The Rule of Nine (10 page)

“What kind of delivery system would be required, say, for the item crated up in Thailand to reach and destroy its target?” asked
Thorpe. “And please tell me it's a heavy-lift airplane, something we can track on radar and shoot down before it reaches its target.”

“Aerial delivery might be optimal but not necessarily the only method,” said Winget. “In the proper setting a truck will do just as well. Unlike nuclear, you're not looking for an air burst to obtain maximum effect. We used B-52s at Tora Bora with earth-penetrating ordnance because it was the safest and most efficient way to reach the target. You can use fuel-air bombs on the open battlefield, but that's not the most optimum deployment. Maximum destruction and lethality would be obtained in a large enclosed structure. Thermobaric devices are perfect for underground bunkers, caves, tunnels, and they can be used to flatten large buildings. It's most effective to get them inside the structure before detonation. Then again, McVeigh didn't drive the truck into the federal building in Oklahoma City. He parked it at the curb in front. And we all remember the level of damage and loss of life there. So there are no hard-and-fast rules.”

“Let's go back to the two men on the phone,” said Thorpe. “Any idea where that plane was going to deliver this thing, if it hadn't gotten waylaid in Thailand?”

“Best bet's Cuba,” said Sanchez. “They have airfields capable of landing and could provide cover for the device.”

“You think the Cuban government would allow an air attack on the U.S. from the island?” said Winget. “I don't think so.”

“I didn't say that,” said Sanchez. “But once it's on the ground these guys could always transport the device by ship, move it from one vessel to another, and sooner or later it arrives in a U.S. port boxed as industrial tools and they could haul it by truck. You said so yourself.”

“Possibly,” said Winget.

“In other words, we don't have a clue,” said Thorpe. “Mr. Sanchez, when your agency alerted the Thai government that there were arms on board that plane, I take it NSA had no idea that this device was there?”

“Correct,” said Sanchez.

“How did you know about the small arms?” said Thorpe.

“Communications intercepts and, from what I understand, some satellite surveillance.”

“What other agencies are already in the loop?” asked Thorpe.

“CIA and military intelligence branches have already been informed,” said Sanchez.

“What about Homeland Security?” asked Thorpe.

“I don't know,” said Sanchez.

“We notify Homeland Security, the White House, U.S. Customs, especially at the ports. Tell them what to look for. Send them photographs if you can.”

Zink was taking notes. “We'll need to tell the State Department.”

“Why?” said Thorpe.

“Just in case we're not the target. Somebody's gonna have to decide whether to inform foreign governments, and if so, which ones. What if the target's in Europe, or the UK?”

“It's not likely,” said Thorpe. “But okay, alert them, but ask them to keep it low-key and on a need-to-know basis only. I don't want to be seeing it on CNN in the morning.”

“Homeland Security is going to want to know what the threat assessment should be. What do I tell them?” said Zink.

“Tell them what we know, the telephone intercepts and the nature of the device in Thailand. They'll have to make a judgment call,” said Thorpe. He turned back to Sanchez. “If NSA can give us even a hint as to the identity of the two men on the phone, we need it yesterday.”

“Understood,” said Sanchez. “We did get voiceprints. We've got the computers checking for matches on overseas and domestic calls. If we get a match, we'll try to nail down a location and turn it over to your people or the CIA to run it down, depending on where it is. Preliminary voice analysis indicates that the voice in Pyongyang displayed indications of a Slavic accent, possibly Russian. It
was impossible to be certain since the entire conversation was in English. The other man appeared to be a native English speaker, possibly from Australia or New Zealand. He was very cagey. He kept trying to slip into a South African English Boer accent, but our analyst didn't buy it.”

“Stay on it,” said Thorpe. He turned to Winget. “We will need all the satellite surveillance we can get over North Korea until this thing's over.”

“We're on it already,” said Winget.

“Any hint of these devices being moved or transported we need to know about it immediately,” said Thorpe.

“Chances are any shipment will already be crated before it comes out into the sunlight,” said the air force officer.

“Then get the dimensions on the box from Thailand, and anything that matches it we want tracked,” said Thorpe.

“Will do.” Winget made a note.

