But, I added, duBois had found no evidence of any malfeasance. She'd spoken to dozens of officers and administrators within the department, armed with her pen and calculator. What Westerfield and Teasley had found, the money shifting from one account to another, seemed to duBois to be innocent.
"It was," Ryan confirmed, frowning. "Yeah, some money went to the wrong accounts but it just sat there until somebody found it and then got transferred back. That's why I was involved--not investigating, just coming up with better procedures to move cash between the various departments."
"Well, the U.S. attorney thought it was a chance for a great political corruption prosecution. I didn't let on that it was a dead end. I kind of egged him on when he started down that path." I didn't mention to the Kesslers that Freddy had caught on and helped.
I don't know. They were whispers. . . .
Joanne said, "Don't you people work together?"
A good question and the answer was: not always.
Ryan shrugged. "I'll send him whatever you need, sure."
"Everything. Only, the most impenetrable first."
He gave a smile.
"Westerfield's going to want to talk to you too. Just tell him the truth, let him sort it out."
"But be a little mysterious," Ryan offered.
"That'd be great. Think back to any conspiracy theory books you've read."
Joanne remained for a moment, standing awkwardly, shoulders forward. I knew she wanted to call Amanda. But I couldn't let her. I didn't want anybody other than my contacts at the slammer in Loudoun to know the girl and Carter were there. She didn't ask again, though, just said good night, then headed down the hall.
I noted Maree's computer, sitting on the couch. She'd probably gone to bed too; I was suddenly aware that with the young woman absent, the safe house was oddly sedate. Whatever else you could say about her, Maree livened up the assignment like no other principal I'd ever had.
Mr. Tour Guide . . .
Ryan brought all the files into the den, where I was sitting and checking emails. He began to organize them and set them in neat stacks on the desk.
"Here's the first batch," he said. He dove back in.
The defensiveness and hostility from when we'd met were gone completely. "Ask you a personal question, Corte?"
Normally that sets off klaxons but for some reason I said, "Sure."
"How'd you get into this baby-sitting job? Wait, is that an insult?"
"Not to me."
"Right." He laughed. "How'd you get into it? Were you like somebody's personal bodyguard or anything?"
"The short answer is I got arrested."
An amused glance. "Now that deserves an explanation." Ryan limped to the kitchen, called, "Coffee?"
"Sure," I replied.
He brought me a large mug, remembering I liked it black.
"So?" Ryan continued to leaf through his documents.
I explained how I'd started orienteering at the University of Texas in Austin and had gotten interested in sign cutting.
He frowned at that and I explained.
"Tracking, like Indians?" he asked.
"Exactly. Well, one weekend I drove down to San Antonio for an orienteering competition. It was a long one, all day. I'd hit the halfway control point and I'd decided to take a different route to the next point, not the straightest one. Sometimes the straightest take a lot longer.
"Well, I was moving through some brush and heard what I thought was somebody crying. I went to see and I found a family. They were obviously illegals who'd come over the Rio Grande sometime in the past day. I thought maybe one of them was hurt, so I went up to them."
"You speak Spanish?"
"It helps in Texas." And in my present line of work.
"Guess it would."
"I was in competition gear--like a tracksuit--so they didn't think I was police. I asked what was wrong. They said some men were after them. They'd stolen the father's wallet--all his savings--and tried to rape the couple's teenage daughter. The father grabbed one of the men's guns and they fled but the men were after them. I had my mobile and I said I'd call for help. They panicked at that and begged me not to."
"Because they were illegals."
"And because the attackers were our guys, Border Patrol."
"Ah."
"The family'd managed to lose them but they were getting close. I could see four or five of them following the trail. There's sign cutting but there's also sign pushing. Cutting is looking for sign. Pushing is catching the person who left the sign. That's what the officers were doing--they were coming to get the family. I knew what'd happen if they found them. We could see them about a half mile from where we were hiding."
"'We.' That sort of tells me where this is going."
"I couldn't leave them. They'd be killed for sure. So I led them away, covering up the signs as best I could. It was kind of a cat-and-mouse chase but we escaped. About three hours later I got them to San Antonio and a refuge at a church."
I was twenty-three then and most of my life had been in academia. That afternoon had been, hands down, the most exhilarating experience I'd ever had.
"You said you got arrested. I'm not sure you really did anything wrong. You could have just said you didn't know they were illegal, technically. You were just helping out some people get away from some attackers."
"I didn't mention that we found one of the agents had driven ahead through an arroyo. The only way we could get out of there was with wheels. I was afraid the father would shoot the agent so I took the gun, snuck up behind the agent and stole his jeep and weapon."
"Okay. That's arrestable," Ryan said.
"After I dropped the family off at the church I threw the gun in a lake and left the jeep in a grocery store lot. Caught a cab back to the orienteering course."
"How'd they catch you?"
"Stub check." I explained, "It's a safety procedure in orienteering. Officials compare the starting stubs with the control cards at the finish. If somebody doesn't make it to the end, they send out searchers to look for you. The Border Patrol agents had seen the checkpoint flags--they're orange and white, hard to miss--and found out about the competition. They tracked me down at school the next day. Arrested me and the case went to an FBI agent who was in town from D.C., Agent Fredericks. The one I'm working with now."
