The Rule of Nine (2 page)

He was finished, except for one final touch, something special, a personal perk. It was something for himself that the client hadn't asked for but was going to get anyway. It would give Liquida immense pleasure. Time to draw the fly into the web. Fumbling with his gloved fingers he pulled a small plastic bag from his pocket. Inside was a single business card. He lifted the card from the bag.

 

P
AUL
M
ADRIANI

Attorney-at-Law

Madriani and Hinds

 

He slipped it behind the credit card in the kid's wallet. Then he replaced the wallet in the coat pocket and laid the coat on the foot of the bed, next to the body.

In less than a minute, Liquida was out the door and down the stairs. He stopped only briefly to remove the duct tape he had put on the overhead closing arm at the front door two days earlier to keep it from locking.

Out on the street he mixed in with a few pedestrians. By the time they reached the corner, the disheveled vagrant in the dirty, dark trench coat had disappeared like a lethal wisp of smoke.

I
t's tricky to know how good a job the government does at keeping secrets since the only ones we know about are the ones that leak. This morning Zeb Thorpe, assistant director for the FBI's National Security Branch, is trying to wedge all four fingers and his thumb into the cloak-and-dagger dike, which is starting to drip.

Thorpe has us closeted in the federal building out near Miramar for what appears to be a session of truth and consequences.

“Mr. Madriani, Mr. Hinds, Mr. Diggs. I appreciate all of you coming out here this morning.”

“I didn't know we had a choice,” says Harry.

Harry Hinds is my law partner. He doesn't like cops and had developed a terminal aversion to the FBI when he discovered several months ago that they had wired our office and tapped our phones.

“Nonetheless, we appreciate your cooperation,” says Thorpe.

The best he gets from Herman Diggs, our investigator, is a dark-eyed nod. Herman is African American, about six foot four, so Thorpe has to look up at him as he smiles.

“Please come in, take a seat. Can I get you anything—coffee, soda, bottled water?” He directs us toward the long, dark conference
table in the center of the room, where a court reporter is already set up behind his stenograph machine. Seated at the table is James Olson, the new United States attorney for the Southern District of California. Seated beside him is a slender, austere man in a naval uniform.

“Just what I wanted for breakfast, coffee and a transcript,” says Harry.

“We could have done it surreptitiously, digital tapes and microphones,” says Olson.

“That would have felt like home,” says Harry. “Just like my office.”

Ordinarily Olson would not be doing this himself. He would have assigned it to one of his deputy U.S. attorneys. But given the sensitive nature of the inquisition, I am surprised they haven't dispatched Olson's boss from Washington to conduct it.

“I would apologize for the wiretaps and the surveillance,” says Thorpe. He ushers us inside and closes the door, and then motions us toward the three chairs closest to the court reporter. “But we didn't have much choice. You have to understand that at the time, we had no idea who you and Mr. Madriani were working with, where your loyalties lay, or for that matter what you knew. We did what we had to do.”

“As I recall, that was the defense at Nuremburg,” says Harry.

“And we'd do it again,” says Olson.

“You mean the gassing or the wiretapping?” says Harry.

Olson gives him a mean-eyed stare.

“I know you're new to the job and you probably need to practice your law enforcement hard-on for Mr. Thorpe and the court reporter. So feel free to jump right in,” says Harry.

The court reporter looks up. “Should I be taking this down?”

“No.” Olson fires at him a stony-eyed stare from across the table.

“Gentlemen, please. Let's try to keep this civil and brief.” Thorpe tries to moderate. “Mr. Madriani, how about some water for you?”

“I'm fine.”

“Mr. Diggs?”

“Depends how long we're gonna be here,” says Herman.

“That depends on what you have to say.” Olson speaks before Thorpe can open his mouth.

“A bottle of water would be nice,” says Herman.

Harry, Herman, and I take our seats and Olson nods toward the court reporter. “Now,” he says.

He has each of us identify ourselves for the record and state our home addresses. The stenographer has us spell our names.

“I suspect you gentlemen know what this is about,” says Olson. “The events outside the North Island Naval Air Station earlier this year, what the media now refers to as the ‘Coronado Assault.'”

For about eight months, Thorpe and his minions have managed to maintain wraps on the central missing detail surrounding the gun battle outside the gates of the North Island Naval Air Station.

“There is no secret to the fact that a group of terrorists were thwarted in their attempt to detonate a bomb-laden vehicle near the naval base at Coronado.” Olson looks up to make sure we're all singing from the same page.

“And that in the ensuing gun battle the terrorists, all of them, were killed along with three law enforcement officers. At some point the bomb was defused and the vehicle was removed. Are we in agreement with regard to these basic facts?” asks Olson.

“If you say so,” says Harry.

“Do you have some other version of the facts?” Olson looks at him.

