Authors: John Lescroart
Tags: #Suspense, #Fiction, #Legal stories, #United States, #Iraq, #San Francisco (Calif.), #Iraq War; 2003, #Glitsky; Abe (Fictitious Character), #Hardy; Dismas (Fictitious Character), #Contractors, #2003, #Abe (Fictitious Character), #Hardy, #Glitsky, #Dismas (Fictitious Character), #Iraq War
H
ARDY WAS IN HIS OFFICE
opening his mail, having just finished reviewing the documents that he had received over the past three weeks via registered mail from the local FBI office in San Francisco. The FBI had done its usual efficient and thorough job and, from fragments found at the Khalil home, had matched the grenades used in that attack to a cache of them at the Allstrong warehouse at BIAP. Beyond that, they had recovered a bullet from the Khalil scene and matched it to the gun that had been in Nolan’s duffel bag with the grenades. Downloads from Nolan’s hard drive revealed not just the photos of the Khalil house from various angles, but also photos of the eventual victims that looked as though they’d been scanned in. Nolan’s bank records memorialized regular biweekly automatic deposits of ten thousand dollars and another deposit, four days before the Khalils were killed, of twenty-five thousand. There was a handwritten quarter page in Nolan’s handwriting, noting the victims’ names and address, some indecipherable scribbling and doodling, and the notation “$50,000” circled several times.
The evidence tying the Khalils to a plot to kill Nolan was equally impressive. The wiretaps arrived, accompanied by neat binders of translations from the Arabic. There were informant reports, with names blacked out due to national security, but which clearly identified some of the Khalils as involved in a plot to murder Nolan in retaliation for the Menlo Park killings.
Hardy had to admire Jack Allstrong’s own thoroughness, as well as his caution. All of this evidence would be valuable to Hardy when the hearing came up for Scholler’s appeal. And none of it directly implicated either Allstrong himself or his company.
Of course, during the same time period, Hardy had been reading in the local press about the agents involved in the FBI’s handling of the Scholler case. The debate raged in the media about whether the agents had been merely grotesquely incompetent or criminally derelict in suppressing such critical evidence in the trial of a bona fide war hero. Agents were being transferred, suspended, and demoted.
Glitsky, following it daily with Hardy, could barely suppress his own glee. Hardy had tried to point out that it was unlikely that anyone truly culpable in the affair was ever really going to be punished, but Glitsky exulted in the random carnage the agency was inflicting on itself.
Now Hardy reached for an 8
1
/2 11 envelope. It had arrived addressed to him, personal and confidential, by regular mail with no return address, but postmarked in San Francisco. Reaching in, he pulled out two sheets of faxed copies of e-mail correspondence between
[email protected]
and
[email protected].
Dated the day after the Khalil murders, it acknowledged that Nolan had accomplished his most recent assignment and requested payment of the remainder of his fee into a certain bank account. Allstrong should advise Mr. Krekar that “the situation has been resolved, as promised; Krekar should expect to move on the Anbar contracts without competition.”
Although there was nothing remotely humorous about any of this, a ghost of a smile tickled the side of Hardy’s mouth. Maybe he ought to tell Glitsky that Bill Schuyler wasn’t the gullible, gutless G-man he needed to pretend to be if he wanted to keep his job. On the other hand, Hardy had no proof that Schuyler had had anything to do with this latest evidence. Any mention of his name would probably just get the man in more trouble. And in fact, the evidence could have come from any other FBI agent between San Francisco and Baghdad who had a sense of what was happening and a disgust at the role that the Bureau had been forced to play in it.
Hardy realized that without a witness or some other way to authenticate the documents, what he had in his hand were just two pieces of paper, worthless in a court of law. He sat at his desk pulling the tight skin at his jawline as for the hundredth, the thousandth, time he considered the ramifications of his intentions.
He had made no promises to Allstrong. To the contrary, he’d made it abundantly clear that whatever information he received would be his to do with as he pleased. Additionally, this wasn’t information he’d gotten from Allstrong anyway. He owed Allstrong nothing. As Allstrong himself had said, it was an inconvenient situation.
