by Gene Riehl
“You posted to that file on August third,” she told him. “You’re okay for another couple of weeks.”
Monk pretended not to hear, as he stood picking lint from his red golf shirt.
“Mr. Monk,” Betty repeated, louder this time. “Did you hear me?”
He turned to her. “Sorry, I was daydreaming. Did you say I was current on that file?”
“I did. Is there anything else while I’m in the system?”
“That’ll do, thanks.” He turned to leave, but hadn’t made it to the door before she stopped him.
“Hey!” she said. “Wait a minute.”
He looked at her.
She pointed at the cooler. “You forgot your food.” She shook her head. “FBI agents. I don’t know how you find your way to work.”
He was back at the SOG by six o’clock. Now there was no longer any hurry. He couldn’t go back to Betty’s office until later, much later, and he could take his time downloading the video from the camera in the Igloo.
Monk parked the Saab in an empty space in the big garage, between a black and chrome Harley-Davidson and a light blue Ford pickup truck, then made his way through the other vehicles until he arrived at the equipment room at the rear of the building. Pushing through the door, he moved to an empty table near the television gear stacked on metal shelving against the back wall. He set the Igloo on the table, opened it, and pulled the miniature digital camcorder out of the cooler, then removed the microcassette and turned to an array of playback machines on a separate table. He inserted the cassette into one of them and watched the seventeen-inch monitor to see what he’d come up with.
The fish-eye lens in the tiny video camera had done its job beautifully. There was a second or two of white noise—static—at the beginning of the tape, then a slightly walleyed look at Betty Clement, a view just enough off to her left side that her fingers were clearly evident as they flashed over the keyboard.
He waited until he could see the yellow letters on her monitor that asked for Betty’s password, then reached for a switch on the playback machine to reduce the speed to super slow motion. Betty’s fingers were barely moving now. Monk twisted another knob and the picture came into sharper focus. He took a pad of paper, ready to copy. He ignored the string of asterisks that appeared on the screen, watching instead her fingers as they touched the keys.
“S” was the first of the keys she struck, then, “K-I-N-S,” before her fingers stopped moving.
SKINS.
Jesus, Monk thought. He’d known Betty Clement for at least ten years. Who’d have thought she was a football fan?
THIRTY-SIX
The beeping from the wristwatch alarm under his pillow woke Monk at two-fifteen the next morning.
He grabbed at the watch to turn it off before it could awaken Lisa. He swung around to check on her, saw that she hadn’t reacted at all, and wasn’t surprised. Lisa was a prodigious sleeper. The trick was to get out of here quietly enough to keep her that way until he got back.
He dressed quickly, in the Dockers and red Nike tennis shirt he’d been careful to leave on the floor next to the nightstand on his side of the bed, along with the socks and tennis shoes he’d left in the same place. Dressed, he headed for the bathroom, careful to avoid the loose board outside the door, and three minutes later he was out the front door and into the hallway. He glanced at the elevator, but didn’t want to risk the noise it would make. Turning to his right, he hurried to the end of the hallway and the door to the stairwell.
This wasn’t good, Sung Kim told herself, as she watched Monk’s Saab disappear down the ramp into the FBI garage. This was definitely not good, but it did mean she’d been right to keep following him.
Monk’s visit to WFO in the afternoon could well have been routine, and his quick dash to the building by the river hadn’t necessarily had anything to do with her, either, but this was a different story. What he was doing now could no longer be considered routine. Now he’d gone back into an office that was virtually deserted, with no one around to challenge whatever he might be doing. There was no way to know what he was up to, but she couldn’t just sit here and wait to find out. Sung Kim opened the door and slid out from behind the wheel. Time was running out. She could no longer afford to be a spectator.
It was quiet at WFO.
At three o’clock in the morning the only people around were half a dozen clerks and an equal number of agents to respond to emergencies. Monk didn’t see anybody as he hurried to the third floor and Betty Clement’s office. At her door, he reached into his pocket for the lock picks he’d grabbed at the SOG to replace the ones he’d left in Franklin’s mansion.
He bent to the lock, the Kwickset he’d examined earlier. Crouching to get close, he slid his black steel torsion bar into the keyway, then the straight pick to manipulate the tumblers. Forty-five seconds later he was sitting at Betty’s desk, the door shut and locked behind him.
Unwilling to risk the overhead lights, he switched on Betty’s small desk lamp instead, and booted up her computer. The blue screen appeared, along with the FBI seal and the invitation to enter a password. S-K-I-N-S, he typed, and watched the menu screen come up. He mouse-clicked to the proper screen, then typed in “Thomas Franklin” and got a list of informant and asset file numbers identifiable with reports containing the billionaire’s name. Next to the numbers were the names of the case agents, the handlers working those assets and informants. There were only six informants involved, surprisingly few, until Monk reminded himself that Franklin was an extraordinarily big player. He had scads of friends and associates, but not many of them would be willing to share what they knew about him with the FBI.
