by Tom Abrahams
“Good idea.” Ings turned to grab a piece of ice from the freezer atop his refrigerator. It was an old cooler that didn’t have a door-mounted ice maker, so Ings kept a torn-open bag of ready-made ice cubes in the freezer. He cracked off a piece and dropped it into his cup, where it quickly melted.
“So, James,” began the knight, “we have some items to discuss.”
Ings nodded. “I figured. Money or bombs?” He took another sip and smiled. The ice had apparently worked.
“Both,” the knight said. “You haven’t paid for the most recent meat shipment to your other business. I need access to the Semtex.”
“Not a problem on either end.” Ings shook his head. “I’ve got the cash downstairs. Three thousand, right?”
The knight nodded. The money was cleansed in small amounts so as not to raise suspicion. He didn’t like paying taxes. It was not, he believed, among his patriotic duties.
The money, usually cash, was deposited into a foreign account. From the foreign account it would find its way to beef producers, who then delivered the product to the knight’s Delaware-based import company, which in turn would provide cash to Ings. He was an unlisted officer of the company. His “salary” was shown as profit from his bar and coffee shop, and he used that cash to “overpay” for the beef.
That money was, in turn, returned to the import company. The company paid its other unlisted officer, Sir Spencer Thomas, who then moved the money to other bank accounts.
It wasn’t a classic example of how to launder money but served its purpose by creating a tangled web of cash flow. If nothing more, it would at least complicate any IRS investigations and give the knight time to react.
He began the scheme within weeks of Swiss bank UBS revealing to the IRS the names of certain account holders. The tax agency had subpoenaed the bank in 2008, seeking the names of 52,000 account holders. After a year-long dance, USB agreed to pay $780 billion in fines and to reveal the names secretly attached to forty-four hundred accounts.
The US government believed the bank was encouraging US citizens to cheat and hide their assets, and the accounts mentioned in the settlement were worth eighteen billion dollars. As part of the deal, the US would ask the Swiss government for the specific information regarding those accounts, the Swiss would then ask UBS to release the information within nine months.
The knight was not an American citizen and was not subject to all of his income being taxed, but the money earned from American sources was taxable. The amount was great enough that he needed a way to hide it.
Had UBS not gone soft, Sir Spencer Thomas never would have entered into such an arrangement with a drunk like Ings. However, the bar owner had proven reliable and loyal during the course of their agreement, and Sir Spencer assumed the nice stipend he gave Ings was enough to keep him honest and quiet.
“And the Semtex?”
“Yeah.” Ings nodded. “All of it is in the cooler at the meat shop. All boxed up and marked. It’s good to go.”
The Semtex arrangement had preceded the money laundering. It was, in fact, the use of the meat shop as the storage facility that first gave Sir Spencer the idea to funnel his cash through the failing business. After the theft of the explosives, Sir Spencer needed somewhere to store the goods. He wanted it kept at arm’s length, should anyone of importance ever discover it.
Ings never asked to know the intended use of the explosives. He never questioned Sir Spencer as to why he was in possession of them. Ings had seen enough handshake deals in his bar to know when ignorance was bliss. As long as the money was right, Sir Spencer could have stored dead women or live boys inside that freezer for all he cared.
“So were you planning this all along?” Ings asked.
“Yes and no, James,” replied the knight. He stood from the sofa and started walking toward the kitchen bar. “I saw an opportunity to acquire the Semtex and I took it. At the time, I had no use for it.”
“I guess we’re just lucky, then.” Ings chuckled.
Sir Spencer pushed himself to his feet. “Have a cab pick me up across the street, please,” he instructed. “Give the dispatcher that address. I will see you later.”
“Sounds good, sir.” Ings toasted the knight with his cup and pulled out his cell phone to make the call.
He had Diamond Cab saved in his speed dial and hit the button as the knight disappeared down the steps. Before he went to bed, Ings flipped on his computer. At the knight’s suggestion, he needed to learn how to build a bomb.
Chapter 15
“Harrold,” Matti answered when the gray phone rang. She looked at the clock on the computer screen. 4:15 a.m.
“You’re there?” the robotic voice asked in surprise.
“I told you I would be.” Matti cradled the phone in her neck so she could pull out her notepad and pencil. She popped the ferrule into her mouth and started spinning it between her teeth. It made a soft rattling sound.
“A spy who keeps her word,” said the caller, the sarcasm evident even without inflection. “How paradoxical.”
“Especially for a non-dude, non-spook,” Matti countered in an attempt to lighten the mood. She’d done a poor job of that during the first conversation.
“Touché,” droned the asset.
“So how was the meeting?”
“Done with foreplay?” It sounded odd through the cell phone voice distorter. “Straight to the action.”
Neither Matti nor the asset spoke for a moment. Then the asset shattered the silence.
“It will be violent. People will die.” The soulless admission hung uncomfortably in the air. “The goal, as I understand it, is regime change.”
Matti ran her hand through her hair as she took notes. She was both appalled and intrigued. ‘Regime change’ was a phrase reserved for the deposing of dictators. It was an odd choice of words.
