Murder in Mongolia

by Fritz Galt

  He dialed the home number and waited. There was no answer, not even a maid taking calls.

  Then he dialed the office number and got a voice recording. It was Cal saying, “Thank you for reaching Kaplan Brothers, LLC. I’m not in the office right now. Please leave a message after the tone.”

  Jake wasn’t going to leave a voice message.

  Instead, he googled the law office of Kaplan Brothers, LLC and found their main number.

  A gracious young woman answered.

  Jake introduced himself and explained that he needed to reach Cal Frost, but could only get his Out of Office message. “Is there anyone in the office who knows how I can reach Cal Frost?”

  “I can put you through to the office manager up there.”

  Soon Jake was speaking to the office manager.

  “My name is Jake Maguire, and I’m calling from the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” he began. “I need to speak with Cal Frost and I have tried both his home and office numbers. Do you know where he is and how I might reach him?”

  This time it was a young man, whose telephone manners were impeccable. “I’m sorry that you’re having trouble contacting Mr. Frost. Let me check his calendar.”

  A few keystrokes later, the man came back on the line.

  “Mr. Frost is on scheduled leave right now. As I thought, he’s vacationing in St. Moritz.”

  “Fine. Do you have a number where I can reach him?”

  “Did you say that you’re calling from the FBI?”

  Jake confirmed that he was a special agent with the FBI.

  “In that case, here’s the number at the Hotel Garni Oberberg.” The office manager read out the number and Jake jotted it down.

  “Can you tell me when he was due to arrive?”

  “According to the calendar, he would have checked in yesterday.”

  Jake thanked the man and hung up. Cal Frost sure was a highflier. Jake could picture the avid hunter snowplowing down a frozen alp with a scarf around his neck, his thick head of hair flying in the wind.

  He immediately dialed Europe.

  Bonnie was tapping her wristwatch.

  “Cal Frost went skiing in Switzerland,” he whispered as he waited for the hotel to pick up.

  He waited some more.

  Maybe it was the time difference. Was Switzerland ahead or behind the U.S.?

  It was like waiting for his call to Mongolia to travel over thousands of miles.

  “Guten Abend. Garni Oberberg.”

  “Hello,” Jake said, asserting his preference for English. “I’m trying to reach a guest named Cal Frost.”

  “It is late here, you know.”

  Jake had guessed that. “Please put me through. This is urgent.”

  A moment later, the Swiss man came back. “I’m sorry, sir, but Herr Calvin Frost never checked in to the Hotel Garni Oberberg. Neither can we reach him. Do you happen to know if he has been delayed?”

  How was Jake supposed to know?

  Increasingly this was turning into a manhunt.

  Jake left his mobile number with the hotel and asked for Cal Frost to call him as soon as possible.

  He hung up and stared at Bonnie, who was jingling the keys in her pocket.

  “We may have another missing person on our hands,” he said.

  SAC Bonnie Lakewood strode confidently into the modern but cramped Salt Lake City field office and introduced Jake to the personnel.

  But Jake wasn’t there for social reasons. He needed to marshal the resources of the FBI to track Cal Frost down.

  He looked up at the circle of agents, analysts, and specialists around his desk in a temporary office. “I need to wiretap all of Cal Frost’s communications. I need to haul him in for questioning. Check his phone records, bank statements, credit card purchases, emails, text messages, everything we’ve got.”

  Two of the agents had seen the results of the break-in at Bill Frost’s house in Hurricane. They all had heard about the damage to their office vehicle. And the SAC’s secretary had already filed a mandatory Use of Force report on his behalf. Now she took Bonnie’s handwritten notes from the interview in Hurricane to type them into a 302 report.

  Jake was sure the urgency was conveyed. But he was working against a restriction that threatened to quickly become evident. He was no longer in charge of the case. Once Salt Lake City learned that he had been pulled off the case, any of his orders could be rescinded.

