Sound of a Furious Sky: FBI Agent Domini Walker Book 1
Page 26
“I wasn’t sure what to believe.”
“You didn’t believe him?”
“Not completely, no.”
“Were you upset?”
She stretched her fingers releasing a clench. “Yes. The accusation against my father was … terrible.”
“What did you do?”
The tears stung the insides of her lids. “Micah and I planned a trip. To go to Rapoosa ourselves. To learn the truth. I made up a ruse for work. I pretended that the trip would be about research on the Eskimo curlew.”
“Did you go there?”
“Yes. Two and a half weeks ago.”
“What did you do when you got there?”
“We talked to the people, the villagers. We asked about the incident five years ago. They told us what happened.”
“You heard that this violence had occurred?”
“Yes.”
“What else did you learn?”
“A young woman named Maria Cardona—"
“Yes, we heard Maria’s testimony this morning here in this courtroom.”
“Maria Cardona told us something. She told us the next day two white foreigners had come to Rapoosa, had seen the aftermath.”
“What did you think about this information?”
“I wondered if one of those men had been my father.”
“You suspected your father had been there, in the village of Rapoosa, after the violence?”
“I did not know. I did not want to believe that. But yes, I suspected it.”
“That must have been unnerving.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I showed her a photograph on my phone.”
“Of whom?”
The hum of a ceiling fan purred. “Of my father.”
“Did Maria recognize him?”
She released a breath. “No.”
“What did you do?”
“Micah and I went to the nearest hotel. It’s a nice hotel.”
“What’s the name of the hotel, Hettie?”
“Paradise Villa.”
“What did you do at the hotel?”
“I showed the staff the photo of my father.”
“And?”
“They recognized him. From five years ago. I asked them to look up their records. They confirmed that he was there during the time the crimes were committed in Rapoosa.”
Gasps escaped lungs in a collective exhale. She closed her eyes against the shame and the pain.
“Is that all, Hettie?”
Her heart raced against her neck. She released her lungs and opened her eyes. “No. Maria Cardona said two white foreigners were in Rapoosa after the atrocities. Micah and I googled for photos of people we thought may have been with my father.”
Collectively, the crowd leaned in.
“And?”
“The staff of Paradise Villa recognized the other white foreigner.”
“Who was it, Hettie?”
“John Abbott. The chief risk officer for Orion Extractives.”
With a single movement of finality, the spectators pushed back against benches, eyes wide, mouths slightly ajar. Hettie Van Buren just implicated her father and Orion Extractives.
Davidson hung his head to mark the moment. Lifting his chin, he nodded. “Thank you, Hettie. That’s all.” He turned to the judge. “No more questions, sir.”
The judge turned a sharp disapproving eye to the defense table. “Your witness.”
The prosecutor shook his head. “No questions, your Honor.”
Hettie rose, gingerly stepped down from the podium, walked past the throng of spectators, and left the courtroom behind.
59
It was almost midnight as Dom cruised the quiet street in Staten Island. There were no other cars on the road and only a few lit windows in the neat townhouses. Families in this neighborhood were all tucked asleep in their beds. The GPS on her phone confirmed the location. She pulled the Lancia to the curb and turned off the engine. In the dark, the silence was ominous.
Across the street, a two-story white trim and brick home of Robert Gessen and his family sat daintily at the top of a steep driveway.
That early Friday morning after Mila had gone to bed with Tinks, Beecher heard the full story. “So you’re kinda responsible for her,” he said, leaning the kitchen chair back on two rear legs.
Dom had scratched nails against scalp. “Yeah. That’s where I am too.”
“I mean, what are we gonna do? Those assholes are still out there.”
“First of all, this isn’t a we. This is a me. And I’m gonna take care of it.”
“I mean, holy shit. These are the Filthy Five we’re talking about.”
“I’ll handle it. But Mila stays here till it’s sorted.” As she stood, every fiber in her body ached. “But now I need some sleep and some kind of splint for my toes.”
Beecher gazed at an envelope in the middle of the kitchen table.
She shot him a look.
He nodded. “It’s her letter.”
“I told you to throw it out.”
“I didn’t.” He crossed his arms. “I think we should meet with her.”
