Full Disclosure (18 page)

“A name, photo, fingerprints—we've got someone to chase.” Paul wrapped an arm around Rita's shoulders. “Sam, the whole team comes back. Tell them to return first class, sleep on the plane, and be ready to work when they arrive.”

“Will do.”

“Who else knows?”

“The three of us,” Rita answered, looking between the two. “Once the lab chief confirmed prints were present, he gave me an encrypted file with the prints, and returned the letter and envelope. They are now in your safe. I ran the prints on the classified system myself and got the match.”

“I'll tell the boss, but otherwise we keep the name to ourselves for a few hours. We've got two tapes from her, and there are twenty-eight more out there. We'll have to figure out how to pursue the investigation without sending her back into the shadows—” Paul stopped abruptly.

“What?”

“She didn't leave her prints on the letter and envelope by accident. She
gave
us her prints. She thinks she is well covered. She doesn't think that name and photo will lead to her. Or she gave us prints that are not hers to redirect us and keep us busy elsewhere.”

“So a wild goose chase.”

Paul nodded. “She's after a deal, the tapes are real, but the prints may be a way to stall us while letters go back and forth. She doesn't want to get caught until she's got the best deal she can arrange, and she's got twenty-eight tapes to work with to get that best deal.”

“More like cat and mouse then. She wants the deals from us while we are busy trying to catch her.”

“Yes. We work the prints and the photo, but we keep in mind it may not be her. What's helpful, though, is the prints are on both the envelope and letter. If the prints are a plant, we still know the lady shooter handed the pieces of paper to this Linda Smythe, so she is our lady shooter or she recently met our lady shooter.

“Rita, stay on the prints. See if they lead anywhere else, another name, an open case elsewhere, then age the photo and check it against DMV records and passports. Sam, focus on the bio. Let's find out about Linda Smythe, and if she has family out there and if any of them are still alive.”

“What is upstairs going to decide about the offer?”

“The boss will have decision-makers in his office tomorrow morning, ten o'clock, to figure it out. Sam, I also need you to start gaming out how we use the reply to catch her. We have the address where it is to be delivered, and it's a house in a subdivision owned by a high school science teacher. She's not going to pick it up herself. We stake out the address and follow whoever picks up the reply. What options give us the best chance to catch her without scaring her off and sending her back into the shadows?”

“It's not as easy as it sounds. She sees us or believes we're on
to her, she simply won't pick up the reply. She writes and says send it again to a new address, and we repeat the chase until she gets the pages without us getting her.”

“Whatever she has planned, you can be sure this is not going to be easy. I'll go up and tell the boss the name. When I get back we'll listen to those two tapes.”

Paul returned in twenty minutes, pulled out a chair beside Rita at the table in the war room. “Let's hear the tapes.”

Sam's fingers gave a short drum roll on the table and then he pressed play. Static began the tape and then faint voices. A man's came to the fore.

“I don't do oblique references. You want my help, you need to state clearly what you want, why, and what you're going to pay.”

“I want you to kill my wife, Yolanda Meeks. I'll pay you two hundred fifty thousand. She's a liability to me, and it needs to be done this week.”

“You understand when I make a call, that you cannot change your mind? If you fail to pay as agreed, you will yourself be killed by the shooter.”

“I understand the deal, just get it done fast.”

The tape went back to static. Sam put in the second tape.

“You want my help, you need to state clearly what you want, why, and what you're going to pay.”

“I want you to kill my brother, Victor Ryckoff. I'll pay you three hundred thousand after you've done the job. He's pushing into my business for the last time.”

“You understand when I make a call, that you cannot change your mind? If you fail to pay as agreed, you will yourself be killed by the shooter.”

“I understand the terms.”

Another round of static. Sam removed the tape. “It sounds like he's reading from a script.”

“He probably is. He's got down when he wants to start and stop the tape, and he's careful about what he wants on that recording,” Paul commented. “Flint Meeks killed his wife, Yolanda Meeks, and Tony Ryckoff killed his brother, Victor Ryckoff. The initials don't match the day-planner entries.”

“Nicknames,” Rita guessed. “Tin Man. Our aluminum company executive Flint Meeks is Tin Man, TM, and Tony Ryckoff wrote a newsletter called the Gold Nugget, that's the GN.”

