“What does that have to do with Fritz?”
“I’ll get there,” Trip said. “Just follow me. NorthPoint was a privately owned company until 1997 when they went public. They needed investor money, and they got it. Allowed them to push through R and D in several areas, get more contracts with Uncle Sam, and become a major player. I couldn’t find any financials on NorthPoint before ’ninety-seven—one of the privileges of being a privately owned company up to that point—but I was able to find budget info for them after they went public. And in 2000, they had one curious item: a three-hundred-thousand-dollar increase in payment to Alliance, a private detective firm in Reston, Virginia.”
I tamped down my irritation and played along. “So they hired private detectives,” I said. “What’s the big deal?”
“Why would a security company earning millions of dollars a year hire private detectives?” Trip asked. “They’d have their own guys. Why hire outside people?” He looked at me encouragingly, but I shrugged, not getting it. “Corporate espionage,” Trip said. “Companies spying on companies, stealing trade secrets, research, technology. This isn’t like Pepsi trying to steal Coke’s formula, though. This is one IT company trying to steal another IT company’s latest project so they can develop it. Problem is, the latest project is a government contract, which means money and power and—if the wrong people get their hands on the project—maybe even a threat to national security. So companies like these will hire private detectives to dig up dirt on competitors, or find out who leaked details about the new gizmo to another company. In December of 2000, NorthPoint’s budget for private detective services spiked.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Don’t know. Which is why I called Captain Cooper.” Trip turned to Diamond with a light flourish. For his part, Diamond just sat in his chair, shoulders back, feet flat on the floor, hands resting on his knees. “He’s involved in military intel,” Trip continued. “Which is why he’s very clear about what he will and will not share.”
I shook my head. “The Marines are involved in . . . spying? I thought that was the CIA.”
Diamond snorted. “Every service branch has an intelligence service,” he said. “Army, navy, air force, coast guard. And most definitely the Corps.”
Trip leaned forward. “Matthias, this goes beyond the military or organizations like the CIA. There’s an entire community in America that thrives on top-secret work. And when I say community, I’m not talking about some secret town in the desert. I’m talking about more than a thousand government organizations, two thousand private companies.”
I took this in for a second. “Private companies like NorthPoint,” I said.
Diamond and Trip both nodded. It was Diamond’s turn to sit forward. “NorthPoint works with the Corps, the navy, NSA, DIA,” he said. “Cyber ops is one area they’re involved in.”
“Cyber ops?”
“Cyber operations,” Diamond said. “Digital espionage and warfare. Imagine attacking an enemy through his computer network, crippling his communications, his logistics. Or stealing intel by hacking into his database. Designing defenses to keep others from doing the same to your computer systems. That’s one area NorthPoint is into, big-time. Add in surveillance technology, satellite imagery, technical intelligence of all kinds, and NorthPoint is a player. Upward of a billion dollars in revenue a year.”
Stubbornly, I said, “I still don’t see what this has to do with Fritz.”
Diamond held up a finger, as if shushing me. “Three months before Fritz disappeared, NorthPoint dropped a lot of cash on private detectives. More than twice what they’d ever spent before.”
“That doesn’t mean the two are connected.”
“True,” Diamond said. “It’s simply a point of reference.” Now he held up two fingers. “Point number two,” he said. “After Fritz goes missing, the feds get involved. Then one week later, they drop it. That didn’t make sense to me. Your deputy friend was right—the FBI doesn’t get involved and then just walk away. So I talked to a buddy of mine at Justice, ex-marine. He did some digging and told me that the Davenports called an old friend of theirs at the FBI, two days after Fritz went missing. Friend’s name is Jeff Jacobsen. He was assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division. Soon after that, the FBI shows up at Blackburne.”
I was growing frustrated. “Diamond, we already know they called the FBI.”
Diamond shook his head. “Not they, Matthias. It was Mary Davenport who called.”
I frowned. “Mrs. Davenport? Fritz’s mother?”
Now Trip spoke. “Jacobsen wasn’t just an old family friend. He dated a girl named Mary Gillespie in college. She broke up with Jacobsen to go out with another classmate, Frank Davenport. And now she’s Fritz’s mother.”
I stared at him. “Exactly how much did you find out about the Davenports?”
Trip shrugged. “You asked me to dig. I dug.”
I got up off the bed and started pacing around. I’d discovered while teaching that I liked to do this when I thought, especially out loud. “Okay, so what? Mrs. Davenport calls up an old boyfriend at the FBI. Makes sense. Her son’s missing. I’d do the same thing.”
Diamond looked at me. “It was Fritz’s dad who called Jacobsen back and told him to drop it.”
I stopped pacing and sat down on the bed again. I felt I needed something solid underneath me. “Mrs. Davenport calls an old boyfriend to ask for help in finding her son,” I said slowly, “and within a week her husband calls the same guy and tells him to stop looking. Why the fuck would he do that?”
“Had to be difficult for both of them,” Trip said. “Mary Davenport calls up Jacobsen, who she dumped in college, and asks him for help finding her son, and then Frank Davenport calls Jacobsen and tells him to quit helping.”
“Why would Jacobsen listen to Davenport?” I asked.
“Money,” Diamond said. “NorthPoint had a contract with the FBI to help them upgrade their IT systems, which sucked, frankly. Jacobsen ran the cyber division, so he was in charge of managing the contract on the FBI’s end.”
“So, what, Davenport threatened to break the contract?”
Trip gave a wry grin. “Nothing like blackmailing the FBI,” he said. “And it worked. Would’ve cost millions if NorthPoint had walked away and the FBI had to start over. Jacobsen would’ve been demoted or fired.”
I stared. “You have proof of all this, I’m assuming.”
Trip snorted. “Legal proof, as in court of law? Not a chance. But it’s what happened, or something close to it. I’ve got my own sources at Justice that confirm what Diamond found out.”