The Bricklayer

TWENTY-TWO

VAIL LEANED ON THE FENDER OF THEIR RENTED CAR AND WATCHED Kate come out of the hotel entrance. Her gait was measured and she listed a little to the left. He opened the passenger door for her. “Did you check your stitches?”
“No more blood on the bandages. How did you make out with LAPD last night?”
“They were pretty decent about it. I was there two, two and a half hours. They want to get your statement today.”
Once she was in the car, Vail went around and got behind the wheel. “How’d you sleep?”
“Off and on. I was pretty wired up,” she said.
“I’m usually the same way when I knife and shoot a guy.”
She tried not to laugh. “How’d you sleep?”
“Fine, until the two a.m. messenger arrived.”
“The two a.m. messenger?”
“It’s when I go to bed with something on my mind. Sometimes my brain does the work and wakes me up, usually at two a.m.”
“With the answer?”
“Always with an answer; sometimes it’s even the right one.”
“Can’t you make your mind do that during daylight hours?”
“Usually not. It has this obstinacy. I know, I know—where could that possibly come from?”
Kate held her side. “Please don’t make me laugh.” She straightened up. “And what problem did it resolve this time? Was it the same one that was bothering you when that elevator exploded last night?”
“Actually, the elevator exploding was my problem.”
“You don’t think that was meant for us?” she asked.
“Only if we survived the shoot-out. I think there’s a high probability it was meant to take out whoever survived. Otherwise, why didn’t it explode on the way up?”
“I don’t understand. I thought it was Radek who was killed in the explosion.”
“The legal agent met me over at LAPD last night so I could give both statements at once. He said that the body was so badly damaged that they might have to go to DNA to identify it. If they can even come up with Radek’s DNA from other sources. He wanted to know if I had any ideas, which I didn’t.”
“So it’ll take a while, so what? It’s not like he’s going anywhere.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what? You don’t think it’s him?”
“We have to consider the possibility. You have to admit he’s no dummy. Why would he get in an elevator knowing once it started down, it was going to blow up?”
“Maybe it was an accident. You shot him twice. Maybe he’s not as smart with a couple of bullets in him.”
“Maybe.”
“Do you ever get the feeling that the two a.m. messenger is just screwing with you?”
“Almost always,” Vail said.
“I got a call first thing this morning,” Kate said. “There’s a briefing in the major-case room at ten a.m. Maybe it’ll put some of your demons to rest.”
“Who called you?” Vail asked.
“Some clerk. It wasn’t Kaulcrick, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I imagine your boss is not pleased with our lack of sharing.”
“A deputy assistant director wounded in a shoot-out with murderers? He can’t land on me with both feet. Not today anyway.”
“You know what your real sin is? When you guys go back to Washington, you’ll have the better stories at cocktail parties.”
“And all I had to do was get shot.”
“But do I get thanked?”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And since you’re being gracious, what do you say I take you out to dinner tonight? Out out, not something that comes in cardboard containers.”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“Do you want to take me to dinner, or is this something you do for all the women who get shot around you?”
“Usually I just drop them off at the emergency room and keep going.”
“When you make me feel that special, how could I not accept.”
They pulled up to the federal building and could see that both the front and garage entrances were swarming with reporters and their news vans. “If I let you off at the corner, do you think you can sneak by the media without stopping to show them the bullet holes?”
“I’d be lying if I said yes.”


WHEN VAIL AND KATE walked into the major-case room, a smattering of applause erupted. There was nowhere left to sit, but a couple of agents got up and offered Kate their seat. Vail said, “This is typical. Where’s my chair? I shot somebody, too.”
Kaulcrick and the SAC were at the front of the room. “Okay, if we could have everyone’s attention,” Hildebrand said. Everyone turned toward them. “As I’m sure most of you know, last night, Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon and Steve Vail were involved in a shoot-out with three of the individuals who were responsible for the murders of five people, two of whom were our own. Assistant Director Kaulcrick and I feel that these three men along with Lee Davis Salton, who was recently killed, and Vince Pendaran made up the group calling itself the Rubaco Pentad, which was responsible for extorting five million dollars from the United States government. Sewed into the lining of the jackets of two of the men were false IDs. Through prints, we discovered their true identities, Wallace David Simms and James William Hudson. Both of them, along with Lee Davis Salton, were convicted bank robbers who served time together in the federal prison at Marion, Illinois.
“We believe the fifth man, the one killed in the elevator explosion, was Victor James Radek, the leader of the group, also incarcerated with the others at Marion. Unfortunately the body was so badly damaged by the blast, we’re having trouble positively identifying him. Along with the phony identification, we found about ten thousand dollars on both Simms and Hudson. All hundred-dollar bills. The serial numbers matched those from the extortion. Also in the lining of their coats, Simms and Hudson each had deposit slips from a New Hampshire bank in the amount of six hundred thousand dollars. After we recovered three million dollars two days ago, that left two million to be split three ways, since Pendaran is in custody. Which, with the amounts already recovered, would come to roughly six hundred thousand a man.”