“We'll end up chasing a lot of false leads, but right now we don't have a choice. I'll have to tell the director over dinner,” said Thorpe. “See if I can get him off alone for a minute and unload on him. We meet tomorrow. What's my calendar look like?”

“You've got an opening at four o'clock,” said Zink.

“Afternoon or early morning?” said Thorpe.

Zink, who was still taking notes, held up his left hand, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, as if to play the smallest violin in the world.

“Yeah, well, if I can't get any respect, I certainly want a little pity. Four o'clock it is. Can you make it?”

Sanchez nodded. “I'll be here,” said Winget.

“Bring any and all information you can find. Anybody who can help, drag them along. We'll meet daily until we get some kind of a handle on this thing.”

S
nyder…?”

The name doesn't click in my brain until he says: “My son was murdered in Washington a few weeks ago.”

“Ah…”

“I'm afraid I followed your partner over here. I'd like to talk to you,” he says.

“Sure, drag up a chair.”

“It might be best if we could talk where we have a little more privacy,” he says.

“Listen, I can go,” says Joselyn. She's trapped in the curved booth between Harry and me.

I put my hand on her arm as she starts to slide toward me to get out. “We haven't had lunch yet,” I tell her. “Have you had lunch, Mr. Snyder?”

“No.”

“Then please pull up a chair and join us. You already know my partner. I keep no secrets from him. And this is Joselyn Cole, our resident mystic psychic for whom my head is a glass display case. She knows all my most intimate thoughts.”

He gives Joselyn a cautious once-over. “How do you do?”

“He's joking,” she says and gives him a simpering smile.

“You want to talk here, it's fine with me,” says Snyder. He drops a leather portfolio on the corner of the table next to Harry and grabs a chair. He slides it over and finishes up the foursome, sitting at the outside edge of the booth.

I flash the waiter to bring us menus. We take a couple of minutes and we order lunch. As soon as the waitress leaves, I turn and look at Snyder. “So what can I do for you?”

“I may as well cut to the chase. Why waste time?” he says. “I am told that my son discussed certain legal matters with you prior to his death. I want to know what these matters regarded, what the two of you talked about.”

“Who told you this?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, because the information you've been given isn't accurate. The fact is, I never met your son, never talked to him, never communicated with him in any way.”

“Listen, if you're worried about violating privileged communications we can go to your office and talk. It won't take five minutes. Besides, any privilege died with my son. I too am a lawyer,” he says. “And even if the privilege didn't die, I'm the executor of my son's estate. I stand in his shoes. So what you could say to him you can now say to me.”

“It's nothing to do with lawyer-client privilege. There's nothing to talk about because I never had any dealings with your son.”

Snyder looks perplexed, casing me with his eyes. “Then why would they give me your name?”

“Who?”

“I'd rather not say.”

“Then there's nothing more I can tell you.”

It's going to be a long, silent lunch. He thinks about it for a few seconds. “All right. I was interviewed a week ago by the FBI. They asked me if I knew whether my son had recently hired a lawyer.
They mentioned you by name,” he says. “So if you never met Jimmie, why would they give me your name?”

“What exactly did they tell you?” I ask.

“Just what I said.”

“They gave you my name. They didn't say anything more? No other details?”

Snyder shakes his head. “No.”

“What they didn't tell you is that at the scene the police found my business card in your son's wallet. That's how the FBI had my name.”

“But you say you never met Jimmie?”

“That's right.”

“Then how did my son get your card?”

“I don't know. The FBI asked me the same question and I told them the same thing. I didn't have a clue.”

Snyder thinks about this for a moment. “It doesn't make a lot of sense. I mean, it's possible somebody else gave Jimmie your card, one of his friends, on a referral. Maybe he was going to call you and never got around to it. You do criminal work?”

“Right.”

“Do you ever handle drug cases?”

“No.”

“That's what I thought. I knew Jimmie never did drugs.” He seems at least relieved by this thought. “Still, he was in Washington. You're in California. Regardless of what the problem is, I'd get somebody local. Wouldn't you?”

I nod. What can I say without telling him everything?

Harry has a pained expression. We could just sit here and allow Snyder to wander down this posy path, coming to all the wrong conclusions, wondering if his kid was a closet addict and maybe got a flawed legal referral from some drugged-out junkie.

“The cops are horsing you around,” says Harry. “Sending you here to talk to Paul with only a fraction of the facts.”

