“Henning has offered us protection,” said Lilly.
“Is that so?” said Scully.
“You sound skeptical,” I said.
“You look even more skeptical,” he said, firing right back.
“Don’t get me wrong, I like Henning,” I said.
Scully waited for me to say more, then gave me the appropriate prompt. “But…”
I drew a breath, long enough to focus my thoughts. It was the FBI’s promise of first-rate treatment for my father’s illness that had drawn me into this mess, and at bottom this was still all about my father. Connie and Lilly already knew my position, and I wanted Scully’s view on the fundamental issue that had kept Henning and me from seeing eye to eye.
“I’ve never been able to get Henning to seriously consider the possibility that my father didn’t actually kill Gerry Collins.”
Scully wiped a glob of pizza sauce from his sleeve and said, “That’s probably because he confessed.”
Connie jumped in. “There’s absolutely no physical evidence.”
“His fingerprints were at the scene of the crime,” I said, playing devil’s advocate.
Scully scoffed and shook his head. “Collins was murdered in his car, and Evan Hunt’s written report was found on the front seat. Your father’s fingerprints were on Evan’s report. To me, the only thing the fingerprints prove is that your father handed the report to Manu Robledo, and Robledo gave it to Collins.”
“That’s it,” said Scully, “lock, stock, and barrel.”
“Oh, my God,” said Lilly.
She looked at me from across the table, and I could see the change. Scully and his stash of weapons had temporarily pushed her away from me, but his explanation of the fingerprints seemed to bring her back to my side- perhaps further into my camp, the
“Your dad really is innocent,” she said.
No one spoke for the next minute, and Lilly’s words-the conclusion of the only person in the group who could remotely qualify as an outsider-seemed to hang over us.
“Does that mean that the man who killed Gerry Collins also shot Evan?” asked Connie.
“Maybe, maybe not,” said Scully.
I had my own theory. “Like I told Lilly at Tearrific, I’m convinced that whoever killed Evan was listening to our phone conversation right before he was shot. Evan told me that he cracked the code on the encrypted data we got from Barber. Fifteen minutes later he was dead, and his computer was gone.”
“Then add my source to the list of suspects,” said Lilly. “But Manu Robledo is still at the top.”
I reached for my BlackBerry and laid it on the table. “The list is growing,” I said. “There’s a reason I carried both an iPhone and a BlackBerry. Love the apps and the Internet on the iPhone, but my BlackBerry is issued by BOS with enhanced security, as hacker-proof and impenetrable to spyware as the largest Swiss bank in the world can make it.”
Scully said, “Your point being that anyone who eavesdropped on your BOS BlackBerry…”
“Is probably working from inside BOS,” I said, finishing Scully’s thought.
“You mean Joe Barber?” said Lilly.
“Maybe I do.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Lilly said. “Why would he call us into his executive suite,
“He gave me your files, Lilly. You didn’t know the BAQ memo was in there. Maybe he didn’t know, either.”
Lilly considered it. “Two billion dollars is a lot of money to most of us. But we’re talking about Joe Barber and the Bank of Switzerland. I just don’t see Barber at the heart of a BOS conspiracy to kill Evan Hunt over money.”
“Barber was deputy secretary of the Treasury. Your source is a former government agent who was working on a secret operation for Treasury. I’m not saying they’re working as a team, but it would appear that there is much more than money at stake.”
“Money or no money, killing Evan Hunt would be a very desperate act.”
Scully said, “Desperate men do desperate things. Let me borrow your phone for a couple of hours, Patrick.”
“For what?”
“I have a tech expert I work with. Former FBI. If there’s spyware on your BlackBerry, he can unravel it.”
I slid the phone across the table to him, along with the battery I’d removed at Tearrific.
Scully said, “Lilly, let’s check yours, too, just in case.”
“My phone isn’t issued by the bank. I had to give up my BOS BlackBerry when they fired me.”
“Let’s check it anyway,” said Scully.
She gave it up, the battery separated from the phone, just like mine. “I suppose if Patrick’s comes back with spyware and mine doesn’t, that would tell us it was a BOS job.”
“Good point,” I said, “but I have a sixth sense about how this is going to play out. Scully, let’s do the target practice another time. I’m going into the bank tomorrow.”
“I wouldn’t put it off,” he said.
“I know, but-”
Connie’s landline rang, cutting me short. I checked the number. “It’s Agent Henning,” I told the group.
“She must have heard you say that you’re going into the bank tomorrow,” said Connie. She was kidding, but only half kidding.
“You told me I could call her on Connie’s phone,” said Lilly, “so I left her a voice mail and told her we were here.”
“Take it,” said Scully.
I answered the call, and with just a few words from Andie, I knew that something had changed. I could hear it in her voice.
“First, let me say that what I’m about to tell you will have no impact on your father’s health. Nothing has changed in that regard. He will remain at Lemuel Shattuck Hospital as long as necessary, and he will continue to get first-rate medical treatment as long as he needs it.”
“Okay, thank you for that. But I’m getting the feeling that something is definitely wrong.”
Andie hesitated, and I glanced at the concerned faces around the kitchen table. Finally, Andie’s voice was in my ear.
“I’m sorry, Patrick. I hate to do this on the phone, but things have happened fast. There is going to be a major change in our working relationship.”
44
T raffic out of the city was worse than usual, and Barber was stuck in a limousine that was barely moving. He would have preferred to make the phone call from his home, but there was no telling when that would be. He raised the soundproof partition between him and the driver, then dialed from memory on a special encrypted line to the West Wing of the White House.
Barber had first met Brett Woods at Saxton Silvers, when they were making their mark and earning tons of money as young bond traders at what was then the premier investment bank on Wall Street. They were friends but highly competitive, not just in their work but in thousand-dollar side bets on everything from whether the next unescorted woman to walk into the bar would be blond or brunette to which drop of rain clinging to the window outside their trading floor would be the first to trickle from top to bottom. The twentysomething cowboys eventually grew up, and the last two decades had seen them in and out of public service, though on very different tracks.
