The Cain File (9 page)

Ed leaned over and whispered quietly, “Maggie. Shut up.”

Walder gave Maggie a furious eyebrow-twitching glare. “All of this because of a payroll inconsistency. Two deaths, two wounded. A major humiliation.”

“Two million dollars saved,” Maggie said. Along with the Amazon, for the time being. But she kept that to herself.

Walder spoke to Ed and Maggie both. “Cowboys—and cowgirls—forensic accounting analysts. What’s clear is that this department overextended its reach. Your job is to provide analysis. Why Agent de la Cruz was even allowed to go along is a matter of concern. And she should have simply transferred the money when the situation turned south. This has made it to CNN and Fox News. All over an employee of an oil company taking a kickback. Good lord.”

Don’t bring Her into it, Maggie thought, running her tongue under her lip. But she said, “Understood. It will not happen again.”

“No, it certainly won’t,” Walder said, standing up, buttoning his jacket. “And if it does, Agent de la Cruz, you’ll be looking at more than simple dismissal. Do I make myself clear?”

She absorbed that. “Yes, sir.”

“This meeting is over. I don’t expect to ever attend another one like it.” He left the room.

Houseman rose while the woman in red packed up her computer. On the way out the door, he approached Maggie. “I’ll take that laptop.”

“There’s still some data I need to catalogue. Evidence we can use against Commerce Oil—if need be.”

He put his hand out. He’d been overshadowed by a director and wanted to look tough. Agency politics. “I said, ‘I’ll take that laptop.’”

Maggie shut down the MacBook and it died with a rattle and whiz. She closed the lid and handed it over. She wanted to ask if he even knew what to do with it.

Luddite. She’d already backed everything up anyway.

“What did you expect, Maggs?” Ed stuffed a thatch of wiggling noodles into his mouth with throwaway chopsticks and slurped the food down before he continued. “You should never have gone over Houseman’s head on the op to begin with.” Wiping his beard with a white cloth napkin, he gulped tea from a cup without a handle. “Oh, but that’s freaking hot.” He set the cup down and shook his fingers.

Moshi’s was packed with a lunchtime crowd and the voices, many of them speaking Japanese, clattered off the walls at a level that would keep any conversation private, as waiters bustled to and fro, delivering steaming bowls of food to crowded tables.

“That report sat on his desk for months,” Maggie said, sipping from a bowl of miso soup. The salty broth felt restorative after her ordeal in South America, which was finally beginning to subside.

“Well, it was a noble effort. But it didn’t happen. I hope you learned something. About going over a deputy director’s head.”

“Is this the ‘impulsive’ speech again?”

Ed shrugged. “It’s gotten you into trouble before. Learn a lesson. Before it learns you.”

“Thanks for supporting me in that meeting, by the way.”

“Lot of good it did.”

The crash of dishes back in the kitchen added to the din for a moment.

“We’re not really finished, though, right, Ed?”

“On this? Ed picked up a blue-and-white ceramic bowl with fish patterns on the side. “As far as you’re concerned—
ja
. Finished. Most definitely. Half of Washington is getting their pockets lined by Commerce Oil. Why do you think they sent Walder and Houseman out to stamp on our toes?”

“For not giving away two mil like it was chump change. How did Beltran know about the sting?”

Ed set his bowl down, belched softly, said
sorry.

“How did you know National Vice weren’t going to show?” she asked.

Ed shook his head.

“Meaning you’re not going to tell me?”

“Meaning I can’t. Department protocol. But it was on the up and up. John Rae’s intel wasn’t as good. Sometimes having distance from an op is better. Not generally, but sometimes. And in this case, it was.”

“Where
is
John Rae?”

“Just made it back. Getting debriefed as we speak.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that.”

“Held them all off until you got out of there, and then managed to diffuse the situation so no one else died. Talked his way out.”

Yeah, he was pretty good at what he did. Maggie had to agree.

“Rumor is, he says not giving Beltran the money was
his
idea. That he pushed you into it.”

Well, she had to admit she liked John Rae a whole lot better. And she liked him enough to begin with. “That kind of makes him a real gent, doesn’t it?”

“They’re not going to nail an op as good as him for making a cowboy decision.”

“Any update on the guy who picked me up? And how he knew about me in the first place? The ‘check’ code?”

