Electing to Murder

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

“He’s alive. Everyone else is dead.”

Sunday morning, 3:32 a.m. The small FBI motorcade made its way through the now sleepy streets of Washington DC from Reagan National, with its destination being the Hoover Building.

Mac was alone now. Wire was not going to be in on the briefing of the FBI director. If the investigation, if that’s what it still was at this point, was going to end up going where Dixon wanted it to go, Mac would have to get it across the finish line.

On the flight to Washington, Mac and Wire walked through the case. Mac put together a PowerPoint on his computer, building from the outline on the whiteboard back in St. Paul. While they were doing that, the voting machine was tested in another part of the plane and the memory cards did exactly what Gabriel Martin explained they would. One of every twenty votes for Governor Thomson was rolled over to Vice President Wellesley’s column, so in Mac’s mind, they had solved what the whole cover-up was about, election fraud. He had his murderer, at least of Montgomery and McCormick and probably Stroudt as well. But someone let the killer off the leash and put the plan to manipulate the election results in motion and had been engineering the cover-up of its discovery. That someone looked to be Heath Connolly.

Wire and the Judge were absolutely convinced it was Connolly.

Mac wasn’t so sure.

After Mac, Wire, Dixon and Sally worked through the case timeline on the flight, Mac sat with the outline for a while. On his laptop he kept flipping through all the pictures of the Kentucky meeting and he kept stopping on one: Wire’s photo of the limousine, with the door open and a leg showing under the bottom of the door. Wire told him that as she took the photo, someone yelled out they had spotted Montgomery and Stroudt on the south side of the cabin. The person never got out of the limousine and it simply sped away.

Who was it?

Just another person with a small part to play in the whole process or was it someone more? One person knew and it was Heath Connolly.

The motorcade pulled in underneath the Hoover Building. As Mac got out of the Suburban, his phone beeped. It was a text from Duffy. Mac read it and mumbled a “shit.”

“What?” Agent Berman asked.

“Nothing,” Mac answered, wanting to digest this latest update. Mac was escorted through security and to an elevator that took them up to FBI Director Thomas Mitchell’s office. The director was in his office in the early a.m. casually dressed in khakis, a blue cardigan and white button down collar dress shirt. He looked the part of the senior lawman, however; tall, forceful, with salt and pepper hair cropped tightly to his head and perceptive eyes.

Agent Berman introduced Mac.

“Detective, your father was Simon McRyan, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mitchell gave a small smile, “He and I worked together a few times many many years ago. As good a police detective as I ever ran across.”

“Thank you for saying that, Director.”

“I also chatted with Charlie Flanagan about an hour ago.”

“At two in the morning, sir?”

“Yeah, the chief wasn’t too happy about that until he realized it was me calling. He’s an old friend. I asked him to give it to me straight about you.”

Mac winced a little, uncertain.

“You needn’t worry, Detective. He said if I thought Simon McRyan was good, wait until I meet his son.”

Mac smiled, just a little, relieved. “The chief is very kind, sir, and perhaps not always objective when it comes to me.”

“I know Charlie Flanagan, Detective,” Mitchell answered seriously. “He doesn’t bullshit and he said neither do you. So I’m very interested to hear what you have to say. I don’t have a good handle on what this is all about. Judge Dixon, another man I trust, gave me his version of events. But he is not objective in this matter. He has an agenda. My agents from Milwaukee and my people in the Civil Rights Division are telling me we’ve got a serious election fraud issue here. I am told the one person who can explain how it is we got to this point is you.”

“I can give you the big picture, sir,” Mac answered.

“Let’s have it.”

Mac looked over to the director’s conference table. “May I?”

Mitchell nodded and followed Mac to the conference table. Two agents also set the DataPoint Voting Machine, silver briefcase, memory cards and letter on the conference table as well. Mac opened up his laptop and sat down. Mitchell took a seat next to him and Special Agent Berman took another open chair.

“Mac, let’s put this up on the big screen,” Mitchell replied as he hit a button under the conference table and two panels on the wall slid open to reveal a large flat screen. The director pushed another button and a small console rose from the center of the table. An assistant appeared instantly with a cord for Mac to plug his laptop into the director’s audio visual system. Mac hit F8 and the image from his computer screen appeared on the screen.

