Last Chance to Die

18



The flight attendant asked Vail if he wanted anything to drink. He smiled absentmindedly and said no. Checking his watch, he looked out the window. They were crossing Lake Michigan, and he could finally see Chicago’s ice-covered beaches. The white-and-gray bleakness swept under them, and his thoughts returned to Kate. The one good thing about something as catastrophic as Kate’s arrest for treason was that it reduced everything around it to a level of insignificance. Whatever problems there were between them, real or imagined, they would have to wait. Right now her freedom was the only priority.

The thing Vail admired most about money was its way of leading to the truth. Stories could be faked and lies told, but when money was introduced into the equation, honest answers had little choice but to rise to the surface.

While the three-quarters of a million dollars the Bureau had already wire-transferred to Calculus’s designated account in Chicago was a drop in the bucket for the Russians, it was still seven hundred fifty thousand dollars American, and chances were that some enterprising soul wasn’t going to just let it sit there unclaimed. Even dishonestly gained money had a way of tracing itself back to the truth.

Since he no longer had to worry about Calculus’s Chicago “relative” warning him that the FBI was trying to discover anything about the account, Vail could now go to the bank and ask direct questions. Once the plane landed and he collected his luggage, he took a cab to his apartment. He dropped his bags inside and, after spending a half hour clearing the snow off his truck, drove to the Lakeside Bank and Trust in downtown Chicago. It was an eight-story building on LaSalle Street.

Vail flashed his credentials and asked to see the head of security. A few minutes later, a gray-haired man in his late fifties walked toward Vail. Although Vail had never seen him before, his smile was one of familiarity, causing Vail to check the man’s hands. He was wearing an FBI ring made from a twenty-five-year service key. Vail stood up and smiled back. “Steve Vail,” he said, extending his hand.

“Les Carson.” He shook Vail’s hand. “I know a lot of the guys from the Chicago office. Are you new here?” There was the slightest edge of suspicion in Carson’s voice.

“Can we go somewhere a little more private?”

“Sure, my office.” Carson led him to an elevator and then to an office on the third floor.

As soon as Carson closed the door, Vail said, “Actually, I’m out of headquarters, working a special for the director. And it’s extremely confidential.”

“I’m sorry, Steve, can I see your creds?”

Vail took them out and handed them to Carson. He looked at them for a moment, running his thumb over the embossed seal at the edge of the photo to verify their legitimacy before handing them back. “Why is there something familiar about your name? What other offices have you been assigned to?”

“I was in Detroit for three years, but that was a long time ago.”

“That’s it. You’re the one who was fired during that cop-killer investigation the year before I retired.”

Vail smiled. “Sounds like me.”

“And now you’re back, and at headquarters?”

“The director asked me to come aboard to handle this one case.”

“Why would he do that?”

“I did it once before, and it worked out. No one was supposed to know about it.”

“What do you do when you’re not on the Bureau clock?” Carson asked.

“I’m a bricklayer. I actually live here, on the Northwest Side.”

Vail could see that Carson was questioning the plausibility of his background. “And what exactly is it that you need, Steve?”

Vail took out a slip of paper and handed it to Carson. “In the last week, there have been three deposits wired into that account, each for a quarter of a million dollars. I need all the information available about whoever it belongs to.”

Carson fell back in his chair. “Come on, Steve, you know that banking information is impossible without a court order. I could lose my job.”

“I can get the director on the phone if that would help. It’s a matter of national security.”

“If you got Jesus Christ himself on the phone, I couldn’t help you, and I’m Catholic. I like it here, and I really doubt I’d like being sued. And as far as it being a matter of national security, do you know how many times I used that line in twenty-five years?”

“Les, this is extremely important. And I don’t have time for a court order. Besides, I can’t let the local U.S. Attorney’s office know about the specifics of the case.” Vail could see that the real problem was Carson’s suspicions about him and his story. It was understandable—a stranger was asking him to risk his job on his word alone. He would have been crazy to agree to chance everything for someone he didn’t know he could trust. “There’s got to be some way you can help me.”

