by D. F. Bailey
“Poisoned?” They stood at the counter in front of a nursing station that also served as a barrier to the doors marked Trauma Center.
“He said he was injected with something in the washroom before we took off from Honolulu.”
Finch’s mind drifted back to the moments he and Eve waited for him in the departure lounge at Gate 11. “Right. I remember that seemed to take a while. Then he told me something about being pinched. But not injected with poison.”
A nurse slid open a glass security pane and observed Eve with a serious expression. “Dr. Henney finished a minor surgical procedure half an hour ago. Once they complete the specimen analysis he’ll want to talk to you.”
Eve nodded. “Is he all right?”
“Mr. Pocklington is resting comfortably. You can wait in the lounge.” She pointed her pen to an open room opposite the doors to the Trauma Center.
They sat in matching chrome chairs next to the windows overlooking Potrero Avenue. Artificial plants stood in dusty pots beside a water cooler.
“All right. So, who’s Pocklington?” Finch asked.
“You don’t know his real name, do you?” Eve shook her head.
He nodded and turned his head away with a sheepish air. True enough. After all this time, how could he not know Sochi’s name?
“It’s Pocklington. Oscar Pocklington.”
“Oscar Pocklington?” Finch studied her face a moment, seeking a trace of humor, a flinch that would betray her solemnity. After a moment he let out a laugh. “You’re serious?”
She nodded, allowed a smile. “I saw it on the patient chart. I guess they pulled it from his heath insurance card.”
“Oscar Fucking Pocklington. No wonder he changed his name!”
“Stop it!” She tried to muffle her laughter. “You’re terrible. And he’s seriously ill.”
“Yeah … well.” Finch’s mood shifted to something more reflective and for a moment he tried to imagine Sochi’s inner world. For years he’d inhabited an elaborately constructed mirage. Even his adopted name suggested that he lived in a fantasy land so vast and sprawling that reality itself remained a distant illusion. But the encounter with the Russians had cracked the veneer of his mask and now Finch could recognize the mix of emotions that had washed through Sochi when they were preparing for their final meeting in Chinatown: shame at being duped by the surveillance camera, anger at the Russians, boyish bravado as he contemplated his revenge. Beneath the flux, Finch detected a base of fear. Like most of us, Sochi tried to bury the creeping fear that preys on all doubt and insecurity.
From across the hallway, they heard the click and bang of the trauma unit doors as they opened and then slammed shut. A moment later Dr. Henney appeared in a white coat, a stethoscope draped around his neck. Classic, Finch thought as he stood to shake the doctor’s hand.
“Let me be frank,” he said and pulled a chair beside Eve. Everyone sat. “I understand there is no next of kin?”
Finch shook his head. “We’re close friends,” he said and looked at Eve.
“Well, Mr. Pocklington is in serious condition. In addition to the vomiting, diarrhea and fever, he complained of a sharp pain in his buttocks. When we scanned it with ultrasound, we could see what appeared to be a metallic sliver under his gluteus maximus. About the size of a grain of rice.” The doctor held up his thumb and index finger. A quarter inch separated them. “I made a small incision, extracted the particle and sent it down to the pathology lab for analysis.” He paused and held them with a steady gaze.
“And?”
“It was a perforated pellet containing ricin.”
“Ricin.” Finch leaned forward. “That’s toxic, isn’t it?”
“Very.” Henney nodded with a bleak look. “It appears that the pellet itself is composed of platinum and iridium. By the time I removed it, the complete dose of ricin had been released.”
Eve held a hand to her mouth. “What can you do now?”
“Watch. Wait.” He shrugged. “Things might be different if he’d inhaled it. But there’s no antidote for injected ricin.”
“No antidote.” Finch repeated in a whisper and looked at Eve. He couldn’t think of anything more to say. He stood, shoved his hands into his pockets and walked to the window.
“There is something else,” Henney continued.
Finch turned to face the doctor.