“You mean the guy whose neck you broke? He’s not really in a position to tell us.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got your finger on the pulse.”

“The authorities down there aren’t releasing any information on him and are blaming us for the incident. Standard.”

“Throw me a bone.”

“I don’t have a clue, Maggie. But I’m going to try and find out.”

“
Try?
”

“Were you at the same meeting I was just at? The one with Walder chewing us out? Houseman? We have to keep out noses clean. Snot free.”

“Thanks for the lunchtime image.” She set her bowl down, pushed it to one side. “How many people knew you and I were in contact that day on Skype? When you told me not to go to the embassy?”

“Yeah, that bothers me.” Ed rested his elbows on the table. “The usual channels. The communication was logged.”

Maggie nodded slowly. “So a lot of the Agency knew. Maybe the same person who told Beltran about the sting. But get this, you said not to go to the embassy, and my mysterious pickup with the broken neck was planning on taking me there. Thought I’d go along with it. Thank God he got it wrong.”

“Whoever She is,” Ed said, quoting Maggie.

“So how did you know? Not to go to the embassy?”

Ed took a deep breath. “Now that’s something else I’m not going to tell you. Just be happy you got out of that car alive. Because I am.”

“I think what I’m saying is don’t tell me to just drop this, Ed. Not something this big.”

“This is the game that moves as you play, Maggie. You’re the one who wants to be a field op.”

“Only because I’m dead where I am.”

“Because you go over people’s heads.”

“I appreciate that, but . . .”

“Believe me, Maggs, I’m looking into it. But you—you’re not looking into anything.” His piercing eyes focused on Maggie through his glasses. “You heard Walder. Can you say: ‘jail time’?”

She sat back, drummed her blue nails on the Formica tabletop. No one wanted to know the op existed. Or was it that Commerce Oil didn’t want anybody to know the op existed?

“Got it.”

“Good.”

“One small thing, though.”

“Jesus. It better be small at this point. I’d like to make it to retirement.”

“Those kids who guided me to safety. Kacha. And her sister. Whatever is going on in the Yasuni is more than dirty money looking for a pocket to hide in.”

“No doubt. But I just got done saying that’s not your job.”

“These girls—a cousin of theirs was arrested and imprisoned. A young woman named Tica Tuanama.”

Ed drank tea. “Arrested for what?”

“Protesting the oil companies . . . out in the Yasuni. I said I’d help try to find out what was going on . . . maybe get her out . . .”

Ed stared at Maggie.

“Ed, Kacha saved my ass and I said we’d help find her cousin and try to get her out. I know we can do that sometimes.”

Ed stared at her over his teacup. “Ask me again next week. When this has died down to a dull roar.”

“I also said we’d get her some reward money. I’d like to do
that
soon.”

“Jesus H., Maggie. I can just see the response that’s going to get.”

“Those girls are living in a shack. The sister is turning tricks so they can eat. She’s got an infant. Want me to describe little Irpa living in the slums while you scarf down your lunch?”

“Look, I’ll do what I can. But I can tell you now it’s not going to be much. And it’s not going to be soon. Anything that smacks of this op will get shit-canned and put you—and me—under the microscope.”

“Ed, she stuck her neck out for me.”

Ed gave a deep sigh. “Write it up,” he said. “Submit it. Then take a day off, rest up. And when you return to work, get stuck back into the Acorn probe. You’ve been overdue on your forensic analysis on that for some time now.”

“We both know Acorn is nothing but a keep-busy project. Half the people are already indicted.”

“I’ll look forward to reviewing your notes. You go back to forensic analysis. NCIS without the bodies.” Ed picked up his bowl, dug more noodles out, forced them into his mouth.

It was a good thing he was a cute slob, otherwise it would be even more difficult to eat with him, Maggie thought. It already was kind of hard to eat with him.

“But now there
are
bodies.”

Ed sucked down the last of his noodles. “When you’re on a losing streak, you walk away. You don’t keep doubling down.”

“This isn’t blackjack. This is some kid scared shitless in a South American jail. I won’t ask for anything else. I promise.”

Ed raised his bushy eyebrows. “Why not call your old man to pull a few strings? He must know people.”

“Don’t talk about my father, Ed.” Maggie said. “You know better than that.”