  “There is one caveat,” he said. “We have to perform the searches using only the equipment in this room. We need to avoid contacting Washington.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Agent Fields, the older of the two agents from Hurricane.

  “It’ll all come clear soon,” Jake said, injecting a note of mystery in order to deflect suspicion.

  The staff returned to their desks with purpose and Jake was sure that they would have Cal Frost located within the hour.

  “Bonnie, one more thing,” he said.

  She turned to face him.

  “Can you personally look into Bill Frost’s digital trail? His full name is George William Frost. See how it leads up to the time of his disappearance and if there has been any activity since then.”

  “I’m on it,” she said, all business.

  Jake closed the door to his glassed-in workspace and returned to the next-of-kin email sent to him by Consular Affairs. After Cal Frost came his son.

  Jake remembered how vigorously Hank Frost had supported his famous uncle, despite his father’s philosophical and personality conflicts with the environmentalist. Hank had also mentioned that he worked for the State Department, which Jake immediately took for a cover given that Hank said he worked in Virginia. Maybe Hank and the CIA would know where his father was, and more than that, what his father was up to in asking Tom Weaver to destroy the China file in Hurricane.

  Hank answered his mobile phone on the first ring.

  “This is Special Agent Jake Maguire from the FBI,” Jake began at once. “I met with you and your father last Tuesday.”

  “Yes?”

  Hank seemed to have little time for small talk.

  “I’m looking for your father,” Jake said. “Do you know where to find him?”

  “You’re the second person to call from the FBI with that same question.”

  Jake looked through the glass at the rest of the office. Had one of the busy personnel already contacted Hank Frost?

  “And?” Jake said.

  “I told them that I have no idea where he is.” There was already impatience in his voice.

  Jake had to work fast. “Hank, what are your father’s business relations with the mining industry?”

  “He works with them.”

  “But I thought your father was a lobbyist for the tech industry.”

  “Green tech.”

  “What?” Jake’s mind shot back to the stuffed trophies and hunting photos in Cal’s house in McLean. As far as he could tell, Cal was opposed to his brother’s environmental work and not “green” anything. “You mean renewable energy, electric cars?”

  “That’s right,” Hank said proudly.

  It didn’t add up. “What does green tech have to do with mining?”

  “It’s one and the same these days,” Hank said cryptically.

  What in the world?

  “Look,” Hank said. “My understanding is that you’re off the case.”

  The twerp! Jake tried to keep his voice even. “Who told you that?”

  “Nobody told me anything. Our understanding is that the case is closed. Period. And you, specifically, are off the case.”

  Jake’s mind was reeling. “Where do you get such stuff?”

  “I’m telling you: back off my father.”

  And the line went dead.

  Which left Jake staring at his phone. Had his battery died? No, the young gun from Langley had just dial toned him.

  How had Jake gone so quickly from insider to pariah? How long before Bonnie’s agents making
inquiries on his behalf would turn on him?

  He couldn’t get the malice in Hank’s voice out of his mind. Why the animus? What had Jake done wrong? And if it wasn’t him, what was it about the case that required it to be slammed shut?

  Bonnie was first to get back to Jake. “There has been no activity on Bill Frost’s credit cards for the past two weeks.”

  “No charges? What are we to make of that?”

  Bonnie squinted at him.

  He mused aloud. “All it shows is that Bill Frost didn’t use credit cards in Mongolia. It doesn’t prove that he’s dead.”

  “Maybe Mongolia doesn’t use credit cards,” Bonnie suggested.

  “Maybe that’s all it means.”

  “The rest of the team is compiling a report on Cal for you,” she said, and left.

  He was sorry there was no proof of life for Bill Frost, but he was pleased the office was working so diligently. He felt it necessary to squeeze every ounce of work out of the FBI before the investigation was completely shut down, as everyone from the White House to the FBI to Hank Frost at the CIA seemed determined to do.

  That forced him to reexamine his reasons for still working on the case.

