The Pandora Key

by Lynne Heitman

  Ten excruciating days later, with only the Western hostages still onboard, the Belgians stormed the plane without permission from the Sudanese government. In the conflagration that followed, seventeen people died—nine passengers and eight hijackers, the original gang of five, plus three that boarded later. The plane was destroyed.

  I found a photo array of the storming and the aftermath. It had happened at night, so the pictures of the initial bombing and the fireball that followed were particularly vivid. The pictures shot in the cold and dreary light of dawn were quite a contrast. The grotesquely twisted hulk of what had once been an airplane was prominent. The debris field that surrounded it was blackened.

  It was hard to believe anyone had walked away from that, but eight hostages had made it out. I searched several articles for the list of survivors. Once I found it, I checked the dates, then I sat back and tried to figure out what it all meant.

  Salanna 809 had happened four years ago. If this was the same Stephen Hoffmeyer whom Ling had asked me about, and if it was an alias for Roger Fratello, then the embezzler had himself become the victim of a terrible crime. He had been caught on a hijacked aircraft, held hostage for ten days, and then killed in the fiery inferno that had resulted from a failed rescue attempt. He had not been one of the survivors.

  Talk about karmic retribution.

  7

  ROGER FRATELLO’S OLD ADDRESS WAS A LARGE WHITE Victorian down a shady street in the affluent suburb of West Newton. It had a vast front lawn and a wraparound covered patio with a wooden porch swing. Susan Fratello answered the door. It was the same woman I had seen in those tuxedo-and-gown photos with her once-respectable husband, plus twenty years and a blue velour housecoat zipped up the front.

  “Mrs. Fratello?”

  A small terrier with wisps of brown hair in its eyes yapped from behind her leg as she scanned the street. “Have they found him?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Aren’t you a reporter?” Her voice conveyed nothing but calm curiosity, a direct contrast to her nearly hysterical pooch.

  “I’m a private investigator. I’m looking for information about your husband.”

  “Read the papers.”

  She started to close the door, but I put my hand on it, a gesture that made the tiny canine go nuts. He was a smart dog. He could spring and yap at the same time. Mrs. Fratello stared at me until I took my hand off her door.

  “I’m sorry, but I have read the papers. I’ve done lots of research.” I held up my backpack. “It’s all in here. But it doesn’t give me what I need to solve my case.”

  “What kind of case?”

  “Someone I’m close to was abducted. My partner. I’m trying to find him.”

  “What does my husband have to do with it?”

  “That’s why I’m here. I need to figure that out.”

  She pushed her head out again and looked up and down the quiet street. “Have you seen the FBI? They’ve been here. And they watch. They’re always watching. Did you see them out there?”

  “I was questioned by the FBI a few hours ago.”

  “About what?”

  “About your husband. They have some new information about him.”

  “Down, Trudy. Quiet.” The dog went silent. It was miraculous. “What did they say?”

  “Perhaps if I came in, I could answer some questions for you as well.”

  Susan Fratello lived what appeared to be a modest existence in a large house. While she went to change, I perused the photos lined up across the mantel. Her children were handsome and healthy, tan in the summer, red-cheeked in the winter, and always affectionate and close in their poses. It looked as if it had been a comfortable life, easy to be in, and without ever a thought in the world that it could all go away. There were no pictures of Roger.

  Susan came in with a tall glass of water. Trudy, the tiny terrier, was right on her heels, and I wondered if she ever got stepped on or lost in Susan’s longer gowns and robes.

  I took the glass from her. “Thank you.”

  She had put on a pair of white slacks, a dark blue, long-sleeved, scoop-necked top, and a string of white beads with matching earrings. She was also wearing lipstick. I sensed that she didn’t get many visitors. She sat on her couch and patted her thighs. The springy dog had no problem leaping up there. Then the two of them sat and looked at me. Susan’s smile gave her the appearance of one of her photos—posed and two-dimensional.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, “to bring all this up for you—”

  “It never really went away. Besides, you’re not the only one. That awful Agent Southern was here. He brought a new one this time. He was completely bald.”

  “Special Agent Ling,” I said. “That’s the team that interviewed me this morning.”

  “That Southern is a sour man. I wonder what makes him so sour. Do you know?”

  “I don’t.” But I had to agree with her. “Why did they come to see you?”

  “Apparently, my husband has popped up somewhere in Europe.”

  “He has?” If true, that put a big dent in the Fratelloas-Hoffmeyer theory. Hoffmeyer was dead.

  “They have no proof. They only told me they had found something of his.”

  “I think I know what that is,” I said. “They told me about all this cash in a safety deposit box in Brussels. Stacks of it with your husband’s and my partner’s fingerprints.”

  That got her complete attention. “How much money?”

  “They didn’t say.”

  “Was it my husband’s?”

  “We didn’t really talk about the money.”

  Just as quickly, she turned a little glassy-eyed. “How strange this all is,” she said, “after so much time has passed. They showed me his wallet. Don’t you find that odd? From four years ago. They think he might contact me. That’s why they were here.”

