“Get it overseas.”
“Absolutely, done. FedEx is preparing literally thirty-seven thousand envelopes as we speak. They’ve agreed to put more than a thousand workers against this. We owe them a thank-you. This stuff will move out of Memphis as soon as we get it there.”
“Good work. Give that diver a raise.”
“I will.”
“What about the source?” asked Fogler.
“I’ll take that,” said Katherine Fawcett. “We’ll ask local law enforcement—here and overseas—to spearhead that. We’re waiting for the data run from Commerce. Once we have that, we should have a large but addressable universe of possible places this stuff was manufactured. We’ll just have to go one by one, knocking down the list. That’s the plan.”
“Okay, that’s a wrap,” said Jessica. “Anything else?”
“Yes,” said Fogler. “Before you came in, we were talking about resources, Jess. To summarize the mood generally, coming from all departments: we don’t have enough people. Down through the ranks, nobody minds working 24/7. But there just isn’t enough manpower.”
“I hear you,” said Jessica. “Unfortunately, we would normally turn to the National Guard around now. But they’re at full deployment in Iraq and Afghanistan. All I can tell you is lean on your interdepartments. Especially local police forces. T. J., get Homeland to use their fire department affiliates to do some of the port work. I know it’s tough right now. The key is putting in place the foundation that will hopefully produce a lead, a link. Make sure everyone knows what they’re looking
for and what to do if they think they found it. That’s the key. It won’t be a tidal wave that washes up on the beach and brings a bunch of guilty people with it. It will be one boat, one skiff, one dinghy in the ocean. We need to find that dinghy.”
“Got it,” said Fogler.
“I want to reconvene tonight,” said Jessica. “Don’t worry about dinner; I’ll order Chinese. One thing I want to say: you know what I would do. Like you all, I’m stretched thin right now. Take a ready, aim, fire approach. When in doubt, act. I have your back. Just try and be smart about it.”
Jessica stood, turned, and walked out.
Back in her office, Jessica’s phone buzzed. She hit the red speaker button.
“Tanzer,” she said.
“You want to see me, Jess.”
“Yes.”
In a minute, Jessica’s door opened. A tall Hispanic man with graying hair entered the room. He was slightly overweight, and had a somewhat disheveled look; his tie was askew, one of the front flaps of his button-down shirt hung down over his wrinkled khakis.
“What do we have on the mole, Hector?”
Hector Calibrisi was, like Jessica, one of nine FBI deputy directors, in charge of international affairs. Calibrisi was a former CIA agent and Jessica’s closest friend inside the FBI. It was he whom Jessica had asked to run the mole hunt.
“We’re twenty-four hours into it, Jess,” said Calibrisi. “What can I tell you? We have twelve people who were in that meeting where the Madradora exfiltration was discussed. In addition, there were four other individuals who were made privy to Madradora. All of them were at DOD.”
“And what have we found?”
“Let’s start with what we’re looking at, okay? I want to make sure I’m not missing anything. I’ve never run a mole hunt before.”
“You’re an ex-agent,” said Jessica. “You know where to look.”
“Ah, so in other words, you think I was, or could have been, a double agent and therefore could use the extensive knowledge I already have of hiding funds, communicating with the enemy, that sort of thing, to find our mole?”
“Exactly,” said Jessica, smiling. “I mean, look at your wardrobe, Hector.” She glanced at his wide, cheap polyester tie and old shirt. “Hermès tie. Armani suits. Was that shirt custom-made?”
“Actually, no. Only the food stains are custom. This one’s from a burrito I had for dinner last night.”
Jessica laughed. “Thanks,” she said. “I needed that more than you know.”
Calibrisi sat down in one of the two chairs in front of her desk.
“So, all kidding aside, here’s what we’re doing,” said Calibrisi. “I have about a dozen agents on this—”
“You have authority to go up to thirty if you want.”
