Pushing Brilliance

by Tim Tigner

  “Did you discuss my proposal with the DA?”

  “I did. That was an interesting conversation, to say the least.”

  I waited for Kilpatrick to continue, but he was going to make me ask. Perhaps he wanted me to sweat a little. If he only knew. “What did you conclude?”

  “We concluded that bail was a risky proposition. If you don’t show up for trial, people will ask why you were granted bail in the first place, having been arrested for a triple homicide and all — with compelling physical evidence, the oldest motive in the book, and a colorful professional history. The discussion gets particularly awkward at that point, because of course we didn’t grant bail. Not initially. That was reported in the local press. So if anyone asks, we’ll be on the losing end of a news story involving a jailbreak and a cover-up. The DA asked me to tell you, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ ”

  Kilpatrick had some good points. Each felt like an ice pick in my ear. Or maybe a Bic.

  I took a deep breath and reminded myself that assistant district attorneys spent their careers negotiating. He hadn’t come close to yes, but he hadn’t given me a flat-out no either.

  He wanted something.

  I had a pretty good idea what that was going to be. Before we went there, I wanted to balance the scorecard.

  “That’s not nearly as juicy or scandalous as the bumbling incompetence involved in letting me walk right out the front door.”

  “You had accomplices. Accomplices posing as federal agents. They’ll be in nearly as much trouble as you are when we catch them.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kilpatrick. Those were legitimate FBI agents, as far as I know. Either way, it makes the story national news if the story comes out. And it makes the FBI look bad. Of course, the master politicians in the Hoover Building aren’t going to let that story spin against them. No way, no how. They’ll be using your little department as a shield. Your boss will become a scapegoat, a bug deflector. Plus, you’ll have the Fibbi’s in your shorts for the foreseeable future. Certainly through the next election cycle.”

  Kilpatrick didn’t respond immediately. Got me thinking he had the DA in the room with him, and they’d put me on mute. It was a good minute before he came back on the line. “I suppose you have a less controversial scenario in mind?”

  “The morning of the day I was released from jail, there was an attempt made on my life. A serious, sponsored attempt involving three other inmates and a senior corrections officer. The inmates came at me in the shower while the guard stood watch. Given the nature of the attack and the imminent threat to my life, you had no alternative but to pull me out of SBCJ, at which point granting bail seemed the most sensible option.”

  “Is there any evidence of this alleged attempt on your life?”

  “The three inmates all required medical treatment afterwards. The guard’s name is Grissel. I’m sure he was paid off. I’m also confident it wasn’t the first time. That’s both justification for my relocation and four hashmarks in the DA’s win column.”

  Again there was a pause. “Even in that scenario, it would be difficult for bail to make sense.”

  “But you’ll discuss it with the DA?”

  “Yes. I’ll discuss it with the DA.”

  “I’ll call you back tomorrow.”

  Chapter 49

  Pattern Recognition

  AS I CLICKED OFF the call with Kilpatrick, Katya rolled over to face me. “That didn’t sound overly encouraging.”

  I turned so that I could study the lines of her face while I spoke. “I’m sorry I woke you. I had to get that call in today, but didn’t want to risk the chance that you’d wake up here alone.”

  “Thank you. I got enough sleep for now. Kilpatrick’s not cooperating?”

  She did appear to have rebounded. Remarkable. “He is playing it out longer than I expected.”

  “Playing it out?”

  “Negotiating.”

  “Negotiating for what?”

  “Money.”

  “Doesn’t he get to dictate the amount?”

  “He does. But I can always walk away. I’ve already walked away. He has to get me to come back.”

  “Why do you care if you get bail? Since you’re out, I mean.”

  “If I don’t get bail, then I’m guilty of a prison escape. It was nonviolent, but they could still give me three years in jail for it. Furthermore, it makes me look guilty in the eyes of the jury. That alone would push most over the edge of reasonable doubt on the murder charges. Plus there will be a warrant out for my arrest. That could impede my investigation. Given the time pressure, I can’t afford any impediments.”

  “And where is the investigation taking us next?”

  I felt a twinge, a little warm wave scurry across my skin with her use of us. “Washington, if we’re lucky.”

  I opened the iPhone’s web browser and began navigating.

  “You accessing one of those special CIA websites again? Tracing the yogurt box number?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You access it through a weather website?”

  I looked behind me, saw the phone’s screen reflected on the window, and adjusted the angle of the screen. “You know I trust you completely, right? It’s just not my call.”

  “I understand.”

  Once I reached the hidden portal, I drilled down to the page I needed, input the DC phone number, and queried the owner detail. “Unregistered. No big surprise there.” I queried the call log next.

  “When we get to Minsk, if there’s time before our flight to Washington or wherever, can we get a room with a tub? Even if it’s just for an hour?”

  “Count on it.”

  The screen populated.

  I scanned the results and then checked the header to be sure I hadn’t limited the search parameters. “Rita’s phone number has only been active for three weeks.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “It means the trail is fresh, which is good news. But it limits the amount of data, which isn’t so good.”

