by M. A. Lawson
“That’s why I came here today, to tell you what I’ve been doing and what I found out.”
Callahan made a so-get-on-with-it gesture.
“The biggest thing I learned,” Kay said, “is that the fifty million that was supposedly sent to Sahid Khan’s bank never made it into his account. The money disappeared. Somebody stole it.”
Kay waited for Callahan to say: Oh, my God! How did you discover this? But he didn’t. Instead he said, “I already know that, Hamilton. Didn’t it ever occur to you that I would look into the money? What the hell do you think I’ve been doing since the last time I talked to you?”
Before Kay could answer, Callahan said, “I was told before I hired you that you would disobey orders if you thought you were right—and that you always think you’re right—and that you lied to your bosses at the DEA and federal judges and anybody else you thought didn’t need to know the truth. It looks like I should have listened to the people who told me those things.” Pointing a thick finger at her face, he said, “I gave you a direct order not to screw around with what happened in Afghanistan.”
“I didn’t think you were going to do anything,” Kay said.
“How the hell could you possibly think that?” Callahan shouted. “An operation I was in charge of blew up in my face.”
“All I knew was that you didn’t take me seriously when I told you Dolan might have been involved.”
“I took you seriously, goddamnit! I just didn’t agree with you.”
Callahan’s face was beet red; she hoped he didn’t have a stroke.
“Do you want me to tell you what else I learned,” Kay said, “or do you just want to keep gnawing on my ass?”
Callahan almost smiled. “Yeah. Tell me what else you learned.”
“I learned that Dolan isn’t as rich everyone thinks he is.”
“I found that out, too,” Callahan said. “But I still don’t believe he was involved in Ara’s death.”
“I also learned that C&S Logistics is barely making it and Sterling, in particular, is up to his neck in debt. He really needed that security contract in Afghanistan, but since the contract wasn’t a sure thing, maybe he decided the smart thing to do was steal fifty million and retire.”
Callahan nodded as if he’d come to the same conclusion. “Did you look at my finances, too?” he asked.
“Yeah. You’re practically broke, but you’ve always been practically broke.”
“Who else did you check out?”
“Mercer, Sorenson, Cannon, and everybody that Sterling and Cannon took with them to Afghanistan.”
“Did you check out Harris?”
“No. Who’s Harris?”
“A guy who worked with Eli.”
“I didn’t know about him.”
“That’s right, you didn’t. You see, Hamilton, you’re not as smart as you think you are. And who did the financial checks for you? You’re not smart enough to have done those, either.”
He was just going to keep punching her in the face with how smart she wasn’t. “Barb Reynolds,” she said.
“Aw, goddamnit,” Callahan muttered. “And I suppose you told Barb everything.”
“I had to. I needed her help, and I couldn’t trust anybody working for the Group. Including you.”
Callahan laughed. “So why are you trusting me now?
She almost said: Because I don’t have a choice. Instead she said, “Because Barb convinced me I should. And there’s something else. Barb said there was something called a trip wire on the accounts of the people she investigated. This means that someone was able to see that the DEA was investigating and was able to trace the investigation back to the DEA. I need to know if you’re the one who put the trip wires in place.”
“No,” Callahan said. “I learned the same thing you did. I used a couple of guys over at . . . Never mind who I used. Anyway, they told me the same thing, that somebody wanted to know if they were being investigated and by who, but whoever set the trip wires was able to hide his identity.”
“I still think it could be Dolan.”
“Well, I don’t,” Callahan said.
“Hiding money is what he does for a living.”
“Dolan doesn’t have the computer skills to snatch money out of thin air on its way to a Swiss bank.”
“It was his computer,” Kay countered. “He put a program on it so he could steal the money, and if he didn’t do it personally, then he got somebody to help him.”
“Not necessarily,” Callahan said. “People I talked to told me it’s possible that an exceptional hacker could have gotten past the security systems on Dolan’s machine and downloaded a program he wouldn’t have known about.”
