The mention of Kim Yong Jin’s name had also added a new dimension.
Kim had been groomed from birth to assume hereditary control of North Korea. He married young and fathered several children. Gambling was most likely an addiction, as was alcohol. After an incident in Japan with forged passports, his father had publicly proclaimed that his eldest son possessed less-than-reliable judgment. That insult had not only branded Kim a failure, but by implication meant that his two half brothers were the dependable ones. Eventually the military had thrown its support to one of Kim’s siblings and the succession was assured. Kim left North Korea and now lived in Macao, a regular at the casinos, the rest of his time spent in and around China. Reports noted him as gifted in the arts and uninterested in politics. He had a passion for film and wrote scripts and short stories, a familiar figure at Japanese movie houses. He was regarded as knowledgeable of the world, appreciative of technology, maybe even open-minded, but no danger. Little to nothing had been heard from him in a long time.
But something had changed.
Enough that Kim Yong Jin had appeared on Treasury’s radar screen.
They entered the courthouse and passed through security, the guard directing them to one of the upper floors. She knew what awaited there. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, tasked with overseeing all surveillance warrant requests against suspected spies working inside the United States. Most of those applications came from the NSA or the FBI, but Stephanie had appeared before the court on several occasions for the Magellan Billet.
“Treasury seems to have been busy,” Harriett said as they stepped into the elevator.
“Did you know they were appearing before the court?”
The Justice Department normally prepared all warrant applications and its lawyers argued them. But sometimes the agencies employed their own counsel.
“This is all news to me,” Harriett said.
The court had been created thirty-five years ago, its eleven judges appointed by the chief justice of the United States. One judge was always on call, the proceedings conducted in secret, at all hours of the day and night, behind closed doors. Records were kept, but stayed classified. A few years ago an order from this court was leaked to the press by a man named Edward Snowden. In it a subsidiary of Verizon had been compelled to provide a daily feed to the NSA of all telephone records, including domestic calls. The backlash from that revelation had been loud, so much that cries for reform had gained momentum. Eventually, though, the rancor died and the court returned to business. She knew this to be a place friendly to intelligence agencies and the statistics were overwhelming. Since 1978, 34,000 requests for surveillance had been submitted. Only eleven had ever been denied, less than 500 of those modified. No surprise, really, considering the bias of the judges, the level of secrecy, and the lack of any adversarial relationships. This was a place where government got what it wanted, when it wanted it.
The secretary of Treasury was waiting for them when they stepped from the elevator. The white marble corridor was dimly lit, no one else in sight.
Joseph Levy had the good fortune both to have been born in Tennessee and to have become friends with then-governor Danny Daniels. He earned a PhD in economics from the University of Tennessee and a juris doctorate from Georgetown. He taught for a decade at the graduate level and was in line to become head of the World Bank, but he chose instead to serve in Daniels’ cabinet. He was the only one of the original group from the first term still around. Most of the others had moved on to the private sector, cashing in on their good fortune.
“Are you making your own warrant applications now?” Harriett asked.
“I know you’re pissed. But I had to do it on this one.”
“So help me, Joe. You’re going to explain yourself or I’m going straight to the White House.”
Now Stephanie realized why her boss had included her. It was no secret that the president showed the Magellan Billet favor. Her agents had been involved with all of the hot issues from the past few years, including a foiled assassination attempt on Danny Daniels himself. So her just being here was enough for the secretary of Treasury to know that whatever he expected to remain secret was about to change.
“We both seem to have stumbled onto the same players, only in a different game,” he said. “We’ve been watching Larks and Kim Yong Jin for a couple of months now.”
“You monitored their calls?” Harriett asked.
The secretary nodded. “We started with domestic warrants on Larks’ phone. But once Kim made contact from overseas, we obtained more warrants. They’ve been communicating regularly, and all of this involves that fugitive your U.S. attorney in Alabama is searching for.”
“How do you know about Howell?”
“I read the Magellan Billet reports.”
“Which you could have simply asked for,” Stephanie said.
The secretary tossed her a glare. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t.”
She wasn’t going to relent. “Yet here we are, talking about all of it now.”
Annoyance flooded the man’s face, but he kept his cool. “That’s right. I admit, I have a problem. Some of our long-lost secrets have found the light of day.”
“I hope you’re going to explain more than that,” Harriett said.
“Follow me.”
He led them down the hall to a wood-paneled door. Inside was a brightly lit conference room adorned with a long dark table lined on all sides with black leather chairs.
“The judge is waiting on me. We have a surveillance-warrant application that we need processed tonight. I told him the attorney general herself would be coming by and I had to speak to her first. He agreed to give us a little time. You should read something.”