“Gotta feed the meter,” he called back and disappeared into the elevator.
When he was on the street he put in a call to Ken Leary over at the CIA.
“Ken, Gallagher here. Got to talk fast. They’re closing me down on my investigation into Zimler.”
“Whoa!”
“I need any further updates you have on Zimler or the murder of that professor over in Bucharest. And I need it in like, oh, five minutes.”
“You’re really out there on this one, John. And I don’t know how much I can afford to stick my neck out any more than I have.”
“If you ever owed me money, Ken, all debts are cancelled. How about that?”
“Actually, you owe me money—”
“Okay, forget it. Look, Ken. I really need this. You know how long I’ve been after this sicko, Zimler.”
Leary took a full five seconds.
Gallagher was pacing on the sidewalk, looking around to make sure he wasn’t being observed.
Finally Leary spoke. “Look, there’s a Korean laundry about two blocks from my office. Yang’s Dry Cleaning. Meet me there in ten minutes.”
“First, tell me something,” Gallagher asked.
“What?”
“Do you have more stuff on Zimler or not? I can’t afford to waste time.”
“Uh, figure it out, John,” Leary said with a laugh. “We’re going to discuss possible clandestine information from the CIA about a world-class terrorist, and I chose a Korean dry cleaners as the meeting place. What does that tell you?”
FORTY-EIGHT
Joshua Jordan was locked in a tight embrace with Abby. He was kissing her passionately in the foyer of his Palace Hotel suite.
“I missed you so much, baby,” he said, still holding her tight.
“Not as much as I missed you,” she purred and then kissed him again.
Then she stopped and moved her head back slightly to tell him something. “Oh, I’ve had such bad dreams,” she said.
“Being there with Rocky and Peg in that house. Helping them with their grief. I’m not surprised.”
“Not about them. About us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bad dreams. For a while now. This sense of disaster. Like something bad, impending doom or something. I can’t shake it. Last night I dreamed there was this shadowy figure in our condo. Looking through our things. Wanting to hurt us, I think.”
Joshua shrugged it off. “Just a dream. That’s all.”
He noticed her overnight bag on the marble floor and snatched it up and carried it in for her.
He asked her how things were going with Peg as she dealt with her loss, and how Rocky Bridger was doing. Abigail gave him the rundown in detail.
But Joshua saw the exhaustion in her face. “The way you give yourself to other people, Abby…you’ve got to look out for yourself too.”
“I’m fine,” she said. Then she looked around the spacious hotel suite. “So, this is home for a while.”
“Yeah. Comfortable. But definitely not home. Honestly I’d rather be at Hawk’s Nest together, in our rocking chairs, watching the stars.”
That sounded good to both of them. But they knew that wouldn’t happen for a while. Not until the mess with Congress and Judge Jenkins’ order and the AmeriNews project had all been taken care of first.
“Abby, sweetheart, you came here at a good time. Well, sort of.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, good news and bad.”
“Let’s start with the good…”
“We’ve got a conference call with several of the Roundtable folks thirty minutes from now. Hopefully to tell me that AmeriNews will go live later today. I’d like you to sit in on it with me. I need you on this.”
“So what’s the bad news?”
“The reason I want you on the call is that I received an email from Fort Rice. He now says he has had to bow out as head of our legal section. He says he has a conflict of interest.”
“What kind of conflict?”
“Darley followed your advice and checked herself into a drug rehab place. The one you recommended.”
“But that’s good news.”
“Not from Fort’s standpoint. He thinks her ‘addiction’ has been blown way out of proportion. Truthfully, I think Fort is suffering from some embarrassment that his wife needs help. He’s a very private, old-school kind of guy.”
“You know,” Abby said, “I think Fort is going to see that she really does need help.”
“Well, it’s more complicated than that. Darley’s become a born-again Christian at that Center.”
Abby’s eyes widened; then they filled with tears. “Dear Darley. My precious friend. I couldn’t be happier for her. That’s so incredible…”
“Fort is really blowing a gasket over this. He’s not real keen on the Christian thing. He holds you partly to blame.”
“I’ll take that kind of blame, Josh. I really will. Darley is going to get better. From the pills, sure. But she’s also going to be spiritually healed, from the inside out. That’s what happens when Christ comes into your life. He changes you.”
“I don’t blame you for anything,” Joshua said, taking her hand and squeezing it, “but between Fort and me, there’s been a freeze-out. I just find it hard to believe that Fort is bailing out of the Roundtable like this…”
“Look, Josh, you called him ‘old school.’ Remember he’s a former state supreme court judge. He takes conflicts of interest very seriously. Judges are trained to think like that. If he has a grudge against me, thinking I influenced his wife, and really thinks that will impact his effectiveness on the Roundtable because you’re the chairman, then Fort Rice is the kind of guy who would recuse himself. I know it sounds nitpicky, but strangely, I can understand where he might be coming from. Then there’s the personal problems he’s having with Darley’s situation too…”
“Well, the point is, that’s where you come in.”
“How?”