Don Kaulcrick stepped forward. “As you can imagine, we were pretty excited about finding out where the bulk of the remaining money was, so we contacted the Boston office, who rousted out the bank’s president in the middle of the night. He found that the slips were indeed from his bank, but the account numbers were phonies. It turns out the slips were forgeries. So it seemed we were back to square one. But we did have some good fortune. Tracing phone numbers that were called from a cell phone we found on Simms’s body, we were able to locate an apartment Victor Radek was using. A search of that apartment revealed the blank deposit slips that he used in preparing the forgeries. There was also another cell phone in the apartment. We’re presently pulling those records. Keep your fingers crossed. We have two evidence teams there right now processing the entire place. Radek was originally from New Hampshire, so he could have had connections at that bank. The Boston office is looking into it. We are working under the assumption that Radek was looking to eliminate his partners, and at the same time, a couple more FBI agents. We figure he gave the members of his gang the deposit slips to convince them that their share had been deposited for them. Then whoever survived the gun battle, whether it was his people or ours, was supposed to die in the elevator.”
Someone asked, “Then why did he use the elevator?”
Hildebrand said, “We asked the same question. So we had Sergeant Mike Henning from the LAPD bomb squad give us a hand at the scene as he did at the tunnel drop. Mike.”
Henning stood up from a front-row seat. “The device was really overkill, so we’re having trouble reconstructing the triggering mechanism. It was wired to the floor-button panel, so we think there may have been a way to disarm it from inside the elevator car, something as simple as a three- or four-digit code typed into the panel. Either it malfunctioned or the person we believe is Radek, having been shot in the leg and hand, forgot the code, or maybe he simply panicked and punched in the wrong one. Steve Vail fired a shot into the elevator just as the doors were closing. Maybe the shot fatally wounded him. It could be a week or more before we have a better idea.” Henning wrote his pager number on the board. “I strongly suggest you call me before executing any more search or arrest warrants in this case. These people have a history of booby-trapping everything. You’re aware of the tunnel and the elevator. And I understand that Kate and Steve ran into a car that had its trunk rigged, so don’t hesitate to call.” Henning shot a smile at Kate as he sat down.
“One other thing we found at Radek’s apartment,” Hildebrand said, “was a complete set of identification in the name of William Thompson, no middle initial. Since Radek convinced the others that the money had been deposited in a bank under aliases, we feel there’s a possibility that he has all of it stowed in a bank under that alias either in accounts or in a safety-deposit box or boxes. So ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to wear out some shoe leather. We’re sending out instructions to every office in the Bureau to contact every bank. Our division will be searching most of Southern California, unless someone feels they have a better idea.” When no one spoke up, Hildebrand said, “Okay, see your supervisors for assignments.”
Kate looked back at Vail and sensed that the briefing had not answered all his questions. Kaulcrick walked up to them. “Kate, how are you feeling?”
“I’m fine, Don.”
“LAPD homicide is in the SAC’s conference room. They’re going to need your statement.”
She got up slowly and said to Vail, “I hope you didn’t rat me out.”
“Yeah, like you’re not about to give me up.”
When she was gone, Kaulcrick said, “I need to talk to you, Steve. How about in Kate’s office in a half hour?”
Vail couldn’t tell what the assistant director had in mind. That he wanted to talk to him alone was probably not a good sign. At least it had never been in the past. There usually came a point with Vail when enough had been accomplished, and the unfinished balance wasn’t worth the disruption of having him around. That time may have arrived.
“I wouldn’t miss it.”


WHEN KAULCRICK WALKED IN, he found Vail sitting behind Kate’s desk, pushing 9mm rounds into a magazine for an older-model Sig Sauer automatic that was sitting on the desk beside him. He had just drawn it from the firearm vault. Kaulcrick sat down and Vail set the clip aside. “So what’s up?”
“I’m wondering why you and I are never on the same page.”
“Don, if you’re going to cut me loose, I understand. I’m the one who predicted it, remember? So let’s skip the hand-wringing search for the reasons.”
“Nobody’s cutting you loose. I am genuinely curious why you don’t come to me when you find something.”
“We told you about Pendaran, and we called you last night, but things just got out of hand when it looked like an agent was in trouble.”
Kaulcrick smiled and shook his head slowly. “In both instances, you were conducting your own investigation and called only when you couldn’t take it any further. Steve, I just want the truth.”
“Do you want me to be honest? Before you answer, think about it.”
Kaulcrick was sitting with his legs crossed and tapped his index finger on his thigh in brief contemplation. “Yes, I do.”
