Robin Burcell - Face of a Killer

“Is there any aspect of this case you can discuss with me?”

He studied the menu. “Pot stickers. I can never find good pot stickers in D.C.”

So clearly he’d only taken her to dinner to temporarily placate her. But maybe she could get info another way. “Did your surveillance team mention to you that I took a little drive this afternoon?”

“They did,” he said, flipping the page, running his finger down the list of entrees.

“I spoke with Wheeler’s aunt. She works at the clinic that Carillo and I visited. Turns out that one of the men in that photo that McKnight sent to me just so happens to be Wheeler’s father.”

“That right?”

“And, coincidence of coincidences, he was killed in an explosion right around the same time my father happened to lose a couple fingers in an explosion and had to retire from his freelance army job.”

He glanced at her, but otherwise remained impassive.

“That would probably be right around the time that Robert Orozco fled to Baja.”

That got his attention. He lowered the menu, as well as his voice. “If you do nothing else, Sydney, leave that photo alone. And that case. And any mention of what happened in Baja.”

“Why?”

“It has nothing to do with anything.”

“I think it has something to do with my father’s murder.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I think Wheeler was framed. I think my father was friends with Wheeler’s father, and that’s why he was helping out Wheeler, until Gnoble put the kibosh on it, because he didn’t want to leave a paper trail to this BICTT thing. My father blamed McKnight for the explosion that injured him and killed Wheeler’s father. And I think that when your buddy Hatcher started digging into McKnight’s past, this all came out, and McKnight couldn’t live with the guilt so he wrote an explosive suicide note that sure as hell pissed someone off, and started a chain reaction somehow. And therein lies the answers to some questions the Bureau was searching for twenty years ago, when Senator Gnoble sat on a subcommittee on the biggest banking scandal in history that he happened to be part of. BICTT, to be exact.”

He shook his head. “Maybe you’re right about part of that, that your father sought Wheeler out because of a past association, but Wheeler killed him. There is proof. Photos. Surveillance photos.”

“As I’m well aware of.” Which reminded her that Carillo said they’d probably be in tonight. “But what about all this stuff my father was involved in with McKnight and the senator? The work they did for the government?”

“I don’t know all your father’s secrets. But I can tell you this much. I don’t believe that Wheeler is as innocent as he claims. I told you, I have the-”

“Was my father involved in the BICTT banking scandal?”

He was quiet for so long, at first Sydney thought he might refuse to answer. But then, “Dig too deep, and you might not like the answers.”

“I’m fairly certain I won’t like them. I already don’t like them-at least those I’ve been allowed to discover. You show up at my apartment, try to hide information that proves my father might be involved in illicit activities, twenty years after the fact, and for what? To protect my sensibilities? Or because of some elaborate subterfuge and cover-up?”

“And what if it’s a little of both?”

His blue eyes were unreadable. And she remembered what Carillo said, that they didn’t know where Scotty stood in all this, but she also knew she couldn’t just let things slide, and so she decided to be very direct. “Then I want the truth. I don’t believe that Wheeler killed my father in some simple robbery gone bad. If there was something else going on, I want to know what it was, and I don’t give a rat’s ass if it’s an election year and your boss doesn’t want to stir up a pat, high-profile case that involves my life. Because if it takes me going to the press to get answers, I will.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“From where I’m sitting, it seems like the prudent thing to do. Someone in Gnoble’s office still wants to kill me-over what? I think the voters have a right to know about his past. He’ll lose, and then there’s no more threat. Because that’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”

“You’re assuming it’s about the election, Sydney.”

“Well, isn’t it?”

“What if it’s something else, something that doesn’t go away after the votes are in? That’s why we’re investigating. That’s why you’re being transferred. That’s why we haven’t made an arrest, because we don’t know what it’s about.”

“Oh bullshit, Scotty. This is a classic case of one arm of the government not telling the other what the hell is going on. CIA keeping secrets from FBI. Army intelligence refusing to share with either of you. Those black ops guys that came after Robert Orozco in Baja, and then me, had to have been working for some branch. If not ours, then theirs. Special Forces? SAD?” she asked, referring to Special Activities Division, the CIA’s covert paramilitary operations, used when the U.S. wants to ensure there are no connections to tie the government to the covert mission.

“They were after Orozco and the bank pouch.”

“I don’t care who they were after. They were shooting at me. And just because I happened to make it back, and the CIA and the FBI and the goddamned army decided to compare notes and finally let me walk out of there, it doesn’t mean it’s okay. It means they’re still trying to cover up another lie that covers up another lie, and I’m getting in the way, because I want to know which one of those goddamned lies has to do with why my father died. If Wheeler is guilty, so be it. If he’s innocent, then someone out there killed my father, and I want to know who and why and get him. They’re going to execute that man in less than forty-eight hours if I don’t do something. And if that picture that McKnight mailed to me has something to do with it, and you know the answers, so help me-”

Scotty took a frustrated breath. “In the past ten years, every time we turn around with some banking or lobbying scandal, some political contribution for contracts scandal, Gnoble seems to have his fingers in it. He’s got to be guilty of something, and then the few times we actually get him on something, he gets off with a slap on his hand, makes his pretty speech about how he can understand how his actions were misconstrued and that he only had the best of intentions, then apologizes. The Senate Ethics Committee issues a mild rebuke, and then he’s right back at it.”

“So he’s the Kevlar King. Does that make him any different from any other politician?”

“It does if we know he’s doing it, then look the other way. As usual, he’s the frontrunner in the polls, because he’s smart enough to keep his nose clean the year before elections, and no one can remember just what it was he was being rebuked for. They see the war hero, the get-tough-on-crime guy. He rolls up his shirtsleeves, washes a few dishes in some soup kitchen so you can see his battle scars, and you’d never guess that just a year ago, he was being investigated for taking illegal political contributions from well-greased lobbyists.”

Scotty leaned back in his seat, held up his hand, his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “We finally got an informant who is that close to getting us in on some of his charitable organizations that we’re certain are front companies-”

“His driver.”

“Yes. And then he overhears a phone conversation Gnoble’s aide is having about who they should hire to take you out, only he can’t tell who the guy is talking to.”

“When was this?”

“A couple days before I showed up at your door.” Scotty glanced up, eyed the waiter pouring water a few tables away, making sure he still couldn’t be overheard before continuing. “And, as much as one would like to think that your life being endangered was the impetus for all this, the truth is that three days before that, our informant overheard Gnoble telling someone on the phone that McKnight is being considered to oversee the federal budget, and if they don’t hide the BICTT money,