by G. M. Ford
“Any connection to this Anthony Huynh?” Corso asked when things calmed down.
Morales hung up the phone and checked his laptop. “Nothing,” he said.
“What about the other two?”
“What other two?”
“The other two guys who died in the bank.”
“What have they got to do with it?”
Corso made a pained face. “Something Andriatta said the other day.” She looked up, a quizzical expression on her face. “Something about how anybody who knew anything about Southeast Asian culture would know a Vietnamese bank manager wasn’t going to fork over his depositor’s money without a fight.”
“Okay…” Morales’ voice dripped with doubt.
“So…what if…just a supposition here, but…what if the La Crescenta robbery wasn’t really a robbery at all. What if it was intended more as an object lesson for the authorities than as a bank robbery.”
Morales leaned back in his chair. “You’re suggesting what?”
“I’m suggesting that maybe the plan was to blow up the bank.”
“Why would they want to do that?” Warren asked.
“So that we’d be damn sure they weren’t kidding.”
Morales was dubious. “You kill three people just to make a point?”
“What if you don’t much see them as people.”
“What else would anybody in his right mind see them as?”
“Gooks,” Corso said. “Slopes. Slants. Rice burners.”
“And Mr. Ben-Iman?” Morales asked.
“Camel jockeys. Sand niggers. Towel heads.”
“You’re suggesting these were hate crimes?” Warren asked.
Corso shook his head. “Not the way you guys use the term. I’m not talking about a bunch of well-intentioned antiabortion maniacs or some skinhead, neo-Nazi morons who hate everybody on the planet. Nothing like that.”
“What then?”
Corso turned his palms toward the ceiling. “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s just a feeling I’ve got.” He waved a hand. “The bombs are too good for that. The whole idea of victims as bank robbers…” He trailed off.
“What about Rodeo Drive? Was that an object lesson too?”
“I don’t think so,” Corso said. “I think that incident happened because we didn’t follow the directions in the note.”
“We?” Warren wondered out loud.
“We have no idea what the note said,” Morales protested. “Or even if there was a note.”
Warren rolled his eyes in disbelief. “Of course we…”
“We have a confession.”
“Free Eric Rudolph.” Warren twirled a finger in mock excitement.
Corso jumped in quickly, heading the “blame game” off at the pass.
“Presuming it wasn’t our prolife friends, and I’m telling you, the idea of committing murder over the sanctity of life makes about as much sense to me as screwing for virginity. Presuming that this was something more malevolent and less politically motivated…If it was somebody else…” He paused. “…it didn’t take much to pull it off. All they needed was somebody on a rooftop. The minute they saw the choppers, they push the button and disappear. I’m betting the media helicopter alone would’ve eventually been enough to set them off.”
Morales turned away, looking back over his shoulder. Corso eyed him closely.
“You guys by chance come up with any photo reconnaissance?” he asked.
Morales raised his eyebrows and poked a finger at his chest. Corso ignored the silent question and waited.
Morales thought hard before opening his mouth. “We’ve got satellite images of a guy on a rooftop a block and a half from ground zero. At full enhancement they’re not nearly good enough for any sort of identification. Quantico’s working on it.”
Warren shook his head in disgust. “I don’t believe you guys.”
“Triangulation suggests the image is over six feet tall.”
“How good is that?” Corso asked.
“Within an inch or so.”
“Which eliminates Reyes,” Andriatta said.
Warren boiled over. “I thought we had interagency cooperation on this one. I thought, for once…”
Morales was at a boil too. “Have you worked out the ramifications?” he waited for Warren to answer. “Have you?”
Before the situation could escalate, the door opened. A nondescript FBI agent stepped into the room, handed something to Morales and just as quickly disappeared.
Morales welcomed the diversion. For a moment…and then he blanched and crumpled the piece of paper into a tight ball. “The Army is refusing to provide Reyes’s medical records.” His hand shook and he tightened his grip on the wadded-up ball of paper. “They’re citing privacy concerns.” He held a hand as if to say “hold on.” “The Twenty-Nine Palms theft is in the hands of the Secret Service. They refuse to provide us with anything there either.” He made a face. “National security.”
“That’s all we’ve got,” Andriatta said.
“And what’s that?” Morales demanded. When nobody spoke, he answered his own question. “A guy with a beef against the Veterans Administration and the Army, but without the skills necessary to build the device. A bomb, parts of which may or may not have come from a theft of ordnance at the Twenty-Nine Palms Combat Center, back in February.” He looked around the room. “Excuse me folks, but that’s not a hell of a lot to go on. Not only is it darn slim, but we’re poking our canoe into some very unpopular waters here. Anything that makes the Army look bad or makes the Vets look bad is going to be a political hot potato. Trust me on this.”
“We need those records,” Corso said. “The Army connection…” he began.
“Bite your tongue,” Warren said.
Corso leaned back against the wall. He nearly smiled. “I didn’t think of that,” he said. “Nobody’s going to want to hear about anything that makes the Army look bad, are they? Especially not with all the controversy surrounding the war in Iraq. Not with recruiting quotas so far down. Not with White House indictments. No sir, none of this is going to please the spin doctors in the least.”
