The Directive: A Novel

by Matthew Quirk

  “We can make this win-win.” I thought back to Bloom’s words after she’d kidnapped me from the shower.

  “The cops are after all of us,” I said to Clark. “Bloom’s after me and will probably be after you once she finds out you bet wrong. Your clients are going to kill you once they realize their money’s gone.”

  “What’s the point?” Annie asked.

  “It’s good,” I said. “I can work with it. The cartels. Bad guys. We need a bargaining chip. That’s great.”

  “Great?” Clark started toward me, his rage breaking through. Annie stepped between us.

  Larry was a banker. Bankers don’t go to jail anymore, and I could use that. What we needed was a deal.

  “These clients. You want protection from them?”

  “There’s no protection from them. Nowhere in the world. You’d need—”

  “An army,” I said. “The US has a pretty good one.”

  I thought for a minute. “There are two ways this can go. You can run or you can try to fight the feds. If the law doesn’t get you, the killers will. But there’s a third way. You know about billions in dirty money. You know about bigger fish. Take that leverage. Make a deal. They’ll protect you.”

  The Secret Service trucks fanned through the circular driveway. Clark’s security strode out to stall the agents.

  “That’s the Secret Service,” I said. “I tipped them off. They were watching your trades. They know all they need to know. Cut a deal.”

  “What do you want out of it?”

  “Call off Bloom and her goon.”

  “I can’t stop them. This has gone far beyond anything I asked for. They’re off leash.”

  “Where are they?” I asked. “Can you call them?”

  “In the garage,” he said.

  “Which one?”

  He pointed toward the east wing of the house. They must have been waiting for Clark’s guards to hand me over. Security didn’t need to deliver me to Lynch to die. I was going to do it myself.

  Chapter 52

  “WHERE ARE YOU going, Mike?” Annie asked as I walked down a side hall.

  I looked out the window and saw the Secret Service agents in their raid jackets moving toward the house.

  “Go to the police,” I said.

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “It’s safer—”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  We walked toward Clark’s garage, although that term might give the wrong impression. Picture a luxury car showroom. I looked through the window in the door that led to the garage. Past the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, past the 1955 Mercedes 300SL Gullwing, past the 1940 Plymouth Super Deluxe, sat Bloom’s old Land Cruiser with deep gashes in the metal from our run-in at the bridge.

  “Wait here,” I said to Annie. “Please. No arguments. I’m just going to talk to them. If anything happens, run to the agents. You’ll be safe there.”

  “Fine.”

  I opened the door and stepped inside. Lynch had been waiting. He raised his pistol as soon as I set foot in the garage. I lifted my hands as Bloom walked toward me, her gun at her side. This wasn’t in their playbook: me walking in here on my own, unguarded.

  “I want to talk,” I said. “I have an offer I think you’ll like.”

  “This isn’t a negotiation, Mike,” Bloom said.

  To appease her, I needed Larry Clark to cooperate with the authorities. We could take down his very bad people. By cutting Bloom in and letting her take credit for busting Clark’s clients, I could give her enough to leave me alone. I could taste bile rising in my throat as I contemplated the compromise, but it was the only way to buy my safety.

  This plan had sounded a lot smarter in my head by the front door than it did out loud here in the garage as I stared down two guns, my shirt damp with sweat.

  “You’ve heard the news?” I asked.

  “I did.”

  “Then we have a lot to talk about.”

  “You blew up our position. You wrecked my car. You knocked me into a ditch. I’m unhappy. Lynch is very unhappy.”

  “We’re all screwed,” I said. “I tipped the Secret Service. They’re here. Clark can’t pay you. He’s talking with the agents now, and I have to say he’s looking squishy. I think he’s going to cut a deal. Do you want to be the first out of this clusterfuck or the last?”

  Rule number one in crime, as in politics, is to always be the first to move when everyone starts selling everyone else out.

  “I’m not too worried about that,” Bloom said. “You can’t take me down, Mike.”

  I thought through the interested parties: the FBI, DC Metro, Virginia State Troopers, the Secret Service, Fed Police, the SEC, the DEA, the US Attorney for DC, and the District Attorney for New York. Not to mention the Foreign Service and intelligence people who would take an interest in the clients laundering money through Clark’s funds. It was a long list of very ambitious people, all out to make their careers with a case like this.

  Bloom would face a lot of heat. She knew the game, but this was beyond her. That’s why I’d had to go through with the heist, to catch Bloom and Clark red-handed, to create such an intractable mess that no one, not even Bloom, could clean it up.

  “No, I probably can’t take you down,” I said. “But this has gone bad enough that I can at least take your knees out. It’s the prisoner’s dilemma. We all make nice, or we all hang. You’d at the very least end up having to give up all your extracurriculars, to go straight, on your best behavior, begging for pats on the head from all those patronizing old men on your board.”

  I could see that got under her skin.

  “Say what you have to say,” she said.

  I moved closer to her. Lynch barked at me to stop. After I let him search me, I moved forward, stood whispering-close to Bloom.

  “The whole thing’s going south. Do you know who Clark’s investors are? Why he was bankrolling this insane job?”

