by Kirk Russell
“That scare you?”
“No, but I never met one before.”
She showed him her ID.
“Look at that,” he said, then stalled and fumbled around with so good to see you and apologies without looking at her. Her heart was sinking, but then he said, “FBI, how about that? I’m proud of you and sorry for what I’ve never done. I’d apologize if I could.”
“What’s that mean?”
“That I wish I hadn’t lost you.”
“I’m standing right here.”
“I just can’t believe it, but it sure enough is you. It’s you, Kristen. I see that.”
They talked in his kitchen and made a plan for her to come to dinner. It was all over in less than half an hour. When she drove away, she felt a hollowed-out sadness and knew why. She’d just sat and talked to an older man still working hard and getting on toward retirement. He was her father. And he didn’t know her.
Maybe they’d get to know each other, or maybe the truth just got driven home. She’d thrown out a few names she remembered from where they’d lived. He hadn’t remembered any of them. He even had trouble remembering the name of the street. That one really got her. Didn’t remember the street. It was all gone for him. We’re strangers, she thought. Tears ran down her cheeks. She drove and wept, and her phone rang. Mara. She pulled over and took a few deep breaths before taking his call.
37
Dalz
When he walked in, Dalz saw well-cared-for tools and a pickup that was older but clean. Sean nodded toward the pair of Hispanic carpenters there to build the missile assembly tables. Preassembly was complete. They were on to the next steps. Dalz drove the boom lift out of the way, and the carpenters moved their pickup inside. Without explanation Sean had them turn their truck around so it faced out toward the big folding doors of a former bowling alley and restaurant.
Dalz then showed the carpenters his drawing and explained how to build the four twelve-foot-long by four-foot-wide tables and secure them to the floor so they wouldn’t wobble. He’d marked where the wooden table legs would attach with metal clips to the flooring. Cross bracing would reinforce the legs and join them so the tables became sturdy platforms.
He spoke Spanish and answered questions as they built the first table, and then he picked apart small imperfections to drive home the point that they needed to be exact and would have to build a replacement for this one. The next three tables they finished in three and a half hours and were perfect.
The carpenters dripped sweat but smiled. They were good men, modest and efficient, and Sean paid each a hundred-dollar bonus after they’d swept up and put their tools away. When they were ready to leave but not yet in their truck, Sean pulled a gun and explained to the carpenters that they needed to get into the back seat of their pickup and lie on their sides with their knees pulled up.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said, and Dalz translated. “Nothing will happen to you if you do as I say. Lie down and stay quiet and you won’t get hurt. We’ll drive ten miles then give you back your truck. No worries. No problemo. This is not cartel. Don’t worry.”
Sean handed the carpenters another two hundred dollars each while apologizing and telling them to pull the tarp not just over them but tight around them. He leaned over as they covered their bodies and drew the tarp tight. The larger one trembled and prayed.
“Perfecto,” Sean said and started the engine as he handed the gun to Dalz, who gauged where their heads were and held the barrel no more than eight inches away. He shot both twice quickly then shot the one who’d spasmed a third time. The bowels of one released, but Sean didn’t seem to mind and turned on the radio as Dalz handed the gun back.
Dalz followed in his car south twenty miles then five and a half more along a desert road. Sean left the radio on after they stopped. He swung his door open and sliced through a bag of cocaine then spilled it across the passenger seat and into the footwell before dropping it there. He locked the doors with the windows up tight and the engine off and said nothing as he got into Dalz’s car.
Several miles later he threw the truck keys into mesquite and said, “You’ll install the cradles tonight. Missile housings will be delivered. After that, assembly of all remaining parts begins.” He turned and asked, “Do you have a problem that the carpenters are dead?”
“None.”
“But there’s something. I can feel it. You’re tense. Is this worry, or is it that you’re used to working alone? If you’re uncomfortable, you can still leave. You can walk away. I’ll let you do that now that the preassembly is done.”
There was no walking away, and Dalz was careful with his answer.
“I am a . . . I don’t remember the correct English word. But things made exact. I like things exact. I focus until that’s done. I understood what you said before, and I’m fine. We don’t need to keep having this conversation. If you need to kill me, let me build the missiles first. It’s why I am here.”
Dalz didn’t know why, but that got through to Sean.
“I want to stay,” Dalz added.
“Then we’re good.”
38
Mara scheduled a squad meeting for late afternoon. I knew Jace had finally gone to see or confront her father—I wasn’t sure which—but she made it back in time for us to do another Starbucks coffee walk and talk ahead of the meeting.
“Sure, let’s do it,” I said. We walked slowly and I figured Jace would talk about her father, but that wasn’t what she had in mind.
“I did something I’m angry at myself about,” she said. “I may need counseling or a new career,” Jace said. “I’m not kidding. I really screwed up and in a way that makes me wonder if somewhere inside I want to get kicked out of the FBI because I don’t think I’m worthy.”
