by Davis Bunn
But Harry’s attention was snagged by a photo on the wall. “Get a load of this.”
The frame held the cover of the first catalogue Storm had put together. A lovely young woman held a chain that wound around her otherwise naked form, the chain so long she was modestly cloaked. The chain was 14 kt. gold and studded with doubloons. Storm asked, “Yours?”
“Old East Indian trader we found off Sumatra.” Harry tapped the glass. “Sailors made chains of all their prize money because the Crown classed any valuable worn on the body as personal jewelry and wasn’t taxed.”
“I remember Sean telling me that. He didn’t say it was your find.”
“No. He wouldn’t.”
Storm printed two recent articles by Professor Morgenthal, one of which contained a picture. She then drew the phone from her pocket and plugged it into the computer’s USB port. She scrolled through her stored photographs, selected four, and printed them as well. “Okay. I’ve got what I need.”
Harry followed her down the stairs. “I’m never much for funerals and even less for glad-handing. I’ll be waiting for you on the front porch.”
Storm did not argue. As she entered the front room, Claudia glared at her, then turned away. Storm moved slowly through the crush, greeting those she genuinely cared for and enduring the rest. Hearing other people speak of Sean with the ancient exasperation of true friends pierced deep. Storm took her time, allowing the crowd to shift her about, drawing her along, until she entered the rear showroom and found the person she had been seeking.
The solitary name in Sean’s calendar, the woman Storm had been researching upstairs, had positioned herself by the back window. From there she could survey all three main rooms. Evelyn Morgenthal was an angry stump of a woman. She responded to someone’s comment with a terse whip, not taking her eyes off Storm’s approach. “My condolences, Ms. Syrrell.”
“We need to talk, Professor Morgenthal.”
Dark eyes held a fiercely intelligent light and no welcome whatsoever. “Your grandfather was a singular man, Ms. Syrrell. Unique. I doubt seriously the relationship we held is transferable.”
“We have evidence that Sean was murdered.”
The woman possessed a slight lilt to her words, a foreign tongue learned as a child and heavily overlaid with her Americanization. “Never did I consider Sean’s death a simple act of fate.”
“Did it ever occur to you that the appointment my grandfather made with you was intended for me all along?”
The professor rewarded Storm with a sharp nod of approval. “My office. Three hours.”
TWENTY
EMMA ARRIVED EARLY ENOUGH TO grab a parking spot on Constitution, three blocks from the White House. A half hour from now, she could sell it for serious cash. She rubbed eyes grainy from lack of sleep. Some agents she knew bragged about going forty-eight, even seventy-two hours without sleep and staying alert, totally in the green. If she didn’t get a minimum of four hours the day felt slightly out of whack, like she’d entered a global hall of mirrors.
Then again, given what was about to go down, her mental state might be in perfect harmony with the day ahead.
That morning, Emma had been wakened at four by two phone calls. She had checked the readout and answered neither. The first had been from Jack Dauer. The message he had left blasted her for taking Harry Bennett along on the central Florida run, then ordered her to report in person ASAP. The second had been from the two junior agents she had assigned to cover Storm. The message had been terse in the extreme, five words long. Dauer had called them off. Nothing more had been required. Emma had risen from bed knowing the juncture had been reached.
Seated in her car, watching the DC traffic congeal, Emma placed a call. When her former boss answered, she said simply, “It’s me.”
Tip MacFarland’s response was just as swift. “Girl, I cannot help you.”
“Just the same, can we meet?”
“Where are you?”
“Parked outside.”
“My office. Five minutes.”
Emma shut her phone and turned to the man seated next to her. Hakim Sundera. Everything about him was precise, economical, tight. She said, “I wish I could be certain this was the right move.”
“You made your choice when you flew up with us, Ms. Webb. Perhaps before.” His gaze was dark, liquid, fathomless. “To hesitate now is only to lose what advantage you might hold.”
She rose from the car and crossed the street. Homeland Security’s main location was out near American University. But a number of senior power players worked three blocks from the White House in a building that had formerly housed US Customs. She climbed the front stairs, pushed through the brass-framed doors, signed in, took the elevator to the fourth floor, and entered a Byzantine maze. Midlevel staffers and below possessed offices with no names, only acronyms. HAZ-4AL, WAF-SR3—the signs had gone up since her assignment to Miami. She had no idea what they meant. Nor would she ask. Ignorance was the clearest signal that she did not belong. She found her destination only because her last job before heading south had been to move Tip MacFarland over from Treasury.
Her former mentor’s outer office was empty. The desk Emma would have occupied if she hadn’t made the switch to Miami appeared to be unmanned. MacFarland said through the open door, “I warned you. Twice.”
Emma walked in and shut the door. “I’m back in DC less than six hours and I hate this place already. It was either take the assignment or quit.”
“The only reason somebody as junior as you got that assignment was, everybody else knew Dauer would run his usual slash-and-burn show.” Tip MacFarland was a DC survivor. But unlike most of his ilk, he was also fair-minded and direct with his subordinates. Sometimes brutally so. “I would’ve found you another slot.”
