Fatal Conceit (2 page)

“Is there something else?” Karp asked.

“Well, he was drinking a twenty-five-year-old Macallan, a real connoisseur's scotch—can't afford it myself though I would if I could,” she began, then her voice trailed off.

“And?”

“I don't know . . . maybe it's nothing, but he apparently emptied the capsules—
diazepam
, better known as Valium, according to the bottle—into the scotch and drank it,” Manning said, “as opposed to just swallowing the capsules and washing them down with scotch.”

“And that strikes you as odd because?”

“The Valium would have ruined the taste of the Macallan for someone who likes fine scotch, as apparently he did.”

Karp looked thoughtful and then nodded. “Great deductive reasoning, Mrs. Sherlock Holmes. I know you're thorough, but let's be extra particular with the toxicology and get me a report as soon as you can.”

“Will do . . . uh-oh, what now?” A sudden commotion out in the sitting room made Karp and Manning turn their heads. They could hear but not see the participants engaged in the abrupt loud argument.

“This is a federal investigation, everybody out,” a stern male voice demanded.

“Like hell it is,” a voice Karp knew was Fulton's growled. “Everybody keep doing what you're doing!”

Karp reached the bedroom door just as a short man in a dark suit and sunglasses attempted to reach for the laptop computer only to be blocked by Fulton. “You're obstructing a federal agent in the performance of his duty,” the short man snarled. His identically dressed partner, a taller, younger man who looked like a former college quarterback, stepped forward as if to intercede.

Fulton half-smiled as he met the younger man chest to chest. “Yeah, and you're in New York City, which makes it an NYPD investigation until I say it ain't.”

Everybody in the room turned when Karp walked out of the bedroom. “Mind telling me what this is about?” he asked the short man.

“Mr. Karp. I'm Special Agent Jack Robbins and this is Special Agent Ricardo Fuentes, FBI. This is now a federal case. I want that computer and I want everybody out of here, and that includes the big guy.”

“On what grounds?” Karp inquired mildly.

“National security. I'm sure you're aware of the identity of the deceased. The president has asked the FBI to investigate and that computer may contain sensitive materials that require classified clearance to view,” Robbins replied curtly. “And I'm sure your techno-geek there doesn't have that clearance.”

Karp's eyes narrowed. “The president asked you to investigate? I just heard about this thirty minutes ago. How'd the president know and get you guys involved so quickly?”

The agent frowned. “I'm not at liberty to discuss that.”

“In other words, you don't know because they don't tell guys at your level those sorts of things,” Karp said, walking over until he was towering over the smaller man. “Whatever that computer may or may not contain, regarding national security, it may also hold evidence relevant to the cause and manner of the death of the deceased.”

“Evidence? Investigation? This isn't a homicide.”

“We're in the preliminary stages of determining precisely what has occurred, and your presence is, quite frankly, highly suspect. Nevertheless, since I'm the chief law enforcement officer in New York County everything remains under my jurisdiction and authority. So until I determine otherwise, NYPD will be the custodians of all the evidence, particularly the computer.”

Robbins glared up at Karp. “I'll get a federal court order,” he said through clenched teeth.

“You do what you think you have to do, and I'll see you in court,” Karp responded. “In the meantime, Detective Fulton, I want that computer locked up at the DAO. I'll make it available for these gentlemen to look at there in your presence
after
you and the fine young computer savant behind you have had an opportunity to examine it. I'm sure the two of you will disregard any alleged sensitive materials bearing on national security.”

“You'll regret this, Karp,” Robbins hissed.

“I doubt it,” Karp replied nonchalantly. “Now you're obstructing the NYPD and DAO from performing their duties. So either remove yourselves, or I'll ask Detective Fulton to escort you out of here in handcuffs and deliver you to the Tombs, where you can call your bosses to come bail you out.”

The agent started to reply but then looked at Fulton, who was grinning, and decided against it. “Let's go, Fuentes, let the local yokels have their day,” he sneered. “We'll be back, and with a federal SWAT team if we need it. Then we'll see who ends up behind bars.”

