This morning, it was not to be. His phone rang just as his assistant, Letty, was placing his espresso on his desk. He had arrived the previous evening from Baghdad, and his head was still swimming from too many nights of travel with little sleep. When he saw who was calling, however, he snapped up the phone immediately. Letty, who had been with Jensen for more years than either of them cared to count, was well trained in the art of making a quick and graceful exit. One had to be to work for a man like Thomas Jensen. She scurried to the door and closed it behind her.
“Jensen here.” He took a deep draught from the espresso and braced himself for more bad news.
“Annabel Werner is in London,” said the voice on the other end. “She arrived this morning. She appears to be staying with a friend in Shoreditch.”
“That’s interesting,” Jensen said, because it was.
“It’s a problem, I think. What happens if she starts poking around, asking questions?”
“Perhaps she’s here to collect his things. He left some personal effects at the Amir house.”
“I thought Bloch was supposed to return those to her.”
“She declined, apparently. Said she’d come get them herself.”
“That’s not good. Not good at all. This is the last thing we need, Thomas. We’re so close to the finish line. We can’t have Annabel Werner stirring up the hornet’s nest. If she reaches out to a member of the Amir family—”
“She’s a grieving widow. It would be natural for her to have questions.”
“She’s a liability, is what she is.”
“Perhaps she’s simply visiting an old friend.”
“An old friend who happens to be Syrian? I don’t like it, Thomas. It doesn’t sit right.”
Jensen sighed and drained the last of his espresso. He’d need another to make it through the morning, which was already proving to be something of a train wreck. “I’ll look into it,” he said. “What’s the friend’s name?”
“Khalid Nasser. Went to college with Matthew Werner. Works at Goldman Sachs now, doing some sort of security work.”
Jensen scribbled down Khalid’s name and next to it wrote Goldman Sachs and Shoreditch.
“I’ll see what I can find out. Leave Annabel Werner to me. You focus on our friend Mr. Morse at the Department of Justice. He’s the bigger concern.”
“I’m aware. We’ve got him under surveillance.”
“We need to move forward soon. The longer this drags on—”
“No one wants this to drag on. But in the meantime, make sure Annabel Werner isn’t running around playing Nancy Drew.”
“I understand. She won’t. I’ll make sure of it.”
And with that, Thomas Jensen hung up the phone. He took his overcoat off the hook by the door and headed out in the direction of Shoreditch.
Marina
At some point during the night, Owen had fallen asleep at the computer. When the intercom buzzed, he heard it through the fog of a dream and didn’t budge. But the noise grew louder and more persistent, and eventually he sat up and wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth.
“Fuck,” he said, and dug his thumbs into the sides of his neck, which felt as though it might be permanently crooked from sleeping facedown on his dining room table.
The buzzer blared again. This time it sounded as if someone was leaning on it.
“Coming!” he shouted. “I’m fucking coming!”
“Good morning to you, too,” Marina said, when he opened the door. She looked fresh-faced, as though she’d just gone for a run in Central Park. Her glossy hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she wore black spandex pants and a tight-fitting windbreaker that was unzipped just enough to reveal a slice of tank top beneath. Owen tried his best to maintain eye contact.
Marina held out two large coffees. “Rough night?”
“Long night,” he said, and reached for the coffee before ushering her inside. “What time is it?”
“It’s eight a.m. I was going to come over at seven, but I figured I’d let you sleep a little. Or, you know, bid adieu to any overnight guests.”
“Thanks.” Owen yawned. He hadn’t been out of bed at eight a.m. on a Sunday in a very long time. He nodded his head in the direction of his bedroom. “I think she’s in the shower.”
“Funny. Do you want me to come back later?”
“No. We have too much work to do. I was up all night and barely scratched the surface.”
Marina glanced around. The window shades were drawn throughout the apartment. Three laptops sat open on the dining room table, and from each, a jumble of cables extended, like a multiheaded medusa. Strewn about were coffee cups, a pizza box, USBs, and stacks of paper. Owen was wearing glasses, which meant he’d spent the better part of the past twenty-four hours staring at a screen. Marina hadn’t seen him in glasses since the Darlings investigation eight years earlier. His were thick and slightly off-center on his nose. He looked nerdier in them, but sweeter, too. She wondered why he didn’t wear them more often.
“This place looks like a scene from Snowden,” she said.
“This is bigger than Snowden. You have no idea.” Owen moved a stack of files off a chair and offered her a place to sit. “How was Connecticut?”
“Well, for starters, I think I was being followed. There was a sedan lingering around Duncan’s house while I was there, and it followed me most of the way home.”
Owen frowned. “Most?”
“I pulled out into the Lakeville exit and lost him.”
“Make?”
“I think it was a town car. You know, like from a limo company.”
“Did you get a plate?”
“Partial.”
“Give it to me. I’ll have a cop friend run it. Speaking of cop friends, what’s up with the investigation?”
“Seems like a professional job. Clean shot to the head, .45 with a silencer. Neighbor saw a Kia casing the block earlier in the day, so Miles is going to try to track that down. Duncan’s notebooks were missing, as was his laptop.”
“Bet that’s the first time the Somerset Police Department has come across a hit man.”