  “I have some ideas.”

  “He’s going to flip to the Secret Service. I’ll do you a favor. Say the whole heist was some undercover job. Say you were investigating him. You were after his clients, the dirty money he was laundering. It’s cartels, it’s foreign intelligence, Iran, sanction money. It’ll be a goddamn field day for you. They’ll carry you down Pennsylvania Avenue on their shoulders, and you’ll be able to get away with anything you want from now on. You need me. I’ll say what you need me to say. Broker this thing between Clark and the feds. You be the hero. I don’t give a shit, so long as we have a truce and you leave my family alone.”

  She turned her head slightly and thought about it. “We could have that conversation,” she said. “Grow the pie.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder, my lips to her ear.

  “One condition. Nonnegotiable. Lynch goes down for the murder on the Mall.”

  “That’s a tough sell,” she whispered.

  She tapped her fingers on the truck as she thought through it.

  “I like how you played this, Mike,” she said. “Very creative. Tell you what. I won’t kill you right this second. I’ll put out a few feelers. Are the feds here?”

  “Out front. The driveways are covered.”

  She nodded. “We’re not too far apart. I’ll have a few words with the agents on my way out.”

  “Do we have a deal?”

  “You’ll know soon.”

  She walked past Lynch and said something I couldn’t hear. He lowered his gun and looked as downcast as if she’d taken away his ball. They climbed in the truck, circled around, and drove out an open bay of the garage.

  The door back to the house opened.

  “Mike!” Annie said. “They’re coming!”

  I walked back into the house. The agents were already inside.

  A man and a woman in Secret Service windbreakers strode up the hall toward us.

  “I’m the one who called,” I said and lifted my hands over my head. “She had nothing to do with this.”

&n
bsp; The agent cocked her head at me. “What is your name?”

  “Michael Ford,” I said.

  “Michael Ford?”

  “That’s right.”

  She conferred with the other agent. I heard “Holy shit” and something about the Fed.

  “Are you armed?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Lie on your stomach. Slowly. Spread your arms away from your body.”

  I dropped a knee, then lay on the floor.

  “Now cross your ankles and turn your wrists so your palms face the ceiling.”

  This procedure is called a felony stop, reserved for the most dangerous suspects. When it comes to getting taken in by the police, it’s the royal treatment.

  She circled to my side while the other agent covered me.

  “Lift your left hand off the ground,” she said. I raised it, awkwardly, six inches off the floor. In one sudden movement, she swept down, turned my wrist, wrenched my arm back, knelt on my shoulder, and snapped the cuffs on. She pulled my right arm behind me and finished the job.

  They dragged me to my feet and started walking me between the marble columns of Clark’s hall. I kept my head up. I’d never looked more like a guilty criminal, because I had finally done the honest thing.

  I gave Annie a half smile. “I’ve got them right where I want them,” I said.

  “I’ll talk to my father. He’ll turn.”

  She walked with me to the driveway. Other agents were questioning Clark as he stood beside a truck. I met his eyes, and he gave me a slow nod.

  They shoved me into the back of another Suburban. “I love you, Annie,” I said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Love you.”

  We rolled down the long driveway. Out my window I could see Bloom and Lynch. She had her arms crossed, talking to a captain as if she were just another cop. And Lynch, the FBI man, was in his element, leaning back against a truck.

  As I passed, Bloom turned, looked to me, and held an index finger across her lips.

  Chapter 53

  THEY TOOK ME to the Secret Service headquarters in downtown DC. It’s a beautiful building of sand-colored bricks and sweeping lines of glass, and fits in among all the new construction around Mount Vernon Square. Passersby would think the HQ was just a high-end office building or condos. There are no identifying signs.

  I knew dozens of lawyers, but when it came to a complex criminal defense, I drew a blank. I knew a bunch of public defenders from my pro bono stuff, but they’re usually bleeding-heart types. I didn’t hang out with any of the big-money criminal defense guns. They tend to be bitter after too many instances of helping guilty men buy their freedom, and they were just the sort I needed right now.

  When the agents let me make my phone call, I left a message for a friend from my section at Harvard Law who was working at Steptoe & Johnson.

  A special agent led me into a conference room that was a lot nicer than the FBI’s. I was getting to be a connoisseur of interrogation boxes. Another agent sat in the corner and said nothing.

  The lead man undid my cuffs, opened a file folder on the table, and sat down as I rubbed my wrists.

  “Take a seat,” he said, and pointed to the chair opposite.

  I pulled up to the table.

  He read out the Miranda warning. I acknowledged my rights.

  “You’re an attorney?”

  “I am,” I said.

  “Then you know you’re looking at a lot of time. Frankly, I can’t believe you called us.”

  “It was time to start telling the truth.”

  “You want anything? Coffee? Food?”

  “I am a little hungry.”

  “Chinese?”

  They were really doing this cop thing right. I almost laughed. Next they would pull out those blue-and-white Greek diner coffee cups. “Chicken lo mein would be great.”