  And for that, he returned to the initial phone call from that distant outpost to the State Department’s Operations Center. The U.S. Embassy in Mongolia was reporting a suspected homicide of a fellow citizen, and all he had uncovered were lies and coverups. Who was looking out for Bill Frost? Without realizing it, Jake had made this a personal mission. It was made all the more personal when some crazed individual had forced Bonnie and him off a cliff.

  The door flew open and the team of FBI special agents appeared before him, a full show of force.

  Had they called Washington and learned that the investigation had been axed? Their hands dangling loosely by their sides and the grim look on their faces revealed an intensity of emotion that he found profoundly unsettling. Were they onto him?

  “Yes?” he said.

  Agent Fields stepped forward, a clipboard in hand.

  “We have information on Cal Frost.”

  “Oh. Cal,” Jake said, relieved it wasn’t about him. “Please proceed.”

  “Based on airline records, one Calvin Frost flew from Washington IAD to Las Vegas LAS yesterday morning.”

  Jake held up a hand for the man to stop. What in the world was Cal Frost doing out west? Why had he told his company that he would be in St. Moritz?

  “Okay. Go on.”

  “According to Hertz records at McCarran International Airport, he rented a Ford Expedition. His Visa card shows that he later bought gas in Mesquite, Nevada. That’s on the Arizona border. There, he purchased a firearm and ammo. We checked the records with ATF. It was a 357 Magnum. That purchase occurred yesterday at 2:55 p.m. And that’s the last record we have of him.”

  Jake was beginning to sense an ominous correlation of events. “Mesquite?” he said. “Is that close to…?”

  The agent nodded. “It’s an hour southwest of Hurricane.”

  “And the color of the Ford Expedition?”

  “Silver.”

  Jake tried to process the facts logically. Cal wasn’t in his office. Nor was he in Switzerland. He was in Nevada. The timing of his travel and the description of the vehicle coincided with the attack on Bonnie and him just below Brian Head.

  He could draw only one conclusion. Bill Frost’s brother was out to kill him.

  “Put out an APB for Cal Frost. Right away.”

  When everyone left Jake’s work area, Bonnie remained.

  “So we know who the bastard is,” she said quietly.

  “Yeah,” he said. “The funny thing is, I met him once. I had a long talk with him in Virginia. He gave no indication that his brother’s death meant anything to him. And now he comes out guns a-blazing.”

  “At least we have a name,” Bonnie said soothingly. “We know who tried to kill us.”

  Normally knowing that the FBI had such a lead on an armed and dangerous suspect would console a person. Until he reminded himself that the entire U.S. Government, from the White House to Whitney Baker and the FBI to Hank Frost and the CIA, had the guy’s back.

  “Got it!”

  It was a voice from the other room.

  “What is it?” Jake called out.

  “We have Cal Frost on a flight manifest. He just departed San Francisco.”

  “Flying where?”

  “To Seoul.”

  South Korea. “Then where?”

  “On to Ulaanbaatar.”

  Jake stared at Bonnie. “Cal’s heading to Mongolia.”

  “Good,” she said, visibly relieved. “He’s out of our lives.”

  Jake wasn’t so sure.

  “We have to call our legats in South Korea,” he said, referring to the FBI legal attachés who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul. “They have to pick Cal up when he lands.”

  He wondered how Mission Seoul would react, given that the FBI and CIA were covering for Cal. They certainly wouldn’t take orders from Jake.

  “Bonnie? How would you like to make that call?”

  She gave him a look that was full of emotion. She was in charge of the office. Who was he to order her around?

  At that moment, Jake realized he had crossed a line. To get where he wanted to go, he’d have to burn bridges. He had to let her live with those feelings toward him because if she knew that he was off the case, she wouldn’t make the call.

  “Please?” he asked.

  She bit her lip and left the room.

  Making U.S. Mission Seoul get the South Koreans to pull Cal Frost off a flight and apprehend him on unproven charges was never going to work.

  Just then his phone beeped with an incoming message.

  Annoyed and distracted, he glanced down and looked at the push notification.

