screwed up as things are over there, Allstrong would at least stop getting new contracts. They might even lose the ones they've already got, and that's if they don't get charged for murder first.'
Bracco slurped at the end of his Diet Coke. 'How much money are we talking about? For Allstrong, I mean, their contracts over there.'
Hunt spoke up. 'I got curious checking out some stuff on Nolan and Googled them over the weekend. Their first year in Iraq, when Nolan was on the payroll, they got about three hundred and fifty million dollars in government contracts.'
'You've got to be kidding me,' Bracco said. 'Allstrong Security? I mean, who are they? Nobody's ever heard of them. They're not exactly Halliburton.'
'No, but they're trying harder,' said Hunt, 'that's for sure.'
'Maybe they'd actually kill to get work,' Hardy deadpanned.
Glitsky sat back, his body language saying that he was still reserving judgment. 'Okay, okay. So you're saying Bowen went to Allstrong first, not the Khalils, with these questions?'
'That's my guess,' Hardy said.
'And Allstrong killed him?'
A nod. 'Or had him killed, yes.'
'That's pretty drastic, don't you think?'
'Maybe from our perspective, granted. But these guys are a bunch of mercenaries. They're hired guns. That's how they solve problems.' Hardy came forward in his enthusiasm. 'Look, Abe, Allstrong had already dealt with the whole Nolan thing and put it behind them. The world believed it was Evan Scholler who'd killed the Khalils for his own twisted reasons. Someone with the government who had major juice-a general, a congressman, I don't know, somebody who was in Allstrong's pocket and helping it get its contracts-had either ordered or convinced the FBI to offer up Kuvan privately to the remaining Khalils.'
Glitsky was still shaking his head. 'I know we're not all big FBI fans here, but I've got to say that I don't see them doing this. Ever. Sometimes they might get a little overzealous, but they're not going to frame an innocent Iraqi and stand back while someone else kills him.'
Hardy nodded, conceding the point. 'How about if they didn't know, Abe? How about if someone way up, like the general or senator or whoever I was talking about earlier, got to the director of the Bureau, say, and vouched for Allstrong, meanwhile selling him a bill of goods about Kuvan? So your agents solve the case and then they're ordered off it.'
'And when somebody else wants to talk about it,' Bracco said, 'like you, this morning, sir, the agents don't work there anymore.'
'And Allstrong stays off the hook,' Hardy said.
'Until Bowen showed up,' Hunt added.
'That's it,' Hardy said. 'And then here it was again, the threat to Allstrong, to its very existence, and a lot closer this time. So they had to make Bowen disappear before he could make any kind of public stink. Or even ask any more questions. He just had to go away.' Hardy looked around the table. 'Anybody see an egregious flaw here?'
Glitsky looked across at Bracco. 'Don't worry about it, Darrel, he always uses words like that.' Then, back to Hardy. 'Do you know that Bowen ever actually got in touch with Allstrong? I mean, any actual proof?'
'No, but we can find that out. Those phone records you were talking about.' Hardy turned to Bracco. 'And you might want to check Hanna's too.'
Glitsky snapped out a curt defense of his inspector. 'I'm sure Darrel's got some sense of the drill, Diz.'
'Sorry,' Hardy said to Bracco. 'I tend to get excited. This may really be something.'
'Let's get some evidence first,' Glitsky said. He sipped at the last of his tea, put his cup down gently. When he spoke, his voice was heavy with discontent. 'I really don't want to believe there's a conspiracy here. And a cover-up. From somebody high enough up to have influence with the FBI. I keep believing our guys don't do that kind of stuff.'
'With all respect, are you kidding, sir?' Hunt said. 'These are the same swell folks who brought us Abu Ghraib and all the other disasters over there. Giving up Kuvan for the greater good, and that means pumping more money into a hardworking, God-fearing company like Allstrong-that's a no-brainer. We're the good guys, remember, so whatever we do is right.'
'Yeah,' Glitsky said, 'so let's hope we're wrong on this one.'
Hardy, thinking about Evan Scholler doing life without parole in prison, didn't hope they were wrong. He didn't see another plausible alternative, and he'd long since lost faith in the essential goodness of man. Some were good, true, maybe most. But others, particularly those drawn to war zones and to chaos, would sometimes do anything-lie, cheat, and kill-for more money and more power, either or both. The basic rules of civilization did not apply.
That, Hardy was now all but convinced, was what had happened here. The moral rot that festered in Iraq and in the halls of power both here and abroad had poisoned the communal well over there. What distinguished Allstrong was that it had had the arrogance and irresponsibility to bring the rot and the chaos home.
And that, Hardy felt, could not be allowed to stand.
37
Hardy sat in his reading chair, his feet up on the ottoman, in the dark living room in the front of his house. He wore the same black gym shorts that he'd put on before he'd gotten into bed six hours before. When he had started awake about an hour ago-he'd dreamt that he'd been pushed from an airplane out over the Pacific Ocean-tossing off the covers, he had lain still in the night until his heart slowed down, listening to his wife's breathing beside him, taking what comfort he could from the peaceful regularity of it.
Finally giving up on the idea of sleeping, he eased himself out of bed. Downstairs, he looked into the refrigerator out of habit, then closed it and went into the adjoining family room and watched his tropical fish swimming in their dim, gurgling home.
He'd spent most of the evening after dinner back next to his fish at his computer, finding out everything he could about Allstrong Security. Hunt's analysis of their financial success early in the war was accurate as far as it went, but he'd failed to mention that to date, the company's government contracts in Iraq totaled eight hundred and forty million dollars.
Allstrong was in charge of security at sixteen of the country's airports, as well as guarding electrical grids in twenty-two administrative areas. They had been in charge of the currency changeover for the entire country as well as the rebuilding of the power lines in the extremely violent Anbar Province. The company's Web site boasted of 8,800 employees in Iraq, 465 of whom were former American military men, most of them officers.
The company had also become active in several other countries, with more than 500 ex-commando operatives in Indonesia, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Nigeria, and El Salvador, where it specialized in corporate as well as government logistics and security. Over 200 more employees worked at a sprawling new headquarters complex near Candlestick Point in San Francisco, where the concentration was mostly on programs to guarantee the integrity of municipal water supplies and, incongruously, on raising catfish as a sustainable and inexpensive food source for developing countries.
Jack Allstrong, the founder, president, and CEO, had evidently relocated back to the home office in March of 2005. He lived alone in a mansion in Hillsborough and presided over the business out of San Francisco, although the home page stressed that Allstrong was ready and able to embark to trouble spots anywhere in the world at a moment's notice in one of the corporation's fleet of private aircraft, which included two Gulf-stream V jets.
When he went to bed, Hardy's brain had been spinning with the possibilities that Allstrong presented for his Scholler appeal. As soon as Bracco could forge the link tying Allstrong to Nolan's involvement in the assassination of the Khalils and to the deaths of the Bowens, Hardy would have an unassailable argument that the jury in the original trial never saw crucial evidence that reasonably could have affected the verdict. He'd get his appeal granted on the