“Well, the chief of police thinks it was just a break-in gone wrong. I think it’s a matter of time before he tries to close the case.”
Owen shrugged, unsurprised. “I’m pretty sure those guys aren’t going to be cracking this case, anyway. Did you get the Kia’s plate number? I can run that, too.”
“The last digits were 434. A yellow plate, so probably New York. Could also be Maine, maybe? One other interesting thing. I got a peek at Duncan’s calendar for the last few weeks. He’d been calling someone at the Department of Justice. Hunter Morse. And then he had it penciled into his calendar to go down to DC. He wrote Morse next to it and underlined it.”
“He had an actual calendar? Like a Filofax or something?”
“So do I. Don’t judge. I think it’s nice. Did you know you retain information twice as well if you write it down by hand? Duncan taught me that. And look, you can’t hack into it.” Marina pulled a pink leather day planner from her purse and pushed it across Owen’s dining room table.
“What if you lose it?”
“I’d die. But I haven’t yet.”
Owen snorted. He pulled Marina’s day planner over to his side of the table and inspected it. “Jesus, who even makes these anymore?” He ran his finger over her initials, MT, which were embossed in gold on the lower right-hand corner of the leather cover. “What happens when you get married? Won’t you need to change this? Will it say ‘Mrs. Grant Ellis’ instead?”
Marina ignored his mocking tone. “Maybe I won’t need one at all,” she shot back. “Since I won’t be working after the wedding. Maybe I’ll just have my social secretary give me my schedule every morning. Like Letitia Baldrige and Jackie Kennedy.”
&n
bsp; “Touché. You aren’t really going to quit though, are you?”
“I really am.”
Owen frowned, suddenly serious. “You’re a good writer. Duncan was grooming you to take over for him. Did you know that? I always thought you should go over to the Journal, though.”
“You’re not even at the Journal!”
“You know what I mean. To a serious news outlet. Press is too much of a society magazine for you. You like hard-hitting stories, you always have. I saw the spark in your eye during the Darlings investigation. You loved it. It’s in your blood, Marina.”
“You make it sound like I have a disease.”
“You do. I’ve got it, too. The truth bug. No cure, unfortunately.” Owen locked his hands behind his head and tipped his chair back, looking smug.
“At least we agree that I shouldn’t stay at Press. I can’t imagine the place without Duncan.”
“I can get you a job at the Deliverable, if you want. It might be too edgy for you now that you live on Park Avenue.”
Marina shook her head. “I’m out, Owen. Grant’s going to be running the family business soon. We can’t both be traveling all the time. Especially not if we’re going to start a family. I always knew I was going to quit. I thought I’d wait until after the wedding. But now that Duncan’s gone . . .”
“So Papa Ellis is running for president, huh? The rumors are true?”
“He’ll announce his candidacy any day now. Don’t give me that look.”
“What look? No look.”
“I know you well enough to know when there’s a look.”
Owen raised his hands. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. I don’t see you as a Park Avenue housewife. That’s a compliment, by the way, not a criticism.”
“Well, maybe I’ll be a Beltway housewife instead.”
“You’ve got my vote. He’s a Democrat at least, right? Hard to tell with billionaires. Or does he prefer the term ‘limousine liberal’?”
“Who’s a Democrat?” Marina almost levitated off her chair when she heard a female voice behind her. She spun around and found herself facing a sultry brunette with olive skin, almond-shaped eyes, and a body that would put a swimsuit model to shame. The woman was barefoot, and her jeans were rolled up at the cuff. Marina couldn’t help but notice the intricate mosaic pattern tattooed around her left ankle that seemed to extend up her leg. God knew how far it went.
“I’m Yael,” the woman said, extending her hand. “You must be Marina.”
Marina nodded and shook her hand. For once in her life, she was speechless.
“You should have woken me up,” Owen said to Yael. “I was drooling on myself like an asshole.”
Yael laughed. “You needed the rest.” She had a light accent that Marina thought sounded Israeli, but she couldn’t be sure.
“I was joking about the overnight guest,” Marina said.
Owen grinned. “I know.”
She stood up and started collecting her things. “I’ll go. I’m sorry. I thought we said—”
“Whoa, where are you going? We’re here to work. You going to join us?”
Marina glanced at Owen, then at Yael, then back again. She felt dizzy with embarrassment.
“Yael’s a programmer,” Owen said. “I keep trying to hire her, but she’s too expensive for me. Anyway, she’s going to help us out. And fuck, we’re going to need it.”
Marina’s embarrassment turned to frustration. “What? Owen, no. You can’t just— May I speak with you? Alone, please?”
Yael gave Owen a wide-eyed “oh boy” glance.
“Marina, look,” Owen said, “I understand your hesitation. But I trust Yael. She’s the best. And we can’t do this alone. Just let me show you what we’ve been doing and I think you’ll understand. Okay?”
Marina hesitated. On one hand, she was furious with Owen for bringing in a partner without asking her first. The source was skittish enough; what if he found out she had a whole team of people looking at his data? He could disappear without so much as a word. He could go to another journalist. Worst of all, he could turn himself in and take his chances with the authorities.