“No.”
“But—"
A headache crawled across her scalp. “No.”
“She says we don’t have the right story—”
“She’s full of shit. We know what happened. He was dirty, he went to jail, he killed himself. Esther left us. That’s the story. End of story.”
“Isn’t it kind of crazy timing that Mila dug into the Filthy Five—"
“No.”
“I mean, what if Esther is right, and there’s more to the story. And now the Filthy Five are getting back together—"
“No.”
“Just think about it.”
“No.”
“Dom, what if we have the story wrong?”
In the back of her mind, Stewart Walker released a ragged sigh as if the truth was finally released from confinement. With her last ember of anger, Dom turned and headed to bed.
In the rearview of the Lancia, a pair of headlights flashed as a car turned onto the street. It approached slowly, routinely. A Ford sedan pulled past and swung up the sloped driveway. A moment later the Ford’s headlights switched off.
Let’s get this game started. She flicked on the Lancia’s high beams and a spectral shaft illuminated fifty yards into the pitch-dark night. She rose out of her car, softly shut the door, and leaned against the cold metal.
At the top of the drive, the Ford’s driver side door opened and the dome light winked for a moment like a shadowbox. A lighter’s flame flashed and a cigarette tip glowed as Robert Gessen assessed the Lancia’s beam.
Stewart Walker whispered, Hello, Bob.
The Lancia was hard and solid against her back.
Gessen walked slowly down the driveway, into the street, and stopped ten feet out. He took a long drag and the embers flared. In the shadowed edge of the Lancia’s beam, his face appeared angular and sinister. His gray hair was close cropped and aggressive. “What do you want?”
“Here’s the thing about Feds,” she began silkily. “We have amazing access.”
Gessen squinted and pulled hard on the cigarette. He was nervous.
“You see,” she said, “Feds have access to an incredible array of surveillance and data that isn’t available to your below average, run-of-the-mill cops. NSA signal intelligence, surveillance, wire-tapping, internet tracking. All this amazing technology is at our fingertips. Most of it doesn’t even need a warrant or a judge. You can just dig in to your hearts content.”
He glared.
“It just doesn’t take much to flay someone’s life open, like slicing a chef’s knife right down the chest cavity, exposing the heart and the guts. Wide open.”
He took a final deep drag and flicked the cigarette to the asphalt and crushed it underfoot.
She opened the Lancia’s door, leaned in, picked up a manila file from the
passenger seat, turned, took a few steps to him and handed it over. “Everything about a person’s life can be put into one neat file. All in one place.” She pulled out a flashlight, clicked it, and shined it on the folder. “Here, take a look.”
Under the light, he flipped the documents. The first few items were photos of his wife outside a supermarket, his son on a high school sports field, and his daughter walking a plump yellow Labrador. His jaw tensed as he flipped through bank statements, cell phone usage, a copy of his mortgage. He refused to look at her.
As his fingers turned the second to last paper, she said, “I especially like that last one.”
Eyes narrowed as he read the list of his misconduct charges for the last ten years, courtesy of Mila’s research. He closed the folder and glared at her.
“That’s where I’d start,” she said softly, “if I wanted to flay you open.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m pretty sure you don’t want me to start turning over the rocks where you hide, do you, Officer Gessen?”
“Who are you?”
“Just know that I’m federal.”
“Do I know you?” he asked.
Stewart Walker whispered, “Not yet, Bob, but you will. My Dom is more than enough.”
She clicked off the flashlight, blinding him momentarily in darkness.
He asked, “What do you want?”
She stepped close, and he leaned away. Her voice was low. “No more sinister stalking of a young woman who lives on Mott Street. That means no more of your second-rate, clumsy creeping-around-in-the-middle-of-the-night Keystone Cop antics. You stay clear of her. She’s protected.
He blinked.
She clicked the flashlight beam on the folder.
He nodded.
She clicked it off. “Good.”
“Wait. That’s it?”
“For tonight. But trust me, I’ve got eyes on you now.” She opened the Lancia’s door. “Have a good night, Officer Gessen.”
TUESDAY
May those last of the curlews prevail.
