James Grippando - Need You Now

Lilly was suddenly with me. “That would be just like Gerry. Cut a deal, save himself.”

“Save himself in spades. I’m betting that the federal agent assigned to handle Collins was told to take the bullet himself before he let Collins go down-before he let Operation BAQ fail. Collins bought himself a human shield. And now that shield is a rogue agent who thinks that he got used by his own government, who thinks that I’m using you.”

Lilly’s expression went cold, but it wasn’t because she disagreed with me. “That’s why he said it’s up to me and him to decide…”

“Decide what?”

“Whether you live or die.”

“He actually used those words?”

Lilly nodded. She reached across the table and held my hand. “What are we going to do?”

I withdrew my hand and poured more tea. “Stay right here,” I said, “until I’m damn sure you’ve decided I should live.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

I breathed in the steam from my tea, catching her eye over the brim of my cup. “When did he tell you this?”

“Yesterday afternoon, when he listed all the lies you’d told me.”

“Alleged lies,” I said.

“Lies,” she said.

“Okay, lies. But, shit, Lilly. The guy says it’s up to you to decide if I live or die, and you’re telling me now?”

“It’s sounds horrible when you say it that way, but even as mad and hurt as I was, I literally was dialing your number when Barber pulled up in his limo and told me to get into the car. I was really scared, and in no position to call you. An hour later you were in his office, and he was telling us to look through each other’s files for the smoking gun. I don’t have to tell you everything that’s happened since then. It’s been crazy, and I’m sorry it’s taken us this long to have this conversation, but…”

“But what?”

“Up until we had this last conversation with Andie Henning, you were the only person sitting at this table who had an FBI agent looking out for you.”

“I’ve been trying to make that happen,” I said.

“I’ve been trying, too, damn it. But it’s been just me .”

I could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice: she really had been trying. And she’d raised a valid point. I had Andie. I had Connie. I’d even had Evan for a while. Lilly had no one.

“Patrick, we can let this get ugly and turn against each other. But we’ve both made mistakes. Please, can we just move forward?”

I still wished that she had told me sooner, but it was a fair statement that we’d both made mistakes-and the real truth was, the only one who had affirmatively lied to the other was me.

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” I said.

“Really, Patrick. What are we going to do?”

The tea and our talk had cleared my thoughts. I took my phone from my pocket and removed the battery.

“What are you doing?” asked Lilly.

“Deactivating my phone to make sure I don’t use it before a tech expert can tell me what spyware is on it. I suggest you do the same with yours.”

“I suppose that’s a reasonable assumption-that it’s bugged.”

“Beyond reasonable,” I said. “Right here, right now, you and I are going to burn one indisputable fact into our brains: Evan Hunt was shot in the head fifteen minutes after he called and told me that he had cracked the code on an encrypted memorandum about BAQ.”

“Okay. And exactly what does that tell us?”

“It tells us somebody was listening to that conversation. It tells us that we need to figure out what Operation BAQ is, and not end up like Evan Hunt.”

“Does that mean we should take up Agent Henning on her offer to help us? You want to ‘get on board’ with her, as she put it?”

I leaned closer, hoping that it truly mattered what either one of us thought-wondering if either one of us had any real control.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” I said.

O n a quiet cross street in lower Midtown, at the designated time and place, Andie Henning waited on the salt-stained sidewalk beneath a burning streetlamp. A black limousine stopped at the curb. The driver got out, closed his door, and walked to the newsstand on the corner. The motor continued to run, exhaust swirling from the tailpipe and blurring the orange glow of taillights. Dark-tinted windows prevented Andie from seeing inside. The rear door on the passenger side swung open. Andie slid onto the black leather seat and pulled the door shut.

By phone Andie had requested a face-to-face meeting with Joe Barber, and he’d agreed to see her on his own terms. They sat facing each other on bench-style seats. Andie flashed her credentials to confirm her identity, but Barber waved them off.

“You’re alone; I’m alone,” he said. “Keep it unofficial.”

She put her badge away. “Fine by me. Because it’s clear now that, officially, you and I have been working at cross-purposes for the past eight months. FBI going one way, Treasury going another.”

“You seem to forget that I’m no longer with Treasury.”

“Fair enough. Up until your resignation, we were working at cross-purposes. But we both ended up at the same place: BOS/Singapore numbered account 507.625 RR.”

She waited for his reaction, but he showed none. Finally, Barber said, “I told you on the phone that I would listen. I didn’t say that I would talk.”

“You’ll talk,” she said. “Or you’ll go to jail.”

His eyes narrowed, his tone suitable for a lord speaking to a serf. “Just who do you think you’re talking to?”

“The former deputy secretary of the Treasury who wrote an internal memorandum on Operation BAQ.”

“And exactly what do you know about that memorandum?”

“I know that it was encrypted on a level that is reserved only for matters of national security. I know that a quant named Evan Hunt, who claimed to have cracked the code, ended up dead in a Dumpster. I know that your memo named Lilly Scanlon as Treasury’s best lead to the whereabouts of billions of dollars that disappeared in Abe Cushman’s Ponzi scheme. And after months of investigating Lilly Scanlon on suspicion of laundering money for Abe Cushman and Gerry Collins, I’ve come to the firm conclusion that she doesn’t know anything about the location of those funds. In other words, I know that what you wrote was a lie.”

“Government officials don’t go to jail for putting inaccurate information in an internal memorandum.”

“They do if the misinformation gets people killed. Especially innocent people who are used as bait.”

“That’s a very serious accusation, even for an unofficial meeting.”

“I couldn’t be more serious about it. I don’t know exactly what Operation BAQ is, but I do know it’s some kind of fishing expedition. The catch of the day is a rather dodgy character named Manu Robledo-or someone connected to him. Lilly Scanlon was the bait.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“No. Ashamed. It was former FBI agent Scully who figured out most of everything I just told you. That’s why you forced him into retirement.”

“You need to check your directory of government employees, sweetheart. I was at Treasury, not the bureau.”

She paused before pushing beyond her sphere of knowledge, but suddenly, it felt like more than a hunch. “Operation BAQ goes way above your pay grade. Above Treasury. Above the FBI. Plenty high to send an overly inquisitive special agent packing.”

Barber pulled his cell from his pocket, but he didn’t dial. It was hard to tell in the dim light of the limo, but Andie was quite sure there was a smirk that needed wiping from his face.

“You look too young to retire,” he said. “But with one call, I can have you working at far less interesting places than the FBI.”