“Even with your skillful hacking and tracking?” I said.
“So far, I have discovered zilch.”
“And the monikers you found?”
“Nameless007 was the most interesting, but I did come across hotflashes47 and cruisecontrol1979,” Rogers said.
“And you’re certain that these three are not coming from the same source?” I asked.
“Nothing links them thus far, but you might have a point. Could be that the sender is merely changing handles to throw off any searchers, like me.”
“Keep searching. Someone is working with Wilkerson or Wilkerson is working for someone,” I said. “There has to be a clue somewhere for whoever is his partner or his boss.”
“As to the multiple possibilities for the identity of said individual, I am relatively sure of one person it is not,” Rogers said.
“Relatively sure,” I repeated.
“That Michael Salzburg I have been diligently tracking has finally manifested his existence.”
“And?”
“Found him on a flight out of D.C. to Bangor, Maine.”
“Okay. So what makes you relatively sure that he is not that silent partner of Wilkerson’s?”
“Well, dearie, long story short here, one thing led to another and I discovered that Salzburg has absolutely zero computer skills. The man cannot even type. His secretary does everything for him, including personal correspondence.”
“No typing, huh?”
“Zilch on the typing and zilch on the computer skill level. His secretary complained in a series of emails to one of her girlfriends. She even called him a loser.”
“You tracked his secretary’s emails?” I said.
“I am nothing if not relentless,” she said and was gone.
“Anything strike a chord with you?” I said to Rosey. He was busy munching on his English muffin and peanut butter.
“Besides the over-the-top tenacity of your machine … yeah. That moniker Rogers mentioned … Nameless007.”
“Oh. What’s the connection?”
“My contact in Thailand.”
“You jest.”
“No, ma’am. A fact. It was the label a squirrelly CIA agent had when I contracted with Thaddeus Wilkerson to retrieve the box and bring it back.”
“Did he know what you were there for?”
“Couldn’t say. I didn’t tell him. But what he might have known prior to my arrival is up for speculation. He didn’t say anything to me that would lead me to believe he knew the substance of my operation back then.”
“Who put you in touch with Nameless?” I said.
“Wilkerson.”
“To what end?”
“Unknown to me at the time, Thaddeus had been doing some surveillance on the man who created the hologram of the Thai Baht one hundred bill.”
“And you never knew why he was keeping tabs on that man?”
“No. Probably that need-to-know stuff. And the powers-that-be decided I didn’t need to know. I was completely out of Wilkerson’s loop for what he was doing. I was there for one thing, and only one thing.”
“To steal the flash drive which contained the hologram,” I said.
“That was my mission.”
“Why didn’t the CIA steal it from this guy?”
“You mean the guy who created the hologram?”
“Him, yes.”
“At the time I arrived in Thailand, the creator of the hologram was no longer in the picture. I didn’t steal it from the man who created it, and I don’t have an answer to your question as to why the CIA didn’t steal it,” Rosey said.
“So who did you steal it from?”
“One of the ranking officials in the Royal Thai Mint.”
“You got a name?”
“I doubt if his name is important,” Rosey said. “Much like the name of the guy who created the hologram of the plates. I didn’t know his name either. Nameless just pointed out the man who worked at the Royal Thai Mint for me. Made my job easier. I didn’t have to go looking through the Bangkok phone book. I simply broke into his office, and came home with the little golden box full of joy.”
“Ah, yes, the little box … contents unknown to you at the time …let us suspect, chérie, this not very big box completely mysterious, on whose shut lid in large letters but neatly is inscribed ‘immortality’.”
“You get carried away often?” he asked.
“Poetry runs through my pores now and then,” I said.
“Well, that little box was decorated; but, alas, had no writing on the lid,” he said.
“e.e. cummings,” I said. “All lower case, and you of all people missed that.”
“Missed nothing of the sorts. I didn’t even open the damn thing, and out jumped Jack Death,” Rosey said, quoting the last line of the poem I had just alluded to and quoted from moments earlier. No doubt he was simply toying with me and had to draw upon his superior knowledge of English lit so as to prove his valuable doctorate from Oxford. Some men will do anything for one-upmanship.
“Colorful and well read.”
“You patronize me,” he said.
“I flatter you.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Back to the name of that guy from whom you stole that troublesome box. It might matter.”
“The box matters to you?” he sounded incredulous.
“When I investigate, everything matters.”
“Even wild goose chases?”
“Quack, quack.”
“I don’t think that’s the sound a goose makes. More along the lines of honk, honk.”
“Always a critic,” I said.
“I’ll check my files.”
“You maintain government files?”
“One never knows when information of former days will come into play in the present tense,” he said and took down a copy of his Rembrandt hanging just above the coffee pot. Not the ideal location for Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son sketch. Just an opinion. No accounting for taste, in this case it was Rosey’s skill as an interior decorator. The art was exquisite. The location, not so much. Perhaps Rembrandt’s Prodigal was there for some Freudian reason.