“Yeah, I know, but I don’t need to. A lot of this is just data mining. We’re looking at everything about the people in that meeting, including you, by the way, Jessica. Cell records, e-mail, Web use, travel, purchases, relationships, professional background. We’ve also got surveillance across the group. Of course, most of our time is being spent on finances.”
“And do we have anything so far?”
“No. Nothing yet. But I do have suspicions about one person in particular. Maybe it’s just because I spent so many years over there.”
“Vic Buck?”
“Yes. The guy has just done a lot. Traveled a lot. He lived in Beirut for six years. Beijing, Hong Kong, Kiev, St. Petersburg, Cape Town. He’s been to every city in the Middle East at least half a dozen times.”
“So how close are you to turning something up?”
“It’s going to be hard to prove anything, to pick the wheat from the chaff. He will have an argument for any suspicious activity we front. Alibis, reasons he was in a certain place, with a certain person, at a certain time. Even if we thought we had him on something, if we develop a connection, it’s going to be really hard to prove it. The second thing,
we’re probably not going to be able to get at the places and modalities Buck would use if he was working with whatever group is behind all this. I mean, there is a lot of dark activity we are just not even aware exists. For example, do you remember that cell phone that was found on the corpse of al-Libi, the guy who ran Al-Qaeda’s main training camp in Afghanistan? It had its own frequency and satellite. Think about that; he had his own satellite. If Buck’s doing something, he’s going to do it using things like that, and it’s going to be nearly impossible to get access to them. He runs National Clandestine Service for the Central Intelligence Agency. He knows what the hell he’s doing. Look, I reported to the guy for a decade. He’s arguably the best operative in the U.S.”
“What about other members of the group?”
Calibrisi shook his head. “Nothing. A bunch of Cub Scouts. Jane Epstein has more than a million bucks in her savings account, but she inherited it. Look, we’ll keep digging, but the bottom line is, it’s Buck. It has to be him. Just by the process of elimination.”
“So what do we do?” asked Jessica. “Bring him in? Interrogate him?”
“I . . . don’t know. That’s for you, Lou, maybe even the president, to decide. That’s a tough one.”
“Tell me about his financials.”
“Nothing unusual. He has a few hundred thousand in a 401(k). His wife has a little bit of money. Nothing weird. No other financial ties. Sometimes we would see agents take money and buy equity in a company somewhere, usually the country they intended to run to. You find that by a travel pattern correlated to alias and in-country incorporation or legal activity. That’s what I have most of the team focused on right now. If we find something interesting, we dig in. Unlikely, but that’s where I’d go if I was trying to hide some money.”
“Sounds like a—”
“Needle in a haystack,” said Calibrisi, nodding his head. “Exactly.”
“But is there anything else about Buck that makes you suspect him?” asked Jessica. “I mean, of all people. He does not seem like someone who would betray his country.”
“We looked at that, too,” said Calibrisi. “Biography. Education. Employment history. Psychographic. Demotions that might lead to bitterness, et cetera. I agree with you, there is nothing there to suggest a grievance or motivating event. The guy has done a lot for this country. He’s come damn close to dying several times. High-risk sort of mission work. Do you realize that in 1983, after the Beirut suicide bomb that killed so many marines, Buck went in, alone, at night, and killed Arafat’s head of security, one of the guys who helped design the bombing in the first place, El-terhassa? I mean, that was a legendary hit. So no, it doesn’t fit. I suspect him only because I just see eliminating every one else in that room really quickly.”
“And because of his background, we might never eliminate him or prove anything.”
“Or find anything,” added Calibrisi.
“Ambiguous. I hate it.”
“I’m sure my background has some ambiguity in it too,” said Calibrisi. “It’s the nature of being an ex-spook.”
“So what do we do?”
“Well, you do what we’re doing. You excavate anything and everything in this guy’s background. You watch him like a hawk. And you try to develop something from one of these events that ties back to him, gives you good reason to bring him in.”