Emma set the report she’d worked on since Dauer’s wake-up call on MacFarland’s desk. “You’d been promising me a new posting for two years.”
“Word is, they popped a few corks over at fibby headquarters when Dauer left for Florida.”
“He’s jeopardizing our case.”
“Correction. He’s messing with your case. Jack Dauer’s agenda is rolling along just fine.”
“You don’t know the evidence I’ve—”
“Dauer isn’t after truth. He’s after the next rung. Jack Dauer has wasted a lot of good people on his climb.” MacFarland had the build of a Boston cop, which was exactly what his father and grandfather had been. At six-four, he was big boned, redheaded with a touch of early frost. His smile was easy, but rarely reached his pale blue eyes. “Then there’s the matter of your other move.”
“I needed to find a balance against Dauer.”
“But Interpol, Emma.”
“They offered. I accepted.”
“Now you’re totally off the reservation. Your supervisor, what’s his name?”
“Sundera. Hakim Sundera.”
“What is he, Jordanian?”
“Syrian.”
MacFarland rolled his eyes. “If that guy wrote you up for a presidential citation, Dauer could use it to blow his nose and nobody around here would say a word.”
“Hakim is a good man, and my case is real.”
“I don’t want to hear about it, Agent Webb.”
Emma hefted the plastic visitor’s chair and carried it around MacFarland’s desk. She planted herself tight in his private space. “For once you’re going to shut up and listen.”
Tip MacFarland had been head of the Department of Treasury’s OFAC, Office of Foreign Asset Control. Plum job, high status, next in line for deputy director of intel. He left to head Homeland Security’s new task force on international counterfeiting rings, specifically targeting criminal gangs sponsored by rogue states who had churned out more than half a billion in bogus hundred-dollar bills. MacFarland made the move because he believed in the work and its urgency. But nobody rose as high as MacFarland without a highly developed sense of self-preservation.
When Emma fin
ished summarizing her case, MacFarland told her, “If they had a wall for careers sacrificed on the altar of good intentions, they’d already be polishing your plaque.”
“Sean Syrrell was murdered. His company was the victim of major fraud. A professional assassin with international ties has been brought in from overseas. The granddaughter’s life is under threat. These are facts.”
“What I know is, Dauer will bury you and whatever evidence you’ve managed to scrape together. These interagency task forces are just cats and dogs locked in a bureaucratic cage. Washington goes through phases. Today’s catchword is holistic. They want these agencies to set aside their warrior mentalities and take a holistic attitude to problems. But the feebs are sitting this tune out. Their current buzzword is whack. As in, to divide. You can whack up turf but you can’t whack up credit.”
“None of what you’ve said changes the truth.” Emma took a single sheet of paper from her purse and placed it in front of him. “Sign this.”
The page was printed on departmental stationery and officially assigned Emma temporary duty with Interpol. MacFarland read the page, glanced at her, and made as though he was going to argue. Instead he sighed and reached for his pen. “You’ve got one chance to salvage your career. Come up with a prize so big they can’t ignore you. Find that or don’t come back at all.”
THE LIMO LET STORM AND Harry off at the border of the National Mall. The original Smithsonian building, known as the Castle, had been designed by James Renwick, the architect responsible for Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. The Castle was constructed of red Maryland sandstone in what was politely called the Norman style, a combination of Romanesque, Gothic, and a very large architectural ego. The Specialist Collection of the Smithsonian archives had been temporarily relocated to the Castle. Temporary was a bureaucratic term for almost forever.
“Remind me again,” Harry said. “What are you after here?”
“I need to look through unsorted archives bequeathed to the Smithsonian by one of their staff archeologists. It’s related to something I found among Sean’s things in the vault. I’ll tell you about it if what I think I remember turns out to be right. But raw field data is normally off-limits to outsiders. Which is why I got you to ask Emma for help.”
“You plan to waltz in and find something they missed?”
“Oh, they found it all right. They just don’t know it yet.”
For the first time in the Smithsonian’s history, its president had recently been fired for mismanagement. The instant Storm and Harry entered the front doors, the result was evident. Instead of the standard stone-faced federal greeting, the woman at the front desk said brightly, “Can I help you?”
Storm glanced at the name Emma had passed to Harry and said, “I’m here to see Lance Crowder.”
“Ms. Syrrell?”
“That’s right.”
A man whose slender build only accented his bulging gut hustled across the marble foyer. “I understand you have a scholar’s card?”
“Yes.” For her first Christmas with the company, Sean had arranged for her to be granted privileges as an accredited Smithsonian researcher. “Here you are.”
“Great.” He checked the card, then asked Harry, “Are you with Ms. Syrrell?”
“I’ll just wait out here.”
“Right. Wear the visitor’s pass at all times, Ms. Syrrell. Okay. This way.” They passed through doors controlled electronically by the receptionist and entered a Formica maze. “Normally we don’t allow anyone outside the system the sort of access you’re after. But a call from Treasury combined with a scholar’s card, that’s a first. I guess you’ve heard about the recent upheaval.”
