Andrew Grant - Even

“Did your brother give you the name of the company?”

“He did. Tungsten Security.”

“Contact details?”

“Kelvin Taylor. Chief operating officer.”

“We need to run his background, pronto.”

“I ran it already,” Lavine said. “Nothing stands out.”

“So who is he?” Varley said.

“Ex-military. Served in Iraq during the first Gulf War. And Kuwait. Mustered out shortly after. Went back to do charity work. Set up some kind of humanitarian project. It’s still running. The only U.S. program to survive. He may have got married over there as well, but his wife never surfaced Stateside if he did.”

“What’s his involvement with Tungsten?”

“He set that up, too. It’s basically your garden-variety private security contractor. Current climate, they can’t make money fast enough. Balance sheet’s more than healthy. They’re awash with cash. List of government contracts as long as your arm. No employees with criminal records. No red flags on file. Nothing to help on any systems. It’s going to take a coordinated effort to unravel.”

I listened to Lavine’s words in disbelief. In a literal sense I knew how we’d got to this point. Stumbling across Lesley’s victim dragged me into her scheme; finding that the body belonged to an agent bounced me into the railroad case; the connection with the security firm suggested something larger was going on. But what I couldn’t comprehend was how I’d been plucked from the departure lounge at JFK and dumped on the verge of a full-scale FBI frolic. Staying on to help Tanya fight her demons was one thing. I was thinking about time spent in restaurants. And bars. And other, more secluded places. Not in offices. Not sitting through endless meetings. Talk of corporations was a bad sign. Any mention of conspiracies and government contractors was worse. Interagency cooperation was only a sentence away. Task forces would be proposed. I knew how it would end up. If I let the FBI go down that road I’d never get away. I’d be stuck here for months, and at the end I’d have absolutely nothing to show for it. I needed to head them off at the pass. Something more direct was called for. It was time to shake the tree.

“So the whodunitometer isn’t working,” I said. “What a surprise. Tanya, how do we contact this guy?”

“I have his cell number,” she said. “My brother knew it.”

“Perfect. I’ll give him a call. Pop around, have a chat.”

“No,” Varley said.

“Yes,” I said. “You guys stick to your paper trails. Leave the infiltration to me. I’m the only one who’s trained for it.”

“We’re not going to infiltrate,” Varley said.

“You’re not,” I said. “Not with your track record.”

“We can’t, because everyone at Tungsten is a suspect. We may need to arrest people.”

“We may need to do more than that.”

“Absolutely not. Anything we find needs to hold up in court. No way are you going in on your own. If you go, all four of you go. Keep an eye on each other. This one stays above the line. No exceptions.”

I sighed and pulled out the phone Lesley had given me.

“What’s his number, Tanya?” I said.

“You’re a bit gung ho,” Weston said. “Somewhere you’d rather be?”

“Yeah,” I said. “The other side of the world.”

The navy loves to use role-play in its training exercises.

That can be embarrassing at first. Pretending to be a businessman or a plumber or a traffic warden in front of twenty other people makes you feel like you’re back in grade school. But after a while the awkwardness wears off and the value starts to show through. Doing something is always better than being told how, and seeing other people perform gives you plenty of food for thought.

The first time we tried it we were given a clear scenario. We worked for a company that wanted to build a new refrigerator factory in one the ex-Soviet republics. We had to meet a group of their government officials at a hotel in London to haggle over state subsidies. We were suspicious that they had offered our competitors a better package, so we were sent with a list of questions to test the theory. And at the same time, we had to avoid revealing any details about ourselves that would strengthen their hand. To make the exercise realistic we were told to bring our suits and briefcases. Then we were taken to a location in the City and sent on our way.

Everything that happened in the hotel was videoed, and reviewed afterward. All of us did a pretty good job. Evil communist schemes were revealed, our lips remained tight. We were ready to pat ourselves on the back when the instructors passed a piece of paper around to each of us. These detailed everything we’d given away about ourselves. The lists were long. At first no one could understand, because nothing on the sheets corresponded with the recordings of the meetings. Then the real point became clear. The information they’d gathered about us hadn’t been spoken. It had come from our coats, which they’d politely hung up. Our jackets. Briefcases. Anything that had been out of our sight or opened or left in plain view.

The lesson was, information can come from everything people show you.

Whether they mean to, or not.

Tungsten Security had two sets of premises. Their operational base wasn’t in the most promising part of New York. It was built on a scruffy, unfashionable patch of land in Queens that had been clawed back from the marshes when Kennedy Airport was first developed in the forties, but the isolated compound was in no way run-down or neglected. And it hadn’t been starved of money. In fact, the people who’d fitted the place out had burned through an even bigger pile of cash than the decorators at the company’s official headquarters I’d seen on Fifth Avenue. They just hadn’t been as concerned with esthetics.

The line of five drab, olive-green warehouses sat uninvitingly alone at the far end of a long, straight service road. It was easy to find. There were no other structures within five hundred yards in any direction. The reinforced mesh fence separating the buildings from the surrounding land was sixteen feet high, with four gleaming strands of razor wire sloping toward us at the top. Another fence ran parallel to it, twenty yards inside the perimeter, identical except that the wire faced the other way. Nothing taller than a blade of grass grew in between, and posts set at regular intervals on the far side carried an array of floodlights, security cameras, infrared beacons, and motion sensors.

There was no mention of the company name. And no signs to welcome visitors.

The only obvious way in was through a pair of stout metal gates. They were wide enough for heavy trucks to use, so Weston’s Ford felt pretty small as he coasted up to them and stopped inside a hatched area marked on the road with yellow paint.

A small notice on the vertical bars said WAIT.

“What is this place?” Weston said.

“Did I miss something?” Lavine said. “Are we at Gitmo?”

The outer gate slid silently aside and Weston rolled forward until his window was level with an intercom mounted on a steel pillar. A second box was attached higher up, for truck drivers. Weston reached out with his left hand but before he could press any buttons the gate started to close behind us again. The gaps on both sides were blocked with the same mesh and razor wire as the main fences, leaving us completely caged in.

“See?” Lavine said. “A guy will come out, now, with orange jumpsuits for us to wear. You wait.”

“State your name and business,” a voice said through the intercom. It was male, and had an Australian accent.

“FBI,” Weston said. “Kelvin Taylor is expecting us.”