Blown Away

by G. M. Ford

  “Didn’t he ever.”

  Morales stiffened for a moment and pulled the pager from his belt. “Plummer,” he said under his breath. Corso watched as he pushed the button, then read the text message as it scrolled by. “Says he’s got something interesting.”

  “Like what?”

  “We’ll never know.”

  “Why’s that?”

  He went back to rifling through the desk. “I’m off the case man. I’m persona non grata around here.” He dropped the box on the desktop with a bang.

  “Come on. Don’t be like that.”

  Morales shot him an angry look. “You’re a troublemaker, you know that?”

  Corso sat up in the chair. “I prefer to think of myself as a provocateur.”

  “Yeah…well, you’re going to have to provocateur somebody else. I’m in enough trouble already.”

  “Let’s go down and see what Plummer’s got. What have you got to lose?”

  “Oh…let’s see…my pension…my retirement…”

  “Details…details.”

  He retrieved the box from the desktop. “Go home, Mr. Corso.”

  “Soon as we see what Plummer’s got, I’m outta here.” He held up two fingers. Scout’s honor.

  “All you want is another chapter for your book.”

  “I like to finish what I start.”

  “Well…I’m finished. How’s that?”

  Corso looked away. Morales was pulling open drawers. “Besides…” he said. “I’ve got no official standing anymore.”

  “Apparently Plummer doesn’t know that.”

  “Yeah…well…he’s the only one.”

  “Come on. Let’s just go see what he’s got.”

  Morales kept packing the box. “Hell, Corso, at this point, I don’t even have enough authority to get you a plane ticket home. You’re gonna have to…”

  “I’ll handle my own plane ticket,” Corso said.

  Morales looked up. “And you’ll take Ms. Andriatta with you?”

  Corso waved a dismissive hand. “She’s long gone.”

  Morales made a rude noise with his lips. “She’s in a holding cell in the basement. Warren had ATF pick her up at the Long Beach Airport about an hour after she ditched us. She’s been down there all day bitching about the food.”

  “I’ll take her with me,” Corso offered. “On my dime.”

  Morales heaved another giant sigh. “Warren was a good man,” he said.

  “Yeah…he was.”

  A morbid silence settled over the room. Even the flags seemed to droop.

  “Come on,” Morales said finally. “Let’s go.”

  Corso rocked himself to his feet. He followed Morales out of the office and down the hall to the elevators.

  Plummer was exactly where they’d left him earlier in the day, sitting at the center console pecking away at he keyboard. A half-eaten ham sandwich on whole wheat lay moldering on the desktop.

  “Don’t you ever go home?” Morales asked him.

  Plummer grinned and shook his head. “I’m completely self-contained,” he said. “They throw food in the door a couple times a week and I’m good to go.”

  “Whatcha got?” Morales asked.

  “Actually, it was the GAO who got.” Plummer fingered the keyboard for the better part of a minute before folding his arms across his chest. “It’s been a lot of fun. I’ve never had access to the whole shebang before.” Screens filled with names and numbers flashed across the bank of monitors. “I ran every access code in the state VA system. Everything that happened in Pomona between 1998 and early last year. Couldn’t find a thing that connected to that Reyes character. Then I ran the other victims and except for the Valparaiso woman there wasn’t anything there either.”

  Morales wasn’t in the mood for banter. “Cut to the chase,” he growled.

  Plummer looked hurt. “No need to get snippy,” he said.

  “You really haven’t left here, have you?” Corso asked.

  Plummer shook his head. “Why?”

  Corso filled him in on what had transpired at the state capitol building earlier in the day. By the time he’d finished talking, Plummer had collected his lower jaw and was feeling apologetic. “Jeez…I’m sorry…I didn’t…I…”

  “What’s GAO got for us?” Morales asked again.

  Plummer swiveled back around to face the monitors. He tapped on the screen with his index finger. “Right here,” he said. “It’s a list of GAO payments made for Pomona. Same time period. All the people who were issued checks and what services it was they got them for.”