“You’ve got to be the legal representative on the call today.”
“How are the others on the Roundtable going to take it?”
“I’ll handle them.”
Abby was looking around the kitchen in the suite to make herself some tea when Joshua’s signal-cloaking Allfone rang. Abby and the Roundtable were the only ones with that special number.
“That’s funny,” Joshua said. “They’re early.”
He clicked it on. Phil Rankowitz and all the other members were on the call.
Phil started out. “Josh, we’ve got an emergency here. Everyone else has already been briefed.”
“I know. Fort’s taken a leave of absence,” Joshua said. “Not important why right now. Says he has a conflict of interest. But we need some legal counsel with us—”
“We’ll need it big time,” Phil said. “You’ll hear why in a minute. Something else is going on.”
“I’ve asked Abby to join us on this call,” Joshua went on. “She’s a smart lawyer. I think she can pinch-hit.”
“I think you’re underselling your wife,” Phil shot out. “She’s got a brilliant legal mind. Let’s bring her in.”
“Wait a minute,” Alvin Leander called out. “Maybe it’s my old days from serving on the Senate ethics committee coming out, but speaking of conflicts of interest, don’t we have a problem with Abby advising the whole Roundtable while her husband is the chairman?”
“Screw the ethics lecture.” The voice on the phone was Rocky Bridger’s.
“Rocky,” Joshua said. “We’re all so sorry about your loss. We’d understand if you bowed out—”
“I’m on this call because I think it’s that important,” he said. “And as far as Abby being on board, I vote a resounding yes.”
Leander backed off that point.
Joshua switched to his speaker phone so Abby could join in.
Phil Rankowitz jumped right to the crisis. “World Teleco has cancelled our contract for AmeriNews.”
<
br /> “What?” Joshua yelled out. “On what basis?”
“They’ve contrived some ridiculous argument based on the fine print. I’ve gone over it with our transaction lawyers. They say it’s a pretty pathetic excuse. I call it a breach of contract, pure and simple. Call me paranoid, but I see something very political behind all this. They know something about our message. And World Teleco doesn’t want any part of it.”
“Okay, counsel,” Rankowitz said, addressing Abby. “Where do we go from here?”
“Assuming it’s a clear breach,” Abby said, “we can go into court for injunctive relief. But that’s a tough call. No guarantees. Besides, the telecom company can tie us up in litigation for years.”
“We don’t have that kind of time,” Rankowitz said. “Josh, didn’t the judge order you to produce your RTS documents by tomorrow?”
“That’s the deadline,” Joshua replied. “Harry’s appealed the order. But he says the chances are nil.”
“So I ask again,” Rankowitz said, “Abby, what can we do?”
“Give me some time to think this through,” she said. “Give me an hour or two.”
Everyone on the conference call could hear Alvin Leander grumbling in the background.
“Okay,” Joshua said, “we reconvene in one hour. Phil, you set up the same conference call. Patch Abby and me in last.”
When the call ended Joshua looked at Abby. She was deep in thought.
“I need some tea,” she said. “And some time to think.”
She walked into the kitchen and heated up the tea carafe.
Joshua knew enough to leave her alone. He went into the large study and tried to scan some information he had received from his engineers, suggesting improvements for the RTS.
But he was having a hard time focusing. How am I going to run this company from the inside of a jail cell?
A few minutes turned into an hour. Joshua looked at his watch and then called to Abby. But he couldn’t find her.
He started searching the large suite. Until he found her in one of the bedrooms.
Fast asleep.
He stroked her cheek gently. You’re exhausted. I’m sorry.
She opened one eye.
“Time’s up. I’m afraid we’ve got our conference call now, honey.”
She nodded and worked to open the other eye and then started to rise. Abigail trudged into the bathroom and splashed some water on her face.
Then Joshua and Abigail sat next to each other on the couch in the great room with the Allfone set up on speaker phone for the call.
A minute later the call came in.
Phil Rankowitz began. “Okay, Abby. Let’s hear it. Have a plan?”
Abby asked, “Can you get me some lawyers?”
“How many?”
“Four.”
“When?”
“By eight tomorrow morning, and they have to be versed in telecommunications law.”
“Yeah. I think we can arrange that.”
“I thought you said litigation would tie us up for years?” Alvin Leander said.
“It would,” Abby replied, “but I’m not talking about a lawsuit.”
Beverly Rose Cortez spoke up. “Abby. You can work some magic by tomorrow on this? You really think so?”
“I’ve got an idea. But it requires one vital piece of evidence.”
“What’s that?” Joshua asked his wife.
“We need to know something definite about World Teleco’s motives. Some hard evidence that Phil’s suspicions are right. That they shut us down to keep our message from getting out.”
“Digging up that kind of proof,” Leander said. “takes too much time.”
But Joshua intervened. “Not necessarily. Folks, let me work on that one.”
FORTY-NINE
John Gallagher arrived at Yang’s Dry Cleaning a few minutes early.
A friendly Asian man at the counter asked him if he had dry cleaning to pick up.