“No names on the tapes, just voices. We need a voice match, that it really was them on that call, not just someone saying ‘my wife, my brother.'”

“We use Nathan Scholes,” Rita suggested. “He's good and he can keep his mouth shut. Lock him in a room, swear him to silence, give him the tapes, tell him what we need. People post birthday parties, family videos, these guys give speeches, maybe there is a public audio file he can work with to match their voices.”

Paul agreed. “Take him the tapes.”

“How do you want to handle investigating Flint Meeks and Tony Ryckoff? If they hired a murder, they've likely committed a few more felonies over the years. Can we start guys digging into their current lives without saying why we are looking?”

“I'll think on that overnight. It might be better to wait until we have as many tapes as we are going to get from the lady shooter before we start using any of the information. I don't want to tip our hand early and give these guys a warning. They believe they have gotten away with the crime. I'd like them to stay confident they are in the clear until the day we put handcuffs on them.” Paul could finally feel the calmness settling in that this was going somewhere. “Let's dig in and see how far we can get today. The boss offered to buy dinner.”

Paul glanced at the time when he got home and saw the clock had moved past midnight. He punched in Ann's number for a secure video call. He would have called from work, but it felt more personal calling from home. He was taking Vicky's word for it that Ann worked ten p.m. to two a.m. most days, as well as Dave's comment that she was a night owl.

“You're having a late night, Falcon.”

The fact she was smiling gave him some hope she was going to be forgiving about the interruption. “You look wide awake.”

She held up a book. “Another hour or so to go. I'd like to know how it ends. Something wrong?” She tilted her head. “No, something right. You look pleased. So . . . how was your day?”

“Long and profitable. We caught a break in the lady shooter case.” Paul saw her instant smile and matched it with one of his own.

“That must feel really good to say.”

“It is.” He picked up his phone and decrypted the image of the letter. He held it up without comment. She read it, smiled, and read it again. “Which tapes did she send you?”

The single question she started with told him he was right to bring her in on the case. “Twenty-five and twenty-nine.”

“She knew which day planners you had. She's been watching all the way back to the middleman's death.”

“I think so. Her name may be Linda Smythe, fifty-three, from Boston, Massachusetts. Or the prints may be a misdirect.”

He watched her think it through.

“She's not one to make a mistake like that,” she said. “If they are her prints, it's because she wants you to know something about her. She's going to work very hard to get a good deal in exchange for those tapes.”

“Agreed.”

“She's a planner. You won't catch her retrieving a package, not when her fallback is to walk away and tell the lawyer to resend it. But you'll have to try, and you'll have some fun making the chase. In past cases she's shown no indication she'll harm
a bystander, and she isn't likely to start now. Someone will pick up the package, and her plan will simply be an attempt to elude you in taking the handoff.”

“That's my read of it too. There's a chance now, a real chance, to catch the lady shooter, with the evidence to convict those who hired her.”

“Tapes of the murder for hires. I'm glad for you, Paul. I hope you get all thirty tapes.”

“I have a feeling this is going to unfold as a lot of hurry up and wait, and last for several weeks. Notice I said weeks, and I'm impatient at that thought when the case has been on the boards for years. I have a feeling patience isn't going to be my strong suit this time around. I'm hoping I can kill some of that waiting time with you.”

“I'll enjoy watching the FBI work. It will be nice being a spectator to a case for a change.” She studied him. “Could I meddle for a moment?”

“Sure.”

“Remember to get some rest during the times this case does sprint. I'll like you better when this is over.”

“I will. You can keep me honest.”

“Good. Because I'm about to hang up on you so you can go get some sleep.”

He laughed. “Good night, Ann.”

She was smiling as she dropped the link. So was he.

P
aul entered Suite 906 just before ten a.m. Margaret offered a mug of coffee and nodded toward Arthur's office. “Go right in.”

Paul walked into his boss's office. “Good morning, Arthur.” He hesitated. “Director.”

“Paul.” The director of the FBI crossed to shake hands. Edward Baine was career FBI, politically accustomed to turf wars, and underneath the polish was still a sharp cop with good instincts for people and problems. Paul liked the man. “I believe you know Tori Scott from the U.S. Attorney's Office.”

Paul took her hand. “I do. It's a pleasure, Tori.” She had been a guest along with her husband at his father's dinner table many times.

“Let's take a seat and we'll get started,” Arthur directed. Paul took a seat beside his boss. “Give us the highlights of where you're at, Paul.”