"But if you're a federal officer now you couldn't've been convicted of a felony."
"Turned out that Freddy was in Texas to investigate cases of Border Patrol officers robbing and assaulting illegals. So, instead of a defendant I became a witness. Helped get four convictions."
"And the illegals?"
I gave him a smile. "Somehow I forgot where I'd taken them."
"Good for you."
"I finished up a degree or two and started teaching. But I couldn't quite get that weekend out of my head. A few years later I called Agent Fredericks and he put me in touch with some folks at Diplomatic Security in Washington--State Department--and I signed on and spent a few years with them, protecting our people at embassies and foreigners in the U.S. Eventually I didn't want to travel so much. I'd heard about the outfit I work for now. Joined them and I've been there ever since."
Ryan finished assembling the material to send to Westerfield. It looked to be about two hundred sheets cluttered with numbers and charts that were incomprehensible to me.
"Perfect," I told him.
"Ask you a question, Corte?"
"Sure."
"How many of your principals you told that story to?"
I answered honestly. "None."
He grinned. "How much of it's true?"
"The whole shebang," I said.
MONDAY
Remember that this is a game of defense as well as offense and be prepared to protect the areas which you occupy.
--FROM THE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE BOARD GAME RISK
Chapter 40
CLAIRE DUBOIS CALLED just before 9:00 a.m.
What she had to tell
me was illuminating.
And discouraging.
I took down the information and went into the kitchen, where the table, covered with a yellow gingham cloth, was littered with breakfast: bagels, cream cheese, jam. Both of my principals were drinking mugs of coffee. Joanne was sitting at a laptop, staring intently at the screen. She gave me a quick look of greeting but returned immediately to the computer.
"Where's Maree?" I asked.
"Still asleep," Ryan said.
"I've just heard from Claire," I told them grimly. "It's not your other case."
The detective asked, "The Clarence Brown scam . . . I mean, Pamuk?"
"He's not the primary."
"But he has to be," Ryan said, dismayed.
"I thought so too," I said. "But it's not a Ponzi scheme. Pamuk's business is legitimate."
"But the fake companies, the fake name . . . how can it be legitimate?"
"His name was legally changed. And all the doing-business-as certificates have been duly filed. It's true the investments were made through shell companies but it seems that's not a crime. Pamuk's outfit is financially solid. The books are solid. It all checks out."
Ryan asked, "What about the people who wanted their money back? Pamuk kept stalling."
"Some of them have been paid. The others will be in the next few days. We got information from Interpol Economic Crimes. They were in contact with forensic accountants and securities people in London, New York, Paris and the Grand Caymans. They put the company through an X ray."
Ryan laughed sourly. "I tried for weeks to get the international boys to talk to me. The French never even returned my calls. Neither did anybody in Georgetown. You carry more weight than us D.C. gumshoes, it looks like."
I remembered the cop's sour characterization of his status in the department.
Small potatoes . . .
Joanne lifted her head, showing modest interest, but returned to the computer. I wondered what held her attention so raptly. She couldn't go online so it had to be files stored on the hard drive.
I continued, "Here's what happened. Pamuk sends his investors' money to the Middle East, through dozens of shell corporations registered in America, Europe and Asia."
"Right. To fund terror operations, you were thinking."
"No. It's all real equity and debt investing. He did it that way because he honestly feels that Arab companies are solid ways to make money but he knows that Americans might be reluctant to invest in them. Patriotism. And some of the stockholders over there wouldn't be too crazy about knowing that their fellow investors have beer and pulled pork for dinner and go to church on Sunday. So he set up layers of shell companies. If you dig deep enough, you'll find the details."
Ryan sighed.
I continued, "If somebody wants their money out early, it takes longer than with a U.S. fund because of the layers of corporations and the laws overseas. It's time-consuming but completely legal. Nobody's been robbed. In fact, the return on investment beat the Standard and Poor's Index by four percent this year."
"No crime, no reason to hire a lifter."
"Right."
"Goddamn it," he muttered. "Dead end."
So there we were. One of the best lifters in the business was after Ryan Kessler. It wasn't because of his two major active cases. And it wasn't the administrative work he was doing.
Game theory accounts for both unknowns and knowns in the equation. You don't know how the dice will fall, what card will be the next you pick up or are dealt; you don't know what strategy your opponent will select for the next move.
Your trembling hand sometimes makes you move in error.
But one thing you always know is who your opponent is, what goal he seeks.
This game, though, was different. I didn't know the opponent--only the playing piece, the knight or rook: Henry Loving.
And I didn't know the object of the game.
Were we playing bridge, Arimaa, backgammon, Go? The Game of Life? Poker?
Unknowns, complete unknowns.
Ryan Kessler massaged his bad leg and stared at the painting above the fireplace, more fat horses with skinny legs. "Maybe it is one of the smaller cases. I didn't think so but that could be it. The identity theft or the credit cards."
Then a voice behind us, Joanne's, said firmly, "No, it's none of those."
Ryan and I both turned to her.
