Betrayal dh-12

by John Lescroart

  The Special was the only food item on the menu, and in deference to Chui's Chinese and Lou's Greek ethnicities, she most frequently tried to make different combinations of ingredients that included both of these two cultures' rather violently disparate culinary traditions. Thus, on any given day, the Lou's Special might be taramasalata (fish roe) wontons in an avgolemono broth, moussaka potstickers, or the oft-requested Yeanling Clay Bowl, the ingredients of which had once stumped a panel of six of the city's all-star chefs after DA Clarence Jackman had publicly referred to it as his "favorite lunch in the city."

  Because Lou's was semi-subterranean-the entrance off Bryant descended eight steps from the street level-the booth where Hardy and Hunt sat had windows high in the wall above them, which at the same time were at the ground level of the alley that ran alongside the building on the outside. The view out the windows, which few took advantage of, was of passing feet, garbage cans, the occasional horizontal homeless person.

  Today, neither Hardy nor Hunt was paying attention to the ambience. Hardy, who had spent most of the afternoon working on the first draft of his argument on the PTSD issue for Evan's appeal, sat with his shoulders hunched over slightly as though he were brooding, his hands cupped around a mug of coffee. Hunt sat sideways in the booth, slowly revolving a pint glass of beer on the table. Hunt had already made his report to Hardy at his office, and this had prompted Hardy's call back to Glitsky, and ultimately the decision that they should all meet down here and see what they had.

  "You don't think the fact that the Khalils talked to the FBI is going to be enough for you?" Hunt asked. "Friday that was all you wanted."

  "I remember it well," Hardy said, "those halcyon bygone days. And absolutely I'm going to make the argument. The Khalils had a strong motive to kill Nolan. The jury should have known about that and decided for themselves whether that caused them to have a reasonable doubt about Evan's guilt. It's up to the jury, not the FBI, to decide what's important and what's not. But for Brady to work, the withheld discovery has to be reasonably likely to cast doubt on the verdict. And the idea that some unknown third parties had a motive to kill Nolan probably isn't going to convince the court to give Evan a new trial. We're just going to need something stronger if we want to argue that the Khalils killed Nolan-"

  "Which I just don't see, Diz. Really. Still possible, I know, but you had to have heard this guy. If he didn't absolutely believe Scholler killed Nolan, he's gotta get himself an agent."

  "Well, if the alternative option was either himself or one of his relatives, it might sharpen his thespian skills a little bit, don't you think?"

  Hunt shrugged. "Possibly. But still, it's against my gut."

  "All right, then, let's go with that for a minute. Say whoever killed Nolan, it wasn't the Khalils and it wasn't Scholler. Who does that leave?"

  "How 'bout the FBI? Maybe there was way more money involved and these two agents who have disappeared found it and left the country."

  "Maybe," Hardy said without enthusiasm. "And a good story. But I kind of doubt it."

  "Me too," Hunt said, pointing at the entrance. "And I hate that. But here comes Glitsky. Maybe he'll know something."

  It wasn't only Glitsky. Bracco came in with him. Hardy introduced Hunt around-he hadn't met either of the cops before. Lou came from behind the bar and took their orders, Glitsky's green tea and Bracco's Diet Coke. In the next few minutes of show and tell, everybody got reasonably caught up. The story Hardy had heard from Tara about the mugging incident in San Francisco's Tenderloin, implicating Nolan in those three deaths, significantly upped the buzz quotient around the table.

  Bracco went last, revealing to the civilians what he'd already told Glitsky-that he'd located Bowen's secretary, Deni Pichaud, and talked to her for an hour or more about what her boss had been working on during the last few days before he disappeared. Ms. Pichaud didn't have much to offer. Bowen, as everyone already knew, had a varied and substantial practice, and according to Pichaud he tended to flit from one case to another as clients called and demanded his attention. She had no special memory of anything about Evan Scholler or his appeal.

  When Bracco finished, the four men sat looking at one another for a long moment. Hardy finally broke into the silence. "So where does that leave us?"

  "Is shit creek already taken?" Hunt asked.

  Glitsky, who eschewed profanity, gave the detective a quick bad eye but then blew on his tea, sipped, and said, "It's the FBI and Iraq. That's all that's left."

