Philip Margolin - Capitol murder

Dana ignored Ginny’s question. “Is Brad with you?” she asked.

“No, he’s at FBI headquarters, giving a statement.”

“Why are you home?”

“Crawford accused me of leaking the transcript, and I’m on administrative leave.”

“We have to talk.”

“About what?”

“Can I come over?” Dana asked, ignoring another question because she didn’t know if someone was listening to the call.

“Don’t. I’m besieged by reporters.”

“I can get into the basement through the back door that opens into the alley behind your apartment building if you open it for me. I’ll call when I’m a block away.”

“T ell me what happened to Brad, and what’s this about Senator Carson committing murder and treason?” Dana asked when they were in the apartment.

“This isn’t public knowledge yet,” Ginny said before relating what Brad had told her.

“Is Carson going to fight the charges?” Dana asked when Ginny was through.

“Who knows, but regardless of how the verdict comes out, Carson is ruined. Little put the DVD on the Internet yesterday evening. I watched a few minutes before turning it off. It’s really gross. If that was me, I’d lock myself in my room and hide under the bed for the rest of my life.

“Now it’s your turn to answer some questions. Why did you want to see me?”

“I followed Ron Tolliver when he left the jail,” Dana said.

Ginny’s eyes widened. “Did you see who killed him?”

“No. I was abducted before I could.”

“Abducted? By who?”

“I don’t know. But I suspect the CIA or Homeland Security. I also think we’ve been used by the same outfit that grabbed me.”

“Used how?”

“Did Crawford act like a complete dick every time you dealt with him?”

“Yeah.”

“He really made you dislike him, right?”

Ginny nodded. Dana switched gears.

“Doesn’t it bother you that you were transferred to the Counterterrorism section of the DOJ when you’d only been at Justice for a short time and have no qualifications to work in that section?”

“It was strange, but a high school graduate would have been overqualified for the work Crawford had me doing.”

“Collating 302s?”

“Yeah.”

“Which put you in a perfect position to discover a transcript of an illegal recording authorized by someone you’d grown to despise.”

Ginny frowned.

“About the same time you moved to Counterterrorism, Bobby Schatz offered me the position of investigator in the Tolliver case at an obscene rate of pay. Before he made the offer, I had never met the man. And to get me on board, Schatz lied about why he couldn’t use his regular investigator.

“Why was he so desperate to hire me, Ginny? And why did Crawford invite you to sit in on his meeting with Schatz and me? I think Crawford wanted that transcript delivered to the defense team. He knew how honest you are. He knew you were so new to the job that you wouldn’t have formed a hard and fast loyalty to Justice. He also knew that we were good friends.”

“Hold on, Dana. Terry Crawford is in a lot of trouble because of that taping. He could lose his job.”

“But he hasn’t, has he? And I’m betting he won’t.”

“What you’re saying makes no sense. Why would Crawford risk his career to set a terrorist free? And what if I hadn’t given the transcript to you?”

“If you didn’t leak the transcript, I’m betting there was a backup plan. Your other question is harder to answer, but I have a suspicion as to what the answer might be.”

“Let’s hear it,” Ginny said.

“You read the 302s. Why did the plot to blow up FedEx Field fail?”

“The detonators didn’t work, so none of the explosives went off.”

“Did the agents arrest the suicide bombers before they got their trays or when they were in the stands preparing to blow themselves up?”

“They arrested them in the stands.”

“Why did the authorities let the game go on? Why did they let their agents go after the suicide bombers when they would be facing certain death?”

Ginny got it. “They must have known in advance that the bombs wouldn’t go off.”

“Which means that the detonators were meant to fail from the get-go. And that means that the FBI knew about the plot in advance, which means that there was a mole in the terrorist organization.”

“Ron Tolliver?” Ginny said.

“That’s my guess.”

Ginny paused and mentally reviewed everything she’d read about the case.

“Do you know how Tolliver was caught?” Ginny asked.

“No.”

“It was blind luck. One of the suicide bombers had a head for numbers, and he memorized the license plate of Tolliver’s car. That led the FBI to Tolliver’s house. But here’s the weird thing: After he was in custody, Tolliver wasn’t taken to the place they were keeping the other members of the cell. That’s some secret facility. I have no idea where it is. Instead, Tolliver was brought to the DOJ for interrogation. Bobby Schatz would not have been able to get to Tolliver if he was being held at a secret prison, but locking him up at the DOJ makes perfect sense if we were set up.”

“The people running Tolliver had to figure out a way to get rid of the charges so he could get back on the inside of Imran Afridi’s organization,” Dana said. “Schatz never told me who hired him in the middle of the night and told him Tolliver was being held at the DOJ. I’m betting it was someone in the government who knew Tolliver was the mole, and I’m betting the government made a deal with Schatz.”

“The plan to get Tolliver out worked, but they miscalculated, and he was killed,” Ginny said.

Dana sighed. “That’s probably what happened, but we’ll never know the truth unless someone writes about the case in his memoirs.”

“Not necessarily,” Ginny said. “Let’s see what happens to Terry Crawford. If he’s hung out to dry, we’re probably wrong and he taped the attorney-client conference out of zealousness. If good things happen to Counselor Crawford somewhere down the line, we’ll know we’re right.”

One advantage of being from old wealth and a graduate of the best schools was the ease with which one was able to gain membership in the best clubs. Terrence Crawford had graduated from Princeton and Yale and had been born into a family that traced its roots to the winning side of the American Revolutionary War, which explained why he was a member of one of New York’s most exclusive clubs. The brownstone was three quarters of a block off Fifth Avenue on a side street near the Guggenheim Museum. There was no plaque affixed to the door. If you were a member of the club, you knew where it was located. If you were not a member, you did not need to know.

A servant opened the front door. It had snowed in Manhattan, and Crawford stomped on the welcome mat in the vestibule to shake off the snow that adhered to his shoes.

“Welcome back, Mr. Crawford. We haven’t seen you in a while,” the doorman said.

“I’ve been too busy to get up, Frederick.”

“Well, it’s good to see you again. Your guests are waiting in the library on the second floor.”

It would have been too risky for the three men to get together in Washington, D.C. Meeting at Crawford’s club assured that they would be shielded from prying eyes. Crawford handed Frederick his overcoat and took the stairs. Portraits of a few of the club’s more venerable members graced the walls of the second-floor corridor. There were two past American presidents, a former Supreme Court justice, and the founders of two of America’s largest corporations. Halfway down the hall, Crawford opened a door into a room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.