  Katya sat up and I moved next to her so she could see the screen. She scooted in closer. “All the calls are 202 area codes.”

  “And they’re almost all outgoing. Just a few incoming calls — and those just started this week. And they’re only from numbers she called during the first week.” I copied the entire list and then pasted it into the phone’s spreadsheet app. Then I sorted the list by number. “Most of the numbers were only dialed once, but there were a few twos, threes, and a four.”

  Katya pointed. “The repeated calls are all on consecutive evenings, each roughly an hour later than the one before.”

  Leave it to a mathematician to pick up on a pattern faster than you could spell Pythagoras. “Conclusion?”

  “She was trying to catch them at home. And she doesn’t leave messages. The call durations are too short.”

  “I agree. Now look at the last one and tell me what you see.”

  “It was just ten minutes ago and only lasted two seconds. And it was the second time she called that number in as many days.”

  “That’s accurate, but not quite what I see.”

  Katya turned to me and raised her eyebrows.

  “I see an opportunity.”

  Chapter 50

  No Dope

  WE SPENT the next couple of hours researching the recipients of Rita’s calls, beginning with the latest. Chris Pine was a 35-year-old manager at Kenzie Consulting, a top-tier firm. His specialty was the public sector, which as far as I could tell meant that he helped make government operations efficient. Talk about a growth industry.

  Rita’s earlier calls all went to people with similarly prestigious positions. Three more management consultants, five investment bankers, a dozen big-firm lawyers, and no less than four members of Congress. All were mid-career, with most in their thirties or early forties.

  I set my phone on the bed and rubbed my eyes. That tiny screen wasn’t the best way to view a spreadsheet
— but I wasn’t complaining, I was just hurting. And feeling sleep deprived. “Congressmen aside, I don’t think there’s a person on the list earning less than three hundred thousand a year. I’d guess many are closer to a million.”

  Katya pointed to the picture on her screen. “Chris Pine looks like the actor with the same name. Took me a second to be sure it wasn’t. Same square jaw, mischievous smile, and smoldering blue eyes.” She cocked her head in a gesture that was growing on me. “Now that I think about it, so do you. Except you’ve got that Spartacus chin dimple.”

  “That’s good news. The resemblance, I mean.”

  “Why’s that? You planning to go into acting?”

  I was glad to hear that Katya’s sense of humor had remained intact. Her resilience astounded me. “No, but I suspect that I may be impersonating Mr. Pine before this is over. In person, I mean. Of course first I’ll be impersonating him on the phone, about twenty-two hours and thirty-seven minutes from now.”

  “You’re planning to be in his home when Rita calls?”

  “Of course.”

  “But what if he’s there? What if his family is there?”

  “He’s not married. We already know that from his file. If he’s there or a girlfriend or boyfriend is there, that will complicate things, although not insurmountably. But management consultants travel all the time. Their engagements typically last for months, and the consultants only fly home on the weekends, if at all.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The CIA used them on occasion. Paid them more for a month than they paid me for a year.” I changed the subject. “Bet you’d like some tea.”

  “You’d win that bet. But I don’t think the overnight trains have dining cars.”

  “I thought I’d check with the conductor.”

  “You don’t think he’ll be sleeping?”

  “He works nights. Besides, we’ve got the Belorussian border coming up. He’ll be getting the paperwork ready for that. Lock the door behind me.”

  I found our conductor in a good mood, for which I decided to take credit. I’d paid him a hefty premium in cash to sell us tickets on the spot. He was in his little nook at the end of the car, sipping tea with his feet up on the edge of his mini kitchenette, and reading a Russian detective story. For twenty dollars I got us a couple of piping hot teas, a small box of chocolates, and the explanation that they only stocked enough complimentary breakfast boxes to cover the number of tickets officially sold. “Free refills on the tea,” he’d said as I was leaving.

  Katya cleared the chocolate box like a hustler playing pool, and I ended up taking double advantage of the free refill offer. Once the last truffle had melted in her mouth, she smiled and asked, “Why do you think you’ll be impersonating Chris Pine in person after the phone call?”

  “What kind of calls do you think Rita’s making?”

  “What kind? How should I know?”

  “Deduction. A process I know you’re both fond of and proficient with.”

  Katya humphed, but her mind started spinning. She began paging through screens on her phone, examining the downloaded records. “The calls are all placed in the evenings, to home numbers. And no messages are left. That’s an unusual combination, except for sales calls. So these are likely sales calls.”

  “That was my conclusion.”

  “You think she’s trying to set up a clinical trial?”

  “No. Consider the recipients. What do we know about them?”

  Katya plucked crumbs from the box with a moist index finger while she thought that through. “They’re all successful professionals in the second quartile of their careers.”

  “Right. What else?”

  “They’re all influential and affluent. All are well-educated. All are excelling in very competitive industries.”

  “What does that last point tell you about them? About their personalities?”

  “They’re hardworking and ambitious.”

  “Exactly. So we’ve got ambitious plus affluent. I think that’s the common denominator.”

