Thorpe glanced at the photo then back at me.
“You don’t need to wait for Dan to come back. Go find them, Grale. Let’s get these bastards.”
“I’m going to focus on the bomb maker.”
“It’s your call.”
“And you’re going to back me?”
“I’m backing your track record. You’ve got more bomb-tech experience than the rest of the office combined and no one in this office is a better investigator on the street. You’re cleared to start right now, this second. Go.”
10
The conversation with Thorpe helped. I was thankful he’d thrown his umbrella over me and would keep Venuti in check as I found my investigative footing. Venuti and I usually got on pretty well together. We didn’t have an ongoing supervisor-agent tension, but he did like control, and he’d almost sidelined me. No, more than that, Dan burned me last night. He should have left me out there. His reason for pulling me wasn’t good enough. He knew it. I knew it. Thorpe knew it and stepped in. I was thinking about that when my cell rang.
“Sarah Warner, DOD, here. There’s something I forgot to tell you. Do you know the toilet called the Headwaters Casino out near the California border?”
“Sure, I like the place.”
“Ex-USAF Lieutenant Jeremy Beatty met there with a black-market arms dealer named Lucian Hayworth. That’s where all of this came from. At the time, Hayworth was attempting to buy blueprints from hackers for a small, older drone called a Raven used by our combat troops. How much do you know about drones, Grale?”
“Not enough.”
“I believe that.”
“How about you back down a little?”
She sighed and her voice slowed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to be that way. I mean that.”
“What happened at the Headwaters Casino?”
“It’s where we first came across Jeremy Beatty. He rode up on an old motorcycle, not the expensive new Italian Ducati he bought with the money Hayworth paid him, but a beat-up Harley. We had no idea who he was until he sat down with Hayworth and we ran the plates on the motorcycle. We got his name and went from there. This was on a cloudy, cold afternoon in January with wind sweeping in off the Mojave. I’m painting the scene because it was seriously cold and your friend was in jeans and a light jacket, which is behavior I associate with people high on drugs or Alzheimer’s victims.”
I remembered the cold at the end of January and into the first days of February and knew about Beatty’s disregard for his body. I could also picture the Headwaters Casino and Bar. Too many tables, bad light, watered-down drinks, but not a bad place if you wanted to meet unnoticed.
“It was obvious to us they knew each other,” she said. “Long handshake, general friendliness, ease, male crap that wouldn’t be there if they weren’t already acquainted.”
“Familiarity.”
“The waitress who served them was one of our agents. She was both wired and eavesdropping. Beatty downed three vodkas in thirteen minutes, and they talked about flying drones in Taiwan and what the similarities would be with drones Beatty had already flown.”
“Was that taped?”
“There were some problems with the taping, so it’s not clear what got said from the recording, but our agent heard enough to tie things together.”
“Who set up the meeting with Lucian Hayworth and Jeremy Beatty?”
“Edward Bahn.”
“I know Eddie Bahn. Jeremy wanted my take on Bahn when he started working with him, so we all met at a bar.”
“He’s a blowhard and a crook.”
“I wasn’t that impressed either, but he’s gotten Jeremy work. He takes a fifteen percent cut, maybe more, but it’s helped get Beatty on his feet and working again. Send me what you have on Bahn that makes him a crook. I got the blowhard part when I met him.”
I heard keys tapping. She was sending it. She continued on about this “aha” moment in the bar with Beatty and Hayworth meeting, but I wasn’t seeing it. I wanted evidence, not just association.
“I doubt Jeremy had any idea who he was meeting. Bahn probably told him where to be and to talk drones with the man they signed a contract with.”
“You make him sound na?ve.”
“About business he is. He signed up with the air force at twenty-one. Eight of the last ten years he spent in the service and two since trying to get his life back together.”
“In ten days in Taiwan he made enough to buy that bike.”
“I’d bet Bahn negotiated the payment terms.”
“When I called you an apologist for him, maybe I was too soft. Do you know what a Ducati bike sells for? Beatty could have upgraded his life if he hadn’t bought the bike. But that would have meant depositing a large cash payment into a bank, and you know the rule. Banks have to notify the IRS of any deposit ten thousand dollars or bigger. Did he tell you he got paid in cash on the Taiwan outing?”
“No.”