  “Start at the beginning,” he said, which was smart. No hardball, not even the question of whether I would talk, just silence and a sympathetic ear. I thought back to New York, to the insane impulse to walk down that alley to the three-card-monte game. I thought of that first night at Jack’s, that sickening moment when I realized, or thought I realized, that he was in serious trouble.

  Where to begin?

  The agent waited.

  “Well…” I looked at the far corner and leaned back like a man settling into a favorite story. “I’m really looking forward to the lo mein.”

  The agent let out an annoyed breath.

  “You know ninety-seven percent of cases end in a plea, Michael. Juries and judges don’t matter. Your fate’s in our hands, so make it easy on yourself. Your brother flipped. Clark flipped. They all pegged you as the ringleader.”

  Law enforcement is allowed, even encouraged, to lie during an interrogation. I didn’t bite. He closed the folder, then walked around the table to tower over me. Before he could speak again, the door opened. It was a supervisor, looking pissed.

  “Mr. Ford’s lawyer is here,” he said. A man shoved his way in the door. It took me a minute to recognize him. It was Bloom’s assistant, Sebastian.

  He crouched next to me and whispered in my ear. “Did you say anything?”

  “Not yet. But I will. What do you have for me?”

  “She’s on board.”

  “The big boss?”

  He nodded.

  “Deal,” I said.

  Sebastian turned to the two lawmen. “We’ll be going, then.”

  The lead agent stepped in front of him. “This guy’s under arrest for a dozen felonies and counting. He’s not leaving until after arraignment and bond, and probably not even then.”

  “Call your boss,” Sebastian said.

  The agent looked at the supervisor. “Don’t even tell me this is true.”

  He just nodded his head.

  Sebastian escorted me out. They gave me back my personal effects in an envelope at the front desk.

  I pulled my belt back through the loops and was buckling it as we exited the lobby. Bloom was waiting downstairs, sitting on the hood of her truck.

  “You left a fucking note?” she said.

  “I did.”

  “You’re a nightmare. You have fun in there?” she asked, and nodded toward the headquarters.

  “Time of my life. So what now?”

  “I’ll give you the full brief later,” she said, and handed me an ID badge.

  BLOOM SECURITY

  MICHAEL FORD

  SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR

  Underneath it was a plastic-and-metal card. I flipped it over and saw a button on the back. It was the same security token I had found at that dinner at Jack’s a week ago, at the beginning of all this.

  “I’m not working for you.”

  “Unofficially, you can do whatever you want. But officially, you’ll want to rethink that. Because as a member of Bloom Security’s penetration testing division, you performed admirably in our red team audit of the physical access controls at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  “That’s the story,” she said. “And there’s a whole bit about an undercover sting to take down Clark’s clients. Or you can give that card back and try your luck with the agents upstairs. And SEC. FBI. MPD. NYPD. Who am I forgetting?”

  “Maybe I will hang on to it for a little while,” I said, and put it in my pocket. “They really bought it?”

  “Of course. The only scandals you ever hear about are the fringe cases, buffoon congressmen who can’t keep their pants on, who get too greedy. Those guys are isolated. There are interest groups on the side you can use as cutouts. The damage is contained. But you’ll never get to something like this, the real corruption, the endemic stuff. Everyone in DC has to play by those rules, like it or not. Everyone’s complicit, because everyone gets paid.”

  “I’ll back up your story. But no one touches Annie or my father.”

  “Of course. There’s no point in it now. It was all b
luster anyway.”

  “And Lynch, or whatever his real name is, pays for the murder of Sacks.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “He was getting a little hard to handle anyway. Something happened when his wife passed. He really went off the deep end.”

  “But how do you prosecute a dirty FBI agent? He knows everything. He won’t go down without a fight.”

  “These things have a way of working themselves out. He’ll get what he deserves. I guarantee it. So we have a deal?”

  It was ugly, but it was a lot better than my options nine hours ago. “Yes we do.”

  “Welcome aboard, Mike. And if you’re looking for some excitement, we might consider extending your contract. Call me anytime.”

  “I’m done with excitement,” I said. “I just want to go home. Do you have my car? I left it back at the river.”

  “It’s in the garage in Georgetown. You want a lift?”

  “I’ll walk. Do you have a cell phone you could lend me?”

  She gestured Sebastian over, and he offered me one of his.

  “Anything else?” she asked.

  I patted my pockets. “Do you have a dime?”

  She reached into the console and offered me a quarter.

  “No dime?”

  Sebastian searched his jacket, then laid one in my palm.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Chapter 54

  I TRIED ANNIE on my way over to Georgetown. No answer. But there was no reception at her father’s place.

  My Jeep was in the garage next to Bloom’s office.

  The dime just fit the screws on the rear license plate. I eased out the top two and pulled out the spare key I had taped behind the stamped metal.

  I drove home. I tried the landline at her dad’s house, but they tended to ignore my calls when Annie was there. I was starting to get the impression that the in-laws weren’t very fond of me.

  Annie had e-mailed. Everything was fine. I wrote back, let her know I was out already, and then crashed onto the couch. Her family had already started coming in from England for the wedding, and they were staying in a guest house at the estate. She was trying to talk them all down, including her grandmother, and my presence was not going to help matters.