When the agents stormed out, the others in the room broke into a loud cheer. “Way to go, Mr. DA,” Manning shouted.

“Yeah, kicked a little fed behind,” the technician at the computer added. “My mom's the only one who gets to call me a techno-geek. Computer savant, I like that.”

“All right everybody, back to work,” Fulton said. He turned to Karp. “That
was
fun.”

“Enjoyed it, but they will be back. Work fast and like I said, get that computer down to the evidence vault and make sure you put in place a security team. No outside agency looks at that computer without my written authorization. I'm going into the office now; I've got some catching up to do.”

Fulton followed him into the hall where Karp paused for a moment. “I wonder who called those guys?”

Fulton shrugged. “Some young cop who wants to join the bureau and play G-man so he tipped them off hoping it would be noted on his resume.”

“Yeah, perhaps,” Karp said, then gave his friend a sideways look. “But, Clay, I share your initial instincts; this whole thing is wrong. I can feel it in my bones.”

“Yeah? Me, too. I was hoping it wasn't something I was coming down with.”

Karp smiled. “The intuition flu, maybe. Anyway, let's make sure we run this thing to the ground. Talk to the neighbors, check out the employees yourself. Maybe I
am
coming down with a bug but something about this has made me queasy.”

Eight days earlier . . .

The fat man in the light blue jogging suit lit a cigar as he sat back behind a desk in the office of his palatial home outside of Washington, D.C. After a few puffs to get the Mancuso going, he turned his attention to the enormous television mounted on the wall across the darkened room.

Beyond the heavy drapes pulled across the windows, it was midafternoon on a sunny day in wealthy Loudoun County. But halfway around the world, it was nighttime where a Predator drone circled three thousand feet above the scene displayed in black and white infrared images on the television. Only seconds behind real time, ghostly figures of human beings showed up clearly as they ran across open spaces or ducked behind corners of a dark cluster of buildings and vehicles. Several fires also blazed away in white-hot pixels—one clearly a truck, another on a roof—and bursts of brilliant ellipses he knew were tracer rounds raced back and forth across the screen.

A half hour earlier when he was rudely interrupted during an afternoon quickie with his mistress to watch the events as they unfolded, the firefight between the attackers on the outside and
the besieged defenders inside the buildings had been intense. But the defenders were clearly outnumbered and outgunned; without help the outcome had been inevitable. Now almost all of the sporadic shooting was coming from the attackers, including shots apparently fired at figures lying on the ground.
Executing the wounded
, he guessed.
Good, this is FUBAR enough already, we don't need any witnesses.

“How long ago did you say this started?” the fat man asked. A short, neat man in black-rimmed glasses, wearing a three-piece vested suit, standing off to the side of his desk and also watching the screen, looked at his watch. “Almost three hours ago,” he replied. “State Department got an encoded radio transmission about 1300 hours our time, 0300 Sunday there, from the compound stating that they were under attack and requesting help. State called me and scrambled an NSA drone from the airbase in Turkey. I called you after that.”

“Good,” the fat man said as he studied the cigar. “Then what?”

The neat man pushed his glasses up his nose and looked over at a very large, hard-looking younger man sitting in a chair in a dark corner of the room watching the television intently, seemingly oblivious to their conversation. “More calls for assistance but those stopped right before I got here. The drone was over the target and could have fired on the hostiles, but I did what you said and told them to stand down.”

“A necessary evil,” the fat man replied with a shrug. “We aren't supposed to be there, right? At least not doing whatever it was in the hell you were doing. We don't know who we would have been shooting at and that's not our airspace. We need to keep this under wraps if at all possible. . . . What about the Russians?”

The neat man shrugged. “Somebody in the compound also sent a general distress call to the Russian army base near Grozny, but . . . um . . . there was no response,” he replied. “I finally got through to the Russian embassy and told them that our ‘trade mission' in Zandaq had been attacked. One of their undersecretaries
got back to me on my way over here and said that apparently the post's communication system had been down for repairs, but they were sending a counterterrorism team to ‘investigate.' It's a pretty good hop to the compound, and they won't be there for at least another hour and by that time . . .” He stopped and looked at the television. There were no more signs of resistance from the buildings; some of the attackers were still running about, but others appeared to be just milling around. “It's over,” he concluded simply.