“Shoot,” Mitchell said to Mac.

“This case started on Wednesday night with a meeting at this cabin, which belongs to Raymond Hitch, a businessman from Kentucky. The cabin is on Lake Barkley, which is located outside the city of Cadiz in northwest Kentucky.” Mac flipped to a picture from the meeting. “At this meeting were four people of special interest.” He worked left to right across the photo, “The first man, somewhat heavyset, is Peter Checketts, the owner and president of DataPoint Electronics, a technology company in Milwaukee that manufactures, among other things, electronic paperless voting machines. The second man back here in the shadows we think is a man named Anatoly Khrutov, an ex-KGB agent who since the end of the Cold War has been something of a fixer in Russia. To the right of Khrutov, standing behind this silver metal briefcase, is a man we’ve identified as Viktor Domitrovich, a Ukrainian citizen and reputed computer hacker. The last man is Heath Connolly, the manager of Vice President Wellesley’s campaign.”

“How were you able to identify Domitrovich and in particular this Mr. Khrutov?” Mitchell asked.

“With the assistance of the FBI, sir,” Mac replied. “Special Agent Duffy with the bureau’s Twin Cities office provided assistance on this front working with people here in DC. Domitrovich is well known to the cyber crimes people of the bureau. We think this is Khrutov.”

“Think?”

“This is the best picture we have and here is a bureau photo. The two men look alike and a retired FBI agent who worked Russia for the bureau for a number of years is pretty certain that is him. Duffy said 90% it’s Khrutov.” Mac handed Mitchell a hard copy of the picture of Khrutov and flipped to a new picture.

“There may well have been a fifth person who was supposed to be at this meeting,” Mac put up the photo of the limousine with the back door open. “For reasons I will explain in a few minutes, this person never exited the vehicle and we don’t know who this was.”

“What time did this meeting take place?” the director asked.

“About 11:00 p.m., sir.”

“Was Hitch at his cabin?”

“No sir, he was not,” Mac answered. “He is traveling out of the country, on business in China. We were able to reach him and he said Connolly called him on Monday and wanted to use the cabin and Hitch said fine. Connolly’s apparently used it a few times before and Hitch thought nothing of it. He’s not due back in the United States until next week.”

Mitchell nodded. “So on Wednesday night, six days before the election, at 11:00 p.m. at night, the campaign manager for the vice president was meeting with the owner of a voting machine company, an ex-KGB agent and a computer hacker at an out-of-the-way cabin in Kentucky?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see.”

Mac had Mitchell’s full attention.

“Proceed, Detective.”

“These people were not alone at this meeting in Kentucky,” Mac flipped to a new picture. “The man on the left is Jason Stroudt and on the right is Adam Montgomery. These men are DC-based reporters who operate the political blog ‘The Congressional Page.’”

“I’ve heard of it,” Mitchell answered.

Mac flipped to an aerial photo of Hitch’s cabin. “Stroudt and Montgomery were also at this meeting, outside, perched in this grove of trees to the south of the cabin.”

“How do you know this?” Gates asked.

“Because of another person who was on scene outside the cabin,” Mac added a photo, “former FBI Special Agent Dara Wire.” Mac looked at Mitchell, whose eyebrows flared.

“How was it former Agent Wire was there?”

“For the past six months she’s been working for the Thomson campaign, largely watching and monitoring certain higher ups in the vice president’s campaign, with a specific focus on Heath Connolly,” Mac answered. “She tracked Connolly to this meeting. Ms. Wire had hoped to take in the meeting from the perch occupied by Stroudt and Montgomery. Instead she was forced to move to the north side of the cabin.”

“I assume it was Wire who identified Stroudt and Montgomery as being at the meeting,” the director asked.

“Yes sir. She found their vehicle parked down the road, took down the license number and later verified that they had rented it.”

“Do we know what was discussed at this meeting?” Mitchell asked.

“I think it may be more along the lines of what was intended to be discussed. It doesn’t appear that the meeting got too far along before it broke up.”

