never reported to the FBI in the first place."

  Tingle positioned himself between us, took our arms, and began speeding us along to the door. He couldn't get rid of us fast enough. "In an hour this headquarters will be swarming with investigators. I'll send a worldwide alert to all CID stations to review all lost and stolen weapons cases. I'll call if we get anything."

  Eric Tanner looked particularly relieved as we bid our adieus and went back outside and climbed into the MP humvee for the drive back to the helicopter. Jennie was quiet and moody Not a word was said during the ride.

  Fortunately, Jimbo had somehow gotten his hands on a thermos of coffee and two mugs, and I suddenly saw him in a whole new light. You can run on adrenaline for only so long, after that it's all about caffeine.

  The helicopter lifted off, and Jennie still said not a word. Eventually, she turned to me."Was it your impression we got anything useful out of that?"

  "Probably not."

  She exhaled deeply "I found that very… frustrating." After another moment she said, "That Tanner guy, he pissed me off."

  "I thought you two hit it off really well."

  "I'm serious. He got under my skin."

  "Fooled me."

  "He was so full of himself. I can't remember seeing shoddier police work. CID people… are they always that amateurish?"

  "Now, that's unfair."

  "Is it? If I brought a half-baked theory like that to my boss, I'd be fetching coffee and doughnuts for the bookkeepers."

  "Goodness-did we get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?"

  "We never went to bed."

  "Ah… that explains it."

  "Would you get serious?" Apparently she was in a really foul mood, because she added, "I shouldn't have to remind you that every minute is precious. That was a complete waste of our time."

  "Fine. That's what we'll report back."

  "Fine." She stared out the window, and I stared out the other window.

  I hadn't seen her like this, except at our first meeting, when the gun was really at her head. But as somebody wise and knowing once advised me, women speak two languages, one of which is verbal. Still, I thought I knew what was going on here. This wasn't about Eric Tanner, this was about George Meany. These two were playing for keeps. He had undermined her from day one, and now he was trying to deep-six her career, dropping dimes on her to Townsend, and who knew what else. Being her boss, George had lots of advantages he was not hesitating to use. Jennie's only chance was to bring home breakthroughs, not dead ends.

  After a few minutes of silence, she grabbed my sleeve and pulled me toward her. She asked, "Am I being a bitch?"

  Well, I do know when to keep my mouth shut.

  She said, "I know I am." "Well… actually-" "Sorry. Lack of sleep. Lack of breakfast." I did not reply to that either.

  She said, "When we're done debriefing, let's get that hotel room."

  And like that, the day was off to an interesting start.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  As we climbed off the helicopter and walked across the tarmac, we shook hands and agreed we would keep our debriefings short and be out in no time. In truth, I had felt fine until Jennie mentioned food and sleep, at which point Pavlov kicked in. My ass was really dragging.

  But by coincidence, Mort Silverman was puffing on a big stogie outside the entrance as we made our way into the building. Between his plump physique, rumpled suit, and oversize cigar, the guy looked like Danny DeVito in front of a bad movie set. In fact, I had yet to observe a single CIA person who bore an even passing resemblance to James Bond. Most, like Mort or Phyllis, looked like somebody you'd run into in the produce section of the local Giant. Of course, it's not about how they look: It's about how they think. I introduced Mort to Jennie, and Jennie to Mort, and they exchanged a few pleasantries.

  Incidentally, I noticed that Mort was standing on my left foot, which I interpreted as a subtle way of telling me not to go anywhere. Jennie had to check her phone messages, and eventually she departed, leaving us alone.

  Mort drew a heavy puff from his cigar and asked, "Got a minute?"

  "For you, Mort, two minutes."

  "Two things. You want the good news first or last?"

  "How about the kick in the ass first."

  He laughed. "Yeah, well… you know a guy named George?"

  "Why? Has he been shot? Tell me it's so."

  "You should wish. He called Phyllis while I was in there. Not for nothin', watch your ass around him."

  "And what was George's issue?"

  "I couldn't hear much. But I caught enough to know he was pissing all over you."

  "Thanks. I owe you one."

  "Yeah, you do. Now you're about to owe me two." He asked, "You know what Carnivore is?"