  Hardy shook his head. "The FBI didn't kill Nolan, Abe."

  "Maybe Scholler did." Bracco held up a hand. "I know he's your client and all, but-"

  "Yeah, but that almost doesn't matter at this point," Glitsky said.

  "I'm afraid it still does to me, guys," Hardy put in. "That's why me and Wyatt are here. So if everybody's good with it, maybe we can just leave the whole question of who killed Nolan open and see where that leads us."

  "Good by me," Glitsky said. "I want who did the Bowens, and we know that wasn't Scholler."

  "So you're going with the Bowens being murders?" Hunt asked.

  Glitsky nodded. "Until I get proven otherwise." He pointed a finger across the table at his inspector. "Which means, while I'm thinking of it, Darrel, feel free to put in more time on both these investigations. Treat 'em both like they're righteous one eighty-sevens. Witnesses if you can find 'em, evidence ditto, phone and financial records, the whole ball of wax."

  Bracco, determination all over his face, nodded. "Got it."

  "Meanwhile," Glitsky continued, "how are the FBI and Iraq connected to the Bowens?" In a rare display of humor, he channeled the line from Ferris Bueller. "Anyone? Anyone?"

  "I've got a thought," Hardy said. "Let's go back to Nolan. The FBI talked to him in person and his employer works in Iraq, which puts FBI and Iraq in the same sentence anyway."

  Hunt picked it up. "All right. And Abdel Khalil says Nolan picked up the contract on his parents in Iraq from a guy named Kumar or something."

  Hardy, who rarely forgot anything, chimed in. "Kuvan."

  "Okay, Kuvan. Kuvan paid Nolan forty or fifty grand to take out the Khalils. Then the Khalil family over in Iraq took out Kuvan."

  The four men sat with their thoughts and drinks. Finally, Hardy cleared his throat. "My, what a tidy little package," he said.

  Glitsky turned to him. "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying that this is all a nice cleanly closed circle, except for two little things-Charlie and Hanna Bowen. And I think we're all in agreement that, no matter what, the FBI didn't kill them. Right?"

  Nods all around.

  "Well, check me if I'm wrong on anything here, but how about if the trail leads to Iraq, all right, but instead of Kuvan paying for the hit, the order came from Allstrong?"

  "The way it did with Zwick," Glitsky added.

  "Do we know that for sure?" Bracco asked. "And even if we do, what does it get us?"

  "Nothing with Zwick, as you say. The FBI never got involved in that investigation," Hardy answered. "But with the Khalils, it gets us the FBI covering for an American company with contracts over there, deflecting the blame-and the retaliation-on this Kuvan guy. Just another Iraqi businessman who got squeezed in the war. This totally satisfies the Khalils-they get their tribal revenge and they're happy. And over here, now nobody's looking at Nolan anymore, or at Allstrong. The story's completely over."

  "And the FBI did this, again, why?" Glitsky asked.

  "Because Allstrong is connected high up in the government, both over there and back here. High enough that they could call off the FBI."

  "Uh-oh." Glitsky was shaking his head.

  "I know, I know," Hardy said. "You hate this conspiracy stuff. Which doesn't mean, Abe, that it doesn't happen."

  "I don't hate it," Bracco said.

  Hunt chimed in. "Me neither. In fact, I kind of like it."

  "Maybe I'm missing something," Glitsky said, coming back at Hardy. "So, Diz, you're say
ing that the FBI went over to investigate what? Nolan's murder?"

  "No. The Khalil murders."

  "I thought they'd concluded that was your client?"

  "No," Hunt corrected Glitsky. "Redwood City, not the feds, concluded that that was Evan. According to Abdel, the FBI thought it was Nolan pretty early on."

  "So they went over to Iraq? Why?"

  "To find the source of the frag grenades," Hardy said, "if nothing else. Interview Nolan's associates, maybe his boss, who has, it turns out, in fact actually ordered the hit."

  "But again, Diz, why?"

  "Well, and here I'm extrapolating a little bit, but see if it doesn't sing for you, because Allstrong had a profitable relationship with this guy Kuvan. And the Khalils were getting in Kuvan's way. This is all stuff, by the way, that Wyatt more or less verified this afternoon with Abdel. So Allstrong orders its guy, Nolan, to do the hit. Which is, P.S., what he basically did for a living anyway."