“The FBI didn't send me,” says Snyder.

“Oh, yes, they did.” Harry's looking at me from under arched eyebrows, shirtsleeves rolled up, his forearms sprawled on the table. “And I think you deserve all the answers.” Harry says it to Snyder, but he's still looking at me.

“Okay, so you think we should tell him?”

“Hell, yes. If it was anybody else, I'd say no,” says Harry. “But given the circumstances…”

“Tell me what?” says Snyder.

“There's a tad more to the story,” says Harry.

“Do we have your word that you'll keep what we're about to tell you in confidence?” I ask Snyder.

“Sure.” Or at least until he can get outside, whip out his cell phone, and call the FBI to kick the crap out of them, demanding whatever they have on the man Thorpe called the Mexicutioner.

“When the police found my business card in your son's wallet they also found some other forensic evidence. Based on that, there's reason to believe that your son may not have been the one who put my business card in his wallet.”

“Explain,” says Snyder.

Plates arrive juggled up the waitress's arm. Over lunch I tell Snyder about the thumbprint that the cops found on the back of my business card, the fact that the print was somewhat obvious. I tell him that, according to the police, this unidentified print matched a second unidentified print found at the scene of another murder in Southern California committed several months before his son was killed. I'm careful not to give him Afundi's name or any of the details in the other murder. With Joselyn tuned in, it would probably take her a nanosecond to connect this earlier murder to the shoot-out in Coronado. This would only ignite her candle all over again.

Snyder asks whether any arrests were made in the earlier case or whether the police have any suspects.

“Arrests, no. Not that I know of. But they may have a lead. Call it a rumor.”

I tell him about the tidbit from Thorpe, that the Southern California murder may have been the work of someone called the Mexicutioner, aka Liquida.

“According to the FBI, the narco buzz out of Mexico is that this man is connected to the Tijuana drug cartel.”

With the mention of drugs, Snyder lifts his eyes from his plate, snaps a quick look at me, and grabs a notepad from the leather portfolio at his elbow.

“What did you say his name was? Liquida? How do you spell that?”

I give him my best guess.

“He deals in drugs?” says Snyder.

“I don't know. It's only a name,” I tell him. “I know nothing about him other than what the authorities told me, which was very little. It's possible I may have seen him one time, just a fleeting glimpse, but I can't even be sure of that.”

“When was this?” says Snyder.

“About a year ago, down in Costa Rica. We were working a case. It was late at night, dark, and as I say it was just a quick glimpse. This guy had a swarthy, pockmarked face, looked like acne, and a set of evil eyes you could never forget. Of course that's assuming it was even him.”

“Why didn't the FBI tell me about Liquida?” says Snyder.

“I don't know. Probably for the same reason they didn't tell you about my business card. It's part of their continuing investigation.”

“So why did they tell you?” he says.

“I don't know.”

Harry looks at me. I cut him off with a glance. I don't want to tell Snyder about the warning from Thorpe and the fear that Liquida may be playing out a vendetta against Harry, Herman, and me. If I go there, Snyder will want to know the rest, like pulling a thread on a sweater. How was it that we ended up on the death list of a man we don't even know? Pretty soon we'll be sitting here naked in front of Joselyn and her friends in the media trying to ex
plain Liquida's part in the events leading up to the attack at the naval base, the details of which I don't fully understand myself.

“Go on,” says Snyder.

“There's not much more to say. The FBI was unable to match the two thumbprints, the one on my card or the one at the earlier crime scene, to any known person in their database.”

“But,” says Joselyn, “if the information out of Mexico is accurate, that this man Liquida is responsible for the murder in Southern California, the FBI must be operating on the assumption that it must be his print that they found at that scene. Correct?”

“I assume so.”

“Hmm…” She goes back to nibbling at her salad.

“Let me get this straight,” says Snyder. “They don't have any background on this guy Liquida?”

“If they do, they didn't share it with me,” I tell him.

“Who was the victim in the Southern California case?” says Snyder. “And what city was it? I'd like to look at some of the press reports, and maybe talk to the local police.”

“I'm sorry, I don't have that information.” I wink at Harry, but he's looking down, taking a bite out of his sandwich when I do it.