“Why is that?”

“Stroudt and Montgomery were discovered and chased from the area. The chase included gun shots.”

“Gun shots?” Mitchell asked again with upraised eyebrows.

“Yes, sir. Ms. Wire reported shots being fired and given the events that have unfolded since this meeting, I think we can safely assume that was the case.”

“Was she in any danger during this time?” Mitchell asked with concern.

“No sir, as I mentioned, she was on the north side of the cabin, away from the action and she told me they never knew she was there.”

“Good,” Mitchell answered. “What’s next?”

“Following the discovery of Stroudt and Montgomery, the meeting was hastily ended and all the players made a mad dash from the scene into SUVs and limousines as you can see in this series of photos taken by Wire,” Mac explained. “Here you see Connolly and Checketts in particular being ushered into vehicles that Dara reports immediately sped away from the scene.”

“What’s next?”

“The next significant event happens the following day,” Mac displayed a picture of The Snelling and of Stroudt dead on the motel room floor. “I caught the case at this point when Mr. Stroudt’s dead body was found at The Snelling, a rather seedy motel in St. Paul.” Mac displayed a picture of Stroudt’s body at The Snelling. “As you can see, Mr. Stroudt’s throat was cut from ear to ear. His time of death was around 3:00 p.m.” Mac related the discovery by a pizza delivery man and the motel manager.

“So Stroudt was in Kentucky on Wednesday night and was killed in St. Paul by 3:00 p.m. on Thursday?” Mitchell asked. “How did he get there?”

“Flew. Both Stroudt and Montgomery had return flights booked to DC from Nashville for Thursday morning. Neither of them ever showed for that flight. Instead, they drove the opposite direction, to St. Louis, where Stroudt took a Delta flight to the Twin Cities and arrived a little after 10:00 a.m. He rented a car at the airport. From there he went to a Grand Brew Coffee Shop in St. Paul for a few hours and then checked into The Snelling around 2:00 p.m. and was murdered an hour later.”

“Do you know by whom?”

“We think we do. I will get to the killer in a minute because Stroudt is not the only body he’s dropped, sir,” Mac answered. “Now, we were able to identify Stroudt from a Delta boarding pass we found in the motel room. However, none of Mr. Stroudt’s other belongings were in the room when we arrived.”

“What about his car?”

“It was dumped at a shopping mall a few miles from the motel, again with none of his personal effects inside.” Mac continued: “Upon identifying Stroudt, we tried to track down his business partner, Adam Montgomery. Apparently sensing danger from what he and his partner had seen on Wednesday night, unlike Stroudt, he wisely dropped from the grid sooner and tried to fly below the radar. He did not answer his cell phone and as we later learned, he ditched it for a burner phone. In St. Louis he borrowed a car from a distant relative and eventually drove to the Twin Cities, arriving sometime on Friday. Once in the Twin Cities, he called Sebastian McCormick, the deputy campaign director for Governor Thomson’s campaign, to arrange a meeting which took place at McCormick’s St. Paul home.” He flipped to a slide with pictures of Sebastian McCormick, Kate Shelby and McCormick’s house.

“Was there some relationship between McCormick and Montgomery?” Mitchell asked.

“No, but there was between Stroudt and McCormick, they went to law school together at the University of Virginia,” Mac answered. An aide walked into the office with two pots of coffee.

“Coffee?” Mitchell asked.

“Please.”

The director poured Mac a cup. “Cream? Sugar?”

“Right now, black,” Mac answered.

“That tired, huh?”

“You could say that, Director,” Mac answered with an exhausted smile. He took two quick sips of coffee and then pressed on. “When Montgomery arrived at McCormick’s house, he explained to McCormick and Kate Shelby, a deputy campaign manager for the Thomson campaign who was also there, that Stroudt traveled to the Twin Cities to get in contact with McCormick. However, before he could he was killed. Montgomery began to explain why he wanted to meet with McCormick when this man,” Mac put up a photo of McCormick’s killer, “came in the back of the house and shot Montgomery in the head and McCormick twice in the chest.”

“Who is that man?” Mitchell asked, standing and walking to the screen.