“Politics notwithstanding, the bottom line is that any sort of verifiable information is just not there. We’ve got one loser with a grudge. There’s a million of these guys out there, none of whom is robbing banks with bombs.”
“I’ve got a feeling,” Corso said.
“Don’t I feel better now?” Morales quipped.
Warren fixed Morales with a steady gaze. “We gotta have those records.”
“What’re you looking at me for?” Morales asked.
“You’re the Bureau’s fair-haired boy,” Warren said. When Morales opened his mouth to deny it, Warren cut him off. “You’re Dailey’s handpicked successor. Everybody knows it. If anybody’s got the clout to pull this off, it’s you.”
Morales made a disbelieving face. “Long as I don’t mind relocating to Iowa about this time next week.”
“It’s tomorrow I’m worried about,” Corso said. “About nine o’clock in the morning when the banks open.”
“The Bureau is committed to another line of inquiry,” Morales insisted.
“What if the Bureau’s wrong?” Corso asked.
Morales sighed, then looked from one to another of them, taking his time before reaching out and plucking the phone from the cradle. “Get me the deputy director,” he said.
28
A ndriatta hugged heself. “It’s way past my bedtime,” she said. As if to prove her point, she yawned. “Excuse me.”
Outside the windows, L.A. looked hopeful. Almost pristine. The palm trees swayed slightly in an onshore breeze, lending the city an exotic, tropical feel it didn’t otherwise possess. An unexpected rain had washed the disappointment from the streets, leaving the city twinkling in the early-morning air.
Corso checked his watch: 5:36 A.M. They were alone in a fourth-floor conference room in L.A.’s version of a federal building. Warren a
nd Morales had excused themselves and disappeared. In the interim they’d been offered and had accepted two more styrofoam cups of wretched coffee, as well as an offer of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, which they had both seen fit to decline. Chris Andriatta got to her feet.
“I’m leaving,” she said, patting her clothes into place.
Corso looked her over. “You mean…like the room?”
“I mean here. L.A. I’m going back home. I’ve had enough of this.”
“Things are just getting interesting.”
She stretched and groaned. “Same old, same old,” she corrected. “Paper on paper.”
Corso shook his head. “This is what they’re good at,” he said.
“They who?” She looked around the room.
“The ATF. The FBI.” He pointed down at the floor. “Where we are right now is what they do best. They find things. They’ve got a huge database of information they’ve begged and bullied and borrowed from everywhere. There’s no privacy. It’s like something out of George Orwell. They know everything about everybody. They put their computers to work on lists and connections to lists and lists of connections to lists. Sooner or later, they find what they’re looking for. They found Ted Kaczynski in that shack in the woods. If this Reyes character is connected to anybody capable of making that bomb, they’ll find out about it.”
She laughed. “I hope you’re right,” she said. “Send me a postcard. Lemme know how it turns out.”
“Come on,” Corso coaxed. “They may get a little crazy about jurisdiction and might even be a bit paranoid about shouldering the blame for anything”—he shook a finger in the air—“but these guys know what they’re doing. They’ve been doing it for a long while and they’ve been taking notes the whole time.”
She walked over and stood in front of him. She reached up and grabbed the back of his neck and bent him forward at the waist. She put her cheek next to his, held it there for a long moment and then kissed him gently on the cheek before letting him go. She gave him a wistful smile. “Another time. Another place maybe,” she said.
“I’d like to think so,” he said.
She turned and walked back toward her chair. She gathered her purse from the darkness beneath the table and headed for the door.
“It’s been swell, Corso,” she said, reaching for the door handle.
Corso started her way. “Okay…okay…if you’re sure that’s what you want to do.” He reached for his wallet. She waved him off.
“I’ll bill your publisher,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”
Corso stopped about a pace away. He took her in, as if for the first time. “First class,” he said. “Make sure it’s first class.”
She laughed. “There you go spending other people’s money again.”
“I insist,” Corso said with a smile.
“What would your mother say?”
Corso never got a chance to answer. Warren poked his head into the room.
“Come on,” he said.
Corso inclined his head toward Chris Andriatta. “It seems Ms. Andriatta has had enough federal hospitality. She’s headed home.”
Warren worried the idea for ten seconds. “I don’t think so,” he said.
The color began to rise in her cheeks. “Am I under arrest?”
“Not unless you want to be.”
“Then I’m leaving.” She tried to bluster her way past Warren, but he held his ground. Her cheeks were flaming. “You can’t…” she sputtered.
Warren held up a moderating hand. “Look,” he soothed. “Let’s not make this any more difficult than it already is. I apologize for the fact that neither of you was a particularly willing participant in this matter. Dragging people from their hotel beds and flying them across the country is not exactly according to protocol.” He scratched his head and tried to look boyish. “But, you know…for better or worse, you’ve been privy to a great deal of confidential information regarding an ongoing investigation.” He raised his hands and let them slap back to his sides. “I appreciate all the help both of you have given us.” He looked from Corso to Andriatta and back. “I really do, but I can’t take the chance that something you say or do might compromise an investigation of this nature…not at this point…not with so much at stake.”
