When The Devil Whistles

by Rick Acker

  Jenkins chuffed. “What’s to like? Buncha jerks.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not what I mean.” Ed sipped noisily from his drink. “Why are they here? Why not let us handle this? They aren’t the first ones to hire the G-2 crew for a treasure hunting trip. No one ever brought their own crew before. Why’d they do that?”

  Mitch shrugged and stretched. “Maybe they don’t like Americans.”

  Jenkins’s mouth twisted. “They don’t—and it’s mutual.” He swirled his coffee and stared down into his mug. “But is that a good enough reason to bring a whole crew from Korea?”

  Mitch’s irritation with the Koreans bubbled higher. “They don’t trust us. They think Americans will screw up whatever it is they’re doing.”

  Ed gave a lopsided smile. “So your reputation precedes you, Mitch.”

  “If I wanted crap from you, Granger, I’d squeeze your head.”

  Jenkins and Ed both started to laugh, but a clipped Asian voice interrupted them.

  “Mr. Granger and Mr. Daniels, you should sleep. We will arrive at the search area tomorrow and the remotely operated vehicle and other devices must be ready to go down as soon as possible.”

  Mitch looked up and saw David Cho standing behind Jenkins, who stood to face the newcomer. Cho was a tall man of around thirty-five. He was about the same height as Jenkins, but the first mate outweighed him by over fifty pounds—at least half of it muscle.

  “We’re almost there?” Jenkins swayed slightly, either from the wave action or the whiskey in his coffee. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You did not need to know.” Cho turned back to Mitch and Ed. “You will need—”

  “What do you mean, I didn’t need to know?” Jenkins leaned toward Cho. “I’m the first mate of this ship!”

  Cho placed a hand in the middle of Jenkins’ chest and pushed him back. “Leave! I am done speaking with you.”

  Jenkins stumbled back several steps, then grabbed a chair and steadied himself. His face was as red as his beard and shaggy hair. He bared his teeth and took a step toward Cho. The Korean moved sideways into the open part of the lounge and stood waiting, feet apart and hands up and open. He didn’t look mad or scared, just… expectant.

  Jenkins stopped and the two men stared at each other for several seconds. Mitch held his breath and waited for the burly first mate to pound the obnoxious Korean. But Jenkins narrowed his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. Without taking his gaze off of Cho, he said, “Better get to bed, guys. Since our guests screwed up and didn’t give us advance warning, you’re gonna have a busy day tomorrow.”

  21

  CONNOR WAS WORKING ON HIS SECOND CUP OF PEET’S WHEN HIS CELL phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, though he could tell from the 415 area code that it was in San Francisco. “Hello, Connor Norman.”

  “Hi, it’s Allie.”

  He smiled and swiveled his chair to face the spectacular view of the San Francisco Bay outside his office window. Sailboats meandered lazily across the sparkling blue surface like giant white gulls, keeping well clear of the occasional lumbering freighter. Real gulls flew in sinuous flocks across the water or rested on the numerous docks and wharves that jutted out into the water like fingers of the land grasping the Bay and holding her tight. The view always made Connor want to go for a walk along the waterfront, but he could rarely take the time off work.

  “Hey, Allie. It’s good to hear from you. Where are you calling from?”

  “I’m at a pay phone in the Ferry Building. Want to get together for a cup of coffee or something?”

  Get together? In public? He was about to object when he realized what she was telling him by calling from a pay phone and calling his cell rather than his office number. Concern knotted his stomach—what kind of danger was she in? “Uh, sure. I’ll meet you in front of the Ferry Building in ten minutes. Bye.”

  Ten minutes later, he walked across the Embarcadero and scanned the crowd in front of the Ferry Building. She emerged from the building and walked toward him. She wore jeans that complemented her slender legs and a hooded UC Davis sweatshirt. Her shoulder-length hair was black. He wondered whether that was supposed to make her harder to recognize or whether she had gotten tired of brown and blond. Either way, it looked good.

  “Hi, Connor.” She gave him a just-friends hug. He was disappointed and relieved at the same time “Want to walk down the Embarcadero? There are enough people, but not too many.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Let’s head north. More good coffee places that way.”

  They turned up the wide sidewalk, bordered on the right by the busy Embarcadero, which carried automobiles, cable cars, and streetcars between its curbs. On their right were shops, restaurants, wharves, and occasional glimpses of the blue waters of the San Francisco Bay and the distant shoreline of Treasure Island.

  After they had gone a couple hundred yards, the tourist crowd began to thin. Connor glanced around to make sure no one was too close. “So, is my phone bugged, your phone, or both?”

  She rewarded him with a bright smile. “I love having a smart lawyer. Maybe both, maybe neither. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”

  “About what?”

  She pursed her lips and shook her head slightly. “I’m not totally sure. The last place I worked—Deep Seven—was…” She shrugged. “There’s something off about them.”

  “How so?”

  She recounted the incidents she had described to Erik and concluded, “So basically they’re very security conscious, very suspicious.”

  Half-formed fears woke in his stomach. “Suspicious of you?”