“You gotta look harder at Dolan,” Kay said.
“Goddamnit, quit saying that! That’s another thing I was told about you: You get tunnel vision when you think you’re right. And there’s something else you don’t know, Miss Smarty Pants.”
Kay couldn’t help but smile. Her mother used to call her Miss Smarty Pants when she was little. After she got knocked up at age fifteen, her mother didn’t call her that anymore. “What else don’t I know?” Kay asked.
“The guy you killed last night worked for Cannon and Sterling. His name is Nelson, and he was with you in Afghanistan.”
“I thought I recognized him,” Kay said. “When we were in Afghanistan, all the security guys had beards and were wearing hats and turbans and shit to blend in with the locals, and I never really got a good look at any of them. Did you ask Cannon or Sterling about him?”
“Yeah. Sterling said he had no idea what Nelson was doing in D.C. or why he attacked you. He said Nelson quit after he got back from Afghanistan, said that he’d had enough of traveling to shitholes and getting shot at. He was ex-army, two tours in Iraq, and had worked for Sterling for three years, but there wasn’t anything special about him. What I’m saying is, he was bright enough to work for Sterling but not bright enough to plan what happened in Afghanistan.
“The other thing Sterling said—and Nelson’s military file confirmed this—is that Nelson got in trouble in Iraq for sexually harassing a female soldier. But if you read between the lines, Nelson might have actually raped the woman. Sterling said that maybe when Nelson saw you in Afghanistan, he got fixated on you. Sexually. And that’s why he attacked you.”
“I wouldn’t trust Sterling,” Kay said.
“I don’t trust him. I’m just telling you what he said.”
“Did Nelson know how to build a bomb?” she asked.
“Yeah. All Cannon and Sterling people have demolitions training. Plus, Nelson had firsthand experience with IEDs in Iraq.”
“So maybe he was the one who built the bombs.”
“Yeah, maybe, but there’s something else. I had a guy take another look at Nelson’s finances this morning. He had two hundred and fifty thousand in an offshore account, and we were able to trace the money back to a mosque in Pakistan that’s financed the Taliban in the past.”
“What?” Kay said. “Are you saying you think this really was a Taliban operation? That the Taliban paid Nelson to kill Ara, and they’re the ones who stole the money? I mean, I can’t believe . . .”
“No, I don’t think that,” Callahan said. “What I think is that somebody else thinks I’m as stupid as you seem to think I am.”
“I don’t think you’re—”
“It was hard to find the money in Nelson’s account—maybe that’s why Barb’s people didn’t find it—and it was really hard to trace it back to the mosque. But it wasn’t that hard. What I’m saying is, everything else associated with this op computer-wise was done by a genius. We can’t figure out who set the trip wires on everybody’s bank accounts. We can’t figure out how the fifty million disappeared. But in the case of tracing Nelson’s money, this genius hacker-programmer freak
made things easy enough that some guy who’s almost as smart as him could trace the money.”
Callahan lit a cigarette and exhaled the smoke through his nose, making Kay think of a weary, white-faced dragon. “I think somebody set this up so that if I started poking around, I’d find Nelson’s Taliban connection. But I don’t believe the Taliban had anything to do with this. In other words, I actually agree with you, Hamilton. Ara Khan and her father would never have told anyone about that meeting. This was an inside job.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“We? We’re a we now?”
“What are we going to do?” Kay repeated.
29 | Callahan wanted breakfast, so he and Kay walked over to a restaurant on L Street where all the waitresses knew Callahan. One busty old-timer called him “Honey” and pressed her broad hip against his shoulder as she took his order.
“There were nine people, including you and me, who played a significant role in the operation, and two of those people worked together to kill the Khans,” Callahan said. “I’m going to exclude you and me. I’m excluding me because I know I’m innocent. I kind of like that: Callahan the Innocent. Makes me sound like a pope.” When Kay didn’t crack a smile, he said, “I’m excluding you because you were almost killed over there and because Sterling’s guy tried to kill you here.”