“Okay,” Vail said. “The FBI’s large bureaucratic structure, especially in this case, is what the Pentad targeted. Knowing how you did things, they were able to use it to their advantage. Recognizing this, I let you follow the Pentad script of false leads to lull them into a false sense of security. With them thinking the Bureau was falling for it, I was able to work behind the scenes and find a few of their weak spots.”
“So we were nothing more than a decoy for you.”
“You were following the logical leads. Which had to be done.”
“I don’t like being a decoy.”
“No one does.”
“And given the least provocation, you’d do it again, wouldn’t you?” Vail shrugged, implying he wouldn’t contest the assistant director’s assumption. “Can you think of any circumstance that would allow us to work together to find this money?”
“I was brought into this precisely because I am not a team player.”
“What if I found a way to make you want to work with me?”
“I’d be interested in hearing it.”
“What if I developed the best lead to recover the money?”
Vail laughed. “Then why would you come to me?”
Kaulcrick smiled caustically. “I said ‘developed the lead,’ not that I had figured it out completely.”
“You found something at Radek’s apartment.”
“Yes.”
When Kaulcrick didn’t say anything else, Vail said, “Am I supposed to guess?”
“No, I’ll tell you on one condition.”
“Which is?”
“I’m with you every step of the way.”
“How good a lead is it?”
“Does it matter?”
“No, I guess not,” Vail said. “Agreed.”
Kaulcrick handed him a clear plastic evidence envelope with a slip of blue paper inside. On it was written: “2M-8712.”
Vail looked at it and turned it over, finding the back side blank. “Is that the same paper as the death notes, the tablet that was planted at Bertok’s?”
“It looks the same. We found it hidden in a book that was on a shelf over his desk.”
“And no one has any idea what it means?”
“None. But it’s got to be important. Why else hide it like that?”
Vail didn’t answer right away. “The first demand note had the amount written out in numbers. The second note shorthanded the three million dollars as a dollar sign with a 3 and an M. The 2M could mean two million dollars.”
“What about the four numbers? Could they be an address, like he knows the street but wants to make sure he remembers the numbers correctly?” Kaulcrick asked.
“Possibly, but he knew how to get there, and it’s unlikely that he would trust anyone else enough to send them to get the money.”
“On the off chance it is an address, I could get some analysts to start running through the reverse directories just looking for those four digits.”
“This is a big city. There could be a hundred of them,” Vail said. “What was on the desk?”
“At his apartment? Just a cell phone in a charger.”
“Since he was keeping the piece of paper that close to the phone, it could be a phone number.”
“But it’s only four numbers.”
“Salton had a cell on him, and at least one of those guys last night had a phone. And I saw one in a charger at that house where we found the Honda. They’re probably all throwaways with the preloaded minutes. Why don’t we try all the exchanges on them with 8712?”
“If you’re right and we wind up with a dead guy’s cell phone number, how’s that give us a location?”
“One thing at a time. Let me get Tom Demick up here. Can you have someone bring us those three phones?”
A half hour later Demick sat at Kate’s desk examining the three cell phones, scrolling through Menu options. He wrote down their phone numbers. Two of them had the same exchange. Vail then turned one phone on and dialed it from Kate’s desktop landline. It rang four times before a beep sounded without a greeting to leave a message. He hung up and dialed one of the phones that was not turned on. It rang once before the beep. He then dialed the exchange of the two that matched followed by 8712. He held the phone away from his ear so the other two men could hear. “The number you have dialed is no longer in service.” He dialed again, this time using the other cell phone exchange followed by the same four digits. He held it out as it rang four times before the beep. “It’s turned on.” He looked at Demick. “So far, so good.”
“I don’t get it,” Kaulcrick said.
“If this is the number Radek was referring to in the coded note, it means the phone is still turned on, hopefully on a charger like the one they found at his apartment and at the house where he had his car. Correct me if I’m wrong, Tom,” Vail said, “but as long as it’s turned on, we can ping this number.”
“We should be able to.”
Now Kaulcrick understood. “So the cell’s GPS, which they’re all equipped with for emergencies, will tell us where the phone is located.”
“Tom, can you get the phone company moving? We’ll get Tye Delson on the court order and search warrant. All we’ll need is the address,” Vail said.
As everyone stood up, Kate’s phone rang. Vail answered it. “It’s for you,” he said, handing it to the assistant director.
Kaulcrick listened for a while. “A complete match, both prints and DNA…excellent.” He hung up. “That was Hildebrand. When they processed Radek’s apartment, the only identifiable prints they found were his, which were everywhere. They also took a few items for a possible DNA match, including his toothbrush. The agents ran everything over to the state lab, and they just confirmed that the prints were Radek’s and his DNA was a match with the body from the elevator. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the money is at this phone number.”