'Wrong answer, Jake. I just watched an FBI agent go in the back door.'
Sal heard Jake catch his breath.
'I don't know nothing about that,' Jake said.
'I hear Joey's doing okay. Married. Kid on the way. Got a good job as an auto mechanic with the highway department.'
'Jesus, don't do this to me, Sal.' The words came out pinched.
'That's not a trade someone learns in the slammer,' Sal said evenly.
'Okay, okay, I owe you. There's an off-limits suite of rooms in the basement.
People come and go. I don't know what they do down there.'
'I need more than that, Jake.'
'This has to stay off the record,' Jake said.
'I'm not supposed to talk about it.'
'You've got my word.'
'You gotta pass through a retina- and palm-print-scan foyer that's behind a keypad access door on the first floor, just off the back entrance. That's all I know.'
'You said you see those people come and go, Jake. Who do you think they are?'
'Some are FBI suits and Beltway types, but most of the current crew look like computer gee ks to me.'
'Is the basement in constant use?' Sal asked.
'Staffed regularly?'
'The last group to use it was the Secret Service. They were here when the vice president came to Santa Fe.'
'When did the computer gee ks set up shop?'
'About two months before the FBI task force came to town on the Terrell homicide.'
Sal decided not to push it any further.
'Thanks, Jake. Give my best to Joey.'
After sampling the Mitchell audiotapes to get the meat of each interview, Kerney worked up a set of questions he would use in the morning. He planned to call some of the people Mitchell had interviewed.
He figured it would be safe to use each of the new cell phones three or four times before the feds got on to it.
He stared at Mitchell's list of names and numbers. How did the priest make contact with these people? There was no phone in his room at the brothers' residence hall, and the two phones in the common areas where the brothers congregated weren't suitable for private conversations.
Kerney went into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and used one of the cell phones to call the residence hall. Brother Jerome answered.
Kerney identified himself and jumped right to the point.
'Did Father Mitchell have access to a campus telephone?'
'None was assigned to him, but he did use my office telephone when he needed to make a call. He used a calling card when he was in the field that was billed to my number. He was very prompt about paying the college for the charges.'
'Do you have a record of his calls?' Kerney asked.
'Of course. Every personal and long-distance call charged to the college must be logged on a special form. Each month we get a printout of all charges incurred from each office telephone. Every faculty and staff member is honor bound to identify non business calls and reimburse the college.'
'Does that include local calls?' Kerney asked.
'I have my department faculty and staff log all calls, regardless of whether they're local or long distance. That policy applied to Father Mitchell.'
'I need copies of those records, Brother Jerome. Can you have them ready for me in fifteen minutes?'
'Certainly. Come to my office.'
Kerney got to the college in a hurry and gathered up the copies, thanked Brother Jerome, and left. Back at home he stuck a Steve Mcqueen movie in the VCR to entertain his unknown listeners, and started in on the log sheets. Each showed date, time, and number-called information. Using Mitchell's notes, Kerney matched a good two dozen names to numbers. In the morning he'd work all of Mitchell's most recent calls, starting with area residents.
Kerney switched his attention to the computer printouts and broke into a smile. Over the last three months Mitchell had made, eight-no, ten-phone calls to Phyllis Terrell in Santa Fe and Virginia. The connection was getting stronger and the proof more convincing.
Chapter 10
Fred Browning was on a natural high. The new job in Silicon Valley had turned into a very sweet deal. A company vice president had met him at the San Francisco Airport and chatted him up on the drive to the corporate headquarters.
He offered Fred a big bump in salary, the rent-free use of a town house for the first six months, and a stipend to pay all relocation expenses.
With Tim Ingram's promise of a job that would get him back to Albuquerque in a year, Fred jumped at the offer. Before catching an evening flight back to Albuquerque, he spent the day signing preemployment paperwork, touring the facility, and meeting with members of his new security staff. During the Phoenix layover he called Tim Ingram and gave him the news.
Tim proposed they should celebrate by heading down to the lake a day early instead of waiting until Saturday. Fred thought that was a fine idea. He downed a couple of self-congratulatory whiskeys in the airport bar, had another one on the short hop to Albuquerque, and rolled up the jetway with a bit of a buzz. Tim greeted him inside the terminal.
Fred grinned at his friend.
'Is it Friday already?' he asked.
'No,' Tim said, grinning back.
'But knowing you, I figured you would have already started celebrating.
I bet you're a point or two over the blood alcohol legal limit.'
'Maybe just barely.'
'Come on, I'll give you a ride home.'
'What about my car?' Fred asked.
'Leave it here. You can pick it up on Sunday when we get back from the lake.'
Fred shrugged.
'Why not? Let me buy you a drink.'
'Not necessary,' Tim said.
'I've got a flask in my glove box
'That'll do.'
Browning took two hits from the drug-laced flask and passed out on the short drive to the air force base. Ingram checked his carotid artery and found a strong pulse. As an intelligence operative Ingram had carried out a number of disagreeable assignments. But delivering a man to be killed, especially one he'd worked hard to keep alive and who wasn't a clear security threat, made Ingram feel like a sadist. At least he wouldn't have to watch Fred Browning get wasted.
He flashed his headlights as he approached the guard gate, and the air policeman waved him through. On the tarmac a car and a helicopter waited. Ingram rolled to a stop. Applewhite opened the passenger door, gave him a cold look, and jammed a syringe into Browning's neck.
Ingram wanted to shoot her, stomp her, slug her. Instead he counted seconds.
Browning convulsed and died in less than a minute. He got out of the car, sucked in some fresh, cold air, and watched the body get loaded into the helicopter.