He got up and, without a word to anyone, walked across his office and out to the copy room, where he copied the two pages. Coming back to his desk, he put the copy in his file and began searching through his notes for the address of Abdel Khalil.
H
ARDY AND
F
RANNIE
were trimming the roses that bounded the fence in their backyard on a cool Sunday afternoon in the second week of June, talking about the arrival of their children, who’d both be returning home from their respective schools in the next couple of days. “I think they should both work,” Hardy said. “I worked every summer of my life.”
“Of course you did,” Frannie said. “I can see you now, four-year-old Dismas out plowing the fields. To say nothing of walking ten miles to school every day, in deep snow.”
“Leave out the snow part,” he said. “This was San Francisco, remember.”
“Yeah, but back when you were a baby, wasn’t the climate different here?” Frannie enjoying the little joke at the expense of the eleven-year difference in their ages.
“You’re a very funny person.” He reached over and clipped a newly budded rose just at its base.
“Hey!” She turned on him.
“It’s my old eyes,” he said, backing away. “I was aiming for lower down on the stem.”
“Yeah, well, keep it up and I’ll aim for lower down too.” She took a quick and playful swipe at him with her cutting tool.
Hardy backed up another step, then cocked his head, looking over her shoulder. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”
Glitsky was just emerging into the yard from the narrow walkway between their house and the neighbor’s. He was in civilian clothes, hands in the pockets of his battered leather jacket. Getting up to them, he gave Frannie half a hug and accepted her kiss on the cheek, then turned to her husband. “You should leave your phone on.”
“I know. It’s bad of me,” Hardy said. “But it’s Sunday, I figured whatever it is can wait. But maybe not.”
“Maybe not, after all. You know anything about this?”
“About what?”
“Jack Allstrong.”
Hardy felt his stomach go hollow. He caught his breath, cleared his throat, tried to swallow. “No. What about him?”
“He got in his car this morning down in Hillsborough and turned it on and it blew up him and half his house. It’s all over the news.”
“I don’t watch TV on Sunday either.”
Glitsky just stood there.
Frannie touched Glitsky’s arm. “Abe? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know, Fran. I don’t know if anything’s wrong. I was thinking Diz might be able to tell me.” He kept his eyes on Hardy.
Who drew another breath, then another, then blew out heavily and went down to one knee.
[2008]
O
N A WARM LATE-SUMMER DAY
about fifteen months after Jack Allstrong’s death, an excellent jazz quartet was doing arrangements of big band material in her backyard as Eileen Scholler came out of her house. She wended her way under the balloons and through the large crowd of well-wishers, touching an arm here, a back there, smiling and exchanging pleasantries and congratulations with her guests. At last she came to the table under one of the laden lemon trees where Dismas and Frannie Hardy sat drinking white wine with Everett Washburn.
“Ah, here you are, way in the back. Do you mind if an old lady pulls up a chair?”
“I don’t see any old ladies,” Washburn said, “but glowing mothers of war heroes are always welcome.”
Hardy pulled out the chair and as she sat, her eyes started to tear up at Washburn’s words. She smiled around the table. “War hero. I never thought I’d hear anybody say that about Evan again. And now…” She indicated the overflow crowd and turned to Hardy. “How am I ever going to repay you?” she asked.
“Believe me, Eileen,” he said, “the result was plenty payment enough.” After the court of appeals had ordered a new trial for Evan, the San Mateo County district attorney declined to prosecute further. The FBI, it seems, was reluctant to cooperate, citing national security and the need to keep its own internal investigation confidential. Over the impassioned objection of Mary Patricia Whelan-Miille, the DA had been only too happy to use that as a reason to dismiss the charges. “Seeing Evan walking around a free man. Look at him over there, laughin’ and scratchin’.”
They all looked to where Evan stood with his arm around Tara in a knot of people comprised of his father, several other guys and women about his own age, Tony Onofrio, and even Stan Paganini.
“I still feel like it’s a dream,” Eileen said. “Like I’m going to wake up and he’s going to be in prison again.”
Frannie reached over and put a hand over hers. “That’s not going to happen. What’s going to happen is he and Tara are going to get married next month and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you become a grandmother in pretty short order after that.”