I decided not to ask.
Behind the copy of the great art was a combination lock. I watched from across the room but could not see well enough to discern the numbers he was using to open the box embedded in the wall. I did count the number of spins he made – seven. Sophisticated locking mechanism.
There was no need to stretch my brain further. If Rosey ever wanted me to know the combination of his safe, he would tell me.
He finally opened the safe and took out a handful of manila folders. I could see that there were a good many more inside his small vault that he did not remove. Wow.
“Here it is,” he said and handed it to me.
“You trust me with government secrets?”
“Files are my reports on my actions. Nothing damaging to the government in my files.”
“You think.”
“Fairly certain,” he said.
“I wouldn’t put money on it,” I said. “I call your attention to the fact that some of the government people are the ones who wanted you removed from life.”
“They were thieves and murderers who needed to cover their trails,” he seemed to be defending the Feds as a group.
“I am not so sure that there is an obvious separation from the ones who came after you and the remainder of the ones still in power.”
“Nor I,” he added quickly. “And well said.”
“Knowing the governments’ paranoia, I can’t imagine that they would allow you to retain these records if they knew you had them.”
“I don’t plan on telling them,” he said.
I scanned his multi-page report. Roosevelt Washington was thorough. His recapitulation of actions taken in the field read like a scene from a spy novel. I spotted the name of the man on page three. Near the bottom. Penciled into his report.
It was one of those
moments when the light flashed inside my head instead of simply coming on. You know, like a neon sign flashes whatever it is programmed to say.
Worth noting.
52
“That’s a clue,” I said to Rosey as I pointed to his penciled scribbling at the bottom of the third page of his copy of the official report given to Wilkerson.
“That added name?” he said.
“Yessiree. Bonafide. Right here on this page.”
“Who is it?” he said.
“Sai Leekpai’s brother.”
“Don’t joke with me, Clancy.”
His expression changed from surprise to something other. Closer to anger perhaps or dismayed apprehension. Hard to say what he was feeling at the moment.
“I’m not joking. Kamol Lai is a brother to Sai Leekpai. Rogers discovered that connection days ago.”
He took several deep breaths and studied his penciled writing on the bottom of the page. He stared at me for several seconds. Looking but not really seeing me.
“You have something to share?” I asked.
“Yeah. Probably why Thaddeus wanted to kill me.”
“Besides knowing about the box.”
“Besides that. Kamol Lai was my C.I.A. contact in Thailand.”
“Be still my heart.”
“Mine is racing right this moment,” he said.
“Wow. The plot thickens,” I said.
“Murky, if you ask me.”
“Okay, cloudy and thick. We need to talk about this.”
“Collaboration is good,” he said.
“I thought we were already a team.”
“Too much separation on this adventure.”
“I’ll tell you all I know and you do the same,” I said.
“Violate my soldier’s ethos?”
“You bet your life … as far as you can. If you can’t trust me by now, then maybe genuine collaboration is out the window and whatever we’ve had is a thing of the past.”
“I don’t believe that,” he said.
“If you mean the window thing, yeah, me either.”
“And that thing of the past line of yours. You’re my best friend, Clancy. Should go without saying.”
“Nice of you to say it anyway. And for me, right back at you.”
“You first, just to see if you trust me,” he spoke earnestly.
“Okay, a test. After I tell you what I know and you hold back some link you know, it could hurt us … like to the point of death.”
“I got that,” he said.
“Good.”
“I can’t really apologize for my soldier-mindset, you know. It’s the way I was trained. And for better or worse, it’s a large part of who I am. But pooling our knowledge on this just might provide a solution.”
“Added strength.”
“I’m listening to what you have.”
I began and told him everything I had gathered, both from my own deductions and whatever data Rogers had unearthed. Some of what I told him he already knew. Some of the data seemed to surprise him. I noticed a raised eyebrow occasionally. That was the extent of his surprised deportment.
“I take it you did not know about Sai’s siblings,” I said.
“No. We didn’t talk about family relations.”
“Probably didn’t talk much about anything. Did she know why you were there?”
“Not that I told her.”
“And that means it was later you discovered that she was after the same thing you were after.”
“Yeah, it was later. My guess, looking back, is that she knew what I was after all along. We just didn’t discuss it. Spy versus spy, that sort of thing.”
“And I assume that Wilkerson gave you Kamol’s name as the C.I.A. contact,” I said.
“Wrong assumption. Wilkerson never gave me the name, just a meeting spot in Bangkok. And a code word.”
“Like in the movies.”
“Afraid so. Truth and fiction are not often that far apart.”
“What was the code word?”
“Black,” he said.
“As in the color.”
“Same word, but now that I know what I know from your sources, I think it was the accounting term and not the color. You know, as in operating in the black.”
“Clever. So, you show up at some spot and say black to everyone who approaches you.”
“Not quite. I was told to go to a specific bar in Bangkok and order a Johnny Walker Black shot.”
“Anybody could’ve done that.”
