Michael McGarrity - Under the color of law

They finished up and Kerney commended Otero's good work. He got a curt nod and a frosty look.

"Let's take a walk," he said.

He led Otero out of the administrative suite to a basement room, closed the door, and asked Larry what was bothering him.

"I've got people questioning me about this special training you sent Molina and Sloan to," Otero said.

"Questioning you about what?"

"The training supervisor knows nothing about this academy class. He says it's not on the schedule. The union rep wants to know why other officers weren't offered a chance to sign up for it, and the two detectives forced to pull doubles and work the weekend on short notice aren't happy campers. What's going on, Chief?"

"I've put you in an awkward situation," Kerney said.

"Big time, Chief."

"I won't do that again." Kerney explained what Molina and Sloan were really doing. Otero's look of skepticism faded when Kerney laid out the facts of the faked evidence in the Terrell murder case, the hard evidence of a tie-in between Father Mitchell and Phyllis Terrell, and the listening devices he'd found at his quarters.

"If I get the boot because of this, you're going to have to run the department," he added.

"Not likely. Demora will have me back in technical services within a week. What can I do to help?"

"For now, just keep covering for me," Kerney said, "and make whatever decisions you need to. Act like it's business as usual. I'll call if I need you to do more."

They separated on the first floor. Otero went to his office thinking it might be wise not to get too attached to the three stars on his collar.

In the years since Kerney's graduation from the law-enforcement academy, the facility had been transformed from a spartan, barracks-style operation into a modern campus with comfortable classrooms, up-to-date equipment, and a strong training curriculum.

After learning why Sloan and Molina had dropped their surveillance, Kerney asked for a briefing.

Andy Baca walked in just as things got started.

"Don't let me stop you," he said, sliding into a seat.

Kerney nodded and made notes while Sal Molina talked. Molina sketched the recent events at APT Performa, the airport, the appearance of Timothy Ingram on the scene, and the little they knew about him.

"Ingram may be military," Molina said, passing over the verbatim transcript of the snatches of conversation between Thayer and Ingram that Sloan had picked up outside of APT Performa.

"But he's carried on the books as the security chief for Touch Link Satellite Systems, headquartered at Kirtland. The company has a big government contract to do remote nuclear weapons disarmament monitoring."

"More hush-hush stuff," Kerney said. He wrote down IN GRAM Molina nodded.

"But what it has to do with us is anybody's guess. We put vehicle-tracking devices on the cars at the airport parking lot."

Kerney wrote down "ART PER FORMA"

"TOUCH LINK," and "KIRTLAND AFB," in capital letters, and looked up from his notepad.

"What else?"

Bobby Sloan pushed photographs toward Kerney.

"Ingram?" Kerney asked.

Sloan nodded.

"Back up and give me a surveillance chronology," Kerney said.

Molina started with Perry's body-snatcher trip to the Albuquerque HMO, followed by his return to Santa Fe and visit to the federal courthouse.

Kerney scribbled

"HMO" and drew a line to "KIRTLAND."

"What's at the courthouse?" Kerney asked.

"That's unknown for certain, Chief. I checked with an informant who says there's a secure basement room that's off limits to all courthouse personnel. It was used by the Secret Service when the vice president came to town, and a bunch of computer gee ks have been going in and out for the last couple of months."

Kerney wrote down "SECRET ROOM, COMMAND CENTER, LISTENING POST," and put a question mark at the end. He thought about how convenient it would be to have a listening post within a few steps of the resident FBI agent's office.

"Stop there for a minute," he said.

"Is there any way to confirm this information?"

"Not likely, Chief," Molina said.

"The guy's a federal employee, bound by a signed oath to keep the government's secrets."

"Let's move on."

Sloan picked up the ball. He detailed Applewhite's trip to Kirtland and Ingram's first appearance on the scene.

Kerney wrote down IN GRAM RENDEZVOUS, WHY?" and circled it.

"Andy, you're up next."

"After you," Andy replied.

Kerney went over some of the basics: the phone logs that showed Mitchell and Terrell had personal contact with each other, the possibility that Phyllis Terrell may have passed information to Mitchell, and the strong likelihood that Mitchell had been delving into the possible existence of a U. S. intelligence plot to destroy the drug cartels and bring down the Colombian government.

"If Phyllis Terrell was passing on information," Kerney said, "it mostly likely came from her husband."

"That would explain a lot," Molina said.

"But we still don't know what the information was."

"I'm betting it had something to do with the trade mission along with all the interviews Mitchell conducted. He was trying to determine the extent of the operation, learn what was on-line and what was in the pipeline."

"That would be enough to have Mitchell and Terrell whacked," Sloan said.

"But we still don't have anything that ties the ambassador to the murders."

"In a roundabout way we might," Kerney said.

"My meeting with Professor Valencia led me to one of Mitchell's Internet providers. It's part of a conglomerate owned by Trade Source, APT Performa's parent company. Up until the time Terrell was given a new appointment as an ambassador without portfolio, he sat on the Trade Source board of directors, but his ties to the company are still strong, and he has a relationship with Clarence Thayer, the APT Performa CEO."

"You think these corporations are involved in government espionage?"

"Perhaps not directly," Kerney answered.

"But these are hightech companies developing cutting-edge computer tools. They could be supplying part of what's needed to implement the next phase of the intelligence operation."

"I can take Terrell's involvement a step closer than that," Andy said.

"Applewhite called Ambassador Terrell to report on your trip to Red River, and gave him reassurance that everything was under control. She later met with Charlie Perry, learned that you'd cracked the murder cover-up, and made a second call to Terrell, revising her report.

Unfortunately, his phone is encrypted, so we've only got Applewhite's side of the conversations from the remote room bugs."

Andy passed transcript copies around.

"If you read between the lines, I'd say that Kerney and possibly Charlie Perry are next in line for the disappearing magic trick."

"So far, that trick has only been used with Santiago Terjo," Kerney said.

"Wrong," Andy replied, glancing at Molina and Sloan.

"To bring you up to speed, I made contact with Fred Browning, a retired state police captain who now works as security chief for a computer chip manufacturer in Albuquerque. I asked Fred if he could quietly use his contacts to verify Agent Applewhite's identity and credentials. He reported that she was who she appeared to be. Browning may have been fed bad information."

"What makes you say that?" Kerney asked.

"Fred has gone missing, according to his daughter. She called the Albuquerque PD this morning and reported that her father had flown out to California on a quick one-day trip for a job interview. He promised to call her when he got home last night to tell her how it went. He got off the plane in Albuquerque, didn't go home, never called, and hasn't been seen since. His car is still in the airport parking lot.