  Corso bent at the waist and put his face close to the screen. “I’ll be damned,” he said. Plummer pushed another button. “No shit,” Corso said.

  Corso straightened up and crooked a finger at Morales. “You better see this,” he said. “Might be you can avoid reassignment to Iowa.”

  Morales wore a dubious expression but wandered over anyway. Plummer pointed again. Morales frowned and leaned in closer. “For what?”

  “Contractor services,” Plummer said, typing again. By this time Morales very nearly had his nose pressed to the screen. He used his own finger on the screen.

  “How many is that?”

  “Fifty-seven,” Plummer chimed in. “One a month for the better part of five years.” He looked up at the scowling Morales and anticipated the next question. “Same thing,” he said. “Contractor services.”

  “What services?”

  “Group leader.”

  “And the other one.”

  “Guest lecturer.” Plummer pushed another key and rolled himself out of the way. “Here’s the fun part,” he said. Both Corso and Morales stepped up to the machine. “Look at the service code,” Plummer prompted.

  “Same for both,” Corso said.

  “Same dates too,” Plummer pointed out. He changed screens. “Look at this one,” he said.

  “So…” Corso said. “…whatever veterans’ group Mr. Reyes attended in Pomona back in ’98 was facilitated by our Mr. Ben-Iman?” He looked over at Morales and kept on talking. “…and our Mr. Nguyen, the bank manager, was a one time guest lecturer at the same group in late 2002.”

  “That’s not all,” Plummer said. Another screen appeared. A picture of a man in uniform appeared on the screen at the far end of the bay. “Seems our Mr. Nguyen used to be a colonel in the North Vietnamese Army. Got into the country on a State Department visa exemption.” Before they could respond, another picture appeared. Ben-Imam this time. “Mr. Ben-Imam, it turns out, wasn’t Lebanese after all.” He left a pause for effect. “He was Iranian. Just told people he was Lebanese.”

  “Lots of them do,” Morales said. “What’s the point?”

  “Damned if I know,” said Plummer.

  “How many patients passed through that group during the time period we’re looking at?” Corso asked.

  “While Mr. Ben-Iman was the facilitator?”

  “Yeah.”

  “A hundred ninety-seven.”

  “All with the same service code as Mr. Reyes?”

  Plummer shook his head. “I’m guessing it depended on the diagnosis.”

  “How many with the same service code as Reyes?”

  More typing. “Looks like nineteen.”

  “Print me a list,” Morales said. “Names, addresses, phone numbers. The whole thing.”

  Corso raised an eyebrow. Morales met his gaze.

  “It’s not tomorrow yet,” he said, picking up the telephone. He waited. A voice squeaked on the line. “Get me the ATF,” he said.

  Morales turned his back and began whispering into the phone. Corso leaned closer to Plummer. “Reyes own a credit card?” he asked.

  “Most everybody does.”

  “Could you run it for me?”

  “Sure.”

  33

  “O f the original nineteen, two are dead and another two are incarcerated.”

  “Dead how?” Morales asked.

  The ATF supervisor
checked his notes. “One of throat cancer. The other one, a guy named Boyd Sylvain, was killed just about eighteen months ago. They found him shot to death in a Wal-Mart parking lot down in Encino. The PD are handling it as a mugging gone wrong.”

  “And the two in jail?”

  “Both for drugs. Both have been inside for over a year.”

  “And the others?”

  “We’ve eliminated six, for one reason or another.”

  “That leaves nine.”

  “Three have moved out of state.” He held up a hand, as if to forestall another question. “We’re following them up,” he said. “Should have something in the next couple of hours.”

  “And the others?”

  “We’ve got three in custody and a very nasty standoff situation developing with a fourth.”

  “Nasty how?” Corso asked.

  The ATF guy looked Corso over.

  “He’s with me,” Morales said.

  “So was David Warren.”

  Morales turned red. “Yeah,” was all he said.

