“It sure as hell
Jackson smiled true appreciation at the warmth. “It has that, Sergeant.”
“Your man’s in the back. He’ll be happy for the sight of you.”
Jackson strode through the large anteroom, a bar-cum-club, its walls completely covered with photographs of soldiers, many taken in Vietnam but even more from Iraq and Afghanistan. The ceiling was a tapestry of military shoulder patches, captured enemy flags—and pinups of beautiful women in various stages of undress. As he strode to the back, he received respectful nods and smiles from nearly all of the select group of African American men, some seated at tables, talking, laughing, sipping beer; others gathered around a huge flat-screen television with the Wizards-Lakers game; others just fixed on the Al Green ballad from the antique jukebox. He returned every one with direct eye contact, a nod, and a smile. He reached a curtain at the rear, pulled it aside, and knocked a rhythmic code on the door it concealed. Almost instantly, it swung open to admit Jackson, quickly closing behind him.
It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimmer lighting; it was a semi-office with two muscular men occupying chairs in opposite corners, as if for protection. The slim, attractive black man behind the desk was already on his feet and coming around the desk, a huge smile on his face. Jackson couldn’t help but beam as broadly as he ever had.
“P.K.! Good to see you, brother. How are you?”
“All the better for laying eyes on you, blood.” The use of the most intimate term of familiarity in a Vietnam- era black soldier’s vocabulary was not lost on the Sergeant-Major. He embraced P.K. and then they sat in armchairs away from the desk.
P.K. turned to one of his guards. “Whisky for an honored guest. The good stuff.” The man crossed to the desk and P.K. settled his eyes on Jackson. “How’s the struggle, Bob?”
“Better than it was, not as good as it could be.”
“Telling me my own story.”
The guard put down two glasses and a bottle of twenty-five-year-old Oban from the famed Western Highlands. “And the ice.” The man scurried off. “So what misfortune brought me the good luck of entertaining you?”
Jackson grinned. “Do I only show up when I need help?”
P.K. laughed. “I reckon! This is no resort area. I wouldn’t pay a visit myself except as I needed. Besides, we’re proud to be your irregular troops, Bob. You’ve never been on the wrong side. So what’s up?”
Jackson reached inside his shirt, withdrew the envelope with the photographs of the stolen silver Torah dressings.
P.K. studied them. “Heard they robbed the synagogue over at Sixth and I. This the loot?”
Jackson nodded. “One police theory is it’s a random robbery, common in the neighborhood. In which case, the silver should already be in the hands of a fence. And no doubt you’d know about it.”
“I would. But I don’t. Besides, the bad guys who work that turf wouldn’t touch this. They’re pros and they’d know better.”
“You think so?”
“I’d bet on it. They don’t hit churches or synagogues. And this building is both.”
“It is.” Jackson nodded. “Originally a synagogue, then when the Jews moved to the suburbs, an AME church.”
P.K. grinned. “And the benefits of upward mobility march on: now the AMEs are gone to the suburbs and the Jews are back. All life’s a circle.”
The guard returned with a glass of ice. P.K. poured two glasses of whisky, dropped a single ice cube in each. He looked up at Jackson. “One minute to release the aroma and texture?”
The Sergeant-Major nodded. “You always were a good soldier.”
They raised their glasses. “Here’s tae uys,” said P.K.
“T’ose lak uys,” Jackson replied. Then both murmured “… to absent friends …” and drank.
“Will you keep your ears open?”
P.K. nodded reassuringly. “I’ll put the word out.”
They sipped some more. Jackson frowned as if the next question had just occurred to him. “The men who work that area? Any of them skilled in a one-move neck-snap?”
P.K. pondered that for a moment then shook his head.
“No. That’s black ops. Brit SAS, KGB, SEALs. Those guys would never sink as low as knocking off a synagogue.” Jackson nodded; as usual, P.K. made perfect sense.
The Sergeant-Major was reluctant to acknowledge the feeling he experienced as Maggie reported on her recce patrol. But it was inescapable: he was pleased. She had exceeded his expectation. She was recounting her efforts, and whether or not she’d had useful results, her methodology met his rigorous standards. His mind was wandering. He interrupted her. “I lost the chain. Go back three sentences.”
She coughed, tried to remember what she’d said, went back. “So I just kept looking at it, hoping something would jump out—like the hillside in the training film. But the longer I stared, the less anything stood out. I kept thinking about the five markers, but they didn’t seem to apply. Names don’t move, they don’t have color. But then it struck me: philanthropy has a shadow. It involves money. Money always leaves a trail, shadows, if you will. It has observable consequences, if only to accountants and auditors. So I started running numbers, and something leapt out: two donations, the first a modest ten thousand, the second a more extravagant quarter of a million. The Reconciliation Project showed them both as anonymous. But when I compared the private listing to their government report, they were shown as received from a 501c(3)—a charitable institution passing money along to another cause. So I researched the donor and identified it. As you predicted, a familiar name—”
He interrupted quickly. “The Zakaria Fund?”
Maggie tried to hide her surprise. “The Zakaria Foundation, actually. But you have the concept.”
“And no doubt the address was the janitor’s home.” She nodded. “And were the dates the fifteenth of the month or the thirtieth?”
“One of each,” she answered, a little disappointed he was so far ahead of her.
“The question is, then: who financed our janitor? Terrorists? Criminals?”
“And is he the murderer?”
Jackson looked at her; here was a test. “All indications point in his direction, do they not?”
“Every single one. Which begs the question: can there be too many shadows?”
What he now felt was pride. His mentee was learning very quickly. “We shall have to find out. Come.”
Keeping in plain view of the open front door, he led her to his computer. “I’m not as proficient as you, I daresay, with this machinery. So I would ask you to find the website listing donations, compare them until you find one of those 501 things you mentioned making identical donations on the same days. Are your two samples enough to produce results?”
“To get started, yes. But not on this. There’s a program on the base IT that could do it in less than an hour. But it’s for official use only.”
“Then we shall vouchsafe our officialness.” He picked up his almost quaint land-line telephone, tapped in a number.
Turner was irritated at having to drive over an hour to simply gain access to an army computer. But he had to be present while this woman—not a bad looker when he paid attention—ran endless regressional analyses on numbers and charities. It reminded him how nowadays the government knew everything, which meant any nerd with a keyboard could accomplish in minutes what old-time cops like himself had once done by hand, their knowledge and experience prerequisites to success. But now …
He checked his watch; still time to catch the playoff game if this Maggie person could find what Jackson wanted. The man could be a strain on your nerves, but he was never wrong and Turner needed this case off his desk. He’d hoped he’d find the Edison guy, but when he left, Baxter was down to just three Franks, two Freds, and a Francis and Turner’s gut told him none of them would pan out.
Maggie’s exultant shout of “Jackpot!” sharply interrupted his reverie. Instantly, he and Jackson were looking over her shoulder. “Here’s the link to the so-called anonymous donor!”
She hit a key and a Web homepage floated onto her screen: THE JUPITER PROJECT. A FUND TO HELP
