BAD DEEDS: A Dylan Hunter Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers)

by Robert Bidinotto

  They went back and forth for a while. Hunter had no desire to fill him in about Boggs. He didn’t want the cops to go after him.

  This was personal.

  He finally escaped Cronin’s grilling and got back to his Bethesda apartment after noon. He flopped onto his sofa, stuck a battery in his burner, and found a waiting text message from Wonk asking for a call-back. He hit the speed-dial button to the researcher’s own secure phone.

  “I got your text. What’s up?”

  “I have acquired more of the information that you requested. I have deposited it in the Option Two location. Do you wish a quick summary?”

  “Yes. I’m pressed for time. Shoot.”

  “According to the filings I accessed, Capital Resources Development is a privately held company with a small number of investors. One of them is a Ms. Selena Stanton of Annapolis, Maryland. My initial background check indicates that she is the long-time domestic partner of Gavin Lockwood. Mr. Lockwood is—”

  “I know who he is. Very interesting … Go on.”

  “Yet another significant investor is one E. Conn. It took a little digging, but I determined that this individual is none other than Emmalee Conn, wife of Senator Ashton Conn.”

  “Hold on. Let me absorb that.” He recalled the image of the politician strutting on the platform outside the EPA. His mind began to race.

  “I should add,” Wonk continued after a moment, “that the office manager at Capital Resources, Arnold Kaplan, is the brother of Stuart Kaplan, the senator’s chief of staff.”

  “You don’t say. What about our friends Trammel and Sloan?”

  “I found no direct involvement with Capital Resources. However, CarboNot is another matter. Trammel holds a substantial amount of CarboNot stock.”

  Luna hopped up onto the sofa and climbed into his lap.

  “All right. What else did you learn?”

  “While digging into the financials for CarboNot, I determined that a large number of its shares are held in a trust that is managed by GreenSmart Investments. Their website states that they—and I am quoting—‘channel venture capital into environmentally friendly projects and serve as a catalyst for public-private partnerships effecting sustainable development.’”

  “Translation: They help politicians and their cronies fleece the taxpayers. But please continue.”

  “Robin Manes, a vice-president of GreenSmart Investments, appears to be the account manager. It is a special blind trust into which a number of prominent public officials have sequestered substantial personal assets.”

  “A supposedly blind trust, Wonk. After all, this is Washington.”

  “That may be. But you would never guess who some of those officials are.” Wonk’s voice sounded smug. He loved knowing what no one else knew.

  “Oh, let me see … Ashton Conn. And Kaplan, his flunky.”

  “You guessed!”

  “Don’t sound disappointed,” he said, stroking the cat. “These people are entirely predictable.”

  “However, there are many more. It reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of Washington. Senator Conn appears to have most of his investments held in that GreenSmart trust. It also includes officials from the Department of Interior, the EPA, the Bureau of Land Man—”

  His hand paused on Luna’s head. “Wait a minute. You said EPA. Could you check and see if the names ‘Weaver’ or ‘Crane’ are in that trust?”

  “Let me see.” He heard papers rustling. “Here it is … Yes, indeed. A Charles Crane, and … Well, what do you know? In my haste, I skimmed right over the name ‘J. Weaver.’ Would that be the administrator?”

  “Almost certainly. And Charles Crane would likely be Chip Crane, his deputy.” Luna was purring under his hand, eyes closed. “Were you able to identify the various brokers and financial advisers for the individuals I mentioned?”

  “That required special efforts. I was up most of last night. But yes.”

  “Great. You’ve done well again, my friend. I’ll review your material and get back to you with any further questions.”

  “That,” Wonk said, “is what I am here for.”

  He lifted the cat off his lap, stood, and deposited her back onto the sofa. She blinked at him, peeved, then sniffed the warm spot and decided to curl up there and stay put.

  After a few minutes, he went downstairs to the other apartment, again changing into his Grayson disguise in the stairwell.