“The audiotapes are as advertised. She sent us tapes for murders twenty-five and twenty-nine. We've confirmed the voice print of the middleman and the two speakers on the tapes. Flint Meeks paid to kill his wife, Yolanda, and Tony Ryckoff paid to kill his brother, Victor.

“There are prints on the letter and the envelope which may
be the lady shooter, or they may be a distraction to keep us occupied. For reasons only she understands, she may want to let us know who she is.

“The prints are for a lady named Linda Smythe, now fifty-three, from Boston, Massachusetts. It fits with her first three murders, as that was her home territory. We have a bio for her through age twenty. She grew up in a violent and abusive home. Drunken father. Mentally ill mother. Numerous domestic calls, aggravated assault, drunk and disorderly. She was removed from the home twice. The mother died when Linda was ten, the father when she was seventeen. It could be her real bio, as it's the kind of background that could lead to a hired shooter. We haven't generated a match for the photo in DMV, or passport records yet, but we're working on it. The big question is her letter, and the decision on what to do.”

“Tori,” the director said, “you had an interesting perspective on this case that you shared on the flight here. I'd like to start the discussion there.”

“Thank you, sir. It seems best to keep an eye on the larger picture of what is possible when we decide what to do.” The woman shifted to sit forward. “Paul, you made her nervous with your investigation, she broke nine years of silence, and she contacted you. She is likely already regretting sending that envelope. She's confirmed to you she's still alive, and she has something you really want—tapes of the murder contracts. By her actions she intensifies the hunt to find her, she's no longer a ghost, and she's got to be on edge about that. If we reply with anything other than the offer she made in her letter, we give her an excuse to walk away. So we stay cautious with this first decision. Her letter is not a negotiation. She wants us to take or reject her offer.”

Tori sat back and folded her hands over a crossed knee. “With four more tapes, you have solid proof on six murders. And by continuing the interaction with her, you rapidly improve your ability to catch her. In my opinion, that is worth taking the
federal death penalty off the table. We still have the state death penalty in play on some of the murders. We use the first reply to show we will work with her, we convince her to keep talking with you, and we have that back-and-forth of mail to help find her.

“The more tapes you can get in your possession, the more your position improves relative to what she has to offer. She has the bulk of the tapes. When you have more than half of the tapes, the balance shifts and you can risk offering a different deal from what she wants. When her demands get too high, you counter with a smaller deal for a single tape, you try to drag out the communications, or you say no to her offer, ask her to suggest something else and see if she will offer a counter proposal. But you can't risk that move unless you are prepared for her to break off contact and disappear.” She looked at the director. “I don't think we are ready for her to disappear. So we stay with what she's requesting for now. Speaking personally, I want those thirty tapes. It's worth a great deal to get them.”

The director nodded. “I like commonsense plans, and I just heard one. We ignore the offer, we turn it down, and we lose access to tapes that are valuable and a chance to catch her. So we take the deal as offered and play this round out.” He looked at Paul. “You've been thinking this through. What else is on your mind?”

“We have a timing problem. We have to keep quiet the fact the lady shooter has made contact and is giving us tapes. If we tip our hand, the people who hired the hits will disappear. Or they will find and kill the lady shooter before she gives us all the tapes she's going to provide. So we need to wait and make all the arrests at the same time.”

Paul looked to Tori. “We have the tape with their voices contracting for the murder, the middleman records of what the lady shooter was paid, and—if we can catch her and she'll cooperate—the lady shooter's testimony. It's enough for an arrest. I don't know if that will be enough for a conviction. The two men we now know about have solid reputations, and
these are old murders.” Paul looked over at the director. “We'll have to do the aggressive investigations of the murders
after
the arrests are made. And we'll have up to thirty murders to investigate at the same time. It's going to take a lot of agents. I just don't see a way around that problem. We start making arrests before all the tapes are in, too many things can spin out of our control.”

“The priority for now is acquiring the tapes and capturing her,” the director decided. “Do whatever you can without jeopardizing that goal.”

“I appreciate that. A minor but critical point: we can't afford a mistake like those tapes accidentally going through security downstairs and getting erased, so we need a different drop-off place for her to return the agreement and tapes. I suggest we use Zane's address. I want to read him in on what is going on. He can alert me when a package arrives and can hand-deliver the tapes here.”