  "So." Glitsky, trying to make the tumblers fall into place, slowly swirled his teacup in front of him. "How does this get us to Bowen?"

  "Bowen gets Evan's appeal," Hardy said, "just like I did. He starts asking the same types of questions I've been asking, except instead of sending Wyatt here down to talk to Abdel Khalil, he starts with the assumption we're working with right now-that Nolan and not Evan killed the Khalils. So that changes his equation about who would need to cover that up if it comes out, and what's the answer?"

  "Allstrong," Hunt said.

  Hardy nodded. "Ten points."

  "Who needs to cover what up?" Glitsky asked.

  "Allstrong. They can play fast and loose all they want in Iraq and nobody asks too many questions as long as they're fulfilling their contracts. But if it comes out-and it would be a huge story over here-that they're killing naturalized American citizens on American soil to promote their business interests in Iraq, I've got to believe that screwed up as things are over there, Allstrong would at least stop getting new contracts. They might even lose the ones they've already got, and that's if they don't get charged for murder first."

  Bracco slurped at the end of his Diet Coke. "How much money are we talking about? For Allstrong, I mean, their contracts over there."

  Hunt spoke up. "I got curious checking out some stuff on Nolan and Googled them over the weekend. Their first year in Iraq, when Nolan was on the payroll, they got about three hundred and fifty million dollars in government contracts."

  "You've got to be kidding me," Bracco said. "Allstrong Security? I mean, who are they? Nobody's ever heard of them. They're not exactly Halliburton."

  "No, but they're trying harder," said Hunt, "that's for sure."

  "Maybe they'd actually kill to get work," Hardy deadpanned.

  Glitsky sat back, his body language saying that he was still reserving judgment. "Okay, okay. So you're saying Bowen went to Allstrong first, not the Khalils, with these questions?"

  "That's my guess," Hardy said.

  "And Allstrong killed him?"

  A nod. "Or had him killed, yes."

  "That's pretty drastic, don't you think?"

  "Maybe from our perspective, granted. But these guys are a bunch of mercenaries. They're hired guns. That's how they solve problems." Hardy came forward in his enthusiasm. "Look, Abe, Allstrong had already dealt with the whole Nolan thing and put it behind them. The world believed it was Evan Scholler who'd killed the Khalils for his own twisted reasons. Someone with the government who had major juice-a general, a congressman, I don't know, somebody who was in Allstrong's pocket and helping it get its contracts-had either ordered or convinced the FBI to offer up Kuvan privately to the remaining Khalils."

  Glitsky was still shaking his head. "I know we're not all big FBI fans here, but I've got to say that I don't see them doing this. Ever. Sometimes they might get a little overzealous, but they're not going to frame an innocent Iraqi and stand back while someone else kills him."

  Hardy nodded, conceding the point. "How about if they didn't know, Abe? How about if someone way up, like the general or senator or whoever I was talking about earlier, got to the director of the Bureau, say, and vouched for Allstrong, meanwhile selling him a bill of goods about Kuvan? So your agents solve the case and then they're ordered off it."

  "And when somebody else wants to talk about it," Bracco said, "like you, this morning, sir, the agents don't work there anymore."

  "And Allstrong stays off the hook," Hardy said.

  "Until Bowen showed up," Hunt added.

  "That's it," Hardy said. "And then here it was again, the threat to Allstrong, to its very existence, and a lot closer this time. So they had to make Bowen disappear before he could make any kind of public stink. Or even ask any more questions. He just had to go away." Hardy looked around the table. "Anybody see an egregious flaw here?"

  Glitsky looked across at Bracco. "Don't worry about it, Darrel, he always uses words like that." Then, back to Hardy. "Do you know that Bowen ever actually got in touch with Allstrong? I mean, any actual proof?"

  "No, but we can find that out. Those phone records you were talking about." Hardy turned to Bracco. "And you might want to check Hanna's too."

  Glitsky snapped out a curt defense of his inspector. "I'm sure Darrel's got some sense of the drill, Diz."

  "Sorry," Hardy said to Bracco. "I tend to get excited. This may really be something."

