Betrayal

discussed killing Ron Nolan? Do you think that would do the job, Mr. Hardy?'

'I think it might. So what you have to do, Jack, is get me that evidence.'

'And then what?'

'And then I lose interest in you.'

But Allstrong still wasn't quite ready to give it up. 'And what if the evidence just doesn't exist?'

Hardy inclined his head. 'Ah, but we know it does. Remember? The FBI found it before they talked to the Khalil children. You saw it when you decided to sell out Kuvan.'

A lengthy silence settled.

At last, Allstrong nodded once. 'He should have never used the grenades,' he said quietly, as though explaining a complicated process to a child. 'That was his own decision and just tactically stupid. But he didn't care. He'd become a liability. He loved to blow things up. He thought it was fun. The fool thought he was invincible.'

'You want my opinion,' Hardy said, popping a peanut into his mouth in Glitsky's office, 'he did Nolan too. Not personally. Allstrong himself was still over in Iraq back then. But one of his guys took out Nolan. Just another job.'

'Why?' Glitsky asked.

'Allstrong said it himself. Nolan had become a liability. He used the frag grenades that could be traced back to Allstrong.'

Bracco, sulking, stood against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. 'You're not telling me he's giving you something that can be traced back to him? I'm talking about the frags.'

'No. He won't do that. They might get back to the company, but old Jack will be able to say that Nolan stole them or something, that he was acting on his own when he killed the Khalils. It was a freelance gig.'

'It doesn't matter anyway.' Glitsky sat all the way back, exuding frustration. 'He's got protection, remember? He might as well have immunity. I'm still having a hard time getting my arms around the fact that the Feebs are part of this. Schuyler wouldn't go along with any of this on his own.'

'I wouldn't take it personally, Abe,' Hardy said. 'And it's not on his own. He's being told it's national security, too, and he believes his bosses. There's a greater good involved. So everybody winds up being good guys.'

'Peachy,' Glitsky replied.

'So what about the Bowens?' Bracco asked. 'What about those murders? Collateral damage and we leave it at that? Does that seem right to either of you guys?'

Hardy turned to him. 'You were never going to make the case anyway, Darrel. Never, ever, in a million years. Ask Abe if he agrees.'

For an answer, Glitsky shrugged.

Hardy held up a hand. 'I'm not saying I'm happy with that, but it's reality.'

'It sucks,' Bracco said. 'What am I supposed to tell Jenna the next time she calls? That fat cats like Allstrong walk? Sorry, but that's reality. Your parents don't count.' He slammed his hand hard against a metal locker. 'This just pisses me off.' And he walked out the door.

'It's not over yet,' Hardy called after him.

In the ensuing silence, Glitsky growled. 'It's not over. What's that supposed to mean?'

'I mean I'm going to be getting this evidence in the next few weeks. And the great thing about evidence is that it speaks for itself.'

Glitsky glared at him. 'Oh, yeah, your client. Good for him. Good for you too.'

'Not just us,' Hardy said.

'No?' Glitsky asked again. 'Then who else?' Sitting up, he shook his head in disgust. 'Get the door on your way out, would you? I've got real work I got to do.'

41

Hardy was in his office opening his mail, having just finished reviewing the documents that he had received over the past three weeks via registered mail from the local FBI office in San Francisco. The FBI had done its usual efficient and thorough job and, from fragments found at the Khalil home, had matched the grenades used in that attack to a cache of them at the Allstrong warehouse at BIAP. Beyond that, they had recovered a bullet from the Khalil scene and matched it to the gun that had been in Nolan's duffel bag with the grenades. Downloads from Nolan's hard drive revealed not just the photos of the Khalil house from various angles, but also photos of the eventual victims that looked as though they'd been scanned in. Nolan's bank records memorialized regular biweekly automatic deposits of ten thousand dollars and another deposit, four days before the Khalils were killed, of twenty- five thousand. There was a handwritten quarter page in Nolan's handwriting, noting the victims' names and address, some indecipherable scribbling and doodling, and the notation '$50,000' circled several times.

The evidence tying the Khalils to a plot to kill Nolan was equally impressive. The wiretaps arrived, accompanied by neat binders of translations from the Arabic. There were informant reports, with names blacked out due to national security, but which clearly identified some of the Khalils as involved in a plot to murder Nolan in retaliation for the Menlo Park killings.

Hardy had to admire Jack Allstrong's own thoroughness, as well as his caution. All of this evidence would be valuable to Hardy when the hearing came up for Scholler's appeal. And none of it directly implicated either Allstrong himself or his company.

Of course, during the same time period, Hardy had been reading in the local press about the agents involved in the FBI's handling of the Scholler case. The debate raged in the media about whether the agents had been merely grotesquely incompetent or criminally derelict in suppressing such critical evidence in the trial of a bona fide war hero. Agents were being transferred, suspended, and demoted.

Glitsky, following it daily with Hardy, could barely suppress his own glee. Hardy had tried to point out that it was unlikely that anyone truly culpable in the affair was ever really going to be punished, but Glitsky exulted in the random carnage the agency was inflicting on itself.

Now Hardy reached for an 8¹/2 11 envelope. It had arrived addressed to him, personal and confidential, by regular mail with no return address, but postmarked in San Francisco. Reaching in, he pulled out two sheets of faxed copies of e-mail correspondence between [email protected] and [email protected]. Dated the day after the Khalil murders, it acknowledged that Nolan had accomplished his most recent assignment and requested payment of the remainder of his fee into a certain bank account. Allstrong should advise Mr. Krekar that 'the situation has been resolved, as promised; Krekar should expect to move on the Anbar contracts without competition.'

Although there was nothing remotely humorous about any of this, a ghost of a smile tickled the side of Hardy's mouth. Maybe he ought to tell Glitsky that Bill Schuyler wasn't the gullible, gutless G-man he needed to pretend to be if he wanted to keep his job. On the other hand, Hardy had no proof that Schuyler had had anything to do with this latest evidence. Any mention of his name would probably just get the man in more trouble. And in fact, the evidence could have come from any other FBI agent between San Francisco and Baghdad who had a sense of what was happening and a disgust at the role that the Bureau had been forced to play in it.

Hardy realized that without a witness or some other way to authenticate the documents, what he had in his hand were just two pieces of paper, worthless in a court of law. He sat at his desk pulling the tight skin at his jawline as for the hundredth, the thousandth, time he considered the ramifications of his intentions.

He had made no promises to Allstrong. To the contrary, he'd made it abundantly clear that whatever information he received would be his to do with as he pleased. Additionally, this wasn't information he'd gotten from Allstrong anyway. He owed Allstrong nothing. As Allstrong himself had said, it was an inconvenient situation.

He got up and, without a word to anyone, walked across his office and out to the copy room, where he copied the two pages. Coming back to his desk, he put the copy in his file and began searching through his notes for the address of Abdel Khalil.