“Obviously this was an attempted murder. So far. But barring a miracle, within a few days it will be murder pure and simple. One that employed a weaponized poison. I’m required to inform the authorities — in fact, I already have. The FBI has asked me to advise you to make yourselves available to them and not to leave here until an officer speaks to you.”
Eve nodded as if all this had now become inevitable. “Can we see him?”
“Yes. He isn’t infectious.” Henney sighed. “But bear in mind that he’s starting to experience seizures. They’ll only get worse, I’m afraid.”
Finch shook his head and walked back to Eve and the doctor. Once more the burden of guilt weighed on his shoulders. He felt it pressing him, shoving him back into the chair. He dropped forward at a sharp angle, his elbow cracking onto the chrome arm rest. He let out a yelp.
“You all right?” Henney set a hand on Finch’s arm and helped settle him.
“I’m fine.” He nodded. “Funny bone.”
“Right.” Dr. Henney let out a laugh. “Okay, I’ll get the nurse to tell you when you can visit your friend.”
※
“The FBI.” Finch washed his hands over his face. If he could, he’d wash away the remorse he felt about Fiona and Sochi. “I never thought it would get to this. Honestly, Eve, which corner did we turn that led to this bloody place?” He swept a hand around the hospital lounge and stood up again. He walked over to the window and stared at the traffic sweeping along Potrero Avenue. In the falling dusk a few drivers began to click on their headlights.
She joined him at the window and looped her hand around his elbow and pulled his arm against her. “Just about every corner we took, I guess.”
“And next up, the FBI. Hell, if they think we’re involved with a ricin poisoning, they’ll put us in jail.” He tried to steel himself. “What do we tell them?”
“The truth. They’ll get it out of us no matter what we say. Besides, we have nothing to hide. I imagine they’ll interview Sochi while he’s still able to talk. Then each of us separately. First time out they’ll serve coffee and donuts and assure us we’re all on the same side. Then they’ll compare notes, find the discrepancies and start to press us wherever they find deviations. Expect them to play hardball. Weaponized ricin is no joke. So the only thing we can do to live another day is to be dead honest.”
“What about Witowsky? You going to tell the FBI about him?”
She turned to face him, leaned against the wall. “It may be the only way to keep Witowsky at bay.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that Witowsky may be a bigger threat than Malinin. If I can get the FBI to run interference against both of them while we try to cinch the knot around Senator Whitelaw, maybe — if we don’t run out of time first — we can finally bring this all to an end.”
Finch tried to conceive of an end game that would save them from Malinin and Witowsky — and keep them out of prison.
“Come here.” She led him back to the chairs and they sat down. “So. I’ve had all day to work this through. Every turn we make, who’s there? Witowsky. Think a minute: he was the cop assigned to churn through Raymond Toeplitz’s estate, his house, his car. And his computer. He told me that’s how he stumbled on the GIGcoin software. Even a boob like Witowsky could see that it’s worth billions.”
Finch listened in silence as she continued.
“Remember my friend in the forensics unit told me he’s being watched by IAD. Why? My guess is because they think he’s making a grab for GIGcoin. Let’s assume he is. Knowing we’re a step ahead of him, he starts tracking us. The SFPD
has all the digital spyware they need to follow our every move. A single cop with a few in-house friends can track anyone wherever he wants. So he caught wind of our meeting in Honolulu and arrived there before us, set up the surveillance cameras and heard every word of our preparations.”
“So Witowsky, not Malinin, tapped into our room at the Moana Surfrider. He learned that Sochi would get the key and Malinin would get the software.”
“Exactly. Then he duped me into revealing when and where the exchange would happen.” Eve shook her head with remorse, still astounded by her own gullibility. “By now he’s probably determined that Sochi spiked the software on Marat’s laptop.”
She narrowed her eyes as if she were preparing for an impending battle. “Now he knows we have the software and one key. That means he’ll come after us next.”
“Or maybe the senator, who has the second key.” Finch’s voice carried a note of false hope. “Except that we’re the softer target.”