  “The only reason I agreed to do the Bureau’s dirty work was to maybe get some sense of closure for the Warren family.”

  “I understand,” Morales said.

  ATF checked his notes again. “Got a guy named Larry Kelly out in the Dry Lake area. Another vet with a grievance. He’s taken the VA to court a dozen times. He put three shots through the door when we demanded entry. Says he’s got a wife and three kids in there with him.”

  “Ugly,” Morales said.

  “Worse. He’s got a garage out back of the house. First, the dogs hit all over the place. Then we did a wipe test on the workbench and got a chemical positive for C-4. God only knows what he’s got in the house with him. We’ve got a negotiator on the scene. Last I heard Kelly was refusing to talk to him. Says he’s not coming out.”

  “You said you’ve got three in custody?”

  ATF consulted his notes again. “Martin Wellsley, Gordon Jones and Mike Sanford. We found identical explosive devices at the homes of Wellsley and Jones. All wrapped up and ready to go. Sanford had the better part of thirty pounds of military-grade C-4 in his toolshed. Happens he’s still in the Army Reserve. You wanna guess where he does his reserve duty?”

  “Twenty-Nine Palms,” Corso said. “In the armory.”

  “Touchdown.”

  “Any of them got anything useful to say?” Morales asked.

  “Not a peep. Five seconds in, they all lawyered up.”

  Morales nodded knowingly. “You guys did a hell of a job,” he said.

  “You didn’t let me finish” the guy groused. “After they lawyered up, I sent an Assistant U.S. Attorney in to have a few words with each of them. You know, see if maybe we couldn’t find somebody who wanted to do less time than everybody else for cooperating with the investigation.” He made a face. “The AUSA was in the building anyway on another matter and I figured, you know…what the hell, why not?”

  This time Morales kept his mouth shut and waited. ATF milked the pause for all it was worth. “Lo and behold if Mr. Wellsley and his mouthpiece didn’t decide that seven to fifteen sounded a hell of a lot better than twenty-five to life.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Morales said.

  “There’s a problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know the standard deal we cut with them. You give us everything you know. You cop to it in open court. You’re a major player in the arrest and conviction of everyone else involved in the crime. And then and only then will we live up to our end of the bargain.”

  Corso spoke up. “You don’t believe the guy?” he asked.

  “Problem is, we do.” He waved his notes in the air. “Everything he says is well and good. The hitch is that he hasn’t got a hell of a lot to give us that we don’t already have, and some of what he is giving us is guesswork.”

  “What’s he saying?” Corso asked.

  “Pretty much the way you guys had it drawn. There’s this bunch of guys who wind up in the same support group in Pomona. All of them disabled to one degree or another. All of them feeling like the government owes them something. Like they’ve been big-time cheated by the system. To quote Mr. Wellsley, ‘…like they been used and thrown away.’”

  “Just like that? By coincidence, they all wind up at Pomona?”

  ATF threw a sly glance at Morales. “Your friend here is pretty sharp,” he said, before shifting his hard blue eyes to Corso. “No coincidence about it. Mr….”

  “Corso.”

  “Friend of mine in the VA system tells me it’s pretty much common knowledge…you get one of these group wreckers…somebody who’s poisoning the whole system with his attitude…you send his ass up to Pomona. That way he can’t claim you’re not providing him with the service he’s entitled to, but you don’t have to put up with his rants and raves either.”

  “So they got all the real malcontents under one roof.”

  “Tried a different therapeutic approach too.”

  Corso and Morales waited for him to go on. “From what he tells me. This idea of ‘tough love’ was all the rage back in the nineties.” When nobody disagreed, he went on. “So they try something a bit less supportive and a bit more confrontational. They hire this guy Ben-Iman to facilitate the group. He’s not only got the credentials, but he’s one of those self-made types who came to this country with a quarter in his pocket, not speaking the language…” He rolled a hand around his wrist. “You know…the whole immigrant Horatio Alger story.”