“I know the feeling. In my first few years as an FBI agent I’d rush investigations. I’d get to ninety percent of the evidence and think I’d get the rest in a confession, but it didn’t always work that way. But are you sure you want to tell me?”
“I should. It involves you.”
In the bright sunlight outside, she squinted sideways at me and said, “Supervisor Mara recruited me to help investigate you the day I drove down from the Bay Area. I was still in California when he called. He wanted someone from outside so rumors didn’t spread. I pulled off at the next exit, almost turned around and went back to the Bay Area.”
“Good you didn’t.”
“It was out of the blue,” she said. “I didn’t see it coming or know how to deal with it.”
Some of this she’d already said, and I’d put a certain amount together on my own. We cut off our conversation as we went into Starbucks and ordered. I waited outside with a black coffee as Jace’s latte got made. When she came out, I was standing in the shade along the building where we were out of earshot of anybody.
“I grew up around drugs. I know how the system deals. Courts get manipulated,” Jace said then took a deep breath. “I waited for Potello after he got released. He didn’t know what was going on. He was out on surprise bail and blinking in sunlight with a slicked-up cartel lawyer yelling at him to get in a car. He looked like a kid whose parents forgot him at a gas station on a family trip, but he was smart enough to avoid the cartel goon screaming at him.”
“You saw all that?”
“Yes. I’d driven there thinking I might catch him coming out then talk to him.”
“About what?”
“You.”
“Why, Jace? Why take that kind of risk?”
“I don’t know. But I didn’t threaten him or anything. I just fed him some bullshit I sort of made up on the spot.”
“Don’t tell me what you said to him.”
“I have to tell you, at least a little. I won’t tell you much, and you don’t have to tell me how bad a call I made.” Jace paused, then said, “I tried
to convince him he got his dates wrong about when he sold to you. I said you were out of town on a couple of the dates he had down for sales. He said he’d fix those and some mumbled crap about it being a computer problem.”
Hearing that swept aside the buoyant feeling I had walking out of the Metro police station. What Jace was saying disappointed me.
“That could easily be a career-ending move,” I said. “He goes back and tells somebody you threatened him, then they go back through the video and find you talking with him . . . What were you thinking?”
“That you cleared Metro undercover but could still get framed! I’ve seen drugs planted, people framed. Careers get built on top of other people. Once the momentum starts, it’s hard to stop.”
“How can you have as much talent as you have and do something that stupid?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe that. You know yourself better than that.”
I said that but didn’t know if she’d answer. After a minute or more, she did.
“At times I don’t think I’m good enough. I don’t deserve to be here. That’s it, that’s really the truth. There are mornings when I think I don’t belong in the FBI. I’m a fake somehow.”
I faced her and said, “I’ve worked with a lot of FBI agents and I promise you, you’re more than good enough. If you take yourself out by not believing in yourself, it’ll be the mistake of a lifetime. You one hundred percent belong here. Not only that, but if you keep getting better, you’ll rise right up. Whatever’s going on, you need to figure it out or find a therapist or someone to talk to. Don’t blow up your career, you are way too good. And you’re needed.”
She took that in. “I have a crazy streak. Mara’s taken a liking to me, I think, and I want to tell him he’s wrong. And I should tell him what I did. Shouldn’t I?”
“What’s the crazy streak?”
“I see something and know it’s going down a certain way that’s wrong but I can’t just stand by and watch. I can’t deal.”
“You have to learn to. I had something of that streak until it got to a place where I scared myself enough. You need a code you follow and to make peace with your doubts about yourself.”
“I don’t understand why I confronted Potello. No, I know why, but I just don’t know why I let it happen.”
I wasn’t sure if she was hearing me.
“I’m going to say it again, Jace. You need a personal code you never violate. A way you do things and a way you don’t. You don’t hesitate and debate. It’s a no-hesitation thing.”
“I get that.”
“So put it to yourself and either turn the badge in or change.”
***
Half an hour later, we were in a conference room with a lot of the DT squad, and Mara talking about Dalz and some other new leads. I gave a rundown on Dalz.
“He’s known to most intelligence agencies you’ve worked with or heard of,” I said. “The Russians have tracked him, and Mossad, Interpol, MI6, CIA, NSA, you name it, but the French know him best. They believe Frederic Dalz is his true name. I’ve tried to trace it back but got nowhere. The French call him the Numbers Man, a moniker that goes to something they found in a hotel room after he fled ahead of a raid.
“He left behind a drawing of people sitting around a long table. Each person at the table was numbered, but there was no obvious correlation between them. Number three sat next to number seventeen who was next to thirteen and so forth.
“The French have the most complete file. They think the reason his background is so hard to trace is that he was chosen at a young age for aptitude in math, physics, and chemistry, then tutored in near seclusion for most of his childhood and adolescence.”
Mara shook his head and said, “Our psychological profiles have him as withdrawn, unable to communicate well, and stunted socially.”