  “Would he?”

  “Heavens, no. I would be the last person he contacted. I would turn him in, and he knows that.” She offered that same fixed expression. It was strange. At times, she seemed to be completely present behind it. At other moments, she was just gone.

  “Who is your partner?”

  “His name is Harvey Baltimore.”

  “How unusual. Is that his real name?”

  I nodded, thinking of how Harvey always had to explain his name. “His people came over from Poland. The agents who processed them couldn’t say the family name, and they were going to Baltimore, so—”

  “They were rechristened at America’s doorstep. Yes, I understand.” This time, her smile was not forced. Her maiden name was probably something like Kasprzycki. “I don’t know a Mr. Baltimore,” she said. “I would remember. Is he also an investigator?”

  “A forensic accountant.”

  She sighed. “Unfortunately, I know what that is. After Roger left, I was interviewed by investigators of every stripe. Agents from the Treasury, the IRS, the state’s attorney’s office, the attorney general’s people—”

  “But not Harvey?”

  “No.”

  I hadn’t considered that Harvey might have been part of a team investigating the fraud. Ling hadn’t mentioned it, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t so. I pulled out a picture of Harvey and showed it to her. “Maybe you know his face.”

  She looked at it. “He has a nice face. He looks kind.” She offered it back to me. “Did you say he’s also missing?”

  “He’s…I’m not sure where he is. I’m looking for him.”

  I put the picture back and came out with the one I had slipped from the frame on Harvey’s desk. “His ex-wife showed up this morning. I think she might have something to do with it. Maybe you know her. She worked with your husband.” I offered her the picture of Rachel.

  Susan looked as if I had just offered her a plate of botulism. Her neck bowed. Trudy, holding otherwise perfectly still, turned her head and looked back at Susan’s face. “Of course I know her. She was the ruin of this family. She deserves the hottest co
rner of hell for what she did to us.” Trudy whined. Susan lifted her up to her face and nuzzled her. “Isn’t that right, pookie?”

  “I’m sorry.” I pulled the picture back. “I didn’t realize…were she and Roger—”

  “Sleeping together?” She shrugged it off. “Who didn’t he sleep with? It wasn’t that.” She leaned forward and pointed with a long fingernail at the image of Rachel in my lap. “She brought the Russians.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Russian investors.” She did the air quotes. “The Russian mob, the Russian mafiya, the red menace. Whatever you want to call them, just don’t call them people, because they’re not human, they’re animals. Those animals made our lives a living hell, and she’s the bitch responsible for bringing them in.”

  “Into Betelco?”

  “I’m sure you know all about my husband’s company.” She still puffed up a little when she described it that way. “Actually, my husband’s father’s business—and the source of our income—that my husband ran straight into the ground. We didn’t know what we were going to do. We couldn’t find any more investors. We couldn’t get a loan. We were desperate when, out of the blue, we found a buyer for the business.”

  “A buyer for Betelco?”

  “For the old Lightway, actually, the manufacturing piece. It was an incredible stroke of unearned and undeserved luck, at least on the part of my husband. A company in Ohio was interested in buying it at a fair price.” The dog, back in her place on Susan’s lap, tilted her head as Susan scratched behind her ears. “It’s no surprise that the only part of the entire enterprise that had any value was the piece my husband’s father had built. But guess what happened then?”

  “I don’t—”

  “Roger decided that it wasn’t enough to get out from under all that debt. He decided that the small bit of money we expected to make on the side just wasn’t enough. Nothing was ever enough for him.” Trudy’s eyes had turned to slits as Susan began to rub harder behind her ears. “No, he had to make the big score. He had to be on the cover of Fast Company, and she convinced him that he could.”

  “You’re speaking of Rachel?”

  “The accountant. That bitch accountant. She told him everything he wanted to hear, that all he needed was a little more cash and that she knew where he could get it and that the deal with the people in Ohio wasn’t good enough. She talked him into calling off the deal, and once the buyer was out of the way, she opened the door and let the pigs come in, and once they were in, there was no way to get them out.”

  “These are the Russian investors?”

  “Investors. Ha!”

  “What did they do?”

  “What pigs do. They turned our business, our very lives, into their own personal toilet bowl.”

  She was starting to flush, the heat showing from the scoop-necked shirt up. I hated to push her more, but I needed more facts and fewer metaphors. “Exactly how did they do that?”

  “They…they brought in dirty money by the boat-load.” One of her hands went flying over her head. “They…how do you say it? They pumped up the income statement. They made up customers. They used Roger to convince everyone he had turned the business around, and when new investors came onboard, they took their money, too, and in the end, when the FBI showed up to arrest them all, they vanished. And so did my husband. He walked out the door and left me here in the toilet bowl to eat all the shit they left behind.”

  The words came out through a clenched jaw, and her entire body shook with the venomous rage that would no longer stay down. That she felt it was understandable. That she felt it so deeply was unsettling. I almost wanted to reach over and snatch the poor animal from her unsteady hands. Trudy must have felt it, too. She jumped to the floor and scurried off.