  His first order of business was to rewind the long-play recorder he’d left running to monitor the scanner, then fast-forward through many minutes of dead spots. He was about to give up on it when he heard a squeal sound. He rewound a bit and hit play. Silence, then the sound of a door opening and closing.

  “What’s up, Chip?” Weaver’s voice, loud. The EPA boss must have put the Muir bust nearby on his desk.

  “I just spoke with Kaplan.” Crane’s voice, low and secretive. “He told me that the senator is not a happy camper.”

  “He’s not the only one.” Weaver lowered his own voice. “My personal email account was filled this morning after Hunter’s latest hit piece. Messages from the usual pests. I checked the markets, and CarboNot is trading even lower. It’s nose-dived almost thirty percent this month. So, what did you tell him?”

  “I reassured him that without the report from Adair Energy to challenge the NLA study, the SAB was certain to back the fracking moratorium. He sounded cheery. He said in that case, the stock price was sure to rebound. I got the impression that’s what his call was really all about.”

  Weaver laughed. “I’m way ahead of them. I told Robin things were looking good about the moratorium. I didn’t have to say anything more. She knew what I meant, and what to do about it.”

  “So do I,” Hunter said aloud.

  The week started busy for Danika. This morning her district manager at Crown Office Suites emailed her a list of new virtual-office clients, along with their specific instructions. Between visitors and calls, she spent several hours going over the information, organizing and filing it, and rehearsing the various scripts for answering their respective phone calls and taking messages.

  The stock market must be booming, she thought. Four of the five new clients were brokerages and investment firms. In each case she was to say, “Mr. X is not available at the moment. May I please take a message, and his office will get right back to you?” Then she was to call the number for the specific broker or investment adviser and forward the message, leaving it on an answering machine.

  It struck her as odd that they were all deciding to outsource their client phone calls to a message service, rather than answering them in-house. She figured it had to be because rich investors were likely to be harried and bossy about their money, and the brokers needed somebody to run interference. Or maybe the investment advisers were too busy watching the markets and would answer their clients in their own sweet time. Although why the clients couldn’t just call those answering machines directly to leave messages …

  Well, it wasn’t her business. But she had to smile to herself: She could only dream of having problems like where to invest extra money.

  She looked at the wall clock. Two forty-five. The phone was quiet, and no one was in the reception area at the moment. She decided to go over the scripts one more time. She picked the first sheet and recited from it, in a low whisper:

  “Good morning! GreenSmart Investments. This is Ms. Manes’s office …”

  Becky Hill, the receptionist at Nature Legal Advocacy, felt her stomach growling. It was only mid-afternoon, and the soup she’d had at lunch was a distant memory. She was about to dig into her desk for a granola bar when the phone rang. The button for Lockwood’s line lit up.

  She glanced at the Caller ID as she picked up the phone. GreenSmart Investments.

  “Good afternoon, Nature Legal Advocacy, Mr. Lockwood’s office. May I help you?”

  “Hello. This is Mr. Grayson from GreenSmart Investments. Our vice-president, Robin Manes, handles some investme
nts for Mr. Lockwood. Please don’t disturb him; this is only a routine clerical matter. We’ve just changed our office phones, and we wanted him to be aware of Ms. Manes’s new number. Would you take it down, please, and pass it along to him?”

  Becky was already scribbling. “Why certainly, sir. I’ll see that he gets it right away. Go ahead, I’m ready.”

  “Thanks. The new number is 202 …”

  It was three-thirty when Hunter finished phoning his targets’ various secretaries and receptionists. He had routed his calls through a “spoof” website, to make it seem on their Caller ID screens that he was indeed calling from their bosses’ brokerages and investment firms.

  Now, the “new” phone numbers that he had just given to them would ring at Danika’s desk.

  He spun his swivel chair. On the table behind him, next to the radio receiver, lay four untraceable burner phones. Each was labeled to represent one of those investment firms. Each label also bore the names of that firm’s respective clients … his targets.

