The Bricklayer

EIGHTEEN

KAULCRICK AND KATE ARRIVED IN THE SAME CAR. VAIL WAS HALF sitting, half leaning against the Dodge’s trunk. “You okay, Steve?” she asked before she was all the way out of the vehicle.
“I’m good.” Kaulcrick didn’t say anything but just looked at him. Vail pointed down, indicating that the assistant director should look in the trunk.
Once he did, he said, “Do you know how much is in there?”
“From its weight, I’d say roughly three million.”
Kate said, “What happened?”
Vail explained how he thought he was being followed when he dropped her off at the federal building. He didn’t mention that he had first noticed the sedan when they had left Spring Street. He explained how the confrontation between him and the dead man inside had happened.
After closing the trunk, Vail led the three of them into the house. Kaulcrick squatted over the body. “Any idea who he is?”
“I gave him a quick pat; I couldn’t find anything. He isn’t a domestic terrorist. Check his neck and arms. That’s institutional ink.”
Other FBI cars along with LAPD started arriving, shutting down their sirens as they got out. Kaulcrick said, “Kate explained about Stan Bertok, which I was having a hard time believing until you called with this. So all of this was a straight-up extortion.”
“A lot of colored smoke and strobing lights, but that would be my guess. And this guy is about the right size for Bertok’s stand-in yesterday.”
“Was he acting alone?” Kaulcrick asked.
“I don’t think so. There was a second car following me.”
“You’re sure?”
“We had a brief telephone conversation when he thought he was talking to his co-worker here. Sounded like he was the guy giving orders.”
“Well, we know it wasn’t Pendaran. Surveillance just found him coming out of the same massage parlor. Which doesn’t mean that he isn’t part of this.”
“There’s still two million dollars missing,” Vail said. “Somebody’s got it. And unfortunately, it isn’t us.”
“We’ll get this man fingerprinted and find out then who he and his friends are. Kate, take Steve back to the office so he can give his statement regarding the shooting. Give her your gun, Steve.” Vail handed it over and knew it would be gone until the investigation of the killing was completed.
When they went out to the car, Kate insisted on driving, which Vail took as not being a good sign. Once they were on the freeway, she said, “So, you first noticed we were being followed when?” Her tone indicated she knew the answer.
“I thought—possibly—we were being tailed when we left the house.”
“So you’re back to not trusting me.”
“What exactly is it that you think you missed out on?”
“I’m sure I would have been scared to death. Maybe that’s what I missed out on.”
“This case isn’t some little hothouse laboratory to see where your limits are. These animals have murdered five people so far, two of which were FBI agents. They just tried to make it three. And I’ve got a feeling they’re not done yet.”
“I can handle it.”
“You probably can, but I don’t want to be there if you can’t. You told me I do this because I can, because I’m built for it.”
“Am I that big a liability?”
“For me, everyone’s a liability. Do you think if you were in that bank with me, I would have done what I did? Instead of throwing caution to the wind, I’d be worried about you getting hurt. I can’t handle that kind of responsibility. No faces, remember?”
“What do you want me to do, sign a waiver? I need to know that I can do this. Not like you, but that my career hasn’t been some illusion fueled by affirmative action or because men find me attractive.”
Vail closed his eyes and leaned his head back onto the rest. After a few moments to let the immediacy of their emotions dissolve, he said, “Without looking at the mirrors, Kate, tell me if we’re being followed.” She looked over at him and, seeing his eyes closed, stole a glance at the rearview mirror, searching the highway behind them. Although he still hadn’t opened his eyes, she suspected that he knew she had looked. He said, “Are you still sure you want all the way in?”