“By far.”
“Do you think Witowsky injected the ricin pellet into Sochi?”
She shook her head. “Too sophisticated. Could he shoot Marat three times in the chest at close range? Absolutely. Cops train for it routinely. But this other thing? No way. You know, I remember a ricin poisoning in England decades ago. Some iron-curtain, Soviet espionage.”
She drew her phone from her purse and began to key-in a search. After a moment she turned back to Finch. “Here it is. Bulgarian stuff back in 1978. The Brits claimed the ricin pellet was prepared by the KGB. And exactly how Dr. Henney described it, too. A platinum and iridium shell holding the ricin until it’s released in the body.”
Finch read over the article. “Unbelievable. The ricin pellet was injected into the victim using the tip of an umbrella.”
“Did Sochi mention anything about an umbrella to you?”
“I don’t think so.” Finch shrugged. “But this definitely has the stench of the old KGB. And 1978 was back in Malinin’s heyday. He could have worked on the ricin pellet himself. So Malinin took out Sochi because he spiked the GIGcoin software —"
“For revenge. Because Marat was killed by someone directly linked to us. Or to me, at least.” Eve gazed into the distance.
“Let it go, Eve. Witowsky started this, not you.”
“I know.”
Finch turned his attention back to the problem at hand. Slowly he could see the pieces link together. “It’s just as Malinin promised: Any betrayal will be dealt with immediately.”
“You know something else?” Eve had a hopeful look in her eyes. “It could be that Malinin doesn’t know who Witowsky is. His name, the fact that he’s a cop. None of it.”
“And maybe Witowsky doesn’t know what happened to Sochi.” Finch doubted that either of these two possibilities could help them very much. But at least he and Eve could see all the cards the other players held. An advantage that no one else possessed.
※
“The Russians….” Sochi whispered through the mesh of his beard and mustache, his voice barely audible under the steady buzz of medical machinery humming on the walls of the room.
Finch drew closer to the hospital bed and leaned on a side rail that had been raised and locked into place to prevent Sochi from tumbling onto the floor during a seizure. “What about the Russians?”
He churned his head on the pillow and gasped. “Shit.” His eyes filled with a look of exasperation.
Eve touched Finch’s arm and pulled him back a step. “Sochi,” she said. “You’ve been poisoned.”
“I know. With ricin.” He found his voice now and seemed to realize that Eve and Finch were there to help him.
“Someone from the FBI is going to interview you.”
He nodded. “They already have,” he whispered. He paused to catch his breath. “But you” — he leaned toward Eve — “you have the original GIGcoin software at home?”
“Yes. I hid it where no one can find it.”
“Good.” He nodded. “And the key I got from Marat works. You only need the second key now.”
“I know. We’re close.” Finch released Sochi’s hand and brushed aside a strand of red hair that had fallen across his face.
“There’s one more thing.” Another spasm tore through him. Sochi blinked and had to work to focus his eyes. “The software on the flash drive is like a gate. The complete system software is installed on a server somewhere.”
Finch felt a sense of impending collapse. Another disastrous turn ahead? “On a server? Where’s the server, Sochi?”
“I don’t know.” His head turned on the pillow. “It doesn’t matter. But when you find the second key to unlock the software, make sure the flash drive is connected to the internet. It’s a gate,” he repeated. “Plug the drive into the internet and engage both keys. Then the gate opens.”
Finch turned to Eve and gave her a distant look. Despite his coherency, Sochi seemed to have entered a delirium, another realm of the make-believe that governed so much of his world.
“Time to rest,” she said and ran her hand along his wrist. The stroking seemed to calm him and he closed his eyes.
A moment later the door swung open. Dr. Henney crossed the room. Two others followed him, a man and woman dressed in suits, their hair slicked back, their faces resolute.
“Eve Noon, Will Finch,” he said and swung an arm to the FBI operatives in tow, “let me introduce Agents Lavigne and Sterne.”