Arthur winced at the name of Paul's predecessor, but nodded. “Agreed.”

The director smiled, well aware of the complex history. “He'll be useful. Paul, run this out in time to the endgame. How would this ideally unfold?”

“There is a back-and-forth of letters while the thirty tapes come in. We identify who is on each tape. Once we have all the tapes, or all the tapes we judge we are likely to get, we rapidly scale up in personnel.

“Forty-eight hours before we make arrests, we lock a task force of lawyers in a room, lay out what we have for each case, and we decide in advance what kind of deal we will be willing to offer to each person.

“We make the thirty arrests as rapidly as possible. We serve warrants for financial records, phone records. We do the thirty interviews immediately and put the deals on the table. Twenty-four hours in we assess where we are at—who is going to take the deal, who is going to stay quiet, what information we've
been able to gather in the field, and what needs pursued next. We hold a press conference announcing the arrests.

“We start interviews in the field related to each murder. These people got away with hiring a murder, and odds are good at least a couple of them have made remarks to a friend or family member they are going to regret having said.

“Each murder gets assigned a legal team and a lead prosecutor. There are thirty arraignments. We hand off the murder cases to the attorney general and keep the lady shooter as our focus if we haven't caught her.

“We have one extra point working in our favor. The odds are good these people have committed at least one other major felony since they hired a murder, so while we focus on the investigation, we also get as aggressive as we can within the scope of the warrants and the inquiries to see what else is out there that might be easier to prosecute.”

The director nodded. “Let's hope it goes that smoothly. We'll need a room large enough to handle at least a hundred lawyers, and we'll need better than a hundred sixty agents available when this case moves to arrests, warrants, and interviews. I'll work on those preparations. Keep us updated on where the tapes lead, and let me know if there is anything else you need. We'll reassemble this group when there is another letter from her to decide how to answer.”

“Yes, sir.”

Paul looked to Arthur, who nodded and got to his feet, indicating the meeting was concluded. “Catch her, Paul.”

Paul returned to the small war room where Sam and Rita were working. He wrote down Tori Scott's direct number on the contact board. “That went smoother than I expected. We'll have an agreement drafted today as the lady shooter's letter specified.”

He turned to face the two. “I made a few decisions last night. This is going to play out over weeks, if not months, with a lot of
urgent moments and then a lot of waiting, and it's only going to be us working the case, so we divide and conquer. Rita, I'm giving you the tapes. Become best friends with Nathan Scholes. Identify the voices. Put a name on the person who paid for the murder. Prove the tapes are authentic. I need an audio match for each voice that will hold up in court.

“Sam, your priority is catching the lady shooter. We are sending signed copies of the agreement. She has to receive and sign those documents. We don't want her to abandon the package, we don't want to spook her and send her back in hiding. But within those boundaries, figure out how to use the reply package to catch her. As a cover story, someone is leaking classified information, and the package is being followed to locate who is receiving the information. Recruit whoever you want to use from here or a field office, and don't skimp on field expenses. Arrange whatever gives you an edge in catching her.

“I'll handle her letters and the agreements, and I'll work on building the murder cases once we have the names.” He looked at his watch. “I'm going up to talk with Thomas Gates as this agreement gets written, and then I'm going to go tell Zane I drafted him for another job. Let's meet back here later this afternoon.”

Paul pulled out a chair at the table. “Okay, Sam, I'm back and I'm all yours. Talk me through your plan for catching her while she retrieves the package.”

Sam reversed the video on his screen. He told Paul he had sent a local FBI agent to drive through the neighborhood in a van and now had a good video of the area to go along with the street maps and the satellite photos. Sam paused to point out a house. “I'll be here. There is a good view of the front door and mailbox. I will see anyone who takes the package and be able to get good photographs. If it looks like a middle-aged lady, we'll take her down right there. If it is someone she's sent, we'll settle in to trail them to her.”

Sam turned around the street map. “There's only one road leading out of the subdivision, and it has a stoplight. I will call ahead when the package is taken, and they will flip that light to hold at red and not turn green. Those assigned to tail the individual will pick him up as he leaves the subdivision. If the individual leaves the subdivision on foot, we will have teams at all corners of the subdivision to pick up the surveillance. We want to spot the handoff of the papers. We'll have six teams in the area to trade off coverage as he moves.