On the other, she knew the volume of data they had to work through was enormous. Every minute they wasted was a minute lost; the sooner this information went public, the better off they all would be. Owen tended to be a lone ranger when it came to his work; his inability to play nicely with others when it came to team investigations was a well-documented flaw of his. So if Owen said they needed help, chances were, they did. And if Owen said Yael was the best, she probably was. Even if she did look like Jessica Alba.
“Okay.” Marina nodded. She slid back into her seat. “Sorry. I just—”
Yael waved her off. “I get it. This material is as sensitive as it gets.”
“Wake up, Maestra, baby,” Owen said to the computer. He typed in a password and the screen whirred to life. “Time to rise and shine.”
“Maestra?”
Yael laughed. “That’s what I call her. She’s mine, by the way.”
“And she’s a beaut,” Owen said.
“I thought we were using your computer,” Marina said to Owen. “I thought we agreed.”
“Do you know what an air gap is?” Yael asked. Marina shook her head.
“This computer has never been connected to the internet,” Yael explained, pointing to Maestra. “Its WLAN—that’s wireless local area network—is deactivated, so no LAN cable will ever penetrate its casing.”
Marina stared at her.
“Basically a computer is only safe if an air gap separates it from other systems. So this ensures that no one will be able to hack us. Also, it has five hundred gigs of memory. So it can handle the amount of data the source has sent. So far, anyway.”
Owen shot Marina a look, as if to say, See? This is why we need her.
“Basically, what I’m doing here is setting up a secure database for all the documents. Right now, they’re just indexed. Eventually, I’d like to construct visualizations so that every company and its related entities will appear, along with their shareholders. Like an org chart. That way, we can see who is connected to whom. But we’re not there yet.”
“How are you indexing them? The documents, I mean. There must be millions.”
“I’ve been using Nuix Investigator. Nuix is a company that makes forensic IT software. Basically, it’s a program that helps you sort and sift through vast quantities of data. It can even search unsearchable stuff, like PDFs and scanned documents. It’s super cool.” Marina was impressed that Yael didn’t seem annoyed with her questions. In fact, she seemed excited to have someone to talk to about the project.
“It’s crazy expensive,” Owen said. “It’s not like a new version of Adobe Acrobat or something. You can’t just go out and buy it.”
“It’s basically only used by police forces and law firms,” Yael said. “The SEC. Places like that. But Christophe Martin hooked me up with a license. So we’re off and running.”
Marina frowned. “The head of the ICIJ?” She didn’t love the idea of the head of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists getting looped into this. The ICIJ was a global network of more than 150 reporters who collaborated on in-depth, cross-border stories. While Marina had nothing but respect for their work, she couldn’t imagine getting 150 reporters from across the world involved in this story. How could they possibly operate with that many cooks in the kitchen? And could they tell the source they had gone from a team of two to a team of 150 in fewer than twenty-four hours? Surely, if the source wanted to have that many journalists involved, he would have taken it to the ICIJ in the first place.
“Christophe’s a friend. Don’t worry. He doesn’t know what it’s for. He trusts me,” Yael said.
“Think of it as super-Google,” Owen explained. “Basically,
the files you want to search are uploaded into the program as evidence. Nuix automatically indexes them. Once the index is created, we can search anything. You can type in a name, a company name, whatever. And Nuix will bring up all the documents related to that search. It’s totally wild.”
“Wow. Even if it’s a PDF? Or a fax?”
“Yeah, that’s the cool part.” Yael’s eyes gleamed. “Nuix is sophisticated. It has optical character recognition. So like, if there’s a photo file that has me standing in front of a law firm, and in the background, you can see that it says ‘Schmit & Muller’ on the door, Nuix will pick that up. Normal search tools can’t do that.”
“So is the index done?” Marina asked incredulously. She thought it would take days—weeks, maybe—for them to manually click through everything. But instead, they were light-years ahead. Now they could get to the fun part—writing the story.
“Yup.” Yael nodded. “We were up all night, but it’s done.”
“He’s still sending more,” Owen said. “It comes in batches. Even Maestra may not be able to handle what this guy’s got.”
Yael shrugged. “We’re caught up now. We have a secure database in place. Now we just need to start searching it. We can add data as it comes.”
“So where is the data coming from? Any thoughts?”
“At first we assumed the source was someone inside a big offshore bank—CIB maybe, or Swiss United. But now it looks like it’s coming from inside a law firm in Luxembourg. Schmit & Muller. They seem to be the go-to law firm for all these offshore banks, like CIB and Swiss United. They are the middleman, so to speak. They help the clients set up these shell entities with fake directors. And then they take the shell entities’ money to the banks. How on earth they are still in business is a mystery to me. If these people have time to do legitimate business, I’d be amazed.”
“Wow. Who do you think the source is? Maybe a disgruntled ex-employee or something?”
Yael shook her head. “The data is recent. We’re getting emails from yesterday. Whoever our source is, he is very much alive and still working at Schmit & Muller. And he has access to its entire database. It’s like we bugged their computers. We’re watching what happens inside as it happens. A fly on the wall of a deeply corrupt law firm.”
The Banker’s Wife Page 14