Sterne stepped forward and shook Eve’s hand, glanced at Finch and nodded. “I’ve heard of you. Ex-SFPD, right?”
She glanced away. “Once upon a time.”
He turned to Finch. “And you’re the reporter, right? I’ve seen you on CNN. That bear story. Quite something.” His lips curled together in a sneer as if he’d accidentally bitten into a lemon seed. As if crime reporters were the lowest form of human waste imaginable.
※
Some people referred to the San Francisco FBI field office as an eminent example of urban modernist architecture. But to Finch, the Phil Burton Building was simply another late-50s box, a steel-and-glass government hive on the edge of the Tenderloin District. He imagined that a directive from President Eisenhower had deliberately located the building on Golden Gate Avenue next to the most impoverished neighborhood on the west coast. Occasionally federal employees might search their pockets for spare change to toss into the outstretched hands of the destitute souls squatting on the sidewalks. An example of trickle-down economics in action.
As they entered the building Agent Lavigne tried to bring Finch and Eve onside. “Since we’re all working on this together,” she said, “I think we should just help one another.” Her voice almost conveyed a hint of sincerity.
“Of course,” Eve said as she smiled at Finch. “We can use all the help we can get.”
They took an elevator car up to the thirteenth floor and as Eve had predicted, they were provided with hot coffee and fresh donuts. Moments later they were introduced to the FBI field office chief, Bert Clemens. He shook their hands and turned to four men who’d followed him into the staff lounge.
“This is Jerzy Linka and Bill Mason, forensic specialists from Homeland Security, and two men you may know from the SFPD,” he said looking at Eve, “Walt Mobley and Juan Morales.”
“From IAD, right?”
Morales nodded. “Good to see you again, Eve.”
“I’m not required to tell you this,” Clemens said, “but as a courtesy, I’m advising you that we’ll be listening to your interviews through the one-way glass. Rest easy, this is just about information gathering. We’re all on the same team and no one suspects you of any criminal activity.”
With that, Finch and Eve were separated and escorted into adjacent interview rooms. The game was on.
※
“I know you want to find out how this happened to Mr. Pocklington as much as we do.” Lavigne waved to a chair and sat opposite Finch.
The straight-back chairs and table were made of steel, the
one-way mirrors framed in steel, and the door reinforced with a veneer of steel scratched and scarred from decades of abuse. Finding any comfort here would be a challenge, he realized.
“So,” she continued as she set up the interview recording system, “what can you tell me about Oscar Pocklington?”
Try as he might, Finch couldn’t get used to calling Sochi, Oscar Pocklington. It was a fraud. A ruse. Which was why, perhaps, that Sochi had discarded his given name years ago.
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Let’s start in Honolulu.” Her face took on an open expression. He noticed that her eyebrows were brown, her hair-job a dusty blond with dark roots. “I’ve read the report from the HPD. Apparently you were cooperative with them. You called in the murder of this man, Marat?”
“I was there, but I didn’t see the shooting.”
“I get that,” she said and leaned forward, relaxed her arms on the steel table between them. “What I need to know was how this happened. Why were you, Eve and Oscar in Honolulu? And what did it have to do with Marat?”
“You want the full picture?”
“All of it.” She looked in his eyes. “From the beginning.”
Finch took a sip of his coffee and tried to relax his back. Okay, here we go, he told himself.
“There’s a digital currency called bitcoin. And another dozen contenders trying to steal bitcoin’s market share. One of the contenders is called GIGcoin. It’s a scheme run out of the Cayman Islands controlled by Alexei Malinin, an ex-KGB Russian oligarch, the recently murdered Dean Whitelaw and his brother, Senator Franklin Whitelaw.”
Agent Lavigne sat back, brushed a strand of dyed hair from her eyes and whispered, “All right, you’ve got my attention. Go on.”
※
Two hours later Finch was escorted to the men’s washroom and offered a fresh cup of coffee and more donuts. He was then directed back to his interview room and joined by Agent Sterne.