  “Suspicious of everyone. But yeah, me in particular.” She paused and shoved her hands deep into her sweatshirt pockets. “You should also know that I, uh, I heard one of the secretaries from their legal department talking about having a quote unquote shred first and ask questions later policy. She was talking about how they’d done that to kill a lawsuit a couple of years ago. Raised the hairs on the back of my neck.”

  “Not good. You’d better keep a low profile until I’ve had a chance to look into this. And don’t take any more jobs in the meantime. Oh, and send me a list of former employees for interviews—make sure to include some executives and security guys if you can.”

  “Okay.” She smiled and winked at him. “Thanks for watching out for me.”

  “Couldn’t let anything happen to my best client, could I?” He returned the smile. Get that protectiveness under control, buddy. Remember, she’s just a client. Back to business. “So, how did their books look? Are they hiding anything?”

  She nodded and pulled an envelope out of her purse. “It looks like they’re padding each bill by about ten percent. I could only pull a couple because of all the Big Brother stuff, but I hope it’s enough to interest DOJ.”

  She handed the envelope to Connor and he opened it. It held only ten sheets of paper: two invoices to the California Department of Water Resources for underwater repair work at a reservoir, two pages of itemized billings supporting each invoice, and an Excel spreadsheet showing lower amounts for most line items. Nice, simple documents—the kind that would be easy to explain to a jury.

  “These are great docs, Allie. But there’s only about $20K of fraud here. With trebling, that’s sixty thousand. Add a penalty of ten thousand per invoice and we’re still only at eighty. That’s too small for Max, and it’s too small for my firm.”

  She wrinkled her forehead and pressed her lips together. “Hmmm. Would it be big enough if I told you that they had over two hundred million dollars in government contracts? How about if I also told you that over half the invoices I saw had padding?”

  Connor did some quick mental calculations and gave a low whistle. “Then I’d tell you that I’m very interested, and I’ll bet DOJ will be too.”

  She grinned. “Thought you might. Hey, didn’t you say something about coffee?” She stopped and tilted her head toward an espresso cart bearing the name “Wilson’s Expre
sso Espresso.” A tall man with an earring and a goatee watched them hopefully.

  “I did indeed.” Connor bought an Americano for himself and a complicated chai-based drink for Allie that took Wilson five minutes to make.

  After they had their drinks, they turned around and headed back toward the Ferry Building. “So, what else is up?”

  “My bank account for starters. Your accounting department just sent me the last installment from Hamilton.”

  “That should pay for a few nice trips to Vail or Tahoe for you and Erik. Come to think of it, that should pay for one of those ski-in condos. And some bunny slope lessons for Erik.” Connor allowed himself a small grin as he pictured Allie’s oh-so-cool boyfriend wobbling on his first pair of skis.

  Allie didn’t smile. “Uh, yeah. Anyway, what’s up with you?”

  Connor winced inside. Should’ve kept the Erik thing to myself. “Um, you know that World War II fighter I’ve got? I took it down to LA for a movie shoot.” Allie’s face wore a distant, slightly glazed look and Connor instantly regretted bragging. “Other than that, just the same old boring grind at the office.”

  “Uh-huh. Say, could you give me a referral for a detective?”

  “Sure, but if this is for a case, we’ll hire one ourselves.”

  A chill ocean breeze gusted between two buildings. Allie’s hair whipped around her face and she hugged herself. “No, it’s not for a case.”

  Connor waited for her to go on, but she just tucked her hair behind her ears and watched the sidewalk as they walked.

  He wanted to ask what was wrong, to tell her that he was her friend and he wanted to help. But he didn’t. I’ve done enough damage for one day. He stuck hands in pockets and looked away “Okay, I’ll send you a couple of names.”

  22

  THE RAIN HAD STOPPED BY THE TIME MR. LEE SUMMONED THE TEAM TO the Grasp II’s lounge, but the ship still rolled in heavy seas. It was late and the Americans had all gone to bed. Nonetheless, Mr. Lee put a guard outside the door.

  The men were tired, but fully awake as Mr. Lee rose to speak. This was the first full meeting he had called since they had boarded the ship in Oakland, over five thousand kilometers to the east. There could be only one reason: they were only hours from their goal, and he was finally going to tell them what it was.

  He surveyed the dozen men crowded around the two tables and smiled, exuding real affection. He was the perfect picture of a leader—wise and warm eyes, lines of experience and endurance etched into his strong face, an iron jaw, thick shoulders that would have been the envy of a man half his age. Cho could not help admiring the man right now.

  Mr. Lee extended his right hand to the team. “What a glorious group of men! What a noble, chosen few! You are finest sons of the finest people on this planet. You have done everything I have asked and more. At great peril, you have followed me faithfully over air and land and sea, even though you did not know where I was leading you. You have trusted me with your lives and your honor.”