The appeal didn’t seem to register with Carson. He was studying Vail’s face. After a few seconds, he pulled open a file drawer behind him and took out a thick folder. He started flipping through the pages inside. He found the one he was looking for and held it up as though placing it side by side with Vail’s features. After studying it for a few more seconds, he looked back at Vail and his mouth curved upward into a smile of discovery. “This is a flyer another bank distributed statewide. It seems last year they had a robbery that went bad, and more than two dozen customers and employees were taken hostage. Then a lone male customer overpowered the two robbers and threw them through the bank’s windows. When everything quieted down, the man had disappeared into the crowd. They said he was dressed like a construction worker, and the bank was on the Northwest Side. He was never identified. That’s why they sent this out, trying to find out who he is. They wanted to reward him. Why do you think someone would vanish like that?”

“Maybe he didn’t want to pay for the windows,” Vail said. “Or answer a lot of useless questions.”

Carson turned the flyer around to show Vail the surveillance photo of the man who had disrupted the robbery. “You wouldn’t know anything about it, would you? What with both of you being from the Northwest Side and in the construction business.”

Vail didn’t look at the flyer. “Retired or not, Les, you’ve still got a pretty good eye.”

“We heard that when you were fired, it was for doing the right thing, but nobody ever got any particulars. And that bank robbery . . . well, that tells me a hell of a lot more about you than a set of credentials. I assume that any good faith I might show you will be reciprocated.”

“Just give me someone to throw through the window.”

Carson typed the account number into the computer on his desk. “The balance on that account is zero.”

“That’s good. What’s the holder’s name?”

“Donald Brown. With an address in Evanston.” Carson started writing down the information.

“Is there a phone number?”

“Yes,” Carson said.

“Let’s find out if any of this isn’t phony. Can I use your phone?” Carson pushed it toward Vail and wrote down the number for him.

“Can I ask what kind of case this is?”

“This has to stay right here. The only thing I can tell you is that it is a counterintelligence matter, at an extremely high level.” Vail dialed the number. He listened for a few seconds and hung up. “It’s a restaurant. Did this Brown withdraw the money himself?”

Carson queried the computer again. “No, all three deposits were wire-transferred out of here the day they were received.”

“To where?”

Carson hit another key. “That’s odd, it doesn’t show. That information has to be listed.”

“Does someone have to authorize those transfers?”

“Yes,” Carson said. “But the data can’t just disappear. Let me get ahold of our IT guy.” While Carson made the call, Vail wondered if he hadn’t run into another dead end.

He felt something he wasn’t used to—panic. What if he couldn’t figure this out? What if Kate went to prison? How could this be happening? He thought about what she must be going through, the confusion of being one of the top law-enforcement officials in the country and then, the next moment, a prisoner. And even if they were able to clear her, was her career over? Her competence was already being questioned because of that ridiculous suicide rumor. How could she recover from this? She must be going crazy right now. At least he was able to do something about it to keep his sanity.

He hoped she would realize that he was working on it. If only there were some way for him to get word to her that he was, but that might prove just as difficult as tracing the three-quarters of a million dollars that had seemed to vanish from the bank.

Carson said, “He’s going to trace everything through the computers. I told him to make it a priority, but it’ll be at least an hour. Come on, I’ll buy you lunch.”

When they returned, Carson called the computer analyst back. Almost immediately he started writing on a pad of paper. “Okay . . . Okay . . . Really? That’s odd. Can you trace that? . . . Okay, thanks, Tommy.” He hung up. “All three transfers out of the bank were authorized by employee code ‘13walker13.’ And it looks as if the same person wiped the transfer information from our computer.”

“What’s his name?” Vail asked.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Why?”

“That was the user ID for one of our vice presidents who retired six months ago and moved to Arizona. His access to the system was never canceled. Someone got ahold of it and used it.”

“So the Bureau sent three-quarters of a million dollars to this bank and there’s no way to track where it went.”

“The IT analyst says he doesn’t think so, but he’s going to keep at it. I have to apologize, Steve. Security at this bank is my responsibility, and obviously I’ve got some work to do.”

“Don’t disembowel yourself just yet. The people involved in this investigation are very smart and have gone to a great deal of trouble and possess unlimited resources. If it’s any consolation, I’ve been made a bigger fool than anyone. We’ll just have to get creative.”

“How?”

“Whether you’re after the lowliest of thieves or the president of the United States, what’s the one tactic that rarely fails?” Vail said.

“I don’t know, what?”

“Follow the money. Is there a phone somewhere I can use in private?”

“Use mine. I’m going to go find out how this happened.”

“Actually, if you could, leave that access in place. I think I know a way to use it.”

After Carson left the office, Vail picked up the phone and dialed John Kalix’s number.