Out of Time

by David Klass

  “Just some antique chests I haven’t unloaded yet. Do you need to see the inside?”

  “No, just some photos.” He took out his cell and snapped a picture of the front, and then walked behind the van and crouched. She could see him studying the right side of the bumper, but there was no indication that any sticker or decal had been removed from it. He straightened up, took a picture, and said, “All done.”

  She didn’t want him back in the house, so she opened the garage door and walked him out onto the driveway to his cruiser. “I hope you saw everything you needed.”

  “Yeah, now I gotta go type it up. Sorry for the bother. Thanks.”

  But he didn’t leave. They stood for a long moment, awkwardly, and then she said, “I’d better get some snacks ready for the kids. They always come home starving.”

  “Yeah, I can understand that. I’m always hungry as a bear myself.” He very awkwardly stuck out a big hand. “Thanks, Sharon.”

  She hesitated and shook his hand. It was large and sweaty, and for a moment he closed his fingers around her palm and she felt trapped. She tugged it free, and he let her go and quickly opened the door of his cruiser. “Tell Mitch I said hello.”

  “I sure will. Good luck finding the right black van.”

  He got into his car and drove off down the driveway, and Sharon watched till his cruiser disappeared behind a curtain of trees. She walked back into the house and began shaking. She poured herself a shot of brandy and slugged it down and stood completely still and silent, looking at the painting of the Mosley River and the beautiful crab-apple tree that stood tranquilly on its bank.

  THIRTY-THREE

  “Roger Barris,” Brennan said, still in his blue terry-cloth bathrobe, rubbing his eyes and studying the report in front of him with both fascination and obvious doubt. “He lives here?”

  “He’s got a house in Arlington and an office a block from Dupont Circle. He’s been a lobbyist for the oil and gas industry and also for some mining companies for more than a decade,” Grant said, unable to hide his excitement.

  “Does that really make sense?” Brennan wanted to know.

  “It could make a lot of sense,” Earl pointed out.

  “The best cover is deep cover,” Grant agreed enthusiastically. “He’s advocated for all kinds of deregulation, easing restrictions on federal lands and offshore; he’s called climate change a ‘threat multiplier’ and a ‘liberal hoax’—”

  “But the really interesting thing is that he has another side, or at least he radically changed his colors,” Hannah Lee cut in. “We’re still filling in background reports, but Barris started off as green as they come. He was in San Francisco for twelve years, right when we think Green Man was there in the 1980s and 1990s. He was tied in with Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front, and he was friendly with some of those early organizers mentioned in the manifesto. His first two published articles defended tree spiking and the spotted owl. But then he underwent a slow conversion, and now he’s swung all the way the other way.”

  “People don’t change that much unless they have a good reason to,” Earl observed, sipping coffee from a giant takeout cup.

  “Lobbyists are well paid,” Brennan pointed out. “Money is always a good reason.”

  “True enough,” Earl admitted. “Anyway, Jim, it was too interesting not to wake you up.”

  “You could have at least brought me some of that damn coffee,” Brennan snarled. He looked at Hannah Lee. “So he popped up on the stylometrics search?”

  “Professor Shaw first pinged us at two A.M. He’s spent the rest of the night verifying stylistic indicators, while we’ve been gathering background info.”

  A tall man with a goatee had been standing in a corner of the room, but now he stepped forward. Shaw didn’t look like he had stayed up all night. He had showered, trimmed his beard, and was wearing a beige linen jacket that matched his stylish titanium eyeglass frames. In the past few days he had worked mostly with Hannah and her team, but the distinguished professor clearly wasn’t intimidated by this assemblage of high-powered FBI agents in the taskforce commander’s living room at seven in the morning. “It was fortuitous that he’s so widely published,” he explained. “That allowed us to compare a broad range of factors, which gives us an extremely high level of assurance. Barris has written on many of the same subjects that Green Man addresses, and the stylistic and contentual parallels are telling.”

