The Dark Hour (13 page)

“What do they want?”

“I’m sure killing me would be preferable. But barring that outcome, muzzled is the next best thing. And they’ve done that.”

“So burning you solved part of their objective. They wanted you out of the way. You’re out. Something must be going down. Something with LockeStarr?”

“Maybe. Like I said, Becca and I were working a case on LockeStarr when she— The last time I—” Hell. He’d been so wrapped up in avenging Becca’s death that he’d failed to see how effectively he’d allowed his hands to be tied. How easily he’d been trapped. “Faas was supposedly giving me info on who killed Becca. I came here to find out where he got his info. And now?”

“You mean if she’s not dead?”

“All the more reason to see if we can find out what Faas was up to before he was killed. There may be something here in his office.”

“You think it would be here where he worked and not at his house?”

“I already checked his house. And he was killed leaving here.”

She looked around the room, then turned to him, whispering, “Please tell me we are
not
breaking into this museum in the middle of the night. They have guards. With guns.”

He looked at his watch. It was almost noon. “I was thinking more like this afternoon. And we won’t be breaking in anywhere. They’ll be letting us in.” He glanced over at her. “As soon as we think of a reason why.”

Chapter 19

December 8

FBI Headquarters

Washington, D.C.

C
arillo walked into Pearson’s office, looking around, trying to figure out why anyone in the Bureau would be interested in working this spy stuff full-time. Beat the hell out of him, he thought, taking a seat in one of two chairs that faced Pearson’s desk.

Pearson looked up from his paperwork. “I’ll be right with you.”

Carillo didn’t answer. He knew Pearson’s type. A little of that holier-than-thou attitude, even if the guy did earn it. Carillo sure as hell couldn’t do what Pearson did. Put up with the administrative crap not only in the Bureau, but also all the other government agencies they dealt with. Too damned many asses to kiss.

Pearson signed the document he’d been reading, then slid it into a routing envelope, before turning his attention to Carillo. “How’s the investigation coming?”

“It’s coming,” Carillo said.

Pearson leaned back in his chair, his expression one of annoyance. “And?”

“And I don’t know enough about it one way or another to make a determination—never mind I don’t trust anyone, including you.”

“You’re close to insubordination.”

“I tend to do that when my bullshit meter’s going off. And in this case, it started going off the moment two Company guys showed up at my favorite Taco Bell telling me I should turn down this job that you hadn’t yet offered me—because they, and anyone else who did the least bit of background on me, are smart enough to know I would have turned it down had it come through the normal channels. So I have to ask myself why the CIA cares, and how they knew you’d ask me. Which means you all sat around and discussed who to pick for the investigation. And that tells me that this is a hell of a lot bigger than some schmuck senator who was offed by a schizophrenic who was conveniently placed in a cell with a blind spot so he could off himself. Not to mention why the hell does a foreign intelligence agency even care about an investigation run by the Bureau?”

“Anything else?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. Why me?”

“Your
sterling
reputation.”

“Ding, ding, ding.”

“Fine. Your tarnished reputation.”

“As what? The bumbling detective who has no hope of realizing he’s only running a façade investigation?”

“Hardly. We needed someone who would be overlooked as any sort of threat. You came highly recommended by the CIA due to a past case they’d had involving Fitzpatrick’s father. They seemed to think that your unorthodox approach to work would be beneficial.”

“I’m guessing that’s not a compliment.”

“You did have one admirer—in a backhanded way. Your former boss, Dave Dixon. He said that if we were looking for someone who would be underestimated, even dismissed, you were the man.”

“Good old Dave.”

“He also said you were effective. As long as we didn’t examine your methods too close.”

“So at what point were you going to tell me?”

“When we found out that, A, the senator’s murder was more than what it appeared on the surface, and, B, when it became absolutely necessary, since this entire matter is on a need-to-know basis for national security reasons. If there was nothing to the senator’s murder, it was as it appeared, you close out your case and go home none the wiser. If there was something to it, then you’d be in the perfect place to help Fitzpatrick.”