“No thanks,” Gallagher said. “But I think my friend does.”
Five minutes later Ken Leary strolled in licking an ice-cream cone. He had a big brown envelope under his arm.
The Asian man was at the counter again, smiling. Leary handed him a laundry ticket.
The Asian man nodded and walked around from behind the counter, went to the door, locked it, and flipped the sign to read “Closed,” and pulled the shade down over the window. Then he disappeared into the back room.
Leary sat down on a chair with a faded red slip cover in front of the counter. Gallagher sat down in another chair while Leary pulled some papers out of the envelope.
“This is a transcript,” he began, “of an interview between one of our agents and Mrs. Elena Banica. The interview took place following the murder of her husband. I can’t let you take this. It’s bad enough I’m letting you read it. And even worse that it’s left our New York station even for a few minutes. So look it over now. This is all I have for you. When you’re done, I need to get it back to the office.”
Gallagher turned to the first page. He’d read a lot of interrogation transcripts in his career. He knew that a transcript couldn’t tell the whole story. There was always the human element that surfaces during that kind of interview. Something that doesn’t translate well from the computer keyboard as the Agency secretary types it out. But a few decades of fieldwork with the FBI, inside friendships within the CIA, and an extraordinary degree of gut instinct gave Gallagher a pretty good idea how it all went down. He could practically visualize it.
This particular transcript contained an interview that had been conducted in Bulgaria by an American agent in the Clandestine Services unit. Elena Banica was the young, attractive wife of a much older Dr. Yergi Banica.
When the interview took place, the subject, Elena, was seated in an empty back room in a large cathedral just off the Pasaj Subteran Unirea in Bucharest. She knew a friendly priest there, so she had insisted on that location for the meeting. Considering her former seedy occupation, Elena’s demand to give her statement in a church probably seemed ironic to her interrogator.
But the agent questioning her didn’t linger on that. The Agency needed to get down to the basement level about Dr. Banica. Elena was the only witness who knew enough about him and who could also be pressured into spilling it.
Next to Elena, on the floor, was a digital recorder, which was recording the conversation. The questions from the agent zeroed in on her relationship with Yergi. His next question was pretty blunt. “Considering the difference in ages, why’d you marry him?”
“Love,” she said, but she didn’t look at her interrogator when she said that. Elena tried to smile and took a second to tap the ashes from her cigarette.
“What else?”
“Oh, he provided for me.”
“Money?”
“He took care of me, yes.”
“Were you seeing anyone else while you were with Yergi?”
“No. But you probably don’t believe that…”
The agent started talking about the murder.
“Did you see him on the day of his death?”
“I served him breakfast. Spicy sausage. Grilled tomato. Coffee.”
Elena spoke the words without expression. Yes, she was tough. Had worked as a call girl in Bulgaria. That was before meeting Yergi. She always thought he knew but was too much of a gentleman to mention it. So one day she discreetly let him see the results of her routine medical check up and blood tests, so he could relax and know for sure she didn’t have a disease.
The agent continued to peel back the layers in his questioning.
“Did Yergi talk to you that morning about where he was going?”
“Not then, no.”
“Did you know where he was going?”
“I think so.”
“So he talked to you about it then?”
“Yes. But only generally. Just that he was selling some information that had come into his possession.”
“He h
ad obtained it originally from a Russian agent?”
Elena scrunched up one corner of her mouth. She wondered if the American agent was being honest when he had told her that if she cooperated he would keep her out of trouble. On the other hand, what choice did she have?
“Yes,” she replied, “he told me he got the information from a Russian agent.”
“Information about an American weapons system?”
“It was…some kind of missile thing.”
“What kind of thing?”
“Would send a missile coming to a place…well, would turn it around…with a big surprise. Would go back where it came from. Boom. That kind of thing.”
“Return-to-Sender…RTS? Did he call it that?”
“Yes, I think so.”
The agent paused long enough to lean back and size up his subject. He didn’t care if she had loved Yergi Banica. That wasn’t the point. What really mattered were her answers to his next line of questions.
“So Yergi was going to take this Return-to-Sender information, which he had received from the Russian, and was going to sell it to someone else. Right?”
“That was his plan. Would get big money from that. We would get new house. Close to the beach.”
“Did he ever give you a name?”
“For who?”
“I mean the name of the person he would be selling this information to…in Bucharest…the person he was going to meet in the hotel. That name.”
“No names. No.”
“Any description?”
“What do you mean?”
“Man or woman?”
“Man.”
“Height?”
“No.”
“Weight.”
“No. Nothing about that.”
“Complexion?”
Elena sighed and took a drag on her cigarette.
“No. Yergi never mentioned that.”
“Age?”
“No. He really didn’t—”
Then the agent cut her short.
“Anything about his nationality?”
Elena blew a whisper of cigarette smoke into the air. She pursed her lips. One eyebrow went up.
“Say again?”
“Anything about this man’s nationality? What country he came from?”
A few more seconds went by. Elena considered taking another drag on the cigarette and raised it to her lips as if she were going to.