May 11
Harmon pulled the case files for the Cole investigation and set them on his desk. Four months of investigative work lay summarized in the stack of paper sitting before him. Somewhere inside that stack, Harmon hoped to find an answer that had eluded him thus far.
When he had first started this investigation, Cole was an enigma to him. Over the past months, he’d become so familiar with the details of Michael Cole’s life that he had begun to understand the kind of person this man had been. This understanding caused new questions to arise in Harmon’s mind.
From what he had seen of Cole’s record keeping, the man was fanatical. Cole had kept every receipt, every bill, and every financial statement that he’d ever received. If the IRS had ever decided to audit this man, he would have buried them in documentation.
Other aspects of Cole’s life were much the same-compartmentalized and rigidly ordered. The term his ex-wife used was control freak. This habitual need for organization raised a serious question for Harmon: If Cole had maintained records for everything, where were his notes on the money?
Someone with Cole’s compulsiveness about record keeping couldn’t possibly leave such a significant sum of money off his books completely. It had to be recorded somewhere.
After another pass through the file, which he had practically memorized, Harmon got up from his desk for a stretch. Cole must have hidden the secret of his new-found wealth; Harmon could feel it. He also knew that he needed a fresh perspective.
‘I’ll be down in the evidence lockup,’ he informed the department receptionist as he left.
After the FBI was assigned the domestic side of the investigation, Cole’s personal records had been seized as evidence and placed in the basement storage area. There were three full-height file cabinets, as well as several boxes containing Cole’s computer equipment, disks, and miscellaneous items that had been cataloged and stored. Mail from both of Cole’s apartments was still being collected and forwarded to the FBI, several boxes of which sat on a shelf near the file cabinets. The catalog sheet noted that a box of new mail had been added since Harmon’s last visit.
Harmon thumbed through the stack; most of it was junk mail, along with a few computer magazines and flyers. At the bottom of the box, he found a bundle of envelopes held together with a rubber band. Harmon pulled the bundle out and began sorting through the letters.
The bundle contained miscellaneous bills and recent bank statements. Harmon had pored over Cole’s financial picture with a magnifying glass, trying to pinpoint the circumstances surrounding the new money, with no results.
A letter from a suburban Virginia bank caught his eye as he thumbed through the stack of new mail. Cole had accounts in Washington and Chicago, but Harmon didn’t recall any activity with this bank. He slit open the top of the envelope and found a bank notice regarding the rental of a safety-deposit box. The box had been rented the previous December, just ten days before Cole’s death.
He quickly scanned over the pile of labeled boxes and located the one marked Bank Records. Inside, he found the warrant and evidence tags for the safetydeposit box that he’d seized last January, and now he confirmed that the new letter identified a different box. Harmon signed out the letter and returned to his office to make a call for another search warrant.
The branch manager of the bank carefully scrutinized Harmon’s warrant to verify its authenticity. The young man was obviously new on the job and was following bank procedures to the letter. Harmon had called ahead and requested that the manager have the bank’s locksmith on hand when he arrived.
The young manager handed back the search warrant. ‘Your warrant appears in order, Agent Harmon. If you’ll follow me, I’ll have the box opened for you. I do expect an inventory of its contents before you leave.’
‘Of course,’ Harmon assured the manager. ‘I have all the necessary documentation for this seizure.’
The manager’s curiosity finally got the best of him. It was the first official dealing he’d had with the FBI, and visions of drug dealers or Mafia conspiracies were playing in his imagination. ‘If you don’t mind my asking, what do you expect to find in the box?’
Harmon deflected the inquiry. ‘I can’t comment on that right now.’
‘What about the owner, Michael Cole?’ the manager asked.
‘Recently deceased.’ The abrupt manner in which Harmon replied left no doubt in the manager’s mind that Cole’s passing was not from natural causes. He asked no further questions.
A high-pitched whine filled the concrete-and-steelwalled vault as the locksmith bored through the lock. Metal filings trickled out from the carbide-tipped drill bit as it sank deeper into the brass core. The drill groaned in protest as the core grabbed at the spiraling bit. Finally, the core broke free. The locksmith extracted the bit and punched the lock. The door of the safety-deposit box opened slightly.
The bank manager pulled the long plastic box from the wall and escorted Harmon back to his office with one of the bank’s guards as a witness. He closed the door and set the box on his desk; a look of curious anticipation filled the manager’s face. This was obviously the most exciting event he’d witnessed since starting work at the suburban bank branch.
When Harmon flipped the lid open, the box appeared to be empty. He then shook the box and dislodged a brown envelope from the rear of it. Harmon pulled the envelope out and rechecked the box. It now was empty.
‘Contents of safety-deposit box five oh four, one envelope,’ Harmon announced as he unfastened the metal clasp and opened it, ‘containing four three-anda-half-inch high-density floppy disks, three sequentially numbered and one labeled Cormorant. ‘ Harmon studied the disk, wondering what information Cole had placed on it.
‘Is that what you expected to find?’ the manager asked.
‘I won’t know until I find out what’s on them. I’ll be taking these disks back to FBI headquarters as evidence. Once the case is completed, all personal effects of the deceased will be turned over to his family. This clears your bank’s obligation regarding this box. Thank you for your help.’
Harmon walked out to his car and picked up his cellular phone. After dialing Mosley’s direct number, he waited for the connection to be made.
A gruff voice rumbled through the earpiece: ‘This is Cal Mosley.’
‘Afternoon, Cal. Dan Harmon. You got a minute?’
Mosley’s voice warmed. ‘For my favorite FBI man, you bet.’
Harmon picked up one of the disks and looked at the label. ‘Michael Cole had a safety-deposit box we didn’t know about. He rented it ten days before his death and tucked four diskettes inside. Got a question for you?’
‘Shoot.’
‘Does the word Cormorant mean anything to you?’
‘Not really. Hold on while I look it up.’ The phone clunked as Mosley set it on his desk. Harmon heard Mosley get up from his swivel chair and rustle through his books.
‘I’m back. Let’s see what Webster’s has to say. Cormorant, cormorant,’Mosley repeated absently while searching through the dictionary. ‘Ah, here it is. “Cormorant: any of several widely distributed aquatic birds of genus Phalacrocorax, having dark plumage, webbed feet, a hooked bill, and a distensible pouch.” The second definition says a cormorant is “a greedy or rapacious person.” Take your pick.’
‘Knowing Cole the way we do, I’d lean toward the second one. You say the main definition is a bird?’
‘Yes.’ The illustration in the dictionary didn’t show the cormorant to be a remarkably graceful or majestic creature.
‘Didn’t Cole work on a project involving a defector that had to do with birds?’
There was a stunned silence on the other end of the phone. ‘Son of a bitch! You’re right. I completely forgot about that. Cole salvaged a bunch of old KGB computer disks. The agents listed on those disks all had bird code names. Where are you at?’
‘Out in Virginia, about twenty minutes from Langley.’
‘Well, get over here with that disk. I’ll have our computer people up and ready to take a look at it when you get here.’
Harmon’s drive to Langley went quickly in the midafternoon traffic; maybe things were going his way today. Mosley met him at the main reception desk, where Harmon was fitted with visitor’s credentials. The bright orange-