“What about Fitzpatrick?” he asked, not wanting to get her in trouble, should Pearson merely be fishing for info.

“I’m aware that a report surfaced from MI5 with Fitzpatrick’s name linked to the senator’s. It wasn’t a stretch to connect the dots to other OGAs, one of which doesn’t even exist on paper,” he said, obviously referring to that other governmental agency known as ATLAS. “That aside, should anyone inquire, what you’re involved in is a simple murder investigation. You will report to me about the murder. Anything beyond that . . .” He opened his top desk drawer, taking out a business card for the
Washington Recorder
, and handing it to Carillo. “Your contact on who to give the information.”

“James Dalton . . . ?” Carillo said, reading the name.

“I believe you may know him as Tex.”

“Got it.”

“Other than that, I have no immediate knowledge of Fitzpatrick’s whereabouts or actions. As far as I know, she’s taken some personal time off, and I will testify to that fact if required to do so.”

Which told Carillo that they were all in big trouble if this went south. “Anything else I should know? Like the name of a good attorney if the shit hits the fan?”

“If that happens, call me. We’ll both need one.”

“Not a problem. I only have one concern about all this. No one’s going to try to use this as a way to move me into supervision or anything?”

Pearson smiled. A first. “No worries there. Your strong disrespect for the supervisory role is well-known.” His smile faded, and he was back to boss mode. “That limits who we can trust, and the less I know about what anyone does in their
free
time, the better. You are, in essence, Fitzpatrick’s lifeline.”

Pearson’s parting statement echoed in Carillo’s ears long after he left FCI to go pick up the forensic report on the shooter’s computer. It was one thing for Sydney to go out and do some sketch for Griffin. Quite another when she was out there needing a lifeline to survive. Not when it involved the likes of ATLAS, an OGA that played for much higher stakes than anything the typical FBI agent was used to dealing with.

As he walked to the Computer Analysis unit, he consoled himself with the thought that it didn’t matter that Sydney’s name was linked with Grogan’s, or that there was any big undercover investigation. She’d worked with ATLAS once before in Italy and came out fine. At least that was what he thought until he picked up the forensic report he’d ordered on the computer.

He didn’t understand a lot of what he was reading, because they’d apparently only recovered partial files from the erasure. His instincts, however, told him that Sydney’s problems were only a small part of the equation, and he called ATLAS right away to say he was bringing the paperwork over.

If any of this stuff was true, a lot of people were going to die.

Chapter 20

December 8

ATLAS Headquarters

Washington, D.C.

T
ex reread the latest report on the AUV investigation. On the off chance it was related, ATLAS had already dispatched a ship to do some forensic salvaging in the area where the college students had reported their boat was blown up by the pirates. Marc di Luca was heading out there in the next day or two, even though they had yet to find anything unusual. This latest report, however, had Tex worried. Although their suspicions were that LockeStarr had to be involved in the theft of the AUV somehow, they hadn’t been able to make the connection, because the company that had managed the port where the theft occurred was above reproach—until an investigator decided to run a past check to see what their record was in other ports.

And that was when he’d apparently discovered that this above-reproach company had taken over the management of that port only six months before the theft. It was the
previous
six months that made Tex sit up and take notice, even though the record during that time was spotless. The company? LockeStarr. He called McNiel. “You read this report from MI5?”

“I did,” McNiel said. “And I just got a call about something that wasn’t in the report. Dr. Fedorov was definitely seen in the area right before the theft of the AUV. So if Fedorov is working for LockeStarr, that confirms our suspicions that LockeStarr’s responsible for the missing AUV.”

“But what the hell are they doing with it?” Tex asked, as his secretary knocked on his door.

“There’s an FBI agent in the lobby to see you. A Tony Carillo,” she said.

“I’ll be right there,” he told her. Then to Marc, he said, “Carillo’s here now. Let me see if he’s turned up anything on Grogan’s murder.”

“Keep me informed.”

When Tex stepped off the elevator into the lobby of the
Washington Recorder
, he saw a man, late thirties, dark hair, dark eyes, wearing a charcoal suit, white shirt, and a necktie loosened at the collar. He stood there reading one of the
Recorder
’s faux articles on the wall. “Tony Carillo?” Tex asked.