“This is your party,” says Harry.

“Fine, let's start with you, Mr. Hinds. Have you spoken to anyone in the media, or anyone else for that matter, concerning the events in question?”

“I might have mentioned it to my barber,” says Harry. “People want to know. What can I say?”

“But as I understand it, you weren't there that day,” says Olson. “You weren't actually near the truck or at the scene, is that right?”

“That's right.”

“So where did you get your information?”

Harry glances at me.

“So whatever you think you might know concerning the shoot-out and the truck, and whatever was on the truck”—Olson puts the emphasis on this last point—“is nothing but hearsay. Is that correct?”

“That's right. So why don't I just go?” Harry starts to get up.

“Sit down,” says Olson.

“How about you, Mr. Madriani?” Olson looks at me. “Have you talked to anyone, besides your partner, concerning the events that day and what you think you might have seen?”

“No.”

“No one? You haven't mentioned it to other employees in your office?”

“No.”

“What about your family? You must have said something to them?” says Olson.

“No. There's just my daughter. And I want to keep her out of it.”

“What is her name?” Olson sits poised with his pen over a yellow legal pad.

“Stay away from her,” I tell him. “She's not involved.”

“Her name?” he says.

“Sarah Madriani.”

He writes it down. “Does she have an address?”

“She lives with me. She's just graduated from college.”

“Congratulations,” he says. “Has anyone from the media tried to contact you concerning the events at Coronado?”

I laugh. “You must be kidding. We've had to change our business phone number four times. For three months we had to move the location of our practice to another office in another city to avoid the horde camped outside our door. That answer your question?”

Olson looks at Thorpe, who nods as if to confirm these details.

“So you're telling us you haven't divulged any information concerning the details of what happened that day?”

“By details, do you mean the fact that the device on board the truck was nuclear?” I say.

“You don't know that,” says Thorpe.

“So what do you think it was?” says Harry.

“According to the information I have, it was an IED, an improvised explosive device,” says Thorpe.

This is the official line, and technically correct. After all, it was a forty-year-old nuclear bomb originally designed for the belly of an obsolete Russian cruise missile and modified sufficiently to be loaded into the bed of a rental truck. The government has offered no other details and has blunted further inquiries on the grounds of security and because the device is the subject of an ongoing investigation. No doubt the investigation will be ongoing in perpetuity. Nobody wants to explain how close we came to a moon-size crater at the north end of Coronado or the annihilation of most of the inhabitants of the city.

“The fact of the matter is,” says Thorpe, “none of you has anything but suspicions.”

“Then why are we here?” I ask.

“To make sure you haven't spread those suspicions to the media or to anyone else,” says Olson.

Somewhere, someplace, someone has talked. They're trying to find out who and stanch the flow before the tidal wave overwhelms them.

“If you recall, at the time of our initial interrogation we were instructed by you, by the FBI, that under no circumstances were we to reveal any information concerning the nature or details of the device,” I tell him.

“That's correct,” says Thorpe.

“The question is have you revealed such information?” says Olson. “I put the question to you, Mr. Madriani.”

“No.”

“Mr. Hinds?”

“What would I know?”

Olson looks at him.

“No,” says Harry.

“And you, Mr. Diggs. Have you said anything to anyone concerning the device?”

“Nobody ever talks to me,” says Herman.

“Does that mean no?” says Olson.

“That's what it means.”

“I remind you all that this is part of the ongoing criminal investigation. That you are talking to law enforcement officers in these regards. So any deception or misinformation could have criminal consequences. Do you understand that?”

Each of us replies in the affirmative and the court reporter takes it down.

“That's all I have,” says Olson. “They're all yours. We're off the record.”

The stenographer starts to pack up his machine.

“You mean we're not finished?” I say.

“Not quite,” says Thorpe.

I
t takes several minutes for the stenographer and Olson to gather their belongings and clear the room. The entire time Thorpe is seated in his chair in total silence, shooting furtive glances at us, so by the time the door closes the atmosphere over the table seems charged.

“Is this when we're supposed to believe that we're not being taped?” says Harry.

“You're not,” says Thorpe. “I'm not asking for information. I'm imparting it. What I'm about to tell you is for your own safety.” He reaches down into a briefcase at the side of his chair and pulls out a large manila envelope. He lifts the flap and slides out several glossy photographs, eight-by-tens.

He assembles these into packets of three, one for each of us, and then slides them down the table toward us.

The top photograph appears to be something from a crime scene, a young man, a head-and-shoulder shot. You might think he was sleeping unless you looked closely and noticed the slight blue cast of his face, cyanosis.

“Do any of you recognize the man in the first photograph?”

I take another look, and then shake my head as I glance toward Harry.

“No,” he says.

“Never saw him before,” says Herman.