“It’s already in the planning stages. It’ll happen soon.”
Matti pushed. “Okay. Can you give me more? Location and method?”
“There’s an exhibit opening tomorrow night.”
“Is that where the violence will happen?”
“No,” answered the voice. “But I think you should be there.”
Matti thought about the request before answering. At first, she was confused, but then recalled reading about George Edwards’s new exhibit. The information was in his file.
“What’s the benefit?”
“All of the players will be there,” the asset responded. “You’ll get a chance to see them in person, gauge their personalities a little more thoroughly than you can from reading information in a file.”
“And?”
“And what?” Coy.
Matti knew the asset wanted to gauge her personality a little more thoroughly. “What is your benefit?”
“Why do I have to have a benefit?” said the asset. “Why does this have to be about me? It doesn’t. I am just a messenger as far as you are concerned.”
“Understood, but you came to us. You are working for us. You are helping stop what amounts to a terrorist attack. So what is the hesitation? Why not tell me everything you know?”
“Well, I don’t know everything about the plan, so I can’t tell you everything. It’s not entirely true that I came to you. We’re both pawns, you know.”
“No, I don’t know.” Matti didn’t like the implication.
“You talk about this being a terrorist attack. That’s a matter of opinion, isn’t it? You have to look through the eyes of the group.”
“Why?”
“The founding fathers were heroes to us and terrorists to the British. The man convicted of blowing up Pan Am Flight 103 was a terrorist to us, but when the Scottish released him from prison, the Libyans rejoiced in the streets. Eye of the beholder, right?”
“Not sure I agree with that,” Matti said, getting a better sense of the ideology. These Daturans thought of themselves as patriots. The reference to the Lockerbie flight was peculiar.
Why cho
ose that example?
Matti typed “Lockerbie + 103+ terror” into her browser and hit search.
“You don’t have to agree with me,” the asset said matter-of-factly. “But you should be at the exhibit.”
Matti was half listening as she quickly scanned the results. 270 dead. Worst airline attack against US prior to 9/11. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi convicted. Abdelbaset al-Megrahi released after serving eight years. Explosive in cargo hold. Semtex in tape recorder.
“Can you tell me where and when?” Matti was stalling. She typed in “Semtex”. It was a guess. She didn’t assume the connection to be Libyans or airplanes.
“I think you can find it.”
Matti quickly scanned information about the plastic explosive: odorless, small amounts were effective, often used or suspected in terror attacks. She remembered reading at the time that investigators believed the bomb was hidden inside a cassette recorder.
It was dripping with irony, given that the NSA had actually invented the precursor to the first cassettes in the 1960s. No American crypto-spies, no cassette recorders, no such hiding place for a plastic explosive.
“You’re using Semtex.” She threw it out there.
Just a hunch.
“What did you say?” Even through the altered voice, Matti could hear the surprise.
“Semtex,” she repeated. “The plan involves blowing up something with Semtex. Am I right?”
There was silence at first.
“Yes,” the asset admitted. “Semtex.” There was an audible click and the line went dead.
“Hello?” she asked, not quite believing that the asset had hung up on her. “Hello?” She waited a second or two and then hung up her receiver.
It was late and Matti had been at work for nearly twenty hours. Yet she was invigorated. She’d handled the asset perfectly. Scribbling dashes and lines—shorthand—onto the notepad, Matti considered the conversation.
It was fruitful. She’d pushed the asset to reveal more than anticipated. Maybe she had a talent for this HUMINT stuff after all. Matti wondered why the skill had never translated into her personal life.
She wasn’t “needy” professionally or socially. But by trying to make everyone around her happy while adhering to a rigid morality, she sometimes neglected her own desires or missed out on opportunities.
Matti hadn’t gone to her senior prom. Instead, she had stayed at home and finished Larry Ragle’s Crime Scene: From Fingerprints to DNA Testing—An Astonishing Inside Look at the Real World of C.S.I. She’d been hoping it would reveal some sort of knowledge that might help her piece together disparate clues in her mother’s death. It hadn’t. Neither had a lengthy phone call with the detective on the case nor the fifty-dollar bribe she’d paid the owner of the junkyard where she found the car that hit her mother. Matti refused to accept that she might never know what happened.
There had to be an answer. She had to find it, to piece it all together.
Matti put down the mangled pencil and flipped back through her notes. She organized her thoughts and began the business of typing a report for her supervisor.
She’d learned about a clandestine meeting; she’d familiarized herself with all five Daturans while determining that their myopic view of the world was violent and self-aggrandizing; her asset had revealed to her the vague outline of an imminent deadly plot involving untraceable explosives; and she now believed the ultimate goal of that plot was to gain attention for a particular ideology.
Not bad, Harrold!
It would be another long day ahead. Between the lack of sleep and a conspiracy to help unravel, she would have to pace herself. She would need to find a way to connect more of the orphan dots floating around in her mind.