  The text was from Amber, and the message was simple. “I’m heading to Mongolia.”

  What? Did she know what she was getting into?

  She didn’t know about the attempt on his life. Now Cal Frost, with attempted double homicide on his hands, was also heading to Mongolia. Amber had no idea what kind of trouble awaited her.

  He jabbed at the screen and tried to call her back. But there was only a message telling him that her phone was not in service.

  He closed his eyes. If they hadn’t had their blow-up, if they had been in regular communication…

  He sincerely hoped she wasn’t taking the risk because she had something to prove, or that she needed a leg up in their competition.

  He stared at her message. She was going to Mongolia. If she was looking for Bill Frost, Jake could find her.

  He saw it clearly now. Ice storms might await him, but he had every reason to solve the Mongolian mystery.

  He opened his eyes slowly and stared at the smoothly efficient field office. Could he get them to book him a flight to Ulaanbaatar?

  Then practicality set in. He would need warm clothes. He would need his passport. Who would feed his cat? And lastly, he would need travel approval from a superior.

  He knew Whitney Baker’s number by heart.

  “Whitney, change in plans,” he began.

  “There is only one plan, Jake. You are supposed to be in DC right now.”

  “Sorry. Things have changed. I need to get to Mongolia and I need your travel authorization.”

  “Not happening.”

  “I’m going there, and I can’t spend my own money.”

  “You have no business in Mongolia, and that’s final.”

  “It isn’t about me,” Jake said, trying to keep desperation out of his voice. “It’s because of Amber. She’s another American citizen who doesn’t know what kind of danger she’s in.”

  “I can’t believe you’re going so low. Where’s the Jake I remember from the old days? The days we used to handle cases together?”

  “Let’s work on this together,” he said.

  “Fat chance. And as far as Amber goes, she made h
er bed. She can sleep in it.”

  “But she doesn’t know that I was nearly killed yesterday, and she’s on a collision course with the killer.”

  “Listen to yourself. That sounds pretty vague. No one in their right mind would support such a travel request.”

  “I know the situation is obscure and amorphous, but it’s devolving into life-threatening conditions.”

  “The only life that will be threatened is yours if you don’t come back to DC.”

  And the phone slammed down.

  What had set Whitney Baker against him? She was more averse to the case than ever. Was it all personal?

  He made up his mind. He had to make his own way to Mongolia. He would return to DC, then fly to Ulaanbaatar on his own time and on his own dime.

  Bonnie was still trying to get through to the legal attachés in Seoul when Jake entered her office.

  “I got a message from Amber,” he said. “I need to catch a flight to Mongolia.”

  She didn’t turn around, offer help, or otherwise acknowledge his presence.

  Okay, he’d find a cab. He’d make his own travel arrangements.

  He would just let himself out the door.

  “Off to rescue our true love?” she said at last.

  “Something like that.”

  “Be safe, baby,” she said softly, her back still turned.

  And what a beautiful back.

  Jake sighed and left the office.

  A cool breeze was blowing when Jake stepped out of the cab and walked briskly into Salt Lake City International Airport’s Terminal 1, more than ready to leave the Wild West behind.

  En route to the airport, he had called United and booked a flight to DC, leaving him an hour to kill at the airport.

  He stopped by the airline counter and worked out a flight itinerary for the following evening from Washington to Tokyo to Ulaanbaatar. Ten minutes later, he walked away e-tickets in hand, but two thousand dollars lighter in the wallet.

  He lingered around a television screen at the gate. It was playing the endless round table that had become CNN. Starved for information about the outside world, he turned to his phone and checked news feeds. If he was going to travel internationally, what risks might he encounter? For the first time in months, he clicked on the international news tab. Fires in Greece. Floods in Italy. Everything seemed to be weather-related. He jumped momentarily to his weather app and looked up the temperature in Ulaanbaatar. It was five below zero. He quickly switched back to the news. A typhoon swirled above the Philippines, bringing death and destruction to major cities….