Kirk Russell - Counterfeit Road

They drove about ten miles and were back behind Hawi searching in the dark with their headlights. It took forty minutes and a lot of backtracking to find the long graveled road running in to a large white-painted house with a metal roof. Moments later the headlights caught the unmarked sedan.

The agent with them shined a flashlight inside. Blood splatter. He followed the blood then moved the light abruptly to the back seat. Empty.

Raveneau asked the FBI agent if he’d ever been part of a homicide investigation and the agent said, ‘Just one.’ Raveneau took charge. He and la Rosa looked at the blood smeared on the passenger seat and on the door and then worked the area around the car with the light, looking at the drag marks.

‘I’m going to pop the trunk,’ Raveneau said and located the trunk release before leaning in through the open driver’s window. He knew what they were going to find and he and la Rosa stayed with Han’s body as the FBI agent called it in.

Raveneau texted Fine then called him and called again when he didn’t answer.

‘This is why I don’t trust the police,’ Fine said as he finally picked up.

‘Just hear me out. I’m in Hawaii on the north end of the Big Island and I don’t have much time.’

‘This is when I work. I’m trying to write tomorrow’s blog.’

‘What are you writing about?’

‘The President.’

‘Did you get a new hot tip?’

‘Inspector, what is it you need?’

‘I need you to call me on a cell phone that’s not yours. Use your wife’s phone and make the call from outside your house.’

‘Have you been drinking?’

‘No, I’m serious.’

‘OK, then give me your phone number. Your call came in as restricted so I don’t have it.’

Raveneau read off the number then hung up. Except for a dog wandering past the town of Hawi was still and dark. La Rosa was at the plantation house with the FBI. He drove here for better phone reception and it still wasn’t very good. When Fine called back he said he was outside in the garden and it was cold.

‘Is your blog tomorrow a hot tip on the President’s travel plans?’

‘It is and how did you know?’

‘Tell me what you know.’

‘The trip is back on minus the San Francisco stop. He’ll attend a fund-raiser in Hollywood and the day after tomorrow visit a new solar plant being built in the Mojave Desert. That plant will be the biggest in the world when it’s finished. It’ll double the energy we get from solar.’

‘Is this coming from your Washington source?’

‘This isn’t the deal we struck.’

‘All right, tell me this,’ and Raveneau knew he would, ‘how much ahead of the cable networks are you?’

‘At least six hours.’

‘What does it do for the Owlseye to beat them?’

‘It keeps the White House from controlling the timing and spin.’

‘Leaves the White House off balance?’

‘It’s a democracy.’

Raveneau turned that a moment. Leaked travel plans wouldn’t affect the Secret Service. Might annoy them but wouldn’t affect their planning. He was about to brush past it and lay out the chain of events for Fine, and then it hit him.

‘You’re ahead of the cable networks by six hours?’

‘That’s a guess, but what’s up? I can’t stay on the phone and I’m freezing my ass out here.’

‘I think you’re in significant danger, but I need to walk through this with you. I’m trying to connect dots and it’s not easy. The twenty-two year old murder we told you about, we now know who killed our victim.’

‘I want to do a piece on Alan Krueger. If there was agency cover-up I want it.’

‘I hear you and we’ll help you, but you’ve got to listen to me and nothing I’m going to tell you now can go in your blog. I’m taking you completely into confidence. Are you with me on that?’

‘Yeah, OK, go ahead. Why am I in danger?’

‘There’s no Pakistan link with the bomb casings. They probably chose Khan because he was Pakistani in origin and they knew how the groupthink would run. Khan didn’t know what was going to happen. They got to him with money. That’s one piece.

‘The second piece is the real conspirators may be a fragmented group of like-thinking individuals who communicate rarely and operate with signals. The architects of that group want to reshape America. I won’t get into their politics but I will tell you the FBI tapped into them.’

‘Wiretapping?’

‘Of course, but it started with a bank fraud case. From that they learned about this well-meaning group intending what they called a trigger event on a Presidential visit to a California city. When they learned this they also learned that some members of the group are in our military and inside government agencies.’

‘You know, I worked in Washington a long time. I didn’t tell you that one of the many reasons I was glad to leave there is the constant swirl of the cesspool of conspiracy theories. I can’t stand them.’

Yet you traffic in gossip, Raveneau thought, but said, ‘I don’t think this group is quite as big or with the reach imagined, but I’ve read transcripts and heard tapes and have other reasons now to believe they’re serious and exist, and have existed for some time. There’s a link to counterfeit money that I’m not sure I could explain if I wanted to right now. I will tell you that FBI and Secret Service are working on this together.’

‘They wouldn’t know how to work together. They’d need a task force for that.’

‘Point is, both agencies are worried.’

Before making the call Raveneau had decided to take a chance with Fine. He pushed forward.

‘You know about the quadruple murder at the cabinet shop, finding the bomb casings and the subsequent focus on Khan.’

‘I know the FBI screwed up and lost them.’

‘But you probably don’t know the extent of the finger pointing about law enforcement leaks. No, that’s not right. Leak isn’t the correct word. It’s when everyone became aware the other side understands how the FBI surveillance teams work.’

‘This is the type of conspiracy talk I moved west to escape.’

‘Right now, I’m sitting in a rented car in a little town on the north end of the Big Island in Hawaii. My partner is here but she’s not with me because she’s on a former sugar plantation inland a few miles from here where a few hours ago we found the body of an FBI agent murdered today. Earlier in the afternoon we were ambushed and shot at and my partner then shot dead the assailant who happens to be the quasi-adopted son of someone suspected as being at least peripherally part of this conspiracy. Are you following me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you see why I’m coming around to believing there’s something behind this conspiracy theory, so you may too. I think the young man who shot at us today will turn out to be the shooter at the cabinet shop but that killing them was not part of the original plan. It was a contingency plan that he acted on by himself.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘We’ll get there but not yet, not tonight. When the time comes I’ll talk to you first if you’re still alive.’

‘Why do you keep saying that?’

‘Because I think you’re in real danger. I don’t have any proof but I think it’s likely you’re in position to put things together. You got that first scoop on the bomb casings and now you’ve got this one on the President’s travel plans and-’

‘Look, I’m just a few hours ahead of everyone else.’

‘I started thinking that your old friend isn’t giving you information just to help you with your blog or in trade for something in the future. I think he’s getting something back from you at the same time he’s giving you something.’