  Without the dog, Susan seemed to have no place to put her hands. She reached around and stroked the hair at the nape of her neck. “They threatened the children.” She said it quietly.

  “The Russians?”

  “After my husband left, they came. They wanted to know where he was.” The rage had dissipated. Now she seemed frightened. “They came into my house. They made us sit on this couch and watch them as they went through here and tore it apart from top to bottom. It was terrifying. We thought we were going to die.”

  “Why did they tear up your house?”

  “They were looking for him, some sign of him. Somehow, I convinced them I didn’t know where he was, or we would all be dead, and he would have the blood of his children on his hands along with everything else he’s done.”

  I looked around the house. There were no signs of a violent search. “When did this happen?”

  “When he left. Four years ago.”

  “Does the FBI know?”

  “I was told in no uncertain terms that no authorities should ever know. They obviously knew where we lived. What do you think?”

  “Have you heard from these Russians since?”

  “No.” She seemed to remember for the first time that she was without her tiny companion. “Trudy, dear, where are you, sweetie?”

  Trudy must have heard in Susan’s voice that it was safe to come back. She came bounding into the room and launched herself into her mistress’s lap.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to open old wounds. I have just a few more questions.” She held Trudy in her arms and hugged her close as the dog lapped at her face. I hesitated, but she had found her detachment again. Her frozen smile had returned. “Why would Rachel bring these people in?”

  “Ask her.”

  Another good question for when I found her. The list was getting long. “Do you know the names of any of these Russians?”

  “They don’t have names. They hide behind their companies. TXH Partners and Bonneville Ventures and names like that.” I had my notebook out and started jotting down the names. “Don’t bother,” she said. “They’re gone. Those were nothing but shells. Everything is gone.”

  That seemed like the right place to end. I thanked her for her time. She walked me to the door with Trudy in her arms. I knew the second I was through it, she was back to her velour robe and whatever activities occupied her day. I decided to take one last shot.

  “Susan, do you mind one more question?”

  “No.”

  “You asked me when I first got here if I had found your husband. Do you believe he’s alive?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “With everything in me.”

  “Why?”

  “I feel it. If he were dead, I would know it. If he were dead, I don’t think it would still hurt this much.”

  I got halfway down the walk and turned. She was still in the doorway. “If I find him, do you want to know?”

  “No. Yes. Please.”

  I went out to my car and made notes of everything new I had learned. Rachel had been carrying on an affair with Roger. I did the math. Four years ago, Rachel would have been married to Gary. I was just getting to know Roger, but from what I already knew of Rachel, I wasn’t surprised that she had been the other half of an illicit relationship. That didn’t even take into account the boundaries—ethical and regulatory—crossed by an outside auditor sleeping with her client.

  Next item: Russians. I didn’t know much about Russian gangsters, but I knew what everyone else knew. They were among the shrewdest, most savage, most conscienceless people on earth. The only surprising thing about Susan’s story was that they had not killed her and her children. Ling had not mentioned any Russians, and yet he obviously knew about them. Any decent investigation of Betelco would have turned them up, or at least evidence that they had been there. The fact that he was holding that back had to mean something.

  My phone began to ring. I checked the spy window and flipped it open. “Hi, Felix.”

  “Blackthorne.” He never said hello or goodbye on the phone anymore. He was getting to be more and more like Dan every day.

  “Are you speaking in code? How come I can never understand you.”


  He laughed. “Those plates that you gave me? They were on a rental car, and the company that paid for it is Blackthorne.”

  “I’ve never heard of it. What is it?”

  “It’s a private military firm out of Falls Church, Virginia.”

  “Private military firm?” I thought about what that particular combination of words might mean. “Mercenaries?”

  “I don’t think so.” He paused, and I knew he was scanning his monitor. “It says here that private military firms are a legitimate and growing industry. They contract with the army to provide services the military needs but can’t do on its own and…blah, blah, blah…” He started to hum a familiar tune with no melody, what I liked to call the Felix Thinking Song. It went on for several seconds. I looked out my window at the other houses on Susan’s street. The season’s new green lawns were just coming in. They were all neatly manicured. By contrast, Susan’s looked a little sad.

  “Here we go.” Felix was back. “Blackthorne was founded by a marine lieutenant colonel named Tony Blackmon and a CIA operative named Cyrus Thorne. That sounds cool.”

  “What kinds of services are we talking about for the military? Hauling fuel and slinging hash? Because that’s not really all that cool.”

  “Hold on…hold on.” He mumbled a little more of the Felix tune. “Okay, hauling fuel and meal preparation would be a passive PMF. Passive means providing training and support. Active means providing services up to and including combat operations. There aren’t many that are considered truly active.”

  “Which is Blackthorne?”

  “Active.” Another pause. “Whoa. Way active. It’s the fastest-growing one there is. These guys are all over the Middle East, in the Balkans, Africa, South America. Anywhere there’s a fight going on and money to be made, you can find Blackthorne.”