  “Common denominator for what?”

  “Selection.”

  “Selection for what?”

  “A sales pitch.”

  Katya’s eyes went wide and her voice kicked up a notch. “Of course. Only instead of dope, she’s pushing Brillyanc.”

  Chapter 51

  Shared Secrets

  KATYA AND I stared at each other, digesting our breakthrough. I repeated it, just because it felt good. “Rita’s pushing Brillyanc. In the US.”

  Katya’s eyes flashed the same excitement I was feeling. “Max said he’d pay anything.”

  “To gain a significant competitive advantage, most ambitious people would.”

  “But she doesn’t want most people. She wants the most-affluent people.”

  “Exactly.” I grabbed a seat at the foot of Katya’s bunk.

  “Why? Why not cast a broad net and let the customers figure out the money part? Why not act like a typical drug dealer?”

  “Secrecy.”

  “Drug dealers work in secret. They have to, since it’s illegal.”

  “They work to keep their identities secret. Rita’s working to keep Brillyanc's existence secret.”

  Katya’s head rocked back skeptically. “Is that a realistic expectation? In Russia we have a saying: Three people can keep a secret, as long as two of them are dead.”

  “We have that saying too, and it’s been bugging me. But the one thing we know for sure. The one thing we know with absolute certainty, is that these people will kill to keep a secret.”

  “You think they’re threatening their clients? ‘Buy our product, and oh, by the way, if you tell anyone about it we’ll kill you?’ ”

  “No. That wouldn’t be sustainable. But back to secret-keeping. The history of the world is full of it. There are state secrets, trade secrets, secret societies, and of course, clandestine organizations like the KGB and CIA. All managed to keep secrets for generations by doing one thing.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Making their members want to keep the secret.”

  Katya began flicking her fingernails off the pad of her thumb while her big brain tackled that twist. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. “Seems to me that when you discover something amazing, your first impulse is to share it. But maybe that’s a female thing.”

  “No, it applies to us hunters as well.” I leaned back against the wall. Felt the train rocking rhythmically on the rails. “I remember one time in college, the ski team was on a road trip and I snuck into the home team’s gymnasium to do my stretching routine. It was closed off due to construction, but I found a way in. I heard some laughter and went exploring. I found a grate in the floor that looked down over a locker room, which at that moment was packed with dozens of sorority girls posing in their bathing suits for a fundraising calendar. Every college guy’s dream, right? But my first impulse wasn’t to pull up a chair and enjoy the frivolity, it was to go get my fellow Buffs and share the thrill.”

  “Did you?”

  “I did. Brought three back and we spent the next half hour enjoying a private modeling show while the girls giggled and the photographer did his thing. We began clapping as they were wrapping up with a group photo. None of us stuck around to see what happened next, but I found out later that one of our clapping shots made the cover. There was something particularly sexy about their expressions at that instant of discovery.”

  I stood up and began pacing. I was exhausted, but needed to keep my head in the game. “But getting back to the secret keeping, I think your point is valid. And I don’t have an answer. I don’t know what you do to keep a Brillyanc user from telling his closest friends.”

  “Maybe that’s why they’re targeting these professions. They want cutthroats who’ll be unwilling to share any advantage that gives them a leg up.”

  The simplicity of her solution hit me like a splash of cold water. “Yes! That works. Alt
hough my gut tells me there’s more. Something more predictable. Something the makers of Brillyanc could count on with absolute certainty.”

  Neither of us could crack that nut. After a long silence, Katya said, “You still haven’t told me why you think you’ll be impersonating Chris Pine in person before this is over.”

  I stopped pacing and turned to face her. “Three reasons. First of all, look at the call pattern. For starters, the calls are all under ten minutes. That’s too short to close a sale on something as complicated and nuanced as Brillyanc. Second, they’re all in DC. Why limit yourself geographically, unless personal contact will be involved? Finally, we know what’s being sold, and it requires you to be hooked up to an IV for six hours.”

  “Do you think the call is just to set up a meeting?”

  “I do.”

  “What do you tell people as smart and sophisticated as these to get them to attend that meeting?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out — about twenty-two hours from now.”

  Chapter 52

  Touchdown

  GRIGORI WAS NOT a big man in the physical sense. At 5’8” and weighing in at a hundred and fifty-two pounds he’d be described as average and slight. In the company of his security head, however, he looked downright diminutive. At least from afar. Up close, body language warped perceptions. Pyotr was a tiger, but Grigori had tamed him.

  While Grigori adjusted his crimson tie in the big mirror that dominated his bedroom, Pyotr stood silently at attention a few steps behind. Satisfied with his appearance, Grigori turned to face his security chief. “You lost another one to Achilles. That makes it five now, if I’m not mistaken. Am I mistaken?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I thought not.” Grigori let that hang there for a second, then checked his watch. “Let’s go. President Korovin is the one man I won’t keep waiting.”

  Grigori opened the terrace door and stepped out into the inviting air of an April afternoon. He was excited. His first flight to the Kremlin’s new helipad was just minutes away.