“He’s more nuanced,” I said, “and from the little we know, often the opposite of what they concluded. He can be a talker and gregarious. He likes people. If you want it firsthand, call the border patrol agents at Metaline Falls and ask if Dalz was a quiet guy. Two witnesses may give widely different descriptions. It’s not unusual with him. It mystified the French. It could be he’s that good of a character actor. Sometimes witnesses sound as if they weren’t looking at the same guy. If you find him, check with your partner before you write your report.”
That got a chuckle and a couple of smiles. Everyone was tired, and in truth I wasn’t one hundred percent on board with the conviction Dalz was here to attack a heavily guarded DoD project. An airliner, a high-speed train, a televised soccer final, that’s Dalz, but a US government military base? That’s a lot to take on. I threw out another idea.
“It’s possible Dalz had no choice but to accept a role on a paramilitary team put together by an adversary of ours, someone who has sheltered Dalz from other intelligence agencies and is now funding mercenaries who can’t be directly traced if caught or killed. Could be they protected him for years and he owed them. But, as far as we know, he’s avoided the US, so why now? That’s the big question.”
“A big payout, maybe?” an agent said. “Isn’t there something like a billion dollars in the AI and that new base? So, say he gets five million and a paid vacation in America. He gets headlines and big money.”
“But he’s always avoided the States,” I said. “Or that’s what Interpol and the CIA think. It’s always been a part of the puzzle, so maybe that was wrong or has changed or maybe he owes whoever has protected him all these years. That’s what I think is going on.”
“You think he was coerced into this operation, Grale?”
“I’d guess he’s been involved with one of our enemies a long time. I don’t know about coerced, but maybe he owes, and the payoff is large, so it’s a combination. Attacking Indie, a top-secret AI machine of the United States, is something only a rival nation could contemplate. That could be what we’re seeing. They field a strictly mercenary team sent to make a statement or, if really lucky, damage or destroy Indie. Either way, a message gets sent about what they’re willing to risk.
“Dalz is a sophisticated infiltrator and a survivor,” I added. “He has the kind of skills that would make him useful assembling missiles. That fits, but we may be focusing too much on him. Others on this alleged team might be easier to find.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” a burly agent named Hidalgo said. “Why aren’t we targeting the rest and letting them lead us to him?”
“No one is really getting anywhere,” Mara said and he turned to me. “We’re no closer. Everybody, let’s put our heads together and come up with a new approach.”
Jace jumped in saying, “We’ve reached out to commercial property owners, managers, and real estate firms leasing in the Las Vegas Valley. We’re asking for their help searching all commercial leased spaces and other private buildings big enough to assemble missiles in. We’re trying to cover all of Vegas in the next four days.”
“Good,” Mara said. “And why haven’t I heard about this?”
“Because you stopped talking to me after that pound of heroin was found in my locker,” I said. This time I got genuine laughter plus a smile from Mara.
But it wasn’t as though I was back on the squad. I wasn’t.
“We’ll add agents to the commercial property searches,” Mara said. “Let’s go, everybody, there’s still daylight. Whatever it takes. Let’s break this wide open.”
39
“That pale-green building off to the right at the next exit up ahead is the next stop,” Jace said. “She said she’d be waiting for us on the south end of the building. Look for a white Mercedes. Her name is Tory Binelle. Before we get there, let me tell you a couple of things I just learned from Mara. One you already know. The body found is officially Alan Eckstrom’s. What’s new is there are traces of obscure drugs in Eckstrom’s blo
od, and Mara’s fine with you touring me through the mine where his body was found.”
“You don’t want to do that with me. I’ll give you the cell number of the Lincoln County investigator, or get with the other agents working the murder. At least a half dozen of them have been in the mine. Where do you fit in?”
“That’s not clear yet.”
“If you’re moved to that, we’re done working together for now.”
“I know, I get it, but let’s see what happens. I really don’t think Mara will move me onto the murder investigation. He just wants me to be up to speed.”
We pulled into a large parking lot and I pointed out a white Mercedes. With Tory Binelle we walked the long green building and looked at forty-nine leased and empty spaces. Binelle told us she’d gotten her start as a real estate agent and saved and bought and worked her way into ownership of 60,000 square feet of commercial space in the Las Vegas Valley. She knew several other developers and was more than willing to make calls. She was a godsend for us.
She left her car behind and rode with us. She knew every inch of her buildings and knew who owned what buildings and who the tenants were in many others. We drove until after sunset with her, until we couldn’t see well enough. Nothing we saw or walked through looked suspicious, but the two hours with her and her thirty-two years of knowledge about commercial buildings in the Las Vegas area was very helpful. That included her sense of where to look for the empty, begging-to-be-rented square footage where owners wouldn’t be asking many questions.
The next morning at dawn, Jace and I drove more of Binelle’s list of commercial spaces. We were close to done with that list when Ralin texted me. I handed my phone to Jace and she read aloud, “On board British Airways 946 London to San Francisco. Made an emergency landing after the passenger cabin filled with smoke. White smoke. Chemical smell. FBI bomb unit flying in from NYC.”
I turned to Jace. “Call him. If he answers, put him on speakerphone.”