Matti reopened the thick file on her desk and spread out the pictures of the five men. Which of them was the asset? Was it the artist? At first it seemed reasonable to assume that, however, Matti determined it would be too revealing for him to invite her to his own show.
Was it the wealthy politico, Sir Spencer Thomas? He seemingly was the leader of the group. At least that was Matti’s impression. He had the heft and experience to coordinate an ideological movement.
But why would he sabotage his own gang?
Maybe it was the handsome philandering professor. Matti presumed, from his dating carousel, that he was an insecure child of a man. He might have been jilted by the group and decided to retaliate. He might have figured that resorting to violence wasn’t his style. He was a possibility.
Bill Davidson was possible too, she theorized. He was a popular man who was deeply connected to the Establishment. Fringe thinking was one thing, she reasoned, but fringe violence was something else altogether. The AG might be the turncoat.
She didn’t figure it to be the drunk bar owner. He didn’t seem savvy enough to play both sides of the fence. Matti discounted him as the possible asset as quickly as she had the knight and the artist.
She settled on two viable possibilities: Bill Davidson and Art Thistlewood. She would go to the art opening and see them in person. The asset was right; it would help. Matti knew, however, she would first need to convince her boss.
Chapter 16
The E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse was one block west of the US Capitol building, sandwiched between the intersections of Pennsylvania Avenue, Third Street, C Street, and Constitution Avenue. Its main entrance faced the spot where Pennsylvania and Constitution merged.
It was a large complex that, to one side, sat on the edge of John Marshall Park. The park, named after the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was part of a major redevelopment of Pennsylvania Avenue in the early 1970s.
In front of the building on Constitution was a beautiful marble statue of Major General George C. Meade, the same Meade for whom the Southern Maryland Army base was named. That base, Fort Meade, was home to the NSA.
The power of the statue, however, paled in comparison to the force wielded within the halls of the courthouse. Article III of the US Constitution provided for the establishment of the Supreme Court and all inferior federal courts. It gave them the power to interpret and apply the law.
Unlike federal criminal cases, in which defendants usually went to trial within seventy days of arrest, civil cases could take months or even years to resolve. There was no such promise of a speedy trial in civil disagreements.
Blackmon’s case against Speaker Jackson was to be handled with lightning speed. It was a constitutional question that could not be shelved on some future docket. Unfortunately for the judge who received the case, he’d “won” the random drawing used to assign equal caseloads among the district’s twelve active judges.
Even before the sun peeked over the dome of the Capitol to the east, the judge was at work. He knew his opinion would draw immediate and loud reaction worldwide. While he would not rule until after both Blackmon’s and Jackson’s attorneys made their arguments later in the morning, he needed to be ready with questions for both sides.
It was complicated. Should the Speaker of the House be second in the line of presidential succession ahead of the cabinet officers? On the surface, the answer was yes.
But as the judge looked at previous versions of the Succession Act, and as he read the argument that James Madison made to Pendleton, he understood the argument against the constitutionality of the current Act.
He read with interest the case that Blackmon’s team of constitutional lawyers made for the “irreparable harm” that would come to his client and to the nation should Speaker of the House Jackson be allowed to take the oath of office.
“The question might be asked as to why the plaintiff has not taken the oath of office for the vice presidency,” the attorneys reasoned in the brief. It was a moot point on two fronts. The line of succession according to Article III, Section 1 of United States Code automatically applied when there was a simultaneous presidential and vice presidential vacancy. Taking the oath subsequent to the president’s death would not place the pl
aintiff atop the line of succession.
However, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution required no such oath. It read “Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.”
The judge reasoned that, according to Blackmon’s interpretation of the Constitutional amendment, the vice president automatically assumed power once both houses confirmed the nomination. It was, the judge noted, an unorthodox, but potentially effective argument.
It answered the question why Blackmon had not tried to outmaneuver Jackson with a quickie oath. By his own attorneys’ assessments, the oath either didn’t matter or wasn’t necessary. The key was to stop Jackson from becoming president, not speeding up Blackmon’s ascension. The judge thought it was a brilliant strategy.
The response that Jackson’s legal team had filed was straightforward and clean, but uninspired. It relied primarily on the current Act signed in 1947 and on existing US Code. It did not make a constitutional argument, given that no mention of the Speaker of the House was made in the document as it related to succession.
The only two places, constitutionally, that discussed succession were the Twenty-Fifth Amendment and Article II, Section 1. Those both directly named the vice president as successor. Article II, Section 1 did discuss “officers”, but Jackson’s lawyers thought it better to avoid that question until arguing the definition before the judge. It was an outwardly simple case that was in fact incredibly complex.
The judge knew that regardless of how he ruled later in the day, the case was headed a few blocks north and east to the Supreme Court. There was no way around it.
Chapter 17
Professor Thistlewood sensed he was being watched.
When he turned left out of the bar’s front doors, he was certain that the bum sitting a block away had snapped a picture of him. There was no flash, but as Thistlewood glanced over his shoulder and to his right, he caught a glimpse of something shiny hidden underneath the man’s coat.