  He walked as he spoke, riding the shifting deck with the unconscious grace of a man who has spent his life at sea. “Now your trust will be repaid. I will tell you a great secret—a secret so great that I have spoken it to no one.” He pointed to the rolling floor. “Down there lies the treasure that will destroy our great enemy. A gift from heaven buried in the depths of the sea. It is the key that will unlock the cage of fear that has held our nation for generations and kept the two halves of our country apart.”

  He paused and looked every man in the eye. His gaze was like a jolt when he met Cho’s eyes.

  Then he told them.

  When he finished, the room was silent except for the whistle of the wind outside and the rhythmic creaking as the ship rode up and down the swells. The men continued to stare at him, as if frozen by the enormity of the news they had just received. Cho had difficulty comprehending what he had just heard. Could this be true? Could Mr. Lee really mean to do what he had just said? Horror and disbelief swirled inside his head, shrouding his mind in a thought-choking miasma.

  The silence stretched for nearly a minute. Mr. Lee gave a low chuckle. “Have you nothing to say? Not even any questions?”

  The engineer’s mate—a burly, profane man who was called Park on this mission—stood and bowed. “Sir, I am honored to be here with you, doing this thing that men will talk about a thousand years from now. Thank you.” He bowed again and sat, surrounded by murmurs of approval and agreement.

  Mr. Lee caught Cho’s eye. “How about you? What do you think?”

  Cho stood and bowed. As he did, the cloud in his mind lifted and he knew what he must do. A wave of regret swept over him, but the path before his feet was clear. “Sir, your plan astounds me. It is brilliant. It is subtle. And if it succeeds, it will change everything we have ever known forever.”

  “With all of us standing together, it cannot fail.”

  “No, sir.” Which was why one of them would have to fall.

  23

  CONNOR HIT THE “SAVE” BUTTON AND GLANCED AT THE CLOCK ON HIS computer’s task bar. 1:46 a.m. He yawned, leaned back in his desk chair, and stretched until he heard cracks from his neck and both elbows. He picked up one of the open Red Bull cans on his desk and shook it to make sure it wasn’t an empty.

  He drained the can in one long swig and steeled himself for one more read through the two documents on the screen. The first was a qui tam complaint consisting of numbered paragraphs that recited a bare bones description of Allie’s story about Deep Seven’s fraud. It ended with three boilerplate causes of action for breach of the California False Claims Act and a ritual demand for “damages in an amount to be proven at trial.”

  The second document was a disclosure statement. This was where the action was. In the disclosure statement, Connor laid out everything he and Allie knew about the case: names, dates, dollar amounts, invoice numbers, estimates of recoverable damages—anything that might make DOJ like the case.

  And they would like it. Connor had no doubt about that. This was as close to a perfect false claims case as he had ever seen. It had obvious fraud, lots of government money, and an in-state defendant with deep pockets. It would have been nice if Allie had been able to copy some more documents, but Connor could live without them and he suspected DOJ could too. The disclosure statement told a good story, and DOJ had learned to trust Devil to Pay’s stories.

  By 3:00, he had the documents in final. Filing them with the superior court could wait, but he needed to get these to the Attorney General’s office by first thing tomorrow morning.

  This morning. He sighed and closed his eyes.

  He PDFed the complaint and disclosure statement and sent them to Max Volusca with a red-flagged covering e-mail that said, “Max, call me on my cell as soon as you get this. We may have a spoliation problem.”

  Then he went home, where he fell asleep on the sofa with the cell phone next to his head.

  Connor was more or less awake when his phone rang a few minutes before 8:30. “Morning, Connor,” Max’s voice boomed. “So, what was so urgent that you were sending me high-priority e-mails in the middle of the night? What’s the spoliation issue?”

  “Hey, Max.” Connor rubbed gummy eyes and held the phone away from his ear. “Big new case. About twenty million in fraud, and that’s before trebling or penalties. Allie thinks the defendant may destroy documents as soon as they catch wind of your investigation. She heard someone from their legal department talk about having a shred first, ask questions later policy.”

  Max snorted. “Yeah? Well, it’s tough to run a shredder when you’re wearing handcuffs. I’ll tell that to their president when we serve him with a subpoena.”

  Connor chuckled and walked into the kitchen to start the coffeemaker as he talked. “I’m sure that’ll get his attention, but what about the account executives who are going to have their careers destroyed when this comes out? One of them may try to shred himself out of trouble or start wiping hard drives. Also, that pers
on from legal who Allie overheard was saying they’d done it before to kill a case.”

  “Hmmm. Yeah, that’s a problem.” Max was silent for a moment. The coffeemaker gurgled and the blessed aroma of fresh espresso curled around Connor. “I’ve got an idea. Can you get Allie to swear out a declaration repeating what you just told me?”

  Connor smiled and poured himself a cup of thick black coffee. “I’ll have it to you by noon. Mind telling me what your idea is?”

  “Can’t—this is a sealed investigation. Just watch the evening news tomorrow and find out with everyone else.”

  Allie’s home phone (which Connor had had swept for bugs) rang and the computerized caller ID voice announced that “Norman, Connor” was calling. She popped up from the kitchen table, where she was busy on her laptop, and grabbed a handset. “Hi, Connor. What’s up?”