  “But if he’s really Green Man, wouldn’t he have taken steps to distance himself from his published writing?” Brennan asked. “Try to muddy his trail?”

  “He did muddy it,” Shaw said. “First of all, when he advocates for development as a lobbyist, he’s on exactly the opposite side as when he writes from Green Man’s point of view. That’s an extremely slippery dodge tactic—it foundationally reverses his arguments and frequently shifts his points of emphasis.”

  “So you think he’s intentionally trying to throw us off?” Earl asked.

  “There’s no question. Stylistically, when Green Man touches on the same subjects that Barris wrote about, even ten or twenty years previously, he varies his sentence structures and even the lengths and rhythms of his sentences. Green Man leans toward shorter and punchier declarative sentences. Barris, as a lobbyist, is much more analytical and sometimes long-winded. A number of times Green Man’s word choice and syntax, usually clean and straightforward, becomes muddled and cumbersome, as if he’s intentionally reaching for new words or turns of phrases.”

  “But you can see through that?” Brennan asked.

  “Those are known subterfuges,” Professor Shaw said, and then raised a finger as if making an important point to a room of students. “People can’t change the way they think, and that is reflected in the seminal choices they make in formulating and expressing the architectonics of their thought arguments. . . .”

  Hannah Lee’s phone pinged. “Okay, get this. Barris’s primary residence is in Arlington, but he has a second house in East Lansing, Michigan.”

  The mood in the living room was becoming more excited by the minute. Brennan had stopped rubbing his eyes, and someone had given him a steaming mug of hot coffee. “So he could be a Honey Badger fan? Do we know if he was free and could have traveled on any of the six strike dates?”

  Their phones were all ringing as reports flooded in from teams in the field. “It seems likely that Barris was free for at least two of the dates. We don’t know about the rest yet, but we’re checking,” Grant said. “He has three main oil industry clients and largely sets his own schedule, so he travels quite a bit. . . .”

  “His undergrad degree is in engineering from Michigan State,” Hannah Lee reported, studying her phone. “He’s married with four kids. Two of his grown sons live in Lansing and don’t have steady employment. He helps support them.”

  “So he could be running the show, but with help from them, which is something we’ve always considered,” Brennan muttered.

  “One of his sons has a cargo van,” a square-shouldered agent chimed in.

  “What do we know about it, Dale?”

  “Nine-year-old GMC Savana. Registered as silver, but it could easily be repainted.”

  Brennan lowered his coffee to a table. “Okay, I want warrants for Barris’s phone calls, Internet, and let’s find a fast way to search his house and property.”

  “We’ve already started the paperwork for those warrants,” Agent Slaughter, the chief lawyer on the taskforce, announced in his southern drawl.

  “Proceed quickly and quietly,” Brennan said. “I don’t want a word of this to get out yet. Not one whisper.”

  “The quickest way would be to go directly through the attorney general to the FISA Court,” Slaughter counseled. “That cuts out several steps but since it’s not technically an international case it could be tricky. . . .”

  “Also, it cuts
in the attorney general, and potentially everyone she’s connected to,” Grant pointed out.

  “She’s gotta be part of this sooner or later,” Brennan said. “It’s a balancing act. We need to be fast yet deliberate.” He folded his arms over his large stomach and slowly turned away, gazing out his window at the hammock in his backyard, deep in thought. They watched him mull it over for five seconds.

  Hannah Lee glanced down at a text, and when she broke the silence, there was suddenly real worry in her voice. “Uh, Jim.”

  “What is it?”

  “Roger Barris is on his way to the airport.”

  Brennan turned back from the window. “Dulles?”

  “No, he’s in New York. He’s headed to JFK in an UberLUX.”

  “Do we know where he’s flying?”

  “Senegal.” She studied her phone. “Dakar. There’s lots of oil drilling in Dakar. He’s gone there several times before to consult.”