“I think we should bring him in now.”
“And do what? Board him? Run a pharma package on him? I mean, it’s a slippery slope, Jess. You have nothing solid to go on at this point. If you start to do things like that, you’re stepping over the line. Just my opinion.”
“I don’t like waiting. Two thousand people died today at Long Beach.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to torture Vic Buck,” said Calibrisi. “Look, that’s one man’s opinion. It ain’t my decision though. It’s Lou’s, the president’s. Take it to them if you want.”
Jessica leaned back, thinking about how to proceed.
“In the meantime, I’ll keep going. We might find something. I know what I’m doing. We’re tightly focused. If he slipped up at some point,
we will find it. What’s going on with the investigation down in Cali? Have the dead operatives given us anything to go on?”
“Not yet,” said Jessica.
“What about the guy we were exfiltrating?”
“I wish I knew the answer to that,” said Jessica.
PARQUE CENTRAL HOTEL
HAVANA, CUBA
Dewey walked from the hotel to a travel agency two blocks away. He purchased a one-way ticket to Melbourne, Australia, leaving the next afternoon. He didn’t have a plan beyond landing in Australia. Just get out of Cuba. Tonight he would drink, maybe stumble back to the hotel. He wanted to push aside the events of the past few days.
He had dinner at a small restaurant near the port. After he ordered, he went back to his hotel room. He went to the bathroom and removed the Colt from the back of his pants.
He looked in the mirror. He threw water across his face, washing his short hair with soap in the sink. He put a fresh bandage on his shoulder.
He tucked his handgun back between his belt and the back of his pants, then walked out of the Parque Central and into the crowded streets of the city. The temperature stayed in the mid-sixties at night, and the sidewalks pulsed with energy as people poured out for the evening.
He walked through the east side of the city, toward where the Parque Central concierge told him the nightclubs were. At Paradiso, he took a right. The streets were densely packed with people. Many turned and stared at the big American. He was taller than most of the Cubans. A
few said hello to him as he passed, or nodded. But for the most part they just stared at him, a six foot three Americano walking among them.
He walked into the neighborhood at the end of Paradiso, the Julio. The rapid, deep sound of Caribbean music filled the street air. Loud, booming drums mixed with a fast beat. Groups of young women stood on the sidewalks, beautiful Cuban women, waiting to get into one of the nightclubs that were crowded into the end of the small street. Everyone smoked.
He walked to the front door of the closest club, a place called Zanzibar. It was packed with people and the music grew louder as he walked inside. He went to the bar and ordered a whiskey.
He stood at the bar and turned, looking at the crowd. He sipped his drink as slowly as he could, but it was hard not to down it quick. He ordered another one and paid. He talked briefly with a young Cuban woman who had long, black hair, a pretty dark woman with large, warm brown eyes. She introduced herself—Sanibel. He spoke with her for a few minutes. Then he circled the perimeter of the dance floor. He finished his drink and left.
He went to three more clubs. He had a drink at each of the clubs. He was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol by the third nightclub. It was past midnight. With no better notion in mind, he returned to Zanzibar, looking for the young woman, Sanibel. He ordered a beer at the bar.
Sanibel returned from the dance floor. She was sweating and even sexier than he remembered. Her white short-sleeve shirt barely covered her chest; he noticed for the first time how large her breasts were. She approached the bar and stood. She was with a man now, a young, scraggly-looking guy with a beard. She glanced from the end of the bar at Dewey and smiled. He signaled to the bartender, and had him bring her a glass of champagne.
She said something to her dance partner and left him for Dewey.
“Thank you,” she said in English, toasting him with the glass.
“You’re welcome.”
“What’s your name again?” she asked. “I’m sorry.”
“Dewey.”
“Hello, Dewey,” she said, extending her hand. “Journalist?”
“No.”
“Military?”
“No. Tourist. You?”
“Teacher,” she said. “From Havana. I teach math.”