Monk thought about that for a moment—the kind of information Franklin’s associates might come up with—then reminded himself to take it easy, to keep in mind that in many cases the essence of informant files was garbage. A landfill of unsubstantiated rumor, innuendo, and just plain daydreaming.
An FBI agent handling a top-level source had no choice but to report what the informant provided, but there was little effort to evaluate or substantiate the information itself. The American people would shudder to know what went into Betty’s files, but they should understand as well that virtually nothing was ever done with it. Ninety-nine percent of the time the only people who ever saw an informant report were the case agent and the source who provided it in the first place. It was a flawed system, of course, but that was the problem with intelligence work. You collect as much garbage as you possibly can, then paw through it for the bits and pieces that might do you some good later.
Monk jotted down the file numbers and rose from the computer, moved half a dozen steps to his right, to a second locked door, this one with a hell of a lot tougher lock to pick. He bent over it and shook his head as he reached for his picks. Mopping the sweat out of his eyes, he went to work.
Two floors below Monk, in the WFO mail room, Jack Bryant was up to his ass in work.
Jack was new, the newest of the night clerks, but his dream went far beyond the mail room. At nineteen he wanted more than anything to be an FBI agent, and he was taking full advantage of the bureau’s help in assigning him to work nights so he could take classes at George Washington University during the day. Once he had his degree, he’d be able to apply for the agent position.
Right now Jack was sorting mail, standing in front of a gigantic wooden cabinet, shooting letters into the slots, keeping one eye on the security monitors to his right. Nothing ever happened on those monitors, especially at three in the morning, but he didn’t dare stop watching. The last thing Jack Bryant needed was a screwup. If that happened he’d never be an agent, and just the thought of failure made him all the more determined.
He was just bending over the open mail bag, the third bright orange bag of the night, when he heard the alarm buzzer go off.
Jack stared at the electronic display built into the console below the TV monitors. The display resembled a blueprint of the entire build
ing, and right now it was telling him that someone had just come through a door. The buzzing continued until he hit a switch to shut it off, replaced by a blinking red light at the site of the problem. He bent to examine the display and identified the location, designated on the schematic as GA/1. A pedestrian door into the garage downstairs. Someone had just come through the door. One of the hundreds of employees in the field office. No big deal, but Jack had to do a visual, had to eyeball the employee and enter the name and the time of day in the log.
He checked the TV monitor that covered the door in question, but saw no one. Still no big deal. Whoever it was had been in a hurry and had gotten out of sight before Jack got to the monitor. He tried the display covering the elevator in the garage. Nothing. Next he checked the roving camera, the one that scanned back and forth over the garage itself. He had to wait a few seconds for it to finish one complete trip, but still he saw no one.
Shit.
Now he had to go downstairs to check the door for himself.
He stared at his stack of mail. Leaving now would only put him further behind. He considered asking one of the other night clerks, but not for long. Everybody was busy, and the rule was simple. You identify a problem, you’re the one who checks it out. Jack shook his head and started for the garage.
THIRTY-SEVEN
“Jesus Christ,” Monk muttered, as he finally managed to turn Betty’s second lock. Twelve minutes. Ridiculous. He’d done better in training school. It was hard not to wonder about the decline of his skills. He couldn’t help thinking about Dr. Gordon’s concerns, about the PET scan, before he told himself to shut up and keep moving.
He went through the door into the stacks, the shelves that held the files themselves. He flipped on the lights and the smell hit him, the musty odor of old paper. The files in here were both pending and closed, but at least the current ones got to see the light of day. The closed ones just stayed in this room and began to stink.
He didn’t bother with the informants’ so-called main files. Filled with administrative details—complete descriptions of the informant, credit and criminal checks, stuff like that—they wouldn’t help with what he needed. Instead he went to the Sub-A files, which contained copies of the FD-302s, the “blind” 302s that didn’t identify the informant but contained the results of the debriefings. The remaining copies of the 302s—documents increasingly more familiar to followers of Court TV—had already been sent to pertinent case files throughout the field office and around the country.
Thirty seconds later he had all six A-files in hand as he returned to Betty’s desk. He stared at the closed door that led out into the corridor and felt a crawling sensation up the back of his neck. If he’d thought he was exposed before, he was even more seriously compromised now. Betty Clement wasn’t likely to show up, but Betty wasn’t the only danger. Her support-staff supervisor had a key to this room, too, and the agent supervisor in charge of monitoring the informant program also had one. But even if they didn’t show up, he still wasn’t safe. It wouldn’t take a key at all to do him in. All anyone had to do was see a crack of light under Betty’s locked door and he was finished. He felt his pulse quicken, his heart thumping behind his shirt. A shrink could probably tell him what he was doing here, why he had to be here, but it was too late for that now.
So he’d just have to work fast.
He picked up the first file and opened it. Franklin was not the subject of the file—not the informant himself—but there was no way he could be. The bureau didn’t mind gathering raw data on public figures, but FBI HQ would never allow a man of Franklin’s stature to actually be operated as an informant. The billionaire was much too powerful to fool around with, and the downside risk simply too great. If it ever came out that the bureau was operating the president’s closest friend as an informant, the media would go crazy. Anybody and everybody with fingerprints on the case would perish. No FBI agent in his right mind would risk his career over such a thing. But that didn’t mean Franklin’s name wouldn’t appear in these pages. That was a different matter altogether. No one could blame the bureau for making a record of what their legitimate informants reported.