“Sir, we don’t have a name yet,” Mac answered. “Agent Duffy has been efforting that for us but has not yet been able to identify him.”

“That man killed McCormick and Montgomery but not Shelby?” Mitchell asked, confused. “How does she not end up dead?”

“Dara Wire,” Mac answered. “During the day on Friday, she was here in DC trying to find Stroudt and Montgomery and had been working with the Alexandria, Virginia, police in that regard. Stroudt’s home as well as the offices of The Congressional Page were broken into and ransacked, while Montgomery’s was not. So she decided to sit on Montgomery’s building and see what turned up. While watching, she noted what she thought were two different two-man teams watching the apartment building that abruptly left their surveillance detail, speeding away. She suspected that Montgomery had been located. She also knew, at this point, that Stroudt had been murdered and began to surmise that a cover-up of the Kentucky meeting was in motion. A little later on Friday, Wire and Judge Dixon flew back to the Twin Cities. When they landed, they each had voice mail messages from McCormick alerting them to the fact that Montgomery was coming to McCormick’s house. Wire intuitively knew the danger McCormick was in. She and Dixon sped to McCormick’s house. In fact, Judge Dixon called me while they were on their way asking me to get over there as well. I was en-route but Wire beat me there, realized what was going down and managed to get inside in time to save Ms. Shelby.”

“Where is Ms. Shelby now?”

“She’s in joint protective custody of the Secret Service and the St. Paul Police Department.”

Mac flipped back to the picture of the killer. “Wire shot this man in the chest three times and helped Ms. Shelby escape the home out the back before the killer’s backup got to the house.” Mac described the back alley shootout and Wire’s escape with Dixon and Shelby from the scene.

“Detective, this killer, is the man the media has reported is dead?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now you found him, correct? How?”

Mac explained how he tracked down the killer to the off-the-books doctor. He didn’t mention Fat Charlie’s name but he didn’t need to, the director understood. “That’s pretty quick work, Detective.”

“It helps to know people who know people.”

“Sources are everything and good cops have them,” Mitchell replied, impressed. “Continue.”

Mac shifted gears.

“Wire and Shelby escaped McCormick’s house with Montgomery’s backpack, which included his laptop, camera and notebooks. An hour later, while I was working the crime scene at McCormick’s house, I was again contacted by Judge Dixon, who was with Wire and Shelby. He asked to meet and we agreed to do so at my family’s bar near downtown St. Paul.”

“Why at your family’s bar?” Mitchell asked quizzically. “Why not police headquarters?”

“That would have been my first choice as well, sir,” Mac answered, taking a sip of coffee. “However, Ms. Wire wasn’t in the trusting mood at that point. Dixon and Shelby told her that they could trust me. Wire insisted on a meeting place, other than headquarters, where I could trust everyone.”

“And that’s your family bar?”

“Our bar is many things, including a cop bar. On a Friday night, sir, it’s full of police, all of whom I trust, so yeah, other than HQ it was the place to go,” Mac answered. “As we were meeting up on the street outside the pub, we were attacked drive-by shooting style by men riding in a panel van and Chevy Suburban, two of whom Ms. Wire and I managed to mortally wound while returning fire.” McRyan described the shootout and chase that lead to the Suburban, which exploded, leaving another two men dead.

“I saw something about this on the news, didn’t I?” Mitchell asked.

“You probably did, Director,” Mac replied. “Although I’ve been so consumed with this case, I haven’t seen any of the news reports on that.”

“Can I step back for a moment, Detective McRyan?” Mitchell asked. “How was it the shooters knew to find Wire and Dixon at … what’s it called?”

“McRyan’s Pub.”

“Right, how did they find you there?”

“We think it was through a LoJack tracking system in Montgomery’s laptop.” Mac described how Jupiter found the LoJack tracking system on the computer.

“So whoever these men are working for, they were able to get into LoJack’s system and track the computer? That’s not something the average person can do. That requires certain … resources … and … skills,” Mitchell commented, his arms folded, giving it some thought.

“That was our thought as well, Director,” Mac added.

“Detective, you mentioned the laptop, camera and notebooks, what did you find there?”