“Well, that’s damn big of you,” Kay said.
“So we have seven suspects: Eli Dolan, Anna Mercer, Sylvia Sorenson, Paul Harris, Ernst Glardon, Steven Cannon, and Nathan Sterling.”
“Who’s Harris?” Kay asked. “You just said he was working with Eli.”
“He’s an engineer and he once worked for Sociedad Química y Minera, a company in Chile involved in lithium mining in South America. Eli trusted him and needed his expertise, so we had him sign a nondisclosure agreement and brought him in. Harris is a suspect only because he knew that we were planning to go after the lithium, but not a strong one, and the main reason why is he never knew about the money we were planning to give Sahid Khan.”
“Unless Dolan told him about the money,” Kay said.
Callahan ignored Kay’s comment and continued. “I know Ernst Glardon didn’t do it, because he didn’t know about the money we were giving to Khan either, and the mining operation would have benefited his company. Plus, Ernst is an idiot. If he wasn’t one, Eli wouldn’t have been able to assume control of his company.
“I’m also going to eliminate Cannon as a serious suspect. He wasn’t at the house when the bombs went off and—”
“How do you know he wasn’t on the other side of the wall that surrounded the house and detonated the bomb from there?” Kay said. “Or how do you know he wasn’t the guy who blew the transformer? Everything was done with cell phones, and just because he said he was going to the dry lakes doesn’t mean he really went there.”
“He did go to the lakes,” Callahan said. “I took a trip to Switzerland since the last time we met. That’s when I found out the money never made it to Khan’s bank. While I was there, I talked to the Glardon engineer who went with Cannon to look at the lakes. At the time the bombs went off, Cannon was with the engineer and miles away from the house and the substation.” Callahan laughed. “That engineer never slept the whole time he was with Cannon. They were out in the middle of nowhere in an area where the Taliban roam, and the guy was scared shitless. Anyway, I suppose the engineer could be in on this, too, and he lied to me, but that’s unlikely. I also realize that Cannon could have planned this thing so he didn’t have to be at the house, but I think that would be too complicated.
“So for now I’m crossing Cannon, Harris, and Ernst Glardon off my list, and we’re down to Nathan Sterling and somebody working for me who knew how much money I was giving Sahid Khan. Which means Anna, Sylvia, and your favorite suspect, Eli Dolan.”
The busty waitress brought Callahan’s breakfast: an omelet that looked like it took six eggs to make and with enough hash browns to choke a horse. Callahan started eating, talking as he did so.
“I have no doubt that Sterling was involved. I mean, once you accept that the Taliban and Sahid Khan’s security people had nothing to do with what happened, he’s the only one left who was in a position to control things at the house where the meeting was held. And it was his guy, Nelson, who tried to kill you.”
“But you can’t be sure that Sterling was personally involved,” Kay said. “Whoever planned this could have worked with some of Sterling’s people, like Nelson. I don’t necessarily believe that. I’m just saying, hypothetically, that—”
Callahan shook his head. “Let’s say you were the person who planned this. How would you know which of Cannon and Sterling’s people they’d be taking with them to Afghanistan? And how could you be certain that Cannon or Sterling would just let the guys you picked run around on their own and do things like build a couple bombs and plant one at the substation? And how would you know which of their people would be willing to do this? But Sterling was in a position to pick his people and control what they were doing in Afghanistan, so I’m positive he was involved.”
“But you don’t have any proof,” Kay said.
Poking his fork at her face for emphasis, Callahan said, “You need to understand something, Hamilton. I don’t need proof. I just need to be convinced I’m right. I’m not going to have anybody arrested. I’m not going to take anyone to court, and I’m not trying to build a legal case that eliminates reasonable doubt. I just have to know I’m right.”
