Kirk Russell - Counterfeit Road

‘I’ll call you back.’

‘We’re headed to his house when we leave here, but we’re going to be here awhile.’

Two cars pulled over and people spilled out to check out where the column of black smoke was coming from. A man hustled over.

‘What happened? Did you call for help?’

Raveneau nodded and far in the distance were sirens. He stepped away. He got Elizabeth out of the car and walked with her fifty yards down the road away from the smoke into the sunlight and warm breeze blowing upslope. He talked with her. He called Becker before the locals showed and a detective about an hour later. The detective wanted la Rosa’s statement without Raveneau listening in. He asked for her gun. As Raveneau waited he took a call from Coe.

‘We’re having trouble reaching our agent out of the Kona office.’

‘I thought he was getting backup hours ago.’

‘They got delayed.’

‘Casey will have an escape hatch. He’s not going to wait. I think he sent Frank after us. It’s why he gave us Ito’s name. He knew we’d come back on the Saddle Road.’

‘Our agents are going to go ahead and search the house.’

‘I figured you would. We’ll see you there.’

Casey’s ranch house was fully lit when Raveneau and la Rosa arrived and there was nowhere to park near the house or in the clearing in front of the barn. Raveneau backed up to the fork leading to Jim Frank’s house. He parked their car between the trees and they walked the broken asphalt road back down to the ranch house.

The FBI special agent in charge of the search was out of Oahu and had flown over in the late afternoon. His name was Carl Norris. He sat out on the porch with them and directed his questions at Raveneau as la Rosa listened. Special Agent Han and his vehicle were missing. So was Casey. Raveneau listened then said, ‘We got rough directions today from a woman we interviewed to a large former sugar plantation that Casey owns. It may be under a corporate name and he may be there.’

‘We’re pretty sure he’s off the island.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘It’s an ongoing investigation.’

‘How long has that been going on?’

‘I can’t say.’

‘All right, well, the plantation still needs to be checked.’ Raveneau glanced at la Rosa, adding, ‘We’ll go there.’

‘I want agents to go with you.’

‘We want to see what you’ve found first. What’s in the boxes your agents are carrying out?’

‘Desktop computers, other documents, we’ll go through in the field office. We appreciate everything you’ve done, but we’ve got enough agents inside. If you want to drive roads and look for his vehicle we’d appreciate any effort you make.’

Raveneau walked down the steps and moved away from the floodlights into darkness to call Coe.

‘I know what I’m looking for, they don’t.’

‘Put Norris on.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘Not really, but I know what he’s working on.’

‘OK, hold on.’

Raveneau walked back and handed Norris his phone. After listening to Coe for a few moments Norris walked out of earshot. When he returned he handed the phone to Raveneau and said, ‘You can go in and you can watch, but we don’t need help with the search. It makes more sense for you to lead our agents to this sugar plantation you talked about.’

‘Show us what you’ve found.’

‘Most of it’s packed up. We’re almost done.’

Raveneau went inside anyway. They were in the lanai when agents opened a locked waterproof cabinet in an out building near the barn. In it he’d found two laptops and four handguns.

‘What do you think?’ la Rosa asked quietly.

‘Let’s go see what they found in the cabinet and then try to find the sugar plantation.’

He talked to Coe again as they waited outside the building where the laptops were found.

‘We’re going to move on,’ he told Coe. ‘We’ll help look for the missing special agent, but there are a couple more things we should talk about first. We interviewed a woman today who ID’ed Krueger’s killer from photos Matt Frank sent his half brother via Facebook. This woman lived with Jim Frank from 1987 to 1991. She saw this man a half dozen times. He was young. His connection was Alan Krueger. She gave me a name for him, but also said she’s bad with names. The name she gave me was Colin Gray. She’s sure of the first name but hazy about the Gray. She thought he was working with Krueger and that he worked for the government. Can you do anything with that?’

‘That’s sketchy.’

‘You aren’t hearing me. This is who shot Alan Krueger and she thinks he was working for our government. Casey pointed us toward her. If he hadn’t given us her name we wouldn’t have driven to the other end of the island.’

‘He sent you that direction so he could ambush you with Matt Frank.’

‘That’s what I think too but I don’t think that became a plan until after we met with him this morning. What’s going on with the FBI? Why is the FBI looking at Casey?’

‘Ben, I can’t keep up with this. You’re jumping around and I’m exhausted.’

‘OK, set that aside, and listen to this. Andrew Fine the blogger who broke the bomb story has a source in Washington, someone he’s known since college. I keep asking myself why it’s in the source’s interest to feed Fine the bomb casing story.’

‘Fine probably lied about his source. It’s more likely someone local.’

‘I don’t think he lied to us, but I think we need to know his source. We fly home tomorrow. I’ll go back to Fine but I might ask your help if I get more from him.’

‘I don’t know what you’re seeing, but I can’t follow you right now.’

‘Talk to you later.’

Raveneau and la Rosa followed the laptops back to the main house and hovered as an agent powered them up and got stuck for lack of a password. He asked Norris if he could try to get in.

‘Why don’t you just give us what you think the password might be?’

‘Let me try.’

The agents hovered over him and Raveneau remembered Casey preaching simplicity. Casey told him he used computers but sparingly. He believed they had weakened the character of the American people, dampening their independence and self-reliance.

He typed in several passwords that didn’t work and as the agents gradually lost interest he signaled la Rosa. She started talking, asking questions of both agents, touching one on the sleeve as Raveneau pulled a sixteen gig memory stick from his pocket and slid it into the computer in front of him. He typed Jericho into the password box. The screen changed and he angled the computer away from the agent and found his way to the files. He copied. He pulled the memory stick. He moved to the next computer as la Rosa recounted the directions to the sugar plantation.

Raveneau slipped the memory stick back into his pocket. It didn’t feel right to do that, but he knew it was their last chance. He stood then interrupted the conversation, saying, ‘I got in.’

‘What do you mean you got in?’

‘Write this down. The password is Jericho.’

Raveneau knew later they wouldn’t be given any access at all. If there was information on the computers that pertained to their murder investigation they’d be informed and given sanitized copies. They might even be asked to submit a request for information, but that was the tension the country faced with terrorist threats. We give up our freedoms in the name of national security or we keep the society more open. Raveneau had heard the argument both ways and stood with those who said it was better to protect the freedoms. He saw in the eyes of the agent who took possession of the laptops again the confident authority that was becoming habit.