  “Which was the attitude got his butt sent to Pomona as well.”

  “Of course.”

  “A match made in heaven,” Corso added.

  “So Ben-Iman’s a real Tartar. No-nonsense. Hold the whining. Bootstrap yourself back into society. Take responsibility for yourself. Stop blaming others for your problems.”

  “I’ve heard worse ideas,” said Corso.

  “Haven’t we all,” ATF agreed.

  “And they can’t just stop showing up for sessions, or the government will cut their benefits,” Morales added.

  “Or stop them altogether,” ATF amended. “Our man Wellsley says that’s exactly what happened to a couple of guys early on.”

  “So every Wednesday night for five years…” Corso began.

  “These guys are sitting there hating every minute of it.”

  ATF looked over at Morales. “You check the VA records. You’ll find a bunch of people come and gone over that time period.” He waved a finger. “But you’ll find this little nucleus of discontent who was there the whole time.”

  “So what happened?”

  “So Ben-Iman is cutting them no slack. He keeps bringing in guest speakers who’ve had it harder, people who are physically worse off, people who started lower and still made something of themselves.”

  “Our Mr. Nguyen, the bank manager,” Corso ventured.

  “Bingo.”

  “The guy in Malibu?”

  “Death camp inmate.”

  “The woman over on Figueroa…”

  “Cancer survivor.”

  “All of them guest lecturers?”

  “Yup.”

  The news had a sobering effect. Everyone took a minute to process the information. Corso broke the spell. “Whose idea was this thing?”

  “According to Wellsley…he was approached by Larry Kelly about a year and a half ago.”

  “The guy who’s barricaded in his house?” Morales asked.

  “Yup. Wellsley says Kelly told it like it was. Said it was dangerous, illegal as hell and damn well might get them killed or sent away forever. But he also said it was a chance for them to get what was coming to them. Even up a few scores and all end up with enough cash to live out their lives somewhere else.”

  “Five years in the same group and you probably get a pretty good idea who might go along with a crazy-ass scheme like this,” Morales said.

  “Interesting point.” ATF held up that finger again. “Wellsley says he
doesn’t know for sure, but he thinks Kelly might have asked somebody who turned him down. He says he heard Kelly say something about how they couldn’t afford to have so and so walking around.”

  “Our friend from Wal-Mart maybe?” Corso asked.

  34

  S he was asleep, curled up on the narrow metal cot, her legs drawn up to her chest, her face pressed to the wall. Corso stood for a moment looking down at her, feeling the rhythm of her steady breathing. After a moment, he reached down and gave her shoulder a gentle shake.

  “Go away,” she said.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  The sound of his voice brought her upright, rubbing her eyes as she rolled over and looked around. “It’s about damn time,” she said.

  “Things have been a bit hectic.”

  She was on her feet now, smoothing her clothes, trying to shake her hair back into place. “What time is it?” she demanded.

  Corso checked his watch. “Nine-fifteen.”

  She kicked the cot in anger. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been here?” She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she stomped out of the cell and looked up and down the hall in both directions. “Where’s that goddamned Warren,” she wanted to know. “I’m gonna…” Corso threw an arm around her shoulder and began to whisper in her ear.

  By the time he’d finished, her anger had morphed into a wan and weary silence. She leaned back against the wall with tears in her eyes. “That’s not right,” she said. “That’s just not right.”

  “We got ’em,” Corso said. “At least most of ’em anyway.”

  Her eyes turned to stones. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He gave her the specifics. One dead, three in custody, another barricaded in his house. “If I had to guess, I’d say there’s probably still two or three running around somewhere.”

  “Are they…”

  “Don’t worry about it. This is where the Bureau gets to do what it does best and we finally get to go home.”

  “I can’t go home,” she argued. “I have to go back to that damn hotel and pick up my belongings. Among other things, my passport is back there.”

  “Mine too,” Corso said. “We’ll get out of here first thing in the morning.”