—Fred Bodsworth, “Last of the Curlews”
60
The tang of coffee permeated the bright kitchen. Outside the day was brilliant. Tinks followed Dom into the room, tiny toenails tapping on the tile.
Beecher, hair tousled and reading from his laptop while sipping a coffee, said, “Yo.”
“Morning,” she mumbled through sleepiness.
Moments later, Mila shuffled in and Tinks tap-danced around her ankles.
Dom handed her a coffee, “You want pancakes?”
“You have pancakes?” Mila’s eyes were wide.
Dom grinned. “Beecher makes killer pancakes.”
Eyes glued to the screen, he smiled. “Easy done if that’s what you guys want.”
Mila’s said, “Yes, please!”
Beecher waved them over to the table. “But come check this New Yorker article.”
They read over his shoulder.
“The Fall of a Private Equity Firm: Human Rights Abuses in Honduras”
The New Yorker
A trial in Toronto this week has thrown the private equity world into chaos. At the heart of the case are allegations that human rights abuses conducted by a mining company in Honduras were witnessed by investors—one of New York’s premier private equity firms, Rittenhouse Equity—in the midst of a sale to a Canadian conglomerate. Rittenhouse Equity is owned by banker Claude Van Buren, whose wife, Yvette Van Buren is the sole heir to the Lowrance fortune. In a shocking twist, the daughter of the Van Burens, Hettie Van Buren, testified yesterday that she discovered her father witnessed the aftermath of the atrocities. To make the remarkable story even more sinister, Yvette Van Buren, in an attempt to prevent Hettie Van Buren from testifying, abducted her.
Regardless of the ruling by the Superior Court of Justice of Ontario, many investors, much of New York’s high society, are appalled by the crescendo of scandals and are demanding redemptions of their investment from Rittenhouse Equity.
From the counter, Dom’s cell phone vibrated. The screen read Fontaine, and her stomach clenched.
Clicking it on, she walked out of the kitchen. In the silence of the hallway, his voice was loud. “OPR finished the investigation.”
Her heart clanged. “Yeah?”
“They cleared you.”
Her lungs released.
“I’ve got the report right here. They put in your testimony word for word. They noted that your honesty was exceptional, a real testament to the Agency. They said it had been a complex situation with months of preparation that led to a harrowing—they used the word harrowing—scenario. Their conclusion was that they believe you acted within the letter of the law, that you saw your life in danger, and that you acted accordingly.”
The truth worked.
“It worked for you, Walker. The truth was the right way to go.”
“I guess it was.”
“Congrats.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Take the week off. I’ll see you next Monday.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Back in the kitchen, Beecher was cracking eggs into a bowl, and Tinks had made her way onto Mila’s lap, her chin on the young woman’s arm, eyes closed. It felt like Mila had been part of the small family for years.
61
The Sound of a Furious Sky
@LastCurlew
A childhood fraught with complications
within a rhythm of constant tension
while the world lusted all the opportunities.
Only inside a maternal orbit. Her world. My world.
Moving past the constraints, perception emerged
from isolation to find a gentle soul
beside me. Evenings. Laughter and touches
bathed in the scents of novelty and love.
Discovery a lightning and thunder
that broke apart the structures of solidity
in a single blow of righteousness.
Breadcrumbs to follow. Our journey. My journey.
The sound of a furious sky
sliced through innocence, revealing flesh.
Inhumanity, torture, neglect,
approached from a distance without shame
to goad us to action. We sprung
to uncover the secrets hidden
in the dry dust of tragic prairie.
Grace. Humanity. Hoped to redeem,
but underestimated the potency. They lost. I lost.
62
Rapoosa, Honduras
The prairie grass rustled a warm greeting. Over brightly colored marbles strewn across deep red dirt, the ruffle of downy hair beckoned. Hearing footsteps, Ines glanced up before hurtling down the path across dusty earth. Maria clutched the small body against her chest, grateful for the density of flesh and bones, and felt the saturation of a mother’s love.
A NOTE FROM HN WAKE:
I hope you enjoyed reading Sound of a Furious Sky as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you have five minutes, I’d be eternally grateful for an honest review. For a writer, these are invaluable. Links:
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Thanks for sharing your time with me! I am grateful for every single reader.
- HN Wake
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