“We were able to get into Montgomery’s laptop and found that he conducted extensive web searches on DataPoint and their voting machines. It was actually through the DataPoint website that we identified Checketts as one of the men at the meeting in Kentucky. At this point, our investigation shifted to Milwaukee.”

Mac poured himself another cup of coffee and this time put in a little cream and sugar. He took a sip and then changed to a picture of Checketts’s house. “After we found our killer in Eden Prairie, I, along with former Agent Wire, traveled to Milwaukee to investigate further, looking to speak with Mr. Checketts.”

“How did you get to Milwaukee so quickly?”

“Judge Dixon arranged a flight.”

“Did he now?” Mitchell replied, a whimsical smile on his face.

Mac shrugged his shoulders. “If it makes you feel any better, he cleared it with Chief Flanagan before I accompanied Ms. Wire to Milwaukee.”

“And how is it that former Agent Wire suddenly became part of your investigation?”

“My partner was wounded in the shootout outside my family’s bar,” McRyan replied. “Our other detectives remained back in St. Paul to watch over our killer in the hopes that his friends tried to retrieve him before his death. Ms. Wire offered her assistance. She is quite capable.”

“Yes she is,” Mitchell answered knowingly.

“The next morning, along with two Milwaukee detectives, Wire and I went to the home of Peter Checketts where we found him dead, hanging from an exposed beam over his family room.” Mac put up a photo of Checketts hanging. “At first blush it appeared to be a suicide. Mr. Checketts is apparently in considerable personal financial distress. He was significantly indebted to a couple of casinos in Las Vegas. So at first, it looked like a suicide.”

“But it wasn’t, was it?”

“No. It looks like his death was staged as a suicide and he was murdered.” Mac added details about Checketts’s personal finances as well as the footprints leading to the house. “Add to that the fact that Checketts is dead and this Domitrovich and Khrutov are dead.”

“Domitrovich and Khrutov are dead?” Mitchell asked, surprised, sitting up in his chair now.

“Yes, sir. Domitrovich was found in his Kiev apartment with a bullet in his head on Friday and just a few minutes ago, just as I arrived here at the Hoover Building I received a text from Agent Duffy that Khrutov was found dead at his dacha northwest of Moscow, also a bullet in the head, killed execution style. You add that with Checketts, not to mention the deaths of Montgomery and Stroudt and McCormick, and someone is covering up.”

“You’re right,” Mitchell answered, looking again at the photos of Khrutov and Domitrovich, shaking his head. “Care to tell me what is being covered up?”

“Election fraud that could have massive consequences on Tuesday’s election,” Mac gestured towards the voting machine that was sitting on the end of the conference table. “Let me show you how,” Mac put up a new picture. “This is Gabriel Martin. He was the chief information officer for DataPoint. At about the same time as the meeting was taking place in Kentucky at the Hitch cabin Wednesday night, Martin was killed in Milwaukee. I have some video,” Mac pulled up the video supplied by Detective Ring and played it for the director. Mac pointed to the screen to a man standing in the median of the street, “This is Wednesday night. This man is Gabe Martin and I’ll just let this roll.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Mitchell muttered.

“That was with intent,” Mac stated. “The Suburban makes no evasive move. After finding Checketts dead and learning of Martin’s murder, we went to DataPoint to interview key staff about the two men to determine if the staff knew of any reason why anyone would want to kill them. Turns out Mr. Martin was dating his secretary, a woman named Ginger Bloom. The night before his death, Mr. Martin gave Ms. Bloom an envelope. An envelope she was to give to Adam Montgomery if anything happened to him.”

“I assume,” the director asked, “that we’re talking the same Adam Montgomery that …”

“Yes, sir,” Mac answered. “Montgomery and Martin were friends and apparently shared an appreciation for the integrity of the election process. Ms. Bloom tried to contact Montgomery after Mr. Martin was killed but was unable to reach him. That was on Thursday and Friday, largely the same time period in which we were trying to find him as well.” He hit a key and brought up the picture of the envelope. “When I told her that Montgomery too had been murdered, she gave me this envelope. Inside was a key to the padlock for storage locker number 137 at Kenosha Self-Storage.”