“You must be Tex.” Carillo turned, shook hands with him.

“Pearson mentioned you might be stopping by. We can talk in my office.”

Carillo grabbed his overcoat and a leather portfolio from one of the chairs, then followed Tex to the elevator. “You guys really write those articles?” Carillo asked when they got off on Tex’s floor.

“We actually have a couple agents on staff who have talent.”

“You one of them?”

Tex laughed as he directed Carillo into his office, then closed the door. “Let’s just say if I really was working as a journalist, I’d have been fired a long time ago. I’m lucky I can write a competent report.”

“Nice,” Carillo said, looking around. “We get cubicles at the Bureau.”

Tex eyed the industrial gray tile floor and the rather battered wood desk and matching credenza that he’d acquired from the government surplus warehouse. His only concession to luxury was the small fridge, which he had bought himself. “It’s not the most luxurious of digs, but it works.”

“Anything with a goddamned door is luxurious where I work.” Carillo tossed his coat onto one of the two chairs by Tex’s desk, then sat in the other. “So, I take it from everything that’s going on, this mess with Grogan’s murder is the tip of some iceberg?”

“We believe so. We just haven’t figured out which iceberg. You discover anything?”

“Depends. I have a list of phone numbers received from his office, and identified all but one in the few days before he was murdered.”

“What’s the number?”

Carillo handed over a sheet of paper from his portfolio. “It’s the one underlined in red, second to the last, came in just before the senator left for his speech. His secretary didn’t recognize the number, but she said no one unusual called. Just his wife. I might try interviewing the secretary later. She was, uh, overly distraught. I gathered she and the senator were having a fling while the Mrs. was holding down the fort back in his home state.”

“Frankly, I could use something a little more solid than a phone number that can’t be cross-referenced.”

“Maybe this’ll help.” Carillo opened up his portfolio once more, this time pulling out a manila folder, and sliding it across the desk. “It’s a report from our computer forensics about your shooter’s hard drive. Read this, and you’re gonna wonder what’re the chances your suspect, Hollis, hangs himself all on his own in the one exact spot that is out of view of the camera.”

Tex opened the folder, flipped through the pages and pages of printouts. “You mind giving me the
Reader’s Digest
version?”

“I’m sure one of the Bureau’s computer geeks could say it better, but our shooting suspect liked to dabble in computer viruses. Even though the computer was wiped, we were able to bring up bits and pieces of e-mails he stockpiled from various computer systems he’d hacked into. I’ll let you read what they recovered, but it sort of mirrors this whole nano-chimera-virus-looking-for-Atlantis thing that showed up on his Web site.”

“Chimera virus?” Tex said, turning through the pages with renewed interest.

“He was a conspiracy-theory freak. It’s like he was basing the crap on his Web site from what he found on these e-mails.”

“So you think someone killed him because of these e-mails?”

“Unless you can think of a better reason. Someone went to a lot of trouble to erase this stuff through several layers, which made it difficult to retrieve anything.”

“You look at this, the guy seems like a nutcase. What’s your take on it?”

“The likely scenario? Whoever he hacked must have discovered the security breach, probably set him up to open a loaded e-mail and traced it back to him. Assuming this stuff is as incriminatory as I think, I’m guessing the hackee saw their stuff on the hacker’s computer, probably found his Web site, and saw the connection to the e-mails from their own system. Your shooter was a fairly competent hacker. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t realize anyone would notice.”

“Apparently they did.”

“Yeah. I’m guessing he probably figured that out right around the time someone strung him from those holding cell bars.”

“You think he shot the senator?”

“Put it this way. The cocktail of drugs found in his system was almost too convenient. And from our background on him, he’s got no real experience with a firearm to aim that well, even on a good day. And how the hell’d he get the gun past security into the community college where the speech took place? My opinion? Highly possible that someone was behind him, shot the senator, then placed the gun in his hand. He was so delusional when they picked him up, he wouldn’t have remembered what happened. Perfect patsy.”