“A lot of ops don’t work out the way they should. That’s why I went for a desk job.”

Truth was, Ed got out of Field Ops to marry an Irish girl with green eyes and jet black hair. Who dumped him once she moved to San Francisco and saw that settling for a giant Teddy Bear with atrocious table manners in a town where pretty people were the norm wasn’t, perhaps, what she wanted after all. After Ed had paid her way to the U.S., got her a work permit, taken the job transfer.

The waitress bustled by, dropped a plastic tray with a bill on top of it unceremoniously on the table.

Ed got his wallet out. It was beat up and falling apart. “Acorn is your focus. Find the facts. That’s what you’re good at: finding facts.”

But facts were people, when you got right down to it. And people wound up hurt. Sometimes worse.

“Take a day off,” Ed said, leaning back, extracting a credit card. “Take two. Decompress. That’s an order. You look beat.”

“Thanks.”

“Beautiful but beat. You didn’t get any sleep on the plane?”

“In between getting questioned by Field Ops? As much as one can sleep on a C-one-thirty.” She’d had to wait for the better part of a day in a sweltering hangar outside Lima for the military transport to be dispatched. She tapped the toe of her dark blue Lanvin scrunch loafer. Her feet were still killing her after her sprint across Quito in cheap Keds.

“Might not be a bad idea to lay low for a while. Take a couple of days, come back refreshed, and work on Acorn.” Ed raised his thick eyebrows. “Acorn.”

“Acorn. Got it.”

She could say she was off the hook having to worry about Tica. She had tried. She could say that. Couldn’t she?

She remembered her
mami
saying: If someone needs your help and you’re in a position to, then what you must do is obvious.

Ed crossed his big arms, motioned at a plate of calamari in front of her, in a tangy red sauce. “You gonna eat those?”

“Knock yourself out.”

On the way home, Maggie stopped at Civic Center, the cherry blossoms opening up over the homeless encampments around City Hall. She stood, wondering what time it was for a moment, then dialed John Rae Hutchens’ phone number on her cell. She had a good head for numbers and remembered it from looking it up earlier that morning.

She got the standard Agency voicemail blurb.  At the beep, she said, “Heard you just got back. Checking that you made it in one piece. And to say
gracias
for going to bat for me. What a ride. Give me a call when you’ve settled.” She left her landline number, and not her name, and took the Muni metro back home.

“The president’s office,” Oil Minister Beltran said. “And step on it.”

His chauffeur shut the rear passenger door to the 750Li, ensconcing Beltran in black-padded leather and soft classical music. He ran around to the driver’s side, his pistol bouncing in its holster under his arm, got in, started up the luxury sedan with a throaty rumble. They set off through the gates of the mansion on the top of the hill overlooking Quito, the silver-helmeted guards saluting as they sailed by. Morning fog was burning off, which meant Beltran was running late. But the call from
el presidente’s
office had only come a little over an hour ago. Unexpected.

Unwanted.

Beltran had been on tenterhooks since the disastrous reception for the oil coalition. Things had gone horribly, disastrously, wrong, but at least he’d had prior knowledge of the intended trap. Thanks to his connection. And been able to foil it by
not
signing the documents. And saved Li and Velox from scandal as well. Were they the least bit grateful? People like them never were. No one acknowledged dirty work, the necessary pain, digging the trenches the foundations of enterprise were built upon. Even when done on their behalf.
Especially
when done on their behalf. Right now they were no doubt scrambling to cover their tracks. Velox and Li were masters of coming out of steaming piles of manure smelling like roses, thanks to people like Beltran. While Beltran took all the risks.

No one valued what the guy on the front line did.

His biggest regret, however, was that he’d lost the two million. With what he’d squirreled away, he could have said goodbye and moved to Madrid with that money. Spain. The mother country. Now
that
was the place to be. But that damn woman, the good-looking
norteamericana
accountant, had foiled his plan, risking all of their lives, when she could have simply transferred the money and been done with it. Everyone could have gone their separate ways without a single shot fired. What were two million little
pavos
to the Yanquis? She was as bad as that uppity agent who talked like a cowboy—sounding like John
Pendejo
Wayne. Before she jumped through the fifteenth-century window he’d scoured Andalusia for and brought back at considerable expense.