  Danika would intercept their calls, then unwittingly forward their messages to these four phones.

  He had one more series of calls to finish up today. He picked up his burner and dialed again into the spoof site …

  Fred Cohen heard the beeping, glanced at the Caller ID. He snatched up the phone quickly with one hand, pulling the paperwork toward him with the other.

  “Selleck Insurance, Fred Cohen speaking.”

  “This is Mr. Lockwood’s office again. Just following up to see if you received his signed fax.”

  “Yes, I did. Have it right here. The cancellation of Mr. Lockwood’s policy will go into effect at midnight.”

  “Thank you. He appreciates your speedy service. He needed to cancel on this short notice only because of today’s sale. He said that he’d be in touch with you again shortly about writing up a new policy.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Cohen said, relieved. “I hope he got a good price for it.”

  He heard laughter. “Mr. Cohen, you wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  The Georgetown Pike begins just outside of the CIA headquarters near McLean, Virginia. Then it runs northwest, paralleling the Potomac River for six or seven miles to Great Falls, where it breaks west. During the evening rush hour, the Pike becomes a major artery pumping government workers home from the heart of Washington. Along the way, tree-lined capillaries twist and curl off the highway, channeling the flow of high-ranking federal officials to gracious homes in some of the District’s toniest Virginia suburbs.

  More than one United States senator maintains a local residence in these sequestered neighborhoods. Ashton Conn was among them.

  Just after five, he turned off the Pike onto one of those narrow lanes. After a moment, he poked a button on the dash of his Bentley Continental GT. Just ahead on the left, beyond the white rail fence that lined the front of his property, a gate of black metal spikes opened inward. The twelve-cylinder engine smoothly, automatically purred down through the gears as he braked. He made the turn between the two gray stone pillars, each topped by a glowing brass lantern, one bearing a small wooden sign labeled “STONEHAVEN.” Then he tapped the gas and the sedan easily powered up the long sloping driveway to the oval parking circle in front of his house.

  The sight of his home, rising among the bare oaks like a mini-fortress, gave his unsteady nerves a small measure of comfort. The two-story gray stone Colonial graced the manicured hilltop with arched first-floor windows, second-floor dormers, a towering stone chimney, and a half-round white portico entrance with fluted Doric columns. Unlike his other, more contemporary residence outside of Philadelphia, this one evoked for him Virginia’s landed-gentry heritage. Two centuries ago, the drive leading up to a place like this would have been paved in cobblestones, which would have resounded with the clopping and squeaking of horse-drawn carriages bearing visiting aristocrats and beauties in hoop skirts.

  Conn looped the oval and parked the Bentley near the front door. Tonight’s visitors would have to walk past it to enter. He got out, then paused to flick an errant speck of road dirt off its gleaming black hood. And to regain a bit of self-control before facing the evening ahead.

  For all of the trappings of wealth and position, Ashton Conn was not a happy man this evening. Despite the assurances that Stu had received from Crane at EPA, Conn still worried whether the fracking moratorium was truly a done deal. Then there was the deliberate destruction of the Capital Resources offices, which gave him the jitters. That, on the heels of those Inquirer articles by that son-of-a-bitch reporter. At least he hadn’t revealed the names of investors in CarboNot or Capital Resources. Nor had his stories been picked up by the rest of the media, which sympathize with environmental causes. At least, not yet. But the unwanted media spotlight was shining too close …

  Conn took a deep breath to calm himself. His eyes rested on the imposing crystal chandelier blazing brightly through the big foyer window. He listened to the faint, rhythmic ticking of the Bentley’s cooling engine, and to the sound of the American flag rustling softly on its tall steel pole in the nearby lawn …

  You’ve spent a great deal of money to live like this, Ash—too much, really. What you haven’t spent, you’ve leveraged in green energy ventures. Which only makes sense. They are the wave of the future: not only the right things to invest in, but the smart things to invest in, too. And up until the past few weeks, those investments have paid off handsomely …

  He thought of his many friends throughout the federal bureaucracy who had helped, fast-tracking the Energy Department loan guarantees for CarboNot, and putting the screws to those predatory fracking companies and greedy landowners back in Pennsylvania …

  It’s poetic justice that you are building Capital Resources on the rotting carcasses of the dying fossil fuel industry. That’s your legacy, your investment in the future—one that is going to pay off big for you.