Storm had lived in Washington long enough to catch the unspoken request. “I’ll be happy to ask my superiors to put in a word.”
“I’ve got to tell you, it wouldn’t hurt. We’re walking a tightrope over here. Those guys you saw me talking with, they’re GAO. Everybody around here is shaking.” He opened the doors leading to concrete stairs and started down. “I’m hearing rumors of reassignments to Guam.”
Three flights down, they entered the subbasement archival library. Streams of fluorescent lighting almost hid the battery of pipes and wiring, all painted government green. Corridors lined with metal shelves marched into oblivion. Most of the oblong tables she passed were occupied with scholars lost in their dusty realms, peering through magnifying glasses, labeling bagged finds, tapping on keyboards.
Storm had often wondered whether she could have fit into the academic mold. Spend years delving into some obscure find, write an article read by a learned few, preserve treasures in the public eye, scorn money. And never, ever talk price. She studied the men and women they passed, and decided that she would have loved the research, tolerated the students, and hated the life.
The archivist led Storm to a table empty save for a trio of cardboard cartons. “I don’t need to tell you that everything has to be put back where you find it.”
“No.”
He hesitated, then lowered his voice and said, “I’ve got kids in school.”
Storm gave him what he was after. “I owe you.”
WHEN EMMA RETURNED TO THE car, she found that Hakim had moved over behind the wheel. He watched her slip into the passenger seat with those liquid dark eyes. And waited.
Emma handed him the page her former boss had signed. “Tip MacFarland is an honest man and a solid boss. But he’s also a survivor. And ambitious. He has a highly tuned sense of when it’s time to cut and run.”
Hakim folded the sheet and stowed it in his pocket. He started the car. “I received a call while you were inside. They have just found the Turkish dealer, Arkut. Two shots, small caliber, one to the heart and another to the head. He was left in the trunk of a car at the Palm Beach airport. Near where they found Arkut’s bullet-ridden Bentley.”
Emma used both fists to squeeze her temples. She felt trapped inside the amber of other people’s plans. “Dauer is going to make Harry for the murder.”
“No doubt Mr. Bennett’s prints will be all over the Bentley. Along with Ms. Syrrell’s.” Hakim said nothing more until they pulled up in front of another nondescript Washington office building. He parked at the curb, cut the motor, and said, “Make the call.”
“DAUER.”
“Sir, it’s Agent Webb, phoning as per your—”
“I contacted you nine hours ago, Agent Webb. This delay is either a gross dereliction or flagrant insubordination.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“Where have you been?”
“Homeland Security, sir.”
“You’re in Washington? On whose say-so?”
“I tracked Ms. Syrrell, sir. And reported to my superiors.”
“I am your superior, Webb. Who have you been speaking with?”
“Director MacFarland, sir.”
“MacFarland has no jurisdiction in this matter.”
“No, sir. He just requested a sitrep.”
“Which should have been passed by me first!”
Emma gave Dauer what all of their team did when he turned up the heat. She went monochrome. Dull, toneless, terse. Tight inside her skull. “I’ll make every effort to stay in touch, sir.”
“Don’t tell me you passed your report to MacFarland.”
“I felt it was my duty, sir.”
“What about our two suspects? You managed to lose them yet?”
“Storm Syrrell and Harry Bennett attended the funeral of Sean Syrrell. They then headed to the Smithsonian. Next they have a meeting scheduled at Georgetown University.”
“Okay, Webb. While you’ve been gallivanting off the reservation, there have been some major developments. Arkut’s body was found in the trunk of a car in the Palm Beach airport parking garage. Where did your pair fly to DC from?”
“The same airport, sir.”
“Were you with them?”
“I just explained, sir, I flew in early to present my report—”
> “Which means Bennett and Syrrell were unsupervised and in range. So here’s the deal. I’ve met with the people who matter. We’re moving against the two of them.”
“Sir, did you share my report with your superiors?”
“No, Agent Webb. There was no need to bother anybody with your half-baked theories. The facts are plain as day. Syrrell’s has run three illegal schemes in the past ten months. The granddaughter has wreaked all the havoc one girl is going to get away with on my watch.”
“Sir, my report specifically lays out evidence suggesting Syrrell’s was the repeated victim of carefully aimed attacks.”
“You’ve been corrupted by them. Syrrell’s is a major player. We have only identified the tip of a massive illegal operation.”
“I inspected the company records going back six years. Ditto for the banks. I found nothing—”
“You didn’t look hard enough. They laundered funds and dealt in stolen goods. We knew this going in. The only question has been, who are they working for. Which you were assigned to determine. How far have you gotten with that detail?”
“Sir, I no longer believe our premise fits the evidence.”
“Nowhere, is the answer. Okay, Webb. Let’s cut to the chase here. What exactly is the motive for somebody laying out this elaborate fraud and perpetrating these two attacks?”
“Actually, sir, there has been a third incident—”
“Oh, give me a break.”
Emma gripped the door handle. Her hand went pale and bloodless. “I’m not sure who is behind the attacks, either on the persons or the company. Yet.”