“This is bullshit,” she screamed, launching a stiff arm at his breastbone, trying to drive Warren from the doorway. He rocked back onto his heels but otherwise didn’t budge. When she gathered herself and threw a fist at his face, he caught her hand in his and in a single practiced motion, twisted it behind her back, where he moved it upward until the pain squeezed her eyes shut. She endured the pain in silence. He lowered his voice and spoke into her hair.
“You can wait in a holding cell while we finish this up, or we can all just keep on keepin’ on, until we find out whether this line of inquiry is going to pan out or not.” He released her hand and gave her a little shove back into the room. Her outrage was like a storm cloud in the air.
“Goddamn you,” she screamed. And then again. “Goddamn you.” Warren looked wistful. Like some cracker-barrel philosopher dispensing wisdom on a sultry Saturday afternoon. “We’ll see, missy,” he said. “We surely will.”
Problem was, Andriatta was at full boil and not about to listen to homilies. Instead, she dropped her shoulder and went at him full speed, like a linebacker homing in on an unsuspecting quarterback.
He fended her off, using both hands, pulling his head in close to her body, where she couldn’t get at him, then spinning her around by the shoulders before pushing hard, sending her staggering backward, directly at Corso, as if to say, “Here…take this…it’s yours.”
Corso wrapped his long arms around her and pulled her tight against his chest. She struggled, emitting high-pitched noises of exertion and frustration as she sought to free herself from his encumbrance. Corso could feel a tremor running through her body. Feel the animal within her trying to impose its will on a perverse and ambiguous universe. It took three or four minutes and half a dozen kicks to Corso’s shins for her fury to subside. When the noises stopped and her body had ceased to tremble, Corso unwrapped his arms and prepared to defend himself.
Turned out not to be necessary. Her fury had passed. She mustered her dignity, wiped a lock of sweaty hair back from her face and took a deep breath. Her eyes met Corso’s. Something had transpired. Something to do with her anger and the way he’d held her in his arms. Both of them knew it. They stood waiting for one or the other to say the right thing. Didn’t happen.
“Seems I haven’t got a lot of choice here,” she said.
“Very temporarily,” Warren assured her. “If it’s any consolation to ya, I was supposed to start my vacation this week. Delia…that’s my wife…we were gonna have our first vacation in nine years. Coupla weeks down in Antigua. Sand, sun, surf, the whole nine yards.” He shook his head sadly. “Next thing you know people start blowing one another up…” Andriatta sneered at him and walked over to the corner of the room.
He shrugged and threw a glance Corso’s way. Corso returned the shrug.
Warren started for the elevators. Andriatta stood still. Corso gestured “after you” and followed Andriatta down the long corridor.
The sign on the door read: DATA CENTER. Nothing more. What used to consist of entire walls of mainframe computers, lights blinking, reel-to-reel tapes whirling away, had, in recent years, been reduced to nothing more dramatic than half a dozen HP desktops scattered around a cramped space in the basement of the Morris Mayfield Federal Building.
Morales was already on hand when they arrived. “Past ten years,” he was saying. “Pomona Veterans Wellness Center.” The technician started typing. “Let’s get us a list of every patient who used that clinic.”
Morales introduced everybody. The techie’s name was Plummer. No first name. No title. Just Plummer.
Andriatta gave Plummer a curt nod and sat down at one of the empty computer stations. She folded her arms and swiveled her back
to the proceedings. On her right, the laser printer began to spit paper at an ungodly rate. “Nineteen hundred and forty-three names,” the tech droned.
“Get me the names of every person who worked there during the same time period,” Morales said. More typing.
Corso crossed the room to the printer. He pulled a handful of pages from the tray and spread them out on the desk in front of him. Sorted through them.
“Francisco Reyes,” Corso said. “Used the clinic”—he traced across the page with his finger—“looks like once a week, between…August of ’98 and about eighteen months ago.”
Morales looked Corso’s way. “Used the clinic for what?”
“The service code is…” He read a ten-digit number.
Plummer typed it in as Corso read. “Outpatient support therapy,” he said after a moment.
“Support for what?” Corso asked.
“Doesn’t say.”
“Can we sort out everybody with the same service code?”
“Easy.” Plummer typed some more. “Three hundred sixty-three names.”
“What about the employee list?” Morales asked.
“A hundred sixty-nine direct employees.”
“How many contractors?” Warren asked.
“No way of telling. Contractors get paid by the General Accounting Office. We’d have to check with GAO when they open in the morning.”
It went on for two hours. Every reference and cross-reference imaginable. Andriatta never moved. Just sat there staring at the wall in a futile act of defiance. By the time they finished the second pot of coffee, Morales was beginning to sweat. With the exception of Constance Valparaiso, none of the victims were linked to the clinic in any way. “We may be barking up the wrong tree,” Warren said finally. “This whole veterans angle just might be a wild-goose chase.”
“Don’t even think that,” Morales said. “We come up empty here…”
He let the end of the sentence slide away.
The door opened. A young agent stood in the doorway beckoning Morales to come to him. “What is it, son?” Morales asked.
The agent started to speak. Looked from Corso to Andriatta, then back to Morales. “You’re among friends,” Morales assured him.