  And for the planet, too—that’s the important thing, of course. It’s never been about yourself, not really. As anyone reviewing your career can see. Your articles, speeches, books, legislation—all of it has been devoted to creating a more sustainable world. Nobody could possibly imagine how much you’ve sacrificed for that, how much you’ve been willing to do and to give.

  Still … crusading for a sustainable future doesn’t mean you have to live like a monk. That’s silly. There isn’t anything wrong with civilized living, not as long as it’s sustainable. And no one can say that you aren’t doing your part to reduce your own carbon footprint. Didn’t you also purchase carbon credits to offset your energy consumption—from a company that you yourself launched? So, no one can question your commitments and principles.

  Naturally, though, a U.S. senator has to maintain a certain lifestyle. You really don’t have a choice about that, not in this town. Especially if you are about to take the next big step up the ladder. It’s like they say: You must look, talk, and act as if you already have the job, before anyone is going to hire you for it.

  But in every way, you’ve earned this lifestyle. Why shouldn’t virtue be rewarded? You don’t have to pay attention to the critics. Just answer them as you always do: “Yes, I do well—by doing good.”

  If only you can get through the coming week and that SAB hearing. And past that prick reporter. Sloan and Trammel promised to take the lead on doing something about the guy. What are they waiting for? Maybe tonight you can pull them aside and find out. Well, at the very least, they’ll be here, and they’ll open their checkbooks for you …

  He jumped at the sound of approaching footsteps.

  “Oh! Barry!” He took in the lean, well-dressed figure of the head of the security team, who was walking up the driveway.

  “Sorry, Senator. I didn’t mean to startle you. I was just checking in with the men on the grounds and saw you drive up.”

  “I understand. I gather they are all present and prepared?”

  “Yes, sir. Two will
be positioned at the gate to check IDs against the guest list. Three at the rear and sides of the house, providing perimeter security. I’ll be here, at the entrance.”

  “That sounds fine.” He checked his watch. “You won’t have to worry for at least another half-hour, though. The caterers will arrive first. Just send them around to park near the kitchen entrance. I expect the jazz trio around six to set up. The guests won’t begin to show until closer to seven for the reception.”

  “We’re all set, sir. I hope you and your guests have a wonderful evening.”

  Conn flashed him a grin and slapped him on the back, then turned to enter his home. Normally he hired only one or two security people for social occasions with prominent guests, and mostly for show. But the destruction of the Capital Resources offices made him nervous. Better safe than sorry.

  Inside the foyer, Joseph—a tall, distinguished-looking black butler—greeted him. Juanita, the frisky Hispanic maid, smiled coyly as she darted past with a tray bearing folded white napkins. He watched her ass, remembering, as she disappeared into the dining room. Both were part-time employees he hired from a local agency whenever he had to impress visitors.

  “Is Emmalee home, Joseph?” he asked as the butler helped him out of his overcoat.

  “Yes, Senator. Mrs. Conn arrived home just a few minutes ago. She said she was going upstairs to get ready.”

  He felt a wave of relief. “Good. I am going to do the same.”

  But the feeling didn’t last. Conn felt his earlier mood returning and growing even darker as he climbed the broad walnut staircase. He entered their bedroom and found her seated before her vanity.

  Emmalee Conn wore a pale blue silk bathrobe. Her hair, tousled and dirty blonde, fell to just below her shoulders. A highball glass, half-empty, sat within reach. She glanced at him in the mirror and, without a word, continued removing her makeup.

  “So. You decided to attend after all,” he said. A flat statement of fact.