  "Let's get some evidence first," Glitsky said. He sipped at the last of his tea, put his cup down gently. When he spoke, his voice was heavy with discontent. "I really don't want to believe there's a conspiracy here. And a cover-up. From somebody high enough up to have influence with the FBI. I keep believing our guys don't do that kind of stuff."

  "With all respect, are you kidding, sir?" Hunt said. "These are the same swell folks who brought us Abu Ghraib and all the other disasters over there. Giving up Kuvan for the greater good, and that means pumping more money into a hardworking, God-fearing company like Allstrong-that's a no-brainer. We're the good guys, remember, so whatever we do is right."

  "Yeah," Glitsky said, "so let's hope we're wrong on this one."

  Hardy, thinking about Evan Scholler doing life without parole in prison, didn't hope they were wrong. He didn't see another plausible alternative, and he'd long since lost faith in the essential goodness of man. Some were good, true, maybe most. But others, particularly those drawn to war zones and to chaos, would sometimes do anything-lie, cheat, and kill-for more money and more power, either or both. The basic rules of civilization did not apply.

  That, Hardy was now all but convinced, was what had happened here. The moral rot that festered in Iraq and in the halls of power both here and abroad had poisoned the communal well over there. What distinguished Allstrong was that it had had the arrogance and irresponsibility to bring the rot and the chaos home.

  And that, Hardy felt, could not be allowed to stand.

  37

  Hardy sat in his reading chair, his feet up on the ottoman, in the dark living room in the front of his house. He wore the same black gym shorts that he'd put on before he'd gotten into bed six hours before. When he had started awake about an hour ago-he'd dreamt that he'd been pushed from an airplane out over the Pacific Ocean-tossing off the covers, he had lain still in the night until his heart slowed down, listening to his wife's breathing beside him, taking what comfort he could from the peaceful regularity of it.

  Finally giving up on the idea of sleeping, he eased himself out of bed. Downstairs, he looked into the refrigerator out of habit, then closed it and went into the adjoining family room and watched his tropical fish swimming in their dim, gurgling home.

  He'd spent most of the evening after dinner back next to his fish at his computer, finding out everything he could about Allstrong Security. Hunt's analysis of their financial success early in the war was accurate as far as it went, but he'd failed to mention that to date, the company's government contracts in Iraq totaled eight hundred and forty million dollars.

 
Allstrong was in charge of security at sixteen of the country's airports, as well as guarding electrical grids in twenty-two administrative areas. They had been in charge of the currency changeover for the entire country as well as the rebuilding of the power lines in the extremely violent Anbar Province. The company's Web site boasted of 8,800 employees in Iraq, 465 of whom were former American military men, most of them officers.

  The company had also become active in several other countries, with more than 500 ex-commando operatives in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Nigeria, and El Salvador, where it specialized in corporate as well as government logistics and security. Over 200 more employees worked at a sprawling new headquarters complex near Candlestick Point in San Francisco, where the concentration was mostly on programs to guarantee the integrity of municipal water supplies and, incongruously, on raising catfish as a sustainable and inexpensive food source for developing countries.

  Jack Allstrong, the founder, president, and CEO, had evidently relocated back to the home office in March of 2005. He lived alone in a mansion in Hillsborough and presided over the business out of San Francisco, although the home page stressed that Allstrong was ready and able to embark to trouble spots anywhere in the world at a moment's notice in one of the corporation's fleet of private aircraft, which included two Gulf-stream V jets.

  When he went to bed, Hardy's brain had been spinning with the possibilities that Allstrong presented for his Scholler appeal. As soon as Bracco could forge the link tying Allstrong to Nolan's involvement in the assassination of the Khalils and to the deaths of the Bowens, Hardy would have an unassailable argument that the jury in the original trial never saw crucial evidence that reasonably could have affected the verdict. He'd get his appeal granted on the Brady violation, and then probably a new trial. And further, he doubted that a new jury, given the reversals in the case, would convict Evan again.

  Now Hardy's subconscious had rejected all of these optimistic conclusions. As he sat slumped down in his living room chair he found himself scavenging for any kind of salvageable something that could tie Allstrong-either the person or the company-to any crime at all.