“Maybe, but the bartender asked me how I wanted the black. My answer was the giveaway as to my identity.”
“Let me guess, you told him you wanted it straight up.”
“No. My answer was plain and simple.”
“You spies. Okay, black, plain and simple. How transparent.”
“That’s how I met Kamol.”
“And he gave you the name of the man at the Royal Thai Mint,” I said.
“Not the name. He showed me a photograph, but he didn’t provide his name. All I knew from Kamol was that the man in the photo had the box.”
“You think Kamol Lai was working undercover in the Royal Thai Mint for the C.I.A.?”
“At the time, yes.”
“So maybe Kamol was working for Phueng Pen-Chan as well as the C.I.A..”
“Makes sense if he was a double agent.”
“But what doesn’t make sense is Sai trying to steal it as well. If Kamol is her brother, was he working against her or was it some ruse connected with you? How did you find out that Sai was trying to steal the box?”
“It was right after I had the box in my possession and I was on my way out of the building, we literally ran into each other.”
“I want the movie rights to this,” I said.
“I suddenly feel stupid,” Rosey said.
“Love often has that affect on people.”
“Love? What’s love got to do with it?”
“Oh, please. Okay, lust often has that affect on people. They get stupid.”
“She could’ve killed me … easily.”
“Not if she loved … scratch that … cared for you. But it does make one wonder what the game was.”
“Yeah. There’s that.”
“So, you run into her, she sees the box and says, that’s mine … give it to me…or something to that effect.”
“No, she simply looked at me, looked at the box in my hands, smiled, and disappeared into the shadows of the hallway.”
“No exchanges.”
“Not a word.”
“And no fisticuffs?”
“No.”
“And from that meeting you surmised that she was after the box?”
“A phone call two days later solidified my suspicion.”
“You were back in D.C. by then,” I said.
“I was. She simply said something about me beating her this time.”
“Nothing more. No hugs and kisses?”
“Hardly. I guess I deserve that. For whatever reason, she duped me.”
“And dropped you. But she isn’t in the report,” I said as I pointed to the papers he was now holding.
“For obvious reasons.”
“Sleeping with the enemy is not something you tell the bosses?”
“Depends. In this situation, not a good idea.”
“So the soldier thing, you know, holding back on what you deemed to be non-pertinent information or need-to-know basis, actually … probably, saved your life.”
“And maybe the bosses already knew.”
“Worth considering.”
“Maybe she was there to make sure that you had the box,” I said.
“You’re thinking she was part of the plan to guarantee that I would steal the box.”
“Devious and shrewd, if I’m correct. So, Kamol Lai was the supposedly C.I.A. contact who fingered the man who had possession of the box you were to pilfer. And the man, still no name?”
Rosey flipped through the pages
of his report.
“While you’re flipping pages looking for another likely penciled in name, clear something up for me, Mr. Soldier,” I said.
“If I can,” he said without looking up as he flipped through the pages in his search.
“I understand why Thaddeus would want you permanently out of the way in regards to his plan to sell the contents of the box you pilfered for him, but how does Kamol being a supposed double agent or whatever he is add any substance to Thaddeus’ attempts to eliminate you from the world scene?”
He stopped flipping through the pages and looked at me. I had the impression that the wheels inside his head were turning rapidly. I had known him long enough to know that it was the way his mind worked.
“Kamol could well be a plant in whatever system put there by Thaddeus himself. I had met him. Old Thad could be hedging his bets and trying to get rid of the proverbial loose ends. Just a guess. I really can’t be certain, but I think my having used Kamol for my work there years ago has a connection to Thaddeus Wilkerson’s overall scheme.”
“If it is Thad’s overall scheme,” I said more to myself than to Rosey.
“Here it is. Finally,” he said pulling out a single sheet and pointing to the left side margin.
“He was an official of the mint. His last name is Huang. Nothing more. I told you it was unimportant.”
“So you were right … this time. But look what we uncovered while searching for his name. It’s a lot like losing something and then finding it only when you go looking for some other thing you’ve lost. Quirky life.”
“Quirky detective,” he said.
53
I called Rod Summers and he agreed to meet with me at Dupont Circle the next day. High noon. Rosey decided to stay home and process what he had learned. He said he needed some alone time to rethink his Thailand mission. Maybe something would surface during his recapitulations. I figured he might also be licking his wounded pride. Tea and sympathy. Sometimes that’s all we really need. I decided to be kind to him. I kept my mouth shut.
Sam rode with me to the inner city of power. I invited Sam to accompany me since my meeting was outside. A walk around Dupont Circle in the sunshine would do us both good.
Summers was late.
I studied the people who passed us. Always an interesting thing to do, but I seldom have time for such enjoyment. I usually have to do my people study on the run and focus upon a limited few. This was much more relaxing. And I was passing the time waiting on Summers.
Out Jumps Jack Death: A Clancy Evans Mystery (Clancy Evans PI Book 8) Page 27