Mac displayed a picture of the storage locker.

“We opened the locker and found this inside,” he advanced to the next picture which showed the DataPoint voting machine, four memory cards and the envelope containing the letter. He then pointed to the right of the video screens. “The voting machine we found is right here.” McRyan then held up a copy of the letter, “The original of this letter and the memory cards are in the evidence bags up here at the front of the table. In short the letter explains that Mr. Martin discovered five replacement memory cards in Checketts’s office for DataPoint voting machines that were recently delivered to Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia. The new machines went out a number of months ago but there was a manufacturing issue with the memory cards. To fix the problem, the company manufactured new memory cards with a new subcontractor. The four cards in the storage locker are from that batch of new memory cards. According to Martin’s letter, on each memory card is a virus that at noon on Election Day would cause one of every twenty votes for Governor Thomson to be rolled back and put into Vice President Wellesley’s column.”

“That’s a five percent swing, which in a tight election …”

“Would be all the difference in the world,” Mac answered.

“Sir, if I might,” Agent Berman interjected. “On the flight to Washington we verified

that these four remaining memory cards do exactly what Martin says they would. They roll back the votes. No question.”

“This is what we think the case is all about, Director,” Mac pressed. “Someone has put in motion a plan to manipulate the voting machines in these key states to push the election to the vice president and has murdered at least seven people to keep it from being exposed.”

Mitchell sat back in the leather conference room chair, closed his eyes and absorbed the enormity of what he’d just seen and heard. He sighed and looked to Mac. “Detective McRyan, I have a follow-up question or two. Do you think this is limited to just the three states you mentioned earlier?”

“I have no way of knowing, Director. These four remaining cards are part of the batch that went out to those three states, so I suspect it is limited to those states, but if I might offer an opinion.”

Mitchell nodded.

“I’d check any DataPoint machine just to be sure. We’ve found this, who knows what else might be out there. We might have just hit the tip of the iceberg for all we know.”

“I agree, Detective. We can’t take the chance,” Mitchell answered and Mac breathed a sigh of relief. He’d convinced the director. Not that he was working for Dixon, but that would make the Judge happy who would now have a field day leaking to his favorites in the press corps.

Mitchell stood up and called in his assistant. “Get me Attorney General Gates on the phone.”

“Sir, its 4:00 a.m.,” the assistant complained, not relishing calling the attorney general.

“I don’t care, he needs to hear this and we need to get moving,” Mitchell replied. “Next, we need to get the secretaries of state for Iowa, Wisconsin and Virginia lined up for a telephone conference. I understand they’ve been alerted already. Let’s get them teed up.” Mitchell next looked to Berman. “After that, with regard to the DataPoint machines, we need to get on a call with all of the secretaries of state for states that have these machines and have them inspected and tested, let’s get that process started. Now, I tend to think, or maybe hope, that only these three states are impacted, but who knows. Assuming for the moment that it is only these three states, can we get new memory cards in time for Tuesday?”

Nobody in the room knew the answer.

“We need to find that out like fifteen minutes ago,” Mitchell stated. He picked upon his phone and made a call. He put his hand over the receiver, “Election fraud is a Civil Rights Division Issue so I’m calling the deputy director for that division.” Director Mitchell spent a few minutes on the phone with a groggy deputy director. Mitchell said, “Yes, I’m serious,” more than once. Once his phone calls were complete, Mitchell looked at Mac.

“So Mac, there’s one thing we haven’t tackled,” Mitchell stated, sitting back down in his chair, looking Mac straight in the eye. “Who’s behind this? Is it Heath Connolly? Is the vice president’s campaign manager fixing the election?”

Mac hedged a little. It looked like Connolly was running the show but he wasn’t entirely certain. That one photo from Kentucky, the limousine that arrived last, still gnawed at him. There was someone yet unaccounted for. But if there was another player, or if that person, and not Connolly, were in charge, there was still only one person who could answer the question. “Connolly is the most likely for one specific reason.”

“Which is what, Detective?” Mitchell asked.

“He’s still alive. Everyone else is dead.”