The fat man looked at the screen. In some ways he looked like just another overweight limousine liberal; the sort who sat around in coffee shops in Birkenstock sandals over white socks and tie-dyed rock concert T-shirts while talking to their stockbrokers on their smartphones. He wore his hair, which he dyed ash blond, swept back and longish, and his well-scrubbed, hairless face with its round pink cheeks and full lips looked almost boyish. He was sixty years old and with the toadying press liked coming off as an affable political geek holdover from the late sixties. But he was shrewd, ruthless, and committed to his far left of center politics, and right now, his weak blue eyes glinted with anger behind the round wire-rim glasses he wore.

“It may be over in fucking Chechnya,” he growled as he stabbed his cigar at the screen, “but it's not fucking over here. In fact, the shitstorm hasn't even started here, but it will if we don't keep a lid on this and know what we're going to do to distract the voters if anything does get out.” He took a long drag and blew the smoke at the ceiling. “So tell me again what the fuck we were doing there?”

The neat man, Tucker Lindsey, cleared his throat. He didn't like the fat man, detested him as a matter of fact.
A crude, obese, arrogant asshole from the Midwest
, he'd described him to his former colleagues at the State Department. Certainly not a member of “The Club” that permeated the entourage around the president, as well as his cabinet and appointed posts, particularly at State.
Not an Ivy League man,
he thought with disdain.

In a world that made any sense, there would have been no way
that he, a Harvard Law grad and the president's national security adviser, should have to answer to the boorish tub of goo. But Rod Fauhomme was the president's re-election campaign manager, probably the best in his dirty business, and with the election only three weeks away, orders from the top were that the corpulent politico was calling the shots on anything that might affect the president's run at a second term.

“Officially, it's a trade mission,” Lindsey said. “A deputy chief of mission from the U.S. consulate in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, reaching out to the locals. In reality, DCM David Huff and a small security detail drove to Zandaq, a small, out-of-the-way town in southeastern Chechnya, to meet with one of the leaders of the Chechen separatist movement.” He nodded at the television screen. “What you're looking at there is a small gated compound about five miles from town that we lease as part of an agricultural and cultural outreach program run by State.”

“And why are we meeting with this Chechen separatist?”

“To work out a quid pro quo deal,” Lindsey said. “He helps us get arms to the rebels in Syria; in exchange he keeps some to get rid of foreign fighters—mostly Islamic extremists—and the Russians; we also agree to support their bid for independence from Russia at the United Nations.”

“Do we care about their independence?”

“To some extent where it meets our foreign policy goals; but it's a dangerous world out there, a constant juggling act. These Chechen separatists are Muslim but they're secular and moderate; they're a better counterbalance to extremist Islamic states than any government we could have created on our own. Plus they hate the Russians with a passion, and anything that distracts the Kremlin can't be all bad.”

“Why not just give the guns to the Syrian rebels openly? Everybody knows we want Assad out of there; nobody likes the guy.”

Again, Lindsey shrugged. “The usual walking a tightrope when it comes to the Middle East. We don't want to be seen as toppling
yet another government in a Muslim country. And if the weapons wind up in the wrong hands after Assad's out—i.e., killing U.S. soldiers in some other place or bringing down an airliner in Munich—we need to be able to deny it was the administration.”

“Then why Chechens? Why not just tell the Israelis to do it?”

“The Israelis have the same concern about where the arms will eventually wind up and also don't want them being traced back to them. Imagine how it would go over in Tehran or Cairo if the Arab press got wind of the Israelis' providing arms to rebels to topple Muslim governments. . . . To be honest, we're also yanking the Russians' chain a little bit. They're not helping us out with Syria, or with the damn Iranians, so we're stirring the pot in their backyard.”