  "Sort of like an Internet search service, right?"

  "Like King Kong is sort of a monkey It belongs to the FBI, and NSA's got another version that works internationally. You cue it for.. like, certain words and phrases, and it sweeps through the world's telephone and e-mail conversations. If one of these phrases pops up, say, in a conversation, it gets collected."

  Perhaps recalling that I was a technological dimwit, Mort searched my face to be sure I understood before he continued. "Phyllis had Peterson order NSA to look for the phrase 'one hundred million bucks,' or variations thereof."

  "Good thinking. They get anything?"

  "A lot of hits, from banks, security houses, and the U.S. Congress." He paused a moment and sucked on his cigar. "But somebody's shoving a block of a hundred million bucks pretty quickly through a bunch of banks."

  "Explain that."

  "This basket of money's gone through… like, six banks, just in the past twelve hours."

  "Okay. Why would somebody do that?"

  "You tell me."

  I thought about it a moment. "Laundering?"

  "Well, I called some sources over at Treasury. Good guys… they're into this money shit, right? Not laundered… hidden."

  "And there's a distinction?"

  He laughed. "That's what I said. Sometimes tax dodgers, they shift their money around a lot. It creates a long chain, and tax authorities lose the thread."

  "Okay."

  "I said, so if you had to make an illegal payment of, like, a hundred million sometime in the near future, would you do that? They said that's exactly what you'd do. The money loses its identity. Cycle it a few times through Swiss banks, the Caymans, a few little Pacific islands-places with liberal-to-no reporting procedures-pretty soon, you wouldn't have a clue where the money originated."

  "But would you know where it comes out?"

  "If it stays in a single block. But if, at some point, they break it up, like into a bunch of five- or ten-million packets, and wire it sequentially, you could lose visibility of it."

  I nodded, and he said, "If these guys are any good, they'll do just that."

  "So what do we do about that?"

  "Phyllis is on the phone right now with NSA and Treasury. They say, if they can catch it at just the right moment, NSA can put tracers on it, like a thousand little cookies. Then, no matter what the meatheads try, we'll know."

  Interesting. Only one problem. "But-"

  "Yeah… you got it." Mort looked down at his shoes a moment. "We catch
them after the President's already dead."

  So anyway, Mort asked what I'd been up to. He'd been open and straight with me, so I was open and straight with him, and I told him about Margaret and Jason, and we both agreed that the Barneses were one screwy family It's all about reciprocation.

  Phyllis was still chatting on the phone when I entered her office. I stood perfectly still in front of her desk for about thirty seconds. Unfortunately, patience is really not my strong suit. I began wandering around, pawing her pictures, pulling out her books and checking titles, playing with the few personal items on her desk. I hate it when people do that.

  She eventually got the message, and she put a hand over the phone's mouthpiece. "Drummond, if you don't take your hands off my property, sit down, and behave, I'll boil you alive."

  Goodness. I set down her teacup, sat at the conference table, and behaved perfectly, while loudly drumming my fingers and tapping my foot. Two out of three is really good for me.

  Whoever Phyllis was chatting with apparently was bellyaching about how much trouble and expense it would be to follow, say, a hundred packets of wired money, if the bad guys chose to break it up. I mean, somebody just murdered three of our highest officials, they've threatened to assassinate the President, and this bureaucrat's worried about his overtime account. Typical. But Phyllis knew the drill and remained patient, though firm and insistent.

  Eventually, she hung up and focused on me. "Well? Anything worthwhile turn up from our CID friends?"

  "The one lead that looked good turned out not to be good."

  "That happens. Still you have to go through the process. You know about-?"

  "I know. I ran into Mort."

  "Fine. Now I'll update you on our other progress." And for the next two minutes she did. Apparently, the world had now been informed that Jason Barnes was the killer and the manhunt was in full froth. With its usual anal efficiency, the Bureau had released and distributed not only Jason's official photograph but a sort of facsimile gallery of this-asshole-could-look-like-this sketches-Jason with a mustache, with glasses, a beard, bald, as a blond cross-dresser, whatever. The gallery would be printed on the front page of the Washington Post. This way, in the morning Jason would know what disguise not to wear.