Steve Martini - The Enemy Inside

At the same time, Washington was awash in amateurish domestic scandals and clumsy cover-ups. To listen to them, every computer the government owned had crashed on cue, coincidentally destroying evidence of government-committed crimes in the process. No one believed the obvious lies-“the spin,” as they called it from the White House-but those in power didn’t care. They couldn’t be prosecuted because they controlled the machinery of enforcement, and to them, that was all that mattered. They had lost all sense of the art, always to provide one’s prince with the refuge of credible deniability, what the British called a scintilla of truth.

Ana made a mental note. These people, whoever they were, were incompetent and, for that reason, dangerous. She would do whatever was possible to learn who they were so that she could avoid doing any business with them in the future. But first she had to recover the laptop, the software, and the small dish antenna that the French mercenaries who built the device had given them to field test.

She finished her coffee, paid the waiter, and grabbed her purse. A minute later she was racing down the street astride the blue Piaggio BV500, helmet on her head, cruising toward the train station and her trip south back to her estate in order to pack for her trip to L.A.

This morning we huddle in the conference room at our office, behind Miguel’s Concina and the Brigantine Restaurant on Orange Avenue in Coronado.

Pages and files are spread out all over the table as I sit with Harry and our investigator, Herman Diggs, trying to gain a handle on the latest blizzard of paper affecting Alex Ives.

Alex is staying with his mother and father at their home following the bail hearing. This was an exercise that proved to be easier than we thought and is still a mystery to me as to why. There was good news and good news. The first being the apparent lack of knowledge on the part of the cops regarding Ives’s connection to Olinda Serna. They seem to be blissfully ignorant of the fact that Ives and his employer were working on a hot news flash in which Serna presumably had a talking role. We don’t know the details because Ives still isn’t telling us, and his boss has, to date, been unavailable, at least to me. I have left three phone messages for Tory Graves at the Washington Gravesite, the digital dirt sheet for which Ives works. None of these have been returned. We assume that if the cops knew about the connection between Ives and Serna, the prosecutor would probably have dumped it on us during the bail hearing, evidence of possible intent in an effort to deny bail. Though this is not a certainty. Using this information in a surprise package at trial could do wonders for a conviction, even if they made no effort to enhance the charges. Letting the jury know that Ives knew Serna and was pursuing her when he passed out behind the wheel and killed her is one of those “wow” factors certain to light up the jury box.

The other happy news was the cost of bail, a mere twenty-five-thousand-dollar bond imposed by the judge, well below the local bail schedule. How this happened is a mystery, though it appeared not to be the doing of the prosecutor as much as the man seated behind him. Beyond the bar rail in the first row of spectator seats was another man, suited up for combat and packing a slick patent-leather briefcase. We found out later this was one of the premium-priced lawyers, a criminal practitioner from Serna’s law firm up in L.A.

Apparently they thought enough of her to send somebody down to watch. He conferred with the deputy D.A. over the railing and, after they talked, the prosecutor asked for only twenty-five thousand dollars bail. Even the judge was surprised.

The D.A. then went on to explain that Ives had a job and family contacts in the community. He even gestured toward Alex’s mom and dad sitting behind us, as if the state had produced them, shining character witnesses for the defendant. He told the judge it was a first offense, only marginal evidence of alcohol in the defendant’s system. He never even mentioned the French-fried cadaver in the other car, so that by the time he was finished, there was nothing left for me to talk about. I sat there with my thumb in my mouth. If you can’t say anything on behalf of your client that is more helpful than what the D.A. has to say, it is best not to say anything at all.

When the judge demanded that Ives surrender his passport and agree not to leave the state pending trial, I looked at the prosecutor wondering if he might object. It was almost as if somebody wanted Ives to skip town and jump bail.

His parents posted the bond out of pocket change. I had a come-to-Jesus moment with the kid outside the courtroom and told him in no uncertain terms not to wander too far. Even if his boss demanded that he travel back east on business, he was not to go. He promised me that he would not, smiled, and they left. Stranger things have happened to me in courtrooms, but not recently. It left me to wonder.

“According to the accident report, neither driver appears to have applied their brakes prior to impact,” says Harry. He has the document prepared by the California Highway Patrol in front of him on the table. “No skid marks on the pavement, though the intersecting road traveled by Ives was dirt until it reached the county highway where they impacted. Still nothing on the pavement to indicate any braking. Serna’s rented car was moving at a relatively slow rate of speed, estimated between thirty and forty miles an hour at the point of impact,” says Harry.

We are in the process of trying to find out if the navigation satellite system and its proprietors will be able to supply us with any information as to the car Alex was driving and the location of the party that night.

“Let’s start with the time of the accident.”

“According to the report, the estimate of time is about eleven P.M.” says Harry. “The witness who pulled Ives from the burning wreck called it in at eleven-oh-six. He said he tried to get to Serna, but the flames were too hot. That slowed him down on the call.”

“What was the speed limit?” I ask him.

Harry flips back one page. “Fifty-five,” he tells me.

“So why was Serna going so slow?” I ask.

“Maybe she was looking for something,” says Herman. Herman Diggs is a big man, African-American to the soul, former athlete who blew out a knee in college and lost out on a career in football. He has been with us for ten years now, long enough and on such intimate terms that he is now part of the family.

“Not much out there to look for,” says Harry. He turns the file toward Herman, who looks at the printout, a satellite photo, probably from Google Maps, showing an overhead shot of desolate desert, a narrow strip of concrete like a gray ribbon running across it with a red marker at the fatal intersection.

“There is the other road,” says Herman. He means the dirt strip traveled by Ives. “Maybe she was looking for that.”

“You think they were meeting up out there?” I ask him.

Herman shrugs a shoulder. “What did the kid tell you?”

“Nothing. Says he can’t remember,” I say.

“If they were getting ready to meet, we can be relatively certain that Ives wasn’t sitting around waiting for her,” says Harry. “According to the report, the estimated speed of Ives’s car, a late-model luxury sedan, was approaching eighty miles per hour and accelerating as it entered the highway and impacted the other car. Caved in the entire driver’s-side door on Serna’s car. Bent it like a pretzel.”

“Sounds like a missile,” says Herman. “Where’d a kid that age get a ride like that? Must be six figures fully dressed out with all the gadgets and gizmos.”