"I've got the answer," she whispered, looking up from the computer and waving at it contemptuously. "It's not Ryan that Loving's after. . . . It's my sister. He's after my goddamn sister."
Chapter 41
RYAN WAS FROWNING. "Maree? It can't be her. Her last name isn't even Kessler."
Joanne looked my way. "Did anybody actually see the phrase, 'Get Ryan Kessler'? In that email you were talking about?"
I asked, "The go-ahead order? No. But it said 'Kessler' and gave your address."
Joanne countered, "Which is how you'd describe where Maree's been living."
I considered this. "True. But why do you think it's her?"
She nodded at the computer, her sister's. "Mar left it out here last night."
I remembered seeing it when I'd come back from Garcia's house.
Joanne said, "I wondered if Andrew was behind this. I wanted to see if there was anything in her saved emails that suggested that."
Her husband glanced my way. "Andrew. Is that possible?"
I said, "No, we checked him out. I had my associate look into him as soon as I heard his name mentioned. In the car, on Saturday? Remember, I told Maree she should call him? I did that to capture his phone number. Claire checked him out. He's clean--from our perspective. He's got some assault charges, two battery domestic abuse counts a few years ago. Some restraining orders. But he has no connection to Henry Loving."
Joanne said, "I'm not talking about Andrew. I found something else. Look." She spun the computer toward us. I saw the Global Software Innovations logo on the screen, as Joanne opened folders with the editing and archiving software. She called up some of her sister's recent photographs--the series in downtown D.C., which included the pictures I had helped her choose from. She paused at another image, one I'd looked at but had paid no attention to. It was also of two men, engaged in a serious conversation, as they sat at an outdoor cafe somewhere near the Mall. One appeared to be in his late fifties, the other about twenty years younger. The background was blurred--intentionally out of focus, I judged--and the intense faces of the men took the viewer's attention.
"You see anything unusual?" Joanne asked.
I studied the picture carefully. Then I noticed that the older man was dropping something into the hand of the younger one. It was impossible to see for certain what it might be. But it looked like a thumb drive for a computer. I asked her if that's what she meant.
"Yes."
"So?" Ryan asked.
His wife continued, "Don't you recognize the older man?"
"No," I said. "Should I?"
Ryan shook his head.
"Martin Allende. He was on the news last week." Joanne explained that he was a Colombian diplomat suspected of laundering al Qaeda money through banks in his country.
I took her word for it. I had only a vague memory of a passing news report.
Joanne added that the story reported no charges could be brought because authorities couldn't find a trail to the terrorists or offshore banks. "Maree got a picture of him with his contact--the younger man," she raged. I saw her hands were shaking in anger. "That's why they're after her. To get her camera, computer, find out if she made any copies, see if she took any more pictures. The terrorist cell is worried that somebody in national security--the CIA, the FBI, Intelligence Assessment--could identify who Allende's with. Remember the man who bumped into Maree, knocked her down? I bet it was to grab something from her purse, find out her address."
I looked closely at the picture. I leaned over, plugged a cable into her computer and downloaded the picture to my phone, wrote out instructions t
o duBois and uploaded the email with the phone.
Joanne was sitting forward. The numbness masking her face all weekend was now gone. She was furious, her face flushed, eyes flaring. "My little innocent sister poking her nose where it doesn't belong. . . . Does she ever use her fucking brain? What did she think would happen when she started taking pictures of people in public? Did she ever think that might be a stupid idea?"
I wondered if she was heading for the predicted breakdown. She'd bottled her feelings up since Saturday morning. The explosion loomed. I'd seen it happen dozens of times.
"We'll find out," I said, nodding at the phone.
"She never thinks there could be consequences. . . . And who's taking the shit? Us. Our daughter was almost killed because of her! Because I took her in. No good deed goes unpunished, right? I didn't even want her in my house. It's been the worst month of my life. She lectures about the sanctity of art but she can't even afford to pay for the food she eats. Ever since she moved in, Ryan and I've been at each other's throats. It's been a fucking nightmare."
"Jo," her husband said.
She snapped, "I should let her go back to Andrew. They fucking deserve each other. Let him beat some sense into her."
A piercing alarm made us all start. Ryan reached for his weapon and I went for mine. Though I recognized the tone; it wasn't a break-in but the emergency door release. Somebody inside had hit it, to get out.
Ahmad appeared immediately, holding a black M4 Bushmaster, the stock racked short, his finger outside the trigger guard. Tony Barr, pistol in hand, was behind him.
I held up a hand.
"Oh, no," Joanne whispered, eyes wide. She was looking out the window to the side porch, where Maree stood, staring back through the glass. The younger sister had heard every hard word uttered about her. Her face, twisted in pain, continued to stare for a moment. Then she turned away and fled down the porch and over the lawn toward the woods.
"No, please! Maree! No!" Joanne leapt up.
"Stay here," I said firmly. I told Ahmad and Barr to secure the principals and sprinted outside, tucking my gun away.
Chapter 42
THE DEA AGENT I became friendly with in Texas told me that when sign cutting and tracking, it helps to know the goal of the person you're pursuing.
Some of the people you're after have in mind nothing more than being anywhere that you're not. They'll escape wherever they can, however they can.