  “Is it a nonstop?” Brennan asked. “Can we stop it or turn it around if we need to?”

  “Air Maroc. Eight hours. No stops, and we have no authority over it once its wheels leave the tarmac.”

  “I’d have to check this,” Agent Slaughter said, “but I’m pretty sure Senegal is on the ‘no lift’ list.”

  “What is ‘no lift’?” Grant asked.

  The answer came back in the slow southern drawl: “That’s the list of countries we can’t extradite from.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The Royal Air Maroc jetliner waited on the tarmac as passengers filed on. Most of them had already threaded their way down the rows and found seats in economy and business when a portly, vigorous man with a salt-and-pepper beard left the first-class executive lounge and—limping slightly—wheeled his carry-on across to the Jetway, his soft Italian leather computer bag slung over his right shoulder. He flew constantly at the behest of his well-heeled oil company clients, and luxury travel had become a pleasant annoyance to him.

  Even after all these years and millions of miles, the truth was that Roger Barris didn’t like flying. Every time he got on an aircraft, he still wondered fleetingly if it might crash. He was an engineer turned journalist, and he had studied enough physics to understand the theory behind flight—how engines move the plane forward, which pushes air over the wings and down, generating lift. But he had made a very profitable career casting doubt on scientific realities that didn’t make sense to most people, and there was something counterintuitive, something that bothered even him, about a three-hundred-ton plane being able to climb into the skies.

  Since there was no way around it, he had learned to control his fears and enjoy being pampered. He was greeted by the first-class cabin supervisor, who personally escorted him to his spacious, leather, fully reclining seat and took his suit bag to hang up in a closet. A pretty flight attendant hurried over with the menu, and Barris ordered a steak with a nice Bordeaux for the evening meal and watched her ass and legs as she turned and walked away. Not bad, not bad at all.

  He kicked off his shoes and flexed his toes and glanced at the passenger sitting nearest to him in first class. It was an older man with a sour countenance sipping what looked like milk and reading Le Monde. Jesus, what a dour face! He was clearly one of those supercilious French businessmen or diplomats who spoke every language perfectly and yet had utter disdain for anything not French. Despite the fact that they were first-class neighbors and clearly both successful and important, he didn’t give Barris so much as a glance. Barris turned away toward the window and took out his own reading for the flight—the specs for a new oil field. It could potentially get Senegal back on the list of profitable oil producers, but it was unfortunately right smack in one of Senegal’s few pristine wildlife reserves and also bordered by two potentially hostile neighbors.

  There was some minor activity outside the plane. They had started to remove the Jetway and were now reconnecting it. Perhaps an important passenger needed to make a connection, so they were extending him or her a service. Barris hoped it was that and not one of those mind-bogglingly stupid technical snafus that delayed flights for hours. He had once been held at Heathrow for four hours while inept mechanics tried to fix a seat in economy that wouldn’t come fully upright. In economy, no less! Barris felt that people who flew economy deserved everything they got.

  He reached into the carry-on bag under his seat and fished out his cashmere slippers and slid them on. He was just getting over a gout attack, and it was painful to walk in shoes, but these extra-large and sublimely feathery slippers barely irritated his sensitive big toe. It was the beer—he would have to cut down on the beer. But how could one go to West Africa and not drink a few cold beers?

  They had finished reattaching the Jetway, and he was pleased to see that the first-class cabin supervisor had drawn the curtain, sealing them off from the hoi polloi behind them and whatever nonsense was about to occur in the bowels of the plane. He heard a knock from the Jetway side, the door was opened, and whispers were exchanged. Barris put his slippered feet up on the cushioned footrest and glanced down at a promising chart from the Mauritania–Senegal–Guinea-Bissau basin.