Eileen squeezed Frannie’s hand, looked briefly skyward, then came back to her. “Your mouth to God’s ear,” she said, “but I almost can’t bring myself to hope after all this time.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Hardy said.
“No.” Eileen smiled across at him. “You don’t understand. I never want to get used to it. I want to just be glad he’s back in our lives every day and never forget how today feels and how lucky we are. We really never believed we’d see this, and now that it’s here, it’s just…well, it’s just a miracle. We’re living in a miracle and we can’t forget that and I’m just so grateful.”
Suddenly she stood up, walked around behind Washburn, leaned over and hugged Hardy for a long moment, then gave him a kiss on the cheek and straightened up. “Thank you,” she said. “Now I think I’m going to go hug my son again.”
“That’s a great idea,” Hardy said. “Hug him for me too.”
When she’d gone off, Washburn sipped his wine. “I must confess to both of you that I feel a little awkward being here. She should have been able to have this party four years ago.”
Hardy shook his head. “The government cheated, Everett. They cheated him out of a fair trial. I wouldn’t beat myself up over it.”
Frannie leaned over. “Yes, he would,” she said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you shouldn’t.”
“Well, in any event,” Washburn said, “justice delayed is justice denied and all of that, but today I’ve got to go with it’s better late than never.” He glanced back over in Evan’s direction. “The boy’s paid some pretty mean dues, I’ll give him that. Whatever’s up next, I’ve got to believe he’s going to be able to handle it.”
“Odds are good,” Hardy said. “The odds are pretty damn good.”
E
VAN KNEW
that he was dealing with an expert in hand-to-hand combat and couldn’t afford to hesitate. As soon as Nolan started to open the door, he lowered his shoulder and rammed as hard as he could. The impact knocked Nolan backward, the back of his leg caught the edge of the coffee table, and he went over and down backward. Evan was on him, a knee into his chest, almost before he hit the floor, and he followed with two or three near-instantaneous metal-knuckled fists to the jaw.
But all the alcohol he had on board wasn’t to his advantage. Nolan came up with a vicious karate chop to Evan’s neck that pitched him off to the side and onto his back, by the fireplace, while at the same time it cut off his ability to breathe.
Nolan twisted and leapt across the distance separating them, maybe five feet. Evan swung wildly in a huge roundhouse that Nolan blocked with his arm, but scored with a knee to the groin that allowed him to go inside, then jab twice at Nolan’s head with the knuckles, glancing blows that nevertheless moved Nolan back. But not for long. Nolan got to his knees and actually produced a vacant smile of determination. “You are so fucking dead,” he said.
Scrambling to his own feet, still gasping for breath, Evan grabbed the poker by the fireplace and held it to the side for an instant and then stepped forward and slashed with it. Nolan jumped back out of the way and, as the poker got past him, twisted half around and delivered a kick to Evan’s stomach that knocked more air out of him, though it left Nolan exposed to the backhand slash of the poker.
But between the loss of breath and his drunken state, Evan’s reflexes weren’t responding as they usually did. Nolan got his hands on the poker as it came at him and brought it over his own shoulder and he turned and leveraged himself into Evan’s torso, pulling him over his back, slamming him down, judo-style, half against the coffee table and half onto the floor. Evan felt as though he’d broken his back, but if he simply lay there and let Nolan come at him, he knew that he would have no chance and that his enemy would kill him here and now. So in desperation he kicked out again, this time hitting Nolan hard in the knee, spinning him half around and down against the brick of the fireplace, clattering in the tools still left against the hearth.
When Evan tried to move to get up again, though, his body wouldn’t obey the frantic commands of his brain. Pushing against his own inertia, he rolled himself over and over again, hoping to use the coffee table as a shield as Nolan picked himself up, slowly now, as though sensing his advantage.
Still struggling for breath, the images of Nolan straightening up doubling and blurring before his eyes, Evan forced himself to a knee, hoping to get his hands on something he could use for a weapon. The only chance was the poker, on the floor midway between them. With an animal growl, lunging, he got his hands on it just as Nolan’s one foot came down, pinning his hands to the floor, while the other foot cocked and exploded at Evan’s left ear, knocking him headfirst against the wall, from where, now unconscious, he crumpled to the ground.