And Franklin’s name came up often, Monk saw, as he examined the first file. He used Betty’s computer again, this time to identify the “serials”—the individual documents in an FBI file—that contained Franklin’s name. A process that would save him from having to go page by page through the file itself. The computer listed twenty-three serials containing information about the man. Monk glanced one more time at the door, then turned to the first Franklin serial and began to read.
The informant report—bureau form FD-209—mentioned a party at Battle Valley Farm. Monk checked the date and let out a murmur of relief. It wasn’t the party he and Lisa had gone to, thank God. The idea that an informant had been at that party, had reported what had happened upstairs, was unsettling enough to turn Monk’s eyes back toward the door before he returned to the 209. This was a different party, and the informant was reporting the presence of a man at the party, a man whose name Monk didn’t recognize. A name he decided was of no value in finding Sung Kim.
He flipped to the next serial.
Another party at Franklin’s farm, again not last Saturday night’s, but now he was concerned. Two parties in a row. An undesirable trend. He checked the next serial. Not a party this time, Monk was happy to see, but still nothing he could use. Franklin had hosted a group of engineers from South Korea, one of whom the informant suspected of involvement in an illegal transfer of American technology. Interesting. Monk pulled a small notebook from his pocket, jotted down the pertinent details of the report.
Then he went through the remaining serials in the first file. Two more parties at the farm, three business meetings at the Global Building, but nothing about da Vinci, the Madonna, or any sort of artwork at all.
The next file was even more innocuous. Two serials, old ones, both containing little more than gossip. Monk bent closer to the report. He needed the dirt, and this was more like what he was looking for. The first 209 reported that Franklin’s wife was livid about rumors that Franklin was involved with a younger woman, rumors that had penetrated their social circle and were causing her embarrassment. The second 209 said pretty much the same thing, but added the fact that nobody could figure out who the woman was, or anything else about her for that matter. Monk felt his eyebrows lift. A younger woman. Now he had something to look for. Despite the fact that Betty’s computer listed nothing else in this file identifiable with Franklin, Monk went through every page. Betty might have made a mistake. There might be something more in here about the mystery woman. There might be something to identify her as Sung Kim.
But there wasn’t.
Monk tossed the file aside and went to the next one. The pertinent 209 was the last serial in the file, the latest addition. He looked at the date. Just a couple of weeks ago. He skimmed the report. According to the informant, the president had met with some of his closest advisors at Battle Valley Farm. The stated agenda was economic development along the Pacific Rim, but the real purpose was a whole lot more serious. The informant had heard from someone at 1600 Pennsylvania, who’d heard from someone even closer to the West Wing, that the real purpose of the meeting was to talk about North Korea and the growing threat of North Korean nuclear proliferation. And what the rest of the world might soon have to do about it. Specifically, what Japanese prime minister Ishii Nakamura wanted to do about it. Despite the cultural contempt of his people for nuclear weapons, Nakamura was asking for nukes he could use to protect his country from North Korea and to keep peace along the Pacific Rim.
Reading the report, Monk was fascinated by the inside peek at what everyone seemed to be talking about these days, the ever-growing nuclear bluster from the lunatic in Pyongyang. Equally fascinating was the Japanese prime minister’s extraordinary request. Not so long ago his country had been devastated by the same sort of weapon they now seemed ready to obtain.
&
nbsp; And the fact that the meeting had taken place at Franklin’s farm certainly underscored the man’s influence with the Oval Office. Monk recalled the story in Time, the article that suggested Franklin was not only the president’s closest friend but his most trusted advisor as well. He thought about that for a moment and felt his stomach tighten. The stakes were growing larger, weren’t they? This was turning into a hell of a …
Monk froze as he heard footsteps outside the door.
He could do nothing more than stare at the doorknob, and watch it turn as the door began to shake.
Shit.
He looked around for a place to hide.
He reached for the light, but didn’t dare turn it off. Whoever was out there would notice for sure.
The door stopped shaking.
The footsteps receded down the hallway.
Monk’s body sagged. He glanced down at his shirt, half expecting to see the fabric jump with the hammering of his heart. He released the breath he’d been holding since hearing the footsteps. Christ Almighty. One of the night clerks, he realized. Rattling the door like a cop walking the beat, checking to make sure it was locked. Monk sat quietly for a moment, and when his breathing returned to normal he went back to the files.
He searched for more about the president’s meeting at Battle Valley Farm but saw nothing. He wasn’t surprised. It was amazing enough for the bureau to have one informant so close to the West Wing; more than one would be a miracle. He looked for anything to do with art, with paintings, with stolen paintings, with da Vinci or the Madonna, but found nothing. He glanced at his watch. He’d been here forty-three minutes already. Far too long. For all he knew, the night clerk had seen some light under the door and gone for help.