  “Mr. Barris?” A woman in a black pantsuit was looking down at him, and he could tell that she wasn’t part of the flight crew. She was smiling, but it was a serious smile, and there were two men in blue jackets standing on either side of her who weren’t even attempting to smile.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “There’s no reason for alarm, Mr. Barris, but I’d like to ask you to please come with me.”

  He looked back at her and then glanced at the French diplomat with the sour face, who was being led away from his seat by a member of the flight crew.

  “Why would I be alarmed? What’s going on? Is my family okay?”

  “Yes, everyone’s fine. Please come with me.”

  “You mean off the plane?” Barris asked incredulously.

  “Yes, please accompany me off this aircraft immediately.”

  “But there’s not another plane to Senegal today that will get me there in time for my meeting. And it’s a crucial meeting. Look, what’s this about?”

  “We’ll talk about it after we deplane, and I’ll explain everything. Right now I need you to do as I ask: stand up and please accompany us off this plane right away.”

  “But what about my luggage?” His voice got a little louder. “I have every right to be on this plane. I don’t even know who you are. . . .”

  She held out a badge. He saw that she was a special agent of the FBI.

  “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “I didn’t say that you did. All that I asked is that you stand up and accompany us off this aircraft.” She gestured up the aisle, to the open door to the Jetway. “Come. Please don’t make this any more difficult than it is.”

  “Don’t make what difficult?” Barris looked at the two men on either side of her. They both looked to be in their thirties and more than fit. “Are you threatening me? Who are these gorillas? Listen, I’m an American citizen traveling on a first-class full-fare ticket with a valid passport so you have no right . . .”

  The captain and first officer stepped out of their cockpit. “Captain,” Barris called loudly, “come over here. You have the authority on this aircraft. . . .”

  But the captain and first officer walked right by him toward the back of the plane and disappeared through the drawn curtain. Following them with his eyes, he saw that the entire first-class cabin had been quickly and quietly emptied, and he was now alone with these three FBI agents. “Am I under arrest?”

  “No, you’re not under arrest. But I need you to come with us right now. I promise you your luggage will be looked after. At this very minute it’s being taken off the plane.”

  Barris processed that and didn’t like the sound of it. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to call my la
wyer,” and he leaned down toward his computer bag to get his cell phone, which was in the uppermost zipped pocket.

  Then things happened very fast. The woman said, “Keep your hands where I can see them and stop moving.” Just as he touched the zipper on his bag, one of the young men darted forward, grabbed his right arm, and yanked him back. In a second he was flipped over on his stomach and they were putting some sort of binding on his wrists while he screamed that he was an American citizen and how dare they treat him this way and they would be very, very sorry.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Tom checked his phone to make sure he had the right address. This was Millionaires’ Row in Shadyside, and it was difficult to believe that a young academic lived in one of these Victorian mansions, even if she consulted internationally and was married to a potential Nobel laureate. He rang the bell, half expecting a maid in livery to open the door, but when it was finally pulled open, Lise stood there in red pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt, rubbing her red eyes as if she’d just woken up.

  “Sorry if you were napping, but you said to come by with the first results.”

  “I wasn’t napping, and you don’t have to remind me what I said,” she told him curtly, and led him into the elegantly decorated house. They walked through a double living room, and it was like touring a museum—the furniture, paintings, rugs, grand piano, and chandeliers were expensive, old, and European.

  “This is beautiful,” he said.

  “Do you think so?” she asked, and again he heard a distinct prickliness.

  He waited a few seconds and asked politely, “Is your husband home? I studied some of his work in grad school, and I’d be honored to meet him if it’s appropriate. . . .”

  “He’s not home,” she said. “He’s in fucking Mainz.”

  Tom wasn’t certain exactly where Mainz was, but he took what sounded like a third hint to shut up, and he stayed silent as she led him to a back study that looked out on a well-tended garden. There was a stream with water lilies and a graceful Japanese bridge, and it appeared more like a Monet painting than a real view. “I don’t know how you get any work done here,” Tom said, watching the stream meander by.