He wipes his mouth with a napkin. “Yes, we do…”

“No, Harry. That information was wrong. I checked with Thorpe. They had the wrong name. It was a different victim. When he found the right information, he refused to give me the name.”

“Are you sure?”

“Trust me, I checked.”

Joselyn is listening to the words, smiling as she looks at me, deciphering the facial language of lies.

“You say so.” Harry shakes his head and goes back to his sandwich.

I don't want Harry dropping Afundi's name in front of her. I can't be sure how much she knows from her own sources regarding the attack at Coronado. She may already be aware of Afundi's name.

“Lemme get this straight.” Snyder's looking down at the pad in front of him, scrawled notes. “If the fingerprint found at the scene here in Southern California belongs to this guy Liquida, then he also owns the print on the back of your card in Jimmie's wallet. If so, that means he did both murders.”

I shrug my shoulders. “I assume that's what the cops are operating on. But your guess is as good as mine. Now you know everything I know.”

“Not quite,” says Joselyn. “What's your connection to this man?”

“Who?” I look at her like a spotted owl caught in the headlights of a lumber truck.

“This Liquida. What's your connection to him?”

“None. What makes you think there's a connection?”

“Well, he didn't take my card and put it in Jimmie's wallet,” she says. “Why would he pick you?”

“Who knows?” Any second she's going to lean over and sniff the sweat on my forehead, analyze the acid content in her gas chromatograph, and her buzzer will go off.

“It's possible he could be an unhappy former client,” she says. “Didn't like the result, got out of prison, and used your card as a kind of consumer complaint.” Joselyn looks at Snyder. “Sorry. I don't mean to make light of your son's death.”

“No. I wanna hear.” Snyder is all eyes at me.

“No. I don't think he's a former client,” I say.

“Why not?” she says.

“Yeah,” says Snyder, both of them waiting for an answer.

Harry looks at me as he fills his face with another bite of sandwich. I know what he's thinking: “You got yourself into this with one lie; you're going to have to get yourself out of it with another.”

“The thought crossed my mind. We checked our records. But there's no one we can think of.” Then the afterthought, like a stroke of genius. “Besides, if it was a disgruntled client, someone unhappy with my services, they would have been booked and
finger printed at the time of arrest. Their prints would be on record with the FBI.” Take that!

Harry gives me a wink, good job.

“Right. Of course. How stupid of me,” she says.

“All I have is a name—Liquida. No physical description. So that's it. That's everything. That's all I know.” I'm still smiling when she says it.

“That's too bad.”

“Why?”

“Because it must be hard on you.”

“What do you mean?” It's one question too many. What they teach you in law school is to stop when you're ahead.

“Because that thumbprint on your card is no accident,” says Joselyn. “It may be your business card, but it's his calling card on the back of it. You did say the print was on the back of the card?”

“It's what the FBI told me,” I say.

“You must have done something to really piss this guy off,” she says.

I refuse to ask why. I don't want to play in her sandbox anymore.

“Do you have one of your business cards on you?” Joselyn looks at me.

“Yes.” I'm gritting my teeth as I say it.

“Can I see it?”

“Sure.” What else can I say?

I reach into my pocket and pluck a business card from the small cardholder I carry. I reach over to hand it to her.

“You just proved my point.” Joselyn doesn't look up from her salad or take the card from my hand. Instead she leaves me there, my arm extended, holding the card, as she sweeps a small piece of lettuce into her mouth from her fork. “Do you see…” She wipes her mouth with her napkin.

“You see how you're holding the card, thumb on one side, first finger on the other? I never practiced much criminal law, but any
one handling a business card, unless they held it by the edges, in which case they won't leave any prints, would hold it like you are, front and back, thumb on one side, finger on the other. Even if they were smudged, you would still find two smudged prints, one on each side of the card, not one clear thumbprint. To get that you would probably put the card on a table or a hard surface and press down with your thumb. Besides, isn't it normal for a professional to wear gloves at a crime scene? Wouldn't that be part of the uniform of the day? And yet he left thumbprints at both scenes. It's a conscious act.” She punctuates this statement of fact with a sip of wine she had ordered in a stemmed glass and then places it back on the table next to her unfinished drink in the tumbler. “I wouldn't want to worry you unnecessarily, but it seems to me he's sending you a message.”