‘Ben, I can’t keep up with this. You’re jumping around and I’m exhausted.’
‘OK, set that aside, and listen to this. Andrew Fine the blogger who broke the bomb story has a source in Washington, someone he’s known since college. I keep asking myself why it’s in the source’s interest to feed Fine the bomb casing story.’
‘Fine probably lied about his source. It’s more likely someone local.’
‘I don’t think he lied to us, but I think we need to know his source. We fly home tomorrow. I’ll go back to Fine but I might ask your help if I get more from him.’
‘I don’t know what you’re seeing, but I can’t follow you right now.’
‘Talk to you later.’
Raveneau and la Rosa followed the laptops back to the main house and hovered as an agent powered them up and got stuck for lack of a password. He asked Norris if he could try to get in.
‘Why don’t you just give us what you think the password might be?’
‘Let me try.’
The agents hovered over him and Raveneau remembered Casey preaching simplicity. Casey told him he used computers but sparingly. He believed they had weakened the character of the American people, dampening their independence and self-reliance.
He typed in several passwords that didn’t work and as the agents gradually lost interest he signaled la Rosa. She started talking, asking questions of both agents, touching one on the sleeve as Raveneau pulled a sixteen gig memory stick from his pocket and slid it into the computer in front of him. He typed Jericho into the password box. The screen changed and he angled the computer away from the agent and found his way to the files. He copied. He pulled the memory stick. He moved to the next computer as la Rosa recounted the directions to the sugar plantation.
Raveneau slipped the memory stick back into his pocket. It didn’t feel right to do that, but he knew it was their last chance. He stood then interrupted the conversation, saying, ‘I got in.’
‘What do you mean you got in?’
‘Write this down. The password is Jericho.’
Raveneau knew later they wouldn’t be given any access at all. If there was information on the computers that pertained to their murder investigation they’d be informed and given sanitized copies. They might even be asked to submit a request for information, but that was the tension the country faced with terrorist threats. We give up our freedoms in the name of national security or we keep the society more open. Raveneau had heard the argument both ways and stood with those who said it was better to protect the freedoms. He saw in the eyes of the agent who took possession of the laptops again the confident authority that was becoming habit.
They drove about ten miles and were back behind Hawi searching in the dark with their headlights. It took forty minutes and a lot of backtracking to find the long graveled road running in to a large white-painted house with a metal roof. Moments later the headlights caught the unmarked sedan.
The agent with them shined a flashlight inside. Blood splatter. He followed the blood then moved the light abruptly to the back seat. Empty.
Raveneau asked the FBI agent if he’d ever been part of a homicide investigation and the agent said, ‘Just one.’ Raveneau took charge. He and la Rosa looked at the blood smeared on the passenger seat and on the door and then worked the area around the car with the light, looking at the drag marks.
‘I’m going to pop the trunk,’ Raveneau said and located the trunk release before leaning in through the open driver’s window. He knew what they were going to find and he and la Rosa stayed with Han’s body as the FBI agent called it in.
FIFTY-SEVEN
Raveneau texted Fine then called him and called again when he didn’t answer.
‘This is why I don’t trust the police,’ Fine said as he finally picked up.
‘Just hear me out. I’m in Hawaii on the north end of the Big Island and I don’t have much time.’
‘This is when I work. I’m trying to write tomorrow’s blog.’
‘What are you writing about?’
‘The President.’
‘Did you get a new hot tip?’
‘Inspector, what is it you need?’
‘I need you to call me on a cell phone that’s not yours. Use your wife’s phone and make the call from outside your house.’
‘Have you been drinking?’
‘No, I’m serious.’
‘OK, then give me your phone number. Your call came in as restricted so I don’t have it.’
Raveneau read off the number then hung up. Except for a dog wandering past the town of Hawi was still and dark. La Rosa was at the plantation house with the FBI. He drove here for better phone reception and it still wasn’t very good. When Fine called back he said he was outside in the garden and it was cold.
‘Is your blog tomorrow a hot tip on the President’s travel plans?’
‘It is and how did you know?’
‘Tell me what you know.’
‘The trip is back on minus the San Francisco stop. He’ll attend a fund-raiser in Hollywood and the day after tomorrow visit a new solar plant being built in the Mojave Desert. That plant will be the biggest in the world when it’s finished. It’ll double the energy we get from solar.’
‘Is this coming from your Washington source?’
‘This isn’t the deal we struck.’
‘All right, tell me this,’ and Raveneau knew he would, ‘how much ahead of the cable networks are you?’
‘At least six hours.’
‘What does it do for the Owlseye to beat them?’
‘It keeps the White House from controlling the timing and spin.’
‘Leaves the White House off balance?’
‘It’s a democracy.’
Raveneau turned that a moment. Leaked travel plans wouldn’t affect the Secret Service. Might annoy them but wouldn’t affect their planning. He was about to brush past it and lay out the chain of events for Fine, and then it hit him.
‘You’re ahead of the cable networks by six hours?’
‘That’s a guess, but what’s up? I can’t stay on the phone and I’m freezing my ass out here.’
‘I think you’re in significant danger, but I need to walk through this with you. I’m trying to connect dots and it’s not easy. The twenty-two year old murder we told you about, we now know who killed our victim.’
‘I want to do a piece on Alan Krueger. If there was agency cover-up I want it.’
‘I hear you and we’ll help you, but you’ve got to listen to me and nothing I’m going to tell you now can go in your blog. I’m taking you completely into confidence. Are you with me on that?’
‘Yeah, OK, go ahead. Why am I in danger?’
‘There’s no Pakistan link with the bomb casings. They probably chose Khan because he was Pakistani in origin and they knew how the groupthink would run. Khan didn’t know what was going to happen. They got to him with money. That’s one piece.
‘The second piece is the real conspirators may be a fragmented group of like-thinking individuals who communicate rarely and operate with signals. The architects of that group want to reshape America. I won’t get into their politics but I will tell you the FBI tapped into them.’
‘Wiretapping?’
‘Of course, but it started with a bank fraud case. From that they learned about this well-meaning group intending what they called a trigger event on a Presidential visit to a California city. When they learned this they also learned that some members of the group are in our military and inside government agencies.’