VAIL’S SHOOTING STATEMENT took over three hours. He was interviewed by the office legal agent, who made him repeat the story over and over to eliminate any inconsistencies before it was reduced to writing. “Usually shooting reviews can take up to three months before a decision can be made as to whether it was justified or not,” the agent said, his voice as flat as if he were reading him his rights.
Vail laughed. He knew it was a good shooting and there were no witnesses, but what he found amusing was that by the time this decision had worked its way through the hallowed halls of the Hoover Building, he would be back laying bricks. When the agent asked him what was so funny, he waved apologetically and signed the statement without reading it.
Vail was then led to another interview room, where two detectives from the LAPD were waiting. They were given a copy of the statement. After reading it, they interrogated him for two more hours. When they were done, he headed to see Kate. He was thinking about the ride back to the office. Not a word had been spoken after his asking about being surveilled. He decided that he had been too hard on her. Whatever her reason for being angry, she was a more than capable agent, and just as important, she had not once chosen her career over his reckless resistance to all things FBI. And as unaccustomed as he was to giving in to his feelings, he liked her, probably more than he wanted to admit.
Her door was ajar and he knocked twice before walking in. She was on the phone and motioned him to come in and sit down. Behind her in the corner was a newly arrived steel safe, the kind that looked like a filing cabinet except it weighed six hundred pounds and the top drawer had a combination dial embedded in the center of it. The box containing the better part of three million dollars sat on the floor next to it.
He took off his jacket, throwing it onto a chair. There was a newspaper there and he picked it up. The front-page article was about Bertok’s suicide. He started to read it out of habit, but then remembered that between the SAC’s press release and today’s discoveries, none of it was true. He put it down. Kate glanced at him and he pursed his lips deferentially as a peace offering. A thin smile lit her eyes. After another minute she hung up. “How did it go with LAPD?”
“They didn’t say, but it didn’t seem like they were out to get anyone,” he said. “For what it’s worth, I was out of line with some of that stuff in the car.”
“And some of it you weren’t. When you get to the DAD level you become spoiled and don’t think you should be denied anything. It’s just that ever since we sent you to that tunnel to make the drop, I’ve felt like a hypocrite. Giving orders, making things happen, but not really risking anything. You could have been killed, and I was sitting in the major-case room drinking coffee. You’ve got to understand, I don’t want to feel like a phony. And every time you do something like this it makes me feel that way.”
“If there’s one thing I can spot, it’s a phony. Believe me, you’re woefully underqualified. And as far as these situations, when they come up, I never know what’s going to happen. I never have a plan or calculate the odds of surviving or anything else. It just works out. One day it probably won’t. Maybe that’s why I don’t mind being a bricklayer. A surprisingly small number of us get shot. At least not on the job.”
She smiled and took another Glock automatic out of her desk drawer, the same model as the one he had surrendered. She handed it to him. “I went down to the firearms vault and drew this for you.”
“And I didn’t get you anything. How about I buy dinner?”
“You’re on, but it’s probably going to have to be carryout. We got an ID on the guy who spent the last two days shooting at you—Lee Davis Salton. Recent graduate of the Marion Federal Correction Institution. Long list of bank robberies, plus a particularly nasty little kidnapping in which a man hired him to torture and maim his wife without killing her. Wanted her to suffer for a long time, I guess. I don’t know how these people find one another. Plus, just before Salton got out, they liked him for killing an inmate named Michael Vashon, but they couldn’t make the case. The prison is e-mailing photos of his social circle. Hopefully one of them will be your contestant number two.”
“I wish I had gotten a look at him.”
“The names will be a starting point anyway,” she said.
“How’s Kaulcrick reacting to all this?”
“I don’t think he’s had time to feel bad about it. On the one hand, he’s got three million dollars of the Bureau’s money back. On the other hand, it wasn’t him who recovered it. He can’t even claim he directed the operation. So I think he’s attempting to find some redemption in proving Pendaran is involved. They’ve completed a factory trace of that barrel found in Bertok’s Glock. It was part of a shipment that went to a gun shop in Lynwood, California, on April 21 this year. It was sold to an individual named Galvin Gawl.”
Vail could tell by the sway of her speech that the surprise ending she was apparently building up to was going to point to someone known to them. “Who is?”
“Don’t rush my big finish. We checked Bureau indices and there is a Galvin Gawl. Turns out it’s a former undercover identity for Vince Pendaran.” Vail didn’t have any apparent reaction. “Okay, what’s wrong now?”
“What’s Kaulcrick doing with this?”
“Like you said, surveillance, and I’m sure he’s getting search warrants. You’re the guy who came up with Pendaran. Now you don’t think it’s him?”
“Pendaran was not the second guy in the Honda, remember?”
“So maybe he’s part of the group. Is this just you being contrary or is it because an assistant director is calling the shots?”
He smiled. “You read my file. Did it mention anything about me working well with others?”
“Wait a minute. You’re not afraid of Kaulcrick beating you; you’re using Pendaran as a stalking horse.”
“A stalking horse?”
“You want it to look like the FBI is biting on Pendaran so you can look somewhere else.”
“Next time I’m asking for a deputy assistant director who spends more time shoe shopping,” Vail said. “It has to appear to whoever’s left in this gang that the official FBI is buying the Pendaran strategy so we can sneak around and try to figure out who’s who. These people are too smart, too well informed, for us to try and fake that.”
“We? Meaning I’m back to keeping things from my boss.”
“If career is your choice, all you have to do is go see Kaulcrick and tell him that I’m sandbagging him. No hard feelings. It’s your call.”
Kate considered the offer for a moment. “Tell me, what are you going to do next?”
“Sorry, no hedging of bets. With every turn of this, there are fewer people to trust with information. What I need right now is some blind loyalty. Either you’re all the way in, or all the way out.”
Kate sank back in her chair and sighed. “Why not? I’ve probably already been promoted beyond my level of incompetence.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to go. Don called a meeting that started five minutes ago. He told me to bring you along if you were done with your statement.”
“Tell him I’m not done yet.”
“And you’ll be—what—here brooding?”
“I like to think of it as post-shoot-out quiet time.”
“You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then I should go.”
Vail went over to the small table he used as a desk and picked up his laptop.
“Where are you going?”
“To the hotel. I’m going to reread the entire file.”
“Why?”
“The first time I read it, I was looking for Bertok. It’ll be interesting to see if I can find anything behind all the misdirection.”
Kate said, “You’ve got to admit, it was pretty impressive how they set him up.”
“It was, and it also gave them one very large additional benefit. Five million dollars all in one shot was a lot to expect the Bureau to pay, so they made it look like one of our own took off with two million. Then their request for three million to stop the killings didn’t seem all that unreasonable,” Vail said. “They definitely know what they’re doing. They don’t just come up with a scheme and stick to it. They continually tweak their plan, changing it on the fly. They find a chink in our armor and exploit it in the next step.”
“I guess we’re pretty lucky to get the three million dollars back.”
“Speaking of which, are you going to leave it there?” Vail asked.
“Oh God, I forgot about it. A couple of the accountants were supposed to come up and count it, but they’re all on some fraud special, so it might be a day or two before they can get to it. That’s why they brought the safe up. I checked a few of the serial numbers and they are from the tunnel drop. I guess we shouldn’t leave that much money lying around.” Opening her desk drawer, she took out a piece of paper and handed it to him. “Here’s the combination. Would you mind?”
He looked at the numbers and handed it back to her. “If it’s not here when you get back, promise you’ll give me a twenty-four-hour head start.”
A strand of hair had fallen over her face. With a coffee cup in one hand and a notebook in the other, she tried to blow it to one side. “Only if you promise to send for me.”