“He was found dead, an apparent drug overdose in an apartment in D.C. a few days ago. In his wallet was your business card, Mr. Madriani.”

When I look up at Thorpe, he is staring straight at me. “Do you have any idea how it got there?”

I shake my head. “No,” and then look at the photograph again. “Do you have a name to go with the picture?”

“James Snyder,” says Thorpe.

“Doesn't ring any bells,” I tell him. “I can check our files, see if his name pops up in the computer, but I have no recollection of him at all.”

“I don't think you'll find anything in your firm's records,” says Thorpe.

“Why do you say that?” I ask.

“Because we lifted a latent thumbprint from the back of your business card, the one that was found in his wallet. Ordinarily you wouldn't expect to find much, especially if the card's been slipped in and out of a wallet several times. You might get a smudged print. But this one was pretty clear. What's more, the print didn't belong to the victim. And it wasn't yours. We checked. When we ran it through our computer, the thumbprint on your card matched an unidentified print we lifted from another crime scene. Next picture,” says Thorpe.

We flip to the next eight-by-ten glossy.

At first it is difficult to determine what the image is until I realize it's a human body. It is charred, burned so thoroughly that the gases, body fat, and oils have erupted from the abdomen, leaving a darkened cave of encrusted and exposed ribs. Both legs end in sharpened stubs somewhere below the knee. The head looks like a burned volleyball, all the facial features gone.

“Okay, if you're trying to scare me, you've succeeded,” says Harry.

“I wouldn't expect you to recognize him, Mr. Hinds. I don't think you ever saw him,” says Thorpe. “But both of you, Mr. Diggs and Mr. Madriani, did see this man, possibly more than once. He was at the scene that day near the gate to the naval base. He was one of the terrorists. In fact, we believe he was the leader. His name was Alim Afundi. We know that from the DNA we were able to extract from the body. He had been in federal custody at one point. I'm not at liberty to tell you where he was confined, but a DNA sample was taken at that time. He apparently escaped. Suffice it to say, we did not take him into custody at the scene in Coronado.”

“So contrary to Mr. Olson's statement, the terrorists were not all killed at the scene?” says Harry.

“No,” says Thorpe. “We found his charred remains two days after the shootout in Coronado at a location near National City, a few miles north of the Mexican border, which is where we lifted the unidentified print matching the one found on your business card,” says Thorpe.

“But you don't know who the print belongs to?” I ask.

“No. But we do have rumors as to who killed Afundi. There's some sketchy information from sources across the border that the person who killed him is a Mexican hit man. According to the information, he's a professional assassin known only by reputation, mostly among aspiring young guns trying to claw their way to the top of the professional pyramid. To them, none of whom claims to have actually seen the man, he is known variously as the Mexicutioner, sometimes Muerta Liquida. It means liquid death,” says Thorpe. “Others just call him Liquida.”

“Charming,” says Harry.

“From what we're told by the Mexican authorities, he's connected to the Tijuana drug cartel. But he also freelances. We think
he may have been working with the people who transported the device to Coronado.”

“You mean the IED,” says Harry.

“Any of you ever heard the name Liquida?” Thorpe ignores Harry. “Perhaps during your sojourn down south?”

“You mean the trip to Costa Rica?” says Herman.

“That's what I mean.”

Herman and I had gone south to find a witness and gather evidence in a criminal case. It was how we got caught up in the events surrounding the attack in Coronado.

“Do you have any description of this man Liquida?” I ask.

“Nothing,” says Thorpe.

I remember the pockmarked cheek and the evil eyes stalking me from a moving car that night as I hid in the shadows under a parked vehicle in San Jose. All I got was a fleeting glance as fear forced my face into the gravel, not enough to provide a reliable description. Still, I may have a name to go with the evil eyes.

“If Liquida was working with them, why would he kill this guy Afundi?” says Herman. “If Afundi was the boss, I mean.”

“Maybe to silence him,” says Thorpe. “We don't know. As you can see, the body was badly burned. But the medical examiner did find what appeared to be some indications of torture before he died. It's possible the two of them, Liquida and Afundi, got sideways, and Afundi came out second best in a grudge match.”

“Yeah, I'd say whoever did this has a problem with anger management,” says Harry. He is looking at the photograph of the charred body.

“The question is, assuming the information from Mexico is accurate, how did Liquida's thumbprint, if it is his, end up on your business card in the wallet of a drug overdose in D.C.?” says Thorpe.

I look at him with a blank stare. “So what is it exactly that you're telling us?”

“It's possible that you show up on this guy's radar screen,” says Thorpe, “and that's not a place you want to be. Just a heads-up. If I were you, and this goes for each of you, until we know more, I'd be careful going out anywhere alone, especially after dark. And if you have any security devices at home, you might want to make sure they're turned on.”