Before Kay could ask what he planned to do once he knew he was right, Callahan continued. “But like I said, there was a brain behind all this, somebody who knew we were giving Khan the money. Sterling wouldn’t have known about the money I was planning to give to Sahid Khan, either—not unless somebody working for me told him. And since I didn’t tell him, and since I’m guessing you didn’t either, I think either Anna or Sylvia told him.”
“How do you know it wasn’t Dolan?”
“I’ll tell you how I know. Because Sterling called Dolan to get him out of the meeting room.” Kay started to object, but Callahan held up a hand, stopping her. “Listen to me. First, Sterling’s cell phone records showed he called Dolan’s phone, so Dolan wasn’t lying about who called him. But the big thing is, whoever planned this wanted Dolan to live so he’d be a suspect.”
“What?”
“The first time I met with you after you got back from Afghanistan, I told you I thought that maybe the Khans had told somebody about the meeting and whoever they told turned one of Khan’s bodyguards to kill the Khans. And that’s what the person who planned this wanted me to think. But then you convinced me that Ara and her dad wouldn’t have told anyone. Which made me wonder: Why did they wait until the money was transferred before they blew the bomb?”
“Yeah, I wondered the same thing.”
“Then I found out, just like you did, that the money was stolen. I think whoever planned this was hoping that I’d never find out the money was stolen, but in case I did, she wanted to give me a suspect. And that’s why they saved Eli, because he’d be the logical suspect.”
Kay had to admit that he had a point. But Callahan wasn’t finished.
“And you can’t ignore the fact that Eli had no motive,” Callahan said. “The money sure as hell wouldn’t have been a motive for him. The only reason he’s allowed his net worth to dwindle to a mere twenty million is he’s been too busy working for me. With his smarts and connections, he could go back to Goldman Sachs anytime he wanted. And I can’t think of any political reason why he’d want to kill the Khans or destroy an operation that he’d been working on for a year.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” Kay said. “Although . . .”
“You just can’t admit you might be wrong, can you?” Callahan said.
Kay decided to ignore that. “So if it wasn’t Eli, who was it? Sylvia or Anna? Personally, I have a hard
time seeing Sylvia as the person behind this.”
“A lot of people have made the mistake of underestimating Sylvia. They didn’t make her a commander in the United States Navy for being a wallflower, and I hired her because I was aware of the work she did when she was at the Pentagon. When it comes to doing her job, Sylvia can be as tricky and cutthroat as any lawyer you’ve ever known.”
“Yeah, but is she capable of cold-blooded murder?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so,” Callahan said. “But then, I can’t imagine Anna being a killer, either.”
—
CALLAHAN RAISED A HAND to get the check and the blond waitress brought it to him. She placed a hand on the back of his thick neck, ruffled the hair hanging over his collar, and asked if he’d enjoyed his breakfast. Callahan left a tip that Kay figured was fifty percent of the bill. It was no wonder the waitresses all loved him; nor was it any wonder that he was almost broke.
As they were walking back to the office, Kay said, “We need proof, Callahan. We need evidence. Maybe not enough to take to court, but we need something. And although you might be right about Eli—and I’ll admit you could be—we need something more.”
“We’re not going to get any evidence from the crime scene, because the crime scene’s in Afghanistan,” Callahan said. “We’re not going to get evidence off Eli’s computer, because it was destroyed when the bomb went off. There’s no money in anybody’s bank account we can find, which also means I can’t prove anyone’s richer than they should be.”
“Have you looked at phone calls?”
“No, and I’m not going to waste time doing that. All the people involved are smart enough not leave a communication trail.”
“Then polygraph them,” Kay said. “Polygraph them all: Eli, Anna, and Sylvia.”
Callahan laughed. “I can’t polygraph Eli, because he quit. Sylvia gets so nervous when she’s hooked up to the machine that it looks like she’s lying when she’s asked if her name is Sylvia Sorenson. As for Anna, she had training when she was at the CIA to beat a polygraph test, and she’s good at it. If I test her, the results won’t mean anything.”
