“Looks like it. D’Angelo quits the NSA and right away gets this contract? You have a better explanation?”
Wells didn’t.
“Then I asked Arbegan if the database ever showed any unusual outages or problems. When he looked, he found out that about eighteen months ago, during routine maintenance, the spider shut down for half an hour. Plenty of time for somebody inside to delete the records and then cover his tracks.”
“But that was way before the IG got the letter with all the accusations,” Wells said. “Six-seventy-three wasn’t even finished with its tour.”
“Which tells you that whatever happened to the detainees, they knew they had a problem right away. And that they had enough juice to make it disappear.”
Wells sat at Shafer’s kitchen table, trying to make sense of the picture taking shape. They’d done a fine job eliminating suspects. At least as far as he was concerned, they could write off Jerry Williams and Alaa Zumari. Steve Callar had an airtight alibi.
But Whitby’s name kept coming up.
The idea that the director of national intelligence could be involved with these murders struck Wells as bizarre. Those conspiracies happened only in bad movies. And yet the evidence seemed to be pointing toward Whitby.
“What do we know about Whitby?”
“Not enough. He was a congressman for twelve years, served on the House Select.” Both the House and the Senate had committees to supervise the CIA and the rest of the intelligence community. “The agency considered him a friend. Supported our budgets, didn’t ask too many questions. He lost in 2004, wound up in the Pentagon, a civilian appointee. And, according to our friend Vinny, sometime in 2006 he wound up with responsibility for the secret prisons. Including the Midnight House.”
“Why him?”
“Probably because nobody else wanted to touch them.”
“So, he got stuck with them.”
“Correct. You know, a former congressman, they usually end up lobbying. Playing golf for a living, boring themselves and everybody else to death. This guy is a mid-level appointee at the Pentagon, and out of nowhere he got promoted to DNI. Duto’s boss. Something went right for him.”
“We have to hit him.”
“He’s the director of national intelligence,” Shafer said. “You don’t
“Let’s go back to Duto. Find out what he knows. What 673 really got.”
“First, I want to talk to Brant Murphy again. With you there.”
“I thought you said he’s insisting we go through his lawyer.”
“He is.”
WELLS AND SHAFER STOOD OUTSIDE the unmarked staircase that served as a back entrance to the Counterterrorist Center. Besides serving as a fire escape, the stairs were a shortcut between CTC and the main cafeteria at Langley. They were protected by two sets of double steel doors, built like an airlock and separated by a short hallway.
At the first set of doors, Shafer swiped his ID through a reader, put his eye to a retinal scanner. The red light on the lock beeped twice — and then stayed red. Shafer tried again. Same result.
“What part of all-access don’t you understand?” Shafer muttered to the lock.
Along with the agency’s most senior officers, Wells and Shafer had “all-access” privileges throughout headquarters. The term was a misnomer. No one, not even Duto, had carte blanche to enter every room at Langley. Most individual offices were key-locked, not electronically accessed. No master key existed, for reasons of privacy as much as security. Officers hated the idea that their bosses could walk in on them without notice. Key locks preserved the illusion of privacy, though in reality, the agency kept duplicate keys to every office and its general counsel regularly authorized searches.
But all-access privileges did allow Wells and Shafer to enter every common area and conference room — no matter how highly classified the section or the program. Now, though, Shafer’s access to CTC seemed blocked.
“You try,” Shafer said.
Wells ran his ID through the reader, stooped, matched his eye to the retinal scanner. The red light blinked green and the magnetized lock clicked open.
“Murphy blocked me somehow,” Shafer said.
“I thought that was impossible.”
“So did I.”
They walked down the stairs and into CTC itself, looking for Murphy’s office. Wells had never been to CTC before. Its size surprised him. Three long hallways held dozens of offices each.
“Busy bees down here,” Wells said.
“With all of them working so hard, I’m surprised we didn’t catch Osama years ago. Of course, then they’d be out of a job.”
“Be nice, Ellis.”
The door to Murphy’s office was closed. Without knocking, Shafer walked in. Wells followed. Murphy was poring over a report as they entered.
“Excuse me, can I—” Then, snapping the file shut, “How did you get in here?”
“Have you met John Wells, Brant?”
Wells extended his hand.
“You need to leave. Both of you.”
“Give us two minutes. It’s not about the money. I promise.”
Murphy picked up his handset. “Please don’t make me call security, embarrass all of us.”
“You’re lucky it’s not about the money, because otherwise I might have some questions about those mortgages of yours—”
“What?”
“Public records. Anybody can find them. Even those dopes at the FBI. Start with your place in Kings Park West. The refi from 2005. My memory’s a little fuzzy, but I think it was five hundred thirty thousand? Your wife’s idea, I’ll bet. ‘We’re sitting on a pile of cash. Let’s live a little. Go to Europe. Take the kids.’ Then you had a better idea. Take the equity, double down. Get a vacation place. Eastern Shore. Real estate, in this market, the only way to lose is not to play. The mortgage on that was what, another four hundred? But lo and behold, guess what, six months ago, a year after you’re back from Poland, you paid off both mortgages. I’ll bet if you ever have to take a poly on that, you’ve got a story, some rich aunt left your wife a million bucks. But why would you have to take a poly? Nobody’s ever gonna notice.”
Shafer delivered this recital without stopping for breath. Murphy flushed, faintly, but didn’t say a word or move, just held the phone to his ear as if it might have news better than what Shafer had delivered.
“Two minutes, Brant.”
Murphy lowered the phone. “Two minutes.”
“How many detainees at the Midnight House?” Shafer said.
“I told you, ten.”
“That’s not what the letter said. To the IG. It said twelve. Twelve prisoner identification numbers. But two of them are gone.”
“I don’t know what the letter said.”
“What happened to the two missing detainees?”
“The letter’s wrong. Anything else?”
“What was it like over there?”Wells said. “Did you get along?”
“I went over this already. With the FBI, and your buddy, too.”
“Jerry Williams’s wife, Rachel Callar’s husband, they both